Arrival at Dunkirk Beach

Robbie Turner, Corporal Mace, and Corporal Nettle, after days of walking across the French countryside under constant threat of air attack, finally reach the coast near Dunkirk. The moment they rise through a gap in the dunes and see the sea, they taste a salty mouthful of the Channel before they fully take in the scene. The fresh damp breeze off the water restores Turner to a moment of clarity, but what he sees shatters any expectation of order. He had assumed that the cussed army spirit which whitewashed rocks in the face of annihilation would prevail, that there would be marshaling centers, warrant officers behind makeshift desks, rubber stamps and dockets, roped-off lines toward waiting boats. Instead, the beach is a rout, and this is its terminus.

The Beach as a Scene of Chaos

Thousands of men—ten, twenty thousand, perhaps more—are spread across the vastness of the beach, from a distance like grains of black sand. There are no boats apart from one upturned whaler rolling in the distant surf. It is low tide, almost a mile to the water's edge. The long jetty is not a structure but a line of men, six or eight deep, standing up to their knees, their waists, their shoulders, stretching out for five hundred yards through the shallow waters. They wait, but there is nothing in sight except smudges on the horizon—boats burning after an air attack. Nothing can reach the beach for hours. The troops stand there, facing the horizon in their tin hats, rifles lifted above the waves, as placid as cattle. The majority of the army wanders about the sands without purpose, like citizens of an Italian town in the hour of the passeggio. Some have dug foxholes in the dunes with their helmets, peeping out proprietorial and smug, like marmots. Others have taken off their clothes to swim. Off to the east, a football game is underway, and from the same direction comes the feeble sound of a hymn being sung in unison, then fading. Beyond the football game, lorries are being lined up and lashed together to form a makeshift jetty.

The Front at Bray Dunes

To the left is the resort of Bray Dunes, a cheerful front of cafés and little shops that in a normal season would rent out beach chairs and pedal bikes. In a circular park with a neatly mowed lawn is a bandstand and a merry-go-round painted red, white, and blue. In this setting, another, more insouciant company has hunkered down. Soldiers have opened up the cafés for themselves and are getting drunk at the tables outside, bawling and laughing. Men are larking about on bikes along a pavement stained with vomit. A colony of drunks is spread out on the grass by the bandstand, sleeping it off. A solitary sunbather in his underpants, facedown on a towel, has patches of uneven sunburn on his shoulders and legs—pink and white like strawberry and vanilla ice cream. It is not difficult to choose between these circles of suffering—the sea, the beach, the front. The corporals are already walking away. Thirst alone decides it. They find a path on the landward side of the dunes, then cross a sandy lawn strewn with broken bottles.

The Naval Party and the Bar

As they make their way round the raucous tables, Turner sees a naval party coming along the front. There are five of them—two officers, three ratings—a gleaming group of fresh white, blue, and gold, with no concessions to camouflage. Straight-backed and severe, revolvers strapped to their belts, they move with tranquil authority through the mass of somber battle dress and grimy faces, looking from side to side as if conducting a count. One of the officers makes notes on a clipboard. They head away toward the beach. With a childish feeling of abandonment, Turner watches them until they are out of sight. He follows Mace and Nettle into the din and fumy stench of the first bar along the front. Two suitcases propped open on the bar are full of cigarettes, but there is nothing to drink. The shelves along the sandblasted mirror behind the bar are empty. When Nettle ducks behind the counter to rummage around, there are jeers. The drink has long gone with the serious drinkers outside. Turner pushes through the crowd to a small kitchen at the back. The place is wrecked, the taps are dry. Outside is a pissoir and stacked crates of empties. A dog is trying to get its tongue inside an empty sardine can, pushing it across a patch of concrete. He turns and goes back to the main room and its roar of voices. There is no electricity, only natural light stained brown, as though by the absent beer. Nothing to drink, but the bar remains full. Men come in, are disappointed, and yet they stay, held there by free cigarettes and the evidence of recent booze. The sweet smell of liquor rises from the sticky cement floor. The noise and press of bodies and damp tobacco air satisfy a homesick yearning for a Saturday night pub. This is the Mile End Road, and Sauchiehall Street, and everywhere in between. Turner stands in the din, uncertain what to do. It would be such an effort to fight his way out of the crowd. There were boats yesterday, he gathers from a snatch of conversation, and perhaps again tomorrow. Standing on tiptoe by the kitchen doorway, he gives a no-luck shrug across the crowd toward the corporals. Nettle cocks his head in the direction of the door and they begin to converge on it. A drink would have been fine, but what interests them now is water.