Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (56 page)

“I just saw Ms Rosenberg kissing Mr Heggerty!”

“What?” This time, the mother’s voice was louder.

The boy slapped his knees, in a mock-parody of adult merriment. In truth, he had seen his grandfather do it and hoped it made him appear more grown-up. His chins wobbled with laughter as the story came tumbling out in a verbally incontinent outpouring, worsened by a frequent, compulsive use of glottal stops combined with his abysmally low intelligence.

“Me and Johnny saw ’er! Saw ’er wi’ ’eggerty outside t’school and he kissed ’er, they was together, as sure as you like, it were Miss Rosenberg, Mam, and she do’n’t look ill at all–”

“Where were they?” His mother demanded, breaking into the stream of babble.

“Well we followed ‘em, and they went back to Mr ’eggerty’s ’ouse!”

His mother was shocked.

“Is that so? They told us that Jews were not allowed to teach anymore, they’ve been banned from all the major professions and from
schools
. I thought Rosenberg refused to register as a Jew, and took off?”

The boy looked at her, and shrugged, the great shoulders rolling as his fleshy arms flopped. He didn’t think about things like that. His mother considered him, her eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

“Well you be keeping it to yourself, don’t be telling tales, d’you hear me?” His mother demanded of him. Then she stepped briskly to the phone, and dialled a familiar number.

~

“Hello,” the officer smiled. “Do you mind if we sit with you for a moment?”

They were stunned. Heartbeats, and then Jack recovered his composure, realising that if they were in trouble, evidently it could not be for the reason that by all rights it
should
be.

“Of course, by all means.”

“Thank you. We would like to talk with you,” smiled the German.

William and Mary scooted along the seat of their booth, until the Scot’s left shoulder was pressed up again the plaster of the wall. Jack squeezed a gobsmacked Alan along with his thigh, and the German officer sat down next to him, the enlisted soldier next to Mary. Adding to the disorientation of the group was their age.
They’re bloody kids
, Alan thought. It occurred to William that he, Mary and Jack were senior in age to these Germans by at least four years.

“What about?” Alan demanded, gormlessly. The other three groaned inwardly. The time that had elapsed since the German’s remark had been such that the Geordie came across as both slow, and belligerent. And aggression was the last thing they could afford.

But the officer smiled. Taking a packet of British Dunhill cigarettes from his packet, he lit once for himself at leisure, and then offered one to his friend.

“Danke,” the private said quietly.

The officer, almost as an afterthought, offered the packet round. With a shaking hand, William hastily collected two for himself and Mary. He knew better than to refuse the offer so soon, and besides, they were superior cigarettes to those he himself had been reduced to buying after the stash brought back from the hideaway had been used up.

The officer pointedly offered a cigarette to Alan, who lost the battle of willpower and accepted it. The German beamed.

“Whatever you like,” he said brightly, finally deigning to answer.

Nobody spoke. The appearance of the young officer had jolted them horribly. Adding to their confusion was his boyish face; dimples and clear blue eyes, a small pock mark above his left eyebrow the only imperfection on a child’s face. His friend, who had removed his helmet, was darker; brown eyes, short brown hair, closely cropped at the sides, and freckles. Both emitted an unusually fragrant scent; lightly perfumed, in their immaculate uniforms, they certainly did not resemble the soldier of both the partisans’ imaginations and past. They’d never seen anyone in a trench that even closely resembled these men. The Germans they’d known had been dirty, clad in leather and had not held themselves with military bearing.

The young German tutted, as the silence wore on, seemingly at ease in the discomfiting tension. “Come
come
… you were all talking freely before we arrived. Then again, I have quite clearly neglected to introduce us in the proper manner. I am Sebastian, an officer in the German Army.
Lieutenant
Sebastian Koller. This is Private Helmut.

“Hello,” Helmut said unsmilingly. Then, at the drop of a hat, he fixed them each in turn with a grin; his own freckled, schoolboy face unlined. The effect was sinister.

“Come
come
,” Sebastian said again. He spoke with exaggerated care, his Received Pronunciation English grating, like an insufferable public schoolboy lecturing proletarian employees, but with the German tint that further twisted the knife. “We are not Gestapo. Our uniforms are on clear show for you people. We are soldiers of the
Wehrmacht
. What is the problem?” He smiled again, expectantly. Alan, meanwhile, was fondly imagining breaking his glass over the Jerry officer’s young face, and the scene he envisioned sent him drifting into a full-blown daydream of prolonged, and excruciating torture. While it relieved his tension, the imaginings gave him a vacant look, which Helmut noticed curiously.

“I am Jack, these are my friends William, Mary and Alan,” Jack told Sebastian.

“Hello. My,
my
… what a
pretty
girl you are, Mary. And lovely to meet you Alan, William and Jack. Where are you all from?”

“London. Not far from here,” Jack offered, his own pleasant expression fixed firmly in place.

“Edinburgh,” said William, gesturing between himself and Mary. Fortunately, neither German pressed her. Sebastian turned instead to Alan, who jerked out of some reverie as though awakening from sleep. It made him look disturbed.

“Newcastle,” he grunted.

“Pardon?” Sebastian asked, wrinkling his nose. Helmut snorted loudly.

Jack’s right hand quickly gripped Alan’s thigh in warning, as his arms lay on the table. Alan knew better than to explode, however, and bit down on his sudden surge of irritation.

“I said New-
castle
. It’s up north…
y’know like
, up north in the country.”

“Up north in the country…” Sebastian repeatedly, quietly, and taking care to pronounce the words with clearer elocution than had Alan. The German lieutenant had the maddening air of a bureaucrat, or some lower ranking official that used an overly polite syntax and an affected elocution to raise the ire of those they dealt with. A man who took pleasure from inconveniencing people with his authority; the type who grows up dreaming of being a traffic warden.

The pedantic officer looked across to William and Mary. “And you are from Scotland, I believe – yes? Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, to the north of England?”

Jack bit down on his own exasperation. All fear had left him. If the officer really did have malicious designs on them, he thought, then surely his tactic was to
bore
them to death with his patronising pedantry. Or, just wind them up to the point of suicide which, Alan considered, might actually come, in the form of a double-glassing incident and the inevitable tender reaction of Heydrich’s Gestapo.

“Yes. Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, to the north of England,” William answered in a dull monotone.

“Then why are you here in London.” Sebastian suddenly snapped. As gradually as the tension had left, it returned instantly.

“We work down here. Have done for many years.”

“Aye,” Alan offered scornfully.

Sebastian fixed them all a lengthy gaze, and then sipped his malt whiskey. It was rare to see someone drinking whiskey, even in the pubs. Men came to pubs to drink beer – even wine was practically unheard of. In northern cities it was said that only one-in-twelve pubs served anything other than ale; be it bitter, mild or smooth. Alan had once searched Leeds for three hours before finding a pub to drink his favoured whiskey in, having found himself craving irrationally.

But Sebastian was a German. In rationed times, grey uniforms entitled the wearer to many things, and evidently a strong whiskey in a Bloomsbury pub was one of them.

Concluding a rather effeminate sip, Sebastian’s eyes roved over Mary with naked hunger, and then he looked to William. Spoke softly.

“I see… what, might I ask, is your profession?”

“I work in a factory with Jack. Mary works in a bookshop in North London.”

Even as he spoke, William cursed himself. The old lies. Germans could demand papers. Mary had hers, but his were invalid, and upon inspection he was most certainly not a factory worker. And should they arouse any suspicion, it would not take long to determine Mary was not who she said she was – faking her accent would only go so far.

The German considered them both, with narrowed, questioning eyes.

“What factory?”

“Am I under suspicion?” William demanded sharply.
Fight fire with fire
, his instincts told him.
This kid is pompous, and in the midst of a drink. This is not the real deal. Bluff it
.

The Scot’s well-honed instincts paid off.

“No, no…” Sebastian drawled, the infuriating closed-lip smile slowly spreading across his face. It made him seem no less dangerous to either William or Jack, who regarded him warily, trying to ascertain if the Wehrmacht lieutenant was playing a perverse game of cat and mouse. The man resembled a capricious predator that toyed with its food.

Sebastian straightened his immaculate army tunic, unnecessarily.

“You mistake me, William. I am merely asking you about yourself, to find out about you to satisfy my own interest and curiosity, as you would say. Like I assured you previously in this conversation, neither Helmut here nor myself are agents of the Gestapo. I am an officer of the German Army; a
lieutenant
, you would say. I come from Hamburg.”

“I am from Munich,” Helmut offered.

He spoke louder than his previous terse statements, and in his voice William recognised the distinct Bavarian tones; only four words needed to plant images of lederhosen, mountains and huge jugs of lager in the mind. It certainly explained the pint of ale sat in front of him, that he’d almost polished off already while the rest abstained from their own glasses, absentmindedly distracted by tension. Helmut seemed the more likeable of the two, Jack thought, if such a word could be used for either of them. He doesn’t have the same arrogance, perhaps due to rank, or participation in victory. Drinking beer like a man. Not sipping whiskey with his pinkie finger poking outwards like Sebastian, as though anxious to embody one of the effeminate perverts in leather shorts sporting a walrus moustache that British Tommies had jokingly stereotyped ‘Jerry’ as, on the outbreak of war.

That, and merciless, obedient robots of Hitler’s will
, he conceded sadly.

Sebastian noticed they all looked with interest on the soldier he’d brought with him.

“Helmut from
Munich
. You would
love
Munich,” he said, clapping Jack on the shoulder. “Beer and
beautiful
blonde girls. Of course William, you seem to have a beautiful girl yourself already, so the appeal may not be so high for you.”

“Aye,” he replied shortly.

If Sebastian was unfazed by their lukewarm reception to his company, or if he truly could not care less, none of the British could tell. He smiled pleasantly, murmured “how lovely for you. A beautiful girl,” and then chuckling to himself, stubbed out his cigarette and took out the packet to replace it. This time he did not offer a smoke to the others.

There was a moment’s silence; neither the British nor Helmut seemed to know what to say without Sebastian’s slightly mocking conversational lead. He seemed content to enjoy the second Dunhill, leaning back against the booth’s wall and inhaling the smoke appreciatively. He blew a perfect ring, then another, and a third. Despite themselves, they all watched the rings float lazily across the table, and then vanish into air.

Jack broke first; greatly vexed, he knew that if
his
nerves were wearing thin, then Alan was liable to start making Hitler jokes, or crude puns about ‘Hamburg’ any minute. All they needed was the time and patience to sit through this ridiculous scenario.

“So uh…” Jack stopped himself asking why they had inflicted their company on seemingly innocuous members of the British public. “Where did you learn to speak English?”

“I studied English, Latin, French, and Italian at university in Heidelberg,” Sebastian informed him cheerfully. “Helmut here was not university educated, obviously, hence his lowly military rank as an enlisted man, but nevertheless he taught himself to speak English to a passable degree, with some intermediate French.”

To his surprise, Jack felt a small stab of solidarity with Helmut; not merely for being self-educated, from the sounds of it, but for tolerating the snotty remarks of the officer. He wondered why Lieutenant Koller was fraternising, if they called it that, with an enlisted man in his own rank and file, let alone with ‘Tommies’ in a London pub. Helmut was neither his aide nor adjutant; this was a public house. They were drinking alcohol together, with British civilians no less. Jack was baffled by the whole scene.

“The magic of libraries,” the soldier said. “Anyone can learn, if they decide to. I chose to elevate my learning. Nothing special about that, of course. I just wanted to be different from my family, I suppose…” Helmut shrugged.. Jack decided he definitely liked him.

“Well… you certainly speak very well.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said, although Jack’s answer had been to Helmut, whom he faced. “And I’m sure that all in time,
all
in
time
, there will be plenty of English…” he looked at William and Mary in an exaggerated parody of horror, “… sorry,
British
people, who will be able to speak German just as well!”

At that, both Germans smiled. None of the Brits knew where to look. Through the open section behind the bar, only silence could be heard from the Royal Oak’s public room. Even
Lohengrin
had stopped, as though Wagner himself was dismayed by the extent to which Germany had pursued his own dreams of national greatness and anti-Semitic purging, using his name as an ideological standard bearer throughout the years of persecution and blood.