Part 2, Section 5 Summary
The procession continues. Turner and the corporals continue their trek toward Dunkirk and home. Ordinary activities, such as a man plowing his field and a woman knitting in the back seat of her car, continue. However, the forward press of refugees reminds them there is a war. Suddenly at least fifteen aircraft flying at ten thousand feet are dots on the horizon. One Stuka breaks away and dives toward them as everyone on the road runs for cover. Turner can walk and stop without much thinking or effort; breaking away to protect himself takes nearly all his energy. A woman with a child appears in front of him, and she cannot decide where they might be safest during an air strike. Her inactivity sparks Turner’s protective instincts, and he leads her and her boy to some semblance of safety.
Their progress is too slow, so he grabs the boy and runs ahead, hoping she will follow more quickly to protect her son. She is struggling to keep up and the boy in his arms is crying, wetting his pants, and struggling to reach his mother behind him. The howling plane draws closer and Turner drops on his face in the field, covering the boy with his body and pulling the woman to the ground. The plane has one bomb, and the missile lands a mere eighty feet from them with a tremendous shaking and flying debris. They are still too close to the road, so Turner tries to drag the woman to the forest where others are heading. This time there is machine gun fire as they are lying face down in a plowed field, and the woman is speaking to her son in Flemish, telling him everything will be fine. The boy has gone mute and she refuses to stand or move. Finally Turner must run to save himself.
His feet are heavy as they are only in nightmares, and he is unable to reach shelter before the next attack. This time his face, mouth, and ears are all full of dirt he cannot really get rid of, but there is water in the woods ahead and he will try to remove it all there. He looks behind him, and where the Flemish woman and her son had been sitting is now a crater. Now Turner remembers he must live, though he cannot remember why. He joins the two hundred or so people, many of them wounded, gathered in the forest and dreams only of water. The all-clear finally sounds, but no one moves. They know what those planes are capable of doing, and they understand that sound might be a false sign of safety. Suddenly Mace is behind him and hands him a full canteen of water. After a quick drink of water mixed with the dirt cloying his mouth, Turner and Mace begin walking; soon they are joined by Nettle, carrying a bottle of wine and an Amo chocolate bar (produced by Paul Marshall’s family business) which he took from a dead Frenchman.
As the man in the field resumes plowing, they walk past the crater. Turner sees no sign that a human being had ever been there; the woman and her son have been evaporated. The three men begin walking on the road once again toward Dunkirk and the Belgian border, passing all manner of wounded soldiers, many being helped along by their fellow soldiers. After an hour they hear a loud, rhythmic thudding behind them. It is an orderly column of Welsh soldiers walking in crisp precision, rifles in their arms. No one has the...
(This entire section contains 838 words.)
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strength to mock them for their “discipline and cohesion,” but it is shameful to those walking and they are relieved when the regiment passes them.
The sights around them are the same, familiar, but there are more of them: abandoned vehicles, bomb craters, dead bodies, and random body parts. Turner thinks about his father, a man who had not been present in his life after the first few years. Because he wants a father, he also wants to be a father and dreams of the children he will one day have. Once the war is over, he plans to find Cecilia and he plans to find his father, dead or alive. Either way, he will become his father’s son.
They arrive at the bridge that crosses the canal. All around them military vehicles and supplies are being destroyed so they cannot be used against them by the enemy. Typewriters, uniforms, and weapons are all being mutilated and disabled. The bridge is well guarded, and no vehicles are allowed to cross it. A man with a parrot is denied access, and the officer on guard is selecting “recruits” to help defend the bridge. Turner and the corporals see what is happening and they know Turner will be conscripted for defense duties if they see him. They place Turner between them, and he feigns a limp in order to continue their gruesome but necessary journey to Dunkirk.