Darkest Hour

Chapter 6

Thursday, 16 May. At the ornate brick-walled, grey- roofed house in the quiet French village of Wahagnies that had become his command post, General Lord Gort was struggling to maintain his composure and ruminating that high command could be a lonely business, especially when one's French superiors repeatedly failed to communicate orders.

With exaggerated frustration, he pushed back his chair and, not for the first time that morning, stood up to peer at the large wall map that hung next to the simple trestle table that was his desk. The quarter of a million troops that comprised the British Expeditionary Force - and which were under his command - were sandwiched within a narrow finger that, at the front line, was no more than fifteen miles wide. To the north were the Belgians, to the south General Blanchard's French First Army - and both, it seemed, were crumbling.

Gort glanced at his watch - 10.25 a.m. - and then, as if doubting its veracity, he looked at the clock above the mantelpiece. It told him the same. It was six days since the Germans had launched their attack, yet twenty-five minutes earlier he had received orders to fall back fifteen miles to the river Senne. Retreat! It was incredible. His men were in good order and in good heart and had only just reached the apex of their advance. The enemy who had dared show their faces had been sent scuttling. He had seen the high spirits of his men for himself. Not so the French on the British right, it seemed. General Billotte had assured him that the North African division was one of the best in the Ninth Army, yet the previous day the Germans had blown a five-thousand-yard breach in their line. Gort had offered the immediate transfer of a brigade to help, but this had been turned down, dumbfounding him. Instead, he had had the gut-wrenching task of issuing orders for I Corps to swing back a few miles to keep in line with Blanchard's divisions. And now this.