Dave Dawson at Dunkirk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

As though their silence was a signal to the gunners above, the earth and the sky once more began to shake and tremble as the gun muzzles belched out their sheets of flame and steel-clad missiles of death and destruction that went screaming far off to the east. To get away from the shuddering, hammering pounding as much as possible, the two boys crawled far back into the wall cave and tried to make themselves comfortable.

Seconds clicked by to add up to minutes, and minutes ticked by to add up to an hour. Then eventually it was two hours, then three, then four. And still the guns hammered and snarled and pounded away at their distant objectives. It seemed as though it would never end. Try as they did to steel themselves against the perpetual thunder, and the constant shaking and heaving of the earth under them, it was right there with them every second of the time. Their eardrums ached, and seemed ready to snap apart. They tore off little pieces of their shirts and used them as plugs to stuff in their ears. That helped some, but it made speech between them impossible.

Roaring, barking thunder all morning, and all afternoon. But along toward evening it died down considerably. And when the shadows of night started creeping up it ceased altogether. The two boys crawled forward and up the bomb-made rock steps and peered through the crack between the stones. The hopes that had been born in them when the guns stopped seemed to explode in their brains. The guns were not being hooked onto the tractors. Nor were the swarms of troops climbing into the long lines of motorized Panzer trucks. On the contrary, mess wagons were being rolled forward, and flare lights were being set about all over the place. Even as Dave and Freddy crouched there watching with sinking spirits two flare lights sputtered into being directly above their heads. With sudden terror gripping their hearts they scuttled back deep into their hiding place.

"No soap, I guess," Dave said bitterly. "We'd stick out like a couple of sore thumbs. What do you think, Freddy?"

"The same as you," the English youth said unhappily. "We'd be fools to budge an inch. I most certainly wish we had blankets. These are the hardest rocks I ever felt."

"You said it," Dave muttered and ran his hand over the hard surface that was unquestionably going to serve as his bed for another night of terror. "Maybe, though, they'll pull out before dawn. Or maybe in the morning, for sure."

If the gods of war heard Dave Dawson's words they must have laughed loud and with fiendish glee, for they knew how false his hopes were. The Germans did not leave during the night. Nor did they leave in the morning. As soon as it was dawn they started their devastating bombardment again. And for another whole day the boys huddled together in their hiding place and struggled with every bit of their will power to stop from going stark, raving mad from the thunder of the guns.

Then, suddenly, when there was still an hour of daylight left, the guns went silent for keeps, and instead there were all kinds of sounds of feverish activity. Harsh orders flew thick and fast. Men shouted and cursed. Tractor engines roared into life. Truck transport gears were meshed in nerve rasping grinding sound, and as the boys watched through their look-out crack they saw the Germans move slowly off down a road leading toward the southwest. Neither of them spoke until the last truck had passed out of view. And by then it was pitch dark, save for a shimmering red glow to the east and to the south.

"Boy, I thought it would never happen!" Dave said in a shaky voice. "Come on! Let's get going before others arrive here. Which way do you think we'd better head?"

"The railroad track, I think," Freddy said after a moment of silence. "It must have been blown all to bits by those Stukas, or else there would have been a train come up to take those Germans away. Instead, though, they headed down the road to the southwest."