It was as though the light breeze weaving in off the Channel had been whispering ominously. The atmosphere on the docks was heavy with foreboding.

Medical officers, nursing sisters, and orderlies stood about in small silent groups in the warming sun outside the three huge tents of the casualty clearing station which had been set up during the night. Senior officers, some with red tabs on their lapels and wearing handsome Glengarries, peered out to sea from the edge of the landing stage. The townsfolk were lined along the sea wall, their faces scrubbled and solemn as on a churchgoing day. Even children frolicking in the streets behind the sea wall seemed to understand they must not laugh or shout.

Brad moved restlessly about the docks. It was five hours past 0430 zero and there was no news, at least they were giving out none.

At a signal unit, which had established itself in a shed, a rosy-cheeked lieutenant simply shook his head. "Nobody really knows anything," he said. "The wireless net is all balled up."

A Canadian brigadier, tall and slim and crisply handsome, shaded his eyes as he looked out to sea. "The battle is still engaged," he said curtly, "heavily engaged." He walked a piece down the landing stage in a clear maneuver to avoid further inquiry.

Toward eleven o'clock a new convoy of ambulances rumbled down the gap into the town and parked behind the ambulances which had come in during the night. Everyone turned to watch the drivers slide their vehicles into disciplined rows facing the casualty clearing station. Two jeep-loads of war correspondents and photographers roared in, looked about, and roared away, but not before they had left a rumor in their wake that the first news would soon break on the wireless. By the time it came almost everyone in the dock area had converged on the signals shed.

"The Prime Minister has just informed the House of Commons," an immaculate BBC voice announced, "that shortly before dawn this morning a strong canadian force joined by small elements of British troops and escorted by ships of the Royal Navy drove onto the French coast in the vincinity of Dieppe. Beyond specifying that no permanent beachhead is being attempted, Mr. Churchill provided no details of the action, but a dispatch just received by Ross Munro of the Canadian Press indicates that some tanks have managed to get ashore and very fierce fighting has developed in the beach area near the Dieppe casino . . ."

Brad went up into the town and searched out the post office. It was a small, well-ordered room staffed by an elderly woman who was brewing tea on an electric burner behind her wicket.

He said, "Can I get through to London?"

"It depends, sir. All the trunks are reserved by the signals people. I can put you through to them. If it 's official business I should think they'd have a line open."

He said, "It's not official business."

The woman poured boiling water into a pot and dropped a cosy over it. "I'm ever so sorry , sir"

He didn't have to wonder what Valerie might be thinking. It knifed at his brain. "Are you sure I can't get through? A very short call?"

The woman said, "Oh yes, sir, quite sure. I couldn't possibly."

Making his way back to the docks he remembered about the fierce fighting on the beach and he thought of Timill. It came as a discovery that, in the crisis, he liked the man enough to worry about him. He moved around the silent, waiting groups of Canadians and sat on an ironhead and smoked. The channel was sparkling calm; wisps of white cloud made the sky interesting. It was a perfect summer's day and indescribably sad.

The first wounded came in a few minutes after the clock in the town struck noon.

A flight of Spitfires roared low over the docks, banked steeply, and screamed back out to sea as if to herald an approach of importance, and a little later two ships appeared on the horizon. Gradually they became identifiable. One was a tank landing craft, low and stubby, and on its port side a sleek corvette moved slowly in escort.

As the ships passed under the breakwater cannon, a murmur rose from the folk along the sea wall. The LCT was holed and scarred above the waterline and a portion of its bridge had been blown away. A blood-red flare, discharged from the corvette, hung in the air a brief moment. On the landing stage a space had been cleared for medical officers and a host of orderlies hugging stretchers.

The moment the craft was tied up, the orderlies scrambled aboard and carried off the wounded. When all the stretcher cases had been brought into the tents, the walking wounded hobbled off, slowly and with a certain dignity, but their rough stubbled faces were yellowish pale and tense and they spoke not a word until they disappeared inside a reception tent. The last were the dead, eight stretchers bearing bodies snugly rolled in khaki blankets with only their scuffed boots protruding. These were carried to a great empty warehouse at the back of the docks.

The small ships came in all during the afternoon. They arrived in groups of three and sometimes four under escort of a warship and canopied by a flight of fighters. No one asked how the battle had gone. There was no need whe a LCI came in under tow, its steel sides twisted and holed, its decks almost awash, its passengers lying in grotesque positions, lying dead; or when battle-shocked soldiers, their faces darkened by terror, were led faltering like whipped children into the reception tent. The crispy handsome brigadier paced a section of the dock, his swagger stick flicking nervously against his thigh.

In the CCS orderly room, a businesslike sergeant allowed Brad to consult the lengthening list of dead and wounded. There were names from Edmonton and Winsor and many towns in the province of Quebec. His eyes lingered on one from Bridgeport, Connecticut, a lieutenant belonging to the 1st U.S. Ranger battalion. There was a French-Canadian name from Ste. Agathe, Quebec. He had often passed through that pretty town on his way to the skiing hills, and he thought how little the man must have dreamed he would wind up wrapped in a khaki blanket on a dock in the south of England.

After a time he wandered to the back of the surgical tent. A medical officer, his rubber apron flecked with blood, sat smoking on a stool.

"Bad?"

The medical officer said, "Bad. Mostly amputations."

"Any idea how the casualties run?"

"Rough guess would be fifty per cent. Maybe more. A lot never got off the beach. We won't know about them until the German tell us."

A nurse appeared at the flap of the tent.

"The patient is ready Major."

The surgeon tossed away his cigarette, looked distastefully at the mess on his rubber apron, blinked up at the warehouse where the dead lay on stretchers. A three-ton truck covered by a tarpaulin had backed up to the entrace and the dead were being loaded. The boots protruding from each wrapped blanket held him in terrible fascination. As each stretcher was lifted into the truck, the boots jiggled.

He counted the dead being placed in the truck. Eighteen bodies exactly covered the empty space and then the tarpaulin was fastened down and the truck moved off. Another truck backed into position. He was unable to keep his eyes from the operation, yet he was strangely unaffected by it. Death in khaki was a most simple event, final, factual, and trivial as a penny transaction. He studied the boot jiggling as each body was lifted and he remembered the men on the decks of the ships peering inshore. Before the war ended he too might be lifted into a truck, his boots jiggling, and he found he could consider even this possibility without high emotion. But he was too honest not to realize he was safely on England's south coast and that the nearest enemy was fifty miles across the water. He watched the loading and after a time he thought of Timill and he felt a sudden, terrible urge, like a barbarous cry rising from deep inside him, to run off, anywhere, away from this place.

By late afternoon he began to doubt that Timill had survived. More than forty ships had put into the harbor, most of them carrying a complement of dead and wounded, but there were a few that arrived unscathed, the troops aboard fresh and cheerful. These belonged to a floating reserve that had not been committed to battle because the situation on the beaches had become hopelessly beyond repair.

The docks surged with troops, some tattered and glassy-eyed, some defiantly happy as if they had proved to their own satisfaction that they were sufficiently tough and unafraid. Most chattered excitedly to anyone within range. Non-coms, seeking to form up the remnants of their units, added to the din, and over everything a loud-speaker crackled out countermanding orders to all ambulance drivers to take their loads to No. 6 General "and not - repeat not - to No. 5." A bedeviled Red Cross girl found it difficult to get anyone to accept the gum and cigarettes she carried about in a cardboard box and seemed grateful when a war correspondent in a spanking new uniform took a handful.

On the strength of his alien uniform, Brad managed to gain the attention of a full colonel who had just come off a destroyer in company with a lot of important-looking naval officers.

The colonel, panting and harried, said, "If he went in on the flanks, at Berneval or Pourville, he may be allright. If he went in at Dieppe, chances are he's been hit or a prisoner. Sorry, old man," he said and hurried off.

At six o'clock Brad shouldered his way off the docks in search of Arkinson. He found the driver perched on the running board of the car polishing a long-barreled pistol.

"What do you think Lieulenant?" Arkinson called out, displaying his acquisition. "German Luger for twenty bucks. Bet I can get fifty for it in London. Any sign of the colonel yet?"

Brad said, "We'll give it another half an hour. If he doesn't show we'll have to figure he landed at another port."

"Or he's dead pigeon," Arkinson volunteered, still admiring his Luger.

They watched a flight of Spitfiers circle over the Channel and soon a lone destroyer appeared on the horizon. Brad hurried back to the docks. The clamor had subsided and everyone strained toward the water's edge as the warship steamed slowly toward port. Both of its forward turrets were heaps sides. A multitude of uniforms, soldiers and sailors, jammed the afterdeck.

A tug was required to push the ship's stern toward the dock and then the debarkation proceeded in the regular order - the wounded, the walking wounded, the unscathed, at last, the dead. Timill was not among them, at least not among the living.

There was no point in wainting any longer. It was nearly seven. Brad walked among the milling, excited survivors on the landing stage and tried to convince himself that Timill had been brought to another port. He couldn't imagine him dead or captured. The man was too young, too ambitious, too calculating, and though a fragment of sharpnel was neutral in its flight, he wouldn't believe Timill had fallen when so many lesser men had succeeded in getting away. Whatever else Timill might be, in the business of being a soldier he was more professional than the genuine article.

He made a last check in the CCS orderly room. The sergeant on duty, weary of the repeated inquiries, shook his head in advance. "No luck, sir. All we got in the line of Americans is a couple of Rangers, a lieutenant, and a W/O. One dead, one wounded. No colonels."

Then, on his last look around before quitting the docks, he caught a glimpse of Timill.

For a moment he wasn't quite sure. He had spotted him in a break between two platoons of Canadians marching toward a column of trucks. The man sat on a packing case, his body bent forward and his hands circling his eyes like blinkers. He wore no recognizable uniform; a faded khaki shirt open across the chest, and blue, grease-smeared trousers, and white sneakers. But there was hardly any mistaking the rugged shoulders, the shiny black hair, and the square, strubbled jaw.

Brad scrambled across the line of march.

"Colonel!" he called out. "Colonel Timill!"

The rugged man brought his hands down wearily from his face. He looked about frowning, his mouth agape, and when he caught sight of Brad, his frown deepened.

I'm glad to see you, Colonel. For a minute I --"

"What are you doing here?" The gruff monotone had taken on a new, almost plaintive quality.

Brad was mystified by the query. The man's face clearly bore the pallor of exhaustion but he appeared in full possession of himself. His arms were crossed on his hairy chest and he was looking away distastefully.

"I asked you what you're doing here."

Brad said, "I don't know what you mean, sir."

"What time is it ?"

"About seven, Colonel."

Timill was still looking away. "What were my orders?"

"You said to wait till six but I decided to stick around awhile longer --"

Timill growled sharply, "What were my orders?"

Six o'clock sir."

"God damn it, why don't you follow orders?"

Brad said, "The way this thing was going, I was frankly worried --"

"To hell with it." Timill got to his feet. "Let's get the car."

His sneakers lacked laces and were too big for him. They flopped on the pavement as the two men made their way between trucks and ambulances and columns of marching soldiers to where the car was parked.

Timill didn't return Arkinson's smart salute, nor did he seem to hear the driver's cheerful, "Oh boy, Colonel, am I glad to see you!" He half stumbled as he entered the car and sat heavily in a corner of the back seat.

Brad said, "Would you like to stretch out, Colonel? I'll sit in front."

"Stop fussing, God damn it!" Timill growled. "Come on in here." His mouth worked angrily. "After this be goddamn sure you follow orders."

As the car moved slowly forward and merged with the stream of military traffic chugging up the gap, Brad studied his chief. The man's jaw was tense, his teeth tightly clenched, his eyes fixed straight ahead as if trying to spear Arkinson's back. There were signs of traumatic shock but not to be compared with some of the helplessly wailing me who had been led of the ships.

He couldn't credit the first explanation that entered his mind for Timill's wanted him to return to London alone and report him missing, in order to create as profound an impression as possible on the high command. Thinking back on the sequence of the events, he decided it was possible. There had been, after all, only one purpose in Timill's mind.

Progress was slow. The highway was jammed with trucks, troop carriers, covered almost the whole of the road. Arkinson weaved the light car in and out among the slower vehicles but there was always another lumbering convoy around the next bend.

Timill remained silent, his small bloodshot eyes open but introverted. After almost an hour he muttered, "I didn't get ashore."

Brad said carefully, "From what I hear, Colonel, perhaps it's just as well."

Timill didn't seem to hear him. He said, "Our LCI took a direct hit a hundred yards out. Holy Christ, the mess!"

"You were lucky."

For the first time some animation came into Timill's face. His forehead creased over quizzically and he said, "A lot of guys weren't."

He lapsed into another silence and his tired eyes concerned themselves with Arkinson's driving. The truck convoys were thinning out and the staff car gathered speed as it leaped ahead into the dusk.

Night came swiftly. Timill sat motionless in his corner. He might have dozed off. Then suddenly, from behind the shield of darkness, he began to speak.

"Twice," he said, picking up a train of thought as if there had been no interval. "I was exploded into the doddamn water twice." His voice retained only a portion of the gruffness he had always affected. Now it was shot through with a nervous tremulous intensity.

He said, "First time a torpedo boat fished me out and it swung inshore to pick up a couple other guys and then that boat caught it smack on the button. Christ! Those German gunners! Had the beach and the approaches taped with enfilading fire. Artillery was deadly-deadly. Second time I hit the water I was naked as a baby. No Mae West. Nothing. I flopped around a hell of a time. They were machine-gunning me out there. Then this subchaser picked me up. Christ!"

Brad remembered seeing a sub-chaser tie up a piece down the docks. It hadn't shot a red flare, there seemed to be no troops on its deck, and he hadn't checked it.

Timill wasn't finished. "Know what I was thinking out there? Get Timill! That's what I was thinking. Get Timill! Like the Jerry Gunners had an order. The way they were gunning for me that's what I was thinking. Christ!"

That was all. The car rumbled through the darkness. Now Brad understood the man's resentment. He understood it clearly. The key was Timill's vanity. The man who knew he was better than the professional has discovered he wasn't.

Brad leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes and listened to the wheels singing on the pavement. He laughed to himself. They weren't singing Valerie but he imagined he could hear it. Just a year ago, he remembered, he had been nominated Malton's "young man of the year." His picture had been in the paper, stern and scrubbed, the epitome of civic responsibility. He wondered how it had come about that he needed her so much. He wasn't that young, nor that unhappy, nor that lonesome. Yet he needed her. The very fact that the wheels were spinning toward her brought into play emotions he neither understood nor had ever experienced. For the first time he couldn't analyze a probl;em involving himself. The trustworthy look fore and aft over the years was failing him. He was living on a level of excitement and Valerie was part of the excitement and he wouldn't know until the excitement was spent what was her real place in the fabric of his life. Meanwhile the wheels were spinning and they were singing Valerie.

He heard Timill's voice cry, "Pull up here!"

They were passing through a city. The night was black, but there were tiny flashlights weaving on both sides of the street, as though a great many people were strolling, and subdued signs marking the entrances to places of business.

"Pull up! Pull up, Arkinson!"

The car came to a halt and the sudden silence was dominated by Timill's quick, heavy breathing. He said, "Got any money, Brad? Couple of pounds?" Brad handed him two pounds and he thrust the money at Arkinson. "We just passed a pub. Run back and see if they'll sell you a bottle."

The driver said, "What kind, Colonel?"

"Anything."

"You mean liquor, sir?"

"God damn it, I said anything!"

When Arkinson had gone, Timill muttered, "They gave me a swallow of rum on the sub-chaser. Water was freezing."

Brad said, "I can understand colonel. That and the shock."

What shock?" the other demanded. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Stop fussing! God damn it, stop fuussing!"

Arkinson came back with a bottle. "It's Irish whisky, Colonel. That's all they'd sell me. Came to twenty-six and sixty-one."

Timill held out both hands for the bottle and the change. "All right, let's get going." He pressed the change into Brad's hand. "Swig?"

Brad said, "Not now, Colonel. I'm not up to it."

There was a grunt in reply. Timill thumbed of the cap and, leaning back to a steady himself, took a long drink, gasped, and took another. During the next half hour he took frequent swigs. Between swigs he rested the bottle on the seat between his tighs and stared out the window into the darkness.

He said, "They got guts, those canadians. Jeez they got guts. All kinds of guts." The monotone was grufff and virile now as Brad first knew it. "I don't mean only the troops going in. Hell, the poor bastard had to have guts. What else have you got? - going with the Germans sitting behind their emplacements pretty as you please and mowing 'em down like dry hay. Christ, you never saw anything like it."

He chuckled inexplicably and took a long, gurgling drink.

It's the boyo in command I'm thinking of. The battalion commander. He had guts. I tell you, Brad, you got to have it to take your battalion in there when it's pure murder. Going in there and getting shot up - that's all right, but the guy who's got to give the command when there's hardly a hope in hell, that take guts, and whoever it was I take off my hat to him."

He chuckled again. "I know 'cause I was there, right in it. I couldn't believe it when our LCI's began moving into the beach. I knew we'd never make it. I kissed myself good-by a dozen of times. Every reaseon, Brad. I guess there's no more'n half that battalion alive right now. No more'n half, prob'ly less. Takes guts to give orders like that. You got to have it. In the military business you just got to have it. Here's to the baby who gave the order --"

He drank again, but this time only a sip, for the bottle dropped from his hand and fell to the floor boards. Brad grabbed it and handed it back. Not much liquor spilled. There wasn't much left to spill.

The car slowed down and moved in a stream of traffic through a narrow street.

"What's this, Ark'son?" Timill asked. His voice become furry.

"Not sure , Colonel. I think it's Croydon."

Timill said, "Say, boy, that's nice going. We are almost in. Almost in," he repeated. He turned to Brad. "Well, I guess Mister Ed Cantrell didn't win his gamble after all. This crazy coot Timill went to France and got back in one piece. Whadd'ya think of that? Whadd'ya think of that, eh, Brad? Crazy coot goes to France and gets back. In one piece too. That'll shake Mister Honor Cadet. Eh?"

He took a swig out of the bottle and handed it to Brad.

Here, take it. Lousy Whiskey. Plain lousy."

Brad took the bottle, which was nearly empty. Timill's hand dropped to the seat between them and the big, handsome, stubbled face twitched and rolled from side to side until the car reached Brooklyn USA where he lived.