Sailing Barge Full Moon is the sister
ship and rival to the Singing Swan. In
the novel, she’s been towed over with
several other Thames sailing barges
to assist with the Dunkirk evacuation.
She is lying alongside the Dunkirk
Mole, but her skipper and mate have
been killed in their attempt to rescue
survivors from a bombed paddle steamer.
So the Full Moon was left, forlorn and alone, her stern to
the shore, her topsail still set. Uncle George told us: ‘I did
not like to leave her there, but what could I do? They told
me she’d be destroyed. I saw one bomb very near her.’
She suffered some machine gun wounds but she was not
destroyed by friend or foe. She lay alone through that last
weekend. For about half of every tide she was aground.
When the tide brought the sea back to her, it brought as
well some miscellaneous fl otsam – battered fragments of
boats, oars, fl oorboards, rudders, bits of ships’ gangways,
lifebuoys, sailors’ caps – that tapped against her hull and
went away again with the ebb. The Full Moon fi dgeted with
her anchor but she did not move.
The end of the great relief was near. That Saturday
afternoon, Commander Lightholler, in his fi ne craft
Sundowner, could fi nd no more men on the beaches,
and went into the harbour and berthed beside a destroyer,
where he loaded 130 men. All night the Mole
was busy, not without bombs. In spite of
orders, the last ship did not leave till after
sunrise. In all, on that black Saturday,
64,000 men were sent to England.
The Full Moon lay alone all Sunday 2
June. During daylight, nothing moved on the
Dunkirk waters. But in the evening, the tide
of ships fl owed in again. For a short time, the
Full Moon had company, for the white yacht
Singapore went aground off Malo, but she
fl oated on the fl ood and took three French
offi cers away, with wine in their water bottles.
The Massey Shaw could fi nd no troops on
the beach and like many small craft, went
deep into the harbour, seeking stragglers.
This was to have been a big night for the
French. But something went wrong. Four
ships waited at the Mole, but only
a few French troops came down to
them. Ship after ship had to put to
sea empty. Ten thousand precious
places were wasted. The troops,
the French historian said, after
the evacuation ceased at dawn,
had scattered into the sand dunes.
But why did no one bustle them back? Why did no man
seize the Full Moon and sail her away?
That night, General Alexander went home at last, with
Admiral Wake-Walker, in command of the roadstead
and Admiral Somerville in the MA/SB 10. By 11 o’clock,
the last of the British Expeditionary Force had embarked.
Ten thousand Frenchmen should have gone as well.
The Full Moon lay alone all through Monday June 3, but
not so comfortably, for fi rst a light north-east wind and then
a strong easterly blew along the coast. Probably she moved
a little inshore. That day, that night, were the last. The wind
and the tide made the Mole more diffi cult still and shelling
continued. Admiral Wake-Walker returned in his M.T.B
and ordered chaos all day. The venerable destroyer Sabre
had carried the fi rst full load of soldiers from the beaches:
this night, she took one of the last from the Mole. Thus was
her tenth round trip – the record. She had lifted 5,000 men.
In the morning, at nine, Dunkirk – and many thousand
soldiers – surrendered. But 338,226 men had been safely
taken to the English coasts. Now the Full
Moon was truly alone. Nothing moved in the
roads, no man moved on the silent beaches
where din had reigned for nine long days.
Now she was not needed, she was not
molested, her masters had left her to the
enemy; she was uncomfortable; and one
day she decided to go home.
How exactly she went cannot be told, for
there was none to see. It was a new moon on
Thursday 6 June so all week, the tides were
making up. The rise is 19ft on the spring tides,
16 at neaps. By midweek, she would have
at least 2ft more water than on the day she
arrived and with the right wind, this would
be enough to lift her anchor and release her.
What about the winds? All through the
week, the prevailing wind at Dover wasWhy did no man
seize the Full Moon
and sail her away?
THE SINGING SWAN
By A.P. Herbert.
Published by Methuen in 1968.
Currently out of printThe phantom ship
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert
(1890-1971) was a humourist,
novelist, playwright, Thames
campaigner, divorce law
reformer and independent MP
for Oxford University. He lived
by the Thames and served in
WWII in the River Emergency
Service in his motorcruiser
Water Gipsy, fictionalised
as Juno in his stories.A BOOK AT BUNKTIME