Dunkirk was decimated. I do not know what I expected, but what we found was a vision from Hell. Thousands of troops walked two abreast, towards the coast. A snaking line of ragged and malnourished soldiers and support staff, all of them anxiously awaiting an unknown fate, every face weathered and filthy.
In the distance, I heard guns. German troops were shelling the area all around us, which meant that they were closer than I had feared. Captain Ashdown had said our force was a quarter of a million strong. Were all of us caught here, I wondered. Outflanked and trapped by an enemy that seemed relentless and advanced with lightning speed? With our backs to the sea, were we simply awaiting the finality of death’s touch?
“Jesus Christ!” Captain Morrow exclaimed. “This is insanity!”
Captain Ashdown merely shrugged.
“Let’s just get on,” he insisted.
The road we marched along was dotted with fallen comrades and civilians. To our left was a single-storey row of warehouses, bombed out and smouldering. To the right, and further along, a senior British officer urged everyone forward.
“Keep those spirits up, chaps!” he said. “Soon be over!”
His uniform was pristine – not a single mark upon it. I wondered if he had seen any action at all and doubted it. He looked like he’d stepped from an officer’s club in Bombay.
“Come along now!”
As we approached him, he raised an eyebrow and called Captains Ashdown and Morrow across. Behind him, sat the ruins of a military truck. It had fallen to one side, its tarpaulin load cover burnt away, revealing only a charred frame. A couple of soldiers were dragging bodies clear, rags tied over their mouths and noses. More casualties lay around the vehicle, covered in jackets and blankets.
“Can you see them, brother?” Mush asked beside me. “So many dead.”
Sadiq was with us, and he pointed towards a taller building on the left. It had also been bombed, the windows blown out. Thick grey smoke poured from the roofline.
“This was recent,” said Sadiq. “Keep your wits about you. We have no weapons and no cover. We are an easy target for the Germans.”
I turned to check on Captain Ashdown and found him remonstrating with the senior officer.
“What now?” I asked.
“Huh?” said Mush.
I pointed in the captain’s direction.
“Who knows what they talk about?” Mush replied. “Just more white men deciding our future for us.”
“Captain Ashdown is as Indian as any of us,” I said. “He is not like some of the others.”
Both Mush and Sadiq shook their heads.
“This is not our fight,” said Sadiq. “This is about one white man fighting with another, and both have enslaved people just like us. Wake up, boy!”
But that was too simplistic, and I told them so.
“That may be true,” I replied, “but we must still defend ourselves and our country. Do you think Hitler will stop at Europe? He has signed an agreement with the Japanese Emperor, and if we are not careful, they will overrun India too.”
“But that means nothing here!” said Sadiq. “We are not defending India. We are thousands of miles away, running like frightened dogs!”
I thought of my grandfather and his words.
“We will fight another day,” I told them. “There is no shame in running to survive. What good are we to anyone if we die?”
I looked Mush in the eyes, hoping he’d remember what he said about surviving for the sake of his wife and children.
“Weasel words,” said Sadiq. “This is what happens if you spend your time speaking in English with your masters.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly angered.
“You have become confused, boy,” Sadiq continued. “You think you are special to them, because of your language skills.”
“No,” I countered. “You are mistaken.”
Sadiq sneered, and in that moment, he reminded me of Sergeant Buckingham – full of rage and hatred. Perhaps the war had already beaten both of them.
“You are no better than us!” Sadiq spat.
“But, I don’t think of myself that way!” I insisted.
“Then why do you parrot Captain Ashdown?” he asked. “Repeating the same tired old lies about this shameful retreat?”
I shook my head.
“Because the Captain is right,” I told him. “Because unless we run, we will die. It is called pragmatism, Sadiq.”
“It is cowardice,” Sadiq quickly replied. “And you, you are a white man’s tool and nothing more…”
I turned away, stung by his accusations and angered too. This was no time to argue amongst ourselves. We needed to stick together. Anything less would see us facing dire consequences.
“I wish the two of you would shut your mouths!” Mush told us. “Whining like children. Who cares about right and wrong now? Let us deal with what Allah has put before us.”
Sadiq lit a cigarette and turned away from us.
“Imbecile!” said Mush. “And you, why did you antagonise the fool?”
I shrugged.
“Because I am not what he says,” I replied. “And because I learned long ago that bullies must never be allowed to prosper.”
“Oh, be quiet!” said Mush. “As if we haven’t enough to contend with.”
A while later, Captain Ashdown told us to rest. We stood in a once pretty square, one side of it completely flattened. A dry fountain stood at the centre, surrounded by stone steps. Some soldiers were resting there, one of them having interlocked three rifles, so that they stood facing upwards without falling. He lay on his back, using his pack for a pillow and reading an English newspaper. Beside him, several of his colleagues napped. A lone officer sat ten yards from them, dipping his razor into a tin cup and shaving his cheeks whilst looking at a compact mirror.
“Looks like we’ve arrived then,” said Mush. “Let’s see what happens now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Mush smoothed his moustache, as we sat on the steps of a once grand hotel, its frontage tattered and ruined, and contents long since looted.
“Look around,” he told me. “Can you sense any urgency? Is there any sort of plan here?”
He was right. No one seemed to be in absolute command. No one was going around the troops, organising and issuing orders. We had found ourselves in a lull, in the dreaded doldrums that I had read of in my favourite pirate stories as child. There was no wind in our sails, and no course for us to navigate. We were becalmed, and it felt strange and unreal.
And, as my pirate stories had taught me, even when becalmed, storms were never very far away.