by John Harris
Though he’d not worried at the time, he realised now that those sensitive antennae of his which warned him of danger had told him when he’d first arrived in France that something was wrong. The French had seemed slack and listless, and their officers had a habit of collecting bunches of flowers which they gave to their red-faced British liaison officers to carry. Noble hadn’t much time for officers of any nationality, but he’d suddenly found that when it came to comparison with the French he was prepared to stand up and defend his own with his dying breath. They were all bastards but, as bastards went, they weren’t bad bastards. And the British soldiers at least looked clean which to the dandified Noble with his soaped trouser-creases and forbidden pencil-line moustache, was important.
As the long day’s fighting died and the rifle fire began to fade he managed to attach himself to a field company of Royal Engineers he found in a group of trees on the side of a low hill. They were all tired, dusty and hungry and were glad to hide their vehicles away from the dive-bombers that had harassed them continuously for days. There was an observation balloon hanging on the horizon in the east, but it was far enough away not to worry him, and the woods were full of diagonal stripes of sunshine. The men were brewing tea on small fires, and the cooks, white aprons over their battle-dress, were bent over petrol cookers. After the adventures of the last week, the wood had for Noble the comfortable feeling of home and he dug into the back of the 15-cwt and produced his haversack. There was a bottle of cognac in there with a box of cigars, and he decided he might as well make a pig of himself.
The observation balloon that Noble had noticed was over Lanselles ten miles away, but it was high enough to be able to cover a lot of country, and it was with the high-powered 10x60 Zeiss binoculars on his chest that Leutnant Dieter Steinhoff, of the 3rd Fesselballonkompanie of the Engineers, first saw the drifting yellow cloud. He studied it for a moment, then he nudged his companion, Unteroffizier Distl, and pointed.
‘Tommy column,’ he said.
The dust was hanging over a road that led up the side of the only hill for miles around and on top of the hill was a small clump of trees, unexpected in that bare landscape. Steinhoff noted down the co-ordinates and map references, then, passing the slip of paper to Distl, he lifted the glasses again to watch.
‘Alle Mann auf Gefechtsstationen,’ he grinned. ‘All hands to battle stations.’
The bang of the first shell made Noble jump. It came like the crack of doom and was enough to galvanise the dead, and in the split second before he realised what had happened, it was as though he were watching a Disney cartoon. Mugs of tea and dixies of food seemed to hang motionless in the air as everyone dived for cover, then a soldier started screaming in a harsh nerve-racking wail of agony.
‘Shrapnel,’ someone yelled. ‘Shrapnel! Take cover!’
It was Noble’s first experience of violent death and as he cowered under a lorry he was so gripped by the horror he couldn’t keep his head down. Flinching and whimpering, he saw men running about covered with blood, their clothes torn by the flying fragments of metal. Every now and then shrapnel balls clattered like football rattles against the lorries and he saw men rolling in the grass with their faces and legs slashed. A young soldier no more than eighteen was running as fast as he could, and as he passed, there was a flash above the trees and the boy’s face changed. Noble knew he was already dead, though he went on running until he crashed into a bush and hung there suspended, the back of his head and neck covered with blood, his limbs draped bonelessly among the sagging foliage.
‘Spread out! Spread out!’ an officer was shouting, then there was another flash and something like a football flew past Noble. There was a heavy thump as it struck the metal side of the lorry and, as he lifted his eyes again, he saw it was the officer’s head. It had left a dent marked with a thick paste of blood before bouncing off again into the grass.
The vehicles were like sieves now, and he could see tanks spouting petrol.
‘Put them fags out,’ a sergeant yelled in a hoarse voice. ‘Put ’em out, I said!’
But one of the men running for his life plunged unseeingly through one of the many small fires that had been lit and Noble saw a piece of burning stick go flying before his boots. It landed underneath the lorry that stood alongside his own truck, and both vehicles went up with a ‘whoomph’ into a high pyre of flame.
As a unit the group of engineers had ceased to exist. Most of their transport had vanished and many of the men. What were left of them were running and staggering and crawling over the slope of the hill and flinging themselves down in the grass on the dead ground at the far side where a few men had set up a field ambulance. As the shelling stopped a major appeared, white-faced and angry.
‘Bloody poor show,’ he was saying. ‘Bloody poor show! Get the chaps together! Find out how many we’ve got!’
A sergeant was holding a water bottle for a man lying under a blanket and the smell of death made Noble feel sick. Nearby two officers, one of them reading instructions from a thick book, were bending over a man on a trestle table, sponging with cotton wool that was rapidly becoming soggy from the blood that dripped into the pulpy earth. It dawned on Noble that they were amputating a limb and the very amateurishness of it made him want to cry. He’d never thought of death in this way, his only experience of dying the occasions in the East London streets where the mourners got together afterwards with the tongue sandwiches and the beer and port.
Then the major started to sniff the air. ‘Tanks about,’ he said. ‘I can smell ’em.’
Noble’s nostrils twitched. He could smell nothing but burning and blood and the stink of fear. He was terrified of tanks and the idea of being caught and crushed by the monster 40-tonners the Germans were supposed to have, reduced his bowels to water.
The day was silent now and over the country sounds a dog barking, a cow mooing as though in pain, a lark singing in the clear air – he could hear the distant thud of guns and then the short sharp sound of a machine gun firing.
The cigars in the haversack forgotten, Noble lit a cigarette with a shaking hand and stood lost and bewildered. He’d never been so afraid in his life and, because he’d never felt any pride in his own unit and didn’t belong to this one, he felt completely rudderless. The need to get back to his own unit had become desperately important; above all else he needed the comforting sound of an NCO’s harsh voice telling him what to do.
By midnight that Sunday, a lot of other people were also beginning to see things differently.
At Dover the signal had long since been made that the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force – an operation called Dynamo after the room where it had been conceived – was to commence. As HMS Vital with Barry Hatton on board, was approaching Dover, the admiral received a signal from London which informed him that the plan was to be implemented with the greatest vigour with a view to lifting 45,000 men within two days. ‘After which,’ the signal continued, ‘it is probable that evacuation will be terminated by enemy action.’
It provided grim news but the admiral could only suppose that the men in London were aware of what was happening. By this time Dunkirk was a place of horror. The waterworks and mains had been destroyed and already the brackish water from the flooding of the lowlands was seeping into the wells. Burning warehouses lit up the white column of the lighthouse and wrecked cranes, while, endlessly since dark, the thunder of the bombs and the flash of their explosions had punctuated the increasing destruction.
The admiral rose and moved to the window. He could hear the noise of battle from the office as he turned and glanced at the officers waiting by the desk.
‘I see no alternative but to use the beaches,’ he said. ‘What do we have?’
‘The motor-boats of Ramsgate Contraband Control, drifters and small craft of this base,’ the staff officer, operations, said. ‘Together with four Belgian passenger launches and the ships’ boats themselves.’
‘Signal Admiralty for reinf
orcements.’
‘They’re probably on their way already, sir. Small Vessels Pool’s been collecting them for some time. I gather they have a lot near Westminster Pier.’ The SOO glanced at the list in his hand. ‘Officers have also been sent to the principal yachting centres, King Alfred’s been asked to send trainee seamen, and flag officer, London, and the commander-in-chief, Plymouth, and a few others have also been asked to help, as well as a few individual yachtsmen who’ve already volunteered.’ The SOO glanced at the list again. ‘The harbour here’s full, and cross-channel steamers, coasters and barges are gathering in the Downs. Ramsgate’s filling up from the Thames and further north, and they’re on their way from every other port where they’ve got any.’
The admiral nodded. He wasn’t given to using a lot of unnecessary words. He took the slip of paper the flag lieutenant passed to him.
‘This the total of men lifted?’
‘Up to midnight, sir. Nearly 28,000.’
The admiral looked up, his narrow face keen. ‘A not unreasonable start,’ he said. ‘Considering they’re expecting only 45,000 in two days.’
Nor was it. And now Alban Kitchener Tremenheere was ready to help. Not from any feeling of heroism or because he considered it his duty, but because it was as far as he could get from Nell Noone.
As he made his few preparations, on board Vital – now edging alongside a tanker at Dover where Daisy also lay – Sub-Lieutenant Hatton was trying to screw his courage to the pitch he felt sure it ought to be screwed. Walter Boner Scharroo was walking stolidly north because the Germans had left him behind and it seemed the only thing to do. Lieutenant Allerton was also heading north. He hadn’t a map and didn’t particularly want one; the situation seemed so horrifying he wouldn’t have dared look at it. Hans-Joachim Horndorff was still waiting outside Vitry, and Marie-Josephine Berthelot, recovering a little now, was stumbling along without any sense of direction. Major Karl Schmesser and his gunner, Unteroffizier Roehme, or what was left of them, were still in the smoking remains of their aeroplane. The man who’d shot them down, Flying Officer Conybeare had abandoned hope of rescue because Leading Aircraftsman Reardon, who was to have picked him up, was lying in a ditch near Vanchette. Corporal Chouteau and Private Angelet were also tramping silently through the darkness, Chouteau’s face grim, Private Angelet whimpering soundlessly to himself. Captain Deshayes had long since given himself up while Favre, dressed in civilian clothes he’d found, was heading for Paris. Lije Noble was lying behind the wood ten miles from Lanselles, still shuddering with fear, and Lance-Corporal Gow of the Coldstream Guards, that tall expressionless man with the bone-white skin and the gingery Highland hair, had reached the line of the River Lys.
Monday, 27 May
At dawn on 27 May, just as England was beginning to stir, German panzers were rattling north in a vast pincer movement. They were already too late, because there was still a gap ten miles wide through which the French and the British were streaming at full speed. In the west, however, the Germans were still moving along the coast and Leutnant Heinrich-Robert Hinze, in his curiously impassive, mandarin manner, was preparing himself for more shooting.
Long before Calais had fallen, the outposts had been called in, the office equipment loaded into trucks, blankets rolled and the cookhouse piled into the mess wagon, with the contents of the first-aid post and the medical stores, and the battery was on its way towards Dunkirk.
The presence of men like Hinze was confusing the position for the planners at Dover. Because of the shellfire and the increasing attacks of the Luftwaffe, ships were being forced to turn back and the signals that were dropping one after another on to the staff communications officer’s desk made it brutally clear that the short route to Dunkirk could not be used during daylight.
‘There are two other possible routes,’ the staff navigation officer was saying. ‘Route Y – eighty-seven miles long – runs to a point off Ostend and comes in west through the Zuydecoote Pass. Route X – fifty-five miles long – cuts across the Ruytingen Bank to a point between Gravelines and Dunkirk. There are mine-fields.’
The admiral chewed at the earpiece of his spectacles. ‘Route Y. Is that mined?’
‘It might be, sir. We don’t know yet.’
‘We must take the risk.’ The admiral glanced at the staff officer, operations. ‘Signal the personnel ships and the hospital carriers to stand by. We’ll try to sweep Route Y ahead of them.’ He turned to the communications officer. ‘In the meantime, tell Fighter Command we shall need a heavy increase in patrols over the area. The Germans are still concentrating on the Belgians, and we might just get away with it for a while.’
Sub-Lieutenant Hatton certainly hoped so.
That Monday morning the quays in Dover harbour seemed very inadequate and, save for the cross-Channel station, the port quite unsuited for the heavy work with which it was now involved. It had been designed chiefly as an anchorage for the old Channel Fleet, yet, at the eight berths at the Admiralty Pier, Hatton could see as many as eighteen or twenty ships moored in trots two and three deep. As the tender from Vital headed towards the small boat stage, a hospital ship on the inside berth was unloading into a row of ambulances, and khaki-clad figures were moving ashore from other ships in a way that indicated sheer exhaustion. As he watched, one of the ships pulled out again, in tow behind a tug, and headed for the refuelling basin, and another tug began to butt at a ship whose white paintwork forward of the bridge was scorched in a great black scar with steel-work wrenched back like the lid of a sardine tin.
Aware of a tremendous excitement underlaid with a sense of dread and a fear of defeat, Hatton stared up at the cliffs and the crooked old houses, and once more wondered if Nora Hart was still working in the town. He hadn’t really missed her when he’d moved to London but now, for all that he was aware of the notorious sentimentality of sailors, contacting her again seemed a project eminently worth pursuing; especially with defeat and possibly death somewhere in the offing.
He was so busy with his own thoughts, he jumped when Hough spoke to him. ‘I’m going up to naval headquarters with the pilot,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’d better come too. We might have to get everything down in writing.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Hatton felt privileged to be called upon, aware that not very long before he’d been an insignificant reporter and that now he was involved in history, like it or not.
Every vehicle in the dock area seemed to be spoken for, so Hough set out briskly on foot, followed by Hatton and the navigating officer. They managed to hire a taxi at the gate where people were walking their dogs in the sunshine, much as though it were still peacetime.
At naval headquarters, Hough went alone for his orders, and when the navigating officer also disappeared Hatton was left outside in the corridor, twiddling his fingers in boredom. There was a public telephone near the door which the ratings used and out of sheer nostalgia he looked in the directory to see if Nora Hart’s name was still in it. It was, and impulsively he pushed two pennies into the slot and tried it.
‘Who?’ she said when he told her his name.
‘Barry Hatton. Surely you remember me?’ He felt faintly hurt that she hadn’t recalled him at once.
‘Oh!’ Her voice seemed distant and didn’t show much enthusiasm. ‘What are you doing back here?’
Because he couldn’t tell her, there was a long awkward pause, then she went on with no more interest than a nervous curate passing the time of day at a sticky garden party. ‘Are you here long?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Oh, well!’ She sounded relieved. ‘You’ll have to come round some time.’
She slammed the receiver down too sharply for his self-esteem and he stared at the telephone, wondering where his charm had gone. Perhaps it was as well he was going across the Channel.
There was a lieutenant at a table further along the corridor frowning at papers. He looked tired and, seeking information, Hatton approached him cautiously. �
�What’s happening?’ he asked.
The lieutenant looked up. He didn’t seem to resent Hatton, though his eyes flickered to the wavy ring on his sleeve. ‘You going across?’ he asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Hatton said. ‘We’ve just arrived.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Vital.’
The lieutenant grinned. ‘She’s not very big, is she?’ he said.
‘I expect she’ll be big enough,’ Hatton said and realised immediately, as the lieutenant’s eyes smiled, that he’d said something rather clever and perhaps rather brave.
‘I expect she will,’ the lieutenant agreed. ‘Been in long?’
‘No. Fortunately, there are plenty of people aboard to tell me what to do. Are they bringing the army out?’
‘Unofficially, yes. And a beautiful bloody balls-up it is too. We’ve been at it for days now. Boulogne and Calais have had it and at Calais we’re not even trying. They’re there to stop Jerry on the western flank and that’s what they have to do.’
The idea of being sacrificed for the rest of the army caught at Hatton’s breath. It was a noble ideal but he felt it could be very uncomfortable and probably without much future.
‘How far have the Germans got?’ he asked.
The lieutenant looked up. ‘Worry you?’
Hatton swallowed. It worried him a great deal but he tried to pretend it didn’t. ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ he said.
The lieutenant smiled. ‘Well played,’ he said.
Lije Noble was another who was feeling doubts about his own skill and ability that morning.
He’d spent the night cowering under a hedge with several other men, terrified at the prospect of tanks and wishing to God someone would get a move on and get him away. When he woke at first light, a corporal was giving him a nudge with a boot. As he opened his eyes the silence was uncanny after the remembered tumult of the previous evening and the thought occurred to him that he was dead. For a moment the unreality persisted then the boot jarred again.
