The Dunkirk Spirit

I was talking to an elderly relation the other day when he uttered a phrase that I’d not heard in years. We were discussing the state of things in general when he said, “What we need right now is a bit of the Dunkirk Spirit!” Well, that I wouldn’t know, but it did get me wondering, how would Dunkirk have been if we’d had today’s spirit back then?

Colonel Richman of the First Waiheke Battalion put down his pen and looked around at the officers gathered in his tent overlooking the beaches at Dunkirk. “Right chaps!” he said, “How does this sound? “To the Air Vice Marshall, Fighter Command. Dear Sir. I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the constant noise from your fighter planes. As I have mentioned in previous letters, my men and I have been quartered here for some time now awaiting evacuation to Britain and have managed to find ourselves a reasonable spot in which to wait. We are constantly having to put up with assorted Spitfires and Hurricanes flying low overhead, and the noise is quite frankly intolerable! Yours, etc........”

“That should do it!” Said Major Welloff, “Bad enough being stuck here and down to our last case of Montrachet, without a lot of hooligans in aeroplanes flying around overhead!” There were murmurs of agreement, but one of the Subalterns raised his hand nervously; “Um, Colonel, while agreeing with you every step of the way, naturally. I feel I should point out that if we don’t have the RAF flying overhead, we may well have to put up with the Luftwaffe.” The Colonel gave him a hard stare. “Yes, thank you Barry,” he said coldly, “Just leave the thinking to us eh? We’ll deal with this one step at a time if you don’t mind. Olive anybody?”

Further down the beach, and up to their chests in the icy waters of the English Channel, the men of the Waiheke Battalion waited patiently for deliverance. Many were at the last stages of exhaustion, having had to abandon their trucks some fifty miles away due to the lack of parking spaces in Dunkirk itself. The Sergeant made his way down the lines giving encouragement as he went.

“Chins up lads!” He cried, “Soon be on a nice safe publicly owned and operated ferry back to Britain!” He stopped and gave a loud sniff, “Hold on!” he yelled, peering through the thick fog of cordite smoke that wreathed the shore, “Is somebody bloody SMOKING?” He waded forward to confront two Privates who were sharing their last soggy Craven A. “Have you two ANY IDEA how dangerous second hand smoke is?” He said, “I mean fine, go ahead and poison yourselves but don’t force your filthy habits on us!” He paused as a passing Stuka dropped a bomb nearby which exploded with a huge blast. “Now, I thought we’d agreed, if you want to smoke, go over there and do it!” He pointed to a deserted section of the beach covered in barbed wire and bearing a sign which read, ‘Danger, MINES!’

There was a ragged cheer from the end of the line as a small boat appeared from out of the gloom. The men began to scramble aboard, urged on by a stocky man in a rollneck jersey who stood behind the wheel. “Plenty of room ‘ere lads!” he cried, “You ‘op on and we’ll ‘ave you back to Dover in no time!”

By this time however, the Sergeant had made his way through the bloodstained water, and stood looking up at the boat. “Right, now just hold on one minute!” He shouted, “It’s a boat I agree, but let’s not get carried away just yet! There’s one or two things we need to be certain of here. First off, which Local Council owns and operates this vessel?”

The Captain shrugged, “None of ‘em mate.” He said, “It’s my boat, I’ve ‘ad it for donkey’s years. I do pleasure cruises.”

The Sergeant blinked in amazement, “What? You mean this thing is PRIVATELY OWNED? Right, that does it! Everyone off! I mean it lads, you get on that boat and you’ll be paying through the nose! It’ll be all ‘Don’t worry, soon have you home’ until he casts off, then he’ll have the fillings out of your teeth before you can say ‘User Pays!’. They’re all the same his sort! And another thing! This vessel has NO wheelchair access, NO creche facilities, and as for that.........” He pointed to a cheerfully coloured sign over the wheelhouse which read; ‘All aboard the Skylark!’

The Captain looked at the sign and scratched his head in confusion. “What’s wrong with the sign? Look, do you want to be evacuated or not?”

The Sergeant smote his forehead in disbelief,“What’s wrong with the sign he says! What’s wrong with it? Am I the only one here who cares about the REAL issues? IT’S NOT BLOODY MULTILINGUAL!” He screamed, glancing meaningfully at Private Hepe and Corporal Waihana who looked at each other and shrugged.

“No,” said the Sergeant, “It’s just not on. When we came over here it was on a PROPER ship. It had all the proper safety certificates, ran on non polluting fuel, offered a choice of herbal teas and decent vegetarian rations, AND was fully State Subsidised.”

He dragged the last of his men off the ship and faced the Captain with a proud gaze. “You just bugger off and take your sleazy Private Sector tricks with you!” he said. “We know your sort! Come on Lads!”

The Captain had already moved his boat away and was loading grateful troops from the next line along. The Sergeant looked back down the line. “See lads, there’s a right way to do this stuff and a wrong way. Now you just stick with me and I’ll see you right never fear!” There were on or two murmurs of disagreement, but they were lost as a flight of Messerschmidts roared through the gloom above their heads...

Alan Knight