Dover Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  Jenkins sniggered uncertainly. ‘Makes you a bigger target with all this inside you.’

  Ardley said: ‘It’s like before they hang you for murder. You know, the condemned man ate a hearty breakfast.’ He glanced at the commando as two others joined him. ‘Is this going to be hairy?’ he said.

  ‘’Airy as my balls,’ said one of the new arrivals.

  The first commando was not sure. ‘We don’t know. Because none of us ’as ever been under fire.’

  ‘Only practising,’ put in the third man. He pushed his plate away. ‘I got no belly for that greasy stuff.’

  When they had finished the four engineers went out into the wan daylight again. Dunphy was waiting for them outside the billet. He eyed Ardley aside. ‘I’m going to tell the driver of a new way to get into Dover,’ he confided. Ardley did not comprehend. ‘Coming from the north a bit, past Spatchcock’s farm. You’d better watch out for your wife.’

  Ardley grinned. ‘Sarge . . . I mean, staff, you’re a great man.’

  ‘I’ll know by the end of the week.’

  ‘Is it going to be dangerous?’

  ‘Enemy territory usually is,’ said Dunphy.

  Ardley went into the hut and began to pull on his kit. Jenkins was stuffing the Bible into his pack. ‘Thou shall not steal – and I’m pinching this,’ he said. ‘But we might ’ave time on our ’ands.’ Each man had his small and large pack, his belt, his bayonet in its scabbard, his ammunition pouches and his rifle. They had left their gas masks. There would not be time for gas.

  As he went out, each man gave the interior of the hut a final glance as if it had been his home for happy years instead of uncomfortable days. The truck was outside. Dunphy waited until they had climbed in the back and ostentatiously counted them. ‘One, two, three, four.’

  ‘All present and correct, staff,’ said Sproston. ‘At the moment.’

  ‘You all stick together from now on,’ said Dunphy seriously. ‘Look after each other.’

  They understood. The staff sergeant climbed into the front beside the driver. A pale sunrise was touching the roofs and walls of the curious Indian barracks. They went out on to the wet autumn roads of Kent. Nobody said much. They bounced with the truck. Sproston was burping and Jenkins asked him to shut up. After fifty minutes the vehicle pulled in at the side of the road and Dunphy climbed out and went to the back. ‘In ten minutes,’ he said to Ardley, ‘we’ll be there. You’ve got another five minutes after that and then we’re off again. The driver’s going to say the traffic was heavy.’

  Ardley was ready. He felt the vehicle slow and pull in to the side of the country road. The others guessed what was happening. ‘Five minutes,’ said Jenkins. ‘Not long with your missus.’

  Ardley climbed over the tailboard and realised that they were almost outside the farmhouse. He ran bulkily across the road, pushing aside the wet climbing roses, and turned around to the back. Spatchcock was asleep in his chair, early sun filling his face. He awoke and started feeling for his shotgun. When he saw Ardley he said: ‘On leave again?’

  ‘Five minutes,’ said Ardley. ‘Where’s Rose?’

  ‘Over in the home field,’ said Spatchcock. Ardley went through the gate at the rear and saw her immediately. She was riding Pomerse and she shouted excitedly and waved, turning the big horse, who recognised him too and, without need of urging, came clumping down the field towards him. Ardley began to stumble up the slope and almost collided with the horse.

  ‘Whoa! Whoa!’ laughed Rose. Her face was glowing with excitement. She took one foot out of its stirrup and Ardley used the stirrup to haul himself up to her. ‘Stay there, darling,’ he said standing upright on it. ‘I’ve got three minutes left.’

  He flung his leg across the horse’s broad back behind her and Pomerse snorted with pleasure. Rose twisted round to face her husband and they embraced like that, deeply, kissing each other, holding each other.

  ‘Three minutes?’ she gasped. ‘Why three minutes?’

  ‘The others are waiting in the road,’ he said.

  She eased herself back and regarded his face closely. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded.

  ‘Dover,’ he said truthfully. ‘Then we’re on some exercise. I’ll be back at the end of the week.’

  ‘You’re doing something,’ she said fearfully. ‘Something dangerous.’

  ‘We’re not. We’re just going somewhere. Probably the Isle of Wight.’

  He could see she did not believe him. But she said: ‘It’s nice, the Isle of Wight.’

  They closed with each other again. With a final deep kiss. He hugged her breasts to him then released her and began to climb from the horse’s back. She hung on to his arms, trying to keep him for a few seconds. Then Dunphy’s voice echoed over the hedge: ‘Ardley! Corporal Ardley!’

  ‘I’ve got to go, Rose,’ he said. He reached the ground and backed away. She was crying as he turned away from her. He patted the horse’s nose and went down the field, not looking back until he reached the garden gate and turned to wave.

  Abruptly she called him. He stopped and she urged the horse forward down the sloping grass. ‘Darling,’ she said. He leaned up towards her. She took her foot from the stirrup and he stood on it and eased himself upright. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘we’re going to have a baby.’

  Ardley whooped and they kissed exuberantly. Dunphy’s voice came over the hedge a second time: ‘Corporal Ardley, you’re AWOL!’ Ardley kissed his wife again. She was weeping and laughing at the same time. He dropped from the stirrup and went through the gate without looking back. Now he would have to stay alive.

  They tumbled from the truck at the dockside and found themselves looking down on a flat boat, grimy and grey, with a sailor on guard at the gangway holding a fixed bayonet, his deep blue and white uniform standing out against the drabness of the vessel.

  Two motherly looking women were poised, as if ready for action, behind a tea wagon, and they began waving mugs towards the young men. ‘Let’s have a drop,’ said Dunphy. ‘Help us celebrate.’

  They knew it would take more than tea but they each accepted a mug from the women who smiled sadly and kept saying: ‘God bless you,’ as if it were some sort of benediction.

  ‘Is that it, staff?’ asked Tugwell ruefully nodding down at the boat.

  ‘I bet it is,’ said Dunphy.

  ‘Noah’s Ark,’ said Sproston. ‘Ready for the monkeys.’

  ‘All aboard for the Isle of Wight,’ said Ardley, almost to himself.

  A bossy-looking port officer arrived waving his arms. ‘Staff, get your chaps on board. The combat unit will be here soon. One of their vehicles hit a ruddy lamp-post.’

  ‘Any casualties?’ muttered Ardley but too low for the man to hear.

  They drained the mugs and handed them back to the two women who repeated their blessing with each return. Then the staff sergeant led them, unsteadily with their equipment, down the gangway like mules crossing a narrow bridge. The sailor sentry remained unmoved, his eyes fixed, although he said out of the corner of his mouth: ‘Welcome aboard.’

  The bossy port officer reappeared on the dock above. ‘Staff, once they’ve parked their kit get them ashore again and into that pub across there. The one with no roof.’

  Dunphy led his men ashore again. ‘Have you got a nice cabin, staff?’ asked Jenkins. ‘Ours is really cosy. We can all cuddle up in there.’

  ‘Make sure you get nearest the door. It’s no place to be seasick.’

  He formed them in a file on the dockside and they marched to the roofless public house which still had its inn sign, ‘The Sailor’s Dream’, sagging forlornly outside. There was no door and the bomb had blown out most of the interior fittings. The bare bar was still there. ‘Just the place when you’re browned off,’ groaned Ardley.

  They stood to one side of the room. A makeshift stage accommodated a large easel hung with a map illuminated by two spotlights. There was a screen and a slide projector. The squad looked at it unc
omfortably. Then through the door came the commandos, a dozen of them, armed with Thompson sub-machine guns and hung with grenades. ‘Here they are – the fighting men,’ muttered Dunphy.

  Following through the door came a padre, arrayed in church vestments, stiffly white, and holding a prayer book.

  The four engineers regarded the commandos and the clergyman apprehensively.

  ‘Nice tommy-guns,’ ventured Jenkins.

  ‘Shut up, Welshy, for Christ’s sake,’ said Tugwell. ‘Slap-up fried breakfasts, tommy-guns and a vicar. I don’t like the way this is going.’

  In the darkness of the military car, Giselle and Cartwright sat silently, occupied by their thoughts. Once more she thought of Toby and he of Sarah. Would any of it matter after the next few hours?

  The car bumped across the dockside and came to a halt on the cobbles above the boat. No one was visible on board apart from the naval sentry. Cartwright got out and opened the door for the slight and timid figure of Giselle. She leaned over to see the boat. ‘It is this?’ she said.

  ‘It is this,’ confirmed Cartwright. He went to the rear of the car and took his equipment from the boot. He was wearing his service revolver. Giselle looked at him strangely. ‘You too are coming?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘But you . . . you are not a fighting soldier.’

  ‘We all are fighting soldiers in the end. My job is to look after you.’

  Her hand came out and touched his. ‘I will be safe with you, I know. You will come to my wedding.’

  Cartwright replied: ‘And perhaps you will come to mine.’

  Instow came to the head of the gangway. Giselle was dressed in army dungarees with a khaki sweater. ‘Welcome aboard, ma’m’selle,’ said Instow. ‘I am sorry it is not as luxurious as the Normandie.’

  ‘The Normandie would be seen,’ said Giselle quietly. Instow glanced at Cartwright. A young sailor appeared and took Giselle’s lightweight bag from her.

  ‘I brought only my toothbrush,’ she said. She followed him along the deck.

  Instow said: ‘We have a cabin for the young lady. And you are right opposite, captain.’

  ‘God knows why she has to come,’ sighed Cartwright. ‘Bloody madness.’

  ‘A lot of things are,’ said Instow. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I could do with a large Scotch but I suppose I’d better have the coffee.’ He followed Instow below. The vessel smelt of oil and lavatories. ‘You’re right, commander,’ he said. ‘She’s not the Normandie.’

  They sailed before midnight edging through the harbour entrance and setting a southerly course. There was no escort vessel. The sky was starless and the sea thick and calm.

  Instow was on the bridge. After asking, Colonel Stelling came through the companionway holding a coffee mug. The steersman was forward and out of hearing. ‘Funny sort of vessel, this,’ said Stelling, careful not to offend. ‘Have you been in command long?’

  ‘Last week,’ said Instow succinctly. ‘She’s like sailing a plank of wood.’

  ‘Ex-RAF, isn’t she?’

  ‘They should stick to flying. But, so we’re told, this is the best sort of boat available for this job. They sit low in the water so they’re not easily spotted. There are only three of them in operation.’

  Stelling gave a small grunt. ‘Shortages,’ he said. ‘I had to fight to get my men Thompson sub-machine guns.’

  ‘They look very useful,’ said Instow.

  ‘In the entire country we’ve got twenty-two tommy-guns. Twenty-two.’ Stelling hesitated, then said: ‘This whole bloody thing is a travesty.’

  ‘This operation or the war?’

  ‘This operation. We’ve got the war, there’s no getting away from that. But this lark is something that’s been dreamed up by Intelligence, which is full of giggling ex-public-school boys concocting super wheezes and selling them to jolly generals who are old boys from their schools. Then they send the likes of my men, and yours, out to see if they work. And, in my opinion, commander, this won’t work. That girl, what the hell are we taking her for?’

  ‘She knows the way, so I understand.’

  Stelling snorted again. ‘Listen, it’s one big idiocy and even if it fails and we leave dead bodies in France it will be broadcast on the BBC as propaganda, an uplifting bit of derring-do, and Intelligence will pat themselves on the back and say how well it went.’

  ‘And you don’t think it’s going to.’

  ‘If we put those guns out of action, or even one of them, it’s going to be a miracle. The enemy keep them in caves and they’re brought out only when they’re being used. They have to trundle across two small bridges. They’re only exposed, vulnerable, when they’re on those bridges. But we don’t know when that’s going to be. And, of course, they are well guarded. The only thing in our favour is the surprise element. The Hun thinks that even the British would not try anything so stupid as this.’

  Instow said: ‘What about the girl?’

  ‘I’d thought of leaving her on board,’ Stelling told him frankly. ‘But if the Jerries spot you while you’re waiting offshore she could end up floating in the drink. And I’d be courtmartialled for disobeying orders. But the bright boys think it will add romance, it will look good in the papers. She’ll probably get the Croix de Guerre or something. Besides a bullet. My boys could find their way up from that beach without her.’

  He drank the rest of the coffee. ‘Commander,’ he said, ‘I think we’re in the shit.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  IT WAS DIFFICULT to keep the engines of the RAF boat subdued. But somehow it was contrived, and almost as slowly and silently as a snail, Instow brought her to anchor under a low headland, no more than a hundred yards from the German-occupied shore. She was so close to the cliff that someone looking out from the top would not have seen her.

  It was still dark. Cartwright knocked on Giselle’s cabin door and took her a cup of coffee. ‘You are like a mother to me,’ she said. She had not been asleep.

  ‘It’s my job to look after you,’ he repeated. ‘And that includes early-morning coffee.’ He handed her a small cardboard box. ‘Make-up,’ he said. ‘Before you go on deck smear that on your face. It’s thick and black.’

  He went up to the deck and recognised Dunphy by his whispering voice. ‘We meet at the most exciting times, staff,’ he said quietly.

  Dunphy’s teeth gleamed through the black grease on his face. ‘At least it’s not a UXB this time, sir.’

  Five of the commandos went ashore at a time, in a rubber dinghy with a man silently paddling. It returned to pick up Colonel Stelling and his sergeant, a studious-looking man with glasses, and Giselle. She was helped into the boat but she did not need to be. She turned and surveyed the dark form of her own country, almost in front of her nose.

  Five more commandos made the third trip and then the squad of engineers under Dunphy. They stared at each other, black face to black face. Jenkins tried to blow his nose but Tugwell stopped him. They eased away from the larger vessel and in five minutes were standing on the beach. There was no sign of the soldiers who had gone before but then they began to materialise out of the deep shadows of the rocks. Giselle put her hand down to the beach and picked up some sand. Then they heard dance music.

  Everyone melted away. Cartwright eased Giselle gently into a defile. Two of the commandos moved forward and the rest waited. After ten minutes the dance music ceased and everywhere was quiet except for the subdued washing of the waves.

  Stelling came and beckoned to Giselle. Cartwright followed her. She led them, at first tentatively then confidently, to the left of the beach, sharply turning between rocks and boulders until they reached a narrow path, sandy at first but giving way to shingle and rock, which led steeply up the side of the cliff.

  It reached a brief plateau, where they could feel the breeze, and then climbed again. Stelling was at the front with his bespectacled sergeant, and the girl with Cartwright behind them. The two men who
had attended to the dance music remained on the beach by the entrance to the path. The commandos were three feet behind each other, each man’s head bent a little, each taking a carefully measured pace, each tommy-gun at a set angle. Then, in front of them, they heard a dog growl, then bark.

  Stelling swore under his breath. He made a motion and his sergeant moved like a shadow alongside him. He produced a knife. Giselle abruptly halted him with her arm. ‘I think it is my dog,’ she said.

  Alone she went the few feet up the dark way and whispered: ‘Pooky, Pooky. C’est moi, Pooky. C’est Giselle.’ There was an excited rush of earth and stones as the animal tumbled towards her. She embraced it in the dark and it licked her blackened face. Stelling, in the darkness, rolled his eyes and muttered: ‘Fuck.’

  She returned down the path towards them holding the tail-wagging black mongrel by its collar. ‘It will be okay, safe,’ said Giselle. ‘But I need something to lead him and some chocolate. He likes chocolate.’ A bar of chocolate was passed to her. The dog snapped at it. ‘Pardon,’ she said to the waiting soldiers.

  The farmhouse was not far from the top of the incline. They let Giselle go through the gate first with the dog on a piece of cord. The men stood back in the shadows as she went to the front door and quietly knocked with her knuckles. The door was opened at once and her father stood in the frame. ‘You are ten minutes late,’ he said.

  There were tears and embracings. Giselle’s mother was crying into the front of her flannel nightdress exposing her bony shins. Giselle, kissing her, pulled the nightdress into place at the same time. Her father hugged her. Then Giselle waved her hand around at the men who shuffled into the low-beamed room and said: ‘These are my friends. Some are also outside.’

  Her father said: ‘We were expecting them.’ He spoke in French and Cartwright had to interpret.

  Stelling said: ‘Tell him that we must use his barn.’

  The Frenchman gave a Gallic shrug and replied.

  Cartwright said: ‘He says there is a pig in the barn. Tomorrow he is selling it to the Germans. But we can use the place, providing the pig doesn’t mind.’ Dunphy, who was standing against an old dresser, turned to go out to his squad, dislodging a framed photograph which, without looking at it, he carefully replaced. He went out.