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In June 1940 I was serving with the British Forces in France, manning a Lewis machine gun mounted on a tripod in the back of a truck. Soon after the German Blitzkrieg I found myself part of a disorganised rabble streaming westward looking for some channel harbour where escapre was still possible. Dunkirk was no longer an option.
Countless small groups headed south and west trying to avoid encirclement. I joined close friends Freddie Aberdeen and Lance Corporal Gretton Foster in a bid to reach the French naval port of Brest. We loaded jerry cans of petrol, resigned ourselves to travelling without army meals or NAAFI food, optimistic we'd get scanty snacks en route.
For many long miles we had to ease through masses of weary refugees blocking the road. Exhausted women and children were a depressing accompaniment to our journey. Quite against army regulations we helped a teenage girl and her grandparents to climb aboard. The old ones had fallen, the girl too weak to lift them up. We hid all three under wide green tarpaulins. They slept as if dead. I begged eggs and bread from outlying farms, drank rough cider, lay on cobblestones overnight, leaving the truck to our three refugees.
At Rennes we thought the worst was behind us. Our passengers got out and mingled with people in the square. Minutes later came lurid flashes and rolling explosions. Stuka bombers attacking the railway station, we were told. Gretton drove off, intent on Brest.
Arriving at Morlaix we were immediately conscious of a downcast people. Tears and anger, raised fists, deep resentment. A woman came across and Gretton braked. She cursed us, contemptuous and bitter, told us we were cowards running away. To emphasise her disgust she spat at me. I searched for words in schoolboy French.
"Sains toujours" I said, "Nous retournon". A fatuous injunction, too jingo English. We rolled on, quiet and tense.
Brest was fifteen miles distant when we could go no further, the road strewn with wrecked vehicles, field guns, discarded uniforms, all manner of equipment; straggling soldiers. Polish gunners were splitting their gun barrels with explosive charges rammed inside. But whatever the destruction much useful material would be left for German use, we knew.
So now it meant a dull, perspiring footslog in a hot, sunny afternoon,burdened by our kitbags and rifles. For me a heavy pannier of ammunition as well. We plodded on insensitive to the lines of civilians observing us, a retreating rabble, pass by. It wasn't long before my weighty pannier swung open and shiny bullets cascaded on the road. There was a feverish rush of civilians to gather them up, every last bullet. I let go the metal case and trudged on evading piled up wreckage, gas masks, and helmets, a litter of glass and timber, canvas buckets, smouldering trucks, buckled sheets of metal, scattered papers.
Finally a bleak waterfront and one small pleasure boat 'Ulster Monarch' still taking dazed troops aboard though dangerously low in the water. I stood in a small queue - perhaps a dozen men - silent and fatigued. No sign of my friends. Where were they? I wondered.
We shuffled uneasily, aware now of the risky boarding procedure. Success depended on a downswing of the gangplank. One soldier had braced himself at the end of it, arm outstretched to grab and hold each boarder in turn. A strenuous upward leap was needed to reach that helping hand. A chancy business! Failure meant a drop to the water, weighted down by rifle and uniform, ignored in the grim efforts underway. Men held back, wavering, preferring the POW likelihood.
I was scared, fatalistic, urgently hopeful. "Now!" bellowed a voice and I made a wild jump, hampered by slung rifle and greatcoat. Strong fingers seized my wrist. I flung a free hand to clutch at wood or whatever, suddenly relieved to be violently cast into dense-packed khaki bodies.
A young, flustered lieutenant brandishing a revolver was ordering men to go below. His menace was ugly. We were a slow, sullen lot, reluctant to leave the fresh air and visibility of an open deck. It seemed a dreamlike sequence, unreal. I squatted with others near a tiny toilet, numbly as if I had been sedated. Dimly aware of the vessel churning and shifting I drifted into sleep.
In a misty dawn we slapped and wallowed into Falmouth harbour. It was full daylight when we sluggishly disembarked. Civilians in holiday dress were strolling on the promenade. I felt curiously detached in a serene and leisurely world.

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