THREE LITTLE SHIPS

Prologue

May 1940

England was under threat.
    Adolf Hitler's army was on the march throughout Europe. Belgium was on the point of capitulation; France was crumbling. The British Army itself had been driven into retreat. Half a million men were crowding into one port; half a million men needed rescue.
   From deep within the white cliffs of Dover, the call had gone out for ships - little ships, to take the men off the beaches of France and ferry them to the larger ships waiting offshore. All and any vessels were urgently needed, along with the men to go with them: holiday-steamers, motor yachts and cabin cruisers; stately Thames sailing barges and family dinghies; forty-year-old cutters and brand new cabin cruisers; paddle-steamers and rowing boats.
   Eventually a fleet assembled, such as had never been seen before, and each ship shared a single mission. They were heading across the Channel towards France; towards a single port and its outlying beaches.
   Not even Hitler himself could break the spirit of those who took these little ships and sailed them on this most desperate of missions. A spirit that would go down in history and be conjured up for ever by one word; the name of that one French port.
   Dunkirk.

Amongst the convoy there were three little ships in particular, each one skippered by a man who hoped to rescue one special soldier and bring him home.
   Olly Mears, in the London fireboat Surrey Queen had promised his wife Effie that he would do his best to bring back their son Joe. Robby Endacott, in charge of the Devon holiday-steamer Countess Wear, had promised his mother Hetty that he would try to find his brother Jan. And Charles Stainbank, in the little motor yacht Wagtail, had promised his wife Sheila that he would bring her brother Alex home to safety.
   Out of half a million men, the possibility of bringing back that one particular man was remote, but Olly, Charles and Robby would keep that promise in mind all through the terror and violence of what was to come; and each would realise the futility of promises made during times of war.
   Yet their spirit would endure. And such a spirit - the 'Dunkirk spirit' - can, sometimes, perform miracles ...