The fear of the men stranded on the beach, under intense fire from the Germans, was written in blood on their faces. The blood of their comrades and friends was not just splattered but splashed across the faces of the nearby living. Well, living-for-now. The sea at the back of both the fallen and the living was red with anger and sadness, two different emotions that somehow, here on the beach of Dunkirk, blended into the one violently smelling despair.
And you could certainly smell it, whatever it was for you. Death. Seaweed. Fear. Sea. Shit. Lots of shit. Piss. The metallic odour of blood as it mixes with oxygen.
‘Damn! We’re sitting ducks, lad!’ swore Lance Corporal Harry Giles to the man lying at his side.
The sand that the men lay cowering on, gathering what shelter they could, was cold to the touch, and of course wet. Wet from the sea and wet from the blood that lay in pools before slowly sinking into the sand. The threat that the next bullet or shell would have their name on it kept the dread of a bloody and painful death very much alive. The men were far away from the calming voice of Vera Lynn and her promise to meet all the men again at the white cliffs of Dover. She might have been thinking of them, but no-one on this day in late May 1940 was thinking of her.
Up from the cold, wet sand of the beach lay the hillocks of sand that offered such little protection from the German guns, which pummelled and pushed the expeditionary force back to the ocean. Slightly higher up the surrounding hills, German soldiers and snipers sat in bunkers, relatively comfortable. All the Allied men—some 338,000 of them—were convinced that this was the beach on which they would finally get to meet their maker. And that scared the crap out of them.
Within the deafening noise, they mouthed their fears to each other, scared to admit they were scared. Scared of what? Well, of dying of course. But not just dying—they were scared of how they were going to die. Was it by a sniper rifle? Or was it a larger shell that was going to break their bones and shatter their existence, blast apart their insides? Were they going to bleed to death slowly and in pain, or quickly and almost pain free? Were their bones going to be smashed irrevocably, or would they be taken out by a sniper slicing their skulls with a skilful bullet that glided easily through the useless tin helmets?
They were cold. Wet. Scared. Many of them shat or pissed themselves. There was vomit. Some were shocked into submission, unable to move a limb from where they were lying. Some crying, some sobbing, some calling ‘Mother!’ through their sobs. Some mustered up the courage to fight on anyway, even though they were pinned down by ceaseless and relentless fire. Accurate fire.
Death-bringing fire.
Here and there, brave souls who probably figured out they had nothing to lose crawled inch by inch to the bedded-in Germans. Most of these Allied soldiers were killed by Kar 98s when just metres from their target. A few threw hopeful grenades into the small units that housed equally scared but better positioned German soldiers, soldiers that wielded the crushingly deadly, very versatile MG 42s, rifles that spat hellfire and delivered a burning hot and permanent exit from the war.
Every soldier that day, British or German, complained about his situation. That said, anyone, no matter who they were, had to find the right balance; a cheerful soldier was distrusted by his peers, while an excessive complainer was considered an annoyance and so avoided.
Lance Corporal Harry Giles, ‘Lance Jack’ to his mates and subordinates, was definitely a ‘glass half full’ kind of soldier, but not so enthusiastic and optimistic as to be unrealistic and a fuckwit. ‘Jack’ was military slang for someone who didn’t carry their weight. British military banter being what it is, opposite of its literal meaning and something the Septics (‘Septic tanks’ = ‘Yanks’) have never gotten to grips with, calling Harry ‘Jack’ was the highest praise.
Harry certainly carried his weight. Especially on a day like today, when morale had been shot to bloody pieces, just like his men. He shouted out encouragement, offered sympathy and, for humour, attempted to replicate the bearing of his Second Lieutenant’s stiff upper lip and ‘Carry on, chaps’ tone-deaf speeches. Officers were on much safer ground than the young and old ‘sweats’, who were currently pinned down by German guns and Stuka pilots who strafed them relentlessly and were probably thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Lance Corporal Harry looked over to his right, where a very young soldier was lying face up, tears streaming silently down his face and neck. He’s no use to me. He turned his head to Gunner Milligan, the comedian of the barracks. ‘Spike, can you push this section of pipe a little further up the embankment?’ Milligan raised his head as much as he dared and peered over the hillock they were all hiding behind.
‘What? I can’t hear you,’ Milligan replied above the bullets zipping just above their heads, and Stuka bombers knocking British soldiers off their feet with alarming ease. Harry knew bloody well he could, as Milligan had been talking to the gunner next to him only minutes earlier.
‘You heard. Do you reckon you can push the pipe further up the embankment towards Jerry?’
‘I’m happy to push my pipe up most things, Jack, but I draw the line with Jerry right at the moment.’
‘Oh, go on, there’s a good chap,’ Harry responded in his best Clueless Posh-Git Officer voice.
‘Fuck. All right, I’ll have a go.’
‘Well done, that man. Tally ho.’
Milligan slid slowly back, keeping his head down. In his left hand he held onto the long peace of pipe that needed screwing onto the much longer piece of pipe that lay just out of reach. I’ll have to move to my left and try to hook my foot around it and somehow drag it towards me. That’s going to put me in sight of Jerry and his guns. Fuck.
Milligan thought for a moment, then figured if he was going to die it might as well be on a French beach with real sand, unlike Brighton in the south of England where he would holiday with his young family every year. Bloody awful pebble beach there. Don’t know what everyone sees in it.
Spike also remembered the ‘knee trembler’ he’d quickly but thoroughly enjoyed with his young wife against the rear wall of the ‘King’s Bum and Icepack’, their local pub. It happened on the eve of his deployment, when the next morning he and several hundred other conscripts would leave from the train station to an unknown destination, to eventually board ships to somewhere. No one knew where, except the senior officers and they weren’t telling. ‘Loose lips sink ships,’ said all the posters up, down and across Britain. That knee trembler might be my last.