by John Harris
‘Come on,’ the corporal said.
‘What’s up?’
‘Burial party. In the wood.’
Noble accepted the spade that someone handed to him, but as soon as the corporal turned away, he dropped it and slipped round the back of one of the lorries. At the other side a sergeant was standing with an officer.
‘Got your explosives, Galpin?’ the officer was asking.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right, take your men and head for Bergues. Pick out the bridges that’ll have to be blown as we come through, and plant your stuff.’
As he turned away, Noble reached for the haversack containing the brandy and cigars.
‘I’ve got to get back to my unit, Sarge,’ he said. ‘It’s at Bughem near Bergues. Can you give me a lift? Me van went up in the wood there.’
As the lorry roared off, Noble was never so glad to see the back of anywhere as he was of that wood, but as they moved slowly north, dropping men two at a time at the bridges and locks as they passed, he began to feel better. To the south, over Arras, he could see a pall of smoke hanging in the air and farmhouses burning in the area between, with gun flashes coming regularly through the smoke and the occasional glint of a pair of field glasses, which gave him the unnerving feeling that everything he did was being watched by the Germans. He glanced at the sky. A recce plane had appeared above them and he’d learned by this time that recce planes were invariably followed by dive-bombers. He was grateful he wasn’t in one of those awful streams of vehicles he’d seen, moving nose to tail at the pace of an active snail.
The sun was just beginning to get up as the lorry slowed to drop the last two men. Beyond the bridge where they stopped was a cornfield and they all climbed out for a smoke. To Noble, it seemed an event of great importance and, after the events of the lasts few days, one that was enormously civilised. He reached for the haversack and, extracting the cigars, offered them round.
The pulsating sound of distant gunfire seemed to drum on the canvas cover of the truck but it was far enough away not to worry them, and they’d just lit up when Noble heard a dull rumbling howl and one of the men they’d dropped, standing by the front of the lorry talking to the driver, swung round, his eyes bulging.
‘Fighters!’ he screamed.
The air thickened with the howl of engines and Noble dived for the ditch as the cannon shells flashed along the road. As they caught the lorry, there was a tremendous explosion that blew him head over heels into the ditch where he continued to crouch, his arms over his head, listening to the clang of metal dropping around him. As the engines died away he lifted his head. One of the lorry wheels was still bowling along fifty yards away and the road was littered with stones, pulverised earth and pieces of metal, rubber, canvas and wood round a huge scorch mark.
The driver and the man talking to him had disappeared in the explosion and the third sprawled in the road, a shredded mess of flesh and clothing. Sergeant Galpin appeared slowly from the cornfield and studied the corpse. ‘Copped it,’ he said.
They dragged the body off the road but, because the spade had disappeared too, they were unable to bury it and had to leave it in the long grass. Galpin found a few shreds of torn canvas and draped them over it, then he stood and stared down for a moment or two, as though he were conducting a silent burial service of his own.
As he turned he glanced curiously at Noble who was standing with his mouth open, his eyes glazed as though he were hypnotised. ‘I reckon I’d better get back,’ he said. ‘That last pair we dropped have got a radio.’
Noble watched him go. The sun was blazing hot and, apart from the intermittent sound of gunfire to the south, the countryside immediately around him seemed still empty and alien. His feet ached and, now that the sergeant had left him, he was totally and irrevocably lost.
So was Clarence Sievewright. But there was no feeling of alarm or panic in his heart. He was a placid man who considered himself well fitted by training to deal with emergencies. As a Scout he had once worn badges to prove he was an expert at a thousand and one important things and he felt he was capable of facing anything the war might throw up. His face was round and innocent and he glowed with soap and inner health. Over such smooth features a helmet seemed almost too ferocious.
He had spent the night in a barn which had been comfortable enough, if a little chilly, and that morning he’d gone to the farm nearby to ask for food. It had been deserted, so he’d hunted round the yard and eventually – as he’d expected – found a dozen eggs under a hedge which he’d fried in his mess-tin lid. Afterwards, since Scout Law demanded cleanliness, he’d washed at the pump and brushed his teeth, taking care not to swallow the water because he also knew that it was probably not safe unless boiled, then he’d carefully changed his socks and set off again. Now, five hours later, he was wondering where the British army had got to. He knew it was in retreat and before he’d set off he’d heard it was heading towards the coast. If he walked steadily northwards, he should eventually find it again. He had no compass but as a Scout he knew that if he kept the sun on his back up to midday and on his left after that he’d be heading in the correct direction. Speed and lightness had seemed important, however, and he’d sat down to see what he could discard of his equipment. To his surprise, all he felt able to throw away were two or three paperbacks, a selection of thin socks and a pair of dancing shoes he’d had sent out.
By this time, he’d left the roads and taken to the fields because it had long since occurred to him that if the Germans were machine-gunning the roads, the most intelligent thing to do was to avoid them. By mid-morning, he was beginning to feel hungry again but, finding a few potatoes and carrots in a field, he stuffed several in his pack with the intention of cooking them later. Then he found a cow that was bellowing with pain and, realising it was in need of milking, he swung towards it and with difficulty managed to get the milk flowing.
He extracted more than he needed to make the cow comfortable, then, putting his kit on again, clapped his steel helmet on his head and set off once more with a sense of having done his duty.
When Lieutenant-Commander Hough returned to where Hatton was waiting, his mouth was tight and his face was serious. He wasn’t a great deal older than Hatton but he’d been in the war from the first days of September and had already been torpedoed and bombed in the Norwegian campaign.
‘Are we going across, sir?’ Hatton asked as they fell into step. ‘Yes.’ Hough didn’t seem in a mood to talk and Hatton wondered if he were worried about the bombing. The thought helped him feel more able to handle his own fears.
They picked up the navigating officer and found a taxi back to the harbour. The streets seemed to be full of soldiers. Some of them were heading for the railway station in marching groups, but a few seemed to have escaped and were hanging about outside the pubs. They didn’t look like first-class troops.
The harbour was still full of ships as the tender headed out to Vital, and along the wall smaller vessels were beginning to gather – hoppers, trawlers, harbour launches and fishing boats. Daisy was among them and in her forepeak Kenny Pepper was still waiting patiently. He’d been there all night. During the hours of darkness, he’d sneaked out, desperate for food, and made his way to the galley. Brundrett had been sleeping in his bunk alongside, a fat white shape under the blankets, one fleshy arm hanging to the deck. He was snoring heavily, and Kenny had had no difficulty in extracting half a loaf of bread, a pot of jam, half a pound of butter, a tin of corned beef and a candle. Brundrett’s ability to sleep was well known and Kenny, who was still growing and needed more food than Brundrett was inclined to allow him, had often taken advantage of it.
As Vital’s tender bumped alongside and its occupants scrambled aboard the ship, Hough called a quick conference to discuss what they were to do. ‘It seems we still hold a strip of coast about twenty-five miles long,’ he announced. ‘From Gravelines to Nieuport. Know it, Pilot?’
The navigating officer nodded. ‘Fla
t, featureless and level, sir. Just a few seaside towns. No piers. No harbour facilities. Sand shelves very slowly to deep water. And all exposed to northerly winds.’
‘How about Dunkirk? Anybody know anything about it?’
‘A little, sir,’ Hatton offered. ‘I don’t suppose it’s much use.’
‘Let’s hear it, all the same.’
‘It’s pretty ancient. Grew out of a fishing village. It was a fortress and I think some of it still stands. It’s the third port in France and it’s got a good modern harbour with seven dock basins.’
‘You’re better than you think, Hatton. Go on.’
Hatton flushed with pleasure at the praise. ‘It has four dry docks, five miles of quays, and three of the canals from the Low Countries feed into it.’
‘Good God!’ Hough looked startled. ‘Where did you get all this lot?’
‘I looked it up, sir, while I was waiting for you.’
Hough grinned. ‘God be praised for the education and enterprise of the RNVR,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
Hatton glanced at his notebook. ‘Docks go deep into the town and there’s a dredged channel to the sea. It’s protected from the tides by long piers and there’s a mole that comes out from the oil storage area. There’s another from the old fortifications that’s over a thousand yards long. If we could have used it, the army could have got away with everything it possesses, but I gather it’s not that kind of mole.’
‘Charming!’ Hough’s eyebrows rose. ‘Right, Doc, prepare your sick bay for casualties. Purser, we’ll need constant hot soup and tea, as well as sandwiches. Not only for our own people but for anybody we might lift. I gather some of ’em haven’t eaten for days. Guns’ crews, damage and fire control parties will be closed up from the minute we leave harbour. I suspect we’re going to be busy.’
It was becoming only too clear to a lot of people that they were going to be busy. Even the commander of the BEF. There were no more reserves now and nothing he could do, because the battles that were being fought now were in the hands of his corps, divisions and brigades, and the regiments who were clinging to fragments of village and unnamed stretches of waterway. Slowly, defending its positions desperately, the army was falling hack to form a defensive perimeter round the only port left – Dunkirk.
The French were still demanding an attack to the south but there was an air of unreality about the whole idea, because even as it was decided to find out if headquarters could be moved to Cassel the town came under shellfire and almost immediately afterwards a message came from the Belgian king to inform them that he would soon be obliged to surrender. As the new headquarters was finally set up at Houtkerque nine miles to the north, a telegram arrived from London. ‘Sole task,’ it said, ‘is to evacuate to England maximum of your forces possible.’
The end seemed to have come.
Fortunately, the German tank attacks had stopped. With the French army to the south still undestroyed, it was becoming dangerous to allow the wastage to continue, though Jocho Horndorff’s unit was still probing forward.
Hard as the campaign had been, they were infinitely better off than the French who had lacked petrol, repair crews, brakes for their cannon, and had the wrong ammunition for their Hotchkiss machine guns, while most of their officers were new from St Cyr. The British had had the right spirit but hardly any tanks, and whoever had been responsible for their design must have been suffering from a considerable weight on his conscience. The principal influence brought to bear on them had been the cavalry school of thought which had tried to make them as much like horses as possible, so that they were fast and lightly armed and could run away quickly but were useless when brought to battle. The British cavalry regiments had used them with their usual élan, charging like the run-up to the first fence at a race meeting, but this method had changed to others more wary as it was curbed by the diminishing stock of dashing officers and the dearth of tanks. One after another they’d been abandoned with broken tracks or other mechanical defects, and now littered the French countryside, square and ponderous, like garden sheds on wheels and about as flimsy.
The roads in front of Horndorff were jammed with refugees and blocked with broken vehicles but no one got in the way. Horsed carts were dragged off the pavé, cars and vans were driven into the ditches and hedges, their occupants jolting wildly as they bumped over the verge. Men and women pushing barrows and perambulators and bicycles flopped into the grass. Others abandoned their suitcases and packages, leaving them strewn across the road to be chewed to shreds by the tank treads as their owners bolted for safety. There was no shooting but more than one van, moving too slowly, was nudged from the road, and once Horndorff saw a cart slide sideways into a canal, a wheel buckling under it, the horse dragged backwards to the water, screaming with fear. He didn’t stop.
When they reached Scheywege they halted and the radio crackled with the news that the British were setting up guns. ‘Resistance is stiffening,’ the instructions came.
‘But of course,’ Horndorff growled as he took the report. ‘We missed our chance. All right–’ he gestured ahead ‘–forward.’
The countryside was featureless now, nothing on its surface to break the monotony but scattered groups of cottages or a level crossing. It was dangerous because there was nothing to hide them except an occasional farmhouse or osier-bed and they moved more warily, Horndorff watching every corner, every barn, every clump of bushes and trees, every low wall where a British battery might be sited.
‘Close hatches,’ he warned. ‘Stand by.’
The radio crackled again and information came that infantry was held up by a British strongpoint at Zoetsweg and that he was to give help. He stopped the section and, directing two of the tanks to a map reference to the north with instructions to pick him up later, waved his arm again so that the four tanks that were left began to clatter forward once more with the creaking protestation of springs and bogie wheels.
The fields now were quite flat with occasional potato clamps and a lot of dykes, and Horndorff guessed he was approaching the British front line. His eyes were roving round him and just as he caught a movement by a row of clamps in the field to his right the wireless operator started yelling. He shouted down to him to shut up.
‘But Herr Major! It’s the colonel! He’s saying we’re to take care because–’
Even as he yelled the warning, Horndorff saw a series of flashes and in the same moment caught a glimpse of the flat steel helmets the British wore.
‘Drive, reverse,’ he screamed. ‘Turret eleven o’clock! One-two-zero-zero–!’
But as the driver heaved on the brakes there was a tremendous crash below him and the tank shuddered and he smelt cordite and smoke. As he looked down, the white questioning faces of the gunner and the operator stared up at him and their lips formed the word, ‘Fire!’ Then he saw fumes coming from the louvres and, almost at once it seemed, there was a roar of flames and he heard the driver screaming. The inside of the tank turned into a glowing furnace and he scrambled to safety as the hidden guns among the potato clamps began to fire as fast as they could. The gunner followed him but he seemed to panic and began to run in circles. Them as the tank behind stopped dead, there was a muffled thump from inside that lifted the panic-stricken gunner into the ditch. The turret slid off sideways and the screaming that had started died down. Red fountains were playing around them now and Horndorff’s mouth was filled with the taste of cordite and he could smell the frightful smell of impending death that went with it. The air was full of lead and noise and he caught a split-second glimpse of tracer curving by in long hot rods that took the breath from his lungs with the vacuum of their passing.
One of the two remaining tanks was trying to bring its gun to bear but the British shells were still whistling past and he knew it was only a matter of time before it was hit.
‘Get out of it!’ he screamed at the fourth and last tank, leaping to his feet and running towards it, determined not to be taken prisoner.
The machine began to slew round on the narrow road, but there was a dyke on either side and it was difficult, and as he ran he saw a shell hit the other tank. The whipcrack of the explosion blew him off his feet and he rolled over the bank of the ditch, spattered with falling dirt and stones.
Lifting his head, he saw three figures jump out, their clothes on fire, but a machine gun among the potato clamps rattled and he heard the bullets chattering against the armour-plate. All three men went over like shot rabbits, still burning.
The last tank was still trying to turn, moving awkwardly like a crippled beetle. As it jerked away, he wondered if he could run after it, but that damned machine gun was still playing across the open fields and there wasn’t a scrap of cover where he could hide. Then, just as the tank began to roll, one of the shells screaming over his head hit it on the nearside and he saw the track coiling like a snake as it curled off the bogies. The tank swung sideways, and he saw it topple slowly into the dyke.
It hadn’t taken Flying Officer Conybeare long to realise that waiting in Villers-sur-Grandie was going to be a waste of time. Three hours had elapsed following the telephone call he’d made to his squadron but there had been no sign of the truck which had been promised and he’d gradually grown more and more uneasy.
There was an atmosphere of bewilderment and gloom about the place and when a lorryload of French soldiers had come hurtling through, pointing backwards and screaming ‘Les Allemands’, he’d decided it was time he set off walking. There were no other soldiers in the village, and now the carts, barrows, horse-drawn drays and ramshackle old motors had begun to appear out of backyards and head west, trailing a long column of men, women and children on foot. The speed of their assembly had seemed to indicate they’d been ready for take-off for some time.
