The Chestnut Tree

by Charlotte Bingham

  Inevitably, in the hubbub, Mickey failed to catch much of what Rusty was saying, most particularly the last bit, thanks to a hooter blast from a departing fishing smack, bound for France, and cheered off by those on the quay.

  Hardly giving it a glance, Rusty hurried as fast as she could to the smart blue and white motor yacht bobbing on its mooring at the end of the quay. Seeing David Kinnersley in conversation with another outward-bound sailor, Rusty held up the box of groceries in indication, before shouting over the noise that she was taking them below. Happily David Kinnersley paid her about as much attention as Rusty had given the departing smack.

  ‘Depends what actual beach they’re on, I suppose,’ she heard him saying as she clambered on board. ‘If there’s too much shallow water then the Navy won’t be able to get in close. It’ll be up to craft like ours to ferry them out, or home. Vital that we do.’

  ‘They say over half our army is stuck there, sitting ducks for their bombs. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  David looked up at the sky. After being given the thumbs down over his army medical, he could not wait to get going, do something, for God’s sake. These last months, up in front of this army board and up in front of that army board, he had become convinced that he was only half a man, as the bureaucrats tried to decide what to do with a man with only half a lung.

  ‘If this weather holds, should be an easy enough trip. Going out, anyway.’

  ‘Sailing single handed, what happens if you get taken out?’

  ‘Every inch will count on the way back. Space below, space on top. Space is what I need to fill the boat up with our boys.’

  Rusty listened from below. She could curl up small, and then, she reasoned, reappear when most needed. Guide the boat through the water for Mr Kinnersley as they neared France, leave him to pull the boys on board. Through the porthole she could just see him and his companion disappearing into the pub at the top of the quays, for all the world as if it were an ordinary day and they were two friends intent on a drink without a care in the world, rather than two men about to risk life and limb in a hare-brained plan to try to snatch the members of the British Expeditionary Force from under the noses of the advancing German army.

  She knew no one at home would miss her, at least not immediately. The quays were thronged with people whose only thoughts were on the rescue mission ahead of them, so if anyone came looking for her and was unable to find her it would be all too understandable. By the time either her brothers or her father realised she was actually missing, it would be too late, and with a bit of luck, should their mission prove successful, she would sail home alongside her hero, for, as Mickey was forever teasing her, David Kinnersley was very much Rusty’s hero. Watching him as she had, month after month, sailing Light Heart into Bexham with his mysterious human cargo, human cargo that her father with his boatyard was only too willing and able to help conceal, she could not, after all, regard him as anything else.

  ‘You keep your mouth shut, our Rusty. Remember, if it weren’t for men like Mr Kinnersley, these poor creatures would be dead meat.’

  That’s what her dad had said, when Rusty had first confessed to witnessing some of the mysterious goings-on. And that was all he had said, before sticking his pipe back into his mouth and walking out of the house to the Three Tuns for much needed refreshment.

  Rusty looked around her appreciatively. The boat was entirely shipshape, and everything that was necessary for the voyage was stacked and folded neatly: life belts, extra ropes, lanterns, flares, blankets and towels, leaving little or no room in the cabin proper. Beyond the sitting area in the next compartment were two bunk beds. Realising quickly that every space would be needed for a soldier, Rusty was beginning to despair of finding a bolthole, until she spied a hatch on the foredeck.

  Hurrying back to the cabin, Rusty grabbed a thick wool blanket and one of several torches before returning on deck and dropping herself down into her hidey-hole. Pulling the hatch carefully shut over her head, she settled herself down in one corner, a place that to her great dismay she found to be under a couple of inches of water. Pulling an old empty flare box out from the other corner, she perched herself on it, making herself as comfortable as she could against the curved side of the boat, but unable to keep her feet out of the cold water lapping all around her.

  After half an hour she heard someone jumping back down into the boat, then the sound of feet hurrying about the deck as the skipper made ready to cast off and set sail. Moments later the engine throbbed into life and the next thing Rusty knew they were at sea.

  Light Heart sailed as smooth as glass down the estuary, chugging steadily at moderate speed until finally – to judge from the sudden pitching – they reached the open sea. Rusty had no idea of what sort of seas they might encounter, and although it hadn’t concerned her earlier when she had begun to hatch her plan, since she had been born a good sailor, now that she was shut in a tiny dark space which was beginning to fill with diesel fumes, she began to have serious doubts as to the strength of her stomach.

  But no sooner had they endured the rough waters that generally occur where estuaries become the open sea, the pitching stopped as the boat obviously ran into millpond conditions. The calming of the seas brought no respite from the continuing engine fumes, and after enduring it as best she might for another half an hour Rusty finally gave in and did the only thing possible in the circumstances. Damp or no damp, swell or no swell, she fell into a diesel-induced sleep, waking from it what seemed like hours later.

  This time she could stand it no longer and burst through the hatch only to collapse on the wooden seating around the cockpit, her head still spinning from the fumes. For one awful moment she thought she was going to let herself down completely by being sick, which would have seriously dented her reputation as an experienced sailor, but happily the moment quickly passed.

  ‘I wouldn’t make a habit of doing that too much, old thing, really I wouldn’t.’ David Kinnersley eyed her, one hand on the wheel and the other skilfully lighting a fresh cigarette as he put his pistol away.

  ‘I heard that some of our lads were beached in France, Mr Kinnersley.’

  ‘So you thought you’d come along for the ride.’

  ‘Reckoned you’ll need someone to take charge of the boat, while you help them get on board, and that.’

  David nodded. He knew Rusty Todd, old Todd’s only daughter, only vaguely, but enough to know that she was as good as a boy in a boat.

  ‘All right, Rusty. Soon as you’ve recovered your sea legs—’

  ‘It’s not my sea legs. It was the fumes below. Enough to make a horse sick.’

  ‘Well, if you’re recovered then, why don’t you rustle us up some refreshments?’ He nodded across at the flotilla around and behind them. ‘Glad to see we are not alone, eh? Half Bexham seems to have come with us!’

  Five minutes later David was eating a plateful of thick-cut cheese sandwiches washed down with a bottle of Spellings Best Light Ale while Rusty took a turn at the wheel, keeping the craft steady as she went across the millpond waters.

  ‘We were told it was a planned withdrawal,’ David said in answer to Rusty’s questions. ‘Don’t think they wanted us to know what’s really going on – that our boys have been cut off and if we don’t get ’em off the beaches somehow, they can’t get themselves off.’

  ‘What about the RAF? Dad said they were giving the Germans a right pasting.’

  At that very moment they both looked up to see three fighters heading back for England, one of them streaming smoke from its tail.

  ‘Good luck, young feller,’ David murmured, watching them go. ‘Pray to God he makes it.’

  Moments later they caught their first sight of the French coastline, flatlands that seemed to be almost wholly hidden under a heavy pall of black smoke.

  ‘Lot of oil installations around the port, one gathers. Looks as though our bombers were on target. Good show.’

  To Rusty, setting out, sto
wing away in the hold, it had, at first, seemed just like an adventure story, but now, staring ahead of her, it was so no longer.

  Perhaps it was the sight of the ships that brought the reality of it all home to her so forcibly. Naval vessels, like great helpless whales, but lying, not basking, well off the coast, too far out for the marooned soldiers to reach by wading or swimming, but quite near enough to attract the attentions of the enemy fighters and bombers, so that even as David swung his boat to, it was apparent they were mounting another raid on their sitting targets. The noise of their bombs exploding and the crackle of returning gunfire began to reach their ears, so faint at first that the actual noise of war sounded almost harmless.

  ‘You’d better get below for a bit.’

  ‘I didn’t come all this way just to go below, Mr Kinnersley.’

  ‘Captain’s orders,’ David replied, looking round at the flotilla of small ships that was beginning to assemble over a couple of square miles.

  ‘You got a mutiny on your hands. I take it we got to get as many of our lads home as we can?’

  ‘The original idea was to ferry as many of our boys as possible on to the Navy’s boats. But—’ David looked ahead now, spotting more enemy planes heading out from the coast, ‘but, given the current activity, I’d say we’re going to have to play it by ear!’

  Most of this sentence was lost in the din of sudden gunfire as an enemy fighter swung hard right over the fleet of little boats and opened both machine guns. Bullets burnt the sky right over their heads as David flattened them both on the deck just in time.

  ‘Bet you wished you’d stayed at home with your mum like a good girl now,’ David said in Rusty’s ear, as they remained resolutely face down.

  Rusty said nothing. Going to someone’s rescue, their boys in France, had certainly spelt a kind of pleasant danger to her, but death, her death in particular, had never really entered the equation. Now she found herself shaking like a leaf while the air around Light Heart screamed from the hail of bullets.

  ‘Well, now Jerry’s got that little lot off his chest’ – David raised himself slowly and carefully to look over the rail – ‘time to go a-rescuing, I’d say.’

  Slowly increasing the speed of the boat, David steered towards the first group of soldiers he could see in the water about half a mile forward. Rusty eased herself up on to her knees to look where they were going and saw some of the men holding their rifles above their heads as they tried to wade towards them.

  ‘Must be dead shallow here. I mean they’re some way out.’

  ‘Poor buggers. Couldn’t have chosen a worse spot to be stranded.’

  ‘How many can we take aboard?’

  ‘Hadn’t thought really. Twenty – no – more, I’d say.’

  ‘We goin’ to take ’em to the Navy?’

  ‘Let’s just try to get some of these poor chaps on board first, shall we?’

  They were nearer now, and the nearer they got the more clearly Rusty could hear the shouts and the cries of the men. Some of them, hurrying now they saw rescue so close at hand, stumbled and fell forward into the sea, while those more fortunate stayed upright long enough to grab hold of the side of the boat.

  ‘Here!’ Rusty shouted, extending her hand. ‘Here! Come on! I’ll pull you up!’

  ‘They’ll pull you in more like!’ David shouted at her, killing the engine. ‘Don’t pull anyone till they’re over the side or you’ll be in the briny! And lads! Not all one side or you’ll have her over!’

  Leaving the boat in Rusty’s charge, David reached out wherever he could to help the soldiers aboard. Some threw their rifles in ahead of them, others clung to them as if their lives depended on them rather than the rescue craft, while others, exhausted by their ordeal, fell back into the water, losing their places to their fitter companions. Appalled, David stretched out to try to help a young lad who had obviously been shot in the shoulder to judge from his bloodstained tunic, but his grip was not strong enough to haul him on board. Just about to lose him again to the sea David felt someone else come to the rescue from behind, a stubble-chinned Tommy with a soaking wet butt of a cigarette still clenched between his teeth. He shoved away a soldier who had been trying to take the wounded boy’s place at the side and one-handed hauled the boy on board, where the poor lad at once collapsed on the deck.

  Still in charge of the boat, Rusty tried to keep her mind on her duties. It helped to take her gaze away from the sea which seemed to be turning from blue to red.

  ‘All right, chaps!’ she heard David yelling. ‘That’s enough of you! That’s enough for the moment, I said! Or none of us will get home! I mean it!’

  ‘You ’eard!’

  It was the unshaven soldier again, the self-promoted leader of the pack. With the end of his rifle he started to push men back into the water, bringing the butt of his gun down on one pair of hands determined not to let go of the boat.

  ‘Hey!’ Rusty yelled at him. ‘You can’t do that! You could break someone’s hands like that!’

  ‘Leave him alone, Rusty!’ David shouted. ‘We can’t take any more on or we’ll all be drowned!’

  Seeing the logic of this, Rusty stared helplessly and hopelessly at the crowds in the water, some of them reaching out pathetically to try to grab hold of a boat that was already turning away to leave them, while others more intent on survival were already heading as fast as their wading would let them for the next craft in the flotilla. Every boat she could see was swarming with soldiers, and it seemed the same scene was being played out everywhere. Men were clambering up the sides of motor launches and dinghies, yachts, smacks and even the odd long rowing boat, the sort used just off Bexham and other small harbours for near-shore fishing. And everywhere men were either being forced back into the sea or dropping off boats already too full to take any more. Some of the craft now headed back for England were sailing with men still holding the sides of the stern, where possible.

  ‘We’ll be back!’ David was calling out to them, once more in control. ‘We’ll be back again soon as we can! Promise you!’

  Rusty could hardly bear to look any longer. Instead she started to attend to the men sitting along the benches that lined the cockpit who were obviously injured, offering drinks and food first before darting down below to fetch the first aid kit stored there. The boy with the badly wounded shoulder was being supported by his burly rescuer, who had managed to light himself a fresh dry cigarette. Rusty crouched down on the deck and opened her first aid box.

  ‘Not a lot in there’ll do him good, girl,’ the soldier told her with a weary shake of his head. ‘Needs blood, that’s what he needs.’

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ Rusty asked helplessly, as the young soldier slouched even more heavily on his companion’s shoulder. ‘Shouldn’t we try – I don’t know – try to clean his wound or something?’

  ‘Leave him be, sweetheart. You’re a good girl, but best thing all told is just leave ’im be, OK?’

  Rusty closed the lid of her first aid tin, watching the young soldier’s face grow paler while the deep red stain on the left side of his chest grew ever darker. She suddenly felt faint. Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath she nodded at the burly soldier and moved on to see if anyone else needed her attention.

  As if sensing that his second in command might be losing consciousness David called, ‘Brandy in the locker, First Mate. Take a good shot then bring it out here. Couple of these chaps look as though they’re in need of it as well.’

  Rusty did as she was told, gulping a shot of the brandy straight from the bottle and finding to her astonishment that it pulled her together in no time. By now they were well out of the firing range and heading back to England as fast as David could run his boat. The sea was still flat calm and the visibility so good they could see dozens of other small craft to either side of them, some making their way back home fully laden, others hurrying full pelt across the Channel bent on further rescue. The next hours passed in near silence, pun
ctuated every now and then by desultory remarks.

  ‘Where the bloody ’ell were they?’ one man kept asking, time and time again. ‘They was shootin’ us to ribbons, throwin’ everythin’ they ’ad at us – and where was the bloody RAF? Sittin’ at ’ome on their bleedin’ backsides playing cards, most like.’

  Rusty was just about to point out that the RAF had been overhead the whole journey, when her eye was caught by the sight of yet another flotilla. A familiar boat passed some distance away. Rusty found herself automatically ducking, a habit of years when she was somewhere she should not be and suddenly caught sight of her dad.

  ‘That was my dad and my brother Tom,’ she told the old corporal next to her.

  ‘Good on him. God knows what will happen if those poor sods are not reached in time. Sitting bloody ducks, if you’ll forgive my language, miss.’

  ‘Oh, swear away,’ Rusty told him. ‘I mean, if you can’t swear during a war, when can you?’

  Miraculously, when they reached Bexham harbour the badly injured young soldier was still alive, and Rusty was relieved to help him, and others who were wounded, into one of the waiting ambulances.

  As the final soldiers were disembarking and Rusty was, for the first time in her life, considering not only visiting the Three Tuns but taking up cigarette smoking too, seemingly from nowhere Mickey pounced on her.

  ‘Where the heck you been? I been looking all over for you! Dad was looking too. He wanted you to go with him and Tom. They’re gone—’

  ‘Mr Kinnersley and me’ve been already, Mickey. Over to France. That’s where we’ve been. To Dunkirk.’

  ‘You were on board Light Heart?’ Mickey asked admiringly, then he frowned. ‘You went over to help in the rescue? You could have taken me.’

  ‘Not enough room for three, stupid. Not with all the soldiers we got to bring back, ask Mr Kinnersley. Besides there’s blood over there, lots of it, and you don’t like blood, Mickey.’

  ‘Mr Kinnersley, sir, you’ll take me next time, won’t you?’ Mickey caught at the arm of the disembarking David Kinnersley. David smiled, but shook his head.