Island Redoubt Page 9
‘Bastard’, said Tony.
‘What did you expect?’, asked Ernie.
‘Some chocolate’, came the reply. ‘Well, it was fun pissing him off, if nothing else.’
They really felt the hunger as the morning wore on and to make matters worse Greenhalgh and his crony became more loud and obnoxious as the drink really took hold of them.
‘If I get the chance to do him a bad turn I’ll take it’, said Tony. High above them a squadron of Junkers 88s headed towards Britain on a bombing run. The men stared and then carried on with their conversations or their silences. ‘I mean to say if he needed a helping hand into one of these boats I might have to look the other way or put a helping boot on his head.’
‘He’d do it to one of us if it meant him getting into a boat’, said Sam.
‘He would’, said Tony emphatically. ‘He’s a bastard and a cad and a bounder. I’d like to see his birth certificate.’
Sam laughed and then his stomach rumbled almost painfully.
‘I’m looking for volunteers to help carry wounded men to the boats!’, called a polite voice from behind them. Most of the men studiously ignored this voice, clinging to the maxim, ‘never volunteer’, but Sam turned round casually, curious but yet hoping to avoid eye contact with the speaker. It was a chaplain. His battle dress was baggy and only just gave him a resemblance to a soldier.
‘It’s a chaplain’, whispered Sam to the others.
‘I don’t care if it’s fuckin’ Charlie Chaplin. I’m not volunteering’, said Tony.
‘Anyone?’, queried the chaplain. There were no takers and he disappointedly moved off along the beach to try again.
‘Poor bugger’, said Ernie. ‘What a shit job to get.’
‘I think we should do it, Ernie’, said Sam, enthusiastically.
‘Bollocks.’
‘Listen. If we help the wounded onto the boat we might get on the boat ourselves or a least get closer to the front of the queue.’
‘Failing that we might get fed - keep our strength up and all that’, added Bill. He was a pragmatist and could see the virtue in Sam’s idea
‘We’ve nothing’ to lose, Ernie’, said Sam
‘Right! Let’s do it!’, he said suddenly enthusiastic. He stood. ‘Sir!’, he called after the clergyman. The chaplain turned suddenly, wobbling slightly as if he might fall over into the sand. There was just a trace of a smile on his face as if he was almost afraid to show any signs of hope - hope that he was about to witness a better side to man’s nature in the face of selfish adversity. Could it be that from the sea of lost and inward-looking souls through which he had passed like a beggar at a dinner party, there could be some men who would put the best interests of others first? Possible? Even if those others might not in some cases deserve the help they were to get? Was that possible? Of course it was. Any port in a storm….
‘Yes…. er, uh Corporal’, he said with uncertainty, letting slip the fact that he was rather new to the job of being an Army chaplain. He had a mental block when it came to non-commissioned ranks, even the simple and rather common ones. How could he tell the difference between a colour-sergeant and a staff-sergeant? And as for lance-sergeants, corporals-of-horse, bombardiers, riflemen, sappers…..
‘We’d like to help, sir. My section that is’, said Ernie. He turned slightly to indicate his volunteers. Tony gave an endearing smile and the chaplain began to wonder if indeed these men could really be the answer to his prayers. He didn't like to be uncharitable but they looked a bit…. disreputable. Then didn’t they all?
‘That would be very good. We really need to get the wounded off the beaches. Need to get them home.’ He seemed dazed or in shock. Perhaps he was just close to exhaustion like so many others. He spoke the words as if he had learnt them by rote. In reality the opposite of this little mantra might be more true - the wounded might have less to contribute to the forthcoming war effort than the able-bodied and the latter should therefore have priority on the boats heading home.
Ernie’s little band followed the chaplain back from the beach, receiving a mixture of bemused looks and complete indifference. Some men felt guilt at not having volunteered themselves, this being exacerbated by the fact that someone else so demonstrably had.
‘Are you sure about this, Ernie?’, asked Tommy. The two men strode directly behind the chaplain.
‘No. Not exactly. If it all goes wrong it was Sam's idea.’
‘Ah Sergeant, some volunteers to get the wounded away!’, said the chaplain stridently. His flagging spirits were somewhat revived. The sergeant wore a medic’s armband and carried only a revolver on his hip.
‘Right sir. I didn’t think you’d manage it!’ The sergeant called the men over. ‘We’re just about at capacity here’, he said with a quick backward glance to the large tent behind him. It was packed with wounded men on stretchers. ‘If you can get some of these away it’ll be a big help so just grab the nearest stretcher and off down to the beach.’ Tony and Sam, slung their rifles diagonally across their backs and took a stretcher between them. ‘Four to a stretcher lads’, said the medic. ‘You’ll never get all the way down otherwise.’
Moments later with the help of Ronnie and the chaplain, they began their journey to the water’s edge. The stretcher case was a young officer with a bandage round his head which covered his eyes. He was entirely passive and didn’t speak or react in any way to events going in around him. The loose sand of the dunes gave way beneath their feet and they stumble-slithered along, trying not to jar their young charge.
‘This is bloody hard work’, said Tony.
‘We’ll get our rewards in heaven’, replied Sam.
‘Indeed you will’, said the chaplain, straining under his share of the load. Ronnie said nothing. Ahead of them the beach came into view, still packed with men and beyond that lay a sea equally packed with ships and boats of every kind. It was a beautiful summer’s day, the clear, blue sky only marred by the Stukas that tumbled earthwards.
‘Down!’, shouted Sam who’d spotted them first.
‘What?’, said the chaplain.
‘Stukas!’ They laid their casualty on the first flattish piece of beach they could find and then pressed themselves into the sand. The attack was to take place out at sea, however, and they raised their heads to watch in horror as two bombs hit a destroyer, breaking its back and sending it to rest in the shallow water. Men fought to get off the stricken vessel and back onto the sand from which they had just been rescued. The planes roared over them half-heartedly strafing the beach on their run home.
‘More casualties’, said Ronnie.
‘Someone else’ll have to look after them, I think’, said the clergyman. They picked up the handles of the stretcher again and lurched off towards the distant water’s edge. The waiting soldiers shifted lazily out of their way to give them passage as they were using up the last vestiges of their chivalry.
The nearest boat, rolling in the gentle surf, was a Royal Navy whaler.
‘Over here, lads’, called the coxswain in his broad Scots accent. The men waded out chest deep and with difficulty passed the stretcher handles up to tattooed arms reaching down.
‘Got it!’, and then the two at the back slid the stretcher on. ‘Hold on!’ came the shout and the stretcher was passed back - empty, of course.
‘Thank you’, shouted the chaplain and they began to retrace their steps.
They witnessed a strange little cameo in the next boat along.
‘If you don’t go home with a fucking rifle son, I see no reason to let you go home at all. Now dive down and get it or you don’t get on that boat’, said the RSM. The hapless soldier, nineteen or twenty years of age at best and close to tears, did as he was told, performing something like a duck-dive to retrieve the 303 from the beneath the water. He held the rifle aloft like a prize piece of dripping driftwood and defiantly took his place in the queue.
‘Good man’, said the RSM. ‘You’re a soldier again.’
‘I expect you wouldn’t say no to some food’, said their leader. ‘To keep your strength up.’ They followed him to another tent where a harassed cook served up an uncategorizable meal on porcelain plates. They were also given bread and jam, cigarettes, chocolate and tea. The chaplain took his leave to minister to the suffering and shortly afterwards Ernie and the rest came in.
‘What did I say, Ernie?’, said Sam.
‘Aye, you were right and if we can get onto one of those boats it’ll be even better. The last thing we want is to be stuck here helping wounded men onto those ships when the Germans come.’ The others nodded. They smoked quietly and in a fashion, contentedly. After about twenty minutes the chaplain returned and half apologetically said, ‘Ready to go chaps?’
‘Sir’, said Ernie and the men followed his lead in standing. ‘Off we go', he added.
The stretcher cases were the usual mix of amputees, head wounds and chest wounds, all bound together in looking uniformly shocked and confused. Some groaned and some slept. One died on the way to the shore and it was only realised when his lifeless body was transferred to the boat. Throughout, the pall of smoke over Dunkirk never seemed to abate and aerial battles unfolded in magnificent disarray, miles above their heads. Their shoulders and backs ached, the skin blistered on their hands and their spirits sank. The chaplain made sure that they got to rest and have a brew and a smoke. He showed them a quiet determination to get the job done and matched their work rate step for step, carry for carry. There was no question of them stopping until he said so.
They had just watched and cheered as a Heinkel 111 plunged into the sea with an enormous, watery explosion. The Spitfire pilot came in low and waggled his wings, the soldiers stood and cheered again. The masses inched towards the water’s edge as they had done all day, waiting to join one of the sodden queues that reached out into the water a waist level. Sam and Tony passed the stretcher upwards as they had done …… how many times was it, now? Ronnie and the Chaplain, pushed from behind as Sam rubbed his aching shoulder.
‘Here come the others now’, said the chaplain, looking back up the beach to the next stretcher party.
‘Coxswain!’, shouted the chaplain. He stood expectantly, past his waist in water, defiant and energetic.
‘Sir?’ The seaman leaned over the side of the boat.
‘I want you to take these men off the beach now, please. They should have got off hours ago.’ Sam’s mouth fell open slightly at the telling of a lie…. especially from a man of the cloth.
‘Yessir’, said the coxswain. ‘Up you come lads. Watch were you stand.’ They half jumped and were half pulled into the boat and when the seven fusiliers were sitting, the craft pulled away towards a destroyer.
‘You’ll be glad to get home, eh?’, said a smiling seaman. Ernie nodded and gave a weary smile. ‘Back in Blighty in the morning.’
‘Where’s the chaplain?’, said Tony.
‘Went back to Dunkirk’, replied Ronnie.
England
The Nazi attack on Britain began almost at once, as if Hitler had waited for the evacuation to finish. Waves of German bombers, escorted by numerous fighters make the short crossing from France with the aim of destroying the RAF. Much depleted by its heroic cover of the Dunkirk beaches the RAF struggled to maintain a defence of UK airspace. The Luftwaffe targeted airfields and radar installations primarily and also found time to almost halt the manufacture of Spitfires and Hurricanes. Production of these was farmed out to other manufacturers such as Shorts in Belfast but by the time the flow of fighters had resumed the supply of pilots had begun to dry up. As the RAF’s defensive capability faltered other less suitable types of aircraft and their crews were pressed into service, with crippling losses. Supplies of Douglas Bostons and Curtiss P40s from the US were lost as the Kriegsmarine began to sink the cargo ships that brought them and those that did get to Britain were left without pilots to fly them.
At sea the mighty Bismarck had been sunk on the 27 of May - some consolation for the disastrous land campaign in France. Sadly, HMS Hood - pride of the British Fleet and symbol of Britain’s power had already been lost in the struggle to sink its German equivalent. The Army had been humbled if not defeated, the RAF had been decimated and almost neutralised, Hood and the old battleship Royal Oak had been sunk. Further grievous naval losses were yet to come. Resistance in France dwindled and died in June, leaving a proud nation broken and left to the mercy of its greatest enemy and its own collaborators.
Hitler’s forces strained at the leash and only the English Channel held them at bay.
In a tented camp in Weymouth, the Royal Irish Fusiliers licked their wounds. In penny packets they had been allowed to go on leave. Sam had been home to Belfast and grudgingly Tony had been allowed home to Dublin.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll see you again’, said the chief clerk, a Scouse import, whom few admired.
‘I’ll come back, colour’, said Tony, with dignity. ‘I’m not afraid of a fight.’ The clerk had grunted as he handed over the travel warrants.
‘Not going to do one of your disappearing acts, then?’, he continued, contemptuously. Tony smiled and said nothing.
Sam had gone back in his uniform. The ferry dropped him off in Belfast and he began the three mile trudge to his house. The city was blacked out but had not yet been affected by the bombing raids that afflicted other British cities. Some people had begun to call it the Blitz. As he drew level with the Markets area, having just crossed over the railway, a little Austin pulled to the side of the autumn-glistening street.
‘Lift?’, came a voice from the car. Sam waddled over and opened the passenger-side door. The street lights were off, the car was blacked-out with only slivers of light protruding from its headlights. It should have been almost invisible.
‘Where to?, said the driver an avuncular-sounding man.
‘Woodstock road or thereabouts. Anywhere really.’
‘Can’t have you walking on a miserable night. Do enough of that in the Army, eh?’
‘Aye’, said Sam, with a polite laugh.
‘Leave?’
‘Aye. Back to Mum and Dad. Mum’s cookin’. All that.’
‘They’ll be pleased to see you. Can’t beat your ma’s cookin.’ Better than that shit - pardon my French - they feed you in the Army. Were you in France?’
‘Aye.’
‘Thought so. My boy was - Calais. And Norway for a bit. He was in the Irish Guards, just like his oul da was.’ His ‘oul da’ was the driver of course.
‘What are you in?’
‘Irish Fusiliers.’
‘The Faughs!’
‘Aye.’
‘Good regiment. The Faughs, the Stickies and the Skins’, the driver said as he turned into Woodstock Road. He was referring to the three Irish regiments of the line - Royal Irish Fusiliers, Royal Irish Rifles and Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
‘No bombs on Belfast then?’
‘Not yet. Dropped one on Bangor though.’
‘One?’
‘By accident, I think.’
‘My corporal was from Bangor.’
‘Well you can tell him when you get back.’
‘He was killed in France.’
‘Same with my boy’, said the man, matter-of-factly. Had the man not yet come to terms with this bereavement or had it simply not sunk in yet? Sam didn’t know how to respond and they sat in silence until they got to the end of Sam’s street.
‘Thanks.’
‘You take care, son.’
‘I’ll try.’ The car rolled off with a chuggy-wheeze and was swallowed up by the darkness.
The gate creaked open and little beads of rain dropped onto his boots. The dull clunk of metal on metal set the dog off with its maniacal barking and balletic leaps at the door. He heard his Dad’s cursing, muffled by the door as he pushed past the dog and came to investigate�
�. and then the door edged open. His Dad grabbed hold of him and pulled him into the house, backing into his wife who playfully pushed him to one side. The dog jumped up repeatedly to be part of the group, its tail beating an impossible rhythm on the banister.
‘God, we’re pleased to see you son’, said Da, as Sam’s mother dissolved in tears.
‘You knew I’d got back?’
‘But it's not the same as seeing you ourselves, son.’ He led them into the little living room and began to stoke up the fire. ‘On our way to bed, so we were, but we’ll stay up now.’ His mum had collected herself a little bit by now.
‘Tea, son?’
‘Or a bottle of stout?’, said his Dad.
‘Tea, mum. That’ll be fine.’ But his Mum was already in the kitchen getting the stove on. She called from the kitchen.
‘I’ll get you a hot water bottle.’
‘It’s all right mum. Honest.’
‘Let her do it son. She wants to make a fuss of you. She’ll be draggin’ you round the neighbours tomorrow showing you off.’
‘And you’ll be draggin’ me out to the pub.’
‘Aye well, maybe’, the older man said with a laugh. ‘Fag?’ He stood and took his emergency cigarettes from the brass box on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ll have one myself - celebrate.’ As was his habit he put the poker into the fire for a minute or two and then lit their cigarettes from its orange-glowing tip. Sam wasn’t sure if this was an austerity measure or if he simply didn’t know where the matches were.
His mother returned, with tea and slices of thick, gooey home-made cake, as the men drew deeply and satisfyingly on the tobacco. She was one of the few people whom Sam knew who didn’t smoke.
‘It’s only one I made’, she said referring to the fruitcake. Her tone was apologetic because she’d always thought of her time in the kitchen as a time of conflict during which little of great edibility was ever produced. The fact that her son and husband always devoured everything she put in front of her still failed to dissuade her from the view that she was a poor cook. She waited until Sam had taken a bite from his cake and then asked him a question. She always did that.