Dover Beach Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Leslie Thomas

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Afterword

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Summer 1940. Dunkirk has been evacuated. Dover is inundated with young soldiers, who wearily wander its streets, wondering what the future holds in store for them.

  Toby Hendry, a fighter pilot, is awaiting orders when he meets Giselle, a young Frenchwoman who has fled occupied France. Can their love affair withstand the forces of war?

  Reserve naval commander Paul Instow has been called up to fight in a war for which he feels too old. Distracting him from his worries is Molly, a young prostitute.Their relationship is tender and happy, but is this true love?

  In Dover Beach Thomas chronicles the lives and loves of ordinary people in besieged Britain during these tense, but curiously elated days.

  About the Author

  Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Last Week, published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his best-selling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over four million copies.

  Also by Leslie Thomas

  Fiction

  The Virgin Soldiers

  Orange Wednesday

  The Love Beach

  Come to the War

  His Lordship

  Onward Virgin Soldiers

  Arthur McCann and All His Women

  The Man with the Power

  Tropic of Ruislip

  Stand Up Virgin Soldiers

  Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective

  Bare Nell

  Ormerod’s Landing

  That Old Gang of Mine

  The Dearest and the Best

  The Adventures of Goodnight and Loving

  Dangerous in Love

  Orders for New York

  The Loves and Journeys of Revolving Jones

  Arrivals and Departures

  Dangerous by Moonlight

  Running Away

  The Complete Dangerous Davies

  Kensington Heights

  Chloe’s Song

  Dangerous Davies and the Lonely Heart

  Other Times

  Waiting for the Day

  Non Fiction

  This Time Next Week

  Some Lovely Islands

  The Hidden Places of Britain

  My World of Islands

  In My Wildest Dreams

  Dover Beach

  Love, Life and Death in Wartime England

  Leslie Thomas

  For Matthew and Alexandra

  Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! for the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light . . .

  Matthew Arnold

  ‘Dover Beach’

  ‘We must fight for command of the Strait.’

  Winston Churchill

  Chapter One

  FROM BELOW HIS cottage window the scene abruptly dropped away: an elderly wall with a stile, fields dotted with buttercups and sheep, then the town and harbour, silent at their distance, and cloud shadows skimming the sea. On clear days you could see across the Channel to occupied France. The Germans had mounted a big searchlight over there which, when the sun caught it, flashed like a taunt. His wife Nancy had left the window open and the commonplace summer sounds, birds and buzzing, came into the room. It was one afternoon in 1940.

  Ships had always sailed close inshore on the Dover side of the Strait to steer clear of the Goodwin Sands and these days to hug the coast in case of attack. Cotton observed the convoy, solid shapes against a silvery sea, standing at the window, his head touching the flowered pelmet. As he did so a pattern of smoke puffs appeared below the clouds and above the twenty coasters plodding east. He opened the window fully. The air-raid siren floated thinly from the town, and detonations began to roll up the hill. Quickly he took a pair of binoculars from their leather case on the hall stand, and focused on the ships. ‘Christ,’ he said quietly.

  They were being attacked by Junkers dive-bombers, Stukas. He could clearly hear their trademark screams as they descended. He had never seen a dive-bomber except on the cinema newsreel but he knew what they were; swiftly falling almost vertically, dropping their bombs and ponderously climbing again. He opened the window wider. The bombs were causing spouts on the sea. Anti-aircraft fire from some naval escort ships made soft useless-looking puffs in the sky. His telephone sounded. Still watching the ships he stretched and took it from its cradle on the wall.

  ‘Frank!’ It was Nancy. ‘Look from the window. They’re bombing our ships!’

  ‘I was watching,’ he said. He kept his voice calm. ‘Stuka dive-bombers.’

  She was working at the hospital. ‘The patients are all up at the windows,’ she said, tumbling over her words. ‘Somebody’s going to fall out. Where are our planes, Frank?’

  There was a roar across the roof above him, then two more. He peered up. ‘Our fighter planes have just turned up,’ he said flatly. ‘Three Defiants. They might as well send three coppers on bikes.’

  ‘I’ll call you back when I can,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get these patients in.’

  He said: ‘I’m going down the police station, Nance. I’m due on duty anyway.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘You as well,’ he told her. ‘I’ll stick my tin hat on.’

  He reached for his steel helmet and his canvas gas-mask case, and opened the front door to the dull warmth of the July day, the sound of the explosions and the high whine of aeroplanes. He picked up the binoculars. One of the RAF Defiants was already peeling away and beginning to roll and fall helplessly, black smoke trailing from it. He heard excited voices and looked along the lane to where three boys were shouting and jumping on the stile in the opposite wall.

  ‘You kids!’ he shouted. ‘Take cover!’

  They looked around with almost disdain. They wore lanky khaki shorts and carried bows and arrows. One had a dustbin lid held like a shield and a bread knife in his belt. ‘Get under cover,’ Cotton ordered striding towards them. ‘Get under the roof of the shed there.’

  The tallest of the boys, about twelve, who he thought he recognised from the juvenile court, said: ‘Those Jerries are miles away.’

  ‘Get under here,’ Cotton ordered pushing them beneath the corrugated-iron roof of the shed where he kept his Austin Seven and the lawnmower.

  They obeyed sullenly. ‘Lot of good this is,’ grumbled the taller boy noisily banging the wall. ‘This won’t take no direct hit.’

  ‘You’ll get a direct hit in a minute – from me,’ Cotton said. ‘There’s a ruddy air raid on. Those Germans could be overhead in ten seconds.’ He glanced at the bows, the arrows, the dustbin lid and the knife thrust in the snake-buckle belt. ‘What do you think you’re up to anyway?’

  ‘Waiting for them, the enemy,’ said the second boy grumpily. He had scrappy ginger hair and a face full of f
reckles. ‘We’ve got our own defence patrol.’

  ‘We’re going to willy them,’ said the smallest boy.

  Cotton said: ‘You’ll what . . .?’

  ‘He means harry them, not willy,’ sniffed the tallest glaring at the small one. ‘Like it says on the wireless the resistance do, harry the Germans.’

  ‘I’m getting the car out and taking you lot back into Dover,’ Cotton told them. ‘You’re not going to harry anybody.’

  ‘A bomb could drop on us, easy,’ pointed out the ginger boy. He nodded at the small car. ‘That’s an easy target.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to the police station,’ said Cotton. ‘And I’m not leaving you up here.’

  ‘I knew you was a copper,’ sniffed the leader.

  ‘I’ve got “Police” written on the front of this steel helmet, haven’t I,’ pointed out Cotton. ‘Anyway, we’ve seen each other in the juvenile court. What’s your name?’

  ‘Harold Barker. And I got off.’

  The explosions from the sea rumbled grimly. The boys watched the diving planes.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ grunted Cotton. ‘Where is it you live?’

  ‘Me and Spots, ’ere, lives in Seaview Crescent. And Boot . . . well . . .’

  ‘Hostel,’ said the short boy.

  Harold added: ‘’Cos ’e’s a refugee.’

  Cotton had opened the door of the Austin and they piled in, thrilled at the novelty of being in a car. He glanced towards the sea. The battle went on. Smoke was mixing with the low clouds.

  Spots began turning the window handle. The glass slid down. ‘Like my uncle’s,’ he boasted. ‘. . . My mum’s friend.’

  Going to the front of the square bonnet Cotton powerfully swung the starting handle. The engine fired first time.

  ‘Good starter, mush,’ said Harold.

  ‘So’s my uncle’s,’ said Spots.

  ‘Don’t call me mush,’ Cotton said. He climbed into the driving seat next to the smallest boy. ‘Where are you a refugee from?’

  ‘Poland,’ he said. ‘I been in Dover since last year. My mum’s English, she teaches dancing and she’s here but my old man ain’t. We had to leave him behind. We don’t know where he is.’

  ‘That’s why he’s called Boot,’ put in Harold. ‘Polish, see. Boot polish. That’s right, ain’t it, mush.’

  ‘That’s right,’ shrugged Boot. He glanced at Cotton. ‘They think it’s funny.’

  Cotton drove the car from the shed. The wall in the lane obscured the view but they could hear the planes and the reverberations echoing off the sea.

  ‘Why ain’t you dressed like a copper, except for that tin hat?’ asked Harold.

  ‘I’m plain clothes.’

  Boot put the window down a bit more and the battle noise increased. They were unafraid.

  ‘If that’s plain clothes, what’s your best suit like?’ enquired Spots. They all sniggered.

  ‘Stop being lippy, mush,’ said Cotton. ‘And if you see a plane – duck.’

  They were getting into the town. The sea came into view again. Eagerly they stretched to see the aircraft. ‘Look at everybody!’ suddenly guffawed Harold. ‘All up on the chimley pots.’

  Cotton could scarcely believe it. Every upper window was occupied by people looking out to sea. There were men and youths on the roofs, some holding on to the brick chimneys, others on top of the chimneys, sitting astride the round pots, shouting and pointing. A Dover Corporation bus had stopped and people were crowding the upper deck. The driver and conductor were on the bonnet and there was a man standing on the roof.

  ‘They’re mad!’ Cotton bellowed. ‘Bloody mad!’

  ‘No swearing,’ said Boot solemnly.

  ‘Not in front of children,’ added Spots.

  ‘A Jerry!’ shouted Harold almost deliriously, pointing directly ahead through the windscreen. The plane was coming low, straight up the street at them, the machine guns on its wings sparking.

  ‘Down!’ Cotton bawled. ‘Get down flat!’

  Before any of them could do so the aircraft, at less than two hundred feet, had roared above them and gone. Spots was struggling with his bow and arrow. ‘Next time I’ll get ’im.’

  ‘See the crosses on the wings?’ said Harold breathlessly.

  They had no fear. Cotton had swung the car to one side. Now he righted it and charged it along the street. There were still people on the house tops with others scampering and sliding down tiles, ladders and drainpipes. He searched frantically for shelter. A side turning appeared and he flung the vehicle into it, braking violently in front of a wall.

  ‘This is a petrol garage, mister,’ pointed out Harold flatly. ‘If that German comes back and hits the pump we’ll all be blown to Folkestone.’

  ‘Look!’ Spots was pointing from the window. ‘Bullet cases. All over the place.’

  Cotton tried to stop them but the trio flung the door aside and tumbled from the car. Angrily he shouted but they were dodging about the street picking up brass bullet cases. Other children appeared and ran in excited circles. ‘Still hot!’ shouted Harold throwing a spent bullet case in the air, catching it and blowing on it.

  Cotton got from the car and almost threw himself at them. ‘Get under cover!’ he bellowed. ‘He’ll be back in a minute!’

  The plane was. It came, guns firing, from the opposite end of the town this time. Children scattered and resourcefully flung themselves flat against walls and railings. The boys piled into the car. ‘It’ll be this petrol pump next!’ shouted Spots.

  Cotton was the only one in a panic. The tyres screeched as he backed the car into the road and plunged his foot on to the accelerator. It went between the houses at forty miles an hour. Transfixed, he saw the German plane bank almost lazily above the town and come howling back, its guns hammering up the street. He threw the wheel over and the car went into a front garden.

  Now the plane hung to one side as if the pilot sought a better view, made another run and, flattening out, dropped a single bomb. All the earth around them seemed to rise. They felt the car heel. The blast was numbing. Cotton was trying to crouch under the steering wheel, the boys were piled together on the floor. The windscreen splintered.

  There was silence. Harold was the first to raise his head and look out. ‘They’ve bombed the Co-op,’ he said almost with wonderment. ‘Wiped it out.’

  ‘Early closing,’ shrugged Sergeant Wallace from behind the police counter polished by years of elbows and arms. A bulky man, his shrug was heavy, and his steel helmet too small. Cotton thought they might exchange because his was oversized. The steady all-clear siren began sounding.

  ‘They bombed the lightship,’ said Wallace. ‘Two crew dead.’

  Cotton said: ‘I thought lightships and lighthouses were supposed to be neutral.’

  ‘Well, the Jerries don’t, by the look of it. It was sheer luck with the Co-op, empty, but the Huns weren’t to know that. That Co-op could have been packed, housewives, mums. But even the manager was out on the cliff with everybody watching the fun.’ He regarded Cotton gloomily. ‘I don’t know if we got any of them. I saw two of our boys go down, poor buggers.’

  ‘Defiants,’ said Cotton.

  ‘With the little beehive gun turrets,’ nodded Wallace sadly.

  ‘Flying coffins,’ said Cotton.

  Wallace sighed. ‘No serious casualties in the town though. Two of them half-brained kids fell off the roofs. One got saved by his mother’s clothes line, the other demolished a coal shed, broken arm. Only the Co-op cat got killed. Spread all over the counter so they say. Better be careful what you get in your rations this week, Frank. Watch out for lumps of fur.’

  ‘Thanks, I will. We ought to swap tin hats, Wally. They’d fit us better.’

  Without replying Wallace took his helmet from his hot and balding head and Cotton handed his across the counter. Wallace put it on. ‘That’s better,’ said the desk sergeant. ‘More comfy.’ He took out a big blue handkerchief and ran it around the int
erior of his own helmet before handing it over.

  ‘I was due to go to the Co-op anyway,’ said Cotton putting it on and adjusting it. It fitted. ‘Some London wide boy has been sounding out the manager about black-market lard. Now there’s no shop.’

  The black telephone on the counter rang. As he picked it up Wallace said to Cotton: ‘They’ve got ’undreds of branches, the Co-op. He’ll have to try to flog it to one of them . . . Hello, police station Dover.’

  He listened, then said: ‘Detective Sergeant Cotton has just come in, sir. Yes, I’ll tell him. Everybody else is out there anyway. Somewhere. Right, sir.’

  ‘The super,’ he nodded when he had replaced the telephone. ‘They want every copper down on the pier. They’re bringing the casualties in from those ships.’

  Outside Dover dock gates, wedged along the side of the street, were people eager to see the casualties come ashore. People had stood there just over a month earlier when the angry soldiers from Dunkirk, throwing their rifles into piles, bloodied, beaten, had been brought from the evacuation boats. The spectators outside had clapped them with extra cheers for the badly wounded. But it had been no time for applause.

  Now ambulances waited, their doors expectantly open; there were awkward groups of dockers and doctors. Gulls flew noisily around nervous nurses.

  ‘Cricket will be off tonight then,’ said one of the dockers.

  ‘Clergy have cancelled,’ said the man beside him. ‘Play next week.’ He nodded towards a group at the town end of the pier. ‘There’s some of ’em up there, getting ready to say their prayers.’ He scanned the pale blue sky behind the town. ‘Would ’ave been a good evening for it too. Here comes the lifeboat now.’

  The shoal of rescue craft headed across the bland sea back towards the harbour mouth, led by the shoddy minesweeper HMS Petrel, her captain, Lieutenant Commander Paul Instow, grim on the bridge. She was a wooden-sided vessel safe from magnetic mines but said to have mice in her hull.

  Instow was irked because that afternoon it had taken too long in his estimation to get up steam enough to leave harbour and reinforce the anti-aircraft defences of the convoy ships. The pom-pom gun on the bow and the Lewis gun on the stern had both loosed off at anything that looked like a German plane and had hit nothing but low clouds.