The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Bandits at ten o’clock low, chaps.’ Guy’s squadron CO’s voice crackled in his ears. He leaned forward in the cockpit and searched the skies below. Christ, there was a whole bloody swarm of them down there – looked like at least thirty Heinkels with a pack of Messerschmitt 110s behind them. The R/T crackled again. ‘Close up, everyone. Tight as you can.’ The squadron altered course in neat formation towards the enemy. Guy, watching wingtips as well as Huns, wished to God his squadron commander would think up a better way of flying into battle. The German fighters didn’t stick to the same old formations as though they were in a bloody Hendon air pageant; they’d learned better in the Spanish Civil War. The RAF were living in the past, and paying for it. The squadron had lost three Hurricanes and their pilots two days ago, picked off, in turn, from the rear before anyone had even known there were German fighters around. The day before that fiasco, they’d escorted a squadron of Battles to their deaths at the hands of German ground-artillery fire. The bridge over the river Meuse that the antiquated Battles had been sent to flatten had remained standing while the wrecked bombers lay strewn about and smouldering on the ground. Five of the squadron’s Hurricanes had been demolished by attacking 109s who had outnumbered them five to one. Since the Germans had made their assault, the RAF losses had been grim.

  The R/T crackled once more. ‘Line astern. Close up. Go for the bombers first, chaps.’ Here we go again, Guy thought. They swooped down on the Heinkels, firing in bursts, before breaking away to go round again. Guy scored a hit on one and saw it stagger sideways, its port engine erupting smoke. He hauled back hard on the stick and opened the throttle to climb fast for another go. The bombers were returning fire but the Hurricanes’ speed gave them the advantage – until the 110s joined the party. They dropped down from above like rocks, spread out wide in line abreast, and within seconds the air was a maelstrom of aircraft – the fighters on both sides screaming around the bombers who ploughed on steadily through the thick of it. A Messerschmitt hurled itself head-on at Guy. He rammed the stick forward and the Hun shrieked over his head. Another was immediately on his tail and he flung his fighter to the left and missed another Hurricane’s wing by inches. Guns spitting fire, they climbed and dived, dodged and weaved for what seemed like hours but was, in reality, only a matter of minutes. Out of ammo and low on fuel, the Hurricanes left the fray – those that had survived. Every plane had been hit and damaged, including Guy’s, and four of them had been shot down, against a tally of one Heinkel and none of the 110s.

  They flew home to find that the Germans had visited the ’drome in their absence. The lush spring grass was dented with bomb craters and littered with smoking wreckage that included three more Hurricanes.

  ‘Junkers 88s,’ the adjutant told them. ‘Six of the buggers. They got two petrol bowsers as well. Two men killed. Oh and by the way, apparently the Jerries have crossed the Meuse and taken Sedan. We’ve had orders to decamp north, to a place thirty kilometres south-west of Lille.’

  ‘Retreating?’ Guy enquired.

  ‘Regrouping,’ the adjutant said firmly.

  Otto had expected the crossing of the river Meuse to be far more difficult than Stephan had predicted. He was proved right in one respect – the French had, indeed, blown up the bridges, leaving the Panzers stranded on the east side of the river and backed up for many miles – a wonderful target. ‘If they don’t attack us now,’ he had told Stephan, ‘they deserve to lose the war.’ A few RAF bombers had come over and the French artillery on the other side of the river had put some of the tanks out of action, but no great damage had been done. And then the Luftwaffe Stukas had arrived. Wave after wave of them had dived, sirens screeching hell-fire, onto the French troops, then climbed and dived again and again and again. Under cover of the bombing, the Wehrmacht infantry had begun slipping across the river in rubber dinghies while the engineers worked to patch up the main bridge at Sedan. At dawn, on 14th May, the first tanks had rumbled across.

  After that, it was almost easy. Some of the French stood their ground and put up a brave fight but the majority fled before the Panzers. Others even threw away their rifles. The tanks rolled on, unchallenged, passing the detritus of panic and disorder – abandoned tanks and vehicles, dead soldiers, jettisoned rifles, French army helmets thrown away into ditches, and, significantly, Otto noted, several dead despatch riders beside their motor cycles. Without vital communications, the enemy would be in disarray and confusion. The Panzers swept on towards the west, through French villages and towns, raising a huge cloud of dust. Everywhere there were white flags – not real flags but sheets, tablecloths, handkerchiefs – hurriedly hung out from church steeples, windows of houses and cottages and farms. At Laon, Otto’s division turned north-west in the direction of the English Channel. In doing so they would surround the British and French armies on two sides. The division general had drawn a graphic picture for them, tracing it with a stick in the earth of France. The Channel ports of Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk would be taken, in turn, while the Wehrmacht advanced through Belgium in the north-west, making the third side and leaving the British with their backs to the sea. The steel trap would then be closed.

  The patched-up remains of Guy’s squadron flew into their new station near Lille. Instead of a palatial château and smooth lawns, they found a rough grass field and hurriedly erected canvas tents. There were no Hurricanes left at the depot for replacements and few spare parts. On their first sortie their squadron commander bought it. Guy watched the Hurricane literally blown apart in a savage attack by half a dozen Messerschmitt 109s who had fallen on the British fighter like hounds devouring their prey. He saw the remains spinning to earth – bits of body tangled with bits of Hurricane, all splattered with crimson-red blood. The gruesome sight stayed with him as they flew back, and for a long time after.

  They went on flying more sorties and losing more Hurricanes until the squadron was down to six serviceable aircraft. News came through that the German Panzers had reached Abbeville on the north-west coast. It had taken them only eleven days to cross France and now they were sweeping north towards Boulogne and Calais. To make matters even worse, as far as Guy was concerned, he was suffering from appalling toothache and the pain when he flew was agonizing. He put up with it for several days and then, in between sorties, borrowed one of the small Bedford trucks to drive into town in search of a dentist. He walked around until he found one off the main square with a brass plate on the door. In the waiting-room two elderly Frenchwomen glared at him. What was he doing there, they wanted to know. Why wasn’t he fighting the Bosches this very moment like all the good French soldiers? Was he just going to sit there and let the Germans walk over France? He told them to go to hell in English and nursed his swollen jaw.

  The dentist was more sympathetic. He was a small, middle-aged man with the same fussy little movements as old Payne in Harley Street and peered into Guy’s mouth, tut-tutting at what he found. ‘An abscess, monsieur, on the back tooth. A bad one. I regret I cannot save the tooth. It must be extracted immediately. With gas, of course, so you will feel nothing.’ Guy stared up at the ceiling while the dentist prepared things and instruments clinked. No Georgian plaster roses to count like in Harley Street, only cracks in dingy cream paint. One, two, three, four of them. Five, six … ‘Breathe deeply, please, monsieur.’ Something was put over his nose and mouth and he slid thankfully into unconsciousness.

  He was awoken by someone shaking him hard by the shoulder. The face was blurred until his vision cleared and he saw that the dentist was leaning over him. ‘Réveillez-vous, monsieur! You must wake up at once. Wake up!’ There was an unpleasant taste of blood in his mouth and his jaw felt stiff and sore, but the pain had stopped. They must have moved him from the surgery because he saw that he was lying on a couch in a small parlour. The dentist indicated a dumpy, grey-haired woman standing behind him. ‘My wife and I carried you in here, monsieur. It was necessary to give you more gas than usual … the extraction was very difficul
t. You have been asleep for a long time since.’

  Guy sat up. ‘How long?’

  ‘Nearly four hours, monsieur. I am waking you because there is bad news. While you were unconscious the Germans attacked the town. They came in aeroplanes, machine-gunning the streets. We are told that their tanks will be here within a day or less.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Guy struggled to his feet and staggered like a drunk. The dentist caught at his arm. ‘Be careful, monsieur. You should still rest … if there were time.’

  He stumbled out to the Bedford. There was broken window glass on the pavement and in the street and bullet gouges on walls. A dead dog lay in the gutter, its side torn open, flies feasting. He reversed the truck to turn, crashing gears in his frantic haste, and drove like fury back towards the ’drome, half expecting to run slap into German tanks at any moment. The fresh air cleared his muzzy head and halfway there he realized that he had forgotten to pay the dentist. Too late now to go back; he’d have to owe it to him. He passed several carts trundling southwards along the road – some horse-drawn, others pushed or pulled by people. The carts were piled high with stuff: chairs and tables, brass bedsteads, mattresses, pots and pans, bicycles, sacks of food, even a birdcage … He registered it all with disbelief as he tore by. What the hell were they doing and where the hell were they going?

  One big farm cart blocked the road ahead. The owners took no notice when he blasted the horn and he had to skew and slither past them on the narrow grass verge, one wheel almost in the ditch. He reached the ’drome and skidded in through the open gate, tyres squealing, and braked hard to a stop. No guard on duty, no airmen to be seen. Not a soul. Not a sound. Just the rotten-egg stink of high explosive and a faint pall of smoke hanging in the air. He drove on further before he stopped again and stared at the sunlit scene before him – at the neat rows of bomb craters, the twisted, burned-out, smoking wrecks of Hurricanes and of lorries and bowsers and trucks. It was impossible to tell which had been destroyed by the Germans on their raid and which by the RAF before they’d pulled out.

  He got out of the Bedford and looked inside a couple of the tents. The squadron had made a thorough job of it. Everything left behind that might be of any use to the Jerries had been smashed to pieces: wireless sets, headsets, telephones, tools, every single bit of equipment, and there wasn’t a vehicle of any sort, even a bike, that would ever go again. He counted four Hurricane wrecks. Two of them must have got airborne and flown off, God knows where – maybe to England. Lucky, lucky sods … If he hadn’t had that bloody abscess he might have gone with them. As it was, he was stuck here in France without a clue where the squadron had gone and with the Huns closing in.

  He thought about it for a moment. He’d got the Bedford. The only thing to do was to head for the nearest port and England. He was no bloody use here without a fighter. He’d grab some kit and drive north to Lille and find Anna before the Germans did and take her with him. Maybe she’d have had the sense to leave already, but knowing Anna he doubted it. He’d probably have to drag her off by the scruff of the neck. He chucked a few things into a small suitcase – shaving gear, a clean shirt and underclothes, cigarettes, soap and towel, a pocket torch. The wrecking party had missed his revolver and he took that as well, together with his greatcoat and steel helmet. He’d got back into the Bedford, started up and scorched off before he thought to take a look at the fuel gauge. A quarter full, or three-quarters empty, depending on which way you looked at things, he thought grimly.

  ‘The Bosches are coming. I told you that would happen. And you will make a lot of trouble for us.’ Madame Gilbert had come to her room. She stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on her stick. Anna was putting some things hurriedly into a canvas bag – a few clothes, money, a photograph of her parents. ‘If the Germans see you, they will know you are a Jewess. You are a danger to us.’

  ‘There is no need to concern yourself, I am leaving immediately, madame.’

  ‘The English are running away like cowards, deserting us. You should run fast, too, before they catch you.’ Anna picked up the bag and made for the door. The old woman blocked her way, looking at her with glad malice in her eyes. ‘I hope they do.’

  She pushed her aside and went into Mademoiselle Gilbert’s bedroom where she left the letter of thanks that she had written for her on the dressing-table, propped carefully against the mirror. The old woman called something else after her but she didn’t listen. The bike was outside against the wall and she stuffed the canvas bag in the basket on the handlebars and rode off without any real idea of where she was going, except that it seemed better to head north. The Germans were coming from the south and east and they were not so far away. There had been gunfire in the distance, German planes in the sky. She had no map, but a signpost at the edge of town pointed to Bethune and Calais. At Calais she might find a boat crossing to England. In England she would somehow continue the fight to help her parents. She set off down the road, pedalling steadily.

  ‘She has gone, monsieur. I am so sorry.’ The woman who had answered the door was much younger than the hag that Guy remembered. This must be the daughter – the one who had taught Anna at school in England. She was looking very upset. ‘She left when I was at work or I should have tried to stop her. It is not good that she is travelling all alone.’

  ‘Do you know where she was going? In which direction?’

  ‘I have no idea. She has taken her bicycle and so she could be far away by now. She left me a note to say that she was very sorry not to say goodbye. She thanked me for everything.’ The woman gave a helpless shrug. ‘I am afraid that my mother said things to her – to make her leave. Anna is Jewish, you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Do you understand the danger she is in? The Germans are treating the Jews very badly. My mother was frightened of what the Germans would do to us if they came here and discovered that Anna is living with us. I would have hidden her and taken the risk, but my mother might have betrayed her. Perhaps it is better for her that she has gone. Do you see?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see.’ He would have liked to strangle that old hag.

  ‘You are wounded, monsieur? The blood …?’

  He glanced down at the red blotches on the front of his shirt. ‘No, I had a tooth taken out.’

  ‘What a time to have to go to the dentist!’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘You must hurry, monsieur. They say that the Germans are very near.’ She smiled at him. ‘You must be Guy, of course. Guy of the Royal Air Force. She often spoke of you. And of your brother, Matt. But it was mostly of you that she spoke.’

  At the edge of town he stopped to look at the map. Anna would surely have gone northwest rather than south where the Germans were blasting their way right across France. Only she might have no idea of that … she could be heading straight for them without realizing it. No, surely she would have gone north by instinct – towards the Channel and England. That was by far the most likely. The coast was roughly fifty or sixty miles away – a hell of a long way on a bike and God knows what danger she’d run into. He hoped to Christ that he’d find her. He checked the map again and decided that she would have headed for Calais – the closest port to England and the one most likely to have boats still crossing.

  * * *

  ‘Your supper’s ready on the table, Mr Ransome.’ Mrs Honeywell called out from the front room as Matt passed the door on the way to the stairs. ‘It’s all cold tonight. A nice bit of corned beef and beetroot with some of that Heinz potato salad that I know you like.’ He’d been too polite to tell her that he hated it, as much as he hated corned beef and beetroot. He started up the stairs to his room and she appeared below in the hall. ‘I’ve just been listening to the News on the wireless. Those Germans are giving us a lot of trouble. They’ve gone and got to somewhere called Abbeville in France. Where’s that, do you know?’

  ‘It’s on the west coast.’

  She gaped at him. ‘But that’s
over the other side. However could they have done that? Why haven’t the French stopped them?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s bad news.’

  ‘Well, we must try not to worry. Our boys will soon drive them back again. They know what they’re doing, even if those French don’t.’

  ‘Was there any news about the RAF?’

  ‘They’ve shot down some more German planes. Good riddance, I say! The more the merrier.’ She peered upwards. ‘Your brother’s over there in the Air Force, isn’t he? I do hope he’s all right.’

  He went on up the stairs slowly. Abbeville! The Germans must have steamrollered right through France in a matter of days. And they were advancing through Belgium from the west. It didn’t sound good at all.

  * * *

  The road ahead was clogged with refugees – old men, women and children travelling south in the opposite direction, against him, and spread over its whole width so that again and again Guy was brought to a complete stop while they streamed past on each side of the Bedford, their farm carts and pushcarts and perambulators creaking and sagging under tottering loads, dogs running after them. He could smell the garlic, the sweat and the fear. They took no notice of the horn, nor of his shouts or pleas or curses. They might have been cattle, driven by some blind herd instinct. It took him two hours to travel a few miles and yet he dared not leave the main road for fear of missing Anna, reasoning that she would have stuck to one herself. Several times he asked in French if a girl with long dark hair had been seen bicycling north but they all shook their heads or shrugged and looked at him with resentment and hostility.