Dunkirk Crescendo (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  THE ZION COVENANT BOOK 9

  DUNKIRK CRESCENDO

  The Zion Covenant Book 9

  Bodie & Brock Thoene

  www.FamilyAudioLibrary.com

  ThoenE-Books

  Visit the Thoenes’ exciting Web site at www.thoenebooks.com

  Copyright © 2005 by Bodie Thoene. All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration copyright © 2005 by Cliff Nielsen. All rights reserved.

  The Zion Covenant series designed by Julie Chen

  Designed by Dean H. Renninger

  Edited by Ramona Cramer Tucker

  Portions of Dunkirk Crescendo were printed in The Twilight of Courage, © 1994 by Bodie and Brock Thoene, by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers under ISBN 0-7852-8196-7.

  First printing of Dunkirk Crescendo by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. in 2005.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version or the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  ______________________________________________________

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 10 09 08 07 06 05

  7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  With much love for our courageous friends and fellow journalists—John Waage, Chris Mitchell, Deborah Bunting, Molly Young—who know what it means to be on the front lines of truth for America and the land of Israel.

  Dunkirk Crescendo is a “Director’s Cut,”

  including portions of the Thoene Classic The Twilight of Courage

  and thrilling, never-before-published scenes

  with the characters you’ve come to know

  and love through The Zion Covenant series.

  The First Ten Months of World War II

  1939

  September 1—Nazi Germany invades Poland

  September 3—England and France declare war on Germany

  September 17—Soviets invade Poland

  September 27—Warsaw falls

  October—“Phony War” begins

  December 13—German battleship Admiral Graf Spee cornered in South Atlantic

  1940

  February 16—Altmark incident

  April 9—Germany invades Norway

  May 10—Winston Churchill becomes British prime minister

  May 12—Panzers reach Meuse River

  May 13 to 19—Blitzkrieg sweeps across Northern France

  May 14—Holland surrenders

  May 16—Panic in French government

  May 18—Germans capture Cambrai

  May 20—Wehrmacht reaches the French seacoast

  May 21—British counterattack near Arras

  May 26 to June 4—“Miracle of Dunkirk”

  May 28—Belgium surrenders

  PART I

  It is not by speeches and resolutions that the questions of time are decided . . . but by iron and blood.

  Otto von Bismarck, Speech to Prussian House of Delegates

  September 30, 1862

  1

  The Colors of Spring

  Spring 1940

  All night rain tapped gently on the glass panes above Josephine Marlow’s bed. Madame Adelle Watson, the proprietor of the Foyer International on Boulevard St. Michel, had warned the newspaper correspondent against sleeping directly beneath the skylight. It had leaked last year, and Madame Watson was uncertain if the maintenance man, who was a notorious drunk, had fixed it properly. But when the seal had held during the first rain of winter in Paris, Josie had moved her little iron bed beneath the square of glass so she could see the sky at night and the light of morning before the sun arose.

  Only then did Madame Watson confess her real purpose in warning Josie about sleeping below the skylight. “Suppose, my dear girl, that we are bombed without warning in the middle of the night? Or suppose those idiot French antiaircraft gunners shoot off a round that misses the Huns entirely and lands smack on you?”

  “Even if the round missed my skylight but came through the roof, being in the attic, I would be the first to go. Don’t worry, Madame Watson. This way if any Germans fly over Foyer International and aim at my skylight, I will see them and be able to give the alert.”

  Josie’s reasoning satisfied Madame Watson completely.

  And when it rained, the rhythmic patter only made Josie sleep more soundly.

  Josie was the first in Foyer International to know that spring had arrived. Larks began to build a nest on the windowsill. They chirped and argued with one another about the placing of this twig or that bit of string. When they were finished, Madame Lark laid four eggs.

  This morning, from the tall window of her garret room, Josie looked over the wide expanse of the Tuileries gardens. The gravel paths were flanked by color. The chestnut trees were in bloom. The air was fragrant. The cobbles of the street below were shiny after the rain. Vendors rattled their wood-wheeled carts slowly up the lane, selling precious rationed items like milk and eggs and sugar.

  War with the Nazis seemed remote—impossible.

  Josie had gotten two brief letters from Mac McGrath, the American photographer she had thought she was in love with some time ago. The texts had been run through with the black censor’s pen of the French Anastasie. She had learned more about his adventures with the German ship Altmark from the newspapers and the wire service than she had gleaned from his notes.

  Consistent in both messages was the sense that Mac was very much in love with his Eva. He had met Eva Weitzman, a Czech, during his escape from Warsaw before the Nazis took over the city. Now he wrote Josie dutifully, like a concerned older brother. What was the use of kidding herself? Mac had already made his choice. Josie was no longer in the running.

  But then there was Andre Chardon, the man she had met on the train to Paris. Each hour she had spent with him since then was better than the last. He talked openly about his longing to see Juliette, his child, and to get this dreadful war over with and settle back into a comfortable, ordinary existence. To enjoy the spring days of Paris without thinking of the clouds on the eastern horizon.

  Josie had fallen in love with the tall, handsome man, in spite of his French colonel’s uniform.

  ***

  It was a day Josephine Marlow had been looking forward to. The grounds of the Ecole de Cavalerie, the revered cavalry training school in Lys, France, were bright with the colors of spring. The U-shaped, four-story brick structure had a freshly scrubbed look to it after the hard winter. Enormous red crosses had been painted on the roof tiles between the school’s dormer windows and its tall rectangular chimneys.

  Andre Chardon pointed to the top-story windows of the section that was now a hospital. “I spent the best years of my life dreaming out that view.” He laughed.

  “When you are not listening, I want Paul to tell me everything there is to tell about you.” Josie squeezed Andre’s hand.

  “That wing is now an isolation ward for measles patients,” Andre’s younger brother, Paul, observed. The darkly handsome, compact, and athletic man was the chief riding instructor of the school. He inclined his head toward the figure of the head nurse, Miss Abigail Mitchell. “And there is the woman most dese
rving of isolation.”

  The tall and muscular Sister Mitchell cast a hard look in Paul’s direction, as if she had heard his remark, and then turned away coolly.

  Captain Paul Chardon extended his arm to Josie. “If you will allow me, Madame Marlow, I will escort you to the Chardonnet, where the carrousel will take place.”

  With Andre following, Paul led Josie through the wrought-iron gates with their top rail of gilded spearheads. Past the thickly planted row of tall elms was the grandstand beside the riding arena. After Josie and Andre were seated, Paul excused himself to go to the reviewing box. Standing in front of a microphone, he became the master of ceremonies.

  “This arena is called the Chardonnet . . . ‘thistle field’? Like your family name?” Josie asked Andre.

  Andre smiled. “I think I may have mentioned that our connection with the school goes back quite far. A multigreat ancestor donated this field to King Francis the First for use in jousting tournaments. My forebear was made a baron for his generosity, and he changed his surname to remember the occasion.”

  “Madames and Monsieurs,” Paul announced over the squealing microphone, “the carrousel will commence.” Paul waved to two lines of riders at opposite ends of the arena.

  With Cadet Sepp leading one column and Cadet Gaston the other, the senior students and their mounts elicited exclamations of approval from the crowd. The horses were harnessed in the gold and purple trappings only used on ceremonial occasions, and their manes and tails were braided with gold silk ribbons.

  The boys themselves were also fittingly attired. They wore the brass helmets and shining metal breastplates of the cavalry of Napoleon’s day. Each carried a lance with a gleaming brass head, from which fluttered a tiny gold-and-purple pennant.

  After a slow pass of the reviewing stand with the lances held stiffly at attention, the two lines of riders completed their circuit of the arena. When they began the second lap, the mounts leaped to a gallop as one. The spearheads flashed in the light as the columns met and swerved aside at the last instant, weaving a high-speed crisscrossing pattern. The slightest miscue would mean a terrible collision or an impaled rider, but such was the precision of the performance that no flaw could be seen. The audience, including Josie, broke into enthusiastic applause.

  She watched as the big, muscular Gaston wheeled his troop apart from the others, who retired to the corners of the ring. Under his shouted commands, the group of a dozen equestrians put their chargers through a series of maneuvers that dated to at least the time of King Francis. They executed the croupade—that leaping kick backward in midair designed to destroy a pursuer—and the nimble, goatlike jumps of the cabriole. When the exhibition was completed, Gaston led his command into a line in front of the stand. Then as the lance tips were lowered to the ground, the row of horses also bowed their heads in a courbette in unison.

  When Sepp’s troop reentered center stage, Josie saw that they had removed their ceremonial costumes and wore their black dress uniforms with the red piping on the collars. Barricades and rails were dragged away from the walls of the ring to form a steeplechase circuit. From a standing start, twelve of the best riders flashed around the loop, leaping over fences, widely spaced bars, and stacks of wine barrels.

  Josie added her groan of dismay to the crowd’s when Sepp’s black horse caught his back hoof on a rail. Sepp tumbled forward over the mane, but he recovered his seat and spurred the mount to even greater speed. With only one quarter lap to go, Sepp caught up with his fastest opponent so the two horses flashed across the final fence exactly even. In the last split second before the finish, Sepp’s charger spurted ahead, giving him the victory by a neck.

  Josie clapped wildly and joined the others in shouts of “Bravo!”

  Andre, smiling, leaned over. “Does it make it more impressive—or less—if I tell you that the entire performance, including the near fall, is part of the act?”

  Each year the senior students were allowed to perform a finale of their own choosing. Josie realized that no one, not even Paul, knew what to expect from this display. Curiosity and amusement rippled through the crowd as Sepp and Gaston and their lieutenants carried a table and four chairs into the center of the ring. There they laid out a perfect picnic, including bread, cheese, apples, a bottle of wine, and five glasses.

  With expectation growing, Josie craned her neck to watch the action. There was confused laughter as Gaston drew the cork of the wine bottle with a flourish and poured four glasses of red Bordeaux. In a loud voice, he proposed a toast to the Ecole de Cavalerie. His three comrades stood and raised their glasses.

  At that exact moment, Cadet Raymond leaped on a charging bay over the wall at the far end of the arena. He spurred directly at the table, as if he did not even see it. The horse neither swerved nor shied. At the last possible second, the four boys sat down in their chairs just as Raymond urged the bay into an enormous leap. Horse and rider sailed over the group of cadets, who made a great show of clinking their glasses under the horse’s belly.

  And then, when a gasp of relief had already gone up from the crowd, Josie saw Raymond pull up the mount at the far end of the field and spur back again. As the cadets calmly ignored the thundering horse bearing down on them, they again toasted each other with the red wine.

  Gaston refilled the glasses and this time also filled the empty fifth goblet. Timing his movement to match the jump, Gaston stood and thrust the glass into Raymond’s hand. The cadet captain downed the liquid before the hooves of his mount crashed again into the soil of the arena.

  The four young men at the table rose as Raymond circled his horse to come up behind them, and all faced the reviewing stand. Wineglasses in hand, they saluted Captain Chardon and their guests. In a resounding tone, Gaston said, “We hope you agree, Madames and Monsieurs, that this year is a truly excellent vintage possessing style and grace!”

  ***

  On April 16, two months to the day after the captured British sailors were rescued from the holds of the Nazi prison ship Altmark, Mac McGrath was in Greenwich, on the Thames east of London. He was there to visit the former Altmark prisoner Trevor Galway, to check up on the young officer’s recovery.

  Lt. Commander Galway was seated on a lawn chair, his lap draped in a blanket. Although he was clothed like an invalid, his physical appearance was greatly improved since Mac had last seen him emerging from the Altmark’s hellhole.

  “What have they been feeding you?” the American cameraman asked as he crossed the wide expanse of green. “You look like you’ve gained thirty pounds.”

  “Two stone, to be precise,” Galway corrected, smiling. “Two kilos heavier than before I enjoyed the hospitality of the Nazis.” He stood up in his bathrobe and slippers to shake Mac’s hand.

  “Don’t get up. You’ll get me in trouble with your nurse.”

  “Never fear.” Trevor laughed. “I’m quite recovered. So well, in fact, that I go back on active service next week. I’ve been assigned to the destroyer Intrepid.”

  “Congratulations! Does that mean you’ll be going to Norway?”

  “I can’t really discuss that, sorry. But speaking of nurses, here comes mine now.”

  Mac turned to see a pretty, red-haired young woman with a radiant smile. Accompanying her were a balding older gentleman and an enormous Saint Bernard. “Team of specialists, too?” Mac questioned.

  “Mac McGrath, meet my father, John Galway, and my sister, Annie. The long-haired horse there is Duffy.” Duffy lay down on the green grass and rolled over like a puppy, for all of his two hundred pounds.

  Annie, Mac found out, really was a nurse. “My applause, Miss Galway. Your brother looks fit. Your care must suit him.”

  “Pooh!” she scoffed. “He is the worst, most uncooperative patient ever. If he gets well, it is in spite of me. But I must thank you, Mr. McGrath. Trevor tells me that you are the man who pulled him out of that dreadful hole.”

  “Aye, that’s why I remember the name. Give us your hand ag
ain, then,” demanded John Galway. His fist engulfed Mac’s and pumped it vigorously. “I’d still like to lay hold of them Nazi—” He caught himself.

  “Easy, Da,” Trevor and Annie both cautioned.

  “Besides,” Trevor added, “I’ll be doing my own paying back after next week. My orders have come through and I got Intrepid.”

  Annie looked worried. “Ah, Trev. Back to the war so soon?”

  “At least it won’t be to Norway you’ll be goin’,” John Galway muttered, waving his meaty fists in agitation. “A hopeless muddle! Jerry has troops at Trondheim and Narvik and Oslo, and we can’t budge ’em. Too little, too late, I say. You mark my words: Our boys’ll come home with their tails betwixt their legs, and it’ll be the end of this Prime Minister Chamberlain and his mealymouthed bunch of—”

  “Da,” Annie scolded with a wink at Mac that her father did not see, “you must not get Trev excited now!”

  “Do you really think this failure will bring down the government?” Mac asked. The Phony War had already claimed French Premier Daladier as a political casualty. Was Chamberlain next? A movement on the hill behind the navy buildings at Greenwich caught Mac’s eye. The red time signal ball was hoisted to the top of its staff.

  “Has to, laddie,” John Galway concluded in a calmer tone. “The PM has been wrong once too often, and this time our people have suffered for it. He’ll have to go. It’s just a matter of when.”

  On the top of the cupola of the observation tower, the red ball descended from the peak, accompanied by the firing of a signal gun. This signaled noon on the prime meridian, setting time for the entire world.

  2

  An Elementary Calculation