Dave Dawson at Dunkirk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Freddy heard him and turned front. The English youth's eyes danced with excitement. He grinned at Dave, and then suddenly seemed to remember the little scene last night after Dave had removed the screws from the window frame. He clasped both hands above his head and shook them vigorously. His lips moved, and Dave just barely heard the words.

"Well done!"

Dave returned the grin and then twisted around front. The dash instruments, of course, were all marked in German, but he knew enough of that language to read them. The altimeter needle was quivering close to the six thousand foot mark. He decided that was high enough and leveled off the climb onto even keel. Then he took a moment or so to glance down at the ground below to try and get his bearings. The first thing he saw was a small village off to his left. One look at it and his heart leaped over in his chest. He saw the hill and the single main street along which trucks and armored cars and motorized units of artillery were passing in a steady, endless stream. The town of Estalle? It seemed to be almost directly under him. The truth made him shiver and lick his lower lip.

If that was Estalle and he was positive it was, he and Freddy couldn't have traveled more than eight or nine miles toward the north during their wild flight last night. Maybe twice that number of miles going around in circles, but certainly not more than ten miles in the direction they wanted to go.

A rap on his shoulder turned him around in the seat. Freddy was pointing at the village of Estalle and pursing his lips in a silent whistle. Dave got the idea and nodded, and wiped make believe sweat from his forehead with his free hand. Then he turned front and glanced at the sun in an effort to decide which direction was due west. Of course there was a compass on the instrument panel but something was obviously wrong with it. The needle was spinning around the balanced card dial.

That fact didn't worry him in the slightest, though. He remembered a tip a First World War flying ace had once given him about finding your direction in Europe when you were lost and your compass was out of whack. It was very simple, too. In the morning, if you could see the sun, all you had to do was keep the sun on your tail and you would be sure to be flying west. And so Dave applied the rudder until the sun was mostly on his tail, and gave his attention to the spread of ground ahead.

What he saw made him suck air sharply into his lungs. Rather, it was a case of what he didn't see. The entire western horizon seemed to be one huge cloud of dirty grey smoke streaked here and there with tongues of livid red and orange and yellow flame. It was as though the whole of Belgium was on fire. Closer to him was a long even-banked river that cut down across the countryside from the northwest to the southeast. He was staring hard at it thinking it was a very peculiar looking river when he suddenly felt Freddy hitting him on the shoulder again.

"That's the famous Prince Albert Canal!" the English youth shouted above the roar of the engine. "It's very strongly fortified. A sort of Belgian Maginot Line. The Germans can't possibly have crossed it, yet. If we can just get by there, Brussels is not very far off. We could land there."

"Germans not crossing it?" Dave yelled and pointed. "Look down there to the left. They're swarming across it like bees. Gee, there must be a million pontoon bridges thrown across that canal. And, gosh, look at all those Stuka dive bombers!"

It was all too true. Hitler's relentlessly advancing forces had smashed the Albert Canal defenses to smoking rubble, thus forcing the Belgian army to retreat to the south side of the Canal. And now as German troops, and their swiftly striking Panzer division were rushing across pontoon bridges to strike more blows at the Belgians, hundreds of Stuka dive bombers were blasting death and destruction into the ranks of the enemy. The sight of it all made Dave's heart turn to ice in his chest. History, terrible History was being written down there by the Albert Canal, and his heart was on fire with an even more blazing desire to do something for the cause of justice and civilization.