Waltz for George

For days and nights, ships of all kinds have flied to and fro across the channel under the fierce onslaught of the enemy's bombers
Utterly regardless of the perils, to bring out as many as possible of the trapped BEF
There was every kind of ship that I saw coming in this morning
And every one of them was crammed full of tired, battlestained and bloodstained British soldiers
Soon after dawn this morning, I watched a warship steaming in
One that listed heavily to port under the enormous load of men she carried on her decks
Transport officers counted the men as they came ashore
No question of units
No question of regiments
No question of even nationality
For there were French and Belgian soldiers who fought side by side with the British at the battle of Flanders
All of them were tired
Some were completely exhausted
Another man, with eyes heavy with sleep, who limped along on painful feet because his boots hadn't been off for five days
And at his bag, a ukulele dangled from his haversack
But he still had enough kick in him to ask the sergeant for a seat facing the engine when he got to the train
Another man told me about how he'd been on the beach in Dunkirk for three days with hundreds of his comrades waiting for a boat
Embarkation was often difficult because of fear of being bombed and the ships could not get close enough in
So they joined the ships in boats
And paddled in the water some of the way
As each ship came in the army doctors at the port would shout out to the captain on the bridge to ask for the number of wounded
And in a few minutes the ambulances and the stretchers would be alongside to bring them off and take them to the waiting hospital trains in the station
The organisation of the port was excellent
The ships were being unloaded at an astonishing speed
On the station, I watched the men climb onto the long waiting trains
It was astonishing to walk along carriage after carriage full of soldiers, and to find in each one, silence
And so the men of the BEF came home