June 2, 1940 – Lady Luck, off the coast of Dunkirk

"Keep to the left of the pilings, Jack."

"Right. Do you have the blankets ready?" Jack asked, carefully navigating the submerged obstacles.

Newkirk nodded, his eyes glued on the lines of waiting men. "Okay, boys," Newkirk yelled, "we can take sixty off. But we don't have room for guns or packs." The men were standing shoulder-high in the water, waiting patiently for their turn to get in a boat.

The men closest to the boat passed Newkirk's announcement on to those who were too far away to hear for themselves. Jack and Newkirk reached out helping hands to aide the soldiers in boarding the small boat.

"Well, boys, let's get moving!"

Not for the first time, Newkirk was thankful for Jack. Jack's father had been a navy captain during the last war and all of his children had grown up as at home on the water as on solid ground. Jack had dated Newkirk's sister back when the they were all still teenagers. Newkirk and Jack had struck up a friendship that had lasted far longer than the relationship between Jack and Mavis. Newkirk had shared his magic tricks with Jack; Jack had shared his love of sailing with Newkirk.

The soldiers kept coming toward the boat in a neat queue. The ones already aboard reached out their hands to help their fellows scale the slick sides of the boat and clamber aboard. They continued to load men onto the small boat until it was floating low in the water and was in danger of capsizing.

"Sorry," Newkirk called out to the waiting column of men, "but we can't take any more."

Once again, the men close to the boat passed the word on back to those still standing closer to the shore. The soldiers still remaining helped to push the boat away from shore. Perhaps the next boat would be the one that finally came to take them back to England.

Newkirk began distributing the few blankets they had and carefully rationing the single jar of rum they had remaining aboard. Jack started the motor and the boat began to pull slowly away from the columns of waiting men. Above them, in the sky, RAF planes flew over the Channel from England, helping protect the soldiers from the might of the Luftwaffe.

"Hey, Peter, come here," Jack said, motioning for his friend to join him at the wheel. "Do you think we can go for another load, or do we have to stop?" he asked once Newkirk had come to stand beside him.

"There are still so many there," Newkirk commented. He paused for a moment, stopping to watch as a plane crashed into the hills beyond the horizon. The pilot had bailed successfully; he floated down on his white parachute. "We have to keep going," he said firmly.

Jack nodded and started to carefully set a course toward the nearest large ship. The water was too shallow for the larger ships to come close enough to the beaches; the smaller boats had been acting as ferries. They could get more men off that way.

As the two looked around at the crowded deck, the two felt guilty for not squeezing one more soldier aboard. Even though the pair had been sailing back and forth for days, there were still so many soldiers to be taken off and so little time to do it. There could be an attack at any time and the entire operation would have to come to an end.

A man approached the pair. They could tell from his bedraggled battledress that he was an officer. He crisply saluted them. "I'd like to thank you both for taking my men off. If there's anything that I can do to assist you chaps, don't hesitate to ask."

Before they had a chance to answer, two German planes buzzed low overhead, bullets striking the water just behind the boat. "Where'd we put the guns?" Jack asked determinedly.

"Want to bag a Jerry, do you, Jack?" Newkirk quipped. "You know that it doesn't count unless you're both in an airplane."

"So funny," Jack retorted, rolling his eyes. "Or do I have to pull rank on you?"

"What are you going to do? Make me swab the deck and run up the Jolly Roger?"

Jack turned apologetically to the puzzled officer. "Meet Peter Newkirk of the Royal Air Force."

"Oh, he's RAF," the officer said, nodding seriously with sudden understanding.

"You're RAF too!" Peter protested, soundly smacking the back of his friend's head.

"You two chaps aren't AWL, are you?" the officer asked as the German planes began another run in toward them.

Jack turned sharply aside, trying to get out of their line of fire. The maneouver worked and the bullets fell harmlessly in the water alongside the boat.

"We are officially on leave in London for the next twelve hours," Jack responded calmly.

The officer looked relieved. "Jolly good."

The pair of fighters turned to again cross paths with the small boat. But this time they anticipated Jack's sudden turn away from them. "Hit the deck!"

But there were too many people aboard and the men lay in tangled masses wherever there was room for them. As the bullets found their marks, moans and screams came from the wounded and the dying.

Whether their lust for blood had been satisfied, or they had simply run out of ammunition, the fighters didn't return again. Puddles of blood pooled to stain the decks as the untouched lay together with the dead.

"Ryan, please wake up. Please, Ryan, we're almost home again. It's only a little further," a plaintive pleading rose above the moans and screams. A young private was trying desperately to wake his friend. A pool of dark blood had already collected beneath the motionless body. "Please, Ryan, wake up."

Blood trickled down the young man's own face as he began to sob unabashedly. "You have to make it. Ryan, you promised that we'd both be okay. Please, Ryan."

A corporal who couldn't have been much older than the private came and took the sobbing boy in his arms. He didn't utter soothing false promises; he just let the boy cry on his shoulder.

"We're almost home." It was both a saving grace and a curse. They were so close to home, but there was no guarantee that they would ever reach it.

Jack and Newkirk looked on helplessly as men died before the eyes of their friends. The soldiers had been through harsh combat and had waited for days to be rescued from their pursuers. But now, when they were so close to being home again, they found that once again they had no safe haven.