The Girl in the Painted Caravan by Eva Petulengro

when his horse slithered and lost its footing, then rolled into a ditch with Jack still on its
back.
    Jack was all right, but the horse was screaming and my father knew immediately that the poor creature had broken a leg. His own mount was panicking now and becoming quite hysterical, so they
both knew there was only one thing to do. He shot the two horses and would always be haunted by the expression in those poor animals’ eyes, even more than by the memory of the blind eyes of
the dead men who lined that road to Dunkirk.
    Back on foot, the two of them stumbled on through the dark until their next misfortune, when my father tripped over something on the verge of the road and fell head-first into a water-logged
ditch. Jack jumped in to help him and they clambered out, but both of them were soaked through to the skin. It was incredibly cold, which left only one course open to them and, although they felt
like scavengers, they had to take it. They searched around, found some corpses of about the right build and took clothes from them. A French officer provided my father with a pair of trousers, but
there was a huge hole in the back of the tunic. Nearby, however, he found an overcoat on a British major who was sadly long past feeling the cold of the night.
    Dry at last in their new clothes, but weary almost to the point of exhaustion, they trudged on till they got to a NAAFI base. There was plenty of food and drink there, but all they wanted to do
was sleep and they practically collapsed on the spot.
    At daylight, when they woke, they were eager to continue on their journey, but they took advantage of their situation by loading up with as many cigarettes as they could reasonably carry. When
they got back onto the main Dunkirk road, there was the usual sight of battle-weary troops beating their bedraggled way towards the coast and, out of pity for them, my father and Jack stood at the
side of the road and handed out cigarettes from their plentiful store. To my father’s surprise, all the men saluted him, although he was not looking for more than a word of thanks. It took
him quite a while before he realised, to his and Jack’s amusement, that it was, of course, the major’s overcoat they were saluting.
    At least they felt they were giving their fellow Tommies a bit of heart, as they travelled on their dismal route. But later that same day they witnessed an incident which really gave a new lease
of life to those footsore and dispirited soldiers. The Scots Guards had been through just as much as all the other troops, but they decided that they were going to set an example of how to retreat
with dignity. When they marched to Dunkirk, their uniforms were smart, the soldiers clean and shaved. They marched like guardsmen and ahead of them was their band, in full dress uniform, playing
their bagpipes. It must have seemed like a mirage to some of those men but, as an example, it certainly worked. Bearded and grubby soldiers, even the most cynical among them, raised a cheer for the
Scotsmen and then, with new heart, joined in the march towards Dunkirk. Retreating or not, they were doing it with pride.
    When they got to the beach of embarkation, their problems were not over by any means. Indeed, it seemed as though they were just beginning. The dive-bombers were coming in regularly and the
thousands of British soldiers, herded onto the beach like cattle, were easy pickings for them. Although just about everything that could sail, from tiny dinghies to cross-Channel steamers, had put
out from England, as well as the navy’s own ships, there was still the enormous task of getting everyone on board while under heavy fire, and particularly of getting the wounded away
first.
    Daddy and Jack decided to move into the town, for a bit anyway, since the bombings seemed to be concentrated on the beach. While there, he met some French gypsies with whom he was able to
converse in the Romany language common to them. The Frenchmen