Not Flag or Fail by D.E. Kirk Read Free Book Online

we had heard voices or noises, but by daybreak we had left the railway behind us and were walking along the side of a canal.
    On the right of us and built at the top of a small hill we could see the town of Bailleul.
    I was starting to worry now, daylight was coming fast, soon we would be easily visible and I needed somewhere for us to hide. As we walked on, we came to what looked like an old stable building, built not too far back from the edge of the canal. I put up my hand to stop the lads and motioned for Fishy and Harry to take a look inside; they cocked their rifles and went inside. Harry came back just moments later and beckoned for us to follow him in.
    The place was indeed a stable block; inside was an area about 12ft by 12ft, then off that was wooden partitions which divided a similar sized area into two stalls. Tiles were missing from a couple of places in the roof and the dim, morning light was starting to seep into the building which helped us to have a quick look around, it was clear that the building had not been used for any purpose for quite a while. As a place to hide up it was a mixed blessing it was empty and fairly dry but the door we had come in through was the only door so there was no choice of exit if we had to leave in a hurry. There was a window but most of the panes were broken, on the plus side it gave a good view down the track leading away from the canal.
    “What are we doing Bomb, are we stopping here for a bit?” asked Harry, as he looked out of the window.
    “I’ll be honest with you lads I’m not sure what to do. Part of me thinks we should carry on and get to Dunkirk ASAP but we know Jerry is in front of us, so I’m also thinking perhaps we should stay here until dark and cut down the risk of capture.”
    “It’s not a good location though Bomb is it?” Ronny, said again looking around the building. “If we are approached from any direction, whether we left through the window or the door, we would be exposing ourselves. I think we should go on a bit further before the locals are up and about and try and find somewhere that gives us a better chance to escape if we need to.”
    I went across to look out of the window standing besides him and Jack, I thought he had made a good point and decided we should head off towards the town. There was a church in the distance that might offer us a better chance of concealment.
    The church was about half way up the hill that led to the town, it was an old place, with a square bell tower and stone buttresses, built in typical Norman style. The churchyard spread over quite a wide area and was bordered by a high wall built in the same stone as the church. As we entered the churchyard we saw that many different generations of gravestones and tombs stood between us and the church entrance.
    “Are we going to hide in the church Bomb?” said Jack, as we squatted with our backs to the wall looking around.
    “No I don’t think that will be a good idea, my guess is that the Belgians will soon be here for morning Mass.” I replied.
    “I agree with the Mass bit,” said Ronny, “but we’ve been back in France for a good few hours now.”
    “That’s as maybe,” I said, “but French or Belgian, they’ll still be coming for Mass and we still need somewhere to hide up until its dark.”
    We discussed the belfry but ruled it out because it was both an obvious place to hide and it only had one way out, we thought that perhaps there would be cellars under the church but decided it was too risky to go and look. Eventually, despite protests from Fishy, we decided to try and get into one of the bigger, older looking tombs. The one we chose was only about twenty yards away from where we were huddled. It was a big, stone tomb that stood some distance off the path, about ten feet square. It stood on an overgrown plot that was about twice the size, the whole thing was surrounded by rusty, iron railings, with a gate which was locked by an old padlock. The