Dunkirk Spirit

by Alan Pearce

‘The Masked Phantom at the Hammersmith Odeon.’

  ‘That’s the one with Boots the Wonder Dog, ain’t it? Bloody dog can start cars and bust people out of gaol.’ Grene scoffed. ‘It was a load of old bollocks!’ They both looked back towards Miller.

  ‘Well, it ain’t my fault. I didn’t make the bloody film, I only watched it. But it did have Betty Burgess in it, even though she can’t act for toffee.’

  ‘Nice legs, though,’ offered Grene.

  ‘You still standing here?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Go make yourself useful, Grene. Grab some of that wine for starters.’ He turned back towards Miller, who was busy lighting a cigarette. ‘You’d better grab your gear and come with us. Thanks.’ He took the cigarette that Miller handed him.

  ‘Who are you blokes, anyway, sergeant?’ asked Corporal Miller, pulling himself straight and adjusting his uniform.

  ‘Royal Norfolks.’ He pointed back out of the door. ‘See that smoke over there? Well, there’s another farm there. That’s where we’re holed up. It’s called Le Paradis and that’s a joke! We been having a bloody tough time with the SS. Fucking fanatics if ever I saw ‘em.’ The sergeant took a quick swig of Miller’s wine. ‘The major sent us off to try and rustle up some more ammo and grub. We’re running low on everything.’ He wiped his mouth and made to leave. ‘We’d better take you back to battalion HQ.’

  He motioned for Miller to grab his Tommy gun. ‘You got any spare ammo for that thing? ‘Cos you’re gonna need it, chum.’

  09:14 Monday 27 May 1940.

  RAF Biggin Hill, Kent

  ‘I am sorry to bring you all back here to the ops’ room, gentlemen,’ announced Groupie, otherwise known as Group Captain Nugent. ‘But the good news is that the Met boys say this cloud should vanish, or at least drift off somewhere else, by noon.’

  There was no audible reaction from the pilots seated casually before him, so he went on to discus surface pressure analysis and cloud ceiling predictions. ‘So, just to recap, your sole role today is to patrol the beaches and approaches of Dunkirk at around five to six-thousand feet. Spits will provide cover upstairs at twenty thousand. Once again, gentlemen, let me remind you that you are not to concern yourselves with any ground targets. Air cover is your sole responsibility, and we’ve had a special request that you have a good go at any Stukas you encounter.

  Groupie tweaked playfully at his moustache ‘And lastly, let us not forget that once you reach the French coast you only have thirty minutes over the beaches.’ His cold grey eyes fixed on Ginger who sat at the back of the room. ‘So, keep a watch on your fuel. Any problems in that line, do remember to make for RAF Manston. It’s our nearest base to Dunkirk and they are all geared up to expect visitors during this bash. That is all for now. Please remain in your flying kit and do not stray too far from the assembly area. Good luck, chaps, and good hunting.’

  There was a mass shuffling of chairs and feet. Above the din Groupie, who consulted a clipboard, called out: ‘Pilot Officer Wood. I would like a word with you, if you please.’ He beckoned for Ginger to come over.

  Ginger did not know whether to laugh or cry. The Hurricane, which had just been wheeled out of the hanger by a seemingly uneasy ground crew, had a worn, washed out appearance. He watched as the men placed chocks beneath the wheels and tied down the tail wheel. Ginger began his checks. The tyres, although light on tread, were fully inflated with no obvious tears. Next he tested every detachable panel to ensure that it was locked tight, paying special attention to the hexagonal gun bay doors. It was not uncommon to find odd items of kit inside, from spanners to underwear. The air intake was clear and so was the radiator cowling. Ginger moved on.

  ‘Sign this please, sir.’ Sergeant Merrill, an ill-looking man in his forties with a cast in his right eye, handed Ginger the clipboard. ‘All signed out as serviceable, sir,’ said Merrill with little conviction. He glanced away from the aircraft and let his good eye wander towards the control tower and the twirling grey clouds above.

  Ginger signed for the Hurricane, stepped up onto the wing and hopped inside. Like all fighter aircraft, this one had its own peculiar smell. Aside from the reek of fuel and glycol, there was an undertone of Brylcreem, pipe tobacco and vomit. She was also the oldest on the base. She was so old in fact that she had wooden wings, as had the prototypes, unlike the more modern fighters of the rest of the squadron.

  His cockpit checks over, Ginger opened the throttle about half-an-inch, looked again to see that the propeller was clear, and then depressed the starter button. The Hurricane spluttered, coughed and then roared into life. He increased the revs until the oil pressure gauge showed forty-five-pounds per square inch and then adjusted the pitch control. Clouds of exhaust fumes blew back from the aircraft and, caught by the wind, swirled skywards to join the cumulus clouds.

  ‘More tea, Ginger?’ asked Clouston, Red Section Leader. Ginger was undecided but took the mug from the tray anyway and settled back into the wicker chair.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ offered Clouston, who had no nickname. ‘If she’s old, she must be lucky, or else she wouldn’t be old, eh?’ He winked from above his mug. ‘Anyway, you’ve always got a parachute. I don’t see your problem.’ Clouston, as an experienced floatplane pilot, had rarely had the luxury of a parachute.

  Most of the squadron sat quiet. One couple played backgammon, a few flicked through the papers, but the majority had their eyes trained on the sky and the slowly dissipating clouds.

  Clouston returned to his views on tactics. The RAF may have done wonders to procure new, single wing fighters in the last year or more, but it had done nothing to update its tactics. A typical fighter squadron of twelve aircraft would fly in four sections of three, known as Vs or Vics. This formation had been decided upon, not because it offered the best tactical advantage, but because it was said to look ‘pretty’ from the ground. The two wingmen in each section were particularly vulnerable to the prowling Luftwaffe fighters who, themselves, flew in mutually supportive groups of two. It put the RAF’s younger, inexperienced pilots at a severe disadvantage.

  ‘But all that goes by-the-by,’ said Clouston, ‘once you get into a dogfight. Then it’s virtually everyman for himself.’ He perched on the edge of his chair and assumed the posture of an oriental dancer, his hands floating through the air.

  ‘The thing to do is get in close, real close, watching the target grow inside your sight. And then, just when the wings with the Nazi crosses fit neatly into the slot, you fire. That would be about two hundred yards. A piece of piss.’

  ‘Tingle, ling!’ went the telephone and every head turned towards the clerk who manned the assembly area desk. Before he had time to bang the gong that had been borrowed from a Bournemouth guesthouse, all twelve men of the squadron ran whopping and catcalling at the double across the grass. Ginger felt the tea slosh around inside as he sped towards his Hurricane.

  Within minutes the squadron reached cruising altitude. Ginger switched from the reserve to main fuel tank and glanced down at his airspeed. Red Section took up the rear of the gaggle of fighters, which was just as well. The elderly Hurricane was doing a good job keeping up with Clouston and Red Three but the controls felt slack and he had difficulty preventing the aircraft from spontaneously climbing or diving. He tried to relax the firm grip on the stick and wiggle his fingers. It was remarkable how the almost overwhelming sense of dread and doom that haunted him on the ground would lift once he was airborne. But the tension remained. Twenty minutes to target, thirty over the beaches and approaches, and another twenty minutes back. Ginger hoped he would be able to hold on that long.

  He looked down at the tiny white lines on the surface of the sea. Each line had a small black dot at its head and all were moving towards the French coast. On Ginger’s last trip, a post-dawn sweep over the beaches between Dunkirk and Calais, there had been far fewer vessels but they had been much larger. They had included the white hospital ships and the impressed cross-Channel steamers. These dots were smaller. T
he thick black smoke from the oil storage tanks at Dunkirk acted as a beacon for seaman and aviator alike. He studied the pattern of the smoke as an indicator of the wind.

  As the coast grew closer, the squadron began a slow turn to port, aiming for a point beyond and behind the smoking harbour. There was a burst of static in his headphones.

  ‘This is Blue Leader. Blue Leader. ME-one-one-ohs at two-o’clock.’

  ‘Roger that!’ said Bonzo. ‘Climb to ten. Tally-ho!’

  Ginger watched as the Hurricanes ahead of him turned gently now to starboard and then climbed sharply to intercept the German two-seater fighters somewhere in the distance. Ginger could not see his adversaries. They, too, had no doubt spotted the RAF planes and had steered into one of the thick banks of cloud. The squadron turned sharper still to starboard and Ginger found himself falling behind, unable to turn as easily as the other Hurricanes. His plane seemed to wallow and linger. He pushed the throttle forward a touch and felt the fighter give a momentary pause before it gained speed and altitude.

  There was another burst of static but this time the words were indistinct. Suddenly, the squadron broke up into four separate Vics. More static.

  ‘Red Two. Red Two. This is Red Leader. Stop playing the giddy goat and catch up, man!’

  ‘Red Leader. Red Leader,’ stuttered Ginger into his microphone. ‘This is Red Two. Red Two. Wilco.’

  He pushed on the throttle again and the powerful Merlin engine gave a brief cough. Ginger felt his movement through the air checked momentarily before the Hurricane sped on faster still. The other two members of Red Section were now some feet below and turning hard to port. Ginger turned to intercept. He was simultaneously aware of both a dark shadow flitting over his cockpit and the impact of one or more machinegun rounds hitting his starboard wing. He tugged urgently on the stick and sent his Hurricane down into a sharp port spiral. Pulling back and levelling out, he saw the distant outline of the twin-engine fighter. The German pilot was now turning hard to port himself and apparently aiming for a second sweep at Ginger.

  The controls of the Hurricane appeared to tighten as Ginger increased speed. He was aiming his fighter head-on for the Me110. He watched the German grow with astonishing speed as he struggled to place him within his gun sight. Ginger depressed the fire control and let loose a short, single-second burst. The Me110 was banking away, presenting its underbelly. Ginger adjusted his controls to follow but the engine gave another cough and again he felt his motion through the air checked. He moved his thumb reluctantly away from the deadly button.

  Another burst of machinegun fire and his Hurricane dipped violently to port as more rounds slammed into his wing, tearing through the fabric and exiting somewhere near the wheel bay. This time he pushed the throttle so far forward that he almost broke through the restraining wire. The Hurricane climbed rapidly as he strained to pull the stick back. Ginger swivelled his head, scanning the sky. Vapour trails criss-crossed thousands of feet above. Small harmless-looking dots weaved across the sky. There was no telling friend from foe at such speeds and distance. The Hurricane pulled of its own accord to starboard and Ginger let the plane have its way. He arced gracefully backwards and upwards in a half loop. Two Me110s were turning, too. Within seconds they had positioned themselves on his tail and were moving in for the kill. Ginger struggled for more altitude. The engine coughed again and, again, more rounds slammed into his wing. The billowing safety of a cumulus cloud wrapped itself around Ginger’s Hurricane and instantly his world turned white. He pushed the spade-like control stick violently forward and felt himself lift up within his harness and off the parachute that cushioned his seat. The Hurricane nosed down.

  Through the soft white clouds quick bursts of black engine exhaust washed across his cockpit. Petrol and glycol poured from the vents and streaked across the glass. In an instant, Ginger burst free of the cloud and turned sharply to starboard, bringing the sea into view directly beneath him, some two thousand feet away. He levelled out and struggled once more to gain altitude. As he rose, he scoured the sky. There were vapour trials miles above. He snatched a glance down to his control panel and the fuel contents gauge. There was enough for five minutes more over Dunkirk and then he would have to head directly home. He continued to gain altitude and, at the same time, adjusted his course to take him back towards the huge smoke plume that indicated the port. The headphones came to life with static.

  ‘Red Two. Red Two. This is Red Leader. Glad to see you’re still here, just where we left you, eh?’

  ‘Red Leader. Red Leader. This is Red Two.’ Ginger struggled for words, any words. He spotted his section about one thousand feet above.

  ‘Red Two. Red Two. Catch up now and let’s head for home.’

  Safer now in the clutches of his section, Ginger’s mind returned with some force to his bladder. Twenty minutes to Biggin Hill, thirteen if he diverted to Manston. There was no way he could wait that long. His hand reached down to release his Sutton harness, then the parachute straps. His eyes swept the sky again. He struggled with the lower buttons on his overalls and then found his trouser flies. Fear does strange things to men’s anatomy. Ginger’s fingers fished around inside his underpants but failed to find what they were looking for. The pain and the urgency had increased now tenfold. And then he caught hold of the tip and pulled himself free. He edged forward in his tiny seat and let the relief flow from within him.

  ‘Red Two. Red Two. Stay in formation. What the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘Having a bloody pee. Can’t a bloke have any privacy? Red Two out!’

  15:10 Monday 27 May 1940.

  Creton’s Farm, Le Paradis, France

  ‘Hey! You! Corporal! Stop skulking behind that bloody wall and go rustle up some ammo. Move!’

  Miller wiped the sweat from his eyes and rose to his knees reluctantly. ‘Out of the bloody fire,’ he thought. He ran at the crouch, zigzagging away from the barn and towards the outbuildings near the back of the farm. He slid to a halt beside another wall and tugged at the body lying mangled in front of him. With a heave, he turned it on to its back and then delved into the man’s front pouches. Five clips. Miller thrust them into his own pouches and then paused. Nice watch. He let out a deep breath. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he would be dead meat, too. And there was plenty of that. The Norfolks had started out with one thousand men in the battalion. Now they were down to just one hundred and defending an area of the line over five thousand yards long.

  The Germans in this sector were not having a good day, either. The Royal Scots on the right flank had taken a heavy toll on the slowly advancing Waffen-SS with sharpshooters and mortars. Now there were signs that the Germans were slipping through to encircle the remnants of the Norfolk battalion. Miller lifted himself up and then paused while an incoming shell detonated a few yards away. Then, he was up and running towards the communications trench. Inside, Captain Gordon, who appeared to be the only officer surviving, pulled back his revolver and let Miller dive in.

  ‘I found five clips, sir.’ Miller gasped between short breaths. The captain quickly handed them around.

  ‘I say, you’re fast on your feet, aren’t you?’ He gave the small corporal a quick appraisal. ‘You’re not one of our lot, are you?’

  ‘No, sir. RASC. Thought I’d lend a hand, sir.’

  ‘Well, very good of you, corporal. That’s the spirit!’ The officer paused for a moment. ‘Actually, you could be even more helpful in delivering a message.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Miller. ‘Happy to oblige.’

  The village of Le Cornet Malo burned in the distance, and the fields leading to Creton’s farm were littered with the dead. The captain pulled open his map case and pointed.

  ‘Look. We are here. On the Rue du Paradis. That smoke over there is Cornet Malo. Your best bet is to slip off down here.’ He pointed to a trail running due west. ‘Brigade HQ should be here.’ The captain rummaged around inside his map case. ‘Oh, damn! My pencil’s broken.
Look, get to Brigade HQ and tell them we need reinforcements, urgently. Tell them we are virtually out of ammunition – oh, and water. Lots of water, please. Tell them we probably can’t hold on much longer. A couple of hours at most. Now off you go, and good luck.’

  As an afterthought, just as Miller was preparing to slip back out of the trench, the captain asked, ‘You wouldn’t want to leave us that Tommy gun, would you?’

  ‘I’d rather not, sir. I don’t know what’s out there. I might need it.’

  ‘Yes, I guess you are right. Just a thought.’ The captain tapped the barrel of the Webley revolver to his helmet in salute. ‘Run like the wind, corporal.’

  The Norton 500 Army despatch rider’s model was an excellent motorcycle. It was also ideal for negotiating country roads clogged with refugees and the debris of war. There had been no sign of any Brigade HQ, or of any kind of HQ. All Miller could find was chaos. He slowed to weave past a carthorse, crushed inside its harness. His back wheel slid momentarily in the dark puddle of blood. Beside the road to either side were British and French army lorries. They hung at awkward angles, dipping down into the ditches or laying drunkenly on their sides. All along the road trudged an endless procession of grey-coloured civilians. Some sat despondently beside the road, casting blank expressions into the ground. Miller sounded the bike’s siren and the refugees jumped back urgently, horror-stricken at the sudden noise. They cleared an immediate path and Miller tapped the bike up a gear and opened the throttle.

  Some people might have termed Miller a hard, callus kind of bastard, but he was rather upset that he had not been able to help the captain and the rest of the poor bloody Norfolks. Miller had slipped unobserved out of the farm. The trail had been easy to negotiate but he had been forced to go to ground some distance from a crossroads. He had waited there for nearly an hour before he had deemed it safe enough to go on. While he waited, the sound of resistance from the Norfolks had gradually petered out until there was an eerie silence. With the aid of a pair of Karl Zeiss binoculars found at the last farm, Miller had been able to partly observe what happened next. Although most of the details had been hidden from view, behind trees and walls, the bones of the affair were clear. The silence had been followed by a series of chilling guttural shouts, then more silence. Suddenly, two heavy machine guns had opened fire in unison. Then no sound. Even the crows that had screeched for much of the day fell silent.