Silence over Dunkerque by John R. Tunis

First published: 1962

Type of work: Historical fiction

Themes: War, death, and friendship

Time of work: May/July, 1940

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Dunkerque, France, and environs; Dover, England

Principal Characters:

• Sergeant Edward Williams, a brave, dutiful soldier, who is marooned in France
• Richard, and
• Ronald, his fifteen-year-old twins, who never doubt he will return
• Three-Fingers Brown, with only three fingers on one hand, the sergeant’s driver and companion
• Madame Yvaonne Bonnet, a raging woman who is hostile to the British soldiers but later befriends them
• Gisele Bonnet, her teenage daughter, courageous, resourceful, who repeatedly risks her life for the soldiers
• Marcel Dupont, Gisele’s grandfather, a veterinarian, who hides Williams and Brown in his house and doctors their dog
• “Old” Bill Bennet, the gruff but congenial captain of the Shropshire Lass, on which the twins stow away to search for their father

The Story

When the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkerque is evacuated to the mainland of Great Britain after the German invasion in May, 1940, Sergeant Edward Williams and Three-Fingers Brown are stranded in France. The two men are awakened at once to the frightening conditions under which people must live in wartime. Failing in two earlier escape attempts, Williams and Brown board a British destroyer, which is soon sunk by an enemy mine. Without regard for his own safety, Williams pulls the wounded Brown through a mile of open water to the beach. He sees no sign of Candy, however, a homeless Airedale dog he had found in the ruins of Dunkerque the day before. Exhausted, the men sleep that night hidden on the beach.

Meanwhile, at Dover, the brave, impetuous Williams twins, Ronald and Richard, grow anxious about their missing father. They decide to stow away on “Old” Bill Bennet’s Shropshire Lass, which crosses the channel to look for survivors. Discovering them, Bill scolds the boys thoroughly but lets them continue, secretly admiring their bravery and devotion. Unfortunately, they return to England empty-handed.

A series of harrowing adventures follows, during which the soldiers just manage to avoid capture. First, they are found and led from the beach by fourteen-year-old Gisele Bonnet, who hides them in the hayloft of her mother, Madame Yvonne Bonnet. Unfortunately, Gisele’s loyalty to the allies of France is not shared by her bad-tempered mother, who hates the British for deserting the French at Dunkerque and who threatens to expose Williams and Brown to the Germans.

Next, after barely missing detection by German troops who poke their bayonets through the floor of the hayloft, Gisele decides to move her friends to the house of her grandfather Marcel Dupont, a kindly old veterinarian at Calais. Disguised as peasant fishermen with fake identification credentials, the trio start for Calais. They are halted en route by a German squad, whose commander is distracted from searching them by the unexpected appearance of Williams’ lost Airedale. Touched by this warm reunion of dog with master, the squad leader lets them pass.

Marcel Dupont receives the party at his house and arranges for them to depart France disguised as fishermen with a fleet that the Germans have allowed to fish offshore. The plan is nearly ruined before it is implemented by the enraged Madame Bonnet, who has followed Gisele and her friends to the Dupont house. Bonnet threatens to report them to the Germans, who have served notice that anyone harboring British soldiers will be shot together with his household. The noisy old matron relents, however, when she finally discovers in her daughter a kind of Joan of Arc valor and an unstinting determination to save these true friends of France. Thus, Sergeant Williams and Three-Fingers Brown are returned safely to England, but not without the clear conviction that they do so because of the courage and resolve of an ordinary young French girl, who, through the trauma of war, has metamorphosed into an extraordinary heroine.

Context

John R. Tunis’ best-known books are not about war but about sports for young people. Yet his only two war novels, Silence over Dunkerque and His Enemy, His Friend (1967), reflect essentially the same central values as his other works— goodness, honesty, fair play, and the right way to live and behave. These are all couched in what critic Ken Donelson calls “a quiet and realistic account of what war does to soldiers and civilians alike.” If, as Donelson suggests, “Tunis believed in clean-cut, intelligent, clean-living, honest, young men, not perfect heroes,” and “not the use of sports to win or gain acclaim or money” in his sports novels, he has conveyed essentially these same qualities in the central characters of this novel about war.

All these characters are indeed “not perfect,” least of all Madame Bonnet, but, at one stage or another throughout the novel, they emerge as decent human beings with a respect for what is right and for human life. In Sergeant Williams and Three-Fingers Brown are seen classical warriors, whose character is fine-tuned by strict military discipline and high moral values. Purists neither as soldiers nor human beings, they nevertheless perform admirably under the pressures of war.

The courage and coolness of Gisele Bonnet is made more astounding by the fact of her youth. Radically different from dozens of her female counterparts in literature, yet a personification in some ways of many of them, she rises abruptly to the occasion of war, not hesitating to place her life on the line for her friends and country. The author draws other such believable portraits of daring human behavior in time of war. Sometimes such behavior is motivated by personal and emotional factors. The Williams twins, though brave and adventurous, would not likely have made such a foolish attempt to rescue someone other than their father from a combat zone. Likewise, Madame Bonnet’s turnabout was certainly inspired by the heroism of her remarkable daughter.

Thus, from one of the most horrible and infamous wars in the history of mankind, Tunis has gathered from among the hundreds of thousands of its victims a handful of fictitious participants to demonstrate artfully how heroes and heroines are born. Silence over Dunkerque is a fast-paced adventure story of war; more than that, however, it contains worthy role models for all readers, especially the younger generations for “goodness, honesty, fair play, and the right way to live and behave.”