THOUGH HE HAD SNEAKED OUT MANY NIGHTS BEFORE, tonight would be his most difficult escape. He doubted his courage. His mum, Aga, Eva, the captain—he didn't want to disappoint them. And what about the boys in France? What if he got there and then ran away in fear?
When everyone had gone to bed and the rooms were empty, he walked through the downstairs. He slipped into the drawing room and saw the radio resting silently on the mantel above the fireplace. He ran his hand along the mantel's edge, thinking about the nightly gatherings for the BBC.
He moved back into the lobby. A peg on the hat stand held the slicker he had been wearing the day Badger broke his leg. And in the dining room, the sideboard held stacks of dishes and cups, ready for breakfast. Back in the kitchen, he pushed the larder door shut and then paused at the back door. The lingering scent of Aga's pot roast tempted him to give up and go to his room.
He had thought so often of leaving the inn—of launching out on his own, of making his own path. But he had never thought about not coming back. Through all his planning and wishing, he had known that, should he need to, he could return. But the path he was setting out on now could not promise a safe return. He was going into battle—a battle that could take his life. But he was going to help others whose lives were lost for sure if the ships didn't go. The answer for him was clear; he'd known it since the discovery inside the castle. He was sorry for the way he had deceived his mum, but he'd been given no choice. His path was across the sea. He shook off his doubts and went on his way.
He knew he would need some great luck to board the Britannia without being seen. If the docks weren't busy, he would certainly be spotted. He hoped that something would distract the captain and Douglas, so he could scurry onboard.
But he didn't need a distraction. The docks were nearly deserted. He could hear some blokes talking far down the planks, but at the Britannia, everything was quiet.
"Aye, as soon as the rest of them are back from their final pint at the pubs, we'll shove off," Alec heard one seaman call out.
He looked around the Britannia and noticed that the ship had been outfitted for a long journey. Jugs of water were strapped to the inside rails. Dozens of blankets had been folded and packed tightly in the open hold.
He moved to the locker and lifted its lid. It was filled with bread. Grabbing as many loaves as he could, he scrambled down the galley steps and stowed the bread under the bench. Then, two more times, he climbed back up on deck, and carried all but a few loaves to the galley, storing them anywhere he could find room. He hoped the captain and Douglas would each think the other had moved the supplies.
Back on deck, he pulled the tarp from the bottom of the locker, stuffed his pack into the corner, and climbed in. He lay down and pulled the tarp up to his chest. Then, with one hand, he spread the remaining loaves on top of the tarp and ducked beneath it. The space was tight, but he could manage.
He no sooner was tucked inside than he heard noises on the dock. The sailors were boarding their vessels. He kept still, waiting to hear the captain's or Douglas's voice. His heart was pounding; his palms were wet as they gripped the tarp. Then he heard the thud of feet as the two men climbed onboard. The locker muffled the crew's actions, but he could tell they were unlashing the lines and preparing to shove off.
Alec could hear himself breathing—quick, raspy sounds. He feared the men on deck would hear him, too, so he slid deeper into his hiding place and waited. He wasn't sure when he would make himself known. He had to be careful to allow enough time for the ship to be too far out in the Channel to return. Again, he felt guilty. What would the captain say? He'd be angry, no doubt. But once they were gone, what could anyone do to him? He'd stowed away: that was the truth. He'd take each blow as it came.
He heard other boats start their engines and motor away from the dock. Then he felt the Britannia shudder and lurch forward as its engine powered it out into the Channel. He imagined the captain in the wheelhouse, his pipe between his teeth, helping the Britannia to queue up with the other little ships.
After a while, he heard less noise. The steady swish-slap of the waves as they beat against the bow nearly lulled him to sleep. He roused himself. A good shipmate was always alert, he remembered. He had to follow seamen's rules if he wanted to prove himself. So he sat up as best he could and waited. He didn't know how long they'd been gone, but he knew the sea was rough by the groaning of the ship and by the way he had to steady himself inside the locker.
Alec lifted the lid of the locker just in time to hear the captain order Douglas to go below for a rest before taking his turn at the helm. Feeling confident that they had sailed too far to turn back, Alec dared to lift the lid a little higher. From his hiding place, he could see the captain staring straight ahead, guiding the Britannia toward France.
Alec dreaded his next move. He didn't want to see the look on the captain's face when he appeared on deck. But he couldn't stay hidden forever. He had come to help, not to hide in a box and miss all the action. So he climbed out of the locker and dropped the lid. It clanged as it fell, and the noise caught the captain's attention. In an instant, the captain knew what Alec had done.
"Come here to me, sonny," the captain shouted from the open door of the wheelhouse. "Come now if you don't want to be thrown overboard!"
Alec crept toward his boss, keeping his head down.
"What do you think you're doing, lad, stowing away on my very own ship? In all my years of sailing, I've never had a stowaway—till now. And it's a lad I trusted with all my heart. What have you got to say for yourself? Come on, speak up!"
"I had to come," Alec said. "I've been to sea enough to know what to do. And my friends are stranded there in Dunkirk. I couldn't stay any more than you could. I'm a seaman, just like you. I couldn't be left behind."
"Aye, Alec. I know you're wanting to be the hero and save everybody. But war is not so easy a place to shine. The report when we left was that the Germans had stopped their tanks ten miles from Dunkirk. Said they were just going to hold there and keep our boys up against the Channel so that the Luftwaffe could destroy them from above. It will be hellish—not like anything you've ever seen."
"I'm not afraid, and I have to go. Please, Captain, don't be angry."
"There'll be thousands of lads sprawling on that coast. What makes you think you'll ever find your friends? And we're not on holiday, you know. This is war."
"I'll do anything you ask. Let me stay and work with you."
"As if I have any other choice now! You've managed to come out of hiding when we're well under way, though we've a long way to go. The Germans have mined the Channel, and we're having to take the north route. It's going to be a long journey and an even longer night, Alec. Now be off with you. Go down below with Douglas and get some rest. I'll mind the helm."
Alec wasn't ready to meet Douglas yet. "Can I just stay here? Near the locker? I can lie back on the tarp inside. That way I'm close if you need anything."
"All right, lad. I'm thinking Douglas would thrash you if I did send you below. So sit back in the locker, and from now on, follow orders. Get some rest. No one knows what we're in for when we get there."
Alec was weary. He heeded the captain's words and settled back on the tarp. The sky was unusually clear, no hint of clouds. He gazed at the stars and thought of his mum. She would be sad to discover he'd left after all. He remembered the soldiers in the castle saying the prime minister would call for England to pray. He knew his mum would go to church. This time, if he had been there, he would not have let her go alone. He also thought of Eva. She had understood. She recognized his need to do something to help. He hoped he wouldn't disappoint her. As he drifted off to sleep, he realized that if ever he needed to do right, this was the time.
He woke to thunder, or so he supposed. It was after dawn; Alec could not see a hundred yards beyond the bow. It wasn't the usual Channel haze, though. Instead, the air was cloudy and smelled odd—like something burning. The odor of petrol stung his nose. Then he remembered where he was. He jumped up from the locker and caught Douglas's stare. Sometime during the night, Douglas and the captain had switched places, and now the first mate sneered at Alec.
"Lot of good ye'll be to us, boy, if all ye do is sleep and eat. What a bloody fool ye are to have stowed away. Ye've no idea what ye've done to yerself. Well, aah won't be your nursemaid."
"I want to help," Alec shot back.
"Don't talk tripe, boy. Ye'll suck food and water that should be saved for the other blokes. Ye'll be little 'elp. Just keep yerself out of the way an' don't be sobbin' when the bombers drop their loads."
Off in the distance, the thunder roared again, and Alec heard a faint whine. It sounded like a motor that was struggling to charge. Then he remembered he'd heard the sound before—the day the Jerries were scouting the coast. Straining now to see, he scanned the horizon and saw the black smoke curling toward the sky.
"Yer right, boy. That's the Jerries poundin' the coast. The same coast where the Brits are sittin, waitin for us to 'elp. We're in for it, that's for sure. We'll need all the luck we can get to make this trip work."
By this time, the captain had come up from below deck and was standing next to Douglas, watching the sky as well. As they drew closer to shore, the sounds grew louder.
Wheee, wheee, kaboom! Wheee, wkeee, kaboom! The Stukas screamed as they dropped their bombs on the French coast. The air was clearing a bit, and Alec could now see other ships trailing along with them. In front and behind, ships of all sizes and designs were making their way toward the Dunkirk coast. "There must be a thousand of them," he said to Douglas. But the first mate only grunted and kept his eyes fixed on the bow.
Ahead of them, Alec recognized one of the paddle-wheel boats he'd seen on the Thames when his mum had taken him to London. To their left was a tugboat chugging to keep up. The Britannia kept its course, following the lead of the vessels in front. Within minutes, Alec could see the coast. Dark, heavy smoke seemed to rise from every inch of the shore.
Boom, boom, boom. Alec watched as British destroyers took aim at the planes overhead. Puffs of smoke hovered in the skies above them as the ships fired round after round from their antiaircraft guns.
Overhead, the German planes shrieked Wheee, wheee, wheee, then dropped lower to release their bombs before rising again out of range of the British guns. Alec saw fountains spray up where the Jerries had sent their bombs into the Channel.
He had never imagined anything so horrible. They were near enough now to see the Dunkirk coast, littered with disabled tanks and lorries. A jetty stuck out into the Channel, but as Alec looked closer, he saw that the jetty was made up of sunken boats, lorries, and abandoned equipment lying end to end and settled into the shallow waters near the shore. About a mile beyond the jetty, several large navy vessels were anchored. Other ships lay burning in the water, victims of the Stukas' shelling. The whole place looked like a ship graveyard.
What most alarmed Alec were the queues of men that snaked along the shore and into the water. Thousands of men, their bodies blackened with spilled oil, stood chest deep in water. Hoisting their rifles above their heads, the men waited for their turn to board the little ships.
"There are so many," Alec said to no one in particular.
"What's that, lad?" the captain called.
"There're so many of them," Alec said again. "How can we ever make enough trips to get them home?"
"We won't be making trips home. See those destroyers out there? It's too shallow here for the lot of them. So we're to pick up the men and take them to those ships. It'll be tricky work, though." The captain spoke quickly now, as they were getting closer to their target. "These men will be cold and starving. Our biggest problem will be to keep them queued up so they don't rush our boat and swamp us. Then we'll come back and do it again."
As Alec looked around, he saw the war that Aga so hated. Lads, some barely older than Alec, shivered in the water. They pushed to move closer to the small vessel edging toward them. The Channel was up to their necks. Others were screaming to their mates, "Keep back! Don't push! Stay in your queue!"
Some of the smaller ships were already starting to load soldiers. Alec watched as crew members beat back the few who broke ranks and stormed one boat. Within minutes, the boat was filled and moving toward the larger vessels out in the Channel.
The Britannia was next. Rather than work from the water, the captain turned toward the jetty and pulled up alongside. Like the other parts of the shore, the jetty held long rows of British soldiers. But these queues were reserved for the wounded. As the Britannia edged toward the shore, Alec saw hundreds of soldiers, their faces, arms, and legs wrapped with bandages. Some men, their heads covered in white gauze, were led by fellow soldiers. Others lay helplessly on the makeshift dock, unable to stand. Many were simply staring out to sea. Unlike the thousands of men in the water, the wounded waited patiently, even quietly.
The Britannia bumped noisily against the jetty, and Alec jumped off to tie up. Slowly, he helped the bandaged warriors climb aboard one by one. The captain and Douglas then settled each man into a spot. When the Britannia could take no more, Alec untied it from the jetty and jumped on deck. As the ship pulled into the Channel, Alec rushed about offering bread and water to anyone who could eat. If he had stopped to gaze at the men, he would have been useless. Their injuries were gruesome. Blood drenched many of the bandages, and several of the men drooled and vomited when he tried to help them drink. Still, Alec moved along from man to man.
Alec counted thirty men on the ship's main deck, pushed together like bags of grain. And except for a few moans from those most severely injured, the ship was quiet. For now, the enemy planes had disappeared, so the roaring overhead was gone. But the shouting of those onshore and in the water reminded Alec of what a big job lay before them.
When they reached the destroyer, Alec stood out of the way as men from the larger ship dropped a rope ladder over the side. Then two sailors hurried down the ladder and boarded the Britannia.
"First we'll take those who can climb on their own," one of them ordered.
Alec watched as the ones who were able got to their feet to board the big ship. The sailors stood at the bottom of the ladder, each holding a side as the first man made his way up. The ladder swayed in and out with the weight of the man, but soon he was helped onboard by those on the larger ship. Then went the next man and the next, until all who were able to climb on their own were aboard.
The sailors then called for a gurney, which was lowered by ropes over the side and placed on the Britannia's deck. Douglas helped a soldier slide onto it. A sailor secured the straps that would hold the injured soldier, and then the sailor signaled for those on deck to crank the hoist and raise the gurney skyward. Alec held his breath as the gurney spun in half circles while it was lifted to the deck of the destroyer, but the soldier was soon unloaded and the gurney was again dropped over the side. The process was repeated until the Britannia's deck was empty except for its crew.
When the last man had been lifted off the Britannia, the captain ordered Douglas to turn around and head back to the jetty. As they neared the dock again, Alec noticed that the queue looked even longer than it had before. It looked to him as if they'd made no progress.
But they did what they had come to do. They ferried load after load from the jetty to the destroyer. The hours passed into late afternoon, and the queue moved slowly forward. Occasionally, a brash soldier from another group would try to muscle his way in among the wounded, but Douglas needed only to snarl at him to turn the lad around and send him scurrying.
It was difficult work. Just when Alec thought he had gotten used to the sight of blood, he would turn to face a young soldier with a gash on his face that had nearly severed his nose. Or he would touch the arm of an injured soldier and feel the man's hot breath as he cried out in pain.
Each load brought more injured. And Alec searched every face. He didn't know if Thomas or Will was hurt, or if they were even in this spot. But something told him they were, and he wasn't going to miss them. When the ship was full and they had set off for the destroyer, he walked about looking at each soldier, asking if he'd seen a Thomas Spencer or a Will Sweeney. When the Britannia passed close to the other queues, he scanned them for familiar faces.
The planes didn't return until late in the day. Perhaps blinded by the smoke from the burning equipment onshore and in the water, the Jerries chose certain times to swing down and drop their bombs. At the first hint of their whining engines, those men not in queues jumped behind abandoned equipment on the beach. Others ducked into pillboxes built by the French. Anyplace they could find cover, the British troops hid, and the planes buzzed overhead, aiming for the massive ships at sea.
Alec and the others could only watch helplessly as a Stuka lowered its left wing and broke from the others. Racing toward a trawler packed with soldiers, the Stuka leveled off just above the crowded ship and let loose with its bombs.
Wheee, wheee, wheee! The bombs screamed, all of them hitting their mark. Men cried out as the ship split in two and rolled onto its side, spilling its cargo into the Channel.
"Let's go to them, Captain!" Alec cried out. "They need our help." But Douglas and the captain shot a look at each other and shook their heads.
"We can't, sonny," the captain called back. "There'll be only bodies left to pick up. I'm sorry, lad, but our orders are to help the living."
Alec stared at the sinking vessel, nearly gone from sight. Nothing moved in the water. The captain was right; they were all dead. Turning his eyes away, Alec watched as the men in his queue waited. More fearful of losing their place than of being hit by bombs, they stood firm. Alec, too, grew more used to the whistling of the bombs. Though he couldn't ignore them altogether, he was grateful for the thud, thud he would hear when the bombs fell useless on the beach, their power smothered by the sand.
The raids lasted only a few minutes at a time, but they delayed the evacuations. Sometimes, the little ships had to move away from the coast when the Jerries came, and then it took time to return to shore and start loading the queues again. The effort was painfully slow.
"We'll never be able to keep this up if those planes stay in the air," the captain said.
Douglas agreed. He was ready to leave. "Aah say we fill the Britannia with as many as it can 'old an' make our way back to Dover. Wait until after dark an' just slip into the night. No one will miss us; there's so many little ships 'ere. Aye, we've done our part to bring some 'ome."
"We didn't volunteer to bring just some of them home," the captain retorted. "We came to do all that we can to help. Running away before the job is finished isn't what we do."
"Aah say it is!" Douglas shouted. "Why, we've barely moved two hundred men. An' there are thousands 'ere. We cannit 'elp them all. Aah say we go while we can—before the Jerries find our ship with one of those bombs."
"And I'm the captain of this ship, and I say we stay another day. We'll work through the night. Do whatever we can when the Jerries aren't flying. Every man off the shore is another man on his way home. That's what we're here to do."
Douglas looked at the captain and then at Alec. Alec knew Douglas was a rough sailor, crude at times, used to getting his way. But he wouldn't mutiny—though he was ready to thrash someone.
"Aah won't be likin' what yer sayin' I must do, Cap'n, but aah won't be quittin', either. Look at this place! We'll never be finished. But aah'm 'ere until my captain says to go."
With that, Douglas stormed across the deck and jumped down to the galley. Something made Alec want to follow—to tell Douglas he understood. The job did seem useless. But Alec knew Douglas's ways; he knew Douglas did not want anyone's help—especially the help of a galley boy.
When they docked again for another load of men, Douglas was back up top, barking out orders and pointing people to their places on the ship. Alec was sure that Douglas wasn't done with the fight, and he admired the first mate for pushing on.
When he had time, Alec spoke to some of the soldiers who were willing to talk. Many of them hailed from London; none was from Dover, and none knew Thomas or Will.
"Is there a hospital nearby?" Alec asked one of them. "You've been bandaged up." He was remembering the feeling that had nagged him for several days now, a feeling that somebody—Thomas or Will—needed his help, that someone was not able to help himself.
"Aye," the soldier answered. "There's an infirmary where the worst are taken. We were treated and sent on. But some are on gurneys. I don't know how they'll get off. One bloke—he came in while I was there—he was one of those poor chaps who came behind us, blastin' all the equipment we had to abandon. He was bad. Torn up and too weak to even walk on his own."
"What?" Alec questioned, startling the young soldier. "What did you say about blasting equipment? Do you mean the demolitions unit? Is that what he was?"
"Aye, that's what his friends said when they brought him in. I didn't see him after that. They took him away from the rest of us."
Alec listened as the soldier told him where to find the infirmary. Located about a thousand yards back from the jetty, it was one of the few spots protected by a solid roof, the soldier said.
"The infirmary unit," the soldier continued, "they took over a church. Set up a hospital right there. It's suffered some damage from the panzer shelling, but the Jerries have backed off. So the doctors and nurses are making do for now."
Alec didn't want anyone to suspect what he was thinking. If Douglas had any hint that Alec might leave the Britannia, he would tie Alec to the helm and hold him until they were back in Dover. But Alec also knew that if he did sneak away, the captain would not leave him behind. The skipper could never face Alec's parents and tell them he'd left their boy on the beach at Dunkirk.
Alec knew what he had to do. He also knew it was mad. But he could not go back to Dover without having tried his hardest to save Thomas and Will. And something else was pushing him to get off the ship. Was it Margaret? Could he hear her voice even here? In Dunkirk? He thought again of the hospital in the castle and the lone soldier lying injured on the gurney. He didn't want that for his friends. From the beginning, he had felt he had to get onshore. Now, the news from the rescued soldier confirmed his fears. One of the men from the Shaftbury needed his help.
Turning to the other wounded, he wrapped blankets around them and then sat on the locker to wait for the Britannia to reach the destroyer. His mind was not on this trip. Instead, he wondered how he was going to get off to find the hospital without Douglas or the captain or one of the soldiers snatching him. He needed a bit of luck, but luck was nowhere on the beaches of Dunkirk.