Free Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind by Sean Longden Page B

still vast crowds of soldiers desperate to be rescued. Some were still fully armed and equipped, others had nothing more than the clothes they stood up in. There were wounded men everywhere, all hoping they might be able to get on board a ship to safety. Terrified horses seemed to be running everywhere, through the town and across the sand dunes. He even watched as half-buried corpses of soldiers were dragged from their sandy resting places by starving dogs. Waiting on the beach, it seemed there was nowhere to go. As the evacuation drew to a close there were fewer and fewer boats arriving on the French coast to evacuate the troops. Those men waiting on the dunes no longer found lines of men snaking out into the water. There was no longer a constant ferry service of small boats running in to the beaches. For the stragglers who had fought the rearguard battles, allowing their comrades to make their way to safety, escape to England was a lottery.
    Sid Seal was fortunate to make good his escape:Oh God, it was amazing to see those white cliffs. What a relief! We were going home. I slept on a hatch and when we reached Ramsgate they woke me up. I was stuck to the tar on the hatch! So I had blood all down my front and tar all over my back. I must have looked a picture. Some kind lady came up to me and threw an army blanket over my shoulders. I still had my haversack and rifle and as soon as we got off the boat they took them off us. Then we got on a train and they gave us a cup of tea – it was better than champagne. It was a great feeling of relief. It was a defeat, but we didn’t think about it. We were just glad to be home.
     
    On the train journey northwards, he passed through his home village, but missed it since he was in a deep sleep. However, he was one of the lucky ones. As the train moved through Sussex it passed the homes of many soldiers who would not see England for many years.
    Bill Holmes was one of those to whom fate was unkind. He had arrived in Dunkirk too late to join the queues of men who were safely transported home. Instead he joined the forlorn crowds of men for whom the story of Dunkirk was far different from the one celebrated in newspapers around the world. This was not a victory but a terrible defeat that condemned them to five years of captivity.
    When the end came it was a shock, but Holmes and his comrades no longer had the energy or the will to resist the enemy:I hadn’t dreamt I’d ever be taken prisoner. I thought I might be killed, but never once did I think I’d be a POW. Then before we knew what was happening, several of these German motorcycle combinations arrived. They fired tracer bullets at us, so we had no choice. You either gave up or died. I never thought I’d ever be a prisoner. I thought I might be killed. But one thing was I thought if I’m going to die I’d like to die at home. I didn’t mind being shot but I didn’t want to die out there. I was a long way from home.
     
    For Holmes, and the others who were rounded up that morning, the story of Dunkirk had come to an end. Their story had not ended in salvation but in fear, chaos and confusion. The conclusion did not come in the safe hands of the Royal Navy, but standing on the beach at Dunkirk staring down the barrel of a machine-gun. Now was not the time to pray for escape. All that mattered was survival. For Holmes one thing was certain. General Alexander’s fabled tour of the beaches, standing on the deck of a launch, calling out for the stragglers to come forward, was not his experience of that day: ‘I never heard any calls for that final evacuation.’ Put quite simply, Bill Holmes and the men around him had ‘missed the boat’. For those abandoned on the beaches of Dunkirk it was a phrase that would for ever have a new and poignant meaning.
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    The Round Up
     
    Tommy, for you the war is over, but your troubles have just begun.
German soldier to Private John Lawrence,France, May 1940 1
     
    It is