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Part Two

Summary: Part Two

Three and a half years later, Robbie, now called “Turner” by the narration, is a soldier in the British army stationed in France. He has recently sustained an injury to his side from a piece of shrapnel and walks through the French countryside with two other British officers, Corporal Nettle and Corporal Mace. Though Corporals Nettle and Mace outrank Turner, they look to him to navigate toward the coast as they have no experience in the countryside while Turner does. While walking, they occasionally take cover when they hear bombers nearby. Eventually, the three men come across a barn where they plan to spend the night. An older woman who owns the barn and the nearby house comes out, and they ask her to bring them food and water. She tries to make them leave, telling them they are not in danger from the Germans but from her sons, who will kill them. However, the three men ignore her warnings and take shelter in the barn, though they keep their weapons nearby. Eventually, the brothers enter the barn. Turner and the corporals are prepared to fight, but the men, Henri and Jean-Marie, have brought them wine and food.

Henri and Jean-Marie explain that they were away looking for their cousin and her children, only to find her village destroyed and her house empty, though the battle had since ended and moved on. Turner, who is the translator between the corporals and the brothers, shares that he was separated from the rest of his unit when the retreat began and that he and the corporals are on their way to Dunkirk. Jean-Marie asks if that means the British army is leaving, but Turner assures him that they will be back, though he does not actually believe what he says. Turner asks the brothers why their mother tried to make them leave, and they explain that their other brother died in World War I. Ever since, she has had an obsessive hatred of soldiers, no matter which side they are fighting for. Turner thanks the brothers for their hospitality and promises that they will return to defeat the Germans.

While Turner tries to sleep that night, he thinks back to his time in prison. He remembers the words Cecilia spoke to him the morning he was arrested: “I’ll wait for you. Come back.” Although Cecilia couldn’t visit Turner in prison, as he was diagnosed as “morbidly oversexed,” they exchanged letters, referencing literary love stories and their time together in the library in order to get past the censors. However, Cecilia and Turner were able to meet once after Turner was released early from prison in exchange for him joining the military. Cecilia had begun working as a nurse and had cut off her entire family for their role in Robbie’s arrest and conviction. After a nervous exchange between the two of them in a café, Robbie walked her to her bus stop, where they began kissing passionately before she had to head back to the hospital. They continued to write to each other throughout Robbie’s training and planned to spend two weeks together between his training and deployment. However, the war broke out, precluding either of them from taking those two weeks. They continue to exchange letters, with Cecilia promising to wait for him.

One thing that has been troubling Turner is Cecilia’s refusal to talk to her family, whom he knows she cares for very much. In one letter, he encourages her to contact them again. When Cecilia replies, she delivers the news that Briony is also working as a nurse and that Briony sent Cecilia a letter in which she implies she would like to change her statement on seeing Robbie the night of the assault. Cecilia is hopeful that even if the conviction cannot be overturned, at least her parents will know Robbie is not guilty and can apologize to him. Though Cecilia is experiencing plenty of the horrors of the war in the hospital, she is hopeful about Briony’s offer.

The next morning, Turner and the corporals set off in the direction of Dunkirk. Along the way they see villagers evacuating. Turner tries to get away from the corporals, no longer wanting to be responsible for them. But when Turner nearly hits a man in a car who honks at him, the corporals stop him. They continue walking, seeing a family of dead bodies and their suitcases lying in a ditch. Turner is overwhelmed by how tired and thirsty he is, and he is slowed by his injury and the blisters forming on his feet. They come across a major who is trying to enlist people to fight against a German advance party, but the corporals tell him they have orders to evacuate from Dunkirk. As the major tries to convince Turner and the corporals that they still have a chance, Turner sees a German bomber approaching and shouts for everyone to take cover. After the attack, the major, who was shot by a bullet in the hand, still tries to convince them to assemble, but they refuse and continue on their way.

After helping the wounded, Turner and the corporals continue walking, Turner’s wound becoming more inflamed. He distracts himself by recalling Cecilia’s promise to wait for him and thinks of her latest letter in which she shared that he could potentially be cleared of the crime he did not commit if Briony recants her statement. He pictures a world in which he can be a free man, a doctor, married to Cecilia, who has reconciled with her family. However, he struggles with the idea of accepting Briony into his life. While trying to understand why Briony would have accused him, Turner recalls a day in 1932 when Briony was ten years old and he took her to the river for a swimming lesson. After the lesson, Briony asked him if he would save her if she fell in the water, and he said yes. To test this theory, she jumped in the river, and he felt he had no choice but to pull her out. After he scolded her, Briony said she wanted to see if he would save her because she loved him. This memory causes Turner to wonder if Briony’s accusation came from a place of jealousy over seeing him with Cecilia. Even so, Turner knows he will never be able to forgive Briony for the damage she did to his life.

While passing through a village, Turner and the corporals see German bombers overhead and take cover. Turner sees a woman with a young boy and tries to help them, but they will not move, and Turner is forced to abandon them. When the attacks cease, the mother and son have vanished, vaporized into the air. As they continue walking, the crowd reminds Turner of sitting on his father’s shoulders at some event as a young boy. Turner wonders if his father served in the Great War or whether he was too much of a coward to join up. Turner wishes he had a father he knew he could be proud of and realizes he wants to be that sort of father himself. He once again resolves to return to Cecilia and find his father as well. At last, Turner and the corporals reach Dunkirk.

When they finally reach the beach, it is a scene of chaos, with untold numbers of soldiers and not a boat in sight. Not wanting to go too far from the beach in case a boat appears, Turner and the corporals go into a nearby bar. A fight is beginning to break out between a group of soldiers and a Royal Air Force clerk, whom the soldiers blame for not saving them from the German bombers. Turner is tempted to help the man but knows the crowd would turn on him as well. Although Turner thinks it is wrong for the soldiers to take out their anger on this one man, he understands how all-consuming their rage is at the situation. As the crowd grows angrier, Corporal Mace suggests drowning the RAF clerk. Corporal Nettle and Turner, understanding Mace’s intention to actually protect the clerk, make a path through the crowd for Mace to take the clerk outside and then block the doors of the bar to prevent the crowd from following them, acting as though they are part of the rabid crowd. Once they allow the crowd to release, Mace and the RAF clerk are out of sight and quickly forgotten.

Turner and Nettle wander the streets, at first looking for Mace and then for water. They come across a bombed-out house where they take shelter for the night along with several other men. As Turner falls asleep, he thinks of how his guilt will be overturned but understands that, due to the war, no one is without guilt any longer. He wonders if he should stay in France to try to help more people, the way he was able to find the twins when no one else could. Images from the night of Lola’s assault mix in with scenes from the war, and Turner is awoken to Nettle telling him he has been shouting “no” in his sleep. Turner tells Nettle that he has decided to stay in France, but Nettle says there are boats on their way to take them back to England. Turner is relieved and recalls Cecilia’s promise to wait for him on the night he was arrested. He tells Nettle to wake him when the boats come, but Nettle is no longer there.

Analysis: Part Two

Like Chapters One through Thirteen in Part One, Part Two takes place over a relatively short amount of time. However, several aspects of the storytelling indicate that something significant has changed. The shift in perspective is evident as Robbie is now referred to as “Turner” instead of his first name. And unlike Part One, Part Two is not split up into chapters told from the perspectives of different characters. Robbie’s, or Turner’s, perspective is now the only one from which the story is told. However, the narration is still told from the third person instead of Robbie himself.

Part Two of the novel takes place over the course of about twenty-four hours, showing the horrors of war that can happen over such a short period of time, similar to how Briony’s perspective of Robbie completely shifted in a similar amount of time. The fact that Robbie and the corporals are barely fazed by the devastation around them demonstrates that death and danger are nothing new for them. Briony’s accusation of Robbie is, of course, not responsible for the outbreak of war. However, ending Part One with Robbie’s arrest and beginning Part Two on this disastrous day of the war show the truly dire consequences of Briony’s childish mistake. Rather than beginning Part Two with Robbie’s time in prison or his meeting with Cecilia in the café, which both happened earlier in time, this transition shows how quick and biased assumptions can lead to destruction.

Despite what Robbie has experienced in the war, he retains many of the attributes from before he was arrested. As he has all his life, in war Robbie finds that he is able to subvert rank expectations due to his natural ability and intelligence. Though Corporals Nettle and Mace outrank him, Robbie is the de facto leader of their trio. And, as he felt while walking to the Tallis house the night of the dinner party, he retains optimism that he will have the life he dreamed of before his arrest. Though he at times resents it, Robbie tries his best to help people along the way to Dunkirk, even if that means delaying his eventual reunion with Cecilia. Before falling asleep, he even thinks he should remain in France to help people. Although the novel has not yet revealed who actually assaulted Lola that night in 1935, Robbie’s inherent kindness indicates that he did not commit such a crime.

Robbie thinks a great deal about different family relationships as he makes his way to Dunkirk. He sees various families in different states, from the brothers who give him food and wine, to the mother and son who are vaporized, to the family dead in the ditch who were trying to evacuate. These seem to help Robbie cherish the thought of family even more. Although he has good reason to dislike and distrust the Tallises, he feels guilty that Cecilia has cut herself off from them on his account and even imagines himself getting along with them one day. Knowing what it is like to be abandoned by a family member, Robbie feels there is no reason good enough to never see one’s family again. He even wishes to seek out his own father, longing for a connection with him as he wonders whether his father experienced similar horrors during the Great War. Robbie comforts himself with the thought of him and Cecilia starting a family of their own, which to him is the ultimate sign of stability in an otherwise unstable world.

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