He thought he had no expectations—until he saw the beach. He’d assumed that the cussed army spirit which whitewashed rocks in the face of annihilation would prevail. He tried to impose order now on the random movement before him, and almost succeeded: marshaling centers, warrant officers behind makeshift desks, rubber stamps and dockets, roped-off lines toward the waiting boats; hectoring sergeants, tedious queues around mobile canteens. In general, an end to all private initiative. Without knowing it, that was the beach he had been walking to for days. But the actual beach, the one he and the corporals gazed on now, was no more than a variation on all that had gone before: there was a rout, and this was its terminus. It was obvious enough now they saw it—this was what happened when a chaotic retreat could go no further. It only took a moment to adjust. He saw thousands of men, ten, twenty thousand, perhaps more, spread across the vastness of the beach. In the distance they were like grains of black sand. But there were no boats, apart from one upturned whaler rolling in the distant surf… They waited, but there was nothing in sight, unless you counted in those smudges on the horizon—boats burning after an air attack. There was nothing that could reach the beach in hours. But the troops stood there, facing the horizon in their tin hats, rifles lifted above the waves. From this distance they looked as placid as cattle.

And these men were a small proportion of the total. The majority were on the beach, moving about aimlessly. Little clusters had formed around the wounded left by the last Stuka attack. As aimless as the men, half a dozen artillery horses galloped in a pack along the water’s edge. A few troops were attempting to right the upturned whaler. Some had taken off their clothes to swim. Off to the east was a football game, and from the same direction came the feeble sound of a hymn being sung in unison, then fading. Beyond the football game was the only sign of official activity. On the shore, lorries were being lined up and lashed together to form a makeshift jetty…They saw no immediate reason to join the enormous queue, but they were unwilling to come away from the beach in case a boat should suddenly appear.

To the left was the resort of Bray, a cheerful front of cafés and little shops that in a normal season would be renting out beach chairs and pedal bikes. In a circular park with a neatly mowed lawn was a bandstand, and a merry-go-round painted red, white and blue. In this setting, another, more insouciant company had hunkered down. Soldiers had opened up the cafés for themselves and were getting drunk at the tables outside, bawling and laughing. Men were larking about on the bikes along a pavement stained with vomit. A colony of drunks was spread out on the grass by the bandstand, sleeping it off. A solitary sunbather in his underpants, facedown on a towel, had patches of uneven sunburn on his shoulders and legs—pink and white like a strawberry and vanilla ice cream.

It was not difficult to choose between these circles of suffering—the sea, the beach, the front. The corporals were already walking away. Thirst alone decided it.

Atonement dir. Joe Wright
based on the 2001 novel by Ian McEwan

Atonement (2007) dir. Joe Wright

“I love you.”

Atonement (2007)

“I love you. I am going to wait for you. Come back. Come back to me.”

ATONEMENT
2007 | dir. Joe Wright

ATONEMENT (2007)
dir. Joe Wright

INT. HALLWAY. DAY. 

Briony hurries back down the hall, reaches the drawing room door and is about to enter when she sees Robbie Turner, an impressive looking young man of 24 in working clothes, outside an open door leading to the formal gardens. He’s putting on a pair of muddy gardening boots.

Atonement (2007)

James McAvoy photographed by Robbie Fimmano for Details Magazine (2014)

GLASS dir. M Night Shyamalan

JAMES MCAVOY by Charile Gray Studios