Silence Over Dunkerque Read Free Page B

With a good start they had made half a mile before the German car reversed itself, turned back around the corner, and came after them.
    Two clouds of dust roared down that country lane. Some school children on bicycles dismounted and ran to the side of the road in fright. A handful of chickens scuttled off as Fingers tore ahead. He managed to keep their distance, but the Sergeant realized he had no idea where they were or where they were headed. Back to the British lines and safety, or straight for the Germans and captivity? Or just moving in a kind of no man’s territory between the two?
    Around a curve loomed the red-tiled roofs of a hamlet. “Slow down, Fingers, slow down and be ready to turn.”
    As their car slowed down, the German weapons’ carrier drew closer, and bullets spattered the road behind them. Yet the Sergeant knew what he was doing. “Slow down, never mind them, slow down, I tell you. Take the first turn you see. That’s an order.”
    Fingers braked as the bullets began to sing off the rear of the car. They swung round a corner and, seeing a half-hidden drive in a farmyard to the right, Fingers turned the car on two wheels with a tire squeal that brought faces to the windows of the house. The three men leaped from the car before it stopped, raced across a vegetable garden toward a friendly wood. Just then the German carrier, traveling at seventy miles an hour, made the curve and hit the cobblestones of the village street.
    There was the inevitable crash, the enemy car striking a brick wall at one side, an enormous cloud of dust, and then silence. Looking over their shoulders, the three British soldiers observed Germans scattered up and down the street. They raced into the wood, running as fast and as far as they could. In an hour they had thrown off any pursuit, and began walking. Thanks to the Sergeant’s compass, they headed west, and in another half hour saw the welcome sight of the Dyle, with British embankments on the far side.
    At first the sentries on the opposite bank fired at every movement they made. The Sergeant feared the firing would attract another German patrol, so he edged down behind some bushes near the bridge, stuck up a pole with a white handkerchief on it, and called out. After some conversation he managed to halt the British fire. They crossed gingerly, and were immediately taken before an intelligence major who gave them a severe examination before their identity was established.
    “Second Wilts?” he said. “Why, your blokes withdrew an hour ago.”
    The Sergeant couldn’t believe it. “What for? Without any fighting?”
    “Yes, I believe the Belgians on our left have packed up. Anyhow, we’ve all been ordered to withdraw to prepared positions. By the way, laddie, what’s the matter with your forehead? What’s that lump there?”
    The Sergeant put a hand to his forehead. There was an enormous lump which throbbed and pained badly. He had struck his head on the windshield when Fingers turned at the crossroads, but in the excitement of escaping had not felt it until that second.

CHAPTER 6
    W AVES OF BOMBERS darkened the sky. Parachutists fell on the cities and towns of the Low Countries. Rubber boats appeared on the rivers of France and Belgium. And everywhere were the men in field gray, men in tanks, in lorries, behind motorized antiaircraft guns and armored command cars. Yet though war was all around them it had not yet touched the Wiltshires. Then war came, all too soon.
    They had become part of Frankforce, so-called for General Franklyn, their divisional commander. The Sergeant realized things were getting desperate, for this was a mixed outfit, a few Belgian infantry battalions, some French tanks, plus the Fifth Division of the British Expeditionary Force.
    Orders came down to hold the Ypres-Comines Canal.
    They were entrenched not far from the ancient town of Ypres, behind the banks of the canal. The land rose slightly, and they had a long sector to defend. On one