Traffic movement to the west became a nightmare. Refugees fleeing from the advancing German army were blocking all the roads and when their meagre supply of petrol ran out, the car was abandoned where it stood creating worse confusion. We were inching our way at only a few miles a day and we found that the problem of obtaining daily rations was with us once more. The local water supplies were suspect and as we did not want to risk dysentery to add to our problems we went for long intervals without a drink of any sort, until on the one day we paused for a mid day break in a village where one stalwart old lady of over seventy had remained steadfastly in her cottage refusing to flee with the rest. As we sat by her front gate she came up the path with a large jug. "Would you like a drink of milk?" she asked in English. She filled our mugs and we drank deeply. It was thin skimmed buttermilk, turning slightly sour but we swallowed what we could stomach and quietly tipped most of the unpalatable stuff into the hedge. Iron rations were our standby; tinned corned beef and very hard biscuits in packets of five. We were young and our teeth were good.
Although no one knew what was going on there was a general withdrawal of troops all along the front, in the retreat we were now carrying civilian passengers against orders but the plight of many of their wounded moved us to help. They travelled with us for a few miles and then asked to be dropped off near some recognisable village and we saw them no more.
When we approached Tournai we were shocked at last to the consequences of war as it was to become to so many cities later on. Shattered buildings with piled rubble and rescue workers trying to dig out the dead were on every side as we drove slowly through the dust-laden town.
A lot of the refugees had turned southwards away from the coast and the roads were much more open. Our daily mileage improved and we now split up once again into sub-sections of five vehicles. This always suited us, as we were virtually free-lance drivers with no NCO's to bother us except an occasional one who scrounged a lift for one reason or another.
We were given our maps and a rendezvous point some thirty miles away for the next day, and set off. The journey went without incident and after a trouble-free sleep and a bread and jam breakfast, we duly arrived at our map reference and awaited further Orders. For an hour or so we sat in the hot sun. A Humber staff car was creating a cloud of dust further up the road and in moments with his customary flourish, Captain Broderick pulled up. Out he got, with brown boots and Sam Browne gleaming. He raised his Army-issue binoculars to his eyes and peered back the way he had come. "Well chaps," he confided, "German tanks should just about be appearing over those fields in a few minutes". He paused. "So I suppose, its every man for himself!" he concluded, getting into the Humber engaging gear and accelerating away at high speed in a cloud of dust. He had just coined another "classic remark of the war" for our collection.
We looked at each other and then at the horizon. No German tanks were in sight and we wondered if it was just Captain Broderick's theatrical style to disappear with a remark like that.
Prudence suggested that we gave his style the benefit of the doubt so we climbed aboard our own vehicles and followed him down the road. He had a head start and we never ever saw him again although we heard later reports that he had commandeered small motorboat at pistol point and made his way back to England. By such we were led.
We headed northwards now towards the coast. The weather was fine and warm with clear skies and as we drove along a typical French road, absolutely straight for several miles and lined with poplars, we saw high in the air a single piece of paper floating earthwards with the erratic dipping and swooping of a falling leaf. It was going to fall into a field about 50 yards from the road and Norman pulled UP to let me run across and collect the curiosity. I brought it back for all to read. It was a map of the area, showing with the usual big black arrows, the positions of surrounding German forces and our predicament, trapped in an encircling pocket of German armour. The small sheet, obviously carried by a freak wind from a leaflet raid elsewhere, carried a message in English and French: "Soldiers of the Allied Armies, lay down your arms. Your position is hopeless. If YOU surrender now, you will be well treated."
"You'd better give me that.," said a voice from behind me "It's an offence to be in possession of enemy propaganda." I had forgotten that we had been carrying a Lance Corporal Onions as a passenger and he was now throwing his weight about and he took the leaflet from me. I heard he sold it later in a pub in Kendal for five pounds.
We were uncertain how to take the news in the leaflet. Certainly something was happening on the northern horizon where a large plume of black smoke grew into the sky from what we found later to be from the oil storage tanks at Dunkirk docks. The smoke was almost like a beacon as we continued towards the coast. With about fifteen miles to go the traffic got heavier and moved very slowly along a raised road above flooded fields. A smartly dressed Brigadier, with the red hatband of a staff officer, and his cane tucked under his arm was walking down the road towards us and waved us to a stop. He spoke quietly and politely, with a friendly manner. This, to us, was a new sort of officer, and we regarded him with some respect: "Get your lorries off the road as soon as you can," he said. "Pull off into a farmyard where they won't cause an obstruction, and carry on to the coast on foot." "Take as much food with you as possible." he added, and waved us on. We realised now that this was a serious war. We had to walk!
After driving on for a mile or so, we found an entrance to a small farm and the five lorries pulled in. The yard was already crowded with some abandoned vehicles that had belonged to a unit of Royal Engineers and we explored the contents curiously. We had always held our equipment sacrosanct, particularly our rifles, under penalty of court martial. We were amazed at the amount of stuff that the RE's had left lying around. Many rifles in good order and loaded, were piled in the trucks, as was a great quantity of guncotton, detonators and electrical generators. I had always regarded the Short Lee Enfield rifle a clumsy weapon to handle with it's thick wooden casing surrounding the barrel so I set about modifying one of the discarded RE rifles to a more sporting profile by cutting away all the heavy wood, leaving only a carved hand grip for the left hand. This was now a much easier rifle to handle and I tested it on some distant chimneys, to my great satisfaction and the alarm of the others. The square white blocks of explosive intrigued us. In a distant field was a tree, which we thought, would be suitable to test the effect of a few blocks. Detonators were plentiful but a length of wire to keep us at a safe distance was not. But a collection of inspection lamp cables from the abandoned lorries soon provided enough. Coupling to the generator was a matter of minutes and shortly afterwards the tree sailed satisfyingly into the air.
I suppose that the unexpected freedom Conferred by Captain Broderick led us to behave like schoolboys but the euphoria soon faded as we set about preparing to retreat in some sort of disciplined order, with all our personal equipment intact. I abandoned the modified rifle with some regret but loaded my pockets with explosive and detonators in case they might prove useful. We also realised that we would not see food of any sort for an unspecified time ahead, so we packed our haversacks with what little we could find and made a massive pot of stew from tins in the RE's store wagon, then stuffed to bursting and fortified, we twelve set out, marching in step, on the road to the coast.
Our map showed that we would have to cover some 25 kilometres. This was not too daunting a distance, although the weather was hot and we were in full battledress, with backpack, haversack, water bottle and rifle. We were also wearing our steel helmets that seemed to concentrate the heat on to the head and after the first 10 kilometres signs of fatigue began to show, usually heralded by the sound of a splash as some piece of equipment deemed unnecessary to survival was hurled far into the flooded fields at the side of the road.
Many prized personal possessions went this way. I was carrying a leather writing case that I treasured but eventually that too was thrown into the water as we all gradually discarded anything we could to reduce the weight we were carrying. So we marched, until we came to a canal where the bridge had been blown and there was no way across.
We had arrived at the small town of Hondschoote on the Colme Canal, and the bridge had been destroyed. German bombing was blamed but the rumour spread and partly believed that an over-zealous company of Royal Engineers had blown it UP to prevent the Germans crossing. It was now late afternoon and many hundreds of troops were gathering around the remnants of the bridge and wondering how to cross the wide and deep water. Engineers were working to throw a makeshift catwalk of planks across, supported by ropes from either side. An officer in charge announced that none of us would be able to cross for several hours, until the work was finished and made safe. He then organised us in groups, to come back at specified times to take our turn at crossing. Our time was 1 o'clock the next morning! We looked at the narrow planks and hoped that they would be wider by dark. We searched around the nearby houses, some still occupied, for somewhere to rest until we had to cross. An outhouse served our purpose, and we fixed a rota for someone to stay awake so that we wouldn't miss our turn on the crossing at one o'clock.
Sleep was fitful in the crowded shed but finally we were woken up to go. Some of us decided to jettison any other unwanted items from our kit to lessen the load and I stacked the explosive and detonators in a corner of the shed and followed the others out into the pitch black night.
The faintest glimmer of light showed on the surface of the water as we neared the canal to join the shuffling queue to step onto the plank bridge in the dark, hands steadied us as we took the first tentative steps. The planks felt only about 18 inches wide and as we approached the centre they developed an alarming springy bounce. We paused to let the movement subside and crept cautiously forward only to be startled by a loud splash as something fell into the blackness of the canal many feet below. "Its all right chaps " yelled a cheerful voice. "It's only my rifle." The crossing over, we continued towards the coast at Bray Dunes, now only 12 kilometres away, and made good progress in the cool of the early morning.
Bray Dunes, a seaside resort was crowded with troops both French and English, with plenty of French civilians thronging around bartering for bargains. One British despatch rider was in the process of selling his now unwanted motorcycle to a Frenchman who thought that it would be of use in escaping from the advancing Germans. "Ou est le decompresseur?" he queried. A brief conference amongst ourselves decided that he was looking for the valve-lifter, so a demonstration was given and with the transaction settled, he kicked the bike into life and roared off, back the way we had come. "Bon chance!" we called as he rode towards the unseen but advancing Panzers.
