They waited for twenty minutes, their nerves in knots. Villeneuve was about to give the order to take off when a vehicle came lurching past the hangars; it was the little soldier’s truck. Weygand and his aide got out, the general white-faced and in obvious distress.
“Colonel,” he said to Villeneuve, “the situation is lamentable. I had never dreamed that such chaos existed. The roads are so clogged that movement is almost impossible. We must keep cool, or we’re finished.”
He pondered for a few moments, poring over his map. Finally, he decided to take off for the airfield at Saint-Inglevert, near Calais. It was just possible that the transport sent out by Billotte might be waiting for him there.
The formation was airborne by noon. A few minutes later the pilots sighted the Channel, with Boulogne over on the left. Armstrong noticed a forest of barrage balloons over the port. With Calais dead ahead the formation let down slowly towards Saint-Inglevert, the Amiot landing first. It was only as he made his approach to land that Armstrong saw that the airfield was pitted with bomb craters. It was a miracle that Weygand’s bomber, which needed a fairly long landing run, had managed to touch down without wrecking itself.
Weygand came over and shook each pilot by the hand. He instructed them to wait for him until 1900 hours; if he had not returned by that time they were to fly back to Le Bourget. Then the general set off into Calais in a car his aide had somehow managed to commandeer.
The pilots pushed their aircraft into the shelter of a bombed-out hangar and settled down to wait, smoking nervously. From time to time formations of German bombers cruised overhead, their passage followed by the drum-roll of explosions in Calais.
The appointed time came, and there was no sign of Weygand. The pilots waited for another hour, then took off and set course for Paris. Their mission was over; what had become of the general was no longer their concern. It was enough that they had got through the day unscathed, with the exception of the Curtiss on its belly at Norrent-Fontes.
Sitting on one of his fuel drums, the little soldier watched them go. He was still sitting there, under the stars, when German tanks rolled onto the airfield. German soldiers, poking fun at his scruffy appearance and undernourished physique, gave him some bread and soup and then marched him off into captivity. They couldn’t understand why he was smiling beatifically, as though he had seen a vision.
The little soldier survived the war, and afterwards opened up a wine shop in Boulogne. A very old man now, he still likes to sit outside in the sun at his ease, for the business is run by his sons and their families.
For the price of a drink, although his sons disapprove, he will tell you how he was once kissed on the cheeks by no less a person than General Maxime Weygand and commended for his great gallantry under fire while acting as the general’s driver. He was promised a medal. And he will tell you about the brave pilots, who flew away to certain death in the defence of France after he, and he alone, provided them with petrol for their aeroplanes.
Of course, the story has become a little embellished with the passage of years, and the old man regrets that he cannot show you the promised medal, which he never received.
C’e.st la guerre.
Chapter Seven
Armstrong was exceedingly drunk. They were all exceedingly drunk, oblivious to everything but the table at which they sat, its top covered with bottles of wine. The noise and the smoke of the bar cocooned them pleasantly, forming a strange silence of its own. Only they mattered, only they existed in their little universe. Outside was not there, and to hell with tomorrow.
Forty-eight glorious hours, that was what Villeneuve had won for them. Of what use, he had protested to Air HQ, was a squadron of pilots so tired that they were falling asleep in their cockpits? What sense did it make, to go on throwing themselves into combat day after day, without proper rest, while other squadrons in the south had barely seen action?
Only five of them were left now, apart from Villeneuve, who had gone off on some errand, leaving them to savour the delights of Paris. And savour them they had, from top to bottom, and the greatest delight of all had been to sleep in peace on that first night, knowing that in the morning they would wake not having to contend with sick stomachs knotted with nervous tension.
Bathed, cleaned and refreshed, they had descended on Paris like a miniature whirlwind, sharing drink and women with equal abandon, making every precious hour stretch into the length of a day. the Frenchmen taking an unreluctant Armstrong under their wings as they conducted him around the capital. On one occasion, they had narrowly prevented him from taking a swipe at a British brigadier who, entertaining a bejewelled lady in a high-class hotel (from which they had been summarily ejected moments later, bearing trophies that included the brigadier’s hat) had referred to them in a loud voice as an unruly rabble.
Closing one eye, because he was seeing three of everything, Armstrong caught a glimpse through the smoke of a figure in dark blue French Air Force uniform weaving its way towards their table, then realised that the figure wasn’t weaving at all. He was, swaying from side to side in his seat.
The newcomer was Villeneuve. He grabbed a chair from an adjacent table and drew it up next to Armstrong’s. He looked pale and drawn, and Armstrong suddenly realised with a feeling of guilt that his temporary commanding officer had not been enjoying a rest, as they had. Unsteadily, he reached out for a half-full bottle and filled an empty glass, pushing it towards the colonel. The latter picked it up and toyed with it, then set it down on the table untouched.
“The news is not good, my friend,” he said, just loud enough for Armstrong to hear. The other pilots, engrossed in conversation with a couple of female singers who had just descended from the stage of the night club, had not yet noticed the arrival of their commander.
“I have been to a briefing session at Vincennes,” Villeneuve went on. “I fear it is all over in the north. The Belgians are on the point of collapse and the British are making preparations for a major evacuation from the Channel ports. Boulogne and Calais have fallen and German tanks are pushing on towards Dunkirk, from where the British have already begun to evacuate non-combatant troops. A British armoured attack at Arras has ended in failure, although severe losses were inflicted on the enemy. The attack did not succeed because we, the French, failed to launch a simultaneous assault on the enemy’s southern flank,” he added bitterly.
Armstrong, feeling much more sober than he had a couple of minutes earlier, focused on Villeneuve’s face.
“What now?” he asked, although in his heart he already knew the answer. His companion shrugged.
“The Germans will first of all do everything in their power to destroy the British Expeditionary Force, in my opinion. Then, once they have recovered their strength, they will launch a major offensive southward across the Somme to overwhelm the rest of France.”
Villeneuve’s appraisal of the Germans’ intentions was shrewd, but he was wrong on one point. The British counter-attack at Arras against General Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division had not failed because of any lack of co-operation on the part of the French. Initially, the British Matilda tanks had played havoc with the enemy’s motor transport, sending much of it up in flames with tracer ammunition. The enemy anti-tank gunners, after firing a few rounds, had abandoned their weapons and bolted, even though the Matildas were still six to eight hundred yards from them; some surrendered, while others lay on the ground and played dead. None of the Matildas were penetrated by the German anti-tank shot, and none were destroyed by high explosive artillery shells. One Matilda took fourteen direct hits from 37-mm guns, and other than gouging out bits of armour, the shells did no damage.
In fact, the British thrust was only halted when it came up against 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, hastily converted to anti-tank weapons on Rommel’s orders and firing over open sights. Not even the Matildas’ thickness of armour could withstand their high-velocity shells, and the attack eventually ground to a halt just as it was about to complete a sem
i-circle around Arras. The British casualty list was fairly heavy, the supporting infantry having been subjected to air attack, but the losses of the 7th Panzer Division were heavier still: 89 killed, 116 wounded, and 173 missing. Added to this the British took 400 prisoners, mostly from the SS Totenkopf division, whose troops had shown signs of panic; which meant that on this one day alone, Rommel’s division suffered four times the losses it had sustained during the breakthrough across the Meuse. Small wonder that the German general recorded in his diary that he had been confronted by no fewer than five divisions with hundreds of tanks; in reality, about seventy-five Matildas had been involved.
Armstrong, with his index finger, was idly playing with a small pool of wine that had been spilt on the table top. Without realising it, he had turned the pool into Paris, and was drawing thin defensive lines around it, in burgundy-coloured concentric circles. Almost as though he had read the Englishman’s mind, Villeneuve said:
“Every fighter group that can be spared is being assembled for the defence of the capital. We fear that the Germans will launch a major air attack on Paris in the hope of compelling us to surrender. Just imagine, all our beautiful buildings, all our heritage, destroyed … ” His voice trailed away and he stared into the tobacco smoke, stricken by the thought.
Armstrong was also staring into the smoke, but for a different reason. Two men had just come into the bar and were trying to order drinks above the general hubbub. Armstrong narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the features of the taller of the two, who wore the insignia of a French Air Force commandant — the equivalent of a squadron leader in the RAF. A moment later, he knew that he was right. It was Stanislaw Kalinski.
Making his excuses to Villeneuve, he got up somewhat unsteadily and pushed his way through the throng. The Polish officer, for such he was, did not notice Armstrong’s approach. The latter waited until Kalinski had caught a waitress’ eye and then coughed politely.
“Mine’s a cognac,” he said.
Kalinski swung round and his mouth dropped open as he recognised the RAF pilot. Drink forgotten, he seized a suddenly embarrassed Armstrong in a bear hug, slapping him on the back, then released him and addressed his companion in a torrent of Polish. The other Pole nodded solemnly as Kalinski described, in a few sentences, the adventures he and Armstrong had shared in Norway just a few weeks earlier. Kalinski had been there as a member of the French Expeditionary Force, flying an observation aircraft, and Armstrong had acted as his gunner after his own photo-recce Spitfire had been destroyed in an air attack on a frozen lake near Aandalsnes. Both had got out of Norway by the skin of their teeth, one step ahead of the advancing Germans.
Kalinski paused in mid-sentence, leaving his fellow officer looking somewhat bewildered, and turned to Armstrong, seizing his arm. “But — please forgive my bad manners, my friend. Let me introduce you to someone who has been a comrade in arms since the start of this war. Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Armstrong — Captain Jan Rabanowski. We were in the same fighter squadron in Poland; together we fought the Germans, and together we escaped.”
Rabanowski clicked his heels and bowed slightly, shaking Armstrong’s hand. Armstrong, suddenly overcome by a fit of drink-induced mirth, wondered how he managed to accomplish all three manoeuvres at the same time. Rabanowski, friendly but rather reticent, spoke no English but was able to converse in French.
Armstrong and Kalinski were equally amazed to meet up with one another in Paris. The Pole acquired a round of drinks and the three of them found a corner, where Armstrong told him how he came to be there. Kalinski, in turn, explained that after getting back to France after the ill-starred first Norwegian expedition, he had been given the task of forming a fighter squadron made up entirely of Polish personnel, who at that time were scattered all over the country with various French units after having got out of German-occupied Poland.
“As you may imagine, I jumped at the chance,” Kalinski said. “Off I went, clutching my new orders, to Lyon-Bron, where the nucleus of an outfit called the École de Chasse et d’Instruction Polonaise — the Polish Fighter Instruction School — had already been formed. Pilots and mechanics, all of them Polish, were gradually being posted in, and the school had twenty-five fighters — Morane 406s, most of them in pretty good condition — so I was quite happy. Training proceeded as per schedule, the pilots converted to the Morane without any trouble — in fact, some of them, like Jan here, had flown it already with French squadrons and had seen combat.”
He paused to light a cigarette, adding a stream of smoke to the general fog in the room before continuing. “We were just about to be declared operational when the blow fell. Our nice Moranes were to be allocated to another unit, and we were to go to war flying Caudron 714s.”
“Never heard of ’em,” Armstrong said. Kalinski gave a wry smile.
“An interesting little beast, the Caudron. It has its good points and its bad — mostly bad. It performance is inferior to the Morane’s on most counts, and a long way below the Me 109’s. The French Government ordered it, I believe, because it was simple and cheap to build. The first aircraft were delivered last January, and there were plans to send them to Finland, manned by Polish volunteers — of whom I was one — to fight the Russians. We wouldn’t have minded that,” he added grimly.
“Anyway,” he went on, “all that came to nothing when the Finns and the Russians signed their armistice last March. So off I went to Norway, as you know. To cut a long story short, I am now the rather less than enthusiastic commander of a squadron called GC 1/146. We have fifteen Caudrons and we are based at Dreux, south-west of Paris. We are moving up to Le Bourget in the morning.”
“That’s where we are,” Armstrong told him. “We were at Anglure, then we were deployed to Le Bourget for a special mission. Afterwards, we were told to stay there. I was supposed to rejoin the RAF ages ago, but it looks as though I’m stuck with the French for the duration.” Suddenly, he realised that he had forgotten all about Villeneuve and the other French pilots. He looked around at the place where they had been sitting, and saw that they were gone; presumably, in the confusion of the crowded bar, they must have thought that he had left before them.
He had a few more drinks with the two Poles and then decided that it was time to pack his bags and return to Le Bourget to try to catch a few hours’ sleep before facing whatever the next day might bring. Bidding his companions farewell, he returned to his hotel, a couple of streets away, to find that the French pilots had checked out a while earlier. They had been looking for him, he was told. His bill had been settled by the colonel.
He packed his bag and went out into the night, locating a taxi without difficulty. Despite the doom that was about to descend upon it, the nightlife of Paris was in full swing, and the rush to obtain cabs had not yet begun.
As the taxi picked its way through the imperfect blackout, Armstrong, feeling suddenly sick and dizzy from the effects of too much beer and tobacco, prayed that the German bombers would give the battered fighter squadrons at least a day’s respite before they descended on the French capital.
His prayer was answered. For the time being, the bombers were busy elsewhere.
Chapter Eight
THE ROAD TO DUNKIRK: SOLDIERS’ TALES
Along the narrow roads, strafed and dive-bombed, tortured by thirst and the pangs of hunger, the khaki columns streamed back towards Dunkirk. Ahead of them, trailing its sombre cloak across the May sky by day and providing a lurid beacon by night, was the funeral pyre of the town; behind them the rumble of battle as the rearguard actions continued; and on all sides reeking debris and corpses.
Despite the confusion, despite the exhaustion, despite the agony of blistered, lacerated feet and the burden of equipment that weighed like lead, despite the uncertainty and fear, most units — whether of company strength or split up into small parties — maintained a high degree of cohesion and discipline. And through the haze of fatigue, the nightmare of that march back to the salvation of the Engli
sh Channel would etch itself indelibly into the minds of many.
The sun shines; the sky is a cloudless blue. The Luftwaffe is everywhere, smashing everything that moves. We are surrounded by field guns, and we share with the gunners ninety minutes of dive-bombing Stukas: the terror weapon. Helpless, we cower in the ditches and pray. Hedge-hopping fighters machine gun us — spurts of dust in the road — whoosh of flame and smoke from stricken vehicles. Noise. Smoke. Flame. Why are we here? How did we reach this place? We know that the Boche has cut our routes to the south and west and is assaulting also from the north and east, but we do not accept these facts because we do not want to accept them. As a unit we are now valueless except as individuals with rifles — any time now we may find a desperate use for these. The day wears slowly on; we wait for we know not what. We are very frightened.
Then, at 1700 hours, orders! Smash all equipment, burn all secret documents. Make for the coast and report to the Navy! Never in British history has that phrase seemed so important. To our young ears it means salvation — if only we can make the coast. We set off in the warm, sunny afternoon back to Armentieres, through Comines and on to Messines Ridge, where we are held up by a squadron of Belgian cavalry. Incredible to see horse soldiers! On along the hot, dusty road towards Ypres, turning off for Poperinghe.
We pushed on, throwing all wrecked instruments, clothing, the ashes of documents, gas cylinders, anything that could be abandoned, into the roadside ditches. On across the 1914-18 battlefields into which our fathers had poured their blood, holding on against the same enemy; bitter thoughts. Shortly before midnight we arrived in Hoogstade, where all small vehicles were wrecked and abandoned and we devoured our last scraps of food. After an hour or so we all crammed into the larger vehicles and set off through the night for Bulscamp. It was a night of fatigue and frustration, with tired drivers cursing and each of us wrapped in his own private cocoon of fear, doubt, and thoughts of home.
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