Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [129]
Jean went to put the kettle on whilst they all sat close to the wireless, waiting for the BBC news, just like virtually every other household in the land.
British and French Forces held a thirty-mile stretch of coastline running from Gravelines through Dunkirk to Nieuport. Inland the front reached almost to Lille, where the French Divisions were surrounded by seven German ones.
Lord Gort’s BEF was determined to get home come hell or high water, according to the papers, and despite everything the Germans could throw at them on land, by sea and in the air, and Lord Gort was equally determined to have them home. But the country waiting desperately for news of its men knew the enormity of that task and the slenderness of it being accomplished.
The news came on. Jean’s hand trembled so much she couldn’t even pour the boiling water onto the tea leaves and had to let Grace do it for her.
When the newsreader announced that eight thousand men had been evacuated from Dunkirk’s beaches Jean sobbed out aloud.
‘Eight thousand? But there are three hundred and fifty thousand of them to bring home.’
Sam got up and went over to her, putting his arms around her. Sharp tears stung Grace’s eyes. She had never seen her mother like this, and her stomach churned sickeningly at the thought of the fate of all those brave men who were still there.
NINETEEN
Saturday 1 June
Every man on the ward was listening to the wireless that Sister had unexpectedly allowed to be brought in, as the BBC reported the latest numbers of soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk.
The nurses were listening as keenly as the patients as they went about their duties of setting up trolleys and trays for bed baths, temperature taking, and the giving out of medicine.
‘Another sixty-eight thousand brought off yesterday,’ old Mr Whitehead announced with evident satisfaction. ‘That’s just under two hundred thousand brought back safe, by my reckoning.’
Grace paused to smile at this good news before checking that the wheels of his bed were all turned inwards just as they should be.
The whole country had been holding its collective breath and saying its heartfelt prayers, following the speedy evacuation of the BEF, elated with relief when they heard a new report of more men brought off, and then plunged down into anxiety again when there were reports of the ships bringing them home being hit by the Luftwaffe despite the RAF’s stalwart attempts to keep them at bay. At least three Allied destroyers had been sunk and seven more damaged in one of the worst air attacks, on 29 May.
‘Aye, but what about them that are still there?’ Bill Johnson, another patient, asked grimly. ‘By my reckoning there are still a hundred and fifty thousand of them left.’
‘Time to take your temperature, please, Mr Johnson,’ Grace warned him firmly, but she was smiling at him as he dutifully obliged and stopped speaking so that she could carry out her task and then mark his temperature down on his chart before moving on to the next bed.
‘Gort won’t stop until he’s got them all back safe, and neither will Admiral Ramsay,’ Mr Whitehead insisted loyally.
‘Gort’s back in England now and what’s left of the BEF will have to look to Major General Harold Alexander, poor sods. They haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance,’ said Bill Johnson.
‘We can’t give up on them,’ Grace burst out, looking up from the empty bed she and Nurse Ellis, the other junior, were about to start making up, forgetting herself for a moment as her emotions overwhelmed her, her face burning when Staff Nurse Reid frowned in her direction.
‘The lass is right,’ one of the other men said. ‘We’ve got to keep hoping and praying for them, even if it’s a miracle we’ll be praying for.’
No explanation had been given to the junior nurses as to why they had had to make up extra beds and prepare those patients who were considered almost well enough to go home to leave earlier than originally planned, but they had all guessed that the empty beds could be needed for returning injured soldiers.
Teddy confirmed this when he and Grace managed to