by John Harris
‘You’ll not get that lot home, mate,’ Rice, Allerton’s batman jeered.
The guard, a stunted man with vast boots, made a derisive gesture. ‘Awa’ and use yer nut,’ he said. ‘We’re takkin’ ’em back tae Glasgae tae march ’em up Sauchiehall Street in chains.’
The countryside ahead now was flat with miles of marshy fields that stretched as far as the horizon, all cut up by a network of canals and highways at right angles to each other. Every field was below the level of the canal and each had its own diminutive dyke, and into this empty area the whole of the BEF was pouring. Every road was visible and jammed with transport and troops, great columns of them stretching back to the horizon, all of them drawing towards a single point on the coast: ambulances, lorries, trucks, Bren gun carriers, artillery columns, everything except tanks, all crawling north over the featureless countryside in the sunshine, their camouflage making them look like slow-moving rivers of mud from some far-off upheaval of the land.
There was shellfire up ahead somewhere and as they drove towards it Allerton felt his face grow tight, the skin pulled taut and his jaws aching with the clenching of his teeth.
‘They’ve been having a day of prayer for us in England,’ Rice was observing conversationally in the back of the truck.
One of the other men chuckled. ‘That’ll be why the whole bloody thing’s falling apart,’ he said.
The conversation irritated Allerton. It had once been his pleasure to refer cleverly to guns as slimy tubes of hellish coldness and to soldiering as a low, undignified and hurtful pursuit, but he was beginning to see now that it was more than merely that. It contained a world of grief and pity, and made him shed his light-heartedness and the subdued sense of adventure that had persisted in shoving its way through his intellectual blaséness. That was gone now, to be replaced by grimness and fear and a perpetual mounting weariness of body and spirit. It was a fortnight now since they’d had a decent sleep, and some of the drivers about him had feet that were so swollen they’d taken off their boots and socks and fell asleep every time the column came to a stop at one of the paralysing road blocks.
They had reached a village now, a mere cluster of ugly houses with front gardens facing a series of shabby fields, and a few peasants standing by the roadside. In the fields opposite were anti-aircraft guns which had been blown up by artificers, their split barrels like vast metal flowers, and up ahead Allerton could see the first sign of the coast in a great black cloud hanging low on the horizon, its stormy centre bulging down as though about to swamp the earth.
There was more shelling ahead and he could see the flashes in the growing dusk. The shells were falling near a battery of 25-pounders drawn up in a field. The procession of vehicles came to a stop at once and Allerton and the others left the truck and dived for the open doorway of an abandoned cottage. As the shells exploded, the peasants began to run, one of them a girl, tall and good-looking in a rough country way, and as she ran the breeze caught her thin summer dress and blew it against her hips and large firm breasts. As she passed the doorway where he crouched, another salvo of shells came down and she crumpled and sprawled on her back in the street, screaming in a terrible dry-throated way. Allerton ran out, caught hold of her ankles and began to drag her into the doorway. She made no attempt to help herself and lay as though unconscious while her clothes rode up beyond her stockings, over her strong white thighs and half-way up her body. There was another crash and he flung himself down, falling on top of her, his eyes full of the flash of the explosion, in his ears the clatter of bricks and tiles and the pattering sound of splinters.
Then suddenly there was silence and he lifted his head. As he did so the girl opened her eyes. Her face was dirty and marked with tearstains and her dark hair was dulled with dust. They lay there, their bodies entwined as though they were lovers, but she was staring at him with fear and hatred as though he’d tried to rape her. Mumbling his apologies, Allerton climbed from her and she rose also and without a word disappeared among the rubble.
Supply lorries had been wrecked up ahead, and where two ambulances were blazing in bright orange pyres the wounded were being dragged out and placed on stretchers. One of the drivers had been killed in his cab, half flattened by the blast against the metal, and over the stink of burning diesel there was an awful smell of gunpowder and raw flesh. His comrades had tried to pull him out but had given up in disgust, and what was left hung half out of the open door. Even as the rescue parties worked at the flames, other men were snatching the opportunity to grab tins of peas, potatoes, biscuits, sugar and tea, and even spare parts.
One of the wrecked vehicles was a NAAFI lorry containing supplies for troop canteens, and the manager, a middle-aged civilian, was offering gin and whisky from the damaged cases in the back. ‘Come on, lads,’ he was shouting. ‘Stock up. All you can drink,’ and Allerton managed to claim a bottle of whisky which he handed round to what was left of his men.
The convoy still remained stationary but by this time the light had almost gone, and Allerton felt better because the shelling had stopped completely now and he knew they were hidden from the dive-bombers. He was longing for a wash and a decent sleep but the countryside had been so green all day he’d never really believed he was fleeing for his life.
The convoy was still there when it grew dark and, since there was water on either side of them, someone seemed to have decided that any attempt to move would land the lot of them in the dyke. After a while, an artillery officer Allerton knew came past and he offered him a swig of the whisky. The officer was informative but vague.
‘Belgians are going to throw in their hand,’ he said.
‘Thought they would,’ Allerton admitted.
‘News came through about eleven.’
‘How’s headquarters taking it?’
The artilleryman considered. ‘Not too much panic, considering.’
Allerton offered the whisky again. ‘What’s the plan?’ he asked. ‘Have we got one?’
‘I thought someone might know what we were doing.’
‘Shouldn’t think so. I think we’re making it up as we go along.’
‘What do we do then, when the Germans come? Bite ’em?’
The artilleryman grinned. ‘There’s one thing,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s disagreeing. We don’t know enough to disagree about.’ His mood changed and he suddenly looked dog-weary. ‘I think the whole bloody thing’s a shambles,’ he said. ‘A present from those bloody people in Parliament who thought an inefficient army was more moral than an efficient one and that it was kinder to shoot with small guns than big ones. That and panic spread by Jerry.’
He held out his cigarette case and they lit up, shielding the flame with their hands.
‘I’ve heard stories,’ the artilleryman went on, ‘of thousands of tanks, and parachutists disguised as nuns. But I’ve seen none and tank chaps I’ve spoken to say that these famous panzers aren’t all that good, anyway. I think Jerry’s won this round with a few motor-cyclists and a lot of bluff.’
Allerton listened to the diatribe patiently. ‘Where are we supposed to head for?’ he asked.
‘Dunkirk, I’m told. But it’s a mess. They’re bombing it.’
Allerton’s artilleryman was dead right. They were.
The streets were a litter of burning rubbish and scattered bricks from tumbled houses, and wrecked vehicles stood in groups on every corner. By the station there were hundreds of French and Belgians but already they were being directed from the shambles to the beaches where the slow process of lifting by ships’ boats had now being going on for some time.
It was not yet properly organised, however, and was still painstakingly difficult, and the senior naval officer in the town was by no means satisfied that he was doing all he could. He studied the fragile East Mole carefully. ‘It looks strong enough for ships to berth,’ he said. ‘Let’s try. Signal the next one in to have a go. The flare of her bows caught by the flames of burning warehouses, the ship berthed,
and immediately men started running towards her along the mole, their boots clumping on the boards.
‘Signal Dover,’ the senior naval officer said.
As men began to scramble across the decks of the first ship alongside, HMS Vital was approaching the coast. Darkness had fallen and Dunkirk was shrouded under heavy smoke. The roadsteads were littered with wrecks and to the west oil tanks were blazing. The flames silhouetted the moles and the bridge that was jammed open at the entrance to the basin. Wrecked cranes stood out like crippled storks and, as the smoke lifted, they could see fires in the town itself.
Hatton stared at it with narrowed eyes. Despite his lack of experience, he had imagination and he found his heart was skidding uncomfortably under his shirt. His head turned uneasily as he heard the howl of aeroplane engines and the thud of bombs, but the aircraft were above the smoke and it wasn’t possible to see them, though the knowledge that they were there worried him a great deal.
He was still staring fearfully at the town when a signal arrived from Dover. Boats had been swung out on their davits ready for lowering but now, as he read the signal, Hough turned and jerked Hatton out of his worried contemplation of the burning shoreline.
‘East Mole, Hatton,’ he said. ‘Know anything about it?’
It took a moment or two for Hatton to bring himself back to the present. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he said. ‘It’s just a narrow plankway.’
‘Could we get alongside?’
Hatton’s mind went back to the few rudiments of ship-handling he’d learnt. ‘The tide runs between the piles,’ he said. ‘It’d be difficult but the piles could be used as mooring posts at a pinch.’
Hough turned to the first lieutenant. ‘Have the boats swung back inboard, Number One, and let’s have a few of your most athletic chaps handy. They might have to jump ashore to take the ropes. Hatton, it’ll be your job to keep these chaps moving. They don’t know their arse from their elbow when it comes to ships and they won’t have an idea what to do or where to go. See that they’re told. And let’s have a petty officer on every boarding point. It won’t be easy to keep count but we’ll try.’
As Hatton left the bridge to take up a position near the point-fives, his eyes swung back to Dunkirk and the huge pall of smoke blotting out the sky. He’d heard that two million gallons of oil were going up and the smoke seemed a mile wide and appeared to rise thousands of feet into the air. To Hatton it looked like the shadow of doom.
Doom didn’t seem so far away just then to Private Angelet, of the 121st Regiment, just to the north of Helluin. Among the groups of soldiers trudging along with him there was no concern with the horror over the horizon. They were deep in a horror of their own and the lack of discipline shook Angelet to the core.
There were still refugees among them, despite the darkness, civilians and troops together in a chaos of guns, tanks and military vehicles. Most of the civilians were in the last stages of exhaustion by this time, their feet tied around with string and brown paper where their shoes had given out, and covered with mud from flinging themselves in the ditches to hide from the enemy aeroplanes.
Not long before they’d passed the body of a small boy ripped to bloody meat by a shell, and a man who was said to have been shot as a spy. As he seemed to be the owner of a café, it seemed more likely to Angelet that he’d been killed because he wouldn’t produce cognac.
The soldiers filled a double row of vehicles that blocked the road and the sight sent a chill through Angelet; then, as they passed a broken-down red-brick château they saw cavalrymen shooting their horses and throwing their arms into the moat.
‘What’s up?’ Chouteau asked.
‘The army’s cut off,’ he was told. The Germans are right behind us.’
Chouteau turned slowly and stared pointedly to the south. ‘They’re not right behind us,’ he said.
Angelet swallowed nervously as he listened to the exchange. He still whimpered occasionally but considerably less than he had the previous day. He was slowly getting control of himself, gathering, it seemed, all the loose ends of nerves that made him up, pulling them in one after the other until he seemed to be holding them all in a tight ball in his small and very dirty fist. ‘Where will they go?’ he asked Chouteau.
‘The coast,’ Chouteau said. He was tramping stolidly north again, unspeaking, not complaining, not worrying, an old soldier saving his breath for walking.
‘What happens then?’ Angelet asked.
Chouteau glanced at him. Angelet still looked a child but in the light of the flames he could see there was a subtle something about his eyes that had changed.
‘God knows,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they’ll re-arm and re-form us.’
‘What if they don’t?’
‘Then I don’t know, mon brave.’
There was a long pause in which they could hear only the tramp of boots. Angelet was conscious of an enormous blister on his heel but it was a very small worry considering the way his world had fallen apart. He had a loving family in Marseilles and a girlfriend he adored, but he’d long since decided that he was never likely to see any of them again. The whole German army was between them and it made such decisions easy. ‘When will our people in the south break through and join up with us again?’ he asked.
Chouteau snorted. ‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘Not with men like Deshayes and Favre.’
‘You mean we’re defeated?’
‘I’m not.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Chouteau shrugged. ‘Go on fighting, I suppose. Somewhere. Somehow. This is the third time in seventy years, mon brave, that the Germans have driven across France.’
‘We beat them last time,’ Angelet said stoutly.
Chouteau shrugged. ‘Then why are they back again? It was the British and the Americans who saved us then. Make no mistake. That’s why I’m going on fighting.’
Angelet considered for a moment. ‘I think I will, too,’ he said.
When Tremenheere returned to Athelstan, Knevett was on board. With him was another man whom Tremenheere knew, a plump man with a red face, whose name was Collings. They made no attempt to lift aboard the boxes of supplies. Tremenheere was the paid hand and as such was expected to do the work. The crisis hadn’t changed that.
‘We’ve a couple of hours yet,’ Knevett said. ‘How long will it take you to sort out your affairs?’
Tremenheere grinned. ‘I haven’t got any affairs.’
‘Fine. We’ll need some containers for spare fuel or water. What about that big barrel we got off Sorcerer last year? It’s at your lodgings, isn’t it?’
Tremenheere said nothing because he was none too anxious to face Nell Noone just then and Knevett went on.
‘Better get it,’ he said. ‘We’ll remove all unnecessary furnishings, too, while we’re at it. Wouldn’t want ’em spoiling.’
Tremenheere carried the chairs from the saloon and placed them in the dinghy, with the stool and a box they filled with ice, and everything else he could think of. As he dug out the barrel at Osborne Road, Nell Noone, who was sitting in the dark in the kitchen, listening to the news on the radio, came to the back door to watch.
‘I suppose you’re pushing off now you’ve had your fun,’ she said.
He decided it might be a good idea to take as many of his belongings as he could with him and she followed him into the house, pulling the curtains to turn on the light, and watching him carefully as he took out a spare shirt, socks and a jersey from the drawer in the kitchen dresser where he kept his possessions.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘I dunno. Dover, I think.’
‘To fetch the soldiers out?’
He said nothing and, as he paused to light his pipe, she went to the cupboard and brought out a block of tobacco. ‘You’d better have this,’ she said.
He took the tobacco without comment and fished in the drawer again in the hope that he might turn up a forgotten half-crown. There was no money but he fo
und the two medals he’d been given after the last war. They were only campaign medals but he stuffed them in his pocket. They had no value beyond proving his service but he thought someone might ask about it.
Nell Noone was still watching him closely. ‘How are you for money?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got a bit.’
She fished in her purse and produced a ten-shilling note. ‘Better have that. You can give it me back some time. When are you off?’
‘He said a couple of hours.’
She giggled and he sighed, knowing what was coming. ‘There’s just time before you go then,’ she said.
It had been a day of disappointment for the admiral at Dover, too, and though the small boats had started moving, it was apparent that until they arrived off the beaches loading would continue to be slow. Less than 10,000 men had been landed in England that day. Fortunately, the battle was not yet lost and the gap where the Belgian army had lain down its arms was already closing. It was nowhere neat and there were still gaping holes, and in the darkness and the confusion units lost touch and commanders lost contact, but the divisions were making their way out of the turmoil and the new front was slowly taking shape as men groped for positions.
Among them, near Helluin, Lance-Corporal Gow lay with a small detachment of men by a bridge over the River Este. Nearby were cows and a manure heap where the flies had bothered them until dark, and in addition, Gow’s nose was peeling, his fair northern skin burned by the sun. He and his fellow Guardsmen had driven the Germans back from the Este once already but now, with the cooks and the batmen in the line, they’d been informed that the halt could be only temporary and that the following morning they’d have to pull back again.
‘You’re to hang on to that bloody bridge, Gow,’ his sergeant had told him earnestly. He jabbed at the map he’d handed over. ‘They’ll come down this road here and try to get behind us, see. There’s a field regiment of artillery coming up to help but they won’t be here till tomorrow morning and we’ve got to stay till they arrive. OK?’
