We Shall Not Flag Or Fail
Title: We Shall Not Flag Or Fail
Originally posted: Here.
Length: 4,400 words.
Characters/Pairings: France/England; Germany at the end.
Premise: The German blitzkrieg has devastated France. Knowing that his surrender is, at best, only weeks away, France joins England on a harrowing nine day mission to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from French territory before they all become German prisoners of war.
Time period: 1940.
Smuttiness: 0/10
Funnyness: 3/10
Wrist slashiness: 6/10
Warm-and-fuzziness: 3/10
Lolhistoryness: 9/10
Violence: 6/10, all war violence.
Would I like it?: Gosh, I hope so. This one means a lot to me. I'm too close to it to say whether or not it's any good, but it's ludicrously over-researched (note to self: we do not care about the weather in 1940), and England gets called very rude names, and France gets shot--so, if that's the kind of thing that gets you going?
---
May 25
His coat was too heavy. That was all France thought before he hit the ground.
His men parted and reformed around him the way water breaks around a stone. France breathed dust. It stung his eyes, his nose, his throat; he couldn't swallow. It was even in his lungs. The constant thunder of 400,000 pairs of boots and God knew how many vehicles on back country roads had churned his golden earth into a low-hanging fog.
He worked the spit in his mouth. Swallowed. Spat. Swallowed again. It was no use. It had been days since he had been able to get rid of the taste of grit and blood.
He felt a sharp hand close around his elbow, and France was yanked to his feet.
"Get up, you lazy tosser," England muttered.
"The word is 'indolent.'" France blinked green spots out of the corners of his eyes. "Not lazy."
"You're a lazy, useless milksop. Keep up the pace." England threw him forward a few meters, and France barely kept his feet.
He could feel that purse-lipped glower against the back of his neck, and that propelled him forward for another kilometer…and another…and another. Then his heels began to stick in the road again, and his feet skidded against the dirt, and--
England appeared at his side, his arm buried in his pack. "France--France. Look here."
"What is it."
"Look at this."
England held a map flattened between his hands. The German planes had been dropping them over the British and French army for days. They showed the French and British troop positions--accurately--and the German positions--and France had no reason to hope that these were not accurate as well. Over the map itself, in French and English, Germany had written "Men of France and Great Britain! These maps show your true situation! Lay down your arms and surrender!"
"Ah," France said. "Our toilet paper."
"Yes, quite; look--Germany thinks he has us surrounded." England folded a crease out of the corner.
France eyed the map dully for a while. "Well, his armies are on every side of our army. I confess that was the conclusion I had reached as well."
England sighed and rattled the map in his face. France gazed at it. After a few seconds, he hiked his pack higher on his shoulder. He could feel blood crawling down the inside of his clothes. "If Belgium capitulates, we will be surrounded even on sides we don't have," he observed, and scratched the bridge of his nose. "Something of a tactical accomplishment, really."
"Are you bloody blind, look--" England stabbed his finger at a point near the coast.
France looked up from the map at him. "Dunkirk," he provided.
"On the ocean." England drew a line connecting the little port town to the front column of their own army. "We're nearly there. Six days' march, at most."
"Yes," France acknowledged. "Well done."
England refolded the map with an air of fierce satisfaction.
"Is that where you're taking us?" France inquired after a pause.
England smacked him in the face with the folded-up map. "Why the fuck did you think we were marching north?"
"Something to do?" France suggested.
"Germany is landlocked. He sees the ocean as a barrier."
"There are four hundred thousand of us, mon cher, but still not quite enough bodies to fill a bridge across the Channel for you and I to cross." France's rifle slipped from his shoulder; it was a few seconds before he dragged together the strength to yank it back into place.
"True," England clapped him on the back, and France staggered. A wound loosened in his side. "But boats go over the water."
"I envy them," France mumbled. He clenched his stomach and made himself straighten above his feet. "But your whole navy would not be sufficient to evacuate us before Germany closed the trap."
"Then anyone who doesn't fit on the boats I'll tether to the bloody sternposts," England snapped. "Surely you're not thinking of giving up already."
Already. France reached into his coat and lay his fingertips inside his bleeding wounds; he gave a hollow laugh. "Never, mon cher; how could you think it?"
"Too right. So stay on your fucking feet, or else by God I'll kick you all the way to Dunkirk." England jammed the map into his pocket and moved away from France's side.
France looked after him.
He could not stay on his feet for six more days, of course. That was impossible.
But just as impossible: to endure England's attempts to mock his spine back into him while he bled to death on a cattle road.
France spat, and still tasted dust and blood.
They marched.
---
May 26
Cold damp leeched up from the forest mulch and clung to France's back. His bedroll was soggy with the nightly mist that permeated the woods near Ypres. All around them, the camp was quiet.
"Can you sleep, Angleterre," France murmured.
A little silence from the other side of the extinguished bivouac fire, and then: "No."
France gazed upwards. The overhead branches cut dark ribbons through the mist-hung sky. "They will attack in the morning, I think."
"Yes, of course." He heard England turn over.
"Do you think Germany will be with them?"
England sniffed. "I shouldn't think so."
"No, I suppose not," France reflected. He rubbed a hand into his hair. "He thinks that your escape from the continent is impossible. So why should he attend to us personally?"
"You don't sound angry."
"Well, I confess, I have seen enough of Germany for quite some time; his failure to personally attend our defeat does not disquiet me."
"I meant about my escape."
France blinked, slow, and eased onto his side. England watched him from across the fire pit with clear eyes and a thin mouth. He was propped up, his temple braced against the heel of his hand. France's eyes crept over him.
"And why should I be angry," he murmured.
"I sent these men to help you, and now I'm taking them home." It was cool, without apology.
France stretched his leg. "Well, true; your retreat is fucking worthless to me. But it's better than seeing your entire armed forces captured, stripped bare, and marched to Germany to wait out the end of the war. If your soldiers escape--well, they might still fight Germans later."
"They surely will," England said, grim.
"So you see. I am not angry."
England propped his chin in his hand and stared at the ground.
France smiled. "You are wondering if I feel abandoned."
England snapped his arm down and glared at him. "I don't give a fuck about your feelings. This is a war; there are more important things at stake."
"Yes, of course--please forgive my conceit."
"Nor would I give a fuck about your feelings at any other time, I might add." England jerked at the cuff of his sleeve.
"Do you imagine that you're leaving me to die?" France inquired.
England's lip curled, and he folded his arms tight in against the dirt. "Don't be dramatic."
France raised his eyebrows.
"Germany has no reason to kill you." England dropped his head forward and muttered, "You're worth far more to him sucking him off for the rest of the war."
A moment passed before he cleared his throat. "That is--metaphorically. Providing him with war materiel."
"Yes, thank you," France said, "For allowing for my virtue."
"Piss off."
"Then, you feel you are merely leaving me to defeat." France settled onto his back and laced his fingers over his stomach.
"Certainly not. One is only defeated if one surrenders." That was said with great asperity.
"Ah," France sighed, and thought about the wounds inside his clothes. They wouldn't close. Some of them--and this was new, this worried him--were starting to smell.
The German invasion had infected him.
"You are right, of course," he finished.
"This is merely a--" England paused; for effect, France was sure. "A tactical withdrawal. So as to continue the fight from a position of greater strength."
Yes, France thought. From your country.
"So there's no bloody reason for you to feel abandoned," England groused, and dropped back down to his bedroll. "We're still allies, you whiny ponce."
"God grant me time to count my blessings," France murmured.
England saw fit to ignore that, and they both pretended to sleep.
---
May 27
Smoke and pressure and screaming and gunfire amid the trees--
France found England flat on his back beneath a rain of dirt.
"If you're too hurt to stand, I swear I will kill you myself," he muttered against England's ear. He worked his arms under England's shoulders and dragged him half-upright.
England's lips were black and seamed with grime; and they twitched twice before he managed, "Flak. Stunned." Then, "I'm fine."
France shoved England out of his lap, and the other nation thumped onto the ground, eyes swimming. "We've lost," France informed him. "Germany has surrounded Ypres. We must retreat."
England levered himself out of the dirt and onto one hand. He wiped his filthy face, wrenched off his helmet, rucked up his sweat-matted hair into a dark spray. "Counterattack," he rasped.
France ignored him. He dug his nails into a tree trunk and dragged himself to his feet. He checked his rifle.
England held up a hand. France stared at it for a second before he grabbed it and hauled England off the ground. His side gapped. Black swept behind his eyes, and he bit back a faint.
"We make for the Kortekeer River." England fumbled for his ammo belt.
France wheezed, "There are Germans in that direction."
"There are Germans in every bloody direction, or did you have a point?"
"It's very amusing, mon cher, I agree, but no; I meant that there are more Germans massing at the river."
England glanced at him, his fist knotted in the chin strap of his helmet. "More? Since when?"
"More than elsewhere," France clarified.
"Yes, I know." England jerked the strap tight. It scraped up a wedge of grime under his chin and revealed a swath of stubbled pale. "A counterattack towards the river will confuse the German line."
"I begin to suspect you do not understand the philosophical principle underlying the retreat." France swayed over his feet, then lurched after England.
"Indeed."
"Yes. This may come as some surprise to you; the idea is to not fight, and by such a means, avoid dying."
"Thank you, France. Will that be all?"
France clapped his hands over his ears as the Luftwaffe roared overhead. When they had passed, and he could hear himself think again, he answered, "Oh? You don't want my help with your idiotic assault?"
England was outpacing him into the trees. "The Expeditionary Force will require your aid at the bridge where they must cross the canal."
"Ah." France stopped. "Is that where the German bombers are going?"
"I suspect so!" England called over his shoulder.
"To bomb the traffic jam!"
"Quite right!"
France made a wild rude gesture at England's back, and staggered off towards the Yser Canal.
---
May 28
It was for fairly sophisticated reasons that France saved England's life the following eleven o'clock at night.
They heard the drum of the German Destroyers sweeping in overhead at the same time. England jerked to his feet from the campsite; France heaved off his bedroll and rolled into the underbrush in a rain of sand.
And then England fucking stood there in the firelight, looking around, while the Germans dropped flares all around him. "France, where are you--?"
"Hidden already, you impossible bastard, get down!" he screamed, and then the Luftwaffe opened fire. Ribbons of machine gun rounds kicked up plumes in the sand.
France watched as England swiveled, fixed on him, too slow; zip, zip, zip, zip went the bullets, and those meter-high plumes swerved in and skated towards England. England dug his heels into the sand, raced towards the brush, too slow; hale, whole, while France had started to bleed again inside his clothes, too slow.
France launched out of cover and slammed into England three meters from safety, knocked them both to the ground in a teeth-slamming impact, and covered England's body with his own in time to feel a bullet snap into his shoulder blade.
"Fuck!" His throat tore around it, and it was still almost lost under the engine roar and the bone-rattling percussion of the mounted guns. "This is your fault, you useless, translucent, inbred, island-dwelling savage--!"
"I can't hear a word you're bloody saying!" England shouted.
"What the fuck does it matter what I'm saying! I've been shot!"
The roar went on, and on, and then the sound faded over a slow count of twenty seconds as the last of the German planes tore up the sky. When the only sounds left were the crackling of the spreading fires and the moans of the injured men, England muttered, "They'll come around for another pass. Come on, into cover, crawl."
France slumped off of him; thumped into a pale, bloody, disheveled mess at his side, and started to laugh. "Oh, yes, I'll crawl--" he made his shaking way up onto his right knee, wobbled, banged his left hand down into the sand to steady himself, cried out as the shock travelled all the way to his shoulder blade and the bullet lodged against it-- "Who needs a left arm to crawl, oui? I'll crawl, I'll run, Angleterre, only lend me your pistol, because you see, there are no bullets left for mine, and I won't be much good with a rifle now, I think--"
England grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him towards the brush. "Fucking hell, but you're heavier than you look."
He threw them down together amid the twigs and the briars and the nightcrawlers, and they listened for the first low drone of the second pass. France whispered a curse now and then.
Nevermind the dead men; France had more than enough of those. Their tanks were all on fire.
He revised his estimation of hell.
---
May 29
"Grave news," England began.
France looked up at him with sullen eyes from where he was hunched around his sling and his watery can of beans.
England squinted at the fire. "Belgium has surrendered."
Tick, tick, scrape. France dropped his spoon into the can and clamped the can between his knees.
"She had five hundred thousand battle-ready soldiers," he observed after a while.
"Well." England clapped his hands in a let's get down to business sort of way. It would have been louder, were it not for the oppressive dark grey overcast that had clung around them for weeks. "We shall just have to do without them. Though I will say I am rather disappointed."
"Where is her fighting spirit," France mustered.
"Yes, exactly. --I'm afraid I will have to ask you back to the front lines, however, due to this development…" England paused and waited. He did not meet France's eyes.
It was an offer; an opportunity to refuse. But England was right. Their whole flank was now exposed, and someone must step forward to fill the gap. France could still walk, barely; he could hold forward a pistol and fire it, barely.
"Yes, of course, Angleterre," he said, and lobbed what was left of his breakfast into the fire. "You may rely on me."
"The line must hold," England explained.
It was just possible that might have been an apology.
"One must do one's part," France agreed.
"Yes…" England straightened his jacket; took a step away; turned half-towards France as if to say something; then shut his mouth, stared at the ground, and simply repeated: "Yes."
---
May 30
France bled; the line held.
---
May 31
France nearly caught a bayonet across the teeth. He staggered back, fell to the ground, tore open half his wounds, and left a gout of black blood on the cloying earth.
His own troops rallied around him, bloodied and grim; their British reinforcements turned and ran.
France floated down from a fit of rage to hear himself screaming, "Cowards! Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!"
"Commandant!"
"Ugly, inbred cowards! Sneaking, small-dicked--"
"Commandant! The Germans have fallen back for the moment, but they are massing for another push, and once they break through--"
"--Shit-eating sons of bitches! Too good to die with the French, are you!"
"--They will have Nieuport!"
There was a wall of gunfire from behind them. France whirled and skidded, his pistol flung out in wild-eyed readiness.
It was the British 2nd Grenadiers; it was England, coming to reinforce them. He had opened fire on his own men.
They stumbled and stopped.
England's eyes, his voice, his hands had turned to lead. He inclined his head towards the uneven front line, staffed by the exhausted, astonished French.
He said, "Return to your posts."
Nothing happened for long seconds, and then some enlisted officer, a sergeant, tried to bolt. England snapped his rifle to his shoulder, sighted it, and fired. The soldier collapsed to the ground like a dropped sack of vegetables.
Again, calm and measured: "Return to your posts."
France dragged himself back to his feet as the line stiffened and reformed around him. England fell into line beside him.
And then, staring straight forward, jaw set, England said in a deliberate fashion, "We are not too good to die with the French."
France said nothing. He traced his fingertips, unseen, against the edge of England's sleeve.
---
June 1
"The Channel," England breathed.
It was the first beautiful day in weeks. Blue skies, bright waters; and for once, the whine of engines overhead came from the Royal Air Force. If France had been struck by religious feeling--and perhaps he had been--he might have called it Providence.
The little ships which filled the coast with swaying white sails and towers of steam did certainly look like angels.
"This is not your Navy," France stammered.
England jogged down towards the beach, the sun shining across that salt-stiff shock of hair. "Today, this is my Navy!"
It must have been every boat in Britain: traders, river steamers, passenger ferries, private yachts…
"Get your fucking men ready, France! We've enough of a lead on those Jerry bastards to tweak Hitler's nose, I think!"
"Right," France said, mostly to himself. He leaned on his crutch. "Men, form up! We'll march five miles south of Dunkirk, then--"
"France--" England was abruptly beside him, his mouth twisted up like he'd bit into a lime. "You're meant to get your men on the sodding boats."
France wavered under England's hand and gave him a wan smile. "We may have a lead on the Germans," he said, "But someone still must cover your escape."
England looked over France's shoulder, back up towards the rocky hills. "Then for God's sakes, let me cover yours. Your men are finished."
"Yes they are." France stiffened his back, spoke clearer. Seagulls crowed behind his words. "That's why it must be me, and not you."
"Oh, this is a fine time to be making heroic gestures--"
"I am not being heroic. Angleterre." He held England's eyes. "You must get your army out of here. You must not be captured. You must go back to your island, and when Germany comes for you--"
"This is getting downright fucking sentimental, isn't it--" England spat in the sand.
"Remind him," France raised his voice over him, "That your island breeds bitter weeds."
England chuffed. "There shall certainly be plenty of those, when the Expeditionary Force returns intact."
They looked out towards the water; British soldiers waded in already, waist deep, and the smaller of England's vessels slipped like minnows back and forth from the coastline to the larger transport ships, ferrying the men to safety.
France gripped England's sleeve. "My men are finished," he reminded him. "Yours are not. We will give what we have left to cover your retreat, and you will escape, with your army, intact, as you said--and you will reequip them, and defend yourself from whatever Germany has in store for you, for years, if necessary; alone, if necessary--"
"Now see here--"
"And once you have thrown him back," France interrupted. His knuckles stood out white around the grip of his crutch. "As I believe you will, Angleterre, because you are the most stubborn, evil-tempered, malicious son of a bitch I have ever set eyes on--then you will return to this continent and you will liberate--"
"Liberate!" England glowed red under the blood and grime of battle. "You sound like you're ready to throw down your arms!"
France wanted to laugh. He flexed his hand around his crutch. "Never, mon cher, but it is best to be prepared, don't you think so? At any rate, it is your men who will fight another day, and mine who are done, so if you would please get on your fucking boats before I force this stick down your throat--"
England glared and fell back a step. "We will evacuate first, but we will take you with us," he insisted. "Hold the line, then. But I and my ships will wait for you."
"Naturally," said France. "Now go."
---
June 2
"Fall back," France rasped, and God, the Germans, the fucking Germans--all across the line, pounding against the embattled French, hour after hour after hour after hour--
"Commandant!"
"I know, there's little enough 'back' to fall to--" Dunkirk slouched less than two miles away, sordid and battered by the constant strafing of the Luftwaffe.
"No, sir--pardon--it's the British fleet; they are away."
France lowered his pistol to his side and turned around. Yes: there, in the distant water as the clouds converged, concealing everything in overcast again. Thousands of dwindling sails.
England was away.
The laugh that had been lodged in France's throat for weeks finally bubbled out of him. "Tell me," he looked over his aide, "Do you have any cigarettes?"
The young man patted his pockets. "I think I have a few, sir--let me find them--"
France raked back his hair and dropped down on a bit of rock, his legs stretched out in front of him. He took one of his own cigarettes out of his front breast pocket. "I suggest you smoke them now. I think we will very soon all be prisoners of war."
---
June 3
France was not surprised to be kicked awake, but the language was unexpected.
"Are you sodding napping?"
France lurched upright in a daze, swatted away the incoming boot. "…England…?"
"Who the fuck else do you think would come to meet you on this miserable blighted beach, Titania the fucking fairy princess? On your feet!"
It was astonishment, not strength, which propelled France to attention. His whole body pounded; he had sand in his wounds. "You left."
England gave him a smug bastard grin. "Yes, and now I'm back. I got in touch with Churchill by radio got him to order us about. I came back to collect your men. As I said I would."
France's gut tightened. "Germany will be here in hours. He is here himself. I saw him yesterday behind the lines. You were lucky to have escaped the first time--"
"Yes, yes," England swiped his hand through the air to cut him off. "Well, I'm here now; will you kindly then get your men aboard the ships?"
France tipped forward; lurched a step. England caught him with an arm around his waist. France's head dropped to England's shoulder, and he took a shaking breath. He was grateful that his eyes were hidden.
"Yes," he whispered. "I will get my men aboard the ships."
---
June 4
"I am surprised you didn't go with him," Germany said.
France trembled with the effort it took to stand. He answered, "And what good would that have done? --At any rate, I share the fate of my people."
Germany nodded. Behind them, his men hoisted the crooked cross above the shattered docks at Dunkirk.
"You still have a few armies left," Germany observed. "But the fight will be over soon."
"The fight will not ever be over." France ignored the German soldiers skittering across his beach: his beach, his town, his countryside.
Germany said with his usual reserve, "You are incorrect."
France grimaced a smile at him. "Not the fight with me. Good God, how much blood do you think I have left in me?"
Germany's eyes crawled over him as if he were measuring it. France shuddered.
"Others will keep up the fight, however," he concluded.
Germany tapped the inside of his opposite wrist. "I plan to negotiate peace with England."
"England is not interested in peace." France quivered over his crutch, forced strength into his knees. "I mean that as a general trait in life."
"We will see," Germany replied.
France limped a few feet down towards the waterline, until the surf washed across the toes of his boots. Germany made no move to stop him. France himself would not be taken prisoner yet; that would happen in due course.
He thought of England leaving him behind a second time; if possible, even more reluctantly than the first. He had stood ankle-deep in the ocean and clasped France's hand.
"I will not be content with a defensive war," England had promised him. "I have a duty as your ally."
"England, I understand--" France had tried to interject.
England had grabbed his hand harder, his wrist, until his bones had pressed together. "I will come back. I swear it. This is a--a temporary retreat only; once I have resupplied my men, seen to the defense of my island--I will return; I will not allow you to carry on this fight alone, I will--"
"Angleterre, I understand, I believe you," France had begged. "Now, please, for the love of God, go--"
France wore bruises on his fingers and wrist where England had clutched him tight. He raised his face into an oncoming sea wind, and smiled as it stirred his hair around his shoulders.
He wondered when--or if--he would see England again.
He wondered if England would forgive him when he did.
+++
--The Battle of Dunkirk, also known as the Nine Day Miracle. Of the 400,000 troops who arrived at Dunkirk, more than 330,000 were successfully evacuated. The remainder, almost entirely French soldiers, had no choice but to surrender to Germany.
--Much of France and England's dialogue over the last few days is lifted, directly or in spirit, from Winston Churchill's famous speech "We Shall Fight On The Beaches," which is also about the Dunkirk evacuation. "There are bitter weeds in England" appears in Churchill's speech, but is actually a quote from Napoleon.
+++
Originally posted: Here.
Length: 4,400 words.
Characters/Pairings: France/England; Germany at the end.
Premise: The German blitzkrieg has devastated France. Knowing that his surrender is, at best, only weeks away, France joins England on a harrowing nine day mission to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from French territory before they all become German prisoners of war.
Time period: 1940.
Smuttiness: 0/10
Funnyness: 3/10
Wrist slashiness: 6/10
Warm-and-fuzziness: 3/10
Lolhistoryness: 9/10
Violence: 6/10, all war violence.
Would I like it?: Gosh, I hope so. This one means a lot to me. I'm too close to it to say whether or not it's any good, but it's ludicrously over-researched (note to self: we do not care about the weather in 1940), and England gets called very rude names, and France gets shot--so, if that's the kind of thing that gets you going?
---
May 25
His coat was too heavy. That was all France thought before he hit the ground.
His men parted and reformed around him the way water breaks around a stone. France breathed dust. It stung his eyes, his nose, his throat; he couldn't swallow. It was even in his lungs. The constant thunder of 400,000 pairs of boots and God knew how many vehicles on back country roads had churned his golden earth into a low-hanging fog.
He worked the spit in his mouth. Swallowed. Spat. Swallowed again. It was no use. It had been days since he had been able to get rid of the taste of grit and blood.
He felt a sharp hand close around his elbow, and France was yanked to his feet.
"Get up, you lazy tosser," England muttered.
"The word is 'indolent.'" France blinked green spots out of the corners of his eyes. "Not lazy."
"You're a lazy, useless milksop. Keep up the pace." England threw him forward a few meters, and France barely kept his feet.
He could feel that purse-lipped glower against the back of his neck, and that propelled him forward for another kilometer…and another…and another. Then his heels began to stick in the road again, and his feet skidded against the dirt, and--
England appeared at his side, his arm buried in his pack. "France--France. Look here."
"What is it."
"Look at this."
England held a map flattened between his hands. The German planes had been dropping them over the British and French army for days. They showed the French and British troop positions--accurately--and the German positions--and France had no reason to hope that these were not accurate as well. Over the map itself, in French and English, Germany had written "Men of France and Great Britain! These maps show your true situation! Lay down your arms and surrender!"
"Ah," France said. "Our toilet paper."
"Yes, quite; look--Germany thinks he has us surrounded." England folded a crease out of the corner.
France eyed the map dully for a while. "Well, his armies are on every side of our army. I confess that was the conclusion I had reached as well."
England sighed and rattled the map in his face. France gazed at it. After a few seconds, he hiked his pack higher on his shoulder. He could feel blood crawling down the inside of his clothes. "If Belgium capitulates, we will be surrounded even on sides we don't have," he observed, and scratched the bridge of his nose. "Something of a tactical accomplishment, really."
"Are you bloody blind, look--" England stabbed his finger at a point near the coast.
France looked up from the map at him. "Dunkirk," he provided.
"On the ocean." England drew a line connecting the little port town to the front column of their own army. "We're nearly there. Six days' march, at most."
"Yes," France acknowledged. "Well done."
England refolded the map with an air of fierce satisfaction.
"Is that where you're taking us?" France inquired after a pause.
England smacked him in the face with the folded-up map. "Why the fuck did you think we were marching north?"
"Something to do?" France suggested.
"Germany is landlocked. He sees the ocean as a barrier."
"There are four hundred thousand of us, mon cher, but still not quite enough bodies to fill a bridge across the Channel for you and I to cross." France's rifle slipped from his shoulder; it was a few seconds before he dragged together the strength to yank it back into place.
"True," England clapped him on the back, and France staggered. A wound loosened in his side. "But boats go over the water."
"I envy them," France mumbled. He clenched his stomach and made himself straighten above his feet. "But your whole navy would not be sufficient to evacuate us before Germany closed the trap."
"Then anyone who doesn't fit on the boats I'll tether to the bloody sternposts," England snapped. "Surely you're not thinking of giving up already."
Already. France reached into his coat and lay his fingertips inside his bleeding wounds; he gave a hollow laugh. "Never, mon cher; how could you think it?"
"Too right. So stay on your fucking feet, or else by God I'll kick you all the way to Dunkirk." England jammed the map into his pocket and moved away from France's side.
France looked after him.
He could not stay on his feet for six more days, of course. That was impossible.
But just as impossible: to endure England's attempts to mock his spine back into him while he bled to death on a cattle road.
France spat, and still tasted dust and blood.
They marched.
---
May 26
Cold damp leeched up from the forest mulch and clung to France's back. His bedroll was soggy with the nightly mist that permeated the woods near Ypres. All around them, the camp was quiet.
"Can you sleep, Angleterre," France murmured.
A little silence from the other side of the extinguished bivouac fire, and then: "No."
France gazed upwards. The overhead branches cut dark ribbons through the mist-hung sky. "They will attack in the morning, I think."
"Yes, of course." He heard England turn over.
"Do you think Germany will be with them?"
England sniffed. "I shouldn't think so."
"No, I suppose not," France reflected. He rubbed a hand into his hair. "He thinks that your escape from the continent is impossible. So why should he attend to us personally?"
"You don't sound angry."
"Well, I confess, I have seen enough of Germany for quite some time; his failure to personally attend our defeat does not disquiet me."
"I meant about my escape."
France blinked, slow, and eased onto his side. England watched him from across the fire pit with clear eyes and a thin mouth. He was propped up, his temple braced against the heel of his hand. France's eyes crept over him.
"And why should I be angry," he murmured.
"I sent these men to help you, and now I'm taking them home." It was cool, without apology.
France stretched his leg. "Well, true; your retreat is fucking worthless to me. But it's better than seeing your entire armed forces captured, stripped bare, and marched to Germany to wait out the end of the war. If your soldiers escape--well, they might still fight Germans later."
"They surely will," England said, grim.
"So you see. I am not angry."
England propped his chin in his hand and stared at the ground.
France smiled. "You are wondering if I feel abandoned."
England snapped his arm down and glared at him. "I don't give a fuck about your feelings. This is a war; there are more important things at stake."
"Yes, of course--please forgive my conceit."
"Nor would I give a fuck about your feelings at any other time, I might add." England jerked at the cuff of his sleeve.
"Do you imagine that you're leaving me to die?" France inquired.
England's lip curled, and he folded his arms tight in against the dirt. "Don't be dramatic."
France raised his eyebrows.
"Germany has no reason to kill you." England dropped his head forward and muttered, "You're worth far more to him sucking him off for the rest of the war."
A moment passed before he cleared his throat. "That is--metaphorically. Providing him with war materiel."
"Yes, thank you," France said, "For allowing for my virtue."
"Piss off."
"Then, you feel you are merely leaving me to defeat." France settled onto his back and laced his fingers over his stomach.
"Certainly not. One is only defeated if one surrenders." That was said with great asperity.
"Ah," France sighed, and thought about the wounds inside his clothes. They wouldn't close. Some of them--and this was new, this worried him--were starting to smell.
The German invasion had infected him.
"You are right, of course," he finished.
"This is merely a--" England paused; for effect, France was sure. "A tactical withdrawal. So as to continue the fight from a position of greater strength."
Yes, France thought. From your country.
"So there's no bloody reason for you to feel abandoned," England groused, and dropped back down to his bedroll. "We're still allies, you whiny ponce."
"God grant me time to count my blessings," France murmured.
England saw fit to ignore that, and they both pretended to sleep.
---
May 27
Smoke and pressure and screaming and gunfire amid the trees--
France found England flat on his back beneath a rain of dirt.
"If you're too hurt to stand, I swear I will kill you myself," he muttered against England's ear. He worked his arms under England's shoulders and dragged him half-upright.
England's lips were black and seamed with grime; and they twitched twice before he managed, "Flak. Stunned." Then, "I'm fine."
France shoved England out of his lap, and the other nation thumped onto the ground, eyes swimming. "We've lost," France informed him. "Germany has surrounded Ypres. We must retreat."
England levered himself out of the dirt and onto one hand. He wiped his filthy face, wrenched off his helmet, rucked up his sweat-matted hair into a dark spray. "Counterattack," he rasped.
France ignored him. He dug his nails into a tree trunk and dragged himself to his feet. He checked his rifle.
England held up a hand. France stared at it for a second before he grabbed it and hauled England off the ground. His side gapped. Black swept behind his eyes, and he bit back a faint.
"We make for the Kortekeer River." England fumbled for his ammo belt.
France wheezed, "There are Germans in that direction."
"There are Germans in every bloody direction, or did you have a point?"
"It's very amusing, mon cher, I agree, but no; I meant that there are more Germans massing at the river."
England glanced at him, his fist knotted in the chin strap of his helmet. "More? Since when?"
"More than elsewhere," France clarified.
"Yes, I know." England jerked the strap tight. It scraped up a wedge of grime under his chin and revealed a swath of stubbled pale. "A counterattack towards the river will confuse the German line."
"I begin to suspect you do not understand the philosophical principle underlying the retreat." France swayed over his feet, then lurched after England.
"Indeed."
"Yes. This may come as some surprise to you; the idea is to not fight, and by such a means, avoid dying."
"Thank you, France. Will that be all?"
France clapped his hands over his ears as the Luftwaffe roared overhead. When they had passed, and he could hear himself think again, he answered, "Oh? You don't want my help with your idiotic assault?"
England was outpacing him into the trees. "The Expeditionary Force will require your aid at the bridge where they must cross the canal."
"Ah." France stopped. "Is that where the German bombers are going?"
"I suspect so!" England called over his shoulder.
"To bomb the traffic jam!"
"Quite right!"
France made a wild rude gesture at England's back, and staggered off towards the Yser Canal.
---
May 28
It was for fairly sophisticated reasons that France saved England's life the following eleven o'clock at night.
They heard the drum of the German Destroyers sweeping in overhead at the same time. England jerked to his feet from the campsite; France heaved off his bedroll and rolled into the underbrush in a rain of sand.
And then England fucking stood there in the firelight, looking around, while the Germans dropped flares all around him. "France, where are you--?"
"Hidden already, you impossible bastard, get down!" he screamed, and then the Luftwaffe opened fire. Ribbons of machine gun rounds kicked up plumes in the sand.
France watched as England swiveled, fixed on him, too slow; zip, zip, zip, zip went the bullets, and those meter-high plumes swerved in and skated towards England. England dug his heels into the sand, raced towards the brush, too slow; hale, whole, while France had started to bleed again inside his clothes, too slow.
France launched out of cover and slammed into England three meters from safety, knocked them both to the ground in a teeth-slamming impact, and covered England's body with his own in time to feel a bullet snap into his shoulder blade.
"Fuck!" His throat tore around it, and it was still almost lost under the engine roar and the bone-rattling percussion of the mounted guns. "This is your fault, you useless, translucent, inbred, island-dwelling savage--!"
"I can't hear a word you're bloody saying!" England shouted.
"What the fuck does it matter what I'm saying! I've been shot!"
The roar went on, and on, and then the sound faded over a slow count of twenty seconds as the last of the German planes tore up the sky. When the only sounds left were the crackling of the spreading fires and the moans of the injured men, England muttered, "They'll come around for another pass. Come on, into cover, crawl."
France slumped off of him; thumped into a pale, bloody, disheveled mess at his side, and started to laugh. "Oh, yes, I'll crawl--" he made his shaking way up onto his right knee, wobbled, banged his left hand down into the sand to steady himself, cried out as the shock travelled all the way to his shoulder blade and the bullet lodged against it-- "Who needs a left arm to crawl, oui? I'll crawl, I'll run, Angleterre, only lend me your pistol, because you see, there are no bullets left for mine, and I won't be much good with a rifle now, I think--"
England grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him towards the brush. "Fucking hell, but you're heavier than you look."
He threw them down together amid the twigs and the briars and the nightcrawlers, and they listened for the first low drone of the second pass. France whispered a curse now and then.
Nevermind the dead men; France had more than enough of those. Their tanks were all on fire.
He revised his estimation of hell.
---
May 29
"Grave news," England began.
France looked up at him with sullen eyes from where he was hunched around his sling and his watery can of beans.
England squinted at the fire. "Belgium has surrendered."
Tick, tick, scrape. France dropped his spoon into the can and clamped the can between his knees.
"She had five hundred thousand battle-ready soldiers," he observed after a while.
"Well." England clapped his hands in a let's get down to business sort of way. It would have been louder, were it not for the oppressive dark grey overcast that had clung around them for weeks. "We shall just have to do without them. Though I will say I am rather disappointed."
"Where is her fighting spirit," France mustered.
"Yes, exactly. --I'm afraid I will have to ask you back to the front lines, however, due to this development…" England paused and waited. He did not meet France's eyes.
It was an offer; an opportunity to refuse. But England was right. Their whole flank was now exposed, and someone must step forward to fill the gap. France could still walk, barely; he could hold forward a pistol and fire it, barely.
"Yes, of course, Angleterre," he said, and lobbed what was left of his breakfast into the fire. "You may rely on me."
"The line must hold," England explained.
It was just possible that might have been an apology.
"One must do one's part," France agreed.
"Yes…" England straightened his jacket; took a step away; turned half-towards France as if to say something; then shut his mouth, stared at the ground, and simply repeated: "Yes."
---
May 30
France bled; the line held.
---
May 31
France nearly caught a bayonet across the teeth. He staggered back, fell to the ground, tore open half his wounds, and left a gout of black blood on the cloying earth.
His own troops rallied around him, bloodied and grim; their British reinforcements turned and ran.
France floated down from a fit of rage to hear himself screaming, "Cowards! Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!"
"Commandant!"
"Ugly, inbred cowards! Sneaking, small-dicked--"
"Commandant! The Germans have fallen back for the moment, but they are massing for another push, and once they break through--"
"--Shit-eating sons of bitches! Too good to die with the French, are you!"
"--They will have Nieuport!"
There was a wall of gunfire from behind them. France whirled and skidded, his pistol flung out in wild-eyed readiness.
It was the British 2nd Grenadiers; it was England, coming to reinforce them. He had opened fire on his own men.
They stumbled and stopped.
England's eyes, his voice, his hands had turned to lead. He inclined his head towards the uneven front line, staffed by the exhausted, astonished French.
He said, "Return to your posts."
Nothing happened for long seconds, and then some enlisted officer, a sergeant, tried to bolt. England snapped his rifle to his shoulder, sighted it, and fired. The soldier collapsed to the ground like a dropped sack of vegetables.
Again, calm and measured: "Return to your posts."
France dragged himself back to his feet as the line stiffened and reformed around him. England fell into line beside him.
And then, staring straight forward, jaw set, England said in a deliberate fashion, "We are not too good to die with the French."
France said nothing. He traced his fingertips, unseen, against the edge of England's sleeve.
---
June 1
"The Channel," England breathed.
It was the first beautiful day in weeks. Blue skies, bright waters; and for once, the whine of engines overhead came from the Royal Air Force. If France had been struck by religious feeling--and perhaps he had been--he might have called it Providence.
The little ships which filled the coast with swaying white sails and towers of steam did certainly look like angels.
"This is not your Navy," France stammered.
England jogged down towards the beach, the sun shining across that salt-stiff shock of hair. "Today, this is my Navy!"
It must have been every boat in Britain: traders, river steamers, passenger ferries, private yachts…
"Get your fucking men ready, France! We've enough of a lead on those Jerry bastards to tweak Hitler's nose, I think!"
"Right," France said, mostly to himself. He leaned on his crutch. "Men, form up! We'll march five miles south of Dunkirk, then--"
"France--" England was abruptly beside him, his mouth twisted up like he'd bit into a lime. "You're meant to get your men on the sodding boats."
France wavered under England's hand and gave him a wan smile. "We may have a lead on the Germans," he said, "But someone still must cover your escape."
England looked over France's shoulder, back up towards the rocky hills. "Then for God's sakes, let me cover yours. Your men are finished."
"Yes they are." France stiffened his back, spoke clearer. Seagulls crowed behind his words. "That's why it must be me, and not you."
"Oh, this is a fine time to be making heroic gestures--"
"I am not being heroic. Angleterre." He held England's eyes. "You must get your army out of here. You must not be captured. You must go back to your island, and when Germany comes for you--"
"This is getting downright fucking sentimental, isn't it--" England spat in the sand.
"Remind him," France raised his voice over him, "That your island breeds bitter weeds."
England chuffed. "There shall certainly be plenty of those, when the Expeditionary Force returns intact."
They looked out towards the water; British soldiers waded in already, waist deep, and the smaller of England's vessels slipped like minnows back and forth from the coastline to the larger transport ships, ferrying the men to safety.
France gripped England's sleeve. "My men are finished," he reminded him. "Yours are not. We will give what we have left to cover your retreat, and you will escape, with your army, intact, as you said--and you will reequip them, and defend yourself from whatever Germany has in store for you, for years, if necessary; alone, if necessary--"
"Now see here--"
"And once you have thrown him back," France interrupted. His knuckles stood out white around the grip of his crutch. "As I believe you will, Angleterre, because you are the most stubborn, evil-tempered, malicious son of a bitch I have ever set eyes on--then you will return to this continent and you will liberate--"
"Liberate!" England glowed red under the blood and grime of battle. "You sound like you're ready to throw down your arms!"
France wanted to laugh. He flexed his hand around his crutch. "Never, mon cher, but it is best to be prepared, don't you think so? At any rate, it is your men who will fight another day, and mine who are done, so if you would please get on your fucking boats before I force this stick down your throat--"
England glared and fell back a step. "We will evacuate first, but we will take you with us," he insisted. "Hold the line, then. But I and my ships will wait for you."
"Naturally," said France. "Now go."
---
June 2
"Fall back," France rasped, and God, the Germans, the fucking Germans--all across the line, pounding against the embattled French, hour after hour after hour after hour--
"Commandant!"
"I know, there's little enough 'back' to fall to--" Dunkirk slouched less than two miles away, sordid and battered by the constant strafing of the Luftwaffe.
"No, sir--pardon--it's the British fleet; they are away."
France lowered his pistol to his side and turned around. Yes: there, in the distant water as the clouds converged, concealing everything in overcast again. Thousands of dwindling sails.
England was away.
The laugh that had been lodged in France's throat for weeks finally bubbled out of him. "Tell me," he looked over his aide, "Do you have any cigarettes?"
The young man patted his pockets. "I think I have a few, sir--let me find them--"
France raked back his hair and dropped down on a bit of rock, his legs stretched out in front of him. He took one of his own cigarettes out of his front breast pocket. "I suggest you smoke them now. I think we will very soon all be prisoners of war."
---
June 3
France was not surprised to be kicked awake, but the language was unexpected.
"Are you sodding napping?"
France lurched upright in a daze, swatted away the incoming boot. "…England…?"
"Who the fuck else do you think would come to meet you on this miserable blighted beach, Titania the fucking fairy princess? On your feet!"
It was astonishment, not strength, which propelled France to attention. His whole body pounded; he had sand in his wounds. "You left."
England gave him a smug bastard grin. "Yes, and now I'm back. I got in touch with Churchill by radio got him to order us about. I came back to collect your men. As I said I would."
France's gut tightened. "Germany will be here in hours. He is here himself. I saw him yesterday behind the lines. You were lucky to have escaped the first time--"
"Yes, yes," England swiped his hand through the air to cut him off. "Well, I'm here now; will you kindly then get your men aboard the ships?"
France tipped forward; lurched a step. England caught him with an arm around his waist. France's head dropped to England's shoulder, and he took a shaking breath. He was grateful that his eyes were hidden.
"Yes," he whispered. "I will get my men aboard the ships."
---
June 4
"I am surprised you didn't go with him," Germany said.
France trembled with the effort it took to stand. He answered, "And what good would that have done? --At any rate, I share the fate of my people."
Germany nodded. Behind them, his men hoisted the crooked cross above the shattered docks at Dunkirk.
"You still have a few armies left," Germany observed. "But the fight will be over soon."
"The fight will not ever be over." France ignored the German soldiers skittering across his beach: his beach, his town, his countryside.
Germany said with his usual reserve, "You are incorrect."
France grimaced a smile at him. "Not the fight with me. Good God, how much blood do you think I have left in me?"
Germany's eyes crawled over him as if he were measuring it. France shuddered.
"Others will keep up the fight, however," he concluded.
Germany tapped the inside of his opposite wrist. "I plan to negotiate peace with England."
"England is not interested in peace." France quivered over his crutch, forced strength into his knees. "I mean that as a general trait in life."
"We will see," Germany replied.
France limped a few feet down towards the waterline, until the surf washed across the toes of his boots. Germany made no move to stop him. France himself would not be taken prisoner yet; that would happen in due course.
He thought of England leaving him behind a second time; if possible, even more reluctantly than the first. He had stood ankle-deep in the ocean and clasped France's hand.
"I will not be content with a defensive war," England had promised him. "I have a duty as your ally."
"England, I understand--" France had tried to interject.
England had grabbed his hand harder, his wrist, until his bones had pressed together. "I will come back. I swear it. This is a--a temporary retreat only; once I have resupplied my men, seen to the defense of my island--I will return; I will not allow you to carry on this fight alone, I will--"
"Angleterre, I understand, I believe you," France had begged. "Now, please, for the love of God, go--"
France wore bruises on his fingers and wrist where England had clutched him tight. He raised his face into an oncoming sea wind, and smiled as it stirred his hair around his shoulders.
He wondered when--or if--he would see England again.
He wondered if England would forgive him when he did.
+++
--The Battle of Dunkirk, also known as the Nine Day Miracle. Of the 400,000 troops who arrived at Dunkirk, more than 330,000 were successfully evacuated. The remainder, almost entirely French soldiers, had no choice but to surrender to Germany.
--Much of France and England's dialogue over the last few days is lifted, directly or in spirit, from Winston Churchill's famous speech "We Shall Fight On The Beaches," which is also about the Dunkirk evacuation. "There are bitter weeds in England" appears in Churchill's speech, but is actually a quote from Napoleon.
+++