Ride Out The Storm (23 page)

As the news of the disaster filtered into the town, Sievewright was following a path alongside a dyke, taking great care to do no damage to standing crops as his Scout training had taught him. Up ahead, he could see the burning pyre of Dunkirk, the dying sun touching the columns of smoke with wisps of blood.

As he was forced back to the road he passed a wrecked house where a dog ran out and jumped up at him. It was only a puppy and seemed eager to make friends.

‘Go away, boy,’ he said sternly, but the dog ignored the command and, tiring of trying to grab his sleeve, it fell in and trotted happily along behind him. It didn’t please him because, like most of the sentimental British, he’d released starving cattle and horses and household pets which had been forgotten by their owners in the panic, and he felt it was taking this one away from its home. Since it ignored him, however, he could do nothing but accept it and be relieved that darkness was approaching.

The darkness that so relieved Sievewright brought worry to Lance-Corporal Gow. As the mist began to curl thick and milky over the canal he was engaged with a penknife and a needle from a ‘housewife’ in picking the last of the shotgun pellets out of Noble’s backside. They were in a cattle shed just behind the bank of the canal, and the work was slow and painful because the carefully guarded candle gave only a fitful light and Gow had to keep stopping to let Noble recover a little.

Chouteau seemed highly amused. ‘
Le
derrière
,’
he observed, ‘
C’est comme une pelote à épingles.
It is like the cushion of the pins.’

As they bent again, a soldier appeared in the doorway. ‘It’s the Germans, Jock,’ he said.

‘Oh, bloody charming,’ Noble said. ‘And me with me pants down.’

Gow signed him to silence. ‘See ’em?’ he asked.

The soldier shook his head. ‘No. But I heard ’em talking. There was an old boat. I noticed it.’

‘Are they coming now?’

‘No. It’s gone quiet. I think they’re waiting till morning.’

Gow frowned. ‘They’ll get a bluidy surprise, choose when,’ he said. He slapped Noble’s bare rump. ‘Hoist ’em up, laddie. There’s trouble.’

Silently, moving cautiously, they had just erected the Bren behind the canal where they could get maximum cover when Angelet appeared. ‘
Les Allemands
?’
he whispered eagerly. ‘The Germans?’

‘By the bluidy hundred,’ Gow murmured.

Noble was lying on the bank, staring nervously into the darkness. War, he felt, was for regular soldiers like Gow and for volunteers who
expected
to be exported overseas. He was a militiaman – and an unwilling one at that who had only submitted to the call to serve his king because he hadn’t realised it also included King’s Regulations, Army Council Instructions, regimental orders, company details, commissioned officers, military police, all armed sentries, cooks, canteen managers – and Lance-Corporal Gow. In allowing himself to be caught, he’d made the greatest mistake of his life.

‘What do we do now?’ he breathed.

Gow pushed a haversack of loose ammunition at him with the spare magazines for the Bren.

‘Get filling them,’ he breathed.

Noble frowned. ‘You know what,
mon fils
,’ he whispered. ‘I reckon you’ll end up as a sodden sergeant-major.’

Gow stared down at him calmly. ‘Aye,’ he murmured. ‘I will.’

The admiral at Dover was also beginning to think about the next morning. A message had just arrived to the effect that Dunkirk harbour was blocked by damaged vessels and that all evacuation from then on would have to take place from the beaches.

There was also another signal on his desk from the Admiralty. ‘
The rate of loss can no longer be accepted
,’
it said. ‘
All H, I, and J class destroyers must be released.
’

The admiral frowned, unwilling to agree despite the heavy losses of the day. Three destroyers had been sunk and six were out of action, to say nothing of escort vessels, auxiliaries, mine-sweepers and an armed escort vessel.

‘And of course, sir,
Vital
,’
the SOO pointed out.

It was Hatton who was sent to the castle with Hough’s report and, with things as they were in the town, there were no taxis.

Several times during the return journey he’d found himself thinking of Nora Hart. In its tiredness, his mind was obsessed by the way she’d kissed him and, though he knew it was only a spontaneous gesture springing from the emotion of the moment, he couldn’t throw it off. He also wasn’t sure that he had the courage to follow it up, however, because she probably still needed a little time to adjust to the fact that Barry Hatton was in circulation again.

The same lieutenant he’d spoken to on his last visit to the castle was still at his desk in the corridor but by now he looked as though he’d been there for ever.

‘Who?’ he said, and as Hatton stopped before him it was clear he’d quite forgotten his face. ‘
Vital
?
Hang on a minute!’ He vanished through a door and when he returned he held it open for Hatton to enter. In his newness to the Service Hatton had no idea of the official title of the man he saw but he was wearing the four rings of a captain.

The captain looked up. He was clearly too old for sea service, but there was a look about him that indicated he’d seen plenty in his time.

‘
Vital
?’
he said, standing up. ‘What’s the trouble with her?’

‘Shaft-bearing overheating, sir.’ Hatton held out Hough’s report. ‘It’s all there.’

The captain took the paper and read it silently, then he laid it down on the desk.

‘It’s not good enough,’ he said.

The fact that not very long before he’d been chasing frightened soldiers through the streets of Dunkirk trying to fill
Vital,
while the captain had been sitting at his desk, seemed to Hatton to demand a protest.

The captain’s expression softened. ‘How much sea service have you seen, Hatton?’ he asked.

‘Not much, sir. This is my first ship since I was commissioned. She’s a good ship, though, sir. She did well and it was difficult rounding up the men.’

The captain’s head jerked round. ‘Are you
still
having to round them up?’ He pressed a button on his desk and spoke into a microphone. ‘I have a chap here, sir, who’s just come back. He reports he had to round up men to fill his ship. Would you like to see him?’

The loudspeaker crackled and the captain turned to Hatton. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

Hatton followed him along the corridor to another office and a man with the rings of a vice-admiral standing by the desk turned as he entered.

‘Did you go ashore?’ he said without preamble.

‘Yes, sir, I did.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Hatton did his best, describing the streets and the absence of soldiers, and the way he and his men had constantly had to go into the town.

The admiral looked at the captain. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that ships’ captains don’t rate highly enough.’

As Hatton left, the admiral paced up and down once or twice. He knew it was the First Sea Lord’s primary duty to protect the sea lanes round Britain and that the destroyers which were vital to that had suffered severe losses. Yet 47,000 men had been brought back to England that day and, without the big modern vessels he was proposing to withdraw, no more than 17,000 could be lifted in the next twenty-four hours.

‘We must have the H, I and J ships back,’ he said.

As Wednesday changed into Thursday, the last of the BEF and what remained of the French First Army arrived inside the Dunkirk perimeter. It was well known at Dover that it couldn’t be held for long but in front of it there was no cover whatsoever and a water obstacle every quarter of a mile, as well as flooded fields that formed a daunting tank trap. Nevertheless, a telephone message from La Panne begging for ships raised yet another of those interminable decisions the admiral was having to make. He had calculated that with the fifteen small destroyers he had left, the personnel vessels and the small craft, he ought to be able to lift 43,000 men during the day. But the estimates he’d been given seemed to make it essential that the number should be 55,000 and he still didn’t know if the mole was functioning after the previous day’s disasters. There had been no bombing since dusk the previous evening, however, and the weather had improved. With a new shift in the wind the smoke cloud from the oil tanks was once more covering the anchorage and fresh small craft were beginning to arrive off the beaches.

It was the sway of the boat that told Kenny Pepper that
Daisy
was at last at sea.

Cautiously he opened the forepeak and put his head out. He couldn’t see much and it was raining in a light shower that wet his face. Thinking he was looking in the wrong direction, he turned but, as he did so, he heard the thump of a rubber boot on the deck behind him and was lifted bodily from the forepeak by his collar. His legs were cramped and as he was set on his feet he collapsed to the deck. Looking up, he saw Ernie Williams staring down at him.

‘What the bloody hell are
you
doing here?’ he said.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Kenny announced.

Ernie hauled him with dragging feet along the deck to the wheelhouse. Gilbert Williams was holding the wheel. His reaction was exactly the same as his brother’s. ‘What the bloody hell are
you
doing here?’ he demanded.

Kenny repeated his decision. ‘I’m coming with you.’

While they were talking, Brundrett climbed out of the engine room and, as he moved forward, his white fleshy body seemed to glow in the darkness. In the faint light from the compass, he looked worried.

‘That pump’s giving trouble again–’ he began. Then he saw Kenny. ‘What the bloody hell are
you
doing here?’ he asked.

Kenny told him.

Brundrett stared at the two Williamses, then he licked his lips. ‘We can’t take him with us,’ he said.

‘Well, we can’t chuck him overboard,’ Ernie pointed out.

‘We’ll have to turn back.’

Gilbert’s brows went down. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, his voice rising at once to an angry shout. ‘After they’ve fixed the engine? After wasting all that time with it stripped?’

Brundrett licked his lips again. ‘The pump’s still playing up.’

Gilbert glared. ‘Then it’ll bloody well have to play up,’ he yelled, and Kenny felt at home in the familiarity of raised voices.

As Brundrett turned away, Gilbert stared again at Kenny. ‘Think we can put him aboard something going the other way?’ he asked.

Ernie looked worried. ‘They’ll never stop,’ he said.

‘There’s deck boys on the ferries,’ Kenny pointed out.

‘No, there ain’t. They’ve been took off.’

‘Oh!’ Kenny hadn’t considered that possibility. ‘I’ll do the cooking,’ he offered.

There was a moment’s silence. Brundrett’s dishes were noted for their absence of taste while Kenny, the only child of a doting widowed mother, had been taught how to make the delicacies he enjoyed.

Ernie looked at his brother. ‘He’s better than bloody Brundrett,’ he said.

Gilbert gnawed at his lower lip, silent for a moment, then he looked about him as though hoping to see the solution to the problem somewhere on the surface of the sea.

‘How about bacon and eggs?’ he asked.

Kenny grinned. ‘Got some eggs?’ he asked.

Gilbert stared at him then he grinned, too. ‘I’ll have four,’ he said.

By this time the flames at Dunkirk were so bright they actually removed some of the confusion, but by now Tremenheere was tired to the point of feeling sick and all the thoughts of putting Nell Noone behind him had gone from his mind. At that moment, he’d have been very happy to have been in bed with her and clutching her plump warm body to his.

His brain reeled with the crash of explosions and just outside the harbour the sea was full of men swimming and shouting in the dark where a ship had sunk. Destroyers were picking them up and, in the light of the flames, he felt sure
Athelstan
could be seen clearly by the aeroplanes droning overhead.

He had found water in the carburettors and it had taken him until dark to get the starboard engine going again. Since then they’d been yanking men aboard as fast as they could grab them, pulling till their arms ached and ferrying them to the destroyers, to push them up the scrambling nets until they were drenched with the water that dropped back from their saturated clothing. When they’d emptied all the petrol from the cans they carried they’d decided to head back to Dover and had been on the point of leaving when they’d run into a small cutter drifting in the dark. Going aboard to see if there were wounded below deck, they’d found more full cans in the cabin and had decided to carry on a little longer.

‘
Athelstan
’s
a big boat,’ Clark had said proudly. ‘And we’ve still one engine.’