Maggie Bright (28 page)

But traveling in convoy meant they traveled at the top speed of the slowest boat, and a tug pulling four boats was steady but not fast; they’d heard it took a destroyer and a hospital ship six hours to complete route Y, but they were coming up on four, and had not yet rounded the buoy. William had no idea how long it would take to reach Dunkirk after that
 
—they didn’t say.

“Channel’s uncommon calm,” Smudge said for the third time. It was his turn at the helm. He and William took turns by the hour. “Haven’t seen it like this, this time of year. Look at that
 
—a gray carpet.” He nodded to the other boats. “Some of these skippers have never been out of sight of land. They don’t know how unusual this calm is. I
am
a bit worried about the Kwinte Buoy light
 
—I’ve been up there on night patrols, it almost blinds you when you’re upon it. Anything could be hiding up there, you’d never see it.”

Smudge didn’t stop babbling. It interrupted his conversations with Clare. Then again
 
—the droning was a nice backdrop to the picnic in his mind. He and Clare sat on a picnic cloth in the park, talking, sharing a lunch, she was laughing at something amusing he’d said . . .

“Another thing that worries me: if Dunkirk is the last Allied-held port on the continent, then straight out from the buoy to the land is enemy-held territory. Enemy-held! I wonder if they’ve occupied it yet. You know
 
—with artillery and whatnot. If so, will they shell us from the land?”

You knock someone over on the street, you end up with:
William, we have an ally.
And
William, we are not alone.

Maggie Bright
followed obediently behind the tug on her tether, and other than the occasional nudge and spray from another boat, the passage was indeed remarkably smooth for waters known to be choppy. William kept his eyes on the tug ahead. He was assigned the
task to watch for the tug’s signal if they were about to be cut loose
 
—the tug’s skipper said if the enemy zeroed them, he’d cut them free as fast as possible to break up a large target. Smudge had to be ready to start the engine if that happened, and Murray had to be ready to watch over its transfer from petrol-start to paraffin-run. He stood on the top rung of the companionway ladder, resting on folded arms on the hatch, watching the sky.

Murray straightened, gazing ahead into the darkness. “Bobby, listen
 
—you hear that?”

“Why do you call him Bobby, if his name is William?”

“’Cause he’s a bobby. Somethin’s coming. Somethin’ big. Straight ahead, port side. Listen to that churning.”

“What is it?” William asked, sitting up. A sudden thought came. “Are we armed?” he said to Smudge. “Do we have any guns?”

A more ridiculous question was never asked. A gun from a yacht against a German battleship or U-boat.

Hand on the helm, Smudge rose, peering ahead to port. “No guns.”

William put off the piece of carpet and went forward. He grasped the port rail, midships, and leaned an ear into the darkness.

“Them Germans got those U-boats out there?” Murray said, coming to his side.

“Shh.”

William finally heard what Murray did, and suddenly the gray carpet of the English Channel darkened as a huge form loomed left. Passing very close against starlight and a crescent moon was a massive shadow.

After an unnerving moment . . .

“Well done, mates!” someone called down, and then comments rained down from everywhere.

“Good luck!”

“Cheers for the mosquito armada!”

“Well done!”

“Thank you, men! Thank you!”

“God bless you! God keep you safe!”

Churning phosphorescence outlined the ship. The massive size could merit that of a destroyer. Smudge called out between cupped hands as she passed, “Douse it with oil!”

“Oy! Keep it down!” someone from the tug called back.

“God keep
you
safe,” Smudge murmured, as they watched the great live humming shadow ease away into the night.

The passing encounter, so brief, left William with an odd sense of loneliness. The shadow had teemed with life
 
—he had sensed a great company of souls.

He’d taken no real thought of where he was bound or what awaited.

You shall go to war, and so shall I,
said Mrs. Shrewsbury.

He looked southwest. What was out there, at Dunkirk? When first they left England, they’d seen a distant red glow and could hear faint explosions. They were too far away to see or hear it now, but would soon round Kwinte Buoy. What then?

Perhaps the others felt something of the same.

Smudge: “I wonder what it’s like, over there.”

Murray: “Don’t know. But I think we’re in for it.”

“Good and hearty,” said Smudge, settling back into the captain’s chair.

“Well, then, bobby,” said Murray, turning to William. “In case we get bombed I got somethin’ to say. You know that packet?
A
, it proves something bad got inside us. But
B
, there’s something else in us, too, that can beat the crap out of the bad. It’s in Clare, and Mrs. Shrew, and most of all, the Fitz. But it’s in you too, bobs. You came crashin’ down that hatch for Clare, and that’s good enough for me. That’s all I gotta say.” He banged the heel of his hand on the hatch, as if to settle it. “Anyone want somethin’ hot to drink? Might be the last for a while.”

“Tea, please. Sugar and milk,” said Smudge.

“Milk inside tea. Ain’t never gonna get used to that. Bobby?”

“The same.”

“Figures. Comin’ up.” He disappeared below, talking to himself. “Wonder what my editor would think of a Brit guy. Salamander finds him swimmin’ in a tank of milky tea. Cute little strap under his chin. Ha! Bobby the Bobby . . .”

“He’s an odd one,” commented Smudge. “What does he do for a living?”

“He’s an illustrator. Draws for the funny papers.” William pushed away from the rail and came back to the cockpit. He settled in and pulled over the carpet, then resumed watch of the tug. “He’s rather good at it, actually.
Rocket Kid
. There’s a longer title. I don’t read the funnies, but I’ve seen his work.”

“Not
Rocket Kid and Salamander
?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“You’re not serious.”

William glanced at him. “I am. His sister owns this ketch.”

Smudge made strange little stuttering noises. “And he’s below. Making my tea. I am trying very hard to act normal.” Then, “Well, in my defense, the name didn’t
registe
r
! How could it, how could I think he was
the
Murray Vance? He’s supposed to be dead! Drowned off Sicily or Minorca or something. There was never a newspaper account, but that was the rumor. I can’t believe it. What am I going to do?
The
Murray Vance!”

William thought idly, Thus will I ever be known as the brother-in-law of
the
Murray Vance.

The shock of the thought roused sense.

You’ve known her
one week
, he told himself severely. Be reasonable, man. Pull yourself together. No more picnic conversations.

“There was one comic strip where Rocket Kid and Salamander invaded a tribe of pygmy cannibals who’d taken the president of the
United States and four other world leaders hostage while on safari . . . but the
president
wasn’t the focus, you see; it was his attaché. . . .”

Off Smudge went, while William thought of his frightening subconscious. What things went on in the deep? He was deeper than he thought if something down there had the presumption to cast up very presumptuous thoughts. He snorted. He despised the fashionable celebration of
depth
. His job called for clarity in the shallows: snap decisions, intuition on the fly, no mention of shatterers. Wasn’t that depth in its own right?

“
 
—changed my life. On a personal level, you know? He’s the reason I finished school, and there he is below. Making tea.” He laughed nervously. “Won’t know how to act when he comes above.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” William snapped. “Shall we turn our minds to other things, such as actually steering clear of that cockleboat?”

“Oh. Right.” He adjusted to port. “I named my dog Rocket Kid. Got him a little companion dog just to name him Salamander. I’m very nervous.”

And Clare said softly in William’s head,
Don’t be unkind, William.

After a moment, he offered the anxious Smudge: “Cheer up, man
 
—he’s as down-to-earth as they come. He’s actually worse than down-to-earth. What
I
wonder is, how did Murray Vance manage to keep you in school?”

Off Smudge went on a happy monologue.

The little convoy would soon be upon the Kwinte Buoy, there to swing west for the beaches of Dunkirk. The first suggestion of dawn came in the east, and on the convoy sailed.

JAMIE WOKE WITH A SHOUT.

“Wonderful. Now it’s not old loony bin; it’s his master.”

Night had fallen upon the beaches at Dunkirk.

“You should’ve seen yourself,” said Griggs. “Jerking around like a frying fish.”

“Just when I start to think you’re all right, I remember you’re not.” Jamie sat up and looked around. They had fallen out with a group of about fifty men, and they were still in the dunes, a few hundred yards up from the surf. “What time is it?”

“We’re maybe an hour or so from dawn,” said Balantine, the red glow of a cigarette to show where he sat. “Bombing should start anytime. Griggs, you ought to try and get some sleep yourself.”

“I don’t need sleep,” said Griggs. “No more than loony bin. Besides, who can sleep in this? Only Elliott and Curtis. Oh, and Baylor, ’cause he’s half-dead anyway.”

“That isn’t very nice.”

“How about you, Balantine? Have you slept?” Jamie asked.

“Some.”

“He doesn’t trust me,” Griggs said.

“Funny
 
—I actually do.”

Milton sat beside Baylor, studying the sky, twisting his wedding ring. Baylor was sleeping. “How is he?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t know.” The red glow intensified for a moment. “He’s quiet. Has been for hours. Captain Jacobs checks him now and again. I don’t dare check the bandage. He needs stitches, lots. Likely a lot of other repair work. Can’t get home soon enough.”

Jamie chuckled. He rubbed sand from the back of his neck. “Last time I had someone do some stitching for me, it was at gunpoint. Seems like forever ago.”

“I heard of a French doctor and his wife who work the beaches, sunup to sundown. Maybe we can find them, come daylight.”

“In hundreds of thousands of men,” Griggs said. “Good luck.”

“We can try. What else have we got to do?”

“Sure, you can try
 
—and if you do, there’ll be a bloody queue.”

Jamie got up, brushed off sand, and rubbed away the grainy crust from the edges of his mouth. He stood and stretched, taking in the sight and sound of the ocean. He couldn’t see much, just a white line of washing surf at the beach. He took a drink from his canteen
 
—cold tea that Curtis and Griggs had managed to beg off an aid worker in town
 
—and went over to drop down beside Milton.

“What do you say, Milty? How went the night?” He gave him a nudge. “How about you and Balantine fix us breakfast? I’ll take hot tea, eggs, bacon, sausages, and a plate of toast high as my armpit. Jam, butter . . .”

Milton’s bandage gave off a white-lavender glow in the darkness. He continued to gaze at the sky and move his wedding ring. He had the vague, lost look again. Maybe it was simply fatigue, but with head
wounds, who knew? Jamie found himself thinking to God, What in him is dark, illumine; what is low, raise and support.

Jamie gave him another nudge. “You’ll be all right, Milty. Not long now. When the sun comes up, you’ll see England from here. You can point out where your wife is.”

He looked about. To the west, a refinery still burned on the outskirts of Dunkirk, still casting up oily black billows and an occasional furnace blast of fire. The razed town itself smoldered in hazy pockets of red and orange, the sporadic sound of a tumbling wall or a muffled explosion coming from everywhere. The sound of the sea was comforting, but not the pitiful sounds of the wounded. Medics and naval personnel moved about. Down at the harbor, large ships still loaded at the flimsy eastern breakwater, and very small ones loaded at the beaches, from lorry jetties or the sand itself.

“They’re really making a difference, those little ships,” Balantine commented. “I counted a hundred and twenty-seven men taken off in the last hour from several different small craft. That’s only what I could make out
 
—maybe lots more than that. They all come back for more.”

“A hundred and twenty-seven in an hour. Not much,” said Griggs. “We need another pier like that.” He nodded at the harbor.

“Ask the hundred and twenty-seven if it’s not much,” said Balantine.

“Where are Baylor’s glasses?” Jamie asked, when his eyes had finally accustomed to the dimness. “He didn’t lose them in the shooting, did he? Haven’t seen them since.”

“Might have done.” Balantine continued to watch the beach. “Strange thing to be waiting for rescue.”

Jamie scanned the shores, and at first, a thing perplexed him: in the dark seaweed continent of men came the glow of thousands of orderly pinpricks of orange, like stationary fireflies. It took Jamie a moment to realize those pinpricks were cigarettes.

A muffled boom drew his attention to the far eastern perimeter.

“How close are they?” he asked.

“Closer,” said Balantine. “I talked to a naval lieutenant a while ago. Up till now their shells have fallen short. Not anymore. On the far east end of the beach, we saw a shell land on one of the little ships. At first we thought it escaped any major damage, and all of a sudden it burst into flames. It had just loaded.” The cigarette glow deepened. No one spoke for a moment.

“They’ve been shelling at night?”

“Some.”

“We really are cut off,” Jamie said, hardly believing the words.

“Good and true.”

“We still don’t know how big their army is,” Jamie said.

“I think we have an idea,” said Balantine, “if they could rout numbers like this. I’m still trying to work out how it happened so fast.”

“I’m still trying to work out how we’ll face those at home,” said Jamie.

It was a stinging admission.

Griggs laughed. “You think we’ll make it home?” He jerked this thumb to the perimeter. “Can’t you hear that? It’s coming from the west now. We’re surrounded. We barely have ammunition to hold them back, and even what we do have, how long will it last? Panzers should be here anytime, and if they don’t get us, then ho lads, just wait ’til dawn
 
—bombers back in force.”

“Well, we mustn’t panic,” said Balantine.

“I’m not
panicking
,” Griggs snapped. “I hate the bloody uselessness. I hate being
rescued
. If I die in battle, so be it. But let it be battle
 
—not this. Not chased, and surrounded, and so bloody
helpless
and
useless
.”

Tactfully, no one brought up the gun Griggs himself had made useless.

“Try to think of it this way, Griggs: we’re not being rescued
 
—we’re
just all in it together. Civilians and military.” Balantine’s tone took on a heartening cadence. “They’re getting us home so we can fight again. That’s it; that’s all. We’re in it together.”

If it didn’t make Griggs feel better, it helped Jamie.

Then Jamie suddenly sat up straight, staring down to the beaches in the predawn dimness. He got to his feet.

“What is it?” asked Balantine. He put out the cigarette in the sand, and joined Jamie.

It couldn’t be. It was dark, very hard to see
 
—it was impossible.

Yet . . .

“I swear I’m seeing things. Only
 
—look, do you see that boat straight out from here? To the left of
 
—whatever it is, with the ladder sticking out. See the man on its deck?”

“No.”

“There.”

Balantine looked down the length of his arm.

“That’s Minor Roberts.”

“Who?”

Jamie lowered his arm, a grin rising, a flush of delight. “It’s Minor Roberts! I’d know him anywhere! I’d know that old tub of his blind! He’s lived in it all my life, at my dad’s boatyard. Took me down to Evelyn’s for a beer before I shipped out. Good old Minor!” He shook his head, incredulous. “What’s he doing here? That lunky old river barge, it’s never
been
to the
 
—”

And the next thought took his breath.

“Elliott?”

If Minor Roberts was here, it meant his dad was too.

“Elliott, what’s the matter?”

He turned to Balantine. He could hardly get the words out, they came so thick.

“The shelled boat you saw
 
—was it a fishing trawler, was her name
Lizzie Rose
?” When Balantine shrugged and shook his head helplessly,
he stared down to the beaches. “He would’ve come with Minor. My dad’s here, in this. What am I gonna do?”

“Easy, Elliott,” said Balantine. “It’ll be all right.”

“It won’t be all right!” Jamie bellowed.

He realized that up until now all had been well with him, all the rotten things they’d come through, the death they’d seen, losing his mates, losing others on the way
 
—all had been well because what mattered most was safe at home in England. Before his eyes, he’d lose everything.

Fear, panic, madness swirled. Jamie stumbled a few steps forward.

Was he gone already, while Jamie slept? Did he die right there, within shouting distance?

The captain was at his side, words at his ear. “God towards thee hath done his part
 
—do thine.” Of course he came for you, Jamie. It’s what fathers do. Let him do his part
 
—do yours.

He clutched his head. “I can’t lose him!”

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” Think clearly. Don’t panic. And come
 
—sit with me. We’ll watch for him, and if we see him, why, we’ll run on down and shout, “Well done.”

Jamie pressed his face in the crook of his arm until hard breathing subsided.

After a moment, he nodded. The two sat on the crest of the dune.

Griggs watched Elliott and the captain. He watched Balantine standing like a sentry behind them. He unscrewed his canteen and took a sip.