Read Chapter 9: The Bomber

The drone came first, a low, angry hum that seemed to seep through the fog itself. Arthur’s hand shot up, and the Perseverance’s engine, which had been thrumming quietly, sputtered to silence. He stood frozen at the wheel, head tilted, eyes narrowed on the grey wall ahead.

“Hear it?” Tom whispered from his seat by the gunnel, one hand pressed to the blood-soaked rag on his arm.

Arthur didn’t answer. The hum swelled, sharpening into a metallic roar. The fog thinned without warning, torn apart by a gust of wind from the southwest, and the Perseverance was left naked in a vast, clear circle of sea. And there, high above, a black cross cut the sky.

A Junkers Ju 88, silhouetted against the pale morning, banked and turned its nose toward them.

“Mac!” Arthur bellowed. “Man the Lewis!”

Mac was already moving, hauling the aged machine gun from its cradle and dragging it to the aft rail. He slammed the magazine in with a crack of metal that sounded impossibly loud. The French father, whose name Arthur had not yet bothered to learn, scrambled to pull his wife and children below, shouting frantic words. The old grandmother stayed rooted to the deck, clutching a worn rosary, her lips moving in silent prayer.

The Junkers’s note deepened. It was coming straight down the throat of the wind.

“Hold on!” Arthur slammed the throttle forward. The Perseverance shuddered and lurched, her bow digging into the chop as she shot forward. The bomber’s engines screamed overhead, a shadow that swallowed the deck for an instant, and then the sea erupted behind them.

A geyser of white water shot skyward, fifty feet off the stern, and the shockwave slapped the hull like a giant’s hand. The Perseverance rolled hard. The grandmother pitched sideways, but Mac caught her arm, steadying her without taking his eyes from the sky.

“Bastard’s getting his range,” Mac growled.

Arthur spun the wheel hard to port, cutting a sharp, desperate turn. The Junkers was already circling, coming around for another pass. Bore waste oil, Arthur thought. The sea was littered with the stuff, rainbows spreading on the swell. If he could reach the patch—

“Tom, eyes!” Arthur shouted. “Tell me where she drops!”

Tom hauled himself to his feet, swaying, his face pale with exertion. He stared up at the approaching bomber, the morning sun glinting off its cowling. The plane levelled out, wings hard against the sky.

“Now!” Tom yelled. “She’s dropping now!”

Arthur wrenched the wheel again. The Perseverance heeled so far over that water poured over the port gunwale, cold and sharp over Arthur’s boots. The bomb hit the sea forty yards to starboard. The explosion was a dull, crushing boom, and the wave it threw rose like a wall, dark and green, hanging over them for a heart-stopping second before it came down.

The world turned white. Arthur was knocked from his feet, thrown against the wheelbox, his head cracking against the brass. Saltwater filled his mouth, his nose, his eyes. The deck tilted wildly beneath him, and for a terrible moment he had no idea which way was up.

Then the water drained, gurgling over the scuppers. Arthur clawed his way to his knees. The Perseverance was still afloat, but her decks were awash, and the sea was pouring in through the main hatch faster than it could leave.

“Bail!” Arthur roared. “Everyone, bail!”

Tom staggered to the hold, pulling off his torn jacket. Mac threw himself at the hatch with a bucket. And then, moving faster than Arthur thought her capable, the old grandmother pushed past him. She grabbed a shattered wooden crate from the wreckage, spun it over, and began scooping the black water out of the hold in sweeping, rhythmic motions.

Her daughter-in-law appeared a moment later, and then her son, leaving the children cowering below. Four of them, bailing with bare hands and broken wood, their faces set with a grim determination that made Arthur’s chest tighten.

He turned back to the wheel. The Junkers was banking again, slow and deliberate, its pilot taking his time. Lining up for a final, killing shot. Arthur’s hands shook with adrenaline as he shoved the throttle forward, feeling the Perseverance fight the weight of the water in her belly. She was sluggish now, heavy and dull beneath him. A wounded animal.

“Arthur, right!” Mac shouted. “She’s coming starboard!”

Arthur wrenched the wheel. The bomber’s nose dropped. Tracers stitched the sea in a straight line toward them, chewing the water into foam. Arthur threw himself flat, dragging Mac’s leg down with him. The bullets tore through the rigging, smashing the port rail to splinters. The glass of the wheelhouse shattered.

And then, a new sound. High and clear, a sweet two-stroke howl that cut through the Luftwaffe’s drone like a blade.

Spitfires.

Arthur lifted his head, blinking against the salt and spray. Two RAF fighters dropped out of the low cloud like avenging angels, wings flickering with machine-gun fire. The Junkers jinked hard, too late. Black smoke streamed from its port engine. It banked, desperate, trying to flee, but the Spitfires were on it, hounding it across the sky until it vanished behind the veil of haze, trailing a cone of fire.

The sudden silence was almost total. The only sounds were the lapping of water, the creak of straining wood, and the gasping breath of the crew.

Arthur looked around him. The Perseverance was listing slightly to starboard. Her rigging hung in tangled loops, and one of her lifeboats had been blown to splinters, but she was whole. She was afloat. And she was still pointed at France.

Tom slid down beside him, his face pale, his arm soaked again in fresh red. “That was close, Father.”

Arthur said nothing. He stared at the horizon. The fog had been blown away entirely by the wind, and now, at last, he could see the smear of black smoke that lay against the sky to the east. It rose in thick, ugly columns, churning and climbing, a city of fire beyond the curve of the sea.

Dunkirk.

Mac came forward, his jaw tight. “She’s making water faster than we can bail her. We need to pump her out before we go much further.”

Arthur nodded. “We can.”

Behind them, the French grandmother straightened her back and spoke for the first time since coming aboard. Her voice was thin but firm, her English heavily accented. “We will help. All the way. We do not stop.”

Arthur turned to her. The old woman met his gaze unflinching, her gnarled hands still dripping seawater, her eyes hard as flint.

“The children,” Arthur said.

“They can see their grandmother bail,” she said. “It will teach them what they need to know about life.”

Arthur almost smiled. He caught Mac’s eye, and the old navy man gave a reluctant, grudging nod. A truce, of sorts, sealed in saltwater and cordite.

“All hands,” Arthur said, his voice carrying across the battered deck. “We pump her out, we patch what we can, and we press on. There are men on that beach.”

He pulled out the dying lieutenant’s chart from his oilskin. The markings were still stark and true, leading through the murky shallows to a narrow stretch of sand. A secret window. A whisper of hope. But even as he studied it, Arthur’s eyes lifted again to the smoke on the horizon, growing closer, darker, and behind the smoke there was no mistaking it now: the low, grey shapes of destroyers standing off Dunkirk, hulking and motionless. Waiting. Waiting while their men burned.

And somewhere in that burning city, George was waiting too.