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us, so an orderly withdrawal is out of the question, I’m afraid it’s going to have to be every man for himself and of course for most of us that means on foot as well.”
    He continued, “Now look, the Navy are laying on transport from the port of Dunkirk, so it’s your job to try and get there. It’s about forty miles North West of our present position so it won’t be easy. Take only what kit you’ll think you need, but my advice is to travel light, your lives may depend on it. Oh, and one last thing. It’s rumoured that Jerry is shooting prisoners, so important not to get captured eh?”
    “That’s all lads” said one of the Lieutenants.
    “You heard the man” I said and headed off towards our gun, my crew following.
    Lieutenant Davies came over to us “Hurry up and get your crew out of here Hilbert, don’t worry about the gun, myself and Sergeant Brennan will be fixing the demolition charges once everyone has left.”
    Jack Hampton had put some food into a bag and other than our rifles and some extra ammunition we left the position with more or less just the clothes we stood up in.

C HAPTER F OUR
    Our truck had been blown up during the bombing so we had no choice but to leave on foot. We felt that by using the map and compass to travel as the crow flies, we could be at the coast in two days, three at the most. Ronny’s map reading was really good so we had no doubts we would get there; he had been looking at the map for most of the time since we had started off.
    We had passed through some small villages that were easily identified on the map and no one had challenged us. So far nothing had slowed our progress; we had heard vehicles coming down the road towards us on several occasions but had always had plenty of time to get out of the way.
    On this occasion from behind a thicket of trees, we watched as five Mercedes trucks, loaded with laughing, singing, German soldiers, headed past us for the coast.
    “Flipping heck Bomb, by the time we get there it’s going to be full of Germans.” Harry said, but before I could speak Fishy, as usual, had to make his feelings known. “If we get there, they’re probably going to set up road blocks.”
    Again before I could answer someone else decided to comment, this time it was Ronny. “Just as well we won’t be going by road then old chap, he drawled theatrically,” have a look at this Bomb!” He uttered in his normal voice.
    He opened the map out and we all got round it, he used an unlit cigarette to point with.
    “This is where we are now, if we head North-West through this wood we should come out in about six miles or so, right on this railway line just outside La Bassee. If we follow the train lines it should take us most of the way to the coast, what do you think?”
    “It’s a good idea,” I said, “the railway will take us in the right direction, but I think our best bet may be to find the line and then wait up until its dark. We are too close to safety to risk being captured, anybody got anything to add?”
    There was a general muttering of agreement so we took the opportunity for a quick smoke and then set off with Ronny leading the way.
    There were lots of paths and trails through the wood so the going was fairly easy, we had no difficulty finding the train line. The weather was fine however we took the time to make a shelter, just inside the wood, to use for concealment. Then we settled down to wait for darkness. I wouldn’t allow the crew to start a fire, so food was hard tack biscuits and water; afterwards we snoozed, making sure there were always two blokes on watch.
    By about nine o’clock it was pretty dark, our luck must have been in because there was no moon and by getting Jack to walk someway down the track I established that visibility was less than ten yards. We set off on our way walking on the sleepers to cut down the noise and observing silence. This was an easy march despite the darkness. We had needed to stop a few times when