Darkest Hour (54 page)

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-deadening
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.'