Ride Out The Storm

by John Harris

  Along the promenade small groups of men trudged wearily, and guides called out their names – ‘A Company, Green Howards’ – ‘East Yorks, this way’ – and a few voices were raised as stragglers tried to find lost units. Then they ran into a line of poilus with fixed bayonets who informed them that from that point on the promenade was reserved for the French. They appeared to think they’d been betrayed by the BEF and Gow was on the point of arguing the matter out when Noble dragged him away.

  ‘You can’t fight the whole sodden French army, you mad Scotch bastard,’ he said.

  Gow didn’t appear to agree and seemed, in fact, to feel he might even have a chance of winning, but Noble clung to his arm and dragged him to the beach. The tide was out, and over the wide stretch of sand they could see dark masses which they realised were soldiers. There was no bunching and no pushing, however, and to Noble they seemed much more orderly than many football queues he’d been in.

  A new flurry of shells landed on the promenade to bring down showers of masonry and tiles, and a wounded infantryman plucked at Noble’s trousers as he passed. As he backed away in horror, Gow dropped on one knee and, with a tenderness Noble hadn’t thought him capable of, emptied the last few drops from his water bottle to the dying man’s lips. As he nose again, he stared over the beach, his face stiff with grief. ‘What a waste,’ he said. ‘All them lovely fellers.’

  The front was now a lurid study in red and black, flames and smoke and darkness mingling in a frightful panorama of destruction, and as they reached the beach Noble became aware at once of the evil atmosphere of blood and mutilated flesh. There was no escape from it and not a breath of air to dissipate it, so that he remembered the stink of the slaughter-house near where he’d lived as a boy and thanked God that the darkness hid the horrors that caused it.

  As Eager swung towards the harbour, Hatton’s heart sank. Despite the shells exploding in the town, the ship sidled expertly to the mole as a paddle-steamer pulled out packed with men. There was no hustle and he saw the naval commander who’d greeted Vital still there, still calmly issuing orders, though shells were dropping only fifty yards away now. At every muffled crash Hatton flinched.

  ‘We’ll be going out stern first,’ he heard a voice above him say. ‘So keep an eye on that mast sticking out of the water, Number One.’

  Hatton watched numbly, unable to make himself go below. He was aware now how much store he’d set by the companionship he’d known in Vital, and the ship’s loss was like losing a limb.

  Eager was winching herself in as the paddle-steamer moved astern. A cross-channel ship appeared on her other side as she bumped softly against the piles, but none of the men on the pier showed any impatience, waiting with incredible calm until the business of seamanship was finished and the navy was ready for them. As the gangways slammed into place, the officer on the end of the pier gestured and they began to move forward. They didn’t argue or push, the whole dun-coloured column quietly edging forward as its head was swallowed by the two ships.

  Eager’s crew worked fast, helping limping men aboard with gentleness and compassion. Immediately, the soldiers, seemed to feel their worries were over and fell asleep in grotesque positions, their heads lolling sideways under the heavy helmets. Among them was what appeared to be half the canine population of France, and along the quay Hatton could see a military policeman shooting more dogs as they were brought to him.

  The loading was carried out at tremendous speed, the guns’ crews in their anti-flash gear and steel helmets like automatons against the reddened sky. Soon, thank God, he thought, they’d be off.

  He’d had his injured ribs strapped up but because he felt he could never go below he offered himself to the ship’s doctor. The medical orderly who had been in the whaler was working alongside him, too, and they were moving among the men on the deck in the increasing light attending to the injured.

  ‘I think we ought to get some of the worst shock cases into the engine room where it’s warmer,’ the doctor said. ‘Perhaps you’ll help.’

  The horror of being trapped flooded over Hatton again but the doctor was waiting for his answer and when he saw the medical orderly nod, he felt there was nothing he could do but nod himself.

  Conybeare was another who had found fresh transport, though it was a mere pram, no more than ten feet long, and there was only one oar. It had once been used to enable its owner to board a cabin cruiser at Newport in the Isle of Wight and its stern bore the legend Tender to Opal.

  Horndorff stared at it in the increasing light. ‘You are mad, Officer Conybeare,’ he said.

  Conybeare, who seemed to gain confidence with every minute that Horndorff lost it, grinned. ‘I expect so,’ he said. ‘Had an uncle they had to put away.’

  ‘Put away?’

  ‘Asylum. What do they call it in Germany? Madhouse.’

  ‘Irrenhaus. That’s where you should be, Officer Conybeare.’ Shells were dropping further along the beach in bright white flashes but Conybeare seemed totally absorbed and it was he who eventually found a second oar. It was different in size from the one they had already but Conybeare didn’t seem very worried.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll pull the boat down to the water’s edge.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  Conybeare shrugged. ‘Then I shall shoot you,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Perhaps I would be better dead,’ Horndorff said bitterly.

  Conybeare looked surprised. ‘Oh, I shan’t kill you,’ he pointed out. ‘Just in the arm or the shoulder. It’ll be very painful and you’ll still have to go with me.’

  His face red with rage, Horndorff took the weight of the boat. As it began to float, Conybeare stood by the stern and gestured with the Luger.

  ‘I am to row?’ Horndorff said. ‘I am a German officer.’

  ‘Well,’ Conybeare said patiently, ‘I’m a British officer, and one of us has to. And since you are my–’

  ‘–prisoner and you are taking me to England–’

  ‘Exactly.’

  With darkness, Sievewright had finally decided the time was ripe to move into Dunkirk. There seemed to be a lull in the bombardment and he thought that now he might safely pass through. He glanced at the dog. It was sitting in front of him, its eyes on his face, and as he realised he’d be unable to take it with him, he decided he must get rid of it.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Away!’

  The dog grinned and wagged its tail and he tried in French. ‘Allez,’ he said ‘Allez-vous en.’

  The dog remained where it was and, because he couldn’t bear the idea of it wandering the town, starved and terrified by the explosions, he came to the conclusion that it was his duty to shoot it.

  He took a deep breath, steeling himself to the job, then he fished into his pocket for the remains of the biscuits. Tossing them to the ground, he waited for the dog to crouch over them then he lifted the French rifle and pulled the trigger.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the mess a .303 calibre bullet could make of a skull at close range or the way it flung the dog’s body away, whirling it round like a scrap of dirty rag to hurl it against a tree, and he had to get up quickly and walk away, his stomach heaving. All the way into the town, he felt nauseated.

  Eager was already singling up her lines as he stepped aboard. A petty officer indicated he should go towards the bows, and he moved among the crowded men and found a seat on a coil of heavy mooring rope. There, he sat down, holding his French rifle between his knees and waited. The picture of the dead dog still bothered him but he felt he’d done his duty as he ought.

  ‘Destroyer, Herr Leutnant!’ The call came sharply across the chilly morning air. ‘Direction oh-eight-three. Range diminishing.’

  Hinze took the references and plotted the target on his artillery board, working out the range and angle of sight. Shouting from his position by his truck for the Gun Post Officers, he gave them instructions. ‘Fresh target. All guns! Range four-eight-five-zero. Basic direct
ion… HE… Charge 3…’

  As the orders were called, the muzzles of the guns swung, moving slowly but with infinite menace.

  Eager was still turning and had just picked up speed so that the first salvo fell short and she began to throb like a living animal as she leapt forward in the water, her bows up, her stern nailed to her wash by her screw.

  ‘More two degrees!’ The call was passed back among the dunes and Hinze’s guns fired again.

  In the engine room, Hatton felt the thump of the second salvo as it burst beyond the ship. The shock seemed to hit her seaward flank like a blow with a giant hammer and his heart started to pound sickeningly in his throat.

  The job of getting injured men into the engine room had a special terror for him. At the bottom of the long frail ladders, he felt he was working in absolute blindness. The men about him were grim-faced, as aware as he was of the furious anger of steam from split pipes, and he could see one young stoker staring at his gauges with tears in his eyes, his throat full of sobs. No one said anything to him, however, or made any attempt to jar him out of his emotional trance.

  He was just returning to the deck when Hinze’s third salvo caught the ship. There was a crash below him. He saw flames spring from the boilers, and stokers with their clothes on fire. The lights went out immediately. In the confusion the pumps and electrical machinery stopped and a bank of tubes in Number Theee boiler burst in a chaos of heat, scalding steam and water. Immediately he was reminded of Vital and, as the ship staggered, he almost fell from the ladder, realising to his horror that it had come away from the platform so that he had to scramble the last few rungs to safety.

  From below, over the roar of the turbines, the awful heat and the ringing crash that had sent a shower of rust flakes down, he could hear a screaming clatter of wrecked machinery and men shouting. As he burst on deck, bent double with the pain in his side, more shots straddled the ship and he heard splinters sing overhead. Ready-use ammunition began to explode and he saw a soldier trying to run along the crowded deck, his trousers burning.

  The loud-hailer started. ‘The ship has been hit and is down by the stern. Every available man to assemble in the bows.’

  The seafaring language seemed to be beyond most of the soldiers and Hatton automatically began to push at them. ‘Get forward,’ he shouted. ‘Up to the bows!’

  He grabbed a large pink-faced soldier whose helmet seemed too small for his outsize head. ‘Up to the sharp end, man,’ he said. ‘Quick!’

  The soldier stared at him, then he nudged his friend. ‘Come on, Fred. I suppose we’d better.’

  Unlike the British, the Frenchmen didn’t respond and Hatton grabbed their arms, pointing to the bows.

  ‘Allez,’ he said ‘Vite!’

  They seemed to resent his efforts and, as he grabbed the arm of a black soldier wearing a turban, the man evidently thought he was trying to force him off the ship and raised his weapon. For a moment, Hatton was staring down the muzzle. Then a rifle butt jerked up alongside him and the man fell backwards.

  Hatton turned to stare at the pink-faced soldier. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Hinze was still watching Eager through his field glasses, wondering if he could hit her again.

  He called for the range and frowned as the answer was called back to him.

  ‘Too far away,’ he said. Then, as he glanced at the slope of the dunes, he began to wonder if there would be time to move one of the guns to a rear slope to give it extra elevation. It seemed to be worth trying.

  Daisy had just been crossing the entrance to the harbour as Eager had appeared.

  They’d run all night up and down in front of a large red-brick building, while the remains of a big ship lay smouldering to the east, her decks white-hot with the fires inside her. With the first light, Kenny Pepper had seen more soldiers arriving on the beaches, column after column of them marching through the gaps in the dunes.

  Ernie Williams was standing alongside him, staring with him.

  ‘Think we’ve lost the war, Ern?’ he asked.

  Ernie rubbed his nose. ‘It fucken looks like it,’ he said.

  Gilbert Williams appeared from where he’d been passing cans of fuel down to the whimpering Brundrett. ‘I reckon we ought to be thinking of shoving off,’ he said. ‘One more run in then we’ll go.’

  In his heart of hearts Kenny Pepper wasn’t sorry, and when the bombs started falling again, his heart was back in his mouth at once and he found himself wishing to God they could go immediately.

  The destroyer they’d been feeding was just swinging on to course when the shell hit her and Kenny saw the cloud of steam spring from the hole in her side. As she slowed to a standstill he saw she was already down by the stern and men in khaki were jumping into the sea.

  ‘Stand by,’ Gilbert shouted. ‘We’ll have to pick the buggers up. You ready, Kenny?’

  Kenny waved and, as the aeroplanes roared overhead, Ernie sprinted to the gun. ‘I’ll get one of the bastards this time,’ he yelled.

  His wall eye squinting as he stared along the barrel, he looked ugly and quite inefficient and, after all his earlier lack of success, Kenny didn’t for a moment expect him to hit anything.

  Scharroo and Marie-Josephine had just returned to the beach when Eager was hit.

  When dawn came, Scharroo had been sitting on the dunes with Marie-Josephine sleeping alongside him. She had cut her hair with her nail scissors during the night, but she hadn’t made a very good job of it and she still looked like a girl with her slender neck inside the wide man’s collar of the battledress blouse. With the first light, however, she’d found a long blue scarf that someone had abandoned. Wound round her neck, it gave her a blockier look, and as she stood in front of him, staring towards a ship wallowing just beyond the harbour, he saw something tender and young had gone from her face.

  The lines of men still stretched to the water’s edge, and as they watched them, wondering which one to join, Scharroo found he was unable to face the humiliation of being turned away again. Glancing at Marie-Josephine, he saw to his surprise that quite clearly she had come to the same decision.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘We must decide something else.’ Her determination wearied him. He’d always thought the old races of Europe were worn-out, tired with existing too long, but now he realised they were like a long-distance runner who, past his best as a sprinter, had acquired a great deal of endurance.

  He was just about to start arguing again when the first air raid of the day began with waves of machines thousands of feet up, apparently dropping their bombs haphazardly. Then the fighters came in low, roaring along the beach, and as the men began to run he grabbed Marie-Josephine’s hand and pulled her to where a shabby grey-painted boat lay on its side on the sand. They flung themselves down behind it as the bullets swept along the beach, whipping up the grit in a travelling wave.

  As the racket stopped, Scharroo scrambled to his feet. The flung sand was drifting thick as mist, and new plumes of smoke were rising to flatten out over the town in a dingy grey ceiling that veiled the sun. Men were patiently taking up their positions again as though nothing had happened, and a party of Guardsmen returned to a wrecked barge they’d been unloading. Then he saw that Marie-Josephine was still crouching on all fours, staring at the boat under whose rounded hull they’d sheltered, and he saw her expression change.

  It was a small clinker-built vessel with a transom stern, and to Scharroo it looked like a converted ship’s lifeboat. The name, Queen of France, was painted on its counter.

  ‘C’est un presage,’ she whispered. ‘Un augure.’

  She climbed into the boat, staring over the stern at a strange old-fashioned rudder that looked like a large bucket-shaped claw which opened and shut with a wheel that operated a screw attached to the tiller. There didn’t appear to be much wrong with the boat except that its bilges were full of sand and water and it was a hundred yards from the sea, sorry-looking and useless.

  ‘
If we push it so–’ Marie-Josephine gestured to indicate the vertical. ‘–it will float off at high sea, and there is that man by the bar who knows about motor boats.’ She looked at Scharroo, her eyes shining. ‘You must fetch him, Walter. He will know what to do.’

  As the sun lifted it became clear to Stoos that there wasn’t much time left. The affair was almost over. The British were scraping the bottom of the barrel now, using every ship and small boat that could be dredged up from forgotten corners of boatyards and creeks – no matter how forlorn, how tarnished the paintwork, how deep the dirty water gurgling in the bilges. The guns from the east were thudding constantly, and occasionally he could hear other guns in the west – nearer guns – Hinze’s guns – banging away at the shipping. The sound stirred in him an almost insane desire to be part of it.

  He’d watched Dodtzenrodt and what was left of the squadron take off in the first glimmer of daylight. Dodtzenrodt didn’t like him and would do his best to make as much of the incident at the hangar as he could, and, as the machines vanished into the sky, Stoos chewed at his nails. As he approached the hangar, Hamcke watched him warily.

  ‘I shall be testing D/6980,’ Stoos said. ‘I shall be taking Unteroffizier Wunsche with me.’

  Wunsche was just coming out of the mess tent carrying a cup of coffee when Stoos appeared. He was unshaven and his hair was rumpled, as though he’d just awakened.

  ‘We’re flying, Wunsche,’ Stoos said. ‘We’re testing 6980.’