WC02 - Never Surrender (28 page)

The beaches? How the devil was he supposed to get an army off the beaches? But he had to try. There was almost no time left. The signals traffic from across the sea had grown ever more desperate during the night: "Evacuation tomorrow night problematical," one had said; "Last chance of saving them," announced another. And the instruction to move to the beaches had caused confusion. In the darkness, some boats assumed that Dunkirk had already fallen into enemy hands, and turned back.

As Ramsay lay spreadeagled across the operations table, he felt despair pressing down upon him. If only he could just lie here, sleep, never wake up, let someone else take this weight from him. It wasn't just the Belgians who had ripped a huge hole in his plans, but now the French. Inconceivably they still thought Dunkirk was being held as a beachhead for reinforcements to pour back into France; no one had bothered to tell them that it was all over, that the British were leaving. Understanding had only crept upon them when they discovered the British destroying all their equipment.

More misunderstanding. Some idiot British artillery officer had misconstrued the order to destroy the equipment and spiked most of the anti-aircraft guns, one of their few weapons of defence. The German bombers flew above, almost unmolested. So grim had it all become that Gort had been given permission to surrender when he judged that 'it was no longer possible to inflict further damage to the enemy'.

The BEF had only hours left to live.

But Ramsay had to find another way. The short route had to be abandoned, at least in daylight; it had become a suicide run and already there were reports from the Dover and Ramsgate docks of trouble, of crews refusing to set sail towards what they knew was a funeral pyre.

He levered himself up from the table, a little at a time, like an exhausted gymnast. "We'll have to go the long way, the Zuydecoote Pass, round our own bloody minefields."

"But that route's more than twice as long, sir. Twice as much time."

"Twice as much bombing time. Still, can't be helped. Give the orders," he instructed. "And get me some small boats. For the beaches. We're going to need them."

Henry Chichester wasn't sure why he'd been drawn to the docks at Dover. It wasn't just the habit of a man in holy orders to offer help at a time of misery, although there was some of that. There were memories mixed in there, too, memories of troopships of an earlier generation bringing him and millions of others back from the killing grounds of France. The same haggard faces and hollow eyes, the bloodied uniforms, the outstretched and desperate hands. And a new generation of women waiting in their huddles of hope and silent tears. How brazenly their men had marched off! And how despairingly they had crawled and been carried back home. Henry Chichester had brought shrapnel back with him. It had remained buried deep inside and caused pain every time he knelt before his God. It would never let him forget.

He'd found little difficulty in getting into the docks themselves; the usually smooth and orderly manner of naval operations had been replaced by a sense of struggle and hurry. All eyes were upon the biblical black pillar of fire across the water; the guards had taken one look at his clerical collar and saluted him past. Inside the dock, the ships were berthed two and sometimes three abreast at the quay side as they were stripped of all non-essential equipment and loaded with provisions: water cans, food, medical items. Chichester watched as one large ferry boat had its doors, tables, bunks, counters and benches ripped from their fixing points and hurled onto the quaysidcin order to make more room within. An extraordinary complexity of new equipment was loaded on the decks: rafts, ladders, life buoys The stench of oil hung across it all. Tugs and supply ships scuttled back and forth across the water, moving grey destroyers and other large ships to a berth on buoys in the middle of the harbour, waiting their turn.

You could tell which ships had already been across. They were the ones with the holes and gashes, with the battered funnels and broken masts, with hands washing away grimly at the stains on the decks.

As he walked around the docks, men of all ranks would stop him, ask for a blessing, try to find comfort in his eyes. But Henry Chichester's eyes were elsewhere, constantly searching, he wasn't sure for what.

In one corner of the harbour, out of sight of the women, a long line of bulging blankets had been laid out in a neat naval line. Just as he remembered from long ago.

Then he knew why he had come. He was searching for his son. And his God.

They had almost been taken by surprise as they prepared to cross the road outside Gravelines that came from the direction of Dunkirk. They were distracted, stiff from their cold night on the sand. Their sprains and wounds were complaining of abuse and their stomachs of hunger. The bloody dog kept barking at them. They'd named it Winston. They had clawed their way up the side of a steep dune and were standing on its top, surveying their path across the road, when they saw a cloud of dust and sand heading towards them from the east. From deep within the cloud came the unmistakable rattle of tanks. In a moment, the exhaustion that had racked their bodies for days had vanished. For tanks heading out of Dunkirk could mean only one thing: the British or French were making a break out or, even better, announcing an advance. The miracle they had both hoped for had arrived! Don and Claude stood on top of the dune, propping each other up and waving frenziedly as the sandstorm came ever nearer.

For their pains, and their naivety, they were greeted by a heavy machine-gun, which poured bullets into the dune around their feet. They had been trying to wave down a squadron of panzers. They threw themselves into the sand as the tanks thundered past. They both knew they were going to die.

"Why are you here, Englishman?" Claude shouted above the noise, his head burrowed deep next to Don's.

"My father thinks it's because I'm afraid of getting shot at."

"He is a fool."

"For once I agree with you, Frenchie."

Sand sprayed over them as bullets smashed into the dune above their heads. Don could feel Claude wriggling closer. Then his hand was being squeezed tightly.

"Thank you, Donald Chichester."

"For what?"

"For trying."

Another burst of fire; more wriggling as Winston buried himself between the two of them.

Then it was past. The panzers hadn't stopped. They were in a hurry.

The two men picked themselves up and began to shake the sand from their blouses. Winston, his courage restored, began barking and raced after the panzers; Don's wound had split open once more and blood was seeping down his sleeve.

"Tell me something," Don asked, gritting his teeth against the pain as the other man attempted to realign the crude bandage of torn tablecloth that had been bound around his arm. "Are spaniels English or French?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Don shook his head in bewilderment, gazing after the dog, whose tail was revolving like a propeller as if to give it added impetus in its insane pursuit. "Definitely French."

"And there is one thing I would like to know, Englishman," Claude responded, riding the insult by tying the bandage so tight that it made Don wince.

"What's that?"

"Why German tanks have decided to turn away from Dunkirk."

It was the final day of the affair on the beaches. Churchill knew this when he woke, and nothing he learned from the papers that lay strewn across his bed gave him reason for doubt.

The tide of opinion in the press had turned as savagely as any sea. The previous day's editions had bellowed that the BEF still held almost all of the Channel ports, even Calais, that the Germans had suffered countless casualties and mutinies, and three British R.A.F aces had 'bagged a hundred'. Yet this morning their readers had woken to discover that none of this was true. Calais had gone, the Belgians had gone, and the French showed every sign of following. By tomorrow the entire BEF might be wiped out, stuck on the sands and heading for captivity.

A sense of betrayal filtered through the wadding of the editorial columns; the British public had been misled, and as always the editors in Fleet Street cast around for someone else to blame. Yet Churchill knew that was the least of his concerns.

As so often, there was a twist within the tortures that were piled upon him. Gort's disobedience and retreat had at least given him some better hope of filling the desperate gash in his defences left by the Belgian surrender. So many soldiers were being crushed inside the Dunkirk pocket that some of them, at least, could be turned towards the breach to build a human barricade that could slow the Germans down for a few hours longer. And they were flooding the low-lying areas around Dunkirk; the water levels were beginning to rise, slowing down the enemy even further. The Germans might have to get their feet wet. But nowhere near as wet as the soldiers of the BEF.

Churchill ate a miserable breakfast. So many twists and turns, so much confusion. He didn't know which way to turn, which enemy to face, or even who his enemy was. The weather forecasts were bad. Storms were passing by Ireland that would ripple through to the beaches, making the surf rise, swamping boats and piling more miseries upon their labours. Yet within that lay perhaps yet another twist, for as the weather grew poorer and the ceiling lower, the Luftwaffe might be held at bay.

But who would keep Edward Halifax at bay?

It was like taking part in the Charge of the Light Brigade, straight down the barrels of the guns, no chance to turn, pushing past the corpses of those who had fallen before, and doing it on a donkey.

That's how the crew of the old steamer had described their journey of the previous day, and none of them wanted to repeat it. A stoker had walked away from the ship the previous night and stepped straight in front of a bus. An accident of the blackout, the authorities described it, but none of his crewmates believed it. They'd been there with him, in Dunkirk.

Now they had been told to go back.

The captain was pleading with them, but his own voice was still ringing with the terrors of their experience and it lacked conviction. He stood on the gangway, barring their path to shore.

How many times had Henry Chichester witnessed such scenes, when the courage to die had deserted men and they refused to fight, overwhelmed by the extent of the expected sacrifice or was it simply its futility? He had even watched one of them being led away, as the sun was rising after a sad, aching night, and tied to a stake. Punishment, as decreed by the military code, for those who refused to fight. He was a soldier well known to Chichester. Corporal Collins. A good man, with three children back in Birmingham and a wife he wrote to every week. He had stood before the stake and denied the accusation that he was a coward and afraid to die. He had told his executioners he was refusing to obey orders to kill others because he knew it to be wrong, and all he wanted was to go to God with a clear conscience. As the cusp of the sun had broken through the night, his wish had been granted.

Henry Chichester had been part of that firing squad. It had been one of the reasons why, after the war was over, he had gone in search of God. He wanted to experience those same depths of faith as Corporal Collins, to share his certainty and sense of reconciliation. There had to be some meaning behind the suffering he had seen, and he knew it would take a higher mind to understand it, for no matter how hard he had tried, Henry Chichester could not. So he had taken refuge in his God. And he had prayed every night of the passing years that his rifle had been the one which held the blank bullet.

Yet in spite of all the prayers and the suffering, it was happening again.

The fury he had thrown at his son was not simply anger at his raw presumption in usurping the place of a man like Corporal Collins, but also for resurrecting such tormented memories and reminding Henry Chichester of his doubts. There was also fear a father's fear for a son who insisted on standing out against a world that would surely crush him as casually as they had crushed the corporal. Which made him wonder. Perhaps, after all, it wasn't a lack of courage on Don's part. Perhaps it was that he had too much of the damned stuff. Henry Chichester didn't know any longer which it was. He should have. He should have known his son better.

He stood at the bottom of the gangway. He didn't know any more whether it was right to send these men, but they would have to go, and it was better that they go with courage. He raised his hands like an ancient prophet, his voice ringing out.

"Wait on the Lord! Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord!"

The confrontation at the head of the gangway stopped as they all turned to look at him, startled. Yet as they stared, he was brushed aside by another figure forcing its way up the rickety wooden walkway.

Thanks for your offer, Reverend, but I think we'll leave it to a rather more orthodox authority for the moment."

The sergeant in the Military Police swore loudly at the crew as he thrust a very British barrel at them.

Sullenly, the crewmen drifted back to their stations.

Only Bracken and Colville were left.

When a man's purpose had come to its end, others shrank away. No one would tell him to his face that the game was up; he might only discover the truth when they refused to play any longer and made excuses not to stand beside him in case failure was infectious. Two had stayed with Churchill, and Colville only because it was his paid employment.

Churchill sat in his oak-panelled room in the House of Commons and stared morosely at the telephone on his desk, willing it to ring, even though the only messages it brought were those of danger and despair. He felt utterly alone in the manner that only a man who has spent his entire life surrounded by audiences could feel.

Even Ruth Mueller had fled, vanished, refused to be found. As the men in Churchill's world increasingly turned their backs on him, her irritating presence had sparked him back to life, set him up for the battles ahead, and for the battles he had to fight within. But now she was gone, too.