The beach is hell painted in shades of grey.
We reach it mid-morning, emerging from the last stretch of open ground onto sand that stretches for kilometers in both directions. And on that sand: thousands of soldiers. Maybe tens of thousands. Lines of men snaking from the dunes down to the water's edge, waiting for boats that look impossibly small against the vastness of the Channel.
"Jesus Christ," Harris whispers.
The town of Dunkirk burns behind us—buildings collapsed, smoke rising in columns that stain the sky black. Artillery thunder rolls constantly. And overhead, the sound that's become the soundtrack of this war: aircraft engines.
"Where do we go?" MacLeod asks.
Good question. The beach is organized chaos—different units, different nationalities, all trying to maintain some semblance of military order while fear and desperation pull at the edges.
A sergeant directing traffic near the dunes spots us. "You! What unit?"
"Mixed," I reply. "Warsaw volunteers and stragglers from the Belgian retreat."
"Don't care about your history. Care about getting you off this beach." He points to a section of the line. "Queue starts there. British and French alternating for fairness. Stay in formation. Wait your turn. Boats come when they come."
"How long is the wait?"
"Hours. Days. Forever if the Germans break through." He's already moving to the next group. "Just get in line and pray the Navy works miracles!"
---
We join the queue.
It's... surreal. Thousands of armed soldiers standing in orderly lines on an open beach, waiting patiently to be rescued while death circles overhead. The discipline is impressive. The vulnerability is terrifying.
"This feels wrong," Jakub mutters. "Standing in the open like this. Targets."
"What choice do we have?" Harris leans heavily on his rifle, using it as a crutch. "Can't swim to England. Can't fight our way back through France. This is the only way out."
"Doesn't make it feel less like a shooting gallery."
He's not wrong. The beach offers no cover. No concealment. Just sand and soldiers and the awareness that German aircraft could strafe us at any moment.
The line inches forward. Slowly. So slowly.
Men stand in groups, talking quietly, smoking cigarettes, checking equipment they've checked a hundred times already. Some pray. Some stare at nothing. Some just... wait, because waiting is all they can do.
"How many do you think are here?" MacLeod asks.
"Thousands," I say. "Maybe fifty thousand? More?"
"And how many boats?"
I scan the water. Small vessels moving between shore and larger ships offshore. Destroyers, fishing boats, civilian craft—anything that floats, apparently. "Not enough."
"Never enough," Jakub agrees.
---
We're an hour into the wait when the Stukas come.
The scream of diving aircraft cuts through the beach noise. Everyone looks up. Sees the shapes against grey sky. Knows what's coming.
"TAKE COVER!"
But there is no cover. Just sand and bodies and the certainty that some of us are about to die.
The bombs fall.
Explosions march down the beach—craters appearing, water geysering, men disappearing in blasts of sand and shrapnel. The sound is overwhelming. The smell of cordite and burning and worse.
I'm flat on the sand, hands over my head, knowing it does nothing but unable to do anything else. Beside me, Jakub is pressed down similarly. Harris and MacLeod somewhere behind us.
The attack lasts maybe thirty seconds.
Feels like hours.
When the aircraft pass, the silence that follows is broken by screaming. Men wounded. Men dying. Men trying to help them while staying ready for the next attack.
"Everyone up!" A lieutenant is shouting. "Reform the lines! Check your neighbors! Move the wounded to the aid station!"
I stand, covered in sand, ears ringing. "Jakub?"
"Here. I'm fine."
"Harris?"
"Alive. MacLeod?"
"Present," MacLeod calls back. "Ankle twisted but functional."
We're lucky. The bombs landed fifty meters north of our position. Close enough to feel, far enough that we survived.
Others weren't lucky.
Maybe twenty dead. Twice that wounded. Medics are already moving through, triaging, doing what they can with limited supplies.
And the line reforms. Because stopping means accepting death, and nobody's ready to accept that yet.
---
Two hours later, we've moved maybe a hundred meters closer to the water.
The queue is methodical—groups of fifty loading onto boats when they arrive, then waiting for the next boat, then loading another fifty. Officers with clipboards managing the process, trying to impose order on chaos.
"At this rate, we'll be here for days," Harris says.
"Then we're here for days." Jakub scans the sky. "As long as boats keep coming, there's hope."
"And if they stop coming?"
"Then we swim."
Harris laughs despite himself. "Can't swim. Never learned."
"Then you float. I'll tow you."
"Appreciate the offer."
A soldier ahead of us in line turns around. British, sandy brown hair, sunburned face, friendly expression despite everything. Can't be more than twenty-six.
"You got a smoke?" he asks in a London accent.
I don't smoke regularly, but I've been carrying cigarettes scavenged from dead soldiers. I toss him one.
"Cheers." He lights it, takes a long drag. "Bloody hell of a way to see France, innit? Thought I'd visit Paris, not drown off Dunkirk."
"You always this cheerful in crisis?" I ask.
"Got to be. Otherwise you go mad." He offers his hand. "Tommy Marsh. London."
"Rio Castellanos. New Mexico."
"Long way from home for both of us." He looks at the Channel. "Reckon we'll make it back?"
"Maybe. Statistics say some of us will."
Tommy laughs. "Optimist, are you?"
"Realist."
"Right." He takes another drag. "Well, realistic or not, I've got a girl back home. Mary. Writes me letters. Tells me about her day, her family, what flowers are blooming." He pulls a photograph from his pocket—young woman, pretty, smiling. "Been waiting two years to marry her. Not dying before I get that chance."
"Good motivation."
"Best motivation." He tucks the photo away. "What about you? Someone waiting?"
Kasia's embroidered cloth—K.N.—is in my pocket. I don't pull it out. "Maybe. If she's still alive. Haven't heard anything since Poland fell."
"Poland." Tommy nods. "Heard stories. Warsaw was hell."
"It was."
"But you made it out. So you'll make it out of this too." He finishes his cigarette, flicks it away. "See you around, Rio. Try not to die before I get that smoke back to you."
"No promises."
He grins and turns back to his place in line.
Jakub watches him go. "You collecting friends now?"
"Just passing time."
"He'll be okay. That one. Has the look of someone too stubborn to die."
"Like you?"
"Exactly like me." Jakub checks his rifle again. The nervous habit is constant now. "How much longer do you think?"
"To reach the front of the line? Hours. Maybe tomorrow."
"And how many more air attacks before then?"
"However many the Germans want to throw at us."
"Cheerful."
"Realistic."
"You keep saying that word."
---
Afternoon brings more attacks.
Not just aircraft—artillery too. German guns have the range now, shells landing randomly across the beach. You can't predict them. Can't prepare for them. Just hope the mathematics of explosion and distance favor you.
We lose more men. The lines thin. Reform. Thin again.
But boats keep coming. Small vessels, large vessels, anything that floats. The evacuation continues despite everything trying to stop it.
"Operation Dynamo," someone says. "That's what they're calling it. Churchill's orders—save as many soldiers as possible."
"Will it work?"
"Does it matter? We're here. Boats are coming. Everything else is just hoping."
---
Evening brings a lull.
German attacks slow. Maybe they're repositioning. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they're just letting us stew in fear before hitting us again.
We've been on the beach for maybe eight hours now. Moved maybe half a kilometer closer to the water. At this rate, we'll reach the boats sometime tomorrow afternoon.
If we live that long.
I sit on the sand, cleaning my rifle because there's nothing else to do. Jakub settles beside me.
"Rio?"
"Yeah?"
"If something happens—"
"Don't."
"If something happens," he continues firmly, "you make sure the evidence about Monarch gets out. Make sure people know what Fletcher did. What they're all doing."
"Nothing's going to happen."
"But if it does—"
"Jakub, we're getting on a boat together. Sailing to England together. Exposing Monarch together." I meet his eyes. "I already lost Kasia. I lost Warsaw. I'm not losing you too."
"You can't control war, młody. Nobody can."
"I can control what I fight for. And I'm fighting to get you off this beach alive." I go back to cleaning my rifle. "So stop planning for worst-case scenarios and start planning for England. Where do you want to go first? London? Find your family if they made it out?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Yes. London first. Find Ewa and the children if they escaped. If not..." He doesn't finish. "After that, I help you. We expose Monarch. We make sure the truth about those facilities comes out."
"Deal."
"But Rio—if something happens to me, you do it anyway. You don't stop because I'm gone. You don't give up because war took another person you cared about. You finish the mission."
"I will."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
He nods. Satisfied. "Good. Now let's survive the night. Germans will probably attack at dawn. Always do."
---
Night on Dunkirk beach is surreal.
Fires from the burning town provide light. Stars are invisible through smoke. Thousands of men trying to sleep on sand while knowing tomorrow brings more death.
I can't sleep. The medallion burns cold against my chest. The fragments whisper warnings I can't quite hear.
Something's coming.
Something worse than aircraft and artillery.
But I don't know what.
Jakub sleeps—or pretends to. Harris and MacLeod are nearby, also attempting rest. Around us, thousands of others do the same, stealing whatever peace they can find between moments of terror.
And offshore, boats keep coming. Small miracles in the darkness. Hope measured in vessels and the promise that maybe, just maybe, enough of us will escape to make this retreat something other than total disaster.
---
Dawn, May 26th.
We're closer to the water now. Maybe two hours from the boats if the lines keep moving.
The German attack comes right on schedule.
Aircraft first. Then artillery. The beach erupts in explosions and screaming. Men scramble for nonexistent cover. Boats offshore take hits—some sink, some burn, some manage to keep operating despite damage.
The discipline holds. Barely. Men return to the lines when attacks pause. Reform. Keep waiting. Because the alternative is chaos, and chaos means nobody escapes.
We're maybe fifty meters from the water's edge when I see it.
German machine gun nest. Northern end of the beach, just establishing position. Two gunners, ammunition belts, perfect field of fire over the evacuation point.
They're preparing to open fire on the queues.
"Jakub," I say quietly. "Machine gun nest. North. Two hundred meters."
He follows my gaze. "Shit. They set up there, they'll massacre everyone in line."
"Someone needs to take it out."
"Someone with explosives or anti-tank weapons. We have rifles."
"Then we use rifles."
"Rio, that's suicide. Open ground between here and there. They'll cut us down before we get close."
"So we don't give them time to react." I check my ammunition. Forty-seven rounds. "Fast approach. Suppressing fire. Close distance before they can adjust aim. It's possible."
"It's insane."
"Same thing sometimes." I look at him. "That nest opens fire, hundreds die. Maybe thousands before someone stops it. We're here. We can stop it now."
"We're also close to evacuation. Two hours. Maybe less. We could be safe."
"While everyone behind us dies." I stand. "I'm going. You don't have to."
Jakub stares at me for a long moment. Then sighs. "Of course I'm going. Can't let you die stupidly alone. Someone needs to watch your back."
"Harris, MacLeod—stay in line. If we don't make it back, get on the boats. Get to England. Tell someone about Monarch."
Harris starts to protest. I cut him off. "That's an order. Evidence survives even if we don't."
He nods reluctantly. "Don't die stupidly."
"Trying not to."
Jakub and I start moving north, away from the queue, toward the machine gun nest that's preparing to kill hundreds.
One last mission.
One last fight.
And something in the fragments is screaming that this is the moment everything changes.