The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  By mid-afternoon, the queue had shuffled forward a mere thirty yards. The bombers and the 109s had returned again and again. Only twice did Guy catch sight of any RAF fighters – a lone Spitfire chasing three Junkers over the harbour and despatching one of them before going down itself in flames and another, mistaken for a German and brought down by savage machine-gun fire from the dunes. All day he’d been getting jibes about the RAF and cold looks from soldiers. Wherever the RAF were, he reasoned, they would surely be concentrating on bombing enemy positions and supply lines further back, and the fighters would be trying to intercept the raiders before they reached their targets. It would be no help to the men on the beaches to wait until the Germans were overhead. He had tried to explain this once, but he might as well have saved his breath.

  As darkness began to fall, they were a long way from the front of the queue. Boats with fouled or broken-down engines floated uselessly offshore and wrecks of those that had been sunk stuck out of the water on the falling tide. And troops were still arriving, streaming onto the sands. It was hopeless, Guy decided. They’d go back to the dunes for the night and try their luck again at the harbour at dawn. In the dunes men sprawled, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. Someone was praying aloud: Mother of mercy, keep me through this night … somebody else playing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ softly and slowly on a harmonica.

  ‘Got a fag, mate?’ the corporal asked Matt.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Pity about that ’cos I’m out, an’ I could do with one. Don’t know about you, but I’ve had it.’

  They were both stupid with exhaustion, flesh rubbed raw, muscles tortured. Matt had lost count of the number of trips they’d done from the beach out to the bigger ships and back. They’d rowed to and fro without stopping, the Rose swamped with as many men as she could possibly take. When the last of the bigger boats had left as darkness fell, Matt had tied the Rose’s painter to the prow of a sunken wreck halfway out. He slumped in the stern, leaning on the tiller, and watched the oil tanks blazing at Dunkirk. At the harbour men were still being loaded onto a ship but the Rose could do no more until the next boats arrived from England.

  ‘What do they think of us back in Blighty, then?’ the corporal asked, scooping sardines out of a tin with his fingers. ‘Must think we’re a right lot of useless bastards, getting kicked out of France by Jerry. My old woman’s goin’ to give me what for – if I ever get home again, that is.’

  ‘They don’t know much about it. It’s been kept out of the papers. Most people didn’t have a clue how bad it was.’

  ‘Well, they’ll soon find out when they see this lot of conquering heroes turnin’ up.’ He sucked the remains of the oil out of the sardine tin. ‘Might as well get a bit of shut-eye.’ He settled down on the Rose’s wet and bloody bilge-boards. ‘You sail this old bucket over here on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sooner you than me. You’ve done a good job, mate.’ He draped his sopping greatcoat over himself. ‘You can call me with a nice hot cuppa first thing. An’ I take two spoonfuls.’

  Matt grinned. ‘I’ll remember. By the way, what’s your name?’

  There was no answer; the corporal was fast asleep.

  Guy watched for the dawn to come up. As soon as there was the faintest trace of light in the east, he woke Anna. ‘We’ve got to get over to the harbour.’ She struggled to her feet. ‘What about the dog? They’ll never let him onto one of the big ships.’

  ‘We have to leave him behind. He’ll be all right.’

  ‘You know that he won’t, Guy. And he trusts us. Are you going to desert him when he has come all this way?’

  ‘We couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘Supposing it was Nereus?’

  ‘Nereus was quite different. He belonged to us.’

  ‘This one thinks he does too. Even Otto saw that.’

  He looked down at the dog who was listening, one ear cocked. Poor little sod, he thought, I should have finished him off ages ago. It would have been much kinder. ‘They won’t let him on any boat, Anna – big or small.’

  She said stubbornly, ‘I saw a soldier taking a dog on a boat yesterday – he was carrying it under his arm. Please, Guy. Let’s try. We could go all the way down to the other end of the beaches. There are not so many people there.’

  ‘And not so many boats, either.’

  ‘But I think we may have more chance. And when the Germans come back today they will be very sure to bomb the harbour and any big ships there – just like they were doing yesterday. They don’t take so much notice of the little ships.’

  There was some sense in that, he acknowledged. He looked eastwards towards the dawn. If they started walking now, they would soon see if the situation was any better in that direction, and, if it wasn’t, then they could go back to the harbour. There was another factor to be considered, too: the Navy would certainly have officers in charge of boarding from the harbour breakwater and Anna was much more likely to be discovered. Even if they were prepared to let a woman on board, which seemed unlikely in the extreme, Anna’s passport showed that she was an Austrian citizen – an enemy. That she was also a Jewish refugee might make no difference. ‘We’ll give it a try,’ he agreed. ‘But that’s all.’

  As they walked, the dog a small shadow at their heels, she said, ‘Will you promise me something, Guy?’

  ‘Depends what it is.’

  ‘If I am not allowed to leave – if they stop me getting on a boat – that you will go, just the same.’

  ‘Leave you behind? Don’t be absurd. I’d never do that.’

  ‘But you must, Guy. You must go back to England and fly fighters again for the Royal Air Force. They need you. If you don’t go the Germans will capture you and put you in a camp and what use is that? I’m not afraid to stay. So, will you promise me?’

  ‘I won’t do anything of the kind.’ But he knew that she was right.

  She’d been wrong, though, about there being fewer troops at the eastern end of the beaches. The murky light of dawn showed the same long queues into the water, the same black clusters of men on the dunes, the same junkyard of wrecked vehicles and the same dead lying in the sand. No big ships had yet arrived offshore. Anna was throwing a stick for the dog for all the world as if they were on holiday. In summer it was probably a pretty nice place for one, Guy thought. The French families would come in August and stay in the beach houses behind the dunes and play on these sands, building sandcastles and flying kites. But not this summer. Not next. Maybe not for a long time.

  Anna came back with the dog bounding happily round her. ‘Guy, there is a little boat out there. It looks like the Rose.’

  ‘Lots of boats look like her.’

  ‘No, they don’t. She has a straight back.’

  ‘Stern, you mean,’ he said absently. ‘Look, Anna, we’re wasting time. This is no good. We ought to get back to the harbour as quickly as possible.’

  ‘She’s empty, I think. And she has a sail.’

  He walked down to the water’s edge. He had very good sight but, even so, it was difficult to see clearly in the poor light. The boat looked as though it was caught on the wreckage of one of the ships sunk offshore. Fourteen foot, he judged, clinker-built, gaff-rigged … and she did have a straight Viking stern and a stowed sail. And she did seem empty. He’d noticed yesterday how some of the boats were abandoned and left to drift once the men in them had reached one of the big ships. He gauged the distance. She was probably between four and five hundred yards out and the wind had shifted, roughing up the water. Tough for Anna, but he could help her.

  ‘Do you think you could swim out to her?’

  She looked at him in anguish. ‘I can’t swim, Guy.’

  He couldn’t believe her. ‘But you told me you could. I remember.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t take me out in the Rose unless I could. I’ve never learned. I don’t like cold water.’

  ‘My God, Anna …’ He stopped
himself. ‘We’ll manage somehow. Get the boots off and the greatcoat, but leave the battledress tunic – it’ll help you float. You’ll have to do exactly as I say and trust me.’

  They waded in until Anna was up to her shoulders. The mongrel stayed, perplexed, at the edge. ‘Maybe he cannot swim either, Guy.’

  ‘All dogs can swim. Don’t worry about him. He’ll follow us.’ He didn’t think the dog had a hope. ‘Remember, you must trust me.’ He swam on his back, pulling her through the water in the way that they’d practised life-saving in the swimming-baths at school. She didn’t panic or struggle and he swam slowly and steadily, turning his head occasionally to check the direction. The dog was still on the shore, a small dejected figure watching him, but three other swimmers were following, splashing and kicking noisily. If any more of them see us and get the same idea, he thought, it’ll swamp the boat and none of us will get away. He swam on strongly, faster now.

  ‘Wakey-wakey,’ the corporal said. ‘Some blokes are coming out to visit us. Take a dekko.’ Matt staggered to his feet, bleary-eyed. It still wasn’t light – sea and land merged in a uniform grey. ‘Where?’ The corporal pointed. ‘Two of them there, and another three further behind. I’ve got X-ray eyes, see. I always eat up my carrots.’

  ‘We’d better start rowing and pick them up.’ His blistered left hand was agony to use. They manoeuvred the Rose towards the two swimmers closest to them – one, he saw, was supporting the other in the water. He and the corporal shipped oars and leaned over to help them. It wasn’t until they were both landed in the bottom of the boat that he saw their faces. ‘You lot know each other?’ the corporal enquired with interest.

  They picked up the other three soldiers. ‘There’s a dog out there somewhere,’ one of them gasped. ‘Don’t think he’ll make it, though.’

  The corporal searched the water. ‘I can see him. Over there. Come on, Rover, you can do it.’ The dog was paddling frantically, nose just above the water. They sculled the Rose to meet him and Guy reached out, grabbed hold of the mongrel by the scruff of the neck and swung him, legs dangling, on board. ‘Let’s get the sails up, Matt,’ he said. ‘Time we went home.’

  Oberleutnant Karl Halder had been patrolling the Channel in his Messerschmitt 109 on the lookout for enemy boats returning with British soldiers from Dunkirk. He had already despatched a lifeboat packed with survivors from a Royal Navy destroyer sunk by von Richthofen’s Stukas and attacked a pathetic old steamer and her crowded decks with some success. Now, below the fighter’s wings, he sighted the burning carcass of a British minesweeper, sinking slowly by the stern. He went down lower to have a closer look but could see no boats taking to the water and no sign of life. The men must have been taken off earlier and the boat was finished in any case. Disappointed, he banked away and turned south-east, heading for his base. He was low on fuel but it would be nice to find just one more target to finish up the rest of his ammunition. He went on searching the sea – flat as a lake with not a single white horse to be seen, which had given the enemy quite an unfair advantage. He swooped low over another abandoned vessel. It had green and white awnings and slatted passenger seats and looked like a river-excursion boat – the sort that went up and down the Rhine. The British must have brought out every vessel they could find. He’d seen drifters and dredgers, barges, fishing smacks, ferries – the most extraordinary collection of craft, and with scarcely a peashooter between them to defend themselves. If it had not been that so many of the Tommies were getting away, it would have been quite comical. Really, one had to hand it to the British for ingenuity. Guts, too. Their rearguard was still managing to hold the Dunkirk perimeter – by the skin of their teeth. They were a tenacious race. He flew on, searching.

  He had almost given up when he spotted a very small boat with red sails, all alone and obviously making for the English coast. He peered down, considering it for a moment. A tricky little target and hardly worth the bother, but he might as well use up the few rounds he had left.

  The canteen had run out of cups and they were using jamjars to serve the tea. The never-ending stream of troops continued to shuffle and hobble through the station, some without boots, some wearing borrowed civilian clothing, others wrapped in army blankets, one dressed in a sack with holes cut for neck and arms, another with a woman’s fur coat draped round his shoulders. Lizzie held a jamjar of tea for a stretcher case to drink. The Tommy, head and arms bandaged and what was left of his uniform in filthy tatters, winked at her with his one visible eye. ‘Now I know I’m in heaven.’ A badly wounded sergeant on the next stretcher blinked away tears as she put a cigarette to his lips and lit it for him. ‘Never thought we’d get a welcome like this. We thought you’d all be blowing raspberries.’ One of them asked if she’d let his mother know he was safe. She wrote down the address, promising to send a postcard. Then more of them kept asking the same. In the end she got a stack of railway labels from the booking-office and wrote AM SAFE on one side and gave them out. The men signed them and wrote their addresses on the other side and she collected them up for posting.

  ‘Take a break, dear. You’ve been working nonstop all day,’ Lily told her.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll get on with this lot of sandwiches. We’re running a bit low. Besides, if I leave here I might miss seeing Peter and I wouldn’t want to do that. Off you go.’

  ‘Just for a few moments, then.’

  She walked out of the station in a daze. Yet another lorry was arriving. Yet another full load of exhausted, filthy, hungry and thirsty men. It was a frightening sight. They were bringing them back in their thousands. The whole of the British army in France must be being evacuated. In the station yard, a middle-aged woman was going up to the soldiers. ‘Have you seen my boy, Billy?’ she kept asking, again and again, tugging at arms. ‘Have you seen him? His name’s Billy. Billy Rice.’ They answered her gently. ‘Sorry, love. Don’t know. What unit’s he in?’ ‘The Gloucesters – the 2nd Gloucesters.’ All down the line helmeted heads were shaken. ‘Sorry, love. Never saw any of them.’

  Lizzie walked on to the old harbour. It was packed with ships, the quayside seething with troops and officials, doctors and nurses, ambulances and trucks, WVS and Red Cross. Loud hailers were bawling instructions and a military policeman barred her way. ‘Sorry, miss, you can’t go any further.’ She stood, staring at the scene: at the processions of weary troops stumbling down gangways; at men plunging their heads into buckets of water to drink like horses and gazing round them in bewilderment as they saw the Coronation bunting and flags and the huge white sheet, daubed in black paint with the words WELL DONE, B.E.F. A band struck up, playing ‘There’ll Always be an England’. People were waving and cheering. A girl ran forward and kissed several soldiers on the cheek. The bewilderment on the men’s faces turned to grins and some of them put their thumbs up tentatively. It was just as the sergeant on the stretcher had told her. They had all expected to be booed – to get jeers and catcalls. They couldn’t believe that they were being given a heroes’ welcome. A woman next to her was weeping but behind someone said acerbically, ‘All very well to make a fuss of them but what are we going to do when the Germans invade us next. We’ve got nothing left to fight them with.’

  ‘We’ve got this lot,’ someone else retorted. ‘They’ll do.’

  More ships were entering the port. Lizzie stood on tiptoe searching over heads for the sight of a little ship with red sails. ‘Get further back, please,’ another MP ordered, putting out his beefy arm like a barrier. She ducked under it. ‘You can’t go there,’ he shouted after her as she ran towards the quayside. She fought her way through the crowds and ran on down the ranks of big ships, past the gangways and the disembarking soldiers to where smaller ships were berthed. No red sails. No Rose. A Royal Navy sailor stopped her. ‘Not supposed to be here, miss – not unless you’re official.’

  ‘I’m looking for a ship – one of the little ones. I thought she might have come in.’

&
nbsp; ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Rose of England.’

  He shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen her. What kind?’

  ‘Just an old fishing boat. She’s got dark red sails with patches.’

  He glanced over her shoulder. ‘Like this one coming in now? Looks as though she’s been in a spot of trouble.’

  There was a jagged tear in her mainsail and she was low in the water because of her heavy burden but she came in proudly. Thank God, Lizzie thought. Thank God. Matt’s safe. She started to wave frantically. The mainsail came down and the Rose drifted towards the quayside. A soldier jumped ashore holding the painter and the sailor helped him to make it fast. He brushed past her in a hurry. ‘I’ll get an ambulance down here.’ Lizzie stopped waving. She saw all the blood, and the dead and the wounded … and Guy holding one of them in his arms. There was a small brown dog at his side.

  ‘Escargots to start with, I think. Followed by Côtes d’Agneau with pommes nouvelles and some haricots verts.’ Stephan smiled charmingly at the French waitress as he handed her back the menu. ‘What wine shall we have, Otto? Since you are paying, you should make the choice.’

  Otto watched the waitress walking away; she had long dark hair, coiled loosely in a knot at the back of her head. ‘Have whatever you wish. I don’t mind.’

  Stephan observed him drily. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

  ‘No. Not in my opinion. Quite ordinary, in fact.’

  ‘You are always so choosy, Otto. You miss a lot of fun.’

  ‘Very few women are truly beautiful. I have only ever known one.’

  ‘And who is she?’

  ‘Nobody that you know.’

  ‘You seem out of sorts, my friend. You should be in excellent spirits, like me. Here we are in Paris, just as I predicted, and about to enjoy a most delicious dinner. And when we have eaten and drunk to our hearts’ content, the possibilities for further amusement in this marvellous city are limitless.’ Stephan passed over the wine list. ‘A bottle of claret would be rather pleasant.’