Dunkirk Crescendo

by Bodie Thoene

  With ample other targets to select, the machine-gun fire ceased. Mystified, the soldiers watched the plane waggle its wings, then take off east.

  “Respect for our bravery?” Cross asked David.

  “Guns jammed,” David replied.

  31

  The Waiting Thousands

  “There’s ten feet . . . nine . . . eight . . . hold it.” Mac’s voice called out the depth of water as Wairakei slipped onto Bray Dunes beach, east of Dunkirk. The line of men that stretched back from chest deep in the sea numbered five hundred or more. Up and down the beach were similar waiting columns, every couple hundred yards.

  John Galway locked down the anchor winch, and the ship hung, stern toward shore, at the end of the cable. The ketch had already made more trips between the shore and the waiting destroyer than Mac could remember. He had long since given up any thought of filming the operation, because he needed both hands free to haul waterlogged soldiers over the rail.

  As Mac watched, another lifeboat approached the shore. Some of the rescue vessels drew too much water to get close enough for the men to board directly, so lifeboats and dinghys and the captain’s launch from the destroyer were working the surf. It was not without hazard. The boat nearing Bray Dunes was now rushed by three times as many men as could really fit it at one time. When the Royal Navy sublieutenant in charge of the boat warned them to clear off and wait their turn, he was ignored. The already overloaded craft shipped water over the rail, spun broadside to the waves, then flipped over, scattering the Tommies and drowning the lieutenant.

  Early on, the same fate seemed destined to overtake Wairakei. Wanting to ease the loading process, John Galway had allowed the ketch to almost drag her keel on the sand. Immediately she was surrounded by two hundred soldiers trying to climb on board from all directions at once. Even the sturdy twenty-ton craft seemed likely to either capsize or run aground.

  Then Mac remembered something Annie had said in jest the night before. Dashing into the main cabin, he pulled an antique cutlass from the pair on the wall. Waving the sword, he raced around the deck like an actor in a pirate movie. When the sight and sound of a giant, barking, slavering dog was added to the mix, the men backed off and agreed to wait their turn.

  But in order to take no unnecessary chances, after that episode John Galway purposely kept Wairakei deeper than before. He forced the men to swim the last few feet, giving them no opportunity to mob the boat.

  Some of the soldiers were so dead tired that they could do nothing to help themselves. In those cases it took both Mac and Annie’s father to hoist them aboard. “One, two, three, heave!” John Galway called, and another inert body sprawled onto the deck.

  Galway kept up a running patter of encouragement. “Don’t I know you?” he asked. “Song-and-dance man? No? Picture shows, then?” To others lost in despair or grieving the death of a friend he would say, “Buck up. Never mind this little setback! We’ll pay off that Hitler fellow; you’ll see.”

  Mac marveled at the way John Galway not only plucked them from danger but lifted their spirits. Mac himself got a boost from listening—a renewed belief that everything would work out after all.

  Fully loaded with another seventy-five evacuees, Wairakei prepared to run up her own anchor line and steam out to the waiting destroyer. “Propeller’s fouled,” Galway called when the ship failed to respond to the throttle. “McGrath, take the boat hook and free it. Must be a bit of line wrapped around the shaft.”

  Picking his way through the clutter of exhausted forms stretched over every possible inch of space, Mac took the gaff and leaned over the rail. There was something down there, near the props. Mac poked it with the boat hook. It resisted at first; then he got a grasp on it and the object floated free, surfacing under his face. It was the body of the drowned lieutenant.

  ***

  As the tide retreated down the shelf of the Dunkirk coast, the columns of waiting men merely stretched farther back before disappearing among the dunes. To Mac’s eye, this had the curious effect of making it seem that the number awaiting evacuation grew larger instead of smaller with every boatload ferried out to the destroyer.

  A mysterious dark column jutted out toward the sea. It had not been there on any of the earlier trips, but it looked like a dock where none had been before. As the ketch got closer to the beach, a swarm of men could be seen crawling around the structure. Soon the nature of the object became clear. As the tide withdrew, a lorry was driven over the hard-packed sand to the front of a line of similar trucks. The soldiers climbing around the vehicles were lashing them together with cables, building an unorthodox but useful pier.

  By the time Wairakei had completed a few more round-trips, the improvised jetty extended several hundred yards seaward. The tires of the trucks had been shot out to settle the machines into position in the sand. An impromptu walkway made from salvaged lumber was secured to the tops of the trucks.

  The idea took hold and spread. Several more of the ingenious “lorry jetties” were begun to speed the evacuation of the waiting thousands.

  ***

  “The sky is clearin’ a bit,” John Galway observed as the ketch drew alongside the lorry jetty.

  The inventive wharf was working well. Both deeper draft ships and shallower ones like lifeboats took advantage of the chance to pick up soldiers without going too close to the shore. There was something more orderly, more military about the process, too. Marching down the walkway to climb aboard instead of swimming and seeing the regular trips made by the little ships took the edge of panic off the men. There was less of the overcrowding that had happened earlier in the day.

  Annie’s father still kept a watchful eye on the depth under the Wairakei’s keel. He did not want them to run aground. With Mac assisting, John Galway waved for Annie to let the boat creep forward a little farther.

  Behind them a trawler was also coming to the pier. Needing even more depth to operate than the ketch, the fishing boat docked just astern of Wairakei.

  After an entire day of almost no challenges by the Germans, the sound of planes overhead was momentarily ignored. Then the skipper of the trawler looked up and saw the flight of Heinkels sweeping in from the north to line up for a bombing run.

  In his panic, the skipper of the trawler shoved the gear into forward instead of reverse and gunned the engine. The collision at Wairakei’s stern whacked Annie’s head against a spoke of the helm and knocked Mac overboard.

  Flying over the rail, Mac had an instant to be glad that his camera was in the cabin and not slung over his shoulder. Then he hit the water and came up sputtering.

  The Heinkels unloaded their bombs farther up the beach. One of the improvised jetties took a direct hit, and the bodies of men and the wreckage of trucks were blown skyward in company with a Thames River passenger launch. Duffy ran around the deck, barking wildly and knocking more men over the side.

  Mac saw John Galway scoop Annie up and fling her over his shoulder. He shouted, “Get by, you daft dog!” making Duffy slink back into the cabin. Then, since the trawler was already steaming full speed astern and the way was clear, he put Wairakei into reverse as well.

  The little ship shuddered all along her forty-foot length, and green water churned into foam under her props, but she did not move. “We’re stuck fast,” Galway yelled. “You men, give us a hand to float her, or she’s a sittin’ duck!”

  The German bombers were returning from the last pass and lining up for another run. “Over the side,” ordered Galway, “all of ye. We’ve got to lighten ship and push her free!”

  The men already on board obliged. They jumped into the four feet of water and struggled to help the ketch escape from the sandbank that held her prisoner.

  As Mac was already in the water, he stayed there and helped push the boat. “Heave!” he yelled. “Again!”

  The engines roared, but still Wairakei was stuck fast. “Rock her!” Galway called.

  A line of three Heinkels, having already dropped
their bombs, opened up on the beach with machine guns. The orderly queues waiting their turn to board were shattered and torn apart, and then the planes directed their line of fire toward the ship.

  Some of the men nearest Mac turned to flee. “It’s not any safer out there!” he bellowed. “Stay and help!”

  Rows of tracers shot up the jetty, flinging men right and left off its length and into the sea. The bullets clanged into the metal roofs and hoods of the trucks, drowning out the screams.

  “Again!” Mac implored. “Rock her again!”

  With the engines at full throttle, when Wairakei did break free, she shot backward away from the jetty into deeper water. John spun the wheel, pivoting the ketch away from the dock. The line of tracers plowed into the water exactly where Wairakei had been, throwing up a row of splashes. The bomber flashed past overhead, almost close enough to touch.

  The ketch headed out to sea, zigzagging as she went. Back near shore, Mac stayed in the water until the last Heinkel had departed. Then he pulled himself out on the jetty just in time to watch Wairakei’s stern shrink smaller and smaller out into the Channel.

  ***

  It was almost midnight when the British Expeditionary Force ambulance screeched to a halt in front of Paul’s headquarters at the Ecole de Cavalerie.

  A middle-aged British major of the Grenadier Guards dashed into the bomb-damaged school. The man was filthy and splattered with blood. Someone else’s blood, Paul thought, as the man faced him in the lantern light.

  “The Germans are just beyond the river, Captain,” the major exclaimed. “I have been sent . . . that is . . . HQ has heard that there are still English nurses here at the CCS. An oversight. They should have been pulled back days ago.”

  The man’s face was pale. Both he and Paul understood fully what the order meant. The nurses were to be evacuated and as many more of the wounded as the time left allowed.

  The remainder of the wounded would be abandoned to await the arrival of the German panzers. French. English. Belgian. Perhaps the Belgians would be spared because of the capitulation of King Leopold. It was no secret what the Germans would do to the others. Only a fierce rearguard action could save them now.

  Cautiously, guided only by starlight, Paul led the major toward the chapel. Abigail Mitchell had just come out of the operating room. Her feet were covered with blood to the ankles. In the dim light it looked as if she were wearing high red shoes. Her strong features reflected her exhaustion.

  “Sister Abigail Mitchell,” the major saluted. “Orders from HQ. You have twenty minutes to gather your nursing staff and to prepare to fall back.”

  Abigail Mitchell argued against the withdrawal, but her reasoning was foolish and she knew it.

  Twenty minutes passed, and she stood at the open back of the ambulance as her staff climbed aboard. She extended her hand to Paul. “What can I say, Captain Chardon?”

  “Say you will have dinner with me when this is finished.”

  At his cheerful remark the cold Sister Mitchell melted and dissolved into tears. He put his arms around her in a gesture of awkward tenderness. “If the thought of dinner with me upsets you, ma chèrie . . .”

  “Oh stop it, Paul. Please. Not now. How can I leave you?”

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “Because you are very beautiful. And strong. And you have given everything here that you can give. Now we must give what we can for the sake of honor.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then say that you will pray for us. Promise you will remember.”

  She nodded. The major barked an impatient order that they must get to Dunkirk before the Germans. He pointed out that there was nothing between Dunkirk and the Germans but the Ecole de Cavalerie.

  “We’re already ten minutes late! If you don’t mind, Sister Mitchell. I’d like to get home in one piece.” Then to Paul, “If I were you, Captain, I’d pull my men back. You might be able to get on a boat before the German army overruns Dunkirk.”

  “How long will that be, Major?”

  “They’ll cross the river right here at Lys tomorrow and then . . . whoever is left at Dunkirk is a goner, as the Americans say.”

  “How much time do you need to clear the beaches?”

  “They just keep coming. At least two days for the chaps there now.”

  Paul nodded gravely. “Then we shall stay. Defend the hospital and . . . we will do what we can to buy you time at Dunkirk.”

  The major glowered at him as if he were crazy. “You’re going to stay and fight? Has it occurred to you that you’ll all be killed?”

  “Indeed. Perhaps we few may have the honor to die for France.”

  “You think you can do what the entire Allied army couldn’t do? Hold the panzers here? On the other side of the Lys?”

  “We will.”

  “At least send the boys out. Let the seasoned troops bear the brunt of it.”

  “These boys, as you call them, are my seasoned troops, Major.”

  After a minute the words penetrated. The major drew himself up in a crisp salute. He could not speak.

  “Hurry now,” Paul urged. With one last glance of farewell at Abigail Mitchell, he closed the doors of the ambulance and turned back to his task.

  ***

  When the launch pulled alongside the destroyer Keith Andre felt unspeakable relief and surprise. To be free of the tiny scrap of coastline was to be released from the iron jaws of a trap. The smell of ocean breeze, though tainted with oil and diesel fuel, seemed clean and sweet compared to the pervasive stench that hung over the beaches.

  But if the flow of cleaner air carried an aroma of release, his personal safety was still difficult to comprehend. Even while working for the evacuation of others, part of Andre’s mind had told him that he would never be rescued. Now the thought of being free to return to the battle became real to him. On the other side of Dunkirk, did lines of French soldiers still hold out against the Germans? Would it be possible for those rescued from the beaches to regroup and enter France from the south to fight for Paris?

  He gripped the cold, damp steel of the railing. The seawater and the sand that scrunched in his boots reminded him of what he had left behind. Andre rubbed his hand over his salt-encrusted, bearded face.

  A voice at his elbow said something. Andre roused himself from contemplating his escape and turned to find a white-clad steward offering a mug and a silver teapot.

  “I said, would you care for some tea, sir?”

  “Yes,” Andre agreed, “but be careful.”

  “Sir?”

  “I just convinced myself that I’m really here; I don’t want to start doubting all over again!”

  Here and there fires still burned on the dunes from the targets of successful Luftwaffe attacks. In the direction of Dunkirk, an ominous red glow hovered in the sky.

  Out on the water, everything was pitch-black. The rescue ships went about their duties without lights, to avoid more aerial assaults and to hide from prowling German U-boats and S-boats. Unless a small craft passed close by, the only sign that betrayed the presence of the armada of rescue vessels was the swirl of phosphorescence in their wakes.

  On the far horizon, directly in front of the deep crimson bowl that surrounded Dunkirk Harbor, a white flare lit the night. A dark outline of a ship, tilted at a crazy angle, was momentarily silhouetted against the brilliance. In a few seconds, Andre saw the shape slide downward, extinguishing the light as if the cover of a giant lantern had been shut over its beam. “What was that?” he asked the steward.

  “Can’t say for certain, sir. From the size I’d say another destroyer—probably a torpedo got her.”

  It was a short while before midnight. Andre stood at the railing of the Keith and marveled at the course of the last few days. Since reaching the Dunkirk Perimeter three days before, he had not slept more than fifteen minutes at a time.

  The physical letdown that accompanied release from duty was profound. Andre leane
d heavily on the rail, discovering for the first time that he was exhausted.

  Too tired to even worry about U-boat attacks, Andre stumbled below and stretched out on the floor in a corner of the wardroom. He was asleep almost immediately.

  32

  A Pillar of Cloud by Day

  Smoke from the bombed-out docks of Rouen darkened the sky as the Garlic navigated the waters of the Seine.

  Just ahead Josie could plainly see that the Luftwaffe had been at work on the river port. It had been an important embarkation point for British and American reinforcements in the last war, and the German High Command was taking no chances.

  A thick plume of oily fumes obscured for a moment the castle where St. Jeanne d’Arc had been imprisoned in the struggle against the English in 1430. The black smudge in the predawn canopy over Rouen was only one more reminder that, like the martyred St. Jeanne, the soul of France burned on the pyre of war once again. The old walls of the town that had defied Henry V in 1415 had been broadened to boulevards and planted with trees. The ancient vigilance of Rouen had been forgotten, and now the beautiful Gothic city was in flames for a mile and a half along the quais. On the left bank of the river, the two train stations of Gare d’Orleans and Gare de la Rive Gauche were wrecks of twisted metal and charred girders.

  “On your toes!” Rose shouted forward to Josie as they rounded the bend and spotted the narrow finger of Ile Brouilly in the center of the river. Just beyond the little island was the larger island of Lacroix and then the bridge across the point where the river narrowed. Was the span still intact? Or had passage down the Seine been blocked by rubble from last night’s bombing raid?

  “I can’t see to the bridge,” Josie replied, peering down the right fork of the stream.

  “What is ahead?” Rose hailed Lewinski who, with Jerome beside him at the rail, peered through his gas mask from port while Josie and Georg, one of the five Goldblatt brothers, checked to starboard.