After a while we borrow an assorted collection of naval garments, and at last climb on to the deck. It is a glorious sunny morning, and we lie in the middle of a little flotilla of neat grey-painted motor-launches lying side by side up to the tall stone wall of one of the docks. I can find no naval officer to thank, so walk from boat to boat till we reach the little iron ladder set in the quay-side, which we crawl up with difficulty till we are on the hot stone above. We start walking into Dunkerque, the back gunlayer in socked feet; myself with bare head, hair over my eyes, and back stooped in pain. It is a strange walk. We are amidst civilisation, as it were, and people look curiously at us. I stop a naval car. The driver pulls up with evident reluctance. "We are two naval flying officers--have just come down out to sea off Ostend--we are not well--can you give us a lift?" "No, sir! Ration car!" In goes the clutch, away moves the car and its smart, rather contemptuous driver. I stop another car. Again in an unfamiliar voice I begin my recitation-- "We are two naval flying officers--have just ..." "Sorry, sir--got to fetch the mails!" No one will help us. No car will give us assistance, though we are obviously in trouble. Too far away from these people is war for them to realise that from war's greatest menace we have just escaped. We go into the French police office at the docks. There by the kindly uniformed officials we are courteously treated. They, at least, make an attempt to telephone through to our squadron. Tired at the delay, feeling I must move and move through this unreal city of sunshine and order, which lies so strangely about the dim shadows of my soul, I go on, and, stopping a car, order the driver to take me to the Wing Headquarters. The car is full of chairs, which are being taken to some concert hall, and perhaps the driver realises vaguely that the service does eventually touch reality, that there is some remote possibility of accident, some remote chance of calamity, up there, "towards the lines." Through the dirty but splendidly familiar streets of Dunkerque we drive, out through the fortification to the pink-and-white villas of Malo. I am driving to the Wing Headquarters first, because I feel that a report should be made at once to the Wing Commander. We turn at last through a great stone gate, and circling round a drive, stop at the bottom of a flight of steps, up which I slowly climb. By the door stands an orderly. "Where's the--Wing Commander--Mr--Fowler--I--want--anybody?" "In the breakfast-room, sir--just down on the left," he says. I walk down the passage with a strange feeling of fear. Now I have returned to some definite place, to an organisation which can comprehend me, the ending of the strain is bringing a strange dizziness. I open the tall door and enter.