THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JULY 26, 1940
The Epic Story Of Dunkirk In Fiction Form
Of Human Valour
force tionary
from France and Belgium as a compos-escarpment.
tory.
were
with men
of
one
wenry
He
verses. The world's tragedy is was cleaning a revolver with a beaches. that war brings it to: most silk bandana handkerchief. .
its splendid Bower.
hailed the crippled destroyer's The chalk cliffs of Dover inado bridge. a curiously tranquil background in "What's it like over there this
It with morning?" he shouted. the carly morning sunlight.
was
face
His
awash.
By "BARTIMEUS"
#
the
The
the spectacles
"Hullo,
the
his first trip:
oxistence, held: all his-loyal, heart.Įman's voice. spoke authoritatively.
for about a minute, A bandaged' figure replied with "'Ot soup. Better drink, Sair."
The steward said nothing. He Jan impotent, movement of his The Captain watched the boats
hand to his cars. He was pro- toiling shoreward: God, the men was an old navy man and had bably deaf with gunfire and bomb were tired!. He began calculat-been a pensioner for a quarter of explosions.
ing the number of trips they a century; but he recognised the He note in the speaker's voice. "Not so funny!” replied a man would have to make.
A motor barge-swung away from waited till the end of the mes- busy about a wire aft. "Not so! bloody funny." The haze swal-the Improvised pier and came to-sage. lowed them.
wards them, crowded with troops. "Aye, aye. "Sir," he said, and That was better; now they could then added: "There's only There was another destroyer alongside. Her captain came out get on with it. More and more one yacht here now, sir.
craft kept arriving from seaward. 'Wanderer'. Motor yacht, forty of his bridge cabin yawning. There was a rumble of gunfire out feet long. There's no crew, Sir.
He was hollow-cyed and un-of the haze.
Owner's fighting in France. There's shaven, but he had had nearly Something kept intruding on a young lady on board. at this It is too early to describe the jackdaws cawing and circling, and two hours sleep. while they patch-his consciousness. A low voice at moment evacuation of the British Expedi- the faint echoes of gunfire across ed some splinter holes in his fun his elbow. He turned. What was The voice Interrupted him. He
Northern the channel whispering about the net and filled up with ammuni- it? Soup? Whut d'you mean, listened, turning
tion. Two hours in four days. soup? The steward, indicated the over in his knotted fingers, star- ite operation; and no one person Away to the westward, along- He climbed up onto the com-cup. "Better drink it nice and ing into vacancy. can yet piece together a panorama side the pier reaching out from pass platform and glanced fore hot, Sair." He smiled and drank "Aye, aye Sir. I'll do what I
from what was once the Lord Warden and aft. Men were standing by absent-mindedly.
Old Navy man myself. They of
fire-swept
"Thank you, can. the
coast
the funnols and Calais to the beaches of La Panne, Hotel,
the wires. The first lieutenant Carlo,"
said I was too old to fight from which the British and French smoke of transports and a hos-was looking up at him expectant-
had been There was no answer, The destroyer that
Silence. He They were pouringly from the forecastle.
replaced Navies embarked -335,000 troops, pital ship.
The sun bombed had grounded on a sand-Sir? and carried them to safety. ashore their khaki clad cargoes was on his face. He was twenty-bank and lay over with her up-receiver.
at described been
as a and stretcher cases, fruits of Ave and smiling,
The It has
The 'Wanderer' was lying deck half per and miracle; and certain factors of night's desperate garnering,
her buoy and there was no sign "All ready, Number One?"
of the girl. He untied the dinghy chance did undoubtedly operate in long trains crammed
The boy raised his hand.
lying at the jetty and Calm seas and were sliding along the foreshore teeth were very white in the sun-
rowed the Allies' favour.
alongside. At the sound of the occasional mist on certain days into the haze.
burn of his face. away; But that was far were an advantage.
"Cast off! Siow astern star-
pars as he boated them the girl's head and shoulders appeared But wherein lay the miracle imagined rather than saw what
board."
labove the 'companionway. She was the degree of stubborn cour-was going on there. Here in the
The Captain slipped the strap his head
was flushed and had a scrubbing age attained by hundreds of thou-shadow of the cliffs were actua- sands of quite ordinary men. Mere lities; a destroyer limping in with of his binoculars over
and glanced back once at the transfer of troops to the sloop and brush in her hand. leadership, mere skill in organisa-a heavy list, spattered with splin- cliffs and the fields beyond, where launches was going smoothly un- "They want her, miss," he said tion, could have achieved nothing ter holes, making fast alongside to the young corn was green. Then der a pall of smoke and steam. simply. "They rung up from the without this mass resistance to disembark hundreds
Along his upper deck men were Admiralty. Proceed to Ramsgate broaching tins of corned beef and for orders. They're taking every the fear of death and an uncon-pailus, an armed trawler going out he turned seaward, his
mask. querable belief in ultimate vic-with a deflant toot of her siren, "Well," he said to the Naviga-cutting loaves into hunks in read-craft on the south coast."
followed by a motor yacht paint-
She brushed a lock of hair back tor, who was a sub-lieutenant, iness for the soldiers. They had The tale of human valour out-fed grey.
Deen days on the business; it was from her damp forehead with her "We've got a nice day for it."
single The owner-skipper, in the uni-
handed," lives the causes that gave it birth,
The look-out to port yelled the settling down into a fixed routine. forearm. "I'm Reserve, whether they are victories or re-form of the Volunteer
first air alarm as they neared the The young Volunteer Reserve sur she said. "Can you run the en-
geon came out of the after super-gine if I steer?"
"You, miss?" He hadn't thought "Here they come," said the structure where he had his cas- navigator grimly.
Jualty station, and lit a cigarette, of that.
She's full up with petrol. The foremost guns opened fire; staring shoreward. the hot blast from their muzzles Then a look-out shouted and There's water, too, and some stuff The in tins to eat. Bring some bread." swept over the bridge; the multi-the guns broke out again. roar of the plane's engines
"You know what its for, don't ple pom-pom joined in.
won't let R The captain had his glasses and then the screech of the bomb you, miss? They levelled on the beaches. They deafened them as it hurtled down. woman." looked like
The burst was like a flash of "They needn't know" was holiday A
She stood motion- thronged by a vast dun-coloured a fifteen inch gùn ten feet away, girl's answer. motionless crowd. Fires were annihilating thought and all sen-less, thinking. The ebb tide run- with a hell-hot blinding ning past the strakes of the dinghy burning in the background under sation
brast of steel-fragments- a pall of smoke.
made-a-little-chuckling-noise-in- He ignored the causes that made He picked himself up and held the stillness. his own guns open fire. His im-on to the chart table. His con- "Bring a couple of shrapnel hel- Get them from the mediate concern was the naviga-cern for the moment was the barge mets.
What about tion of his ship in the treacherous load of troops approaching. They A.R.P. people shallows. The sea astern belched were safe. The first boat had fill-Johnnie?"
""Johnnie?" He turned that over great columns of water into the ed up and was pulling back.
There were splinter holes every-in his mind. Johnnie was sim- air, and the ship lifted and fell again.
where, but no much visible dam-ple, but he was useful in a boat. He was listening through the age. The navigator was untouch-Ashore he.. just, sat, and played and signalmen with pebbles, but put him in a roar of the explosion for the next ed; the lookouts
The sounding from the leads-man in were disentangling themselves out boat and he was all there. the chains. The ship was an easy of a confused heap of duffle coats club employed him to ferry peo- target with barely steerage way and scaboots and shrapnel hel-ple to their yachts and for at- on her. She shook with the re-mets, grinning sheepishly. Carlo tending to the moorings and odd painting. coil of the guns like a nervous was standing staring at something jobs like scraping and horse. There was a sudden bright on the deck. He looked down He didn't speak very plain, but flesh and a cloud of smoke among and saw a crimson puddle. He after all it wasn't talk they want- the packed throngs ashore. An-was standing in it. A red pud-jed on the beaches of Dunkirk. Another aspect of the situation oc- other bomb. The water was dark dle, spreading slowly
seemed The barge came alongside and curred to, him. She with men wading out waist deep.
of the Expeditiondry take it for granted he was com- He counted the ships. inshore: the men three destroyers, their boats com- force began. climbing wearily ing." "What about the club, miss?
I'm the caretaker and steward:" ing and going laden to the gun-over the rails.
their
His head nodded where he sat! She had wales, and
emerged from blazing guns
back skyward. Six trawlers,
through reverie. "The Club? motor conning his ship launches, motor boats
he the minefields. Again and again hell does the club matter?" lost count of them.
The forced open his leaden eyelids: He grinned, showing The army
had contrived to with all the will power he pos-stained fangs. "You've said it,
It was drive some lorries
Give me half an hour." into the, sealsessed.
bad enough to miss.
When he was half way across to during the night and so to build have to fight this overwhelming
desire for sleep, this tyranny of the jetty she halled him again. a sort of pier.
to fight Her clear voice was like a boy's. There was a trawler sinking to weariness; but he had
"Better come: the westward in a cloud of steam the surgeon too.
"Johnnie will want a shrapnel and smoke. Well, they'd have to below, Sir," the youngster kept helmet too." fend for themselves.
insisting; and now the first lieut- He nodded; she went below and-- He glanced. skyward where enant joined in. "Let them carry fell to mopping up the mess on the cabin. floor. She had: decided there was a dog-fight going on you below, Sir." between some Spitfires and Hein- But he was damned if he'd go to give the boat a scrub out be- kels. His guns ceased firing. below. He had a thousand men cause it occupied her mind which, He nosed closer inshore, The on board in his charge. A thou-baving had no word from France inclined to destroyer to the castward, her sand exhausted soldiers who had for three weeks, was decks crammed with troops, was fought a rearguard action against imagine things. hoisting her boats turning tanks and bombers for a fortnight. This was where they had spent. at the decks the happiest hours of his leave. northward. Suddenly she began He looked down firing.
A German bomber was where they lay already asleep in The happiest hours of their lives, And now, for all she knew, he coming down out of the sun in a the security of their trust in him. law power dive.
Coldair.
*
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This was the last phase of the was waiting on those hellish bea- A great yellow sheet of flame rearguard action and: before God ches, one of all those thousands of and a cloud of smoke and sprayHe told the surgeon so while the shell and: machine-gun fire for.
you didn't fight it by going below.Jexhausted men, waiting under obliterated the destroyer. Hell's délight. They'd hit her. The lad was fumbling for the tourni-succour from England.
She flung the mop and scrub- steam began pouring from her ex-que to ease it.. Already: he could
iber into the bucket and jerked hausts. The plane: had vanished. see the cliffs of Dover:
The cliffs, and the sea and the open a drawer. There was all his He gave his orders for turning to the rescue and then saw a sloop sky blurred and darkened. Carlo, old kit; grey flannel trousers, and a flotilla of motor yachts who smelt faintly of garlic, had sweater, an old shooting jacket, closing in on the stricken destroyer his arm-round-him,-holding-hima-yellow-muffler, She would push from the northward. They could upright:
her hair up under the shrapnel look after the survivors. He, turn- The darkness deepened. Waves|helmet .... His pipes stuck in a Įrack over his bunk caught her ed again to the beaches and pres-of. faintness engulfed him, ently stopped and. lowered
"Tell them," he said, "to send eye. That would be the finishing: more boats. boats.
more boats ..touch. Keep one of those in her because the pitcher the pit-mouth when they got to Rams- cher that goes to the well
Then his chin dropped.
his
"
+
+
gate, and talk gruß. She select-
ed a blackened bull-dog and ex-
His steward brought him a cup of soup and placed it beside him Jon the chart table. The steward
was a. Maltese, a little man with The first lieutenant and the sur-perimented in front of the glass. Į a black jowl jutting out under a geon tried to lift him down from It tasted utterly foul. shrapnel helmet. His eyes were where he hung across the binna- Coming
jcle. like an anxious spaniel's; his an-
down channel they overtook a convoy..of motor yachts. xicty was not for himself, but for} "No, no," insisted Carlo pas- and followed them. She had the
I take chart open in front of her but. his captain whose strength must sionately, "I take him. be sustained with soup.
This body, Sair-Give-him--to the daylight-was-fuding—and there were no lights anywhere she "Soup, Sair," he urged with me gentle insistence. He had a stout
could recognise. She had never black-eyed! wife and seven child-1 The yacht club telephone rang entered Ramsgate from: seaward. ren in Valetta; but he had forgot-and the elderly, steward, unaccus-Only from the railway station, ten, thom. The figure in the duffle tomed to the sound of it, laid down once as a child, carrying her doll. cant, staring through glasses at his paper, removed his spectacles, and a spade and. bucket, in charge
(Continued on: Page! The beaches was the centre of his and picked up the receiver.A],
15