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