Dave Dawson at Dunkirk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

And out there looking weird and grotesque in the glow of the burning Channel port were boats of every conceivable description. There were row boats, and yachts. Fishing smacks and pleasure yawls. Coastal vessels and ferry boats. Motor boats and canoes. Barges and British destroyers. Anything and everything that could float had been brought over to help in the evacuation. No, it wasn't the British Navy taking the British Army home. It was all England come to rescue her fighting men.

Dave and Freddy stood rooted in their tracks staring wide eyed at the historic event that will live forever in the minds of men. Their eyes soaked up the scene, and their ears soaked up the conglomeration of sound. Oddly enough, practically all of the sounds came from off shore. The blast of whistles, the blowing of signal horns, the purr and the roar of engines, and the shouts of the appointed and of the self-made skippers and crews of the fantastic rescue fleet. The troops hardly made any sound at all. Perhaps they were too tired. Perhaps the roar of battle still ringing in their ears momentarily stilled their tongues. Or perhaps they were content just to follow the next man ahead and pray silently that they would be taken aboard some kind of a boat and sailed away before daylight and the Stukas arrived once again. But the real reason for their strange silence, probably, was because most of them had been there for days waiting their turn, and dodging Stuka bombs and bursting shells. And after such an ordeal they were too stunned to know or even care about talking. Each had a single, all important goal. A boat of some kind. And they slogged and sloshed toward it, numb to all that was going on about them.

"It's ... it's almost as though it isn't real!" Dave heard himself whisper aloud. "It's like being at a movie, and seeing something you know was just made up. Gosh, there's thousands of them. Thousands! I wonder how many have got away already? And...."

The last froze on Dave's lips. At that moment above the crackling and sullen roar of the flames devouring the city there came the dreaded sound. It was like the drumming moan of night wind in the trees, only it wasn't. It was a sound that chilled the blood of every man on shore and off shore. It was Goering's Stukas and Heinkels and Messerschmitts coming up with the rising dawn. For a long second Dave and Freddy heard it, and then it was drowned out by the mounting groans and curses that welled up from the throats of those thousands of soldiers on the beach. Yet as Dave stared at them, unable to move, he saw that not a man broke ranks. Everybody stayed in his place, as though they were on a parade ground instead of on a beach strewn with their own dead. Rifles and portable machine guns were grabbed up and pointed toward the fast lightening heavens, but no man gave up his place in line.

And then the winged vultures under Goering's command came howling down out of the sky. Their noise drowned out all other noises, including the noise of the guns that greeted them. It was as though some mighty giant were tearing the roof right off the top of the world. It wasn't a scream, and it wasn't an earth trembling wail. Nor was it a continual thunderous roar. It was just a sound that had never been heard before, and, perhaps, will never be heard again. A mighty collection of all sounds in the whole world blended into one mighty inferno of noise.

As Dave and Freddy stood transfixed it didn't so much as even occur to either of them to run for some kind of shelter. Their feet were lumps of lead and the ground was one great magnet that held them fast. Something spewed up orange and red flame a couple of hundred yards away from them. It was a bomb exploding, but they couldn't even hear the sound. Another fountain of flame, and sand showering down over everything, but no individual sound of the bomb going off. A part of the sky overhead turned into a great raging ball of red fire. It tore their eyes upward in time to see a Heinkel bomber outlined in livid flame. Then it was engulfed by that flame and came hurtling down to hit the water off-shore and disappear as though by magic.

It was then, and then only they realized that not all of the planes overhead were German. It was then they saw British Hurricanes, and Spitfires, and Defiants slash down out of the dawn sky in groups of three and pounce upon the German planes in a relentless, furious attack that set them to shouting wildly at the top of their voices. The Royal Air Force. The R.A.F., the saviors of Dunkirk! Outnumbered by the German planes, but so far above them in fighting heart, in spirit, and in real flying ability that there wasn't even any room left for comparison. A British plane against five Germans, against ten, or against fifty! What did it matter? There were gallant troops to be evacuated back home. There were fleet after fleet of Goering's vultures with orders to shoot down the British troops like cattle. Never! Never in all God's world as long as there was an R.A.F. plane left, and an R.A.F. pilot alive to fly it!

Suddenly Dave became conscious of a great pain in his right arm. He looked down to see Freddy gripping it tightly with one hand and pounding it with his other fist. The light of a mad man was in the English youth's eyes. When he had Dave's attention he stopped pounding and pointed to the left and beyond a short line of bomb blasted wharves.

"Look, look, Dave!" came his shrill scream faintly. "Look off that first wharf. There's a motor boat. It was trying to get in close, but a Messerschmitt came down and sprayed the chap at the wheel. See! He's trying to get up. And there's the Messerschmitt again. Dave! The tide will carry that boat up against those rocks, and smash in its bottom. Dave! Can you swim? We've got to reach that boat before it hits the rocks. Look! The Messerschmitt is shooting again. He's got the poor chap. He's got him this time!"

As Freddy screamed in his ear Dave looked out at the boat. It was a long slinky looking power boat, but it wasn't even slinking along, now. The lone figure had fallen across the engine hood, and a diving Messerschmitt was hammering more bullets into his body. And a running tide was carrying the craft broadside toward some jagged rocks that stuck up out of the water not two hundred yards away.