The Dearest and the Best

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘Gerald’s,’ she told him. ‘He left it behind on his last leave. You said you needed a uniform for the Local Defence Volunteers. It smells a bit of mothballs but it will probably fit all right.’

  He almost staggered forward and took the tunic and trousers from her. She stood helplessly. ‘It’s been up there all this time,’ she mumbled.

  Robert touched the two shoulder tabs gently with one finger. ‘Wonder what rank he would have finished the war as?’ he said. He looked at her and saw she was crying. Still holding the uniform he embraced and kissed her clumsily, feeling her weeping against his face.

  At six o’clock the following evening the Sirius was ready to move out into the limp, petrol-coloured water of the estuary. Petrie and Lampard had stoked the little furnace between them and jaunty puffs of steam issued from the vessel’s funnel. The unusual activity stirred waterbirds who took off with long trails along the flaccid surface, squawking in the pale air. Robert, wearing his dead brother’s tunic and trousers with his LDV armband, stood beside Lampard in the wheelhouse as, carefully, and with some small ceremony, the boat owner pushed the engine-room telegraph forward. The vessel came to life, shaking itself like a rousing animal, as the starboard paddle wheel began to revolve in the water, churning the mud and sending a further flurry of birds into the river sky.

  ‘Slow astern, starboard,’ he called down the brass trumpet next to the wheel. He turned to Robert. ‘Odd smell,’ he said. ‘Like mothballs.’

  ‘Slow astern, starboard, it is,’ came Petrie’s disembodied confirmation.

  ‘This tunic’s been packed away for a bit,’ said Robert, brushing the sleeves self-consciously. He had removed the brass regimental badge and the pips from the shoulders. The Sirius began to pull herself awkwardly sideways from the wooden pier. Ten minutes later they were out in the estuary and making for the entrance to the sea.

  They turned along the low coast, past familiar headlands and beaches. A man walked his dog peacefully along the shingle as though he knew nothing of what was happening to the world.

  By eight-forty-five they were in the Solent, paddles gently waddling, duck fashion; ahead of them lay the oddly shaped naval vessel that was their rendezvous. From the wheelhouse Robert and Lampard looked out across the narrow channel and in the lemon evening light saw that the strangest flotilla was assembling in the ancient waterway. They called Petrie. He arrived, black and sweating, from the engine room where Peter Dove was helping him.

  At first the coastguard breathed the evening air gratefully and then narrowed his eyes to take in the warship lying ahead. ‘HMS Avalon,’ he said. ‘And . . .’ He looked about him. ‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘What a bloody collection.’

  He took in each waiting vessel. ‘Yarmouth, she’s the Isle of Wight ferry, and Cowes River, she’s another. And that effort there, if I’m not mistaken, is a fire float, and that gentleman with the red sail is a barge. I hope he’s got an engine as well. Those two are trawlers and that thing over there that looks like a half-finished building is a seaplane tender, Zeus, I think she’s called. And . . . two more paddle steamers. It’s like a circus.’

  John Lampard laughed and nodded towards the naval vessel ahead. ‘At least we’ve got the navy,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not out of character,’ Petrie grinned back. ‘Fitted out for service in China, Yangtze river gunboat. She’s just come home. Equipped for fighting Chinese pirates.’

  They all laughed, and Peter Dove, coming on to the deck, looked around the immediate horizon also. ‘Well, I’ll go to sea,’ he muttered. ‘We’re not the funniest then, not by a long chalk.’

  Lampard looked his way and the fisherman understood. ‘I meant, like unusual,’ he said apologetically.

  Petrie said: ‘We can make fifteen knots, can’t we, John?’

  ‘Eighteen if we risk the paddles,’ replied Lampard. ‘That’s more than most of those could ever raise. I bet that barge can only just get four knots in a following gale.’

  Lampard patted the woodwork of the Sirius like a father patting a son. Fondly he remembered that it was less than a year since she had been chuffing on that same stretch of water taking the Binford children on an evening outing to see the grand yachts lying off Cowes during regatta week.

  Robert lit his pipe pedantically and puffed it below his steel helmet. Lampard turned his binoculars on HMS Avalon. She was swinging with the tide, a curious craft, high sides, and with Browning machine guns perched on her flanks. ‘Perhaps they’re armed with cutlasses?’ he muttered.

  From the naval vessel ahead came the blare of a klaxon. Whoop . . . whoop . . . whoop, an eerie echo. They looked towards the Yangtze gunboat. A naval voice came across the coloured water. ‘This is Captain Andrews of HMS Avalon,’ the loudspeaker sounded. ‘We will sail in fifteen minutes for Dunkirk. If you find you are getting left behind, carry on and you will doubtless soon find another convoy to join. There are numerous vessels sailing that way. No lights will be shown but we are promised a calm sea and a fair night. I will be taking a course due east before turning back along the coast from Ostend. This is the long way around but it does get us out of trouble with our own minefields and the German shore batteries which are now in firing positions along the French and Belgian coasts. Keep a sharp watch also for wrecks, old and recent. In the event of air attack we hope to give you some cover. Good luck to you. If you get left or lost, Dunkirk is not difficult to find. Just make your course towards the sound of the explosions and the lights in the sky.’

  Petrie and the Dove brothers went below. Robert and the paddle-steamer owner remained on the miniature bridge. Robert was conscious of a tight wad of excitement in his chest and stomach. Lampard mused: ‘Never thought this old relic would go to war.’

  Robert laughed ponderously. ‘Are you talking about the boat or yourself?’

  ‘Both,’ admitted Lampard wryly. ‘You heard what he said. Set course towards the sound of the explosions.’

  Lennie Dove appeared from the hatch behind them. ‘Look what I found, Mr Lampard,’ he said. ‘We got a stowaway.’ Lampard and Robert turned and saw the pimpled, worried face of the boy Willy Cubbins. Lennie held his upper arm. ‘He says he wants to come,’ said Lennie.

  ‘Young sirs, I would like you to imagine, if you will, that this large and lecherous German gentleman is about to do something personal to your sister. Or, if you have no sister, then your mother or your favourite auntie. Somebody near and very dear to you.’

  The marine combat instructor regarded the rank of naval sub-lieutenants with a benign malice. A line of stifled smiles faced him.

  ‘The himplement I am about to demonstrate would be the appropriate weapon to use to defend your female loved one. It is called the British bayonet – a nasty sharp-looking chap, hisn’t ’ee? On the end of the point three-ho-three rifle it makes a very ’andy prodding piece; used as a single weapon it is equally malicious, drawing blood very quick. Be careful, young sirs, how you muck about with pointed weapons. As the late King ’arold found out at the Battle of ’astings, ten-sixty-six, they can have your ruddy eye out.’

  Along the parade ground at Portsmouth similar squads of naval officers and ratings were undergoing instruction in infantry combat, charging at sagging sacks with wild cries. The traditional litany for bayonet drill, ‘Stick it in, twist it, pull it out’, echoed over the wide concrete.

  Harry Lovatt tried to imagine himself rescuing Bess Spofforth from the flesh-seeking Nazis. Khaki gaiters, webbing belts, rifles and bayonets appeared as strange appendages for sailors. ‘The henemy,’ announced the marine sergeant, ‘will take a mean hadvantage of you, because ’ee will be able to perceive your blue uniforms much more easy than those of your comrades in arms, the brown jobs of the army. Therefore the sailor and the marine ’ave always needed to use the terrain much more hadeptly than the haforesaid brown jobs. Don’t, young sirs, ever try to ’ide in a field of buttercups. You will be perceived.’

  A busy-looking orderly was making his
way across the square. He stopped at the sergeant and whispered tersely, meanwhile looking sideways, ominously, at the assembled squad. An almost poetic smile drifted across the rough face of the marine. His eyes were small and became bright. ‘Ho, ho,’ he said, poking his head forward, his neck stretched like a tortoise, his eyes narrowing towards the squad as if trying to detect minute faults. ‘Ho, ho. A grand hopportunity to prove what your sergeant ’opes we ’ave been perceiving.’

  Harry felt his gut flutter. His grip on the unfamiliar rifle tightened. A young officer, three down the line, dropped his with a clatter. The instructor regarded him with pained relish. ‘Do not throw the weapon away, sir. You will be needing it. We don’t throw our weapons away until we have decided to surrender, and that, sirs . . .’ he took in the rest of the parade with beaming certainty, ‘. . . never, ever, hoccurs.’

  The orderly had marched off, grinning; now the marine stood screwing up his eyes over a sheet of paper, as if he had difficulty in reading it or hesitated to impart its content. ‘As a diversionary action calculated by the ’ighest command, no doubt, to turn the course of the present war, it has been decided to send some of you young gentlemen back on the ’oggin. The following will report immediately to Movement Control for himmediate posting to sea duty.’ He read four names: Harry’s was the last.

  ‘Leave the rifles, sirs,’ suggested the sergeant as they moved off. ‘They belongs to the barracks.’

  Six hours later, HMS Doughty, a naval tug, was pushing out into the calm grey Channel, making course for the French coast. Harry stood with Barraclough, Jones and Simmonds, the other sub-lieutenants called from the parade ground, in the tight wardroom. Facing them, Captain Stanley Finn, stubby, round and red, like a marking buoy, sniffed belligerently. ‘There is an operation under way,’ he announced, ‘to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force, or some of it anyway, as much as possible, from the port of Dunkirk and the beaches adjoining. The Germans seem to have caught us with our trousers down, and this appears to be the only way out. We’re going to give it a try, anyway.’

  His quiet blue eyes fixed on the faces of the young men, all of whom were taller than he. ‘There’s absolute chaos over there. I know because we only came back this morning. The whole damned town is on fire and Jerry has bombed the port so that it’s just about impossible to use. Somehow or other, however, we have got to get the army out. Otherwise, we’ll have no team when it comes to playing at home.

  ‘Admiral Ramsay, C-in-C Dover, is in charge of naval forces and there is also the most God-amazing collection of civilian craft heading in that general direction. They’ve already started ramming each other. Some of the navigation leaves much to be desired. Some of these vessels may not only miss Dunkirk, they could easily miss France itself. The function of Doughty, and your particular job, is to put naval parties ashore and assist in an attempt to get something organized in the town. The army has its hands full, some of it keeping the Germans at bay, the rest trying to get off the beaches.

  ‘There’s no water or electricity in Dunkirk. There’s gas, you can tell that because it’s leaking from every hole in the streets. There are dead and dying and there are stragglers who must be organized and helped to the embarkation points. Frankly, a lot of it is a bloody shambles at the moment.

  ‘We’re going to try and sort at least some of the mess out. Each of you will have a party of a dozen ratings, plus a leading seaman and you will be under the command, once ashore, of a naval beachmaster who is already in situ. As I said, there are dead and dying, there are also drunks and men going mad. It’s not a happy sight. You may find that your main threat, your main headaches, won’t come from the Germans but from some angry and frightened British soldiers. It’s something you’re going to have to sort out for yourselves. The civilian population are also at panic stations. Do any of you have good French?’

  Harry said: ‘Yes, sir. I last served on a French ship, the Arromanches.’

  ‘Right, son. Well, you’ll find that useful. One of the people who has gone missing is the Mayor of Dunkirk, regalia and all. Have a chat with him if you come across him.’

  Ten

  FROM SAINT-POL, to the west of Dunkirk, a cloak of smoke hung above a copiously burning oil refinery. It rose to ten thousand feet and spread across the town, its port and its beaches. Beneath it the buildings on the harbour blazed like footlights below a dark curtain. As the Doughty moved towards the shore a stick of bombs sent up distant eruptions of debris, smoke and water. On the wide beaches at La Panne to the east were dark masses like more smoke.

  ‘They’re men,’ breathed Harry looking through binoculars. ‘Thousands. Just waiting. Jesus Christ, what a mess.’

  Spread about them, all over the cloudy sea, was a great litter of ships and boats. Chugging merchantmen, ferries, coasters, pleasure boats and trawlers. They stretched to the smoky horizon in each direction. Some were closer inshore apparently trying to embark men from the beaches. Harry looked to the sky above them. It was empty of aircraft. He turned the glasses back to the dark beaches and the burning frieze of the town.

  ‘It smells,’ said Barraclough sniffing. ‘You can smell it from here.’

  ‘Smells?’ questioned Simmonds. ‘It stinks. Like a burning rubbish dump.’ He paused, then said in a hurt way: ‘I thought we were going to win this war.’

  The others looked at him strangely. Jones said: ‘We always win, don’t we? We can’t lose this.’

  ‘Looks like we’re having a bloody good try, sirs.’ A chief petty officer had joined them. They turned to him like boys seeking assurance from an older man. He had a face like a block of wood. ‘Wait until you get inshore,’ he added. ‘It’s a real performance, I can tell you.’ He paused and sniffed the air. ‘Like a bad fish and chip shop,’ he commented. Then he said: ‘The old man would like to give you a final few words before you go ashore. So you don’t go and get into trouble or anything.’

  They followed him up to the tight bridge. Captain Finn was staring at the blazing shore like a man mesmerized. ‘Good morning,’ he greeted them. ‘As you can see, the situation does not seem to have got much better. The main town is right behind the harbour, if you can see either through the damned smoke. The beaches on our port side are being used by small draught boats to ferry men out to the bigger craft, but it’s a matter of a little at a time. It will take years to get those men off at that rate and the port is just about useless.’ He had spoken with the binoculars remaining at his eyes. Now he lowered them as if they were a great weight. ‘The naval officer you need is located across the street from the town hall,’ he said. ‘That’s if you can find the town hall. I think I’ve seen it sticking up in the smoke a couple of times, so it’s probably still in existence. You can check your route by your maps, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the geography has changed a little during the past couple of days.’ He looked towards the great hand of smoke that covered the horizon ahead. ‘On the brighter side, the smoke screen won’t help the Luftwaffe. And there’s no sign of their navy. So far.’

  As though in answer, there was a blare on the klaxon and they threw themselves flat as a German plane screeched above them firing its machine guns. The Lewis gunner on the bow of the tug only began to fire when the plane had gone. ‘He’s not after us,’ said Finn, picking himself up. ‘He’s after that destroyer.’ Another screech above their heads and a second aircraft skimmed their mast. This time the Lewis gunner began firing early but the aircraft was gone in seconds, followed by a third. They curled above the destroyer, almost athwart the harbour entrance, and came in quite carefully, with precision, dropping their bombs, straddling her deck and sending a sudden curtain of sea around her. Abruptly, horrifyingly, the whole midships section of the vessel blew outwards.

  On the tug the captain and the four novice officers were immobile in disbelief as explosion followed explosion, shattering the warship, filling her with smoke and flames. Another stunning eruption tore through her bow quarters and the ship, like
an animal sighing in death, turned on her course and began to drift towards the harbour.

  The speechlessness on the naval tug’s bridge was broken by a childlike sob from Barraclough. ‘That’s horrible,’ he whispered. ‘That’s just horrible.’ He looked about him embarrassed.

  ‘Right,’ agreed Captain Finn softly. ‘It is horrible, son.’ His voice quickened. ‘Christ, she’s going to block the harbour mouth.’ He pulled the engine-room telegraph. ‘Full speed ahead,’ he ordered. ‘All we’ve got. Give me some room, lads. Stay under cover.’ They hurriedly left the bridge as he was directing the helmsman. ‘Starboard two, Barnes. Let’s get behind her.’

  Harry, clutching his steel helmet, crouched below the overhang of the bridge with the other three young men. ‘He’s going to try and push it out of the way,’ he said when he realized. ‘Away from the harbour entrance.’

  ‘I hope to God she doesn’t blow up again,’ said Jones fervently.

  ‘There are men in the water,’ realized Barraclough. ‘Over there, look.’

  They could see hands projecting from the oiled sea, hands waving in strange hopeless greeting. Little cries reached them. ‘I can’t look,’ said Barraclough. ‘What a horror, what a bloody horror.’

  They sailed past and through the drowning men from the destroyer. Finn’s eyes were only for the burning warship ahead. She was now lounging like a drunk, rolling irrevocably towards the stone piles of the harbour entrance. A series of explosions coughed through her ribs. There were still men clinging to her rails.

  Captain Finn got the blunt nose of the Doughty between the stern of the blazing destroyer and the harbour. A trawler was moving to the front of the warship and a towline was being thrown. ‘Good,’ muttered Finn. ‘Not a minute too soon.’ He eased the burly tug off with great skill and she slowed as her bow butted the stern of the destroyer.

  The klaxon of the destroyer began to whoop eerily, like someone howling their own dirge. ‘Down! Everyone take cover,’ Finn ordered through the bridge loudhailer.