He had been in the Medical Corps, tending troops as they fought their way across the north German plain towards Berlin. He was not, she told Roland, a demonstrative man but he held her hand as he told her about his work and explained as best he could to a nine-year-old the system of triage. As their unit pushed further east, further from home he had written letters to Daphne’s mother. ‘I asked him what he wrote about. He said he described everything, even the wounds he had tended and told her that he loved her very much and that when he got back, they’d get married and one day have a little
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