Glasgow is the destination of the Oakrest’s seventeen-day voyage from Gibraltar and the first setting in the account where the French airmen gather on British soil. Its welcome is marked by a sharp contradiction: a Scottish regiment offers hospitality with music, while the French, still distressed by Mers-el-Kébir, withdraw silently into their tents. Glasgow also becomes the place where the narrator abandons his plan to claim an officer’s rank for himself and remains a sergeant.

Arrival and Reception

The narrator reaches Glasgow aboard the Oakrest after a voyage of seventeen days. During the crossing he discovers other French airmen who have left to continue the war; they make friends, though some use assumed names to protect relatives in France from reprisals or to turn away from the past. Glasgow is thus not simply a destination: it is where this group of self-described deserters begins to assemble for further service.

At their camp, pipers from a Scottish regiment march ahead in full-dress scarlet to welcome them. The narrator recalls that his mother loved military marches, but the memory of the British fleet’s action at Mers-el-Kébir overwhelms the occasion. The French airmen turn their backs on the pipes and retreat into their tents without a word. The Scots continue playing through the park, their welcome meeting a silence that makes the political grievance plain without extinguishing the hospitality being offered.

The Camp and Its Losses

The Glasgow gathering is recalled through the fate of its fifty French airmen: only three survive the war. In the ensuing months, across the skies of England, France, Russia, and Africa, the men account for a combined total of one hundred and fifty enemy aircraft before they too are killed. The narrator names several of them and gives individual victory totals, but the roll call leads him to question the point of repeating names that mean little to other listeners. For him, they have not left; he feels that what remains alive in him belongs to them.

This contrast gives the camp a meaning beyond its immediate function as a place of assembly. The figures measure both the airmen’s contribution and the scale of their loss, while the narrator’s insistence that they remain present makes Glasgow part of an ongoing act of remembrance. He links his own continued life, with rueful self-awareness, to his enduring love of animals.

The Rank He Does Not Claim

Shortly after reaching Glasgow, the narrator considers sewing a second lieutenant’s stripe onto his sleeve. He believes he has a right to the commission denied him at Avord and imagines that taking the rank himself would repair that injustice. The contemplated act is not presented as an official correction: it would be a private claim, made without authorization.

His mother intervenes in the account as a vivid remembered presence. He has tried to keep his plan from her, but imagines her beside him with her stick, condemning the act and warning that she would never let him cross her threshold again if he committed it. He sees her in her gray cloak and hat, with a string of pearls, and tries unsuccessfully to flee from her through Glasgow’s streets. The episode ends without the promotion he wanted: he remains a sergeant. Glasgow is therefore also the setting of a consequential restraint, where the narrator’s grievance gives way to his mother’s judgment and the military rank he actually holds.