Tapestry of War by Jane MacKenzie

Author:Jane MacKenzie [Jane MacKenzie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749023003
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

They had never had a French serviceman as a patient at Dunmore, and Catriona was inundated with questions all the following morning from her fellow nurses. Were they handsome? Were they as charming as everyone said they were? Catriona could only laugh.

‘They’re quieter than the patients here,’ she told them. ‘They chat amongst themselves, and joke around, but they don’t seem to give cheek to the nurses like our lot. Maybe it’s just the language barrier.’

She had a busy morning catching up with what she’d missed yesterday. There was a promise to take on another nurse with her training, especially since the hospital was expanding, but Catriona thought that kind of help would be a long time coming.

She snatched just half an hour with Duncan at lunchtime, and they sat in his workshop rather than under their tree. She’d brought over lunch on a tray, a potato pie with powdered egg, which was even worse than usual.

Duncan was waiting for her, and pulled her fiercely into his arms. ‘So, my little island girl, what did they do to you yesterday?’

‘Do to me? Why nothing, dear Duncan. What did you think they would do?’ She grinned up at him.

‘You never know with those Frenchmen!’

‘That’s what the nurses thought! You’re all ridiculous! They’re a bunch of boys, mostly, a long way from home.’

‘No glamorous officers?’

She laughed, and pulled herself away. ‘Hundreds of them! Now, stupid, shall we eat before this stuff goes cold?’

As they ate she asked him about the Poles. He seemed very happy to talk about them, though she was careful not to mention Dunkirk. She had dropped that subject after his pained revelation. It was too much of a no-go area.

‘There’s a Polish army camp near my parents’ house,’ Duncan told her. ‘My mother bakes for them, and invites them to tea, and all the local girls go silly over them at dances, because they dance so much better than we Scots, and look very romantic in their uniforms. Is your doctor like that?’

Catriona shook her head. ‘Hardly! He must be nearly forty, and he’s a big untidy sort of man. But he’s very sweet, and very dedicated. He says he came over with his brother, and their unit was stationed here in Glasgow, but that now his brother is in the Borders. How many Polish troops are there here, do you know?’

‘In Scotland? Well, there must be at least ten thousand of them. You remember when the whole of the Scottish 51st Highland Division was captured in France? Well, the Poles formed a division to replace them, and came up to guard the Scottish coast against invasion from Norway. I think that’s one of the reasons they are so well liked here.’

Catriona was surprised. ‘So many? I hadn’t realised. I think there are only around a thousand Free French in Greenock.’

‘That’s a lot for one town, though,’ Duncan said thoughtfully. ‘The Polish army is spread all along the east coast, and in the Borders, as you say.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.