Word went round Edinburgh like fire: the ships with exchanged prisoners would discharge in the Firth of Forth next day. Edinburgh lined up six deep along the Leith waterfront. Offshore, in the rare sun of a late October morning, the Empress of Russia and the Drottningholm (the men called her the Trotting Home) began transferring their racked and crippled cargoes to tenders.†
Sirens wailed, ships' whistles bellowed the V-for-Victory. Bands played, pipers skirled and people sang old songs and the new hits. But when the tenders came in, the 4,000 repatriates were singing the song many had sung when they marched away...
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