by Bodie Thoene
David spoke with a captain and asked if he and Badger could join the group in waiting for evacuation. “Can’t think why you’d want to,” the officer replied listlessly. “You and your friend have obviously seen action. Someone should save a place for you at the head of the queue.”
The captain returned to staring out at the line of breakers. Some of his men were sleeping. Others were scooping out shallow pits for themselves. None seemed interested in talking. It was dusk, and each man was alone with his gloomy thoughts.
A low, incessant drumming of many engines announced the return of another flight of Heinkels to bomb Dunkirk. David counted the heavy-bodied twin-engine planes until his tally reached ninety-nine; then he gave up. His arm ached. He wondered if he had made a mistake leading Badger out in the open and leaving the safety of the shelter.
The bombs whistled down on the docks and the warehouses and the oil tanks of Dunkirk. But the heavy thump and rumble of high explosives were missing, and the objects falling from the German warplanes resembled bundles of sticks.
“Incendiaries,” David muttered to Cross.
Orange flames licked at the shattered rubble left from earlier explosions, and the fire soon engulfed the smashed businesses and hotels of the city. Brown and gray columns of woodsmoke rose to join the black fumes from the burning oil tanks.
“Poor sods,” Badger murmured, “but it’ll be us next.”
David knew Badger was referring to the soldiers who huddled in the cellars, believing they were safe there. But tons of debris, piled over their hiding places, now became massive funeral pyres.
Badger had grown very fatalistic. To counter this despair, David became ever more obsessed with strawberries. He had come to think of Badger’s upcoming birthday as a symbol of their survival.
The men on the beach did not escape the attention of the Luftwaffe either. As the Heinkels unloaded their bombs, each made a lazy circuit of the town and the harbor, ignoring the intermittent fire of a French antiaircraft battery. The planes searched for targets of opportunity to machine gun, and many of their pilots spotted the clusters of men on the beach.
A Heinkel roared over the dunes, lines of tracers winking into the sand. The machine flashed overhead and was gone.
But that was only the beginning. For the next fifteen minutes, bombers buzzed the beach from every conceivable angle. Some burst into view suddenly from out of the thick smoke over the town. More could be seen turning over the harbor, inexorably charging toward the mass of men.
When it was all over, fifty men were dead and thirty more wounded. As many were struck while running away as were hit sitting still.
“Glad that’s done,” breathed the artillery captain. “Now if the navy will just hurry up, we’ll get off this bit of shingle before Jerry comes back at dawn.”
The blazing town of Dunkirk continued to draw bombs. David watched the leaping tongues of flame that pinpointed the location for the Germans. He described for Badger the nature of each target by the color of the explosion. Dark red flames erupted over an inferno that had been someone’s home or shop. Bright orange was an oil-storage tank. The bundles of incendiaries burst with glowing green light. It was an unmatched fireworks display accompanied by rolling thunderous drums.
A new brightness joined the exhibition. High over the beach came the hum of a single aircraft, barely to be distinguished from all the other noise. A brilliant purple light cracked the night sky over the sand. It was followed by another and another and another, until the air blazed with violet torches that swayed as they slowly descended.
“Flares!” came the cry.
It was a time to feel naked. The weird illumination made each man feel exposed, singled out. When even the cover of darkness is ripped away, what hiding place remains? The purple glow reflected on David’s upper arm and Badger’s bandaged face and hands, as if to especially mark their owners for destruction. It was possible to be in the middle of twenty thousand men and feel very alone.
There was a stirring in the dunes. The instinct to run was almost overpowering. But run where? As if reading the terror in every man’s mind, a tall lieutenant in the uniform of the military police leaped to his feet and cried, “Steady on, lads! Don’t move! It’ll do you no good to panic!”
Unmoving, David held his breath as the shrill whistle of the first stick of bombs screamed from above the flares. Two hundred yards up the beach, geysers of sand erupted into the air, flinging men like rag dolls and a two-ton lorry like a child’s toy.
The officer was right. There was nowhere to run, nothing to do but wait and pray that the next load did not fall on him. David sprawled flat in the sand and covered his head. Badger cringed lower with every blast. The concussions deafened them both, shutting out the screams of the dying.
When the bombers passed, David and Badger were still alive, but a group of twenty men who had waited one dune behind them lay in pieces.
Now not even darkness offered safety. The Germans, it seemed, were intent on preventing the evacuation of any more troops.
David could not help wondering about the wounded soldiers they had left behind in the hospital at the Ecole de Cavalerie. By now they were probably not any better off than those whose blood leached into the sands of Dunkirk. Had the River Lys finally been crossed by the Germans? How long did the men on the beaches have before the Panzer divisions were blasting them from behind while the Stukas worked them over from the air?
The defenders of the perimeter could not hold out more than hours longer, David figured, by the numbers who were staggering to the coast. And that meant only hours were left to escape the carnage of Dunkirk.
37
By Force of Will
Before daylight on the fourth of June, Andre crept out of the lines, under the noses of a British machine-gun crew. He hoped, for their sakes, that they were either more vigilant or already evacuated when the Germans came. Still, he reflected that no one in his right mind was traveling the direction he had chosen. No one except him was sneaking out of Dunkirk and deliberately heading toward the Germans.
Andre had explained the desperate situation of the cadets to as many officers as would listen, but in the final analysis, each had promised nothing. Everyone was done in; none saw the mission as anything other than suicide. “All the troops who can possibly disengage are here to be evacuated,” he was told, “not going back into danger.”
That was why Andre was so surprised when he heard the sounds of a jogging cadence being called out in French. Flat on his belly, peering from behind a clump of grass, Andre watched the swirling mist as a group of black soldiers trotted into view.
Like fragments of an odd dream, they emerged from the fog. The men were dressed in baggy white breeches, scarlet vests, and red, Turkish conical-style hats. There were about fifty of them. They ran in perfect rhythm, rifles slung, packs on back, and the blades of their bayonets drawn and carried upright against their shoulders. Shaking himself out of his confusion, Andre figured out that they were Senegalese troops. They had almost passed by when he called out to them.
Instantly they surrounded him. Their leader, a sergeant as dark as midnight with a saber scar that crossed both his lips, saluted. “Colonel,” he said in pleasantly lilting French, “would you be pleased to lead us? We have lost all our officers, nor can we find Germans to fight either.”
Andre explained that he was returning to the cavalry school for what would certainly be a grave struggle.
The sergeant made a sweeping bow. “Direct us, Colonel,” he said. “We wish to be of service to France.”
With Andre at their head, the contingent of Senegalese troops jogged toward Lys.
They heard the noise of an aircraft’s sputtering engine. A Stuka, obviously already damaged from its low altitude and slow speed, wavered into view. The warplane nosed over and dropped into a nearby field. It landed mostly intact, and Andre saw the canopy of the plane slide open.
The Senegalese sergeant gave an order, and without
breaking stride, ten of his men loped across the field to the Luftwaffe craft. They dragged the occupants from the plane, and Andre shuddered as he saw bayonets rise and fall in short, chopping motions.
“Already you have brought us good luck,” the sergeant said. “Let us go find more Germans to kill.”
***
Far out on the water there was a brilliant flash against a leaden curtain. The weather had closed in around the beaches of Dunkirk, obscuring the view of the gleaming White Cliffs of Dover across the Channel. The soldiers waiting in the queues groaned when their view of home and safety was snatched away.
At least the lowering clouds prevented the Luftwaffe from renewing their attacks. A brief respite from the constant fear of being bombed or strafed was a welcome relief.
David studied the wall of gray that separated him from England. He stared as if he could pierce it by force of will and see Annie there, waiting for him. See her in his arms. A beam of light broke through the overcast. It danced on the surface of the Channel, highlighting the waves. The ray broadened to become a shimmering band of silver. Like something tangible, it moved across the face of the sea, directly toward David. Halfway to him, it broke in two, and the first patch of glowing light continued his way, while the other part retreated to the English shore.
Fascinated, almost hypnotized by the spectacle, David scarcely noticed that he and Badger were now at the forefront of the waiting column. Their feet were splashed by the waves that ran up on the French coast. A boat was returning again, making its way to shore.
Behind David and Badger, a man broke from the ranks and sprinted forward into the surf. “Take me,” he begged, though he came from far back in the mob. “I can’t stand it anymore!”
The lieutenant commander drew a pistol. “Get back in line,” he ordered, “or I’ll shoot!”
Sullenly the soldier returned to his place and melted back into the crowd. There was no outcry raised against him that David could hear, no demand that the man be punished.
The boat grated on the shoal, and this time an officer jumped out and ran to the beachmaster. They held a whispered conference, while David and the others at the head of the line secured the launch against the tide’s pull.
The lieutenant commander’s face turned grim as he addressed the crowd. Badger Cross leaned his head forward to listen, as if he had been deafened instead of blinded.
“Wakeful has been torpedoed,” the officer said, “after the launch delivered the last lot on board. She went down on the spot. I’m sorry. I have been told that larger ships are not getting into the harbor. My advice to you is to go back to Dunkirk. Otherwise you’ll have to remain here and hope another comes along.”
Cross shook his head sadly. “I knew I’d never come away. I’ve seen my last birthday, Tinman.”
***
Cadet Raymond heard the firing from upstream, but no Germans came near his position. The sound of approaching engines on his side of the river came from the direction of the school. Captain Chardon, his arm in a sling, rolled up in a truck followed by two Hotchkiss tanks. Raymond reported that all was quiet and asked if the time had come to destroy the bridge.
“Not yet,” Paul said. “I think we have a use for this crossing still.” Swiftly he outlined his plan. “The Germans now know our true strength. And their artillery keeps us so pinned down that we cannot send Sepp or Gaston any reinforcements. At nightfall the Wehrmacht will cross in force. What we need is a diversionary assault. Perhaps even knock out their guns.” He pointed his thumb at the tanks.
Raymond knew that their two lightweight and lightly armed vehicles were scarcely a match for the panzers. “We must go at once, before they mount an attack this direction. I propose sending a troop of our cavalry along as well.” He could not believe that he said that. It had just popped out.
Paul smiled at his young protégé. “I thought you’d say that. Take your force across the bridge and set up a defensive perimeter on that side to keep the road open. Your column of horses and the two tanks will circle toward the battery of German guns. Do what damage you can and come back immediately. Remember,” he admonished, “if you are too slow, the bridge will have to be demolished and you will be stuck on the other side.”
The oddly mixed column of Raymond’s twenty-five horsemen, one hundred British Grenadier Guards, and two rumbling Hotchkiss units spurted across the river on the swaying bridge. Lighter by almost ten tons than any of the panzers, the French machines were able to cross the creaking structure to launch the attack.
The guards unit was detailed off to protect the approach to the bridge, having been given strict instructions by Paul that they were to fall back to the north shore and blow the span at the first sight of a serious German offensive.
The cavalry troop went south into the woods, their horses traveling at a fast walk. The flanks of the line were defended by the tanks. There was no opposition, even though Raymond could hear the shooting in the direction of Lys continue.
It was a wide swing away from the river, but one designed to bring them in behind the location of the batteries that were shelling the town. Perhaps the German maps did not show the suspension bridge, so they were unaware of another approach to Lys. Or perhaps they were so supremely confident of their overwhelming force that they felt no need for anything other than a frontal assault. Whatever the reason, Raymond’s force met none of the enemy as they pivoted toward the sound of the guns. The Germans were so unused to anyone attacking them since this campaign began that they had not bothered to post any guards.
***
Gaston had been wounded again. Besides the wad of bandage taped behind his ear that looked and felt like a pack of cigarettes, he now had a gash on his chest.
He thought what a close call it had been. The bullet had ricocheted off the brim of his helmet and plunged into his collar. The steel hat sported a hole just above his eyes, and there was an angry red tear that ran along his breastbone.
The little band of defenders was shrinking rapidly. From over two hundred with which Gaston had begun his defense of the island, only forty remained alive and unharmed. Both antitank weapons had been demolished, but then they were without any more ammunition for them anyway.
Every hour the shells of the big guns and the mortars rained down on his position. After a twenty-minute bombardment, the shelling ceased, which was the signal that the waves of rubber rafts would again be crossing the Lys. If it were not so terrifying, it would be tedious.
“They are coming again,” Gaston shouted as the firing stopped. The last shelling had taken a further toll on his forces.
“Captain,” a voice called, “I am almost out of ammunition.”
“I also,” came the cry.
“And I.”
Gaston eyed the sack of grenades and what remained of the box of machine-gun ammunition. “Grenades and bayonets then,” he shouted back.
Gaston saw Cadet François stand to hurl a grenade, saw him shot down and fumble the explosive onto the ground. Burying his head in his hands, Gaston hid from the blast that erupted over the island. He called out the names of the last cadets he had seen alive . . . and got no response.
Ammunition exhausted, grenades gone, and reduced to his bayonet alone, Gaston thought about surrendering. He decided he could not give up. Not while Sepp and the others lived and continued to fight.
Racing to the edge of the island nearest the town, Gaston flung himself off the pilings that remained of the demolished bridge. As he did so, he saw that a handful of other defenders—French cavalry and cadets—were likewise swimming toward Lys. The island now belonged to the Germans, but the battle would be continued from the wreckage of the town.
Rifle shots cracked behind him, throwing up splashes of water. He heard each snap as the round was fired, the zing of the bullet and the hiss as it struck the water. But none found him. The small arms that replied to the Germans from Sepp’s position spoiled their aim.
Gaston continued pulling strongly t
oward safety. As he swam, he realized that the lump of bandage behind his ear would make an excellent white target for a marksman.
As Gaston reached the shore, Sepp dashed down to the water’s edge and helped drag him behind the sandbag barricade. Gaston heard his friend give a grunt of pain, and Sepp abruptly dropped his arm.
“Sepp!” Gaston cried out. “Where are you hit?”
Sepp’s mouth worked, but no sound came. He gestured weakly toward his side.
Ripping apart his friend’s tunic, Gaston’s hand came away covered in blood. “Help!” Gaston cried. “Help me! Captain Sepp is wounded!” No one replied; no one moved to help. The few who remained alive on the shore fired at the Germans or nursed wounds of their own. For the rest, Gaston could see them fleeing away from the river. “Will no one help?” he pleaded.
Sepp seized Gaston’s hand and squeezed it hard. He struggled to speak. “Gaston,” he said weakly. “You . . . must go.”
“Never!” Gaston swore, his eyes smarting with tears. “I will stay here and die beside you!”
“Listen to me!” Sepp whispered fiercely, urgently. “France . . . still needs you. Get away . . . une battaille perdu . . . n’a pas la guerre.” Sepp’s voice sighed to a stop, the clock of his life run down.
Gaston took his friend’s rifle and tore the badge of his rank from Sepp’s collar. “Au revoir. A battle lost, but not the war.” Then he ran away toward the north, dodging from a heap of stones to hide behind a burned-out vehicle.
***
Horst von Bockman dispatched a column of armored cars along the shore of the Lys toward a downstream crossing. The inflated boats had been thrown back so many times that even though the assault continued in front of the town, something else needed to be tried.
The barrage stopped, and yet another wave of rafts attempted to cross the Lys. It was difficult to understand how the town continued to resist. Almost all the buildings had been leveled, the island was a heap of flaming ruins, and the air was so thick with smoke that breathing was difficult.