by Alan Pearce
‘Then you’ll know this bloke was in front of you, won’t you?’
The man looked confused, so Archie’s friend continued. ‘He’s been off looking for water, haven’t you, Archie?’
Archie nodded and stepped in line. ‘Corporal Larkin!’
‘Don’t look so blooming surprised,’ whispered the corporal.
‘Fancy seeing you!’ whispered Archie, wiping his eyes again.
‘So let’s have some of that water, then,’ asked the man behind. He gave Archie a nudge in the back.
‘I couldn’t find any,’ said Archie, barely bothering to turn around.
‘Water, water, everywhere,’ sung the man. ‘But not a drop to drink.’
‘So what the fuck happened to you?’ asked the corporal again. ‘What day is it?’ he asked.
Archie shook his head and the corporal chewed his lip. ‘So let’s think, then,’ he said. ‘We had to abandon the position on Tuesday, I think it was. Tuesday morning.’ He began counting on his fingers. ‘I make that four days in all,’ he said. ‘So today must be Friday. So what the fuck happened to you since then?’
‘What didn’t!’ sneered Archie.
‘I had a fucking terrible time myself,’ said the corporal. ‘First we had to swim across a bloody great river. Then we had to march for God knows how long. I ain’t had a proper night’s sleep nor a decent meal since Monday. No, make that lunch on Sunday.’ He looked Archie up and down. ‘So what’s with all the bandages?’ he asked.
‘Cut myself shaving,’ stated Archie.
‘Me, I’m growing a beard,’ said the corporal, stroking his matted chin. A thick carpet of black stubble stretched up from inside the collar of his battledress and stopped just short of his eyes. ‘Don’t ‘alf bloody itch, though!’ he smiled. ‘You ain’t got a fag, have you?’
Archie pulled out the tin and looked inside. He still had quite a few left. He gave one to the corporal and turned and offered one to the man behind. ‘Found these, though,’ he said.
‘Ta very much,’ said the man, reaching for his matches. He cupped his hand and held out a light for Archie. ‘Not long, now,’ he said, nodding out to sea.
Archie looked down. The water was beginning to roll towards his feet. At the end of the line a large steam trawler bobbed on the waves. A small rowing boat was making its way back to the line of men. He followed its progress through blurred eyes. A sailor in indigo overalls stood up in the bows of the boat, his hands on his hips. He shouted an order and the two-man crew held their oars still in the water. The first men to reach the boat did so by swimming out from the line. As they reached the gunwales the sailor tugged them over one at a time. Archie counted twelve men and then the boat was rowing back out to the trawler.
‘Oh, shit!’ said Archie, under his breath. Butterflies swirled in his empty stomach and a wave of brown foam lapped against the tip of his boot. ‘Oh, shit!’
He bent down and scooped up Toto just as a larger wave of foam rushed up the sand.
‘Is that your dog, then?’ asked the corporal.
‘Sort of,’ explained Archie.
‘I don’t remember him,’ said the corporal.
‘You wouldn’t,’ said Archie. ‘He attached himself to me this morning.’
‘So what you gonna do with him, then?’
Archie grimaced. ‘I thought I’d take him home for my girl.’
‘I didn’t know you had a girl,’ said the corporal. ‘You’re a dark horse if ever there was one.’
‘Got a picture of ‘er, mate?’ asked the man behind.
Archie pulled out the dog-eared photograph, holding it reluctantly against his chest.
‘Come on! Give us a butchers,’ said the man. ‘I ain’t gonna steal her from you, am I? Cor! Strike me! She’s a bit of alright!’
The corporal snatched the picture from the man’s hands and, tilting his head to one side, he studied it carefully. ‘She a redhead, then?’ he asked.
‘Auburn,’ explained Archie.
‘Very nice!’ He gave a knowing look. ‘Where was this taken, then?’
‘At a friend’s wedding, last year,’ explained Archie.
‘You been going out with her long?’ asked the corporal.
‘Yeah, sort of,’ smiled Archie. ‘I’ve known her since she was born.’
‘Childhood sweethearts,’ smiled the corporal. ‘How nice!’
‘Cradle snatcher, more like,’ said the man. ‘How old is she?’
‘Sixteen.’ Archie felt he should have lied. ‘She’ll be seventeen next month.’
‘Old enough to bleed,’ nodded the man.
‘Hey!’ snapped Archie. ‘That’s horrible. You’re talking about the girl I’m going to marry.’
‘Don’t bother mate! They’re all the bloody same, ain’t they?’ The man spat into the foam as it washed against his shins. ‘They whisper sweet nothings in yer ear. Next thing you know they’re up the duff and then you’re living in a pokey bedsit with a flaming harpy and a screaming brat hollering day and night.’
‘Talk about romantic,’ said the corporal.
‘Romance, my arse! I joined up to get away from ‘em,’ explained the man. ‘Another six months of that and I’d ‘ave swung for ’em both!’
From far behind, a long way towards the end of the queue, voices rose in harmony.
Why are we wait-ing,
Why-y are we waiting,
Oh, why are we wa-ai-ting
Oh why, why, why?
Why are we wait-ing
Why-y are we wa-ai-ting?
Oh, why-y are we wait-ing?
Oh, why-y are we wait-ing?
Oh, why-y are we wait-ing,
Oh, why, why, why?
16:29 Friday 31 May 1940.
Archcliffe Road, Dover, Kent
And just a reminder for those of you contemplating a journey by road this weekend that the familiar yellow motor-cycles and side-cars of the Automobile Association will not be visible any longer. This is because they are being painted with camouflage so they can perform any duties required of them by the Military Authorities. It should be stressed that the A.A. patrols will still be on the roads and carrying out their normal functions. All wireless receiving apparatus, however, must be removed from motor vehicles, whether laid up or on the road, by no later than this Sunday. And now the news in Welsh.
‘I say, would you care to join me, miss?’ asked an M55B, tipping his hat. ‘I have a box, you know.’
‘Very grand,’ said Kitty, stepping over. ‘Just like the opera.’
‘It’s not very grand at all, I am afraid,’ he said laughing. ‘But it will stop you getting a wet behind and you can’t beat this for a view.’ He moved to one side and took Kitty’s arm as she lowered herself down. ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘The last rain I remember was on Wednesday.’
He looked down at the portable wireless and frowned. ‘Why they can’t have their own station, I don’t know.’
‘Who?’ asked Kitty.
‘The Welsh,’ he declared. ‘Utterly impregnable language. Can’t understand a word of it.’
‘How about Norwegian?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ agreed the man. ‘That’s another one.’
‘I suppose they have to know what’s going on, too.’
‘Yes, you’re right of course,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll have the news in French next. I wonder sometimes. I really do.’
‘Do you live in Dover?’ asked Kitty.
‘Oh, you really must excuse me!’ The M55B, who had yet to sit down, extended a hand. ‘Captain Charles Rowling. Retired, of course.’
‘Kitty,’ she declared. ‘Retired from what?’
‘Oh, the Army, you know. Got my commission in the last show. Seemed a shame to drop it really. It’s been awfully good for business.’ He sat down close beside Kitty and reached into his pocket. ‘My card.’
‘Austin Motor Cars,’ said Kitty. She nodded her chin as if impressed.
‘Yes,’ said the
M55B. ‘Yes.’ He paused for such a long time that Kitty was just about to break the silence when he continued. ‘Yes. I have the local dealership. I only wish I’d got out last year when I had the chance.’
Kitty leant forward, encouraging him on.
‘Nobody buys new cars any more.’
‘No, I guess not.’
‘Bang went all the service contracts. All my best mechanics have been called up. I’m left with the rubbish, not that there’s even a call for them these days.’ He looked at his shoes and bent forward to remove a blade of wet grass. ‘Most of the cars I sold in the last ten years are up on blocks for the duration.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Do?’ he asked. ‘I suppose I had better get back into uniform. But just my luck and the war will be over before I get my chance again.’
‘What do you think to all this?’ Kitty waved her arm, encompassing the crowd on the cliff, the regular processions of boats, the lace-like vapour trails in the sky, and the boom of big guns all the way from France.
‘I couldn’t say,’ he shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Not in polite language anyway.’ He smiled tightly. ‘It is a mess, that much is obvious. But I look at it this way, God created England an island and not without good reason. And thank God for the Royal Navy. Plenty have tried but none have succeeded since the Normans. I don’t think this strutting Austrian corporal can manage it any better than that Corsican corporal. And he got his Waterloo.’ He paused again for some time before he next spoke. ‘This is a bit like Waterloo,’ he claimed.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you know,’ he said. ‘In the last century, and before that, people would pack their picnic baskets, ride off to a suitable vantage point and have a grandstand view of the battle.’
‘Yes, I have read about that,’ said Kitty, wishing for some sandwiches and a flask of hot tea. ‘Did you ever imagine you would be sitting on a hill in England watching a war unfold?’
‘Never!’
‘But can we continue on our own?’ asked Kitty. ‘If France falls?’
‘We’re better off on our own!’ He seemed to give Kitty a quizzical glance. ‘Just look at all the useless allies we’ve had throughout history. There’s no point naming them all.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘Each time we would have done better on our own.’
‘And will we continue the fight?’
‘I don’t see any other alternative.’ Now he looked a trifle indignant. ‘Can you imagine?’ he asked. ‘Jackboots tramping through the country lanes of England? SS on every street corner and no more British Bobbies on the beat? It doesn’t bare thinking about.’
Kitty tried to broach the subject tactfully. ‘But can we prevent it?’ she asked. ‘Have you seen the condition that some of these poor boys are in? So many nervous cases.’
‘I know. I know,’ said the M55B. ‘It was the same in the last war. I wonder if all wars have the same effect on men, or is it just this industrial age? Do you suppose the Spartans at Thermopolis were cursed with speech impediments or adopted crazy shuffling gaits?’
‘Perhaps it affects everyone differently,’ she suggested.
‘Officers stutter and the men go dumb,’ he explained. He could see that Kitty did not follow his drift so he continued. ‘Class difference, my dear. It was most apparent in the last show. Those officers who were affected, and there were many of them, often they developed a terrible stutter; couldn’t get so much as a single word out. But the men, well, they just lost the power of speech.’
‘My goodness,’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘I had no idea. I just thought they were frightened of loud bangs and things.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘It was quite common.’
‘So what did they do? How did they cure them?’
‘Well, the officers, those that were embarrassing, they put them all up in big country houses. I don’t really know what went on there. Most of them still stuttered when they came home.’
‘That’s terrible. And what about the men?’
‘Electrical shock therapy,’ he explained. ‘You strap them to a chair and place a powerful electrical charge at the back of their throats…’
‘Oh, no! Did it work?’
‘Not first time, obviously. After about twenty or thirty times it seemed to have some effect.’ He examined another piece of grass and twirled it between his fingers. ‘We had a lot of them delivered to our battalion in seventeen but they just started doing it again. Hopeless, really.’
‘Well, that’s my point,’ explained Kitty. ‘Can we continue the fight when so many of our men are,’ she struggled for the right word. ‘Are like that? Having suffered so much, I mean.’
‘They’re not all like that!’ He almost laughed at Kitty. ‘There will be chaps down there on those boats who are raring to go back and have another bash at the Hun. Stands to reason. Anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s not like that anymore. Medical science has progressed.’
‘Hurray for that!’
‘Bromide! That’s what they give them. And you have to catch them quick, in the early stages before it has a chance to develop and take hold.’
‘Bromide?’
‘Amazing stuff, apparently. Give them a good dose of bromide, a hot bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep, and they’re right as rain the next day.’ He smiled at Kitty. ‘That’s the thing with the modern world. On one hand the boffins find new and more efficient ways of waging war, and on the other you have the scientists coming up with ways of combating it.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘And what about our leaders? What do you think of Mr Churchill?’
‘Well, he’s just the man!’ The M55B tossed the blade of grass away and jutted out his jaw. ‘Mr Chamberlain, he wasn’t the sort of chap to deal with the likes of Herr Hitler.’
The retired captain pulled himself upright and placed his thumbs in his waistcoat. ‘You ask, What is our policy?’ His screwed his face tight and dropped his voice by several octaves. ‘It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime.’
‘Oh, bravo!’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘You should be on the stage, or the wireless!’
‘You ask, What is our aim?’ The M55B continued to Kitty’s dismay. ‘I can answer with one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.’
16:40 Friday 31 May 1940.
Approaching Dunkirk, France
‘Shooting down balloons! How hard can that be?’
Ginger wondered again. He looked to either side at Red Two and Red Three as they passed through the thin cloud. He would think about turning in a moment. The sun was sliding slowly down the sky to the west. He would need to keep it behind his back, which in turn limited the altitude at which he could fly. Black dots, like flies around a corpse, swirled above the burning harbour and over the vessels out to sea.
‘This is Red Leader. Red Leader. Stay close now and keep your eyes peeled!’
Ginger turned his Hurricane gently to port. He would have to count the coastal towns carefully until they neared La Panne. Somewhere, slightly further to the east and somewhat inland near Nieuport, the Germans had set up an observation balloon and Red Section had been tasked with shooting it down.
‘Without that balloon, the Germans won’t so easily target the ships off the coast.’ Groupie’s briefing had been short, sharp and to the point, with just a little dig at rival squadrons. ‘Hornchurch and Tangmere have both had a go but, apparently, the damn thing keeps dropping out of sight, only to pop up again the moment they have gone. So the plan is this: Blue Section will go in at sixteen-thirty. That should give them enough time to wind it down and back up again, ready for Red Section at sixteen-forty-five. If that fails, Green will come in next at seventeen-hundred and White at seven
teen-fifteen. Now, timing is crucial. Do not on any account allow yourselves to be distracted, no matter what the temptation. I don’t care if Goring himself is piloting a Stuka and he’s sitting plumb in your sights; and if you get a Messerschmitt on your tail, just try to shake it off. Do not indulge in any dog fighting, not until after that balloon has been burst.’
‘Red Leader. Red Leader. This is Red Three!’
Ginger turned his head and looked back at the trailing Hurricane. Spotted Dick was so busy watching something off in the distance that he had drifted away from the section. ‘Bandits! Bandits at three-o’clock!’
‘This is Red Leader. Red Leader. Yes, I know Red Three, thank you very much. Just let me know if anything takes an interest in us. And stay close!’
‘Roger! Wilco!’ called Red Three.
Ginger looked at his altimeter. He was now a little under three thousand feet and turning towards the sandy strip of beach that ran all along the coast. He looked below at the hundreds of small boats either arriving or departing. Inland, and the roads were clogged like thick black arteries. It was impossible to take in the magnitude of it all. Ginger never allowed himself to think too far ahead. He was content to get through one day at a time and he said a little prayer to that effect each night. But he could not stop himself wondering where this was all leading. Perhaps, if he lived that long, he would not need to cross the Channel next week, because the dogfights would be taking place over the fields of Kent.
High above soared a vic of Spitfires, their elliptical wings easily identifiable. Vapour trails cut across the powder blue sky. He dropped down to two thousand feet when Bray Dunes came into view and then a curious wave of embarrassment washed over him. That victory roll this morning; that was a really stupid thing to do, he thought. It smacked of bad luck.
The usual fear that he felt on the ground was, rather unusually, creeping back into his stomach and his mouth was dry. He made a quick sweep of the sky and checked that his vic was holding together.