大象传媒

Dunkirk - as darkness fell, the black canopy over the town gradually turned firery red. In the red glow, I found the CCS in a mansion standing in it's own grounds, it's windows shuttered and doors curtained off.

That night in a CCS will remain an indelible memory.

In the hall they take my name, number and unit. An Orderly takes me to a back room. 'Some more chaps from your unit in here' he says.

There is Driver Thrift. He got his in both legs when a shell burst in front of his truck. There is Signaller Gidden and a couple more - I forget their names. The others about the room are in a sad state.

I feel ashamed to be in here with only an arm wound. The Orderlies work quickly and silently. With the next tide in the morning they hope to get away. A chap on a stretcher moans for morphine. An Orderley pricks his arm with an empty needle. Satisfied, the patient quietens. It's useless asking for water. The town had its water mains bombed days ago.

In dim light of candles they move among the wounded, dressing new wounds but leaving those with field dressings. Now that nightfall has chased the bombers from the sky, shells are carrying on the work. Most of them are whining right over us, bound for the docks and waterfront. But a number crash without warning in the gardens outside. A cry of a badly wounded man fearing further wounds is not easily forgotten.

With the dawn came ambulances to take us to the docks. With the first of daylight came the bombers again, and with the coming of light, the firery red smoke pall over the town assumes once more blackness. The ugly red will not return again till nightfall, by then I hope to be away.

The ambulances did not get far. Rubble and debris across the street prevented it. We piled out and helped the less fortunate who couldn't walk. I had my right arm round the waist of a RAOC Sgt who only had boots and trousers on. His many bandages about his body still dripped blood.

As we passed a mobile Bofors AA it started it's rhythmic coughing as it pumped it's clip of shells into the low blanket of smoke over the town. Out of the smoke pall, dived a plane spraying the streets with bullets.

A MP advised us to make for the Mole. 'You wont stand a chance on the beaches' he said. 'They've been shelling and bombing them for a week. There's thousands been waiting on them for days'.

I dont't know how we came to the Mole for nobody could even direct us to the waterfront. The Mole too was under shellfire. A hole almost divided the concrete jetty in two. Greatcoats covered the faces of those who had managed to get this far, but not far enough.

A long queue of French and British extended the whole length of the Mole - as orderly as a theatre queue.

On the beach, crocodiles of men wound in and around itself like coiled snakes, the heads of which finished up out in the sea. There, small boats were unceremoniously loading them in - almost to the danger of capsizing.

Destroyers were against the Mole side. After 3 hours in the queue, I tumbled onto the deck of H34. The decks were crowded with troops. In the bay, the mast of a sunken destroyer stuck up out of the water. 'How many went down with her' I wondered. But I have always had great confidence in the Navy and now I was aboard a naval vessel, I could sit down and drink that hot tea a Tar was passing round among us.

We pulled away to sea, away from the hellish din of bombs, bullets and shells, to which I had grown so accustomed to these past few weeks. As I watched burning Dunkirk on the horizon 5 miles away, I had my musings rudely shattered by the ships noisy 2lb pom-poms. Our companion destroyer also gave all it could to the noisy concert. A Nazi plane, which had ventured far out to sea for a last desperate attempt at machine gunning crowded decks, hit the water with a splash. We never tarried to pick up survivors.

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