"We are two naval flying officers--have just ..."
"Sorry, sir--got to fetch the mails!"
No one will help us. No car will give us assistance, though we are
obviously in trouble. Too far away from these people is war for them to
realise that from war's greatest menace we have just escaped.
We go into the French police office at the docks. There by the kindly
uniformed officials we are courteously treated. They, at least, make an
attempt to telephone through to our squadron.
Tired at the delay, feeling I must move and move through this unreal
city of sunshine and order, which lies so strangely about the dim
shadows of my soul, I go on, and, stopping a car, order the driver to
take me to the Wing Headquarters. The car is full of chairs, which are
being taken to some concert hall, and perhaps the driver realises
vaguely that the service does eventually touch reality, that there is
some remote possibility of accident, some remote chance of calamity, up
there, "towards the lines."
Through the dirty but splendidly familiar streets of Dunkerque we drive,
out through the fortification to the pink-and-white villas of Malo. I am
driving to the Wing Headquarters first, because I feel that a report
should be made at once to the Wing Commander.
We turn at last through a great stone gate, and circling round a drive,
stop at the bottom of a flight of steps, up which I slowly climb. By the
door stands an orderly.
"Where's the--Wing Commander--Mr--Fowler--I--want--anybody?"
"In the breakfast-room, sir--just down on the left," he says.
I walk down the passage with a strange feeling of fear. Now I have
returned to some definite place, to an organisation which can
comprehend me, the ending of the strain is bringing a strange dizziness.