Silence Over Dunkerque (8 page)

“One... nought... four.... We’re on the correct course. So far. What is that, the
Worcester?”

The twins, who knew every warship that came into Dover Harbor, spoke up quickly. “No sir, it’s the
Wakeful.”
The destroyer, a large L 91 on her bows, was packed with khaki. Many of the troops waved securely at the small boat, now bucking the eddy from the larger vessel. The Chief fell into line astern.

“I’d like to keep in touch with her through here. We aren’t too far off the coast, and those antiaircraft batteries look comfortable.”

But the destroyer had the speed, and with
Shropshire Lass
loaded as she was, it was barely possible to get more than six knots from her. So the
Wakeful
moved ahead, and was soon a mile or more in front. The Chief, watching her signals, kept his glasses pretty continually on the warship’s bridge.

Suddenly everything was blotted out from his vision by an enormous waterspout ahead. An explosion followed immediately that shook
Shropshire Lass,
far to the rear as she was. The whole thing was a matter of seconds. When the smoke cleared, there was no destroyer to be seen, only a lot of debris in the eddying water, oil spreading rapidly, and a few survivors here and there, arms stretching from the sea.

T
HE
C
HANNEL FOG
, the famous fog, thick, solid, impenetrable, smothered them.
Shropshire Lass
lay helpless in the light swell. The engine, protesting against the shaking it had received from the continual bombing and those near misses, had stopped. It was late afternoon. Nobody had the faintest idea where they were.

While Mr. Bennet, in a sweater, his cap shoved back on his head, worked on the engine with the help of Ronny and a Yorkshire garage mechanic, who had been a driver in the Army Service Corps, Ricky had the more disagreeable task of trying to make the wounded more comfortable. One, a non-com, hit in both arms, was in great pain and trying hard not to faint, as his field dressing was changed.

“Your luck didn’t hold, mate, did it?” said Ricky.

“What with the things that happened over in Dunkerque, I guess I’m in luck to have made this boat. Anything else? No, unless you have a spot of that tea left.”

Another soldier, lying on deck with a bad leg wound, explained that he had been given an injection of morphine and mustn’t be given any more at present. His eyes were clouded. They must have been touched by burning fumes from a near miss of a shell, and he was afraid of blindness if they weren’t washed out. Despite his pain he was conscious, and made no complaint, waiting patiently until Ricky could wash his eyes.

Not all of them. Now they were nearing safety at last, some who had endured so much for so long broke down. They started to murmur. Several were unable to endure their pain any more. Twisted on deck or cramped up in the cabin below, they moaned in agony. There was little Ricky could do, for even the supply of blankets was short, and many lay without protection from the damp chill off the water.

By this time it was late afternoon. From below, Ricky could hear the voice of Mr. Bennet mention fuel-line trouble.

“Hand me that spanner.... Now loosen the other one.... Good. Turn her over.”

Suddenly the boat shivered, the engine throbbed, sputtered, started. Everyone on board looked up, listening. Ricky stood on deck, a basin of water in his hand. On that engine depended their escape. They could well be in what was called E-boat Alley, the stretch along the French coast patrolled by German E-boats, or they might be drifting with the tide toward the French coast and a prison camp for the duration of the war. Every heart lifted as the motor caught a few seconds. Then it died another death. The heads of the wounded in the cabin sank back upon their berths.

At this moment the sound of voices came through the fog. Plainly they were British, faint at first, then louder. An engine was turning over smoothly, they could distinguish its regular throbbing somewhere close at hand. Everyone able to stand came on deck, shouting through the fog. Mr. Bennet rushed up with a Very light signal pistol, and shot off several cartridges.

“Help!”

“Ahoy there....”

“Help! Help!”

Now they could make out voices. It was unbelievable that those on the other vessel should not hear their shouts. But the noise of its motor faded into the dimness around.

“At least,” a soldier suggested, “we must be on the correct course.”

But were they? How could they know? Was the other ship on course, or wandering, confused in the fog, like
Shropshire Lass?
There were no parallel rulers, no dividers on board, the compass had been broken by the falling bombs.

After the long days of suffering and agony, this uncertainty told on them. Tempers got shorter. Some cursed their luck for being on the boat, forgetting the destroyer blown up before their eyes.

Gradually everyone slumped down, steeped in fatigue. No sounds were heard except for the groaning of those in pain and the cries, now mostly delirious, of several badly wounded men. Only the twins, with the Chief and the mechanic, were awake. Occasionally their low tones or the tinkering with the engine came faintly to the deck where Ricky had been sent forward to watch.

A half a dozen times he heard, or thought he heard nearby, the sound of voices, and started yelling through the fog. It was getting darker when a shape loomed silently through the mist, and before it veered away, he caught sight of a group of men in khaki, packed together on a small flat barge, a wide, unfamiliar-looking vessel.

This time they had been seen. A foghorn sounded. Noises and shouts came from the barge, died away, grew louder. In a minute the boat appeared through the fog on the starboard bow. She had turned completely around them. A line fell across the deck of
Shropshire Lass.
The boat was a Dutch
schluyt,
a flat-bottomed canalboat. Her deck was thick with half-frozen men in tattered khaki, and she was even lower in the water than the motorboat.

The Chief boarded the Dutch boat and had a conversation with the skipper, who spoke bad English. One look at the ancient motor of the canalboat told him she could never tow another vessel. They stood on deck, uncertain, surrounded by the listening, cold, anxious troops. Suddenly there was a noise. The powerful Thornycroft engine on
Shropshire Lass
started with a roar. She trembled, the motor throbbed decisively. Ten minutes later the two vessels started off through the fog.

It grew colder as the night went on. A wind rose, the boats tossed unpleasantly as the sea became choppy, and
Shropshire Lass
shipped a little water. Many of the soldiers became sick. Then they began to realize the fog was vanishing. Just before daybreak, the dim outline of Shakespeare Cliff loomed ahead, and under a starlit sky they crept past the Admiralty Pier, between the stone breakwaters, and into the inner harbor.

A fleet of motor torpedo boats of the Dover patrol, signal flags flying from the wireless masts, came in behind, men on deck waving to pals ashore. Except for these warships, only a handful of small, slower vessels with troops aboard were limping in. As they came into the Granville Basin the Chief went forward with a megaphone in his hand. There was a touch of pride when he hailed a naval officer standing on the stone pier.

“Shropshire Lass
from Dover, with six dead, fourteen wounded, and twelve men, taken off at Dunkerque.”

Immediately they tied up, and stretcher-bearers from the St. John Ambulance Corps, men as exhausted and weary as the troops aboard, came on to unload the wounded.

“You boys better scamper home. I expect your mother will have something to say to you. Mind, I’m telling her you’ve been great, a real help, lads, on top all the way, and I thank you. So get moving, and make what peace you can with yer ma. She’ll be angry with you no doubt.”

Day was coming, clear and cloudless. It was light as they reached the end of the pier where Red Cross workers had set up tables and were handing out buns and tea. The woman behind the table was fresh and clean, in a white uniform with a Red Cross on her arm. As the boys ate and drank, they realized their condition—shorts dirty and torn, sweaters stained and soaked, legs scratched and bloody. They had not washed for two days, and looked it.

“You boys been over there?” asked the Red Cross lady. “My goodness, wasn’t that brave of you! Does your mother know it? I expect she’ll give you what for.”

They realized this far better than she did. Despite their fatigue, the picture of their worried parent made them in no hurry to get home. They ate and drank slowly, finally thanking the Red Cross lady, and started up the back path toward home.

The path, worn and used, ran along the sea, skirting the edge of the cliff. It rose higher, and at one point they paused, exhausted. The sea was bright and sparkling with whitecaps. Calais, a town on the French shore some eighteen miles opposite, was plainly visible. Far to the left was Dunkerque, the thick smoke now a mere smudge on the horizon.

No planes roared overhead pointed to France. There was no rumble of thunder from the far shore. No convoys were leaving the port, no warships getting steam up below. Silence hung over Dunkerque.

They turned, worked along the side of the chalky cliff, and so into the Folkestone Road. Before long the Priory Railroad Station was visible, and they could see their own house. As they neared it, Penelope, in a clean dress, rose from the steps. Her hand went to her mouth as they came closer.

“Oooh...” she said. “Oooh, you better watch out, you better look sharp, you two! Mother’s near worried to death about you... what with Daddy’s not returning and all.”

They stood there, speechless. Before leaving they had been certain the cool and competent soldier who was their father, sure of himself and his men, would get out of France. Others had, of course he would also. If anyone could make it, he would. Now it was all different. They had been there, under attack, seen Dunkerque and death, watched the bombs fall. They understood now.

“Father... hasn’t come back?”

“No, he hasn’t. Another thing. Candy was killed, run over by an army lorry in town. And Mother’s sick, worrying.”

Neither of the twins heard her finish. Father dead? Or at least a prisoner of war. Poor old Candy run over by a lorry. Maybe if they had stayed home, she would never have gone downtown, probably looking for them. The twins wept as they went up the steps of the house together.

T
HAT BEAUTIFUL
J
UNE MORNING
, the sky a deep blue, the water sparkling, the outline of the nearby French coast crisp and clear, Sergeant Williams was seated uncomfortably on an anchor lashed to the starboard side of H.M.S.
Wakeful.
The dog, still panting, was tucked under his legs, half hidden from the bridge and the Captain directly above. Near the Sergeant was Fingers leaning on the rail, completely exhausted, and around in the throng was the rest of the squad. The long journey’s end was near.

The destroyer, her signal rights winking furiously at another warship far out to sea, was moving through a kind of maritime graveyard. Masts stuck from the water, the bows and sterns of vessels of every sort showed where they had been torpedoed or bombed. Beyond were more wrecks, testimony also to the accurate gunfire from the shore or the constant attacks of the German air force. On the bridge, the Captain, with binoculars to his forehead, leaned over the rail. The First Officer behind him talked into a tube that connected with the engine room below.

The destroyer’s speed slackened. From above the Sergeant could hear their voices.

“Hard-a-port.”

“Hard-a-port.”

“Half speed, four... five... two....”

“Half speed, four... five... two....”

A bell jangled somewhere inside the vessel. The Sergeant glanced at his watch. Throughout the long hours of waiting on the sandy beach, he had resolved never to look at the time. It was hard to stand in line hours on end; to know you had stood four hours and a half didn’t help. So not glancing at his watch was a kind of test of character. Now that they were away from Dunkerque and disaster, and had been saved from capture and a German prison camp, he could do so.

It was 10:40 of the most lovely spring morning imaginable.

“Look at those porpoises,” said a man, leaning over the rail.

The Sergeant looked out to sea. Several small black humps were bobbing up and down in the water. A lookout from high up somewhere shouted down something. The Sergeant noticed the ship was almost standing still.

He watched the black humps, some not more than twenty yards away. They were covered with nasty black horns. Good God, he thought, we’re in a mine field.

The Captain with his binoculars must have seen them for some time. Bells rang inside the ship. He was being cautious, gently feeling his way through the dangerous waters, hardly moving. At this point a sailor, carrying an enormous teapot in one hand and a pile of thick white china mugs under his arm, worked his way through the maze of soldiers on deck. He neared their group and poured out a cup of the muddy-looking liquid. The dog, smelling the odor, looked up, her eyes expectant. Sergeant Williams, who had sat back upon the anchor, rose and stretched out his hand. Perhaps this gesture saved his life. As he did so, a shock of unbelievable violence rocked the ship.

It cut short his breath. He looked quickly around. How amazing the number of things one can do in ten seconds. There was time to snap together his life belt, kick off his shoes, and think about the dog. He reached down, trying to pick up the huge animal in his arms.

Better to jump or be swept away?

The decision was made for him. There he was in the freezing water, no dog near him, struggling hard to get clear of the wreck and out of reach of the ship’s eddy, the tidal wave which drags everything with it when a vessel goes down. The men had discussed this at length during those interminable hours of waiting on the beach. They had been told that in the event of sinking they were to get away as far as they could from their ship as soon as possible.