own.
The young Americans might be inclined to be a little boastful and a little thoughtless about how a British girl might feel hearing them talking about how they were going to win the war, but Katie was wise enough to put their comments down to excitement and inexperience, although she noticed that Gina looked rather nettled, and so wasn’t surprised when her friend excused them both with the fib that they had to ‘catch up with some friends’.
‘I know they are our allies, but I hate it when they are so beastly about our boys,’ she told Katiecrossly once they had escaped. ‘Talking like that about showing Hitler what real fighting men are and showing us a good time.’
‘I don’t think they meant any real harm,’ Katie tried to pacify her. ‘They’re only young and, unlike our boys, they don’t really know what war is all about yet.’ Unlike Luke. He knew what war was all about. Luke! Hadn’t she made herself a promise that she would not allow him into her thoughts?
‘I do wish you could fall in love with Eddie, Katie.’
Gina’s plaintive words made Katie smile.
‘Eddie doesn’t really want any girl to fall in love with him. He just wants to have a good time with lots of different girls.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Gina told her. ‘Eddie is a flirt, but he’s really keen on you, and I mean really keen. If you were to give him the least bit of encouragement, I suspect he’d have an engagement ring on your finger as fast as anything. He might be a flirt but you can be sure that he knows that he has a duty to provide an heir for the title.’
‘That’s nonsense and you know it. Eddie’s parents will expect him to marry a very different sort of girl from me, and someone from a similar background to his own.’
Katie said this without any feeling of resentment. In her opinion it was only natural, with Eddie’s father having a title, Eddie’s family should want him to marry someone who understood that sort of thing.
‘Once I dare say they would have done,’ Ginaagreed, ‘but right now I think they’d just be glad to see him married. As I’ve just said, if anything were to happen to him, there’s no one to succeed him to the title, and there won’t be until he marries and has a son. Not that anyone can get Eddie to talk seriously about that. He maintains that nothing’s going to happen to him because he’s got Leonard to keep an eye on him.’
‘I like Eddie, Gina,’ Katie answered, ‘but that’s all. However, even if I loved him I don’t think we’d be right for one another. Our backgrounds are so very different. Now, whilst the war’s on, that kind of thing might not matter but once the war is over it will be different.’
She was an ordinary girl and whilst she had liked Eddie’s parents when she had met them at Gina’s wedding, and they had been kind to her, Katie knew that a life like Eddie’s mother’s, as the lady of the manor, was not one that she would ever want.
‘I hope them ruddy naval gunners know the difference between our own lines and them panzers,’ Andy told Luke breathlessly, both of them dropping flat to the ground as they heard a fresh burst of exploding tank shells.
It was two days since they’d come ashore at Salerno, followed by intense fighting with the Germans as they’d tried to push them back from their entrenched position. But now, with the panzers having moved down from the hills beyond Salerno to surround the bay, it was looking dangerously as though they were the ones who were goingto be pushed back into the sea, not the Germans forced to give way so that the Allies could advance.
The naval guns to which Andy was referring, as the men dug in, belonged to the battle cruiser Warspite and three destroyers out in the bay, all of which were pounding the panzer-infested hills, whilst the panzers returned fire into the Allies’ lines.
‘Hellfire, that was close,’ Andy protested, cramming his helmet down onto his head and
The young Americans might be inclined to be a little boastful and a little thoughtless about how a British girl might feel hearing them talking about how they were going to win the war, but Katie was wise enough to put their comments down to excitement and inexperience, although she noticed that Gina looked rather nettled, and so wasn’t surprised when her friend excused them both with the fib that they had to ‘catch up with some friends’.
‘I know they are our allies, but I hate it when they are so beastly about our boys,’ she told Katiecrossly once they had escaped. ‘Talking like that about showing Hitler what real fighting men are and showing us a good time.’
‘I don’t think they meant any real harm,’ Katie tried to pacify her. ‘They’re only young and, unlike our boys, they don’t really know what war is all about yet.’ Unlike Luke. He knew what war was all about. Luke! Hadn’t she made herself a promise that she would not allow him into her thoughts?
‘I do wish you could fall in love with Eddie, Katie.’
Gina’s plaintive words made Katie smile.
‘Eddie doesn’t really want any girl to fall in love with him. He just wants to have a good time with lots of different girls.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Gina told her. ‘Eddie is a flirt, but he’s really keen on you, and I mean really keen. If you were to give him the least bit of encouragement, I suspect he’d have an engagement ring on your finger as fast as anything. He might be a flirt but you can be sure that he knows that he has a duty to provide an heir for the title.’
‘That’s nonsense and you know it. Eddie’s parents will expect him to marry a very different sort of girl from me, and someone from a similar background to his own.’
Katie said this without any feeling of resentment. In her opinion it was only natural, with Eddie’s father having a title, Eddie’s family should want him to marry someone who understood that sort of thing.
‘Once I dare say they would have done,’ Ginaagreed, ‘but right now I think they’d just be glad to see him married. As I’ve just said, if anything were to happen to him, there’s no one to succeed him to the title, and there won’t be until he marries and has a son. Not that anyone can get Eddie to talk seriously about that. He maintains that nothing’s going to happen to him because he’s got Leonard to keep an eye on him.’
‘I like Eddie, Gina,’ Katie answered, ‘but that’s all. However, even if I loved him I don’t think we’d be right for one another. Our backgrounds are so very different. Now, whilst the war’s on, that kind of thing might not matter but once the war is over it will be different.’
She was an ordinary girl and whilst she had liked Eddie’s parents when she had met them at Gina’s wedding, and they had been kind to her, Katie knew that a life like Eddie’s mother’s, as the lady of the manor, was not one that she would ever want.
‘I hope them ruddy naval gunners know the difference between our own lines and them panzers,’ Andy told Luke breathlessly, both of them dropping flat to the ground as they heard a fresh burst of exploding tank shells.
It was two days since they’d come ashore at Salerno, followed by intense fighting with the Germans as they’d tried to push them back from their entrenched position. But now, with the panzers having moved down from the hills beyond Salerno to surround the bay, it was looking dangerously as though they were the ones who were goingto be pushed back into the sea, not the Germans forced to give way so that the Allies could advance.
The naval guns to which Andy was referring, as the men dug in, belonged to the battle cruiser Warspite and three destroyers out in the bay, all of which were pounding the panzer-infested hills, whilst the panzers returned fire into the Allies’ lines.
‘Hellfire, that was close,’ Andy protested, cramming his helmet down onto his head and
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