Free Not Flag or Fail by D.E. Kirk

attention to us and that any more Germans in the area would come to see what was happening to their mates, even rifle fire would probably have the same effect.
    We did not have a lot of time left, the sky was already starting to lighten in the east, another half an hour and we would be plainly visible.
    I decided that our priority should be to get past them rather than to fight them. This was definitely a case where discretion was going to prove the better part of valour.
    We found a hole in the hedge on our side of the lane and crawled through into the field beyond. When we were all through I set off parallel to the lane keeping low down behind the hedge, the wet grass in the field deadening any sound from our boots. Soon I judged we were level with the German position, banking on the two hedges giving us sufficient cover, I continued along the hedge side not stopping to find out .Eventually when we were a good fifty yards or more past the German position we came to a gate that led out of the field and back onto the road. Ignoring it I chose to stay within the field, the main advantages being that you could not hear our footsteps and we were hidden from the road.
    Daylight was breaking fast now and no sooner was it light. We heard the sound of aircraft. Looking up I saw that they were coming in from the same direction that we had come from and like us they were heading for the beaches. We hid in the cover of the hedge as Stuka’s flew overhead, behind them and higher still came several waves of Dornier Bombers.
    When they had passed we quickly got on our way again and before too long found ourselves at the end of the field. There was no gate, but it was obvious from the size of the hole in the hedge, that we were not the first to use this as an exit.
    The bombing sounded very close now and as I cautiously put my head out through the hedge I could understand why. In front of me I could see a crossroads with a signpost indicating that ‘la plage’ was only two kilometres. We all got onto the road and having had a good look around set off in the direction of the beach.
    The noise of the bombing and the return anti-aircraft fire was so distracting that we were on top of the soldiers almost before we had seen them, only this time we were pleased to see them as they were our own troops. Several vehicles and a light tank were parked at the side of the road, about thirty men, all armed with rifles and several with Bren guns set up on their stands. They all carefully watched us walk in. several of them levelling there rifles. A tall Sergeant in a camouflage smock called us over towards him, he sat down on the edge of a wooden table at the side of the road.
    “Papers.” he said, holding out his hand. I took out my ID card and handed it over to him, as the rest of the lads got ready to do the same, he looked at it for a while and then put it onto the desk. “Ok.” he said looking at Harry who was farthest away from me,” what’s his name?” he said pointing at me. Harry answered him straight away and without hesitation, which must have satisfied the Sergeant, who then handed me back my ID card and told us to carry on down the road towards the beach, where someone else would tell us what to do next.
    We walked along the road at the side of the beaches, it was an unbelievable scene. In front of us, thousands of men were spread out everywhere, all along the beaches, in the dunes, on the jetties, under the jetties. There were vehicles in the dunes, some damaged beyond repair, others looking like you could just drive away in them.
    Stretcher parties were carrying men away from the beach fires burned here and there from the bombing raid we had seen earlier. Queues of men stood at the water’s edge, waiting to be taken out to the ships that were standing out to sea. When we looked we could see that some of those were damaged too. Farther out we could see the mastheads of ships that had been sunk. Everywhere there seemed to be