Summary
On Moonstone, the shell-shocked soldier tries to get out of his cabin and Peter sees the handle jiggling. Above deck, Dawson points out the British Spitfire planes flying overhead, talking about what exemplary planes they are. The shell-shocked soldier begins to call to be let out of his compartment, and Peter looks at it anxiously. Unsure of what to do, Peter asks Dawson what he ought to do. Dawson, who has not realized that Peter locked the soldier in in the first place, tells Peter to let the soldier out.
When Peter opens the door, he finds it empty and realizes that the soldier climbed through an overhead hatch. Above deck, the soldier confronts Dawson about not returning to England, calling his boat a pleasure yacht, unfit for a war zone. The soldier points out Dawson's age and Dawson counters, "Men my age dictate this war. Why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it?"
"You should be at home!" the soldier says, to which Dawson replies, "Well there won't be any home if we allow a slaughter across the Channel."
Farrier follows a German plane as Collins tells him he's down to 15 gallons. He wishes Collins luck, but Collins does not reply, his plane crashing into the water. Farrier watches his companion's plane go down and waves.
Tommy and Alex swim up to a lifeboat, but are sent away. Aboard, the man who we recognize as the shell-shocked soldier—now seen before he ended up in the sunken vessel—watches anxiously as the young soldiers are sent away. The soldier tells Alex and Tommy to remain calm, but they are terrified. He tells them to stay floating there until he comes back with another boat. As the men in the lifeboat cry that they want to go to Dover, the soldier tells them they will not make it back.
Back on Dawson's boat (in what we now understand is the later timeline), the shell-shocked soldier asks Dawson what he plans to do, and Dawson tells him that there are other private boats coming to pick up soldiers. "You don't even have guns!" the soldier says, telling Dawson that he has a rifle. "Did it help you against the dive bombers and the U-boats?" Dawson asks, and the soldier orders him to turn the boat around, growing more and more hysterical. He struggles towards Dawson, knocking George down the stairs into the cabin below. Peter calls to George, who whimpers and groans. Peter takes care of George as the soldier stares at them, horrified.
Farrier shoots at the German plane. He hits the bomber before it can bomb the mole.
On the beach, Winnant watches as lifeboats return to shore. Tommy, Alex, and Gibson sit on the beach, hopeless. Elsewhere on the beach, soldiers line up vehicles and set them up as a makeshift pier for when the tide comes in. When Winnant asks a soldier how he knows the tide is coming in, the soldier tells him that the dead bodies are washing up.
Suddenly Alex, sees a group of Scottish soldiers, who tell him they're going to investigate a ship that's grounded, but that will float when the tide comes in. Alex, Tommy, and Gibson join their party and go towards the boat.
On Moonstone, Peter tends to George, who is in bad shape. "It's the best thing I've ever done," George says of helping in Dawson's mission, as Peter wraps his head. "I told my dad, I've done nothing at school, and that I'd do something some day. Maybe get in the local paper," George says. Peter tells George that he needs him up on deck when he's better, but George tells him that he cannot see.
On the beach, a soldier tells Winnant that the French have been pushed back to the western side. Winnant goes to Bolton and asks him where the destroyers are, and Bolton tells him there will be one soon, that after the disasters of the previous day they can only have one ship at a time. "The battle is here!" Winnant protests, but Bolton insists that they are saving the destroyers for the next battle, along with the planes. "But it's right there," Winnant says, looking at the English coastline. Bolton tells Winnant that they have released civilian vessels to come and pick up soldiers, and Winnant is horrified, insisting that they need destroyers. "Small boats can load from the beach," Bolton says, and Winnant tells him about the makeshift piers that the soldier are creating. "We'll know in six hours time," Bolton responds, and Winnant is surprised, as he thought the tides were every three hours.
The Scottish soldiers and Alex, Tommy, and Gibson, get in the boat that has run aground, and one of the Scotsman thinks the tide will come in in three hours.
As his engine begins to sputter, Farrier begins to land his plane. On Moonstone, Peter tells Dawson about George's condition and asks if they should turn back. "We've come so far," Dawson responds, as they spot a German aircraft.
On the grounded ship, Alex tells Gibson to check if the water has started to come in, but Gibson shakes his head. Tommy goes to check, seeing that the tide is coming in slowly. As Alex gets more frustrated, the Scotsman tell him to calm down.
From the deck of Moonstone, Peter sees Farrier and Collins attack the German plane, then see Collins crash into the water.
Analysis
The film portrays all the complicated dimensions of war, the passions and ambivalences of its participants and witnesses. When the shell-shocked soldier confronts Dawson about why he's taking his "pleasure yacht" to Dunkirk, a job that should be left to the navy, Dawson suggests that if men his age are able to start wars and strategize, he ought to be able to help. He says, "Why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it?" While he is not revealing an explicitly anti-war sentiment, Dawson is suggesting that he has his ambivalences, that he believes wars can lead to mindless sacrifice of the younger generations.
Dunkirk switches between time rather fluidly. It is not until this section of the film that we begin to see how the various narratives fit together. There is the story of the young soldiers, Tommy, Gibson, and Alex; the story of the shores of Dunkirk; the story of Farrier in the air; and the story of Dawson's rescue mission. Moments after we see the shell-shocked soldier on Dawson's boat, we see him aboard a lifeboat the previous night, as Alex and Tommy try to climb aboard. In this moment, he is anxious, but still maintaining composure in his uniform, in contrast to the destitute state in which Dawson finds him. These time shifts show us just how quickly the soldiers' fates change and how unexpectedly peace turns to disaster.
In this section of the film, we also see the ways that the larger tremors of violence in war ripple outward and affect everyone, not just soldiers and commanders. In a struggle on Moonstone, the shell-shocked soldier knocks the innocent George over and down the stairs, a fall which eventually kills the boy. The fear that the war has planted in the shell-shocked soldier bubbles over to an extent that it hurts a young boy who is merely trying to help. The soldier—one of the people Dawson and the boys are trying to save—ends up hurting his saviors as if they were captors, and we see just how harmful the war has been.
Hope is scarce on the beaches of Dunkirk, particularly at this point in the movie. Having already made it off the beach towards England, Tommy, Alex, and Gibson are particularly disheartened to find themselves trapped on the beach again, and Winnant and Bolton look disheartened as they assess possible outcomes. Farrier manages to gun down a German bomber, but his wingmate Collins had to crash, and now he is running out of fuel.
Part of the tragedy of the battle of Dunkirk is that it takes place in the middle of the war, so the British government must conserve resources. When Winnant goes to Bolton and asks where the destroyers are, Bolton informs him that they are holding some of the vessels for other battles, and cannot afford to send as many, given the setbacks they have already endured. In spite of the fact that hundreds of thousands of men are waiting to return home, England must think of the bigger picture, which means that many thousands of men must sacrifice their lives for the war. This tragic fact is exacerbated by the fact that England is within sight, so close to Dunkirk, yet separated by war.
