Dunkirk Spirit Part 45

'Possibly,' said the Padre, hedging his bets. 'We were wondering if there might be more people further down the coast. I must admit we got a little lost getting here. Where are we, by the way? Do you know?'

'This is La Panne.' Charlie tossed a lamb bone into the fire and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Belgium.'

'Belgium?' repeated the Padre.

'Belgium,' confirmed Charlie. 'Belgium has surrendered. So, technically, this is German occupied country.'

'Oh my giddy aunt!' The blood drained from the Padre's face. 'You mean the Germans are here?' He pointed a finger down at the sand between his crossed legs. 'We are back in German territory?'

'Yes and no,' explained Charlie. 'There's a perimeter, apparently. And it keeps getting smaller as the Germans push on. We were told this morning that this beach was being wound down. It's probably outside the perimeter now.'

'Then there's no time to loose,' exclaimed the Padre. He tried to stand up, only to discover that his legs were like jelly. He flopped back onto the damp sand. He simply could not carry on. It was like wading through treacle. He wanted to scream the words I have had enough. He wanted to weep.

'I s-s-say,' huffed the Major, stepping out of the gloom and dropping down beside the Padre with a hefty thump. 'Does anybody here know anything about b-b-boats?'

He wheezed and then coughed. 'There's this d-d-delightful little yacht w-w-washed up on the b-b-beach d-d-down that w-w-way a b-b-bit.'

21:45 Friday 31 May 1940.

Admiralty Pier, Dover, Kent 'Let's see your pa.s.ses, then.'

Both Barry and Clive delved into their pockets and produced their Treasury security pa.s.ses.

'Treasury?' asked the military policeman. 'I'm sorry, sir. But this is a military matter.'

'And who do you think holds the purse strings?' asked Clive.

The red cap ummed and urred and then nodded his head. 'I understand what you're saying, sir.' But he held onto the pa.s.ses. 'And if you don't mind my saying so, sir, neither of you two gentlemen are exactly dressed the part.'

He looked at Clive's feet and the country brogues. He worked his way up, taking in every detail of his well-worn Harris tweeds before turning to examine Barry' moleskin trousers and shooting jacket.

'What do you take us for?' demanded Barry. 'A couple of d.a.m.ned accountants? Do you expect us to go around wearing green eyeshades and sucking pencils?'

'Well, sir...'

'The Treasury comes in many guises,' interjected Clive. 'You should know that.' He turned to Barry and lowered his voice, 'Take a note,' he said. 'Examine the Military Police education budget.'

He turned back to the policeman. 'Just supposing this,' he explained. 'Suppose because of all the increased naval traffic, the Navy found it had to find extra funds for the additional fuel. Who do you suppose has to authorise it?'

'Ergh, the Treasury?'

'I rest my case,' said Clive.

'So can we come in now?' asked Barry.

The red cap took a step back and allowed them to enter.

'I think we're looking in the wrong place,' said Clive. They had walked the length of the Admiralty Pier and been shocked by the appalling state of the s.h.i.+ps tied up alongside. Every few minutes another vessel would arrive and disgorge its cargo of shattered men.

Barry steered Clive over to the seaward side of the pier and opened his cigarette case. 'No, you're right, of course. We're barking up the wrong tree here.'

'It's enough to chill the blood.' Clive took the light and lent back against the high wall. A small personnel s.h.i.+p had just finished unloading and now the medical team stood poised at the foot of the gangplank ready to retrieve the seriously wounded. They had watched similar scenes played out all along the pier.

The walking wounded huddled in a ma.s.s beside the s.h.i.+p and would soon be guided off to local sick bays or else sent by train to one of the large county hospitals. Those lying on stretchers were then divided into the urgent and non-urgent. Those not likely to bleed to death in the next hour or two were sent to the hospital trains while the remainder were rushed to the nearest hospitals, both civilian and military.

'It makes you wonder what's really going on over there.' Clive eyed Barry.

'Makes me wish I hadn't sold my father's place in Northumbria. I have this irresistible urge to be there now.'

'Let's ask someone,' suggested Clive. He stubbed out his cigarette and strolled over to an RAMC sergeant studying a clipboard. He flashed his pa.s.s.

'Excuse me sergeant! Where are the smaller boats?' he asked. 'The little boats that are supposed to be going over to France?'

'Oh, you want to go down to the Granville Dock Steps, sir.'

'Where's that then?' asked Barry.

'Well, it's just down that way a mite. You can't miss it,' he said pointing.

The two men from the Treasury thanked the man and turned to go.

'But if you're looking to get over to France with all the civilians boats then you're too late. The whole operation comes to an end tonight. Those boats tied up down by the steps, they ain't going back and I bet they're mighty glad about it too.'

'What do you mean over?' asked Barry.

'Well, over, sir.' The sergeant shrugged his shoulder. 'That's it. Anyone left on the other side, well, if they can't swim, they've had it.'

Clive grabbed Barry by the elbow. He was staring open mouthed at the sergeant and seemed lost for words. Clive tugged at his sleeve again. 'Come away, Barry,' he said. 'Let's grab a drink!'

22:05 Friday 31 May 1940.

Central Hotel, Dover, Kent Kitty dabbed her tongue lightly against the cool metallic nib of her pen. She was struggling with her report. Her duty was to reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people caught up in these momentous events and she wanted to do them justice. She had met a reporter at lunchtime and their conversation had left her irritated. She had let him buy her three Red Biddies in the hotel's residents' bar, together with two thin ham rolls.

'Hubert Hawksley,' he said, producing his card with a flourish. 'Can I offer you a drink?'

She studied the card. 'I don't normally accept drinks from strange men.'

'I'm not so strange,' he told her.

'You're a reporter. I think that makes you a little strange.'

'Have it your own way,' smiled Hawksley.

'Red Biddy, please.' Kitty smiled back. She studied him as he turned to the bar: M35B. If he took his hat off, she wondered, how much hair would be underneath? He had sharp angular features and a solid jaw with a deep cleft dividing his chin, and he was nearly six foot tall.

'So, have you got a good story?' she asked, accepting the gla.s.s.

'I'm not on the lookout for good stories.' He tapped his gla.s.s against hers. 'I'm looking for great stories. Cheers!'

'And do you have a great story?'

'No,' he told her with a broad grin. 'But I shall make it one!'

Kitty nearly choked. 'How do you mean?' she finally asked.

'Well, you just have to look at it the right way,' he explained. 'By every canon of military science, the BEF has been doomed for the last four or five days. Completely out-numbered, out-gunned, out-'planed, all but surrounded.'

'It sounds like an absolutely terrible story.'

'Not when you see it as a race against time, with the Army almost certain to be cut off from its last channel of escape. Just think of the tension you can build with that.'

Kitty thought.

'And yet, for several hours this morning, I watched s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p come into harbour and discharge thousands of British soldiers safe and sound on British soil. s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death! What could be more dramatic than that?'

'Winning the war,' suggested Kitty.

Hawksley narrowed his brows as if disappointed. 'I will make Dunkirk beach as famous in history as the beaches of Gallipoli. Let's drink to that!' He beamed a straight but off-white smile. 'Drink up. I'll get you another one.'

'I was actually wondering if they had any of those ham rolls left,' said Kitty.

'And what next?' she asked some minutes later. She dabbed at the crumbs on her plate with the tip of her finger and popped them into her mouth. 'Once you have turned this into a great victory?'

'Well, that will be the end of the Battle of France and the close of a chapter of history.'

'And then what?' she asked. 'Chapter two: the Battle of Britain?'

He stopped and looked suddenly pleased with himself. 'Oh, that has a good ring to it, don't you think?' He pulled out his notebook and scribbled for a few seconds. 'I shall weave that into my next piece.'

'And will the Battle of Britain be a great story?'

'I certainly ruddy hope so!' He leant forward conspiratorially and caught a hint of Kitty's scent. 'Or we'd better all start learning German.'

'You don't mean that, do you?'

'It's touch and go, isn't it? But we've always been good at stopping invasions.'

'Perhaps we've just been lucky.'

'Then let's hope it holds! Now, how about that drink?'

Kitty made to reach for her purse but Hawksley held up his hand.

'It's all on expenses,' he told her.

'But do you think we're up to it this time?' she asked. 'Don't you think people today are not, somehow, what they used to be?'

'Up to it?' He pondered for a moment. 'We'll have to sack some generals. Change things around a bit upstairs. But keep Churchill because he's pure theatre and great with words. Good headline stuff.'

'Victory at all costs,' recited Kitty.

'How can you better that?' he asked, sipping his gin. 'Pure poetry!'

'But are the soldiers up to it?' insisted Kitty. 'It's all well and good writing about the unbowed Tommies marching off the boats and whistling Tipperary but most of the chaps I've seen look absolutely done in.'

'Well, now you're entering the world of morale and that's where we, the gentlemen of the Press, find ourselves playing an important part.'

'Shouldn't you just tell the truth?'

'The truth? n.o.body wants the truth!' He lowered his voice. 'They wouldn't be able to sleep at night. No, what I mean is this.' He stopped to gather his thoughts. 'If these chaps coming back pick up the papers and read that every single one of them has cracked up or whatever, it's going to turn them all into jelly, isn't it?'

Kitty nodded.

'They will lose the will to carry on. They will stop taking an interest in life and...'

'And stop buying newspapers,' added Kitty.

'Precisely! That's just the point,' he told her. 'But if we play up on their undaunted fighting spirit, they are going to think, "Well, it's just me, isn't it? Perhaps I'm a little bit shaky but everyone else is all right".'

He lent very close to Kitty. She could see a nest of tiny blackheads around the base of his nose and she wanted to squeeze them all. 'Morale is as important as any weapon in the armoury. You must agree?'

None of this helped with her report. You could read that kind of nonsense in any newspaper. If her reports were to have any value they needed to reflect society like a mirror. How else would historians be able to slice through the verbiage? Her reports had already detailed the scenes around the railways stations and inside the hospitals. She had charted the growing fear of invasion and noted the steady growth of defiance. But where did that defiance spring from? She dabbed at her nib again, enjoying the sour metallic tang. She had seen an immediate change in the hotel lounge when the news of the scale of retreat had been made apparent. But how different was that official communique from the beat-up reports of Mr Hawksley? Was Hawksley there to put the icing on the cake and make us feel better about ourselves? Or should we just be given the facts, straight and unadulterated? What sort of minds would we make up then, she wondered. Either way, most people had difficulty sleeping at night.

Kitty slipped off the bed and picked her bag off the floor. She carried a large bag because she always seemed to acc.u.mulate a lot of things. She pulled out her cigarettes and continued to search for a lighter. The lighter she found was new. She had no recollection of where she had picked it up. It was a Ronson and it was gold-plated. She tried to remember where she had found it. Perhaps it had been Hawksley's. She had a terrible tendency to pick up other people's pens and lighters.

There was a loud double knock at the door and Kitty found herself jarred out of her thoughts.

'Who is it?' she called, searching for something to cover her nightie. There came another double knock on the door. She wrapped her raincoat around her shoulders and turned the key.

Two men in grey raincoats, looking uncannily like the Thomson Twins in a cartoon by Herge, stood in the doorframe. 'Detective Sergeant O'Connor, Dover CID. And you,' said one, referring to a small black notebook in his hand, 'are Miss Karen MacDonald. Correct?'

'No,' said Kitty, shaking her head emphatically.

'No?' he asked.

'There's no D,' explained Kitty.

'No D?'

'No D. It's MacDonal. No D.'

'Well, in that case Miss Karen MacDon-al, no D, I must caution you that you do not have to say anything but anything you do say shall be taken down and may used in evidence against you.'

22:15 Friday 31 May 1940.

The White Horse, Castle Hill, Dover, Kent 'No, that's a lot of old b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, that is! We're going back.'

'When?' asked Barry.