days before they’re fit for anything.’
Marc studied Kuefer’s face, trying to detect pity or contempt for the prisoners in his expression. All he saw was a familiar numbness. If you gave too much thought to suffering you’d become paralysed, and apparently that applied as much to a naval Kommodore as a twelve-year-old refugee.
‘There are similar camps near Calais,’ Marc noted. ‘But smaller. It surprises me that more don’t try to escape.’
‘The strong-hearted ones escaped three months back,’ Kuefer explained. ‘They’re quite weak now. They’ll have to be released before the winter comes, otherwise they’ll freeze to death.’
The Germans feared disease and had used prisoners to clear and burn a hundred thousand bodies, but no effort had been made to rebuild the ghost town, except around the docks. Dunkirk had a huge manmade harbour with corridors of docks and canals that led deep into the countryside.
Kuefer told his driver to pull up at the edge of a large dry dock.
‘Get out,’ Kuefer said. ‘You’ll soon get a good idea of what this is about.’
Kuefer led Marc across scorched grass, beyond which a fence shielded the edge of a concrete dock. It was more than fifty metres wide, twenty-five deep, and vast metal gates kept the water out at the far end. More than a dozen barges were lined up on the dock’s floor.
‘In peacetime this is a painting dock for the hulls of large vessels,’ Kuefer explained.
Marc leaned over the fence and looked down the concrete face to the puddles and silt on the floor of the dock. More than a hundred prisoners and skilled foremen worked there. Sparks flew from welding gear on one side while another crew used wooden levers to jack a small barge on to its side so that the flat bottom of its hull could be inspected.
‘You’ve gotta watch yourself on those,’ Kuefer warned, as he pointed at the rusting metal ladders spaced every twenty metres along the dock wall. ‘Your boots pick up silt and oil off the dock floor, which ends up all over the rungs. Then it rains and it’s as slippery as hell. We’ve lost three welders from falls in the last seven weeks.’
‘How many men have you lost altogether?’ Marc asked.
Kuefer shrugged. ‘Nobody keeps count. I only know about the welders because there’s a shortage. If we lose a labourer or a painter they just draft a new man from the camps. If we lose a good welder it slows everything down.’
‘How many barges are needed for the invasion?’ Marc asked.
‘All we can get,’ Kuefer said. ‘We’re taking every barge, motor launch and tug we can lay our hands on out of northern France, Holland, Belgium and even a few from Germany. Originally the army asked for a minimum of ten thousand barges, but we’ll be lucky to get seven thousand – and a good third of those are in no state to reach the open sea. Come on, I’ll take you to the drafting room.’
A two-minute drive brought the Mercedes to one of the small number of dockside buildings that still had four walls and most of a roof. Every window was boarded and electricity came from a pair of diesel generators mounted on flatbed trucks.
‘Kommodore, good to see you,’ a bearded Frenchman said, speaking in French. ‘We have eleven barges – arrived from Belgium yesterday.’
Kuefer pointed at Marc. ‘I have a translator now. He’s young, but Oberst Ohlsen assures me that he’s capable. Marc, meet Louis – my head draftsman and engineer. Before we start, I want to show Marc what we do. This is our starting point,’ Kuefer continued, as he led Marc towards a large draftsman’s board on which was a partially drawn outline of a coal barge. ‘How many of these do we have?’
Marc took a moment to realise that he was supposed to translate. After asking Louis he replied to Kuefer in German. ‘He says there are six identical barges. Five are in reasonable condition, the sixth has suffered a collision on the way here and only appears to be afloat by the will of god.’
Kuefer smiled. ‘Identical barges are desirable because it means there’s less designwork per vessel. Now, once the drawing of the ships is complete decisions have to be made.’
Kuefer headed across to a bank of wooden school desks with doors laid across the tops.
‘This is a completed drawing and is usually accompanied by a condition report by a ship’s surveyor. Under normal circumstances an architect such as myself will survey the