Skip to main content

1940 - Siege of Calais

(Audio enhances reading experience) 21 May 1940

“My good men, I come to you with grave news. The beaches of Calais will continue to be lonely tomorrow. There will be no boats at dawn. 

Word has come from London and it seems lads, ‘home’, has just been turned to a mere word of nostalgia and not something we can hope to see, ever again. 


The fat politicians sitting in parliament have sent their gravest apologies and perhaps think that we have surrendered to the Germans already. The Prime Minister has personally put in his apology through the wire too, cursing our enemy to his full capacity. 


I did not bother noting down all that. Because I don’t for one moment believe in surrender, or defeat. Yes, even defeat.

We men of war may lose our lives in the coming hours but with God himself as our witness I can assure you good lads.. A soldier never dies in vain nor defeat! 


‘Home’, has just been turned to a mere word of nostalgia and not something we can hope to see, ever again. And that… That is the most potent drug you can give a soldier. So use it.


Tonight! We march out to Calais and make sure every round in our barrels is fired. I will not give you false hope today. Hope seems to be too precious a commodity nowadays. The enemy far outnumbers us. We don’t stand a chance. There will be roars of Panzers threatening to maul us to death. Screeches in the air from the Luftwaffe will echo through the sky as you watch your comrades die to the shelling from above. 


We are already dead men. And with that strength, we march. March fearlessly, all the way to Citadel, braver than the enemy… for dead men do not fear death nor defeat.


Comrades, I ask you to put up such a fight that the ammunition we unload, pierce more than mere flesh and bone and strike the heart of Berlin. Today, we have a chance to look fear directly in the bloody eye and laugh at it. These, my good men, are our final hours. So celebrate, drink, eat and laugh! In an hour's time, the Luftwaffe and reinforcements to the enemy's line of defence will arrive.


In an hour’s time, we give our lives more meaning than one could imagine. Every life you take at Calais tonight is a life saved in Dunkirk tomorrow.


Hope is important. But when hope abandons us, all we need is a reason to fight back nature’s will and hope shall return like the early rays of the sun at dawn. ”



Dunkirk 1940

The following work of prose is a work of imagination inspired by 'Dunkirk' and 'Darkest Hour'. Such might have been the words of the brave men who in spite of abandonment of hope, unleashed hell upon those who questioned their resolve. In doing so, these men surpassed all medals of honour that can be given by man. For they reminded mankind precisely what led it to becoming demigods of Terra.


Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the gate:

‘To every man upon this earth, 

Death cometh soon or late. 

And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds, 

For the ashes of his fathers, 

And the temples of his Gods.’

-Excerpt from Horatius


Three of the armada of 'little ships' which brought the men of the BEF to safety


Image Credits: https://www.iwm.org.uk
Inspiration: Darkest Hour, Dunkirk (2017)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Empathy's Demise

It's quite wonderous really, How clocks around the world are ticking right now in perfect synchrony. Wonderous how even in such a large world,  We are all nakedly defined by a common present.  A common, now. Wonderous how the sun is setting right this moment, In one corner of the world. While it rises in another, all at the same time. . Perhaps it is all that's left that unites us through the present. Only the sun bears witness to the capering of man,  For the world is simply too large for us. Large enough to let a man in Paris grab an afternoon Latté,  While a woman in Casablanca runs to the sweet embrace of her lover. . Large enough that the loudest sound you hear is this poem, and my voice, Sheltered from the shelling beyond the seven seas. Large enough that at this very second, There's a little girl with ringing ears, Looking through the rubble, For her dead mother. . Now, when my voice too goes quiet.  I implore you, tell me what is louder. Is it the luxury...
1 comment
Read more

Novelty of the Mind

Every thought one can have is nothing but a complex and new permutation of known facts and memories. A man without any memory, knowledge or experience of all life senses technically, should not be able to imagine, well... anything! Every thought we have is but a mere extrapolation and combination of pre existing thoughts. Or is it something more.  Our thoughts are but a product of all stimuli ever received. Just piled up. Being consumed, processed, replayed, remodelled.. In all the permutations and combinations that strike our mind first. I would honestly love to be disproven in this matter. It is eerie how missed out experiences in life contribute more to our path than we could ever know. Merely because, we do not know what we've missed out on! Stimuli is replayed behind our eyes again so that we make sense of the world around us. The catch is, this constantly changes the way we think or - the permutations used before the memories fade. Forcing us through a fixed, rigid path of wa...
Post a Comment
Read more