Ride Out The Storm (9 page)

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Oh, well!’ She sounded relieved. ‘You’ll have to come round some time.’

She slammed the receiver down too sharply for his self-esteem and he stared at the telephone, wondering where his charm had gone. Perhaps it was as well he was going across the Channel.

There was a lieutenant at a table further along the corridor frowning at papers. He looked tired and, seeking information, Hatton approached him cautiously. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

The lieutenant looked up. He didn’t seem to resent Hatton, though his eyes flickered to the wavy ring on his sleeve. ‘You going across?’ he asked.

‘I suppose so,’ Hatton said. ‘We’ve just arrived.’

‘Who are you?’

‘
Vital.
’

The lieutenant grinned. ‘She’s not very big, is she?’ he said.

‘I expect she’ll be big enough,’ Hatton said and realised immediately, as the lieutenant’s eyes smiled, that he’d said something rather clever and perhaps rather brave.

‘I expect she will,’ the lieutenant agreed. ‘Been in long?’

‘No. Fortunately, there are plenty of people aboard to tell me what to do. Are they bringing the army out?’

‘Unofficially, yes. And a beautiful bloody balls-up it is too. We’ve been at it for days now. Boulogne and Calais have had it and at Calais we’re not even trying. They’re there to stop Jerry on the western flank and that’s what they have to do.’

The idea of being sacrificed for the rest of the army caught at Hatton’s breath. It was a noble ideal but he felt it could be very uncomfortable and probably without much future.

‘How far have the Germans got?’ he asked.

The lieutenant looked up. ‘Worry you?’

Hatton swallowed. It worried him a great deal but he tried to pretend it didn’t. ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ he said.

The lieutenant smiled. ‘Well played,’ he said.

Lije Noble was another who was feeling doubts about his own skill and ability that morning.

He’d spent the night cowering under a hedge with several other men, terrified at the prospect of tanks and wishing to God someone would get a move on and get him away. When he woke at first light, a corporal was giving him a nudge with a boot. As he opened his eyes the silence was uncanny after the remembered tumult of the previous evening and the thought occurred to him that he was dead. For a moment the unreality persisted then the boot jarred again.

‘Come on,’ the corporal said.

‘What’s up?’

‘Burial party. In the wood.’

Noble accepted the spade that someone handed to him, but as soon as the corporal turned away, he dropped it and slipped round the back of one of the lorries. At the other side a sergeant was standing with an officer.

‘Got your explosives, Galpin?’ the officer was asking.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right, take your men and head for Bergues. Pick out the bridges that’ll have to be blown as we come through, and plant your stuff.’

As he turned away, Noble reached for the haversack containing the brandy and cigars.

‘I’ve got to get back to my unit, Sarge,’ he said. ‘It’s at Bughem near Bergues. Can you give me a lift? Me van went up in the wood there.’

As the lorry roared off, Noble was never so glad to see the back of anywhere as he was of that wood, but as they moved slowly north, dropping men two at a time at the bridges and locks as they passed, he began to feel better. To the south, over Arras, he could see a pall of smoke hanging in the air and farmhouses burning in the area between, with gun flashes coming regularly through the smoke and the occasional glint of a pair of field glasses, which gave him the unnerving feeling that everything he did was being watched by the Germans. He glanced at the sky. A recce plane had appeared above them and he’d learned by this time that recce planes were invariably followed by dive-bombers. He was grateful he wasn’t in one of those awful streams of vehicles he’d seen, moving nose to tail at the pace of an active snail.

The sun was just beginning to get up as the lorry slowed to drop the last two men. Beyond the bridge where they stopped was a cornfield and they all climbed out for a smoke. To Noble, it seemed an event of great importance and, after the events of the lasts few days, one that was enormously civilised. He reached for the haversack and, extracting the cigars, offered them round.

The pulsating sound of distant gunfire seemed to drum on the canvas cover of the truck but it was far enough away not to worry them, and they’d just lit up when Noble heard a dull rumbling howl and one of the men they’d dropped, standing by the front of the lorry talking to the driver, swung round, his eyes bulging.

‘Fighters!’ he screamed.

The air thickened with the howl of engines and Noble dived for the ditch as the cannon shells flashed along the road. As they caught the lorry, there was a tremendous explosion that blew him head over heels into the ditch where he continued to crouch, his arms over his head, listening to the clang of metal dropping around him. As the engines died away he lifted his head. One of the lorry wheels was still bowling along fifty yards away and the road was littered with stones, pulverised earth and pieces of metal, rubber, canvas and wood round a huge scorch mark.

The driver and the man talking to him had disappeared in the explosion and the third sprawled in the road, a shredded mess of flesh and clothing. Sergeant Galpin appeared slowly from the cornfield and studied the corpse. ‘Copped it,’ he said.

They dragged the body off the road but, because the spade had disappeared too, they were unable to bury it and had to leave it in the long grass. Galpin found a few shreds of torn canvas and draped them over it, then he stood and stared down for a moment or two, as though he were conducting a silent burial service of his own.

As he turned he glanced curiously at Noble who was standing with his mouth open, his eyes glazed as though he were hypnotised. ‘I reckon I’d better get back,’ he said. ‘That last pair we dropped have got a radio.’

Noble watched him go. The sun was blazing hot and, apart from the intermittent sound of gunfire to the south, the countryside immediately around him seemed still empty and alien. His feet ached and, now that the sergeant had left him, he was totally and irrevocably lost.

So was Clarence Sievewright. But there was no feeling of alarm or panic in his heart. He was a placid man who considered himself well fitted by training to deal with emergencies. As a Scout he had once worn badges to prove he was an expert at a thousand and one important things and he felt he was capable of facing anything the war might throw up. His face was round and innocent and he glowed with soap and inner health. Over such smooth features a helmet seemed almost too ferocious.

He had spent the night in a barn which had been comfortable enough, if a little chilly, and that morning he’d gone to the farm nearby to ask for food. It had been deserted, so he’d hunted round the yard and eventually – as he’d expected – found a dozen eggs under a hedge which he’d fried in his mess-tin lid. Afterwards, since Scout Law demanded cleanliness, he’d washed at the pump and brushed his teeth, taking care not to swallow the water because he also knew that it was probably not safe unless boiled, then he’d carefully changed his socks and set off again. Now, five hours later, he was wondering where the British army had got to. He knew it was in retreat and before he’d set off he’d heard it was heading towards the coast. If he walked steadily northwards, he should eventually find it again. He had no compass but as a Scout he knew that if he kept the sun on his back up to midday and on his left after that he’d be heading in the correct direction. Speed and lightness had seemed important, however, and he’d sat down to see what he could discard of his equipment. To his surprise, all he felt able to throw away were two or three paperbacks, a selection of thin socks and a pair of dancing shoes he’d had sent out.

By this time, he’d left the roads and taken to the fields because it had long since occurred to him that if the Germans were machine-gunning the roads, the most intelligent thing to do was to avoid them. By mid-morning, he was beginning to feel hungry again but, finding a few potatoes and carrots in a field, he stuffed several in his pack with the intention of cooking them later. Then he found a cow that was bellowing with pain and, realising it was in need of milking, he swung towards it and with difficulty managed to get the milk flowing.

He extracted more than he needed to make the cow comfortable, then, putting his kit on again, clapped his steel helmet on his head and set off once more with a sense of having done his duty.

When Lieutenant-Commander Hough returned to where Hatton was waiting, his mouth was tight and his face was serious. He wasn’t a great deal older than Hatton but he’d been in the war from the first days of September and had already been torpedoed and bombed in the Norwegian campaign.

‘Are we going across, sir?’ Hatton asked as they fell into step. ‘Yes.’ Hough didn’t seem in a mood to talk and Hatton wondered if he were worried about the bombing. The thought helped him feel more able to handle his own fears.

They picked up the navigating officer and found a taxi back to the harbour. The streets seemed to be full of soldiers. Some of them were heading for the railway station in marching groups, but a few seemed to have escaped and were hanging about outside the pubs. They didn’t look like first-class troops.

The harbour was still full of ships as the tender headed out to
Vital,
and along the wall smaller vessels were beginning to gather – hoppers, trawlers, harbour launches and fishing boats.
Daisy
was among them and in her forepeak Kenny Pepper was still waiting patiently. He’d been there all night. During the hours of darkness, he’d sneaked out, desperate for food, and made his way to the galley. Brundrett had been sleeping in his bunk alongside, a fat white shape under the blankets, one fleshy arm hanging to the deck. He was snoring heavily, and Kenny had had no difficulty in extracting half a loaf of bread, a pot of jam, half a pound of butter, a tin of corned beef and a candle. Brundrett’s ability to sleep was well known and Kenny, who was still growing and needed more food than Brundrett was inclined to allow him, had often taken advantage of it.

As
Vital
’s
tender bumped alongside and its occupants scrambled aboard the ship, Hough called a quick conference to discuss what they were to do. ‘It seems we still hold a strip of coast about twenty-five miles long,’ he announced. ‘From Gravelines to Nieuport. Know it, Pilot?’

The navigating officer nodded. ‘Flat, featureless and level, sir. Just a few seaside towns. No piers. No harbour facilities. Sand shelves very slowly to deep water. And all exposed to northerly winds.’

‘How about Dunkirk? Anybody know anything about it?’

‘A little, sir,’ Hatton offered. ‘I don’t suppose it’s much use.’

‘Let’s hear it, all the same.’

‘It’s pretty ancient. Grew out of a fishing village. It was a fortress and I think some of it still stands. It’s the third port in France and it’s got a good modern harbour with seven dock basins.’

‘You’re better than you think, Hatton. Go on.’

Hatton flushed with pleasure at the praise. ‘It has four dry docks, five miles of quays, and three of the canals from the Low Countries feed into it.’

‘Good God!’ Hough looked startled. ‘Where did you get all this lot?’

‘I looked it up, sir, while I was waiting for you.’

Hough grinned. ‘God be praised for the education and enterprise of the RNVR,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

Hatton glanced at his notebook. ‘Docks go deep into the town and there’s a dredged channel to the sea. It’s protected from the tides by long piers and there’s a mole that comes out from the oil storage area. There’s another from the old fortifications that’s over a thousand yards long. If we could have used it, the army could have got away with everything it possesses, but I gather it’s not that kind of mole.’

‘Charming!’ Hough’s eyebrows rose. ‘Right, Doc, prepare your sick bay for casualties. Purser, we’ll need constant hot soup and tea, as well as sandwiches. Not only for our own people but for anybody we might lift. I gather some of ’em haven’t eaten for days. Guns’ crews, damage and fire control parties will be closed up from the minute we leave harbour. I suspect we’re going to be busy.’

It was becoming only too clear to a lot of people that they were going to be busy. Even the commander of the BEF. There were no more reserves now and nothing he could do, because the battles that were being fought now were in the hands of his corps, divisions and brigades, and the regiments who were clinging to fragments of village and unnamed stretches of waterway. Slowly, defending its positions desperately, the army was falling hack to form a defensive perimeter round the only port left – Dunkirk.

The French were still demanding an attack to the south but there was an air of unreality about the whole idea, because even as it was decided to find out if headquarters could be moved to Cassel the town came under shellfire and almost immediately afterwards a message came from the Belgian king to inform them that he would soon be obliged to surrender. As the new headquarters was finally set up at Houtkerque nine miles to the north, a telegram arrived from London. ‘
Sole task
,’
it said, ‘
is to evacuate to England maximum of your forces possible.
’