The other barges were beached and grounded now , as the Navy had ordered :sx Skipper Harold Miller's Royalty , Charlie Webb's Barbara Jean , Harry Potter's Aidie , the Ena under Captain Alfred Page .sx Tollesbury was the last of her line :sx she must survive the carnage .sx Worse , Webb had seen with a prickle of horror the Doris , sinking rapidly and abandoned , drifting on the remorseless tide towards the Nieuport shore .sx His own brother-in-law , Captain Fred Finbow , was the skipper .sx As in a mist , Webb saw one hope of salvation :sx the old Thames tug Cervia , under Captain William Simmons , was moving in to take them in tow .sx Now a fresh problem arose :sx no sooner was the tow-rope secured to the Tollesbury than Simmons , anxious to put Dunkirk behind him , went ahead fast .sx It was too much for the barge .sx With an unearthly splintering the tug tore her bit-head- the stout wooden casing of the windlass- clean out by the roots .sx Again Tollesbury was adrift on a sea burnished red with the blood of men whose voyaging was over .sx The day was marked by such courage .sx At Bergues , key strong-point of the western perimeter , the Loyal Regiment had stood fast for two days , but as the line contracted , artillery pressure on the old walled town stepped up .sx To man the stout seventeenth-century ramparts Lieut .sx -Colonel John Sandie had only 26 officers and 451 men ; for the rest of the garrison were stragglers doing their best .sx . a transport company of ex-London bus-drivers who'd indented for a musketry instructor .sx . the Rev. Alfred Naylor , Deputy Chaplain General , holding one gate of the town for three days with a mixed bag of chaplains .sx Barred from active combat by their cloth , Naylor and his cadre did sterling work questioning suspect fifth-columnists .sx And the civilians weighed in too .sx At Steene , west of the town , General von Kleist's tanks were advancing steadily , but Mayor Jean Duriez , an industrial alcohol manufacturer , turned the faucets of his ten vast stills to send two million gallons of raw spirit gushing across the already flooded land .sx As Duriez watched a chance artillery shell , exploding like a thunderclap , transformed the waters to a raging sea of flame- " like a gigantic Planter's Punch .sx " In fascinated dread Duriez saw two of von Kleist's tanks trapped by the torrent , glowing white-hot as the holocaust engulfed them .sx The advance from the west was stalled .sx But by Saturday midday the Loyals could no longer hold Bergues itself .sx Already the troops dug in on the ancient ramparts sweltered from the heat of burning buildings- the smoke so dense even dispatch riders groped through the town on foot , mouths and noses bound with damp cloths .sx By noon the exposed canal bank beyond the northern ramparts had become the Loyals' last stockade- with men toppling like ten-pins under devastating artillery fire .sx Now in Captain Henry Joynson's company the troops were so tired the officers had to haul them across the road like sacks of coal .sx Then by a miracle the wind changed- impelling a black choking banner of smoke from the burning town into the heart of the German lines .sx Even von Kleist's tanks could no longer advance :sx the few that did try , foxed by the smoke , tilted disastrously into the canal .sx The infantry advance held off- though not until 9 p.m. could the Loyals withdraw , doubling between waves of mortar fire towards Dunkirk .sx Many , by order of Major-General Harry Curtis , had left their rifles propped in position .sx Bound with a contraption of string , weights and slow-burning candles , they would keep firing at intervals , creating the illusion of a tough task force still on the alert .sx Three miles to the east the East Lancashire Regiment had it as bad ; with all ammunition spent , their 1st Battalion fell back towards Dunkirk , only a forty-strong force under Captain Harold Ervine-Andrews , to cover the thousand-yard front as they withdrew .sx A thick-set , heavily-built Irishman , Andrews was venerated by his men for his genially informal manner , though senior officers were less sure of him .sx On pre-war service in India and China his feats had become an eccentric legend- walking fifty-six miles for a +5 bet , shooting a black buck in the jungle , then carrying it home draped round his shoulders .sx All that night Andrews and his men crouched under annihilating shellfire until it seemed the end was near .sx Already they had been blasted from their farmhouse quarters ; now the Dutch barn to which they'd retreated was in flames , too .sx As they doubled behind a hedge , sparks and blazing straw eddying , they sighted the German infantry moving in a spaced dangerous line through growing dusk .sx Andrews exhorted his men :sx " Look , there are 500 of them , maybe thirty-six of us- let them get a bit closer and then here goes .sx " His whistle shrilling , Andrews leapt forward , weaving towards the advancing hordes like a footballer moving in to tackle .sx As the howling mob of East Lancs followed at his heels the Germans fell back , seeking cover .sx Scrambling to the roof of a barn with a rifle , Andrews picked off no less than seventeen Germans- then seizing a bren-gun , he lunged forward again .sx Private John Taylor , in the thick of it , recalls :sx " It was a right do- when the ammo ran low we kicked , choked , even bit them .sx " After fifteen blood-stained minutes the Germans fell back in confusion .sx The line was held- but Andrews after sending his wounded to the rear , was down to eight men now .sx Resolutely , at the head of his little band , he struck across-country splashing for a quarter of a mile through the flooded fields towards Dunkirk .sx He was to win the first Victoria Cross awarded to any officer in World War Two .sx On the beaches , the savage fury of the attack had one result .sx By =1 p.m.- six hours after the raid began- every man and woman still left had one resolve :sx the only thing that mattered now was the lives of others .sx Jog-trotting along the Eastern Mole , Colonel Sidney Harrison's 6th Lincolns had their own wounded slung like sacks over their shoulders- but they stumbled on , negotiating yawning four-foot gaps somehow , loading them on to ship after ship .sx In the shadow of the Mole , Gunner Albert Collins saw an officer bent on a task to tax Samson :sx a rope bound like a yoke round his forehead , he swam valiantly for a Dutch schuit , towing a Carley float with six men aboard .sx Lance-Bombardier George Brockerton took risks as great as any he'd taken as a Wall of Death trick cyclist :sx finding eighty-one men trapped in a bombed cellar he worked for two hours to free them with hammer and chisel , using French hand-grenades in lieu of gelignite .sx Oblivious to the crash of bombs , he helped out every man , then , to keep their peckers up , did some conjuring tricks .sx Private Walter Allington of the Lincolns was in his element too .sx Already he'd spent one whole night trying to help a man crazed by a head wound .sx . then , taking a vest and shirt , he'd plugged a terrible hole in another man's shoulder .sx Now , despite the writhing pains in his abdomen , he saw a bullet aimed at the diving Stukas had gone too low .sx A long way off , a man had fallen , the bullet lodging in the small of his back .sx Somehow , though other men were nearer , Allington was again first to help- but the big gentle man had used his only field-dressing on that Belgian cripple .sx Working doggedly on his own , he found an abandoned ambulance , checked it was in running order , and loaded the man aboard .sx Then , despite the swooping Stukas , he drove until the Channel water was lapping over the bonnet .sx Standing on the roof of the truck , he flagged a destroyer's whaler to ferry the man away .sx Everywhere men plumbed unsuspected depths in themselves .sx Brigadier Evelyn Barker was at the water's edge when a shell dropped close , shattering a soldier's arm so that it hung by a thread .sx Without more ado Barker borrowed a knife from his Brigade Major and honed it on a carborundum stone as coolly as a butcher .sx Lacking narcotics , he first gave the man a nip of cherry brandy before taking his arm off at the shoulder .sx Then improving a tourniquet with handkerchief and pencil , Barker and his aide carried their patient along the beach on a mackintosh to place him in a doctor's charge .sx Able Seaman Samuel Palmer , with twenty years' naval service , didn't know a crankshaft from a camshaft but he took the motor yacht Naiad Errant over with a crew of three- then after losing them took her back with nine thankful Tommies , helping out the one engine still operative with paddles fashioned from shattered doors .sx Stoker David Banks from Sheerness did even better .sx . making seven trips as skipper of the motor-boat Pauleter .sx . doing his trick at the wheel .sx . manning the bren-gun when the Stukas dived .sx . rescuing 400 single-handed .sx Off the same beaches Commander Charles Lightoller , former second officer of the Titanic , was packing them in aboard his yacht Sundowner :sx his biggest kick was the stupefaction of Ramsgate's naval authorities when they found his 60-footer had brought back 130 men .sx The tiros were well to the fore .sx Captain " Paddy " Atley of the East Yorks found the barge Ena grounded where Lemon Webb's flotilla had lain , took her back with forty men , on the strength of five sailing holidays in Norfolk .sx It took fourteen hours , including a surprise return to Dunkirk , but they made it finally .sx Captain David Strangeways of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment hit on another barge , appropriately named the Iron Duke .sx Naked save for the skipper's doormat , which he wore like a sarong , Strangeways brought back twenty-six men , navigating with compass and school atlas .sx To the doctors , life-saving was a dedication , but it was an uphill fight now .sx In Private William Horne's ambulance unit the only medication to deal with searing phosphorous burns was a bottle of acriflavine tablets diluted in water .sx At Rosendael , the dressings were all but exhausted ; Major Philip Newman , the surgeon , did one last amputation by torchlight , then gave up .sx The ambulance unit at La Panne had packed up , too , after a record 2,000 operations in one week , but many doctors carried on as and how they could .sx Where equipment was lacking , they improvised .sx Captain William MacDonald , in a dugout in the dunes , sterilised wounds with abandoned petrol .sx Captain Joseph Reynolds , lacking the Thomas splints used for compound fractures , secured fractured femurs with rifles .sx And scores cut off from their units or families lent a ready hand .sx . slicing up battledress trousers to make bandages .sx . ransacking abandoned homes for sheets .sx . pretty Solange Bisiaux , a French doctor's wife , wringing out blood-stained bandages in salt water .sx . other men working eight to a relay to carry stretchers on board the ships .sx Round every ambulance and aid-post Sapper George Brooks noted the same hushed aura :sx the " undercurrent of grief that moves like a wind when a coffin is carried from a house .sx " Injuries or no , some men were determined to make the journey home .sx Lieutenant J. P. Walsh of the Loyals , knocked down by a lorry near Bergues , still plodded the five miles to Dunkirk :sx later the surgeons found his pelvis was fractured .sx Captain John Whitty of the Royal West Kents , wounded in the stomach , slogged some of the fifty miles from Fle@5tre , where his battalion was trapped , then , at last gasp , hailed a passing motor-cyclist and rode pillion to the beaches .sx Bundled into an ambulance and driven to the Mole , Whitty found the wait tedious ; he climbed out , exhorting other wounded to follow him , and got them all passages on a home-bound boat .sx There was the same spirit on the ships .sx Aboard the trawler Brock , a Surgeon-Lieutenant coped with grievous burn cases and a shortage of tannic acid by filling a zinc bath with tea and immersing his patients up to their necks .sx The destroyer Whitehall's doctor , Surgeon-Lieutenant David Brown , went so swiftly to aid the wounded aboard the minesweeper Jackeve that he left his instruments behind .sx Nothing loth , he amputated with the engine-room's hacksaw , sterilised with blazing chloroform , the ex-trawler's fish hatch serving as operating table .sx