Dunkirk Spirit

by Alan Pearce

  ‘Well, I didn’t bother much, not ‘till this lot kicked off. I used to go more for the luxury items, like strawberries and other soft fruits. Now,’ he sighed. ‘Now, it’s all potatoes and carrots, runner beans and cabbages. I like the soft fruits. I can eat them in my shed.’

  ‘K’dong! K’dong!’

  ‘Can’t really chew on a cabbage, can you?’ laughed Burnell. ‘I’m hoping to get a little place with a garden myself. I’m just married, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You told me.’

  ‘I’ve always liked Hampshire. I had a job in Southampton in shipping. Lovely country around that way. I thought I could grow vegetables and things. It paints a lovely cosy image, baskets of fresh flowers, the smell of baking bread from the kitchen.’

  ‘A screaming brat, wet nappies hanging all over the place…’

  ‘K’dong! K’dong!’

  ‘Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz!’

  ‘Bull’s eye!’ exclaimed Burnell.

  ‘And now we can get our tow home,’ laughed Charlie. He cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Taxi!’

  ‘You can’t credit some peoples’ luck, can you?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ explained the sergeant major. Both men wore the shoulder flash of the Royal Sussex Regiment. ‘What are the chances of picking up those blokes like that? In the near total dark?’

  ‘Hundreds to one,’ speculated the corporal. ‘Thousands to one?’

  ‘Something like that. I only hope it don’t slow us down any, towing that little pleasure cruiser behind us. Me, I can’t wait to get home.’

  ‘What’s the first thing you’re going to do?’ asked the corporal.

  ‘Hot meal.’

  ‘What about a drink?’

  ‘Okay, a couple of stiff drinks, then a piping hot meal.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Bed. I’m going to sleep for a thousand years.’

  The corporal’s face light up as if he had stepped into the limelight. The sergeant major then felt a blast of hot air across the back of his neck and his helmet slammed forward, giving him a nasty crack on the nose.

  ‘Fuck me!’ exclaimed the corporal. ‘What the fuck was that?’

  ‘God knows!’ winced the sergeant major, visibly shaken. He turned around but there was nothing to see. There was the sound of hissing water and the soft splash of debris hitting the surface. But he failed to notice that the towrope had gone slack.

  Sub-Lieutenant Kenneth John Burnell, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve; Leading Seaman Thomas Norman Armstrong, Sea Cadet Corp; Charles Aloysius Lavender, retired Thames Lighterman; and four-hundred-and-eighty-three men known unto God.

  Day Seven

  01:15 Saturday 1 June 1940.

  Off La Panne, Belgium

  ‘Shit! There goes another one.’ Leading Seaman Stewart Cragg winced. The horizon flashed momentarily white and a bright orange point glowed for an instant like the tip of a child’s sparkler. He turned his head to one side, just in time to see Nipper’s heavily lined face illuminated like a Guy Fawkes mask.

  ‘Fooking mines,’ mumbled Nipper.

  The crew of HMS Cameron’s starboard 20mm anti-aircraft gun waited in silence for the sound of the blast to reach them. First came the shockwave, racing like a tropical wind, rippling the surface of the black sea, and then passing through the body of every man aboard the quietened ship. A gush of nausea forced Cragg to screw his eyes tightly shut. He could see the point of the explosion etched inside his eyelids. Then came the sound, a deadly, low-level boom that tore at his brain and reverberated deep inside his chest. Although the night fell silent again, a dull ringing tone continued inside his head.

  ‘Fooking mines,’ mumbled Nipper again after several minutes of comparative quiet. He spoke in barely a whisper. ‘Give me something I can shoot back at. Not those nasty, lurking things.’

  A deathly silence cloaked the ship. Only the far-away hum of her engines and generators penetrated the steel decks. They stood in strained silence, scouring the dark night and waiting.

  Bump!

  Cragg and the rest of the gun crew went rigid. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. There came another thump out of the dark on the port side of the ship and cold sweat broke through the skin on his forehead soaking into his anti-flash hood.

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’ Cragg reached down and pinched his thigh, ensuring he was still alive. He let his breath out in relief. ‘Go see what that was,’ he jerked his head towards Soapy.

  The gun’s number three stood frozen, his eyes startlingly white in the night.

  ‘Go on!’ repeated Cragg. ‘Go see what that was. And make it snappy!’

  Cragg and Nipper watched Soapy disappear into the dark. They gave each other concerned looks.

  ‘It’s the skiff come back,’ explained Soapy some minutes later. ‘They said we’re wasting our time.’

  ‘What?’ asked Cragg.

  ‘There ain’t no one left.’

  ‘So what we doing here then?’ asked Cragg. ‘All this creeping about in the dark is getting on my nerves. Give me something to shoot at!’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ huffed Nipper, indignant.

  ‘Well that was a waste of time,’ said Lieutenant Commander Gordon Hubbard to himself. He lent towards the voice pipe. ‘Slow ahead both.’

  He consulted the chart in the glow of the binnacle light. There was a clear channel running all the way to Bray. He could afford to pull further off from the shore until they reached the Zuydcoote Pass. ‘Starboard five.’

  ‘Starboard five it is, sir.’

  ‘Steer two-six-zero.’

  ‘Two-six-zero it is, sir.’

  ‘Don’t let your cocoa get cold, Number One,’ smiled the Skipper stepping out of the gloom.

  Gordon smiled back. The drink was already stone cold. He lifted the mug and took a lengthy gulp.

  ‘We shall have better luck at Bray,’ said the Skipper. ‘And let’s be away before first light.’

  HMS Cameron cruised slowly away from Belgian waters and along the silent French coast. The sandbanks might not be so treacherous but their route lay littered with wrecks and mines. Back at Dover there had been talk of E-boats and submarines, too, including one report of a Nazi E-boat donning false mast and sails so she could lurk in the dark and blend in with the rescue fleet.

  ‘Something up ahead, sir,’ hissed one of the lookouts.

  Gordon looked up from the chart and spoke into the voice pipes. ‘Dead slow ahead. Starboard ten.’

  ‘Wreck off the port bow,’ came a hushed call from the eyes of the ship. ‘Three cables away.’

  ‘Starboard five,’ called Gordon, swinging Cameron out of harm’s way. ‘Midships. Slow ahead both.’

  ‘Signal from the wreck, sir.’ The lookout startled every one on the bridge.

  ‘Why we stopping again?’ asked Cragg. ‘Talk about sittings ducks!’

  Nipper shook his head. They felt the vibrations beneath their feet drop a pitch as Cameron came to a dead stop in the water. The gun crew pricked their ears for any clues. First came the sound of running feet, then a few hushed orders, and finally dozens of small thumping sounds.

  ‘Go on Soapy! Go have another look.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘’Cos I bloody say so. Now go on. Look lively!’

  Gordon stood near the rail watching the solders clamber aboard Cameron. He made a count and kept his eyes open for officers. Eventually, he moved to the edge and leaned over.

  ‘Any more down there?’ he called to a seaman clinging from the netting below.

  ‘No, that’s the lot, sir.’

  ‘Up you come then.’ Gordon stepped back. The seamen were fussing over the survivors, draping arms and blankets around their shoulders, offering cigarettes that they themselves were forbidden to smoke, and giving promises of rum, tea and safety. A ripple of fear ran down Gordon’s back. What promises could anyone keep? He watched as the men were guided below into the bowels of the s
hip.

  ‘So?’ asked Cragg the very instant Soapy appeared back out of the gloom.

  ‘Just some old fishing boat stuck on a wreck,’ explained Soapy in a whisper. ‘And a handful of pongos.’

  ‘All stop!’ called Gordon. A series of explosions further to the west illuminated the boats lying offshore.

  ‘She’s a minesweeper,’ whispered the Skipper. He used his binoculars to enhance what little light there was and could now make out the chunky outline of HMS Devonia. ‘But she must be beached,’ he whispered again. ‘I’d swear she wasn’t even in the water.’

  Cameron continued to drift silently on with barely two feet between her rudder and the sandy bottom. The Skipper let his binoculars drop to his chest and he turned and nodded to Gordon.

  ‘Dead stop,’ called Gordon. He straightened up and brought both hands to the small of his back. The chill of the night had penetrated his bones and his muscles were clamping tight with the tension. He quietly barked a series of orders and the silent ship clattered to life as the anchor chains ran through the eyes and down into the murky water.

  For a moment everything was quiet. Gordon looked across at the Skipper and then turned and looked at the coast. The burning buildings along the seafront at Bray had previously cast a flickering glow across the beach. Now the fires had died down and only the faintest hint of light silhouetted the shore. Cameron sat still in the water. Slowly the sounds of men made their way out to the destroyer.

  The Skipper stepped closer to Gordon and nodded again.

  ‘Boats’ crews away,’ Gordon hissed. The ship's derricks swung into action and the two new whalers and the tiny skiff were lowered down out of sight. Gordon listened as the oars were unshipped and the first muffled orders called out. He reached across for his cocoa and swirled the mug. He sipped cautiously now, careful not to let the thick mud at the bottom enter his mouth. He filtered the grit with his front teeth and savoured the instant glow of the rum.

  ‘Bridge, ahoy, sir!’ came a call from below. Gordon placed the mug quickly down and stepped to the port wing of the bridge.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s blokes in the water, sir. Loads of ‘em!’

  There was little need for orders. The boarding nets had already been unravelled and seamen stood eagerly along the rail ready with bowlines to pull any men they could find aboard.

  Gordon looked back across at the Skipper who nodded approval and then he slid down the bridge ladder and stepped briskly along the deck until he came to the rail. The first of the men had already reached the nets but they did not climb. Gordon watched them clasping at the ropes and struggling for breath. Another explosive flash from the docks at Dunkirk and Gordon held a photographic imagine imprinted on his mind. Hundreds of heads, like so many coconuts in the surf, bobbed on the surface. The scene vanished from view and Gordon screwed his eyes tightly shut and examined the negative. The men clasped anything that would float from discarded carley rafts and ships lifebelts to planks of wood and the corpses of their mates. Those that had made it to Cameron’s side clutched at the netting as if frozen.

  The seamen scampered down the nets and, like monkeys that had discovered a tree laden with fruit, began to pluck the men from the water and pass them up the side.

  ‘So?’ asked Cragg the very instant Soapy returned. ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘Well,’ explained the former Lincolnshire baker. ‘You know we wondered where everybody had gone.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, we just found ‘um.’

  03:30 Saturday 1 June 1940.

  RAF Biggin Hill, Kent

  Ginger would never drink whisky again. He had been woken at an unusually early hour with the usual cup of tea. And, as per usual, he had reached out for his packet of Players. But something told him to stop before he reached for the lighter. He did not feel well. He had finally made it to bed a little after 23:00 but he had been violently sick; not just in the ablutions hut but also on the gravel path that led the way from the mess hall. The first hint came as he propped against the bar. He had looked across at LAC Williams but had only been able to focus on the top half of his face. Try as he might, William’s mouth, chin and everything else below had appeared as one mighty blur.

  The room had begun to spin at that point and the sour rush of unwanted gastric juices had poured into his mouth. What had followed had not technically been sleep but something approaching a coma-state. For the first time since joining the Auxiliary squadron, Ginger had not woken on the hour, every hour, after midnight. The corporal with the mug of tea had been obliged to shake him awake and to stay with him until his feet finally touched the cold Linoleum floor.

  Ginger looked down at his bare white feet. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried again. He took a deep breath and felt the hut spin around him.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ asked the corporal. ‘Do you want me to get you an Anadin or something?’

  ‘Please,’ whispered Ginger. The corporal trotted out of the hut, leaving the door to swing on its flimsy hinges and allowing wispy strands of cold morning mist to drift inside. A reflex action deep within Ginger’s addled brain made him stretch out again for the Players and the lighter. When the corporal returned, Ginger was spark out on the bed and the cigarette was burning a hole in the Linoleum.

  He was reaching the end of his third mug of tea and wondering if he had time for a quick fourth when Groupie stepped smartly into the ops room and bounded onto the podium with all the grace of a youthful gazelle. Ginger was still struggling with the notion of a second cigarette. His mind was divided on the issue. One half of his brain said the cigarette represented normality and stability. The other half beat out a warning that it would make him sick. With difficulty, he pushed his thumb against the base of the packet and exposed the bright cork-tips. He moved his left hand slowly, aligning it with the top of the packet. He fumbled for a moment and finally pulled a cigarette free. He felt vibrations as the tip pressed against his cracked lips. He pulled his hand back and opened the fingers. There were two possibilities. Either his hand was shaking or his eyes were jumping up and down in time with the beat of his heart.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ boomed Groupie. He appeared in horribly fine fettle. ‘So sorry to get you up at this unearthly hour but there’s been a special request from the Navy.’ He strutted along the stage, tweaking his moustache at each step. He spun on his heels and faced his audience.

  ‘Now, I’m not going to go into details, but there is a general feeling abounding that the Luftwaffe is getting the upper hand.’ He took a step forward, placing his hands on his hips. Suddenly he laughed; a strange high-pitched cackle like a pantomime dame. ‘That, of course, is palpable nonsense.’

  Groupie stepped back and rested his elbows against the wooden pulpit. ‘But the long and the short of it is that we have been asked to provide even greater air cover.’

  He let the groans die away. ‘That, of course, means more sorties and the first of them will commence at dawn.’ He straightened himself and tugged at the hem of his jacket, cocking an eye to the wall clock. ‘That should give you more than enough time to get your eyes open, to down some bacon and eggs, and be ready and waiting one hour from now.’

  Group Captain Nugent stepped towards the weather chart and broke into a smile. ‘The Glorious First! And weather to match.’ He jabbed with a wooden pointer at the wavy lines across the chart. ‘We are promised a lovely summer’s day with just a sprinkling of clouds. But that, unfortunately, comes a little later. For now, there’s a rather heavy-lying mist all the way across and stretching some considerable distance inland. But do not panic. It is set to burn off before lunchtime.’

  Groupie tucked the pointer under his arm and swivelled on his heels like a Guard’s sergeant major. ‘Your task today is to join both Tangmere and Hornchurch in a three-squadron sweep. Our role is once again medium to low level with an emphasis on the bombers. Leave the fighters to the Spits.’

 
; Ginger had now succeeded in lighting his cigarette. He pushed the smoke back out of his pursed lips and saw the first stars swirl before his eyes. Quickly he sucked in air, holding it in his lungs. The stars continued to scamper across his closed lids. He lent forward. The gastric juices were fast filling his mouth. He tried to swallow but was soon overwhelmed. He opened his mouth and let the sour fluid trickle out in a steady stream into his empty mug.

  Groupie was reading an Air Ministry announcement in a silly voice. Ginger wished to God that he were back in bed. He tried to focus on nice thoughts. Veronica Lake. Cool and blonde, with breasts like Aphrodite. He wanted to bury his head between them and feel the soft satin of her nightgown against his cheek. ‘Veronica Lake.’ The two words issued from his mouth like a dying man’s last groan.

  ‘That is all for now, gentlemen.’ Groupie paused and raised himself on tiptoes, looking across the room for the interruption. ‘Please remain in your flying kit and do not stray too far from the assembly area. Good luck, chaps, and good hunting.’

  Breakfast for Ginger was not an option. He drank more tea instead. He would have to get one of those stone bottles used in hospitals for bed-bound patients. He could empty it out of the cockpit window and not raise eyebrows from his rigger and fitter once back down on the ground.

  He had experimented with the idea of scrambled eggs and even with the notion of dry toast, but each thought had sent the bile rushing back up his throat. He sucked in more air and held it down hard, hoping to suppress his troubled insides. Ginger stood wavering in the doorway, fumbling with the Players.

  ‘Look at that one there,’ announced Flight Lieutenant Godfrey Asquith. He popped the last piece of sausage into his mouth and tilted his head in Ginger’s direction. ‘That one! I bet he’s one of those jumped up sergeant pilots.’