by Tracy Groot
“Thornycroft. Six-cylinder. Starts up with gas, switches to paraffin, and I know how to keep her from starting fire when she does.”
The officer looked at Murray appraisingly. “They will need a man aboard each vessel strictly to keep the engine running. If you’re game, report to the Port of London Authority, down by the Tower.”
“They take Americans?”
“They’ll take anyone and are grateful. Talk to Lieutenant Sanderson, tell him Lieutenant Wares said you’ll crew this one for the engine—that is, if you decide to go.” He made a mark on the clipboard. “Right. Onward. Good day, gentlemen.”
He started to leave, then snapped his fingers and said, “Bandages. If you decide to go, take everything out but what can be made into bandages. Towels, tea towels, curtains, sheets—whatever you’ve got. Ample dressings are needed, but ambulances in Dover and Ramsgate are running low. Good day.” He turned to go.
William called out, “Good luck, then.”
The officer paused, and said, “We need all we can. The truth is, we need a miracle.” They watched him go.
“Easy for him to say, do the right thing. Ain’t his boat. Ain’t his home. It’s all she’s got.” Murray paced. “A, she’s gonna circumnavigate the globe someday, bobby, single-handed. She’s got vision and purpose and other stuff and I for one believe she’s gonna do it. B, I don’t know what I’m gonna do if she—Because C, I just met her. And D, this ain’t fair! What kinda decision is this?”
He ran for the bowsprit. He shimmied out and sat at its peak, hooking his feet around the lower brace. By the set of his face he looked like a thunderous male version of a clipper ship’s figurehead.
William felt for the packet of cigarettes, and crushed it in his fist. Then he cursed—fat lot of good that just did.
He went to the bow.
“I wanna get Clare outta here, I wanna take her to the States. I want her to know my ma.” The young man stared at some distant spot. “My ma could be her ma, you know? She ain’t got one. I wish Ma was here. I wish the Fitz was here. Came down in cement for me. I could kill him for makin’ me that kid’s godfather, but it was the proudest day of my life, you know? These are the ones who help me figure things out.” He shook his head, staring at the distant spot. “’Cause I ain’t got the heart to take this boat from her.”
William folded his arms and leaned on the rail. “Look. Mrs. Shrewsbury will be back soon. And Father Fitzpatrick will be here, along with my associate, Frederick Butterfield—what do you say we have a council of war on Clare’s behalf? We’ll talk it through and give it our best to sort out what Clare would want.”
“You know what she’d want.”
“Perhaps. But it’s not my decision.”
“No! It’s mine.” Murray scrubbed his hair with both hands, and then looked with sudden hope at William. “Say—any chance one of them nurses could sneak us in?”
“Not likely. And you heard the man—there’s no time. We’ll wait for the others, we’ll put our heads together, and we’ll do our best. All right?”
“Yeah.” This small plan for action seemed to calm him. “Yeah, okay, bobby.”
And then a thought came creeping. William slowly turned, staring to where the naval officer had left.
“Whatsa matter?”
“I do know what she wants,” he breathed. “Small Vessels Pool.”
“Say what?”
Clare was in her morphine fit. Or spellbinding fit. “I know what she wants.” It was what he wanted, before he exploded to bits, before he tore things apart from this helplessness.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
He looked at Murray. “Before she went into surgery she said something about Maggie meeting them. Or him. I thought she was talking nonsense. But she specifically mentioned the Small Vessels Pool. And she said this: Maggie must go.”
Murray unhooked his legs from the bottom brace. “Maggie must go?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Cut it out, you’re giving me goosebumps all over. Look at that.” He scratched his arms. He slid to the deck. “How could she know to say something like that?”
William paced the bow. “I don’t know, she was in a state. She was in a strange state. Something about a shatterer. I thought she was delusional. She’d gone spellbinding.”
“Spellbinding?”
“Spellbinding, prophesying . . . You had to be there. But it didn’t feel like a delusion, and she didn’t say it once, the part about Maggie—she said it twice.”
He gripped the rail. Then he turned, looked at the carved 5, looked up the foremast to the flag fluttering in the wind, a Union Jack.
Clare, would you lose it all? Would you lose your home? Would you lose your dream?
Maggie must go.
It wasn’t spooky or metaphysical or prophesying or anything like that. It was simply what she said, and that was good enough for him.
“We have her answer.” He looked at Murray. “I want you to believe me.”
He jerked a shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I want to sail this boat. Now.”
“Why, bobby?”
“Because it’s all I can do!” He stepped back from the rail.
He couldn’t save Erich von Wechsler. And Klein got away. But he could sail.
It cleared away the last bit of uncertainty.
“She’d haul things out of this boat in an instant. She’d tear it apart to make room, she’d crew it herself, she’d do anything she could. And she’ll tear us apart if we don’t help her. I can’t do anything. But I can sail for her.”
A spasm of emotion crossed Murray’s face. He went and picked up his drawing pad, flipped through it, laid it down. He shoved his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he said thickly, “You shoulda seen her with Klein.”
And then, a change came to his face. Tension flowed out. He looked at William. “That’s how I know what she wants. She was gonna die for that packet.”
Murray looked at the number 5 on the foremast. He looked at William. “Let’s get out of here.”
When Mrs. Shrewsbury came humming around the corner of the boathouse with a freshly baked Dundee cake, Maggie Bright was not there. But piled high at the end of the dock was all manner of things. The dinette table. Fishing equipment. Stacks of books. Clare’s pots of herbs and flowers, the red and yellow Chinese paper lanterns, the little grill, the deck chairs, the foldout table that went with the deck chairs, and boxes and boxes of Clare’s things from Murray’s cabin and the back cabin.
She certainly hoped to find things from her own cabin in that pile, and she hoped they didn’t wreck that priceless treasure trove of a newspaper collection, Rocket Kid and Salamander. She’d collect that from the pile straightaway, and store it in the Anderson shelter. Someone had to look out for things.
“What am I going to do with you?” she asked the cake. “They’ve gone to war.”
Later, when Frederick Butterfield arrived at the deserted Elliott’s Boatyard with Father David Fitzpatrick, he found a Dundee cake sitting on a note in the middle of the walkway to the dock, directed to, of all people, himself.
Dear Detective Inspector Butterfield,
We’ve gone to war. The others, to France; myself, to Dover or to Ramsgate, where I am sure to be of good use to receive our boys home. Do check in on Clare—she will be lonely without us. And I am sure she would very much like to see the dear Burglar Vicar.
Do enjoy the cake.
Regards,
Mrs. Iris Shrewsbury
P.S. Do you know? I feel as though I were born for such a time as this. Of course, I feel as though I were born for many things. It is wonderful to be 67, retired, and of good use.
P.P.S. Apologize to the BV for me. My actions with a teakettle are entirely reflexive.
“Well, how many small boats do you want? A hundred?”
To [Captain Eric] Bush it didn’t seem then that any man as yet appreciated the full gravity of the
situation. His voice tight with emotion, he answered: “Look, sir, not a hundred boats—every boat that can be found in the country should be sent if we’re to even stand a chance.”
—RICHARD COLLIER, The Sands of Dunkirk
The rich and the famous, the poor and the unknown, as motley a bunch as ever set sail made up this mercy fleet.
—RICHARD COLLIER, The Sands of Dunkirk
Let’s hold our nerve, and see how many troops we can get away.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
Lieutenant Ian Cox, First Lieutenant of the destroyer Malcolm, could hardly believe his eyes. There, coming over the horizon toward him, was a mass of dots that filled the sea. The Malcolm was bringing her third load of troops back to Dover. The dots were all heading the other way—toward Dunkirk. . . .
As he watched, the dots materialized into vessels . . . they were little ships of every conceivable type—fishing smacks . . . drifters . . . excursion boats . . . glittering white yachts . . . mud-spattered hoppers . . . Thames sailing barges . . . dredges, trawlers, and rust-streaked scows. . . .
Cox felt a sudden surge of pride. Being here was no longer just a duty; it was an honor and a privilege. Turning to a somewhat startled chief boatswain’s mate standing beside him, he burst into the Saint Crispin’s Day passage from Shakespeare’s Henry V:
And Gentlemen in England, now abed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here.
—WALTER LORD, The Miracle of Dunkirk
THE SQUAD OF SIX MEN CRESTED the rise of a dune and beheld the beach for the first time.
The nightmare scene before them was so vast and dark and flashing and thunderous, so unbelievably frightening, that at first no one could say a word.
Like prehistoric terrors of the air, wheeling Stukas and Heinkels harried their prey on the beaches and the harbor, flying overhead in groups of two and three, diving, strafing, bombing. They had just caught a glimpse of the man-clad pier in the harbor on their left when diving planes drew their attention to a ship that had slipped from the mole. They watched the destroyer take pounding after pounding of bombs and bullets until finally the deck exploded in flame. They heard men scream as they leapt, flaming, into the water; and suddenly the ship blew up, obscuring the entire harbor with first a blinding yellow flash and then a geysered veil of water and concrete, flying steel, flaming rubble.
The six men who’d crested the dune cried out in horror and rage, and realized that others did too, a great roar of wrath from massive black patches on the beaches.
The massive black patches ranging over the sands first brought to mind a continent of seaweed, until it materialized as thousands and thousands of men stretched out before them in milling dark groups, in great snaking queues. They saw these patches en masse first, and then as their minds adjusted they saw smaller patches, and smaller yet, down to individual spots scattered and walking about, some joining a group or leaving one. Finally, they saw patches not moving at all, at least not of their own accord; these lay scattered upon the beach, or rolled stiff and oil-slicked in a blood-frothed surf, or were stretcher-borne to an aid station or a place where they piled the dead.
“You had the feeling that if you just got to Dunkirk, it’s all over,” said Baylor, his voice small. “Everyone’s safe.”
“That was England, remember?”
“What’s this?”
“Not England.”
Blazing wrecks dotted the harbor amid a forest of masts where boats had sunk. Straight down at the beach itself, they watched a blue-painted fishing trawler fifty yards out from the shoreline try to navigate wreckage with one man hanging off the bow, watching intently and calling back orders to the skipper.
“Look there!” They looked to where Griggs pointed.
Boom, boom, boom. A destroyer lying a mile off, its Bofors guns angled high as they could manage, blazed away at a dive-bomber and clipped its wing. Trailing smoke, the bomber banked from the dive and looked as though it might pull out when it suddenly veered, caught a wingtip on the waves—then cartwheeled on the surface of the sea, and exploded.
A roar went up from the seaweed continent, and the men on the dune pounded each other on the back.
“Cheers for the Royal Navy!”
“Did you see that, Milty? Did you see it?”
“What fine shooting, what an impossible angle!”
“Lads, will you look at that!” Balantine yelled with a grin. He pointed at the blue-painted trawler. It had tied up to what looked like . . . “They’ve made a pier out of lorries!”
“Ran ’em out on low tide the other day,” said a soldier close by, a flush of lingering joy on his face from witnessing the plane wreck. “Brilliant, hey? Made it easier for smaller craft like that to get in. Loading goes faster. There’s some British ingenuity, hey?”
“How long have you been here?” Jamie asked him.
“Two days.”
“Two days?” said Jamie. He stared down to the harbor. “That’s how long the queues are taking?”
“Some have been here longer than me. They can only load by that eastern mole and by the lorry jetties they’ve thrown together, two or three of ’em so far. I heard there’s another up by Bray Dunes. You better get your men into a group. They take us off in order, best as they can. Until then, you can amuse yourself by staying alive. But look over there—see? We’re starting to see smaller craft like that come straight in to the beaches. Lifeboats, day sailers, you name it. They’re taking us off by tens and twenties and fifties out to the destroyers. You know what they do then? They come straight back for more. While hell rains down. Never seen anything like it. They’re civilians.” He shook his head. “Brave, brave lads.”
“I’ll say,” said another next to him.
“Some of ’em ain’t lads,” another ginger-haired soldier added. “I seen old ’uns out there, old enough to be me grandpap.”
“Why are there bodies in the water?” Jamie asked.
“Well, you saw that ship blow up. Some are killed by the bombs, and some just can’t swim.”
Jamie looked around, and said, “Where do we go to get into groups?”
“Incoming! Incoming!”
“Take cover!”
A droning field of planes appeared from the east in three columns, some in formation over the waters, some over the beaches, some over land. Jamie watched, mesmerized, as a single plane dropped . . . four, five . . . ten, eleven . . . fifteen bombs.
Milton dragged Jamie down to the sand and threw himself on top of him.
Wet sand filled Jamie’s mouth, and he kicked and struggled and finally shoved Milton off. Coughing, spitting, he righted his helmet and wiped his mouth only to be pushed down again, his face shoved once more into skin-scouring sand. He couldn’t breathe, and frantically threw Milton off.
He spit sand, scrubbed his mouth, and roared at Milton, “Mind those stitches! I can’t have you comin’ apart!”
“He’s already done that, hasn’t he?”
“Shut up, Griggs!” shouted Jamie, Baylor, and Balantine.
Each man emerged from wherever he’d dove into the sand on the dune, took stock of himself, brushed off sand and righted kits and helmets, and then took stock of each other.
“Everyone all right then?” said Balantine. He looked down to the beach. “We need to find out where we’re supposed to be. That’s one bloody massive queue.”
“Go see that man with the megaphone,” said their earlier informant, brushing off sand and pointing west. “There—that’s Captain Tennant, actually. He’s in charge.”
The man with the megaphone, dressed in naval blues and wearing a helmet with some sort of sticker on the front, moved along with another man trotting behind, calling out, “Maintain order! Stay in your groups! Queue in an orderly fashion!” His naval blues stood out in fresh, welcomed contrast to filthy army greens and browns.
“Nice to see someone clean,” said Griggs.
“Griggs, keep everyone together,” s
aid Balantine. “I’ll see where we’re supposed to go.” Hand on his helmet, he went off at a trot, glancing at the eastern sky.
Jamie and Baylor sat watching the beaches. Curtis dropped where he stood and fell asleep in an instant. Milton sat gazing at the sky, and Balantine had not yet returned. Griggs sat apart, cleaning his gun and glaring at the east as if daring a bomber to come—as if a Bren could take down a bomber.
“You ever see so many people in one place?” Jamie said.
“I went to the Olympic Games in ’36 with my cousin. That was a lot.” But Baylor sounded as though it didn’t quite compare to what lay before their eyes.
The entire beach, once a place for holidaymakers, was a shambles of debris. In the dunes, you couldn’t take a step without landing on something bomb-strewn; a bit of a brightly colored beach umbrella, a piece of what looked like a café table thrown hundreds of yards from the line of bombed shops fronting the beach, broken army equipment, and broken men.
They lay everywhere, and not just soldiers; they saw dead civilians, same as inland, the old and the young, men and women. Some of the French townspeople, weeping, collected their dead on stretchers and bore them away.
“Bullets are the worst,” said their informant, whose name was Peter. “You can avoid the bombs, but when they come in strafing, that’s another thing. Seems they always come out of nowhere. That one’s buggered,” he said with a nod, and they followed his line of sight. At first Jamie thought he referred to Milton, and felt a flash of offense; but past Milton, down in the surf of the beach, soldiers began to roll out of a stalled-out motorboat, and wade back to shore.