Lammas Night (2 page)

His benefactors tugged him to his feet, and they ran again, pain throbbing up his arm and along every, nerve with each jarring step and pulse beat. Closer now, he saw, silhouetted against the burning town of Dunkirk, the ships moored along a thin, fragile-looking mole that stretched into the sea. Long, winding queues of battle-worn soldiers extended back from the mole and all along the beach, slowly funneling men onto the narrow walkway toward the ships and safety.

He and his companions joined one of these queues. As he caught his breath and held his wound, trying to stop his bleeding and block the pain as he'd been taught, he wondered what had gone wrong here—never mind the series of disasters that had plagued his own mission.

Could it be that the war was lost already? The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was leaving France in an orderly but humbling retreat, abandoning weapons, equipment—everything but men. If the Germans pressed their advantage now, an invasion might well succeed. Even if Michael got back with his dearly gained information, would it all be for nothing?

Naval Headquarters, Dover, 2100 hours, 28 May 1940

Vice Adm. Sir Bertram Ramsay, the flag officer ultimately responsible for the Dunkirk evacuation, stood beside the window of his darkened office high in the Dover cliffs and stared into the night.

He could not see far—a mile, at most. A fierce downpour had opened up late in the afternoon, and a drizzle continued to obscure the twenty-two-mile stretch of Channel before him. On a clear night before the war, he easily would have been able to see the lights of Calais, Boulogne, and even Dunkirk itself. Tonight, the blank void beyond the shatter-proof glass gave back only an oddly welcome numbness. Ramsay was very, very tired.

Operation Dynamo—as one of his staff had dubbed the evacuation during its planning stages—had been conceived in the chamber adjacent to Ramsay's office called the Dynamo Room: a deep gallery carved in the white cliffs a century and a half before, when another continental dictator named Bonaparte had threatened an invasion of Britain. During a more recent war—the one that was supposed to have ended all of them—the chamber had housed an electrical generating plant for Dover Naval Command.

Now the room generated another kind of energy: desperation, in the attempt to lift nearly a quarter of a million men of the retreating BEF to safety before they could be overrun or pushed into the sea by the Germans. Allied lines from Nieuport to Ypres and along the Mardyck Canal to Cassel, west and south, were under increasing pressure, being forced into an ever-shrinking pocket whose only outlet was the sea. Ramsay was still stunned by the speed with which Hitler had moved, as was the rest of Europe.

Calais had fallen to Hitler's advancing infantry and panzer divisions two days before. Boulogne was lost. Of the three ports originally included in Ramsay's evacuation plan, Dunkirk alone remained open. And unless Dunkirk could be held long enough to rescue a sizable portion of the BEF, Britain's part in the war would soon be over.

Ramsay sighed and let his gaze drift downward to the harbor, rubbing his forehead and the bridge of his nose with a weary hand. The dark harbor offered little visual difference from the blank display across the Channel, but at least he could rest assured that all was proceeding with reasonable efficiency at this end of the operation. Though the lights of the port were dimmed to the absolute minimum—just in case the Luftwaffe dared a night bombing raid in such filthy weather—Ramsay knew that dozens of ships were going in and out of Dover Harbor, from destroyers and large passenger ferries down to minesweepers, drifters, torpedo boats, and a host of miscellaneous smaller craft. And each carried precious cargo—the rescued men.

The ships traveled close to ninety sea miles to reach their destination even though the French coast lay only a tantalizing twenty-odd miles away. To avoid the treacherous Goodwin and Ruytingen shallows and the even worse menace of the minefields and German-held shore batteries, it was necessary to divert north along a dog-leg course that twice doubled back on itself. An additional danger was the increasing number of German torpedo boats and submarines that had begun to prowl the more northerly regions of the Channel since the fall of Holland. If the trend continued, Ramsay feared his evacuation ships would soon have to abandon the longer but so-far safer Route Y and find another route. Already, he had lost so many men.…

He sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and put his feet up, wondering what it looked like for
them
—gathered on the beaches for rescue and under fire from the enemy. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he had thought of everything, whether he was doing enough, whether he had made the right decisions.

Dunkirk, 2230 hours, 28 May 1940

Michael Jordan had no quarrel with the decisions being made at Dover, though he would certainly have a few choice words for whoever had botched the rest of his mission. If someone had thought to tell the RAF that the Dornier making its way across the Channel to France carried a British prize crew, Michael might at this moment be having tea with his chief, prints of his precious film spread on the table before them while he debriefed.

But the Spitfires had been too efficient, and the intended pickup plane now lay at the bottom of the Channel with its crew. Its loss had left Michael the very awkward task of making his way back across most of Germany and France on his own, now ending in a long queue of British soldiers inching its way onto the narrow East Mole at Dunkirk, as the rescue ships ran the gauntlet of German shellfire. The journey had also included the dangerous and disturbing meeting with Dieter.

A shell burst flung up an enormous waterspout just astern of an approaching drifter, rocking the timber walkway atop the mole and nearly swamping the ship. Michael braced himself on wide-spraddled legs and swore softly, his good arm cradling his injured one. Another explosion farther out shattered the superstructure of a half-sunken minesweeper that had not been as fortunate as the drifter, showering the nearest section of the mole with deadly debris. Michael forced himself to put Dieter out of mind as he and his adopted unit continued doggedly onward.

At least he had gotten his wounds bandaged and stopped most of the bleeding, thanks to the man behind him. But pain lanced up and down his arm every time a movement shifted the shrapnel in his flesh, and he dared not accept morphine if he hoped to remain on his feet and functioning. He tried repeatedly to block the pain himself, but the concentration required was nearly impossible under the repeated shelling.

Resignedly, he shifted his attention to the men directing the loading operation and tried to think about something besides Dieter or his pain. An old destroyer was backing away from the mole. Someone had said they could cram six hundred men above and below decks. As the ship turned north, disappearing almost immediately in the rain, Michael found himself wondering what it was like below—trapped if the enemy should strike on the long run home. The thought was hardly more reassuring than his pain.

Somehow he endured the next hour. He and his companions were among the last to board a battered and battle-scarred destroyer of about the same vintage as the other he had seen—and somehow he managed to keep from getting shepherded below decks. The ribbon on one of the crew caps read H.M.S.
Grafton
—a ship whose record, as well as that of her captain, Michael knew. In happier times, his father had entertained such men at Oakwood.

Somewhat reassured, he let himself sink down exhaustedly between two Royal Marines who appeared already to be asleep. Huddling against them for warmth and shivering in a detached fog of pain and weariness, he was only vaguely aware when the ship backed off the mole and swung her bows toward the north. He felt her pick up speed as she began her zigzag dash up the Belgian coast, heeling crazily when the helmsman would put her hard over to avoid a shell, the klaxon whooping stridently in the darkness and rain.

The sound was oddly lulling to Michael, gradually allowing him to put from mind all the outside sounds and sensations of war—the explosions, the groans of the wounded and queasy around him, and even the hiss of the bow wave curling along the hull. Soon only the whoop of the klaxon remained at the edge of awareness, a harsh but heartening clarion call carrying him at last into merciful semiconsciousness, his good hand protectively covering the pouch at his waist.

Oakwood Manor, 2300 hours, 28 May 1940

The room was colder and darker, but no one had moved to fuel the fire. As the brigadier stood to stretch his legs, the countess also paused to ease her neck from side to side, flexing stiff fingers. Graham finally gave a deep sigh and began to rouse, one hand twitching slightly. The brigadier snapped his head around to stare, pipe in hand, then dropped to a crouch between Graham and his granddaughter. Audrey struck a match and lit a candle on the small table beside her. The countess put aside her needlework.

Almost immediately, Graham sighed again and moved his head, lips parting slightly and tongue moistening long-dry lips as the eyelids began to flutter. He yawned mightily, stretching interlaced fingers taut away from his body. Then, as the arms fell back, the eyes opened—hazel, startlingly luminous in the dimness of the room. He grinned as he sat up and glanced at the three of them.

“He's alive, and he's safe. Not as solid a contact as I would have liked, but under the circumstances, I shan't complain. He's on a destroyer—I think it's the
Grafton
.”

As the two women smiled in relief, the brigadier nodded, gesturing with his pipe.

“He's a clever lad, is Michael. Does he have the film?”

“I think so—which is a bloody miracle, considering how many other things went wrong with this mission.” Graham yawned again and rubbed his eyes, then sat up straighter and rested a hand easily on the girl's knee.

“Audrey, my love, how do you feel about taking over now? Everything should go smoothly from here on out, but someone ought to keep an eye on him until we're sure. Are you up to it?”

“Of course.”

As she rose and moved into the space he had just vacated, Graham shook out a folded afghan that the brigadier tossed him from the back of the chair and settled it over her lower body. She smiled as he kissed his fingertips and touched them lightly to her forehead, her eyelids fluttering and then closing as she breathed out with a soft sigh. As Graham stood, the brigadier and the countess also came to their feet.

“Well, I'd say it was a good night's work, Gray,” the older man murmured around his pipe. “I don't envy you what you just did, though.”

Graham's hazel eyes held just a trace of amusement as well as warmth. “Aye, the Second Road was a mite crowded this evening. We're not the only ones interested in the outcome of this war.” He shrugged. “With any luck, however, I'll not be going out again for several days. If Michael got what I hope he did, my chaps are going to have their work cut out for them. You have the number at Dover Ops if anything should change?”

The brigadier nodded. “I'll try not to bother you unless there's need, though. Wouldn't want them to think the old war horse is trying to horn in on this young man's war.”

“I think you've more than earned the right,” Graham said with a grin as he flicked a forefinger lightly against the rows of medals on the old man's chest.

The brigadier did not reply, but he smiled in answer and plucked the pipe from his teeth before drawing the younger man into a quick embrace. He did not meet Graham's eyes as he withdrew and settled into the overstuffed chair, his attention now apparently turned inward and to the pipe in his hands, but he did not need to speak in any other way. The friendship of Graham and Brig. Gen. Sir Wesley Ellis extended back nearly a quarter of a century, when a brash but gifted young Guards lieutenant had sought and won the hand of his commander's daughter.

That daughter was more than ten years dead now, her and Graham's only son presently serving with RAF Coastal Command in Hampshire. But the bonds formed with Ellis in the years before and after Caitlin's death went far beyond father and son or comrades in arms or any other more usual human bonding. All of them had sworn sacred oaths together and served a common goal through those years, as they continued to do tonight. Those same oaths and bonds bound all within this room, and a handful of others not able to be present because of the war.

Graham spared a last affectionate glance at the older man, then turned to where Alix waited beside her chair. Behind her, the door from the room seemed faintly misted, though this was not unexpected in light of what they had done.

“Well, I suppose I'd best be off, then,” he murmured, taking one of her hands and touching it to his lips in a casual gesture. “Don't worry. I'll see that your Michael gets back safely.”

“Does it show that much? I'm sorry. With his father and his brother both at sea, though …”

He flashed her a quick smile, but his own son came to mind, flying deadly missions daily, and the thought gave the smile a slightly brittle quality. He saw her flinch and tried to gentle the smile to a more reassuring one.

“Richard,” he murmured by way of explanation.

Nodding, she averted her eyes and cleared her throat uneasily.

“I know. We all worry. Speaking of worrying, David is getting a little anxious about setting up that meeting. I've been putting out feelers, but with very little luck so far. Any reassurances I can send him from your end?”

He sighed and shook his head, still cradling her hand, as much for his own comfort now as for hers.

“I'm sorry if I've disappointed him, Alix, but you know I wasn't trained for this kind of thing,” he said in a low voice. “That was always David's domain. I can do a lot of useful things, like what I just did out there,”—he gestured vaguely—“but I never expected to have to take David's place in something as delicate as this.”