'So that's Dunkirk,' Sykes said to Tanner. 'Charmin' lookin' place.' He began to sing, ' "Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside . . ."'
Tanner laughed, then Hepworth and McAllister joined in, and in a few moments the whole company was bellowing it out, singing the same verse over and over again.
'Sarge?' said Hepworth, when they had eventually stopped, 'do you think there'll be donkey rides and a band and everything?'
'Probably, Hep. Deck-chairs for hire and fish and chips.'
They reached the Bergues-Furnes canal just before eleven o'clock. 'Jesus, Stan,' said Tanner, gazing at the mass of abandoned vehicles that ran the length of the road. 'Will you look at that?'
'We need to get scavenging, Sarge.'
'There better be something worth nicking, because I tell you, Stan, that lot are going to be more useful to the enemy than to us.'
'But surely they've been immobilized, Sarge,' said Hepworth. 'No one's going to be stupid enough to leave them for Jerry to use.'
'Not to drive, Hep,' said Tanner, 'but as cover. Look at this place. It's flat as a pancake, and here's a long line of British Army trucks to help Jerry as he crawls up to the canal. Bloody hell, it's enough to make you weep. I tell you, there's not enough thinking ahead around here.'
Colonel Corner was waiting for them on the bridge, so the men were given the order to fall out along the road while the battalion OC had a conference with the company commanders. 'I don't suppose I'll be long, Sergeant,' said Peploe.
'All right, sir. We'll see if we can scrounge some ammo and supplies.'
Peploe nodded, then hurried off towards the bridge.
'All right, boys,' said Tanner, calling the company around him, 'have a quick dekko at these vehicles. Any weapons, ammo, grub - take 'em, all right?'
Most of the vehicles had been run off the road. Their engines had been wrecked, windscreens broken and tyres slashed, but while their former owners had been careful to make them unusable to the enemy, most seemed to have left on board whatever was there. By the time Peploe returned twenty minutes later, Tanner and Sykes had found two Brens and some crates of unopened ammunition. Several others had been equally successful.
'There's a stack of stuff here, sir.' Tanner grinned. 'Look at all this - and we've barely started.'
'We're going to need it, I think.' Peploe was grim- faced. 'We've just met up with Brigadier Beckwith-Smith - the chap commanding First Guards Brigade - and he announced to us that we were among the luckiest men in the British Army because we had been given the honour of being the rearguard here at Dunkirk.'
'And what did you say, sir? That it wasn't that great an honour?'
'No. I just swallowed hard and tried not to look as terrified as I felt.'
'What does it mean exactly?'
'That we've got to hold this line until we're told to do otherwise.'
'Christ. Sounds like a suicide job to me.'
'I don't know. I hope not. The Second Coldstream Guards will be on our right up to this bridge, the battalion's got fifteen hundred yards to the left of the bridge and then it's the First Duke of Wellington's - they're part of Third Brigade.'
'And what about the company?'
'I thought we might be amalgamated, but the colonel wants us to stay as we are. A Company's going to be next to the bridge, then us, then B Company. The bridge will be blown once the last stragglers are across but it's fairly obvious the enemy will concentrate on it, so we'll be supporting A Company's defence. We need to dig in and see what cover and observation points we can use. Battalion HQ will be with the Coldstreams at that windmill back there at Krommenhouck.' He pointed to it, standing out from the flat ground a mile or so to the north.
'And what about C Company and the rest of the missing men, sir?'
'The colonel was furious about that - and rather blaming the French for cutting across our withdrawal lines and mucking everything up in Poperinghe. Poor old French - everyone's got it in for them at the moment. Anyway, he wants to send someone into town to look for them. The obvious person is Captain Hillary, the OC of B Company, but the colonel wants a couple of men to go with him. Hillary said he'd rather not send his own chaps as he was undermanned. I said I'd send along a couple from D Company.'
'But how long will it take? Sir, we've got a job to do here. The Germans might arrive at any moment.'
Peploe shook his head. 'No one's expecting them until tomorrow, and even if things go disastrously wrong not until tonight. Don't forget the rest of Fifth Div are defending the Yser to the south of here and even then the Germans have got to pack up and follow us. I think we do have a bit of time to prepare, actually. And we're taking the OC's car, so it shouldn't take long to get there.'
Tanner thought for a moment, then said, 'Sir, let me go. I'll take Sykes.'
'I'd rather have you here, overseeing things.'
'Sir, please. I'd like to get a look at the lie of the land. If we do eventually fall back, it'll probably be during the night so a bit of orientation will come in handy.'
Peploe screwed up his face. 'Oh, all right,' he said eventually. 'But try not to be too long.' He pointed out Captain Hillary, who was talking with one of his lieutenants beside the bridge. 'You'd better go and speak to him now.'
Tanner nodded and looked about for Sykes.
'And, Sergeant,' said Peploe, 'what are your thoughts about our position?'
'Some kind of building would be useful. We can use it as an OP.' He glanced along the canal bank. 'There's a few cottages along there. Then it's a question of digging in. We've been lucky with the soil so far and I reckon it'll be good along here too - nice and easy to dig out. But, sir,' he added, 'we need to stockpile stores. We need some men digging in and others scrounging for supplies.'
Peploe clasped his shoulder. 'Thanks, Tanner. That sounds like good advice. Good luck - and if you see Blackstone or Slater, make sure you take them straight to redcaps.'
Tanner grinned. So the lieutenant guessed. He grabbed Sykes and they hurried over to Captain Hillary, a tall man, with a square, clean-shaven face - one of the few in the battalion to have shaved over the past couple of days. 'This is awfully good of you both,' he said amiably. 'I'm afraid it'll be rather a bore.'
Taking the car, they drove through the fields and network of dykes and canals towards Dunkirk, passing reams of soldiers heading for the coast. Some still looked fit and spry but many more trudged northwards, heads down, with various pieces of equipment and uniform missing. Aircraft droned overhead, and even from the confines of the car they could hear bombs falling and exploding beyond the town. The pall of smoke still hung heavily over the darkened buildings.
The town was a wreck. Broken and abandoned vehicles were everywhere. Tram wires lay twisted and curling on the roads. Craters pocked the streets. A number of houses were burning, and all of them had suffered some kind of damage. Walls had tumbled into the streets; half-destroyed roofs shorn of their tiles hung above exposed bedrooms or attics. Debris lay everywhere - masonry, rubbish, weapons, even dead bodies, of troops and civilians alike. The stench was appalling - of decaying flesh, dust and smouldering rubber. Troops scurried past. Many, Tanner noticed, were drunk, swaying awkwardly as they tried to dodge the detritus of war.
'Damn me!' exclaimed Captain Hillary. 'Where the hell do we begin?'
'We need to get to the port, sir,' said Tanner. 'We'll get a better picture there.'
They were stopped several times, and forced to reverse down blocked streets, but eventually they reached the seafront at Malo-les-Bains and saw, for the first time, the true scale of the evacuation. Thousands of men were crammed onto the beaches like ants. Others drifted in lines from the beaches out to sea where a number of small boats and whalers were coming as close to the shore as they dared. Yet more vehicles had been driven onto the sand. Trucks, guns, carriers stood abandoned, with endless piles of boxes and discarded kit. Out at sea, ships of all sizes filled the horizon. The sound of battle, now that they were free of the noise-deade
ning effect of the buildings, was deafening. Guns from warships were firing, the pom-pom-pom of Bofors mixing with the heavier, thunderous sound of bigger artillery. Further out to sea, a ship was burning; they could just see its hull tilting, angry flames and thick black smoke pumping skywards. Aircraft swooped and dived overhead, engines racing. A number of Stukas were attacking the port behind them to their left, while machine-gun fire could be heard above. On their left, a sea wall ran behind the beach to a long pier. More than half a dozen ships were moored alongside this delicate mole, while a dense column of men spread out along the wall onto the pier. For more than a minute, the three sat in the car, speechless, staring at the scene before them.
'It's pandemonium,' said Captain Hillary at length. 'Utter, bloody pandemonium. I'll take out the rotor arm and then I suggest we leave the car here for the moment. I'll have a look on the beach. You, Corporal, try and get along the sea wall, and Sergeant, go into the town. They'll only have been here a short time, so hopefully they won't be too far along in these queues. But let's face it, the chances of us finding them can't be high. We'll give it a go, then head back.' He looked at his watch. 'It's a quarter to one. Let's meet back here at two.'
Tanner slung his rifle across his shoulder and brought the MP35 to his waist. Since his ducking in the moat, he had stripped and cleaned the sub-machine-gun twice, then dried and oiled the bullets in the magazine he'd had loaded at the time. Now it worked perfectly. Like the Spandaus they had captured in Norway and in France, he reckoned the weapon was a masterpiece of engineering - nicely balanced, beautifully put together and with some fine touches of workmanship, like the safety catch above the trigger that was so easy to click on and off. He still had another half-dozen magazines in his respirator bag, but after that the sub-machine-gun would be useless, unless he could find some more of the same calibre bullets. Perhaps, he thought, he would hand it over to someone at Enfield or in the War Office if he ever made it back - he reckoned the British Army could do with a weapon like it.
He wandered along the seafront a short distance, then cut along a back-street towards the centre of Dunkirk. Electricity cables lay on the ground, while halfway down another house had been blown out. He trudged on towards the port and saw some British troops coming towards him. Glancing at their sleeves he saw they were gunners, not Yorkshire Rangers.
'Who are you looking for, mate?' one of them asked.
'Yorks Rangers. Seen any?'
'Try the cellars. Most people have been hiding in them. It's the only safe place around here.'
'Cheers.'
He entered the nearest building, and immediately heard men coughing. A cellar door ran off the main hallway and it was open. He nearly gagged at the stench of alcohol, sweat, damp and stale urine. He shone a torch inside but blank faces stared back at him, not just soldiers but women and children too.
'Any Yorks Rangers here?' he asked. No one answered.
He tried several more buildings near the port, but got the same empty reply from each, then headed back towards the seafront at Malo-les-Bains to check the cellars there. This place, he thought, as half a dozen Junkers 88s swept over. He crouched in the middle of the road, and a moment later the bombers dropped their loads, which whistled, then exploded. The ground quivered and, not a hundred yards away, he heard a great crash of tumbling masonry, wood and glass.
At the sound of footsteps he swung round. A group of soldiers was running towards him and at the end of the street three men were hurrying in the direction of the mole. His heart raced. In a moment the three men had passed out of his view but he was sure that two of them had been Blackstone and Slater. They couldn't have been, he told himself, but already he was running back down the street. At the end he looked back towards the seafront and the mass of soldiers. 'Where the hell did they go?' he muttered, and set off again. Other troops were walking along the street, blocking his view, but suddenly he saw them again, eighty yards ahead. He ran on, faster, then lost them once more as another group of soldiers cut in. 'Damn it!' Tanner cursed. He ran on, pushing past some, swerving between others, then paused briefly to look into one of the streets that ran parallel with the seafront. Nothing.
'Sarge!' came a shout. He turned to see Sykes thirty yards away, coming towards him.
Waving for him to follow, Tanner ran on until he reached the seafront and saw their car still waiting at the side of the road. He stopped again to scan the troops wandering mindlessly along the corniche.
'Who have you found?' panted Sykes, as he reached him.
'Blackstone and Slater,' said Tanner, still craning his neck. 'I'm not a hundred per cent sure but it looked like them.'
Sykes joined him in gazing along the seafront. 'There! Sarge, up ahead! It was them! It was!'
Tanner set off again, Sykes following. Now he could see them too. They were walking quickly, not running, and Tanner and Sykes were gaining on them. Suddenly, the three men stepped off the road and into a building under a shredded cafe awning, but as Tanner and Sykes drew level they saw that the awnings covered not one but two cafes, and that there were two more doors as well.
'Damn!' said Tanner. 'Where have they gone?'
'Let's try the cafes first. I'll go into this one and you check next door,' said Sykes.
Tanner nodded. Inside, at least thirty men sat either drinking or sleeping. Bottles lay smashed on the floor, while the mirror behind the bar was also broken. 'Anyone see three men come in?' Tanner demanded.
'Cellar's next door,' a soldier replied. 'You're not redcaps, are you?'
Tanner hurried out and through the door to the side. A corridor ran along the cafe wall, and at the end a staircase led up and down. He went up first, searching each room of the house above the cafe. On the second floor, he opened a bedroom door to find a soldier with a French girl. She screamed, as though she was more terrified of him than of the bombs. Apologizing, he backed out and, having finished his search, went down to the ground floor and descended the stairs to the cellar.
There was light down there from several hurricane lamps, the same stench of sweat and urine. 'Did three men just come in?' he asked again.
'They've gone on down,' said a bloody-faced man. 'These cellars are deep.'
Tanner thanked him and picked his way through the bodies coughing and wheezing on the damp floor. Seeing more steps down, he took them. There were men below, but the light was dim. Taking out his torch, he now saw there were several chambers. 'I'm looking for three men that have just come in,' he said. Shining his torch on the man at his feet he was startled to see the black and green shoulder tab of the Yorkshire Rangers. He grabbed the man's collar and recognized him immediately as one of Blackstone's group.
'Where the hell are Blackstone and Slater?' he demanded.
'What?' mumbled the man and Tanner smelled the alcohol on his breath.
'Come on, wake up!' he said. 'Where are Blackstone and Slater?'
A footstep behind, and suddenly something was prodding into his back. I've found them.
'Well, well,' said Slater. 'Jack Tanner. You just keep turning up, like a bad penny. I can't tell you how fed up I am of seeing you. Why won't you ever die?'
Tanner half turned. Slater wore an ugly snarl. 'Because, Slater,' he said, in a low, measured voice, 'if you want to kill someone, you have to do it properly and you have to do it face to face. But you and Blackstone never do that - you always leave too much to chance.' He stood up slowly, his back to the other man. The revolver muzzle pressed harder into his side.
Slater chuckled mirthlessly, then breathed into Tanner's ear, 'Do you know what? I think you're right.'
Tanner heard the click of the cock and at that moment jerked his head backwards, hard. The rim of his helmet hit flesh and Slater screamed, instinctively bringing his hands to his face. At that moment, Tanner jabbed his left elbow into Slater's head. He cried out again and fell to his knees. Still clutching his pistol he now tried to straighten his right arm, but before he could fire, Tanner punched him in
the temple - a hard, sharp, crushing blow. In the flickering light, he watched him topple over, blood pouring from the long gash across his nose and cheeks. Lifeless eyes stared ahead as he hit the ground, dead.
'Jesus - what's going on here?' said one man.
'What are you doing killing your own bleeding side?' said another.
'He was a murderer many times over,' said Tanner, 'and he was about to kill me. If anyone deserved to die it was him. Now, where did the other two go?' He bent to pick up the revolver, then shone his torch at the men huddled on the floor. Most, he realized, were drunk too. He stepped forward down a passageway from which wine bays extended on either side. After about five yards, it turned ninety degrees and continued in a square. As he cautiously turned the first corner, he heard a slight commotion behind him and ran back, only to see a pair of legs disappear up the steps.
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