Three Hundred and Sixteen Thousand and One: With the RAMC in France 1940

After my father died, I came across his war diary. Reading through it, it became apparent he wasn't keen to go, but he registered anyway in December 1939. He writes in January 1940, "A month has passed since I registered, and I have heard nothing, but there is talk that I will be called up shortly - a most distressing thought." He was hopeful that the Home Nursing Course that he'd completed would qualify him to join the RAMC as a 3rd class orderly. It seems that role in the war was the most acceptable to him if he had to go. He did serve in the RAMC in France and was at Dunkirk.
He told me the story of how he and another solider sat on a sand-dune at Dunkirk eating an ice cream, with the Germans advancing two miles behind. He smiled "...nothing else to do, couldn't go anywhere and it was lovely sitting in the sunshine". Where the ice cream came from he didn't say!
I found a photo of him in his uniform - its this that inspired my poem, that I dedicate to all the men involved in the Dunkirk operation. At the time of writing it, I'd not read his diary, his face said it all.

You look out into perplexed distance.
Ironically, it suited you somehow,
The karki serge of an officer,
The peaked cap with its thin leather band.
It made you more handsome
Sharpened your features
Saddened your eyes.

You bore a Red Cross on your arm
And picked up the pieces on the front line,
Bits of those who had no choice.
Cowards die anyway.
No referendum
No compromise.

One hot June day,
You sat on a sand dune,
Smoked screened,
Licked at an ice,
Waited.
Guns pounded the muffled air
Like giants footfalls, two miles behind.

Boats swarmed up the beaches, like baby crabs
Towards vast silent formations,
Patience shadows zigzagged across pale sand.
Guns high, sea deep, men strode towards hope,
Snatched from the exploding tide
By master marines, and local fishermen.

But for them,

We'd never have made snowmen together,
Nor smelt wild honeysuckle on a country walk,
Camped in the rain, cried when the cat died,
Or listened to Brahms beside the fire.

Now Grandchildren build snowmen,
Pick buttercups, and tease kittens,
Learn to play the piano,
Innocent of mans arrogance;
Unaware of your sorrow
That faded sepia cannot hide.

Jean Kraushaar

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