We twelve were still together at this point and Fred and I elected to go and find out what was happening. A wall notice directed us to an underground office manned by a major and two or three other officers.
We two humble drivers queued nervously in line with full lieutenants and captains all waiting to report our arrival and ask for instructions. When we reached the major he regarded us with some surprise and asked where was the rest of our unit. We explained that we were only twelve and were separated from the rest. "Your best bet," he said. "Is to go along the beach towards Dunkirk, and join on to any of the groups already there." Back up the stairs we passed the message on to the rest "Sod that", was the general opinion. "We'll go it alone," and off they went in twos and threes. Some we met later, some we never saw again. I looked at Norman and Fred the three of us turned and started walking in the direction of Dunkirk, with it's black column of smoke still hanging like a thundercloud in the sky.
Following the advice of the major in charge of evacuation arrangements, we tried to join one of the groups on the beach each in charge of an officer. At every attempt we were ordered away, and told to find another group and by the third attempt began to wonder if we were in the same Army.
We now felt as the others had and decided to go it alone. The broad sandy beach from Bray Dunes to Dunkirk stretched for about 9 kilometres eastwards and looked extremely exposed to air attacks, so we chose to set out along the high dunes that ran at the back of the beach. The soft dune surface made brisk walking difficult, as we still had most of our equipment with us, including our rifles. It was mid-afternoon and the hot sun made us dehydrated and exhausted.
As we had been reluctant to fill our water bottles from the suspect supply at Bray Dunes and all our food had gone We lay down and rested for an hour and then went on, the black smoke cloud over Dunkirk getting larger as we approached.
After half a mile we met a Bombardier from the Royal Artillery carrying several full water bottles. When we asked the source of supply, he pointed over the back of the dunes where we could see a small group of soldiers, some good distance off. "There's a well where they are," he said. " But you'll need a mighty long rope to get any water out," I volunteered to go as there was little point in wasting the energy of the three of us. After collecting the webbing straps off our packs to string together as a temporary rope, I set off. The well was a great deal further than had seemed at first and the walk took over twenty minutes, The waiting group brightened when they saw my webbing rope, as they had nothing long enough to reach the water. The well was only a hole in the grass of the dune and extremely deep, needing the addition to the webbing of my waist belt and a length of cord from one of the onlookers to fill a bottle.
The water level was so low that I had to lie flat on the sandy turf stretching at arms length down the hole for the water bottles to reach the surface despite the addition of the homemade rope, while one helpful infantryman sat on my legs to save me from overbalancing. Several of those waiting used the 'rope' and then I set off back to find the others. They had moved down the beach a short way to investigate a small wooden case that was lying open. It had obviously previously contained tins of Army stew but was now empty except for one opened tin about a third full of dried Stew mixed with blown sand from the beach. We had had no food now for almost two days and were desperately hungry, so despite the gruesome appearance of the mess, we decided it was better than nothing. T/83845 wrinkled his nose, fastidiously declining his share, leaving all the more for us to try and swallow, the sand gritting on our teeth. The problem of trying to join one of the 'official' groups patiently waiting in orderly queues at the waters edge was still with us, and a measure of despondency set in. but it was now twilight and we thought that we would infiltrate one of the groups under cover of darkness.
Each group, however, had developed a collective sense of self-preservation and now we were not chased away by the officer in charge of the group but by members of the Group themselves, who, despite the near darkness, were able to detect our approach.
We returned to the dunes and rested. After a short time, we heard the soft shuffling of a marching column approaching and they passed close to us in the dark. As one man, we got up and fell in behind them; we were in, but not for long! As we marched with them, we found that they were nearly all men much older than ourselves. 'Older' to us meant someone over the age of thirty-five. An age apparently that gave them a different view of the situation to ours. While we were youthfully indifferent to the dangers and had no strong family ties with thoughts of wives and children to trouble us, the group we had joined were family men in a state of frightened turmoil, hurrying along in fear, desperate to survive and to return home. Some were weeping. We began to feel that the fear was contagious and decided to break away as soon as dawn came, and try our luck elsewhere.
Dunkirk was now not far away, with a stone mole enclosing the main harbour. The beach between where we were and the mole was about a mile or so of white sand, thronged with thousands of soldiers in various states of dress and undress some only wearing a shirt and trousers and we began to feel overdressed in our full kit, with rifle and tin hat. Most of the troops were standing docilely three abreast in a column of about forty long at right angles to the shoreline with the first eight or ten people in the water. The furthest out up to their chests, the conscientious ones still with their rifle, holding them above the waves.
By now a number of ships had appeared, the larger ones lying some distance off shore and sending ships boats to the beach to collect troops from the queues and ferry them back. Other smaller boats, were able to approach much closer and the sailors hauled the soaking soldiers aboard with little ceremony taking the carefully nurtured rifles from those holding them and throwing them back into the sea. Personal possessions went same way, and we saw someone's cherished saxophone grabbed from him and sailing in a glistening arc before splashing into the sea. Norman, a strong swimmer, Seeing all this activity was getting worried about our chances of ever getting off the beach, he began to discard his equipment and undressing, explained that he thought that he could reach one of the larger ships lying half a mile away. He walked down to the water clad only in his underpants, waded out into deeper water and started to swim. We two watched with a sense of loss and desertion. He had been with us from the start, had been a great support to our morale with his robust good humour and his refusal to take the Army Way of life seriously and now his head was a speck in the distance and we lost sight of him.
Fred and I decided not to swim and realising that our survival depended on our own efforts we began to scour the dunes for anything that would make a temporary boat to get us away from the beach and out to the ships without risk of drowning.
Clearly, others had been before us, no doubt with the same idea as there was little of any use to be found. An old inner tube gave us hope until we tried to blow it up by mouth and found that had several holes. We gave UP and returned to the beach. The queues were even longer and we saw no point in continued attempts to join one of them, so, as aerial activity by the Luftwaffe was increasing as they attacked the waiting shipping, we started to dig a deep hole in the sand as shelter. Using our rifles as spades, the hole was soon big enough to contain the two of us comfortably and as the sand was damp and cold, we lined it with several layers of discarded waterproof gas capes and settled down to sleep. When we woke, our stomachs were raging with hunger; everyone had originally been issued with 'iron rations', a block of almost black chocolate wrapped in foil. Mine had been used long since but Fred still had kept his in reserve for an emergency. As far as I was concerned, my stomach was signalling an emergency and so after some demur on Fred's part, the block was divided and part of it eaten with a drink of our remaining water. That was our meal for that day. An officer walked by and looked down into our hole "What an excellent idea, chaps," he praised. "You should be quite safe there until we get you off," So, someone somewhere was trying to get us off. The thought cheered us, as we turned over and slept once again.
Later that afternoon we lay in our deep hole, our steel helmets firmly in place and peered over buttress of sand at the panorama of war before us. The sea was now a mass of boats of all shapes and Sizes busy in the work of evacuation and rescue. A Royal Navy destroyer patrolled at high speed between them exchanging fire with attacking aircraft and the whole scene had a dreadful fascination, as bomb after bomb exploded in the water around the destroyer sending up great spouts of spray. A German plane was hit and spiralled down into the sea No pilot parachuted to safety and as cheers came from the waiting queues of troops a sad, half remembered line crossed my mind: "Don't cheer boys; those poor devils are dying". Fred and I decided once more to try to join one of the organised groups standing awaiting evacuation and perhaps because there were only two of us, now Norman had gone, that we had better luck. When we approached a very young officer and repeated the instructions we had been given at Bray Dunes to join one of the groups on the beach. It must have sounded plausible, as he told us to tag on at the end of the column.
More troops joined behind us as the queue constantly shortened when those at the front were picked up by the small inshore boats and after a few hours we found ourselves near the front knee-deep in the incoming tide.
