Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (8 page)

This really piqued their interest.

“So what
exactly
is going on outside this city?” Jack asked.

“It was as we expected. What passed for a home defence army; stragglers, Great War vets and odds and sods from all over were forced north as the front line spread. Government capitulated with the army
proper
captured en masse in France, but there were still plenty of fighters on the home front. They were forced north with the German advance, and have banded together with the resistance in the northern zone and who came down from Scotland.”

“So what’s going on in Scotland? Where are the front lines, and where are they occupying?” William asked, his voice betraying concern.

Mary glanced at the worried face of her lover. His family still lived in Edinburgh. His mother’s letter from weeks ago had just gotten to him; she was in hospital but assured him it was nothing. She’d wanted to pass on her best wishes to Jack and Mary. She had mentioned neither Germans nor Scotland.

Alan considered. “Well,
that’s
where the line becomes blurry. The government imploded, and capitulated with no army – only auxiliaries, as we well know – and then radio operators went down…” He looked at Jack again. “I’m sorry, but I have to say it. I think Fifth Columnists are the reason the radio stuff didn’t work.”

“Preposterous,” William immediately interjected, quite indignantly. But Alan and, to the Scot’s surprise, Jack, both shook their heads.

“Not treachery. Spies and saboteurs in this country. SD. Agentur. Not the people risking their lives for Britain. That’s the only thing to explain the collapse of our networks.”

William nodded, reluctantly. “Perhaps. Scallywagging includes intel, yet we’ve heard nothing. Arthur’s not heard from a village priest on a church radio, a countryside bunker, northern Special Duties officer, Ops Patrol – nothing. The whole country’s bedlam.”

Alan quickly continued. “Point being; the government imploded, but people formed resistance armies
anyway
to fight back. So here’s the crazy part. The Germans sent over representatives and task forces of the army to help facilitate a BUF takeover of Edinburgh and Glasgow, right? And the London government are kaput. Oswald Moseley’s waiting in the wings, ready to be installed as a Hitler puppet.”

“Prime Minister Moseley, Christ.”

Alan shook his head. “No. Just a lackey.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Anyway, the people wanted to resist, and with the front lines in England stretching up to the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds west-to-east line, thousands of Scottish blokes went south to join up with the partisans, and thousands more are dotted around your homeland trying to sabotage German plans. It was all set in place like us, with shelters, weapons dumps. Now, they don’t know where the front lines are, if the border is fully held by German troops, if the three northern English cities south of it are fully occupied or what. It’s all a bit chaotic.”

William’s eyes were open wide, fully grasping the dire consequences of this information:

“What you’re saying is; the north of this country and the south of mine – the entire middle chunk of this island – is a volatile, bloody warzone filled with Jerries and partisans?”

“From what I gather, that is the case, mucker. Partly, at least.”

“My God,” Jack breathed. “No wonder they’re keeping a tight lid on the whole thing.”
William snorted. “We’re all
Saxon brothers
, and all that. A PR campaign until things settle.”

Alan shook his head ruefully. “There’s little chance it will last into winter though. For a start if they converge on towns and villages for shelter and food, the Jerries would just raze them to the ground. There’s too many resisting to just creep home at night and live normal lives in their towns and cities. Too many jobs left empty, posts deserted. Too many German patrols in the cities and big towns. So, our boys will eventually run out of food, hiding places or bullets. Unfortunately there’s a possibility that thousands of British lads could just freeze to death, or run out of time and territory. We’re talking about an army that conquered Europe against the leftovers of ours who didn’t go to France, and the older lot who fought their fathers. Even with the weapons dumps, incendiaries and all that, they’ve got no chance long-term against the Wehrmacht.”

This was grim news. Jack hurried him on.

“Where is the army command? I take it the civil administration is the same HQ? We’re obviously not under SS rule.”

Alan gave another snort, this one mirthless. “They took over Churchill’s Blenheim Palace.”

William snorted too, in derision. “How
poetic
. Winston’s in exile, the war’s fini–” now it was his turn to catch himself “–… invasion’s over and Hitler still wants to piss on Churchill’s shoes.”

“A message to all of us,” Alan pointed out. “Downing Street is nominally left for whatever puppet government they decide to elect. I think they wanted Chamberlain but he refused.”

“Poor bastard. Between Munich and the Phoney War
sitzkrieg
, he’ll get all the blame.” William mused.

“Forget blame! History? Any future under fascism is worthless, it doesn’t matter what history records. I’d rather die than see it.”

The sudden eruption from Mary silenced them all. There was no trace of mirth now.

After examining his glass for what felt like minutes, Alan cleared his throat again and looked up.

“The Royals got out safe, obviously, so did Churchill. They had to drag him to the plane. Canada. The rest of his cabinet stuck around, obviously not knowing they’d be grabbed and held. Chamberlain and Halifax are being left alone, there’s talk Hitler wanted to set up a puppet government under them instead of Mosley for now, just to keep everything in place and running smoothly. But from what I hear Chamberlain’s ill, and not expected to see Christmas.”

“Probably a blessing,” Jack opined gloomily. They all murmured assent.

“So Hitler remembered the Munich conference,” William noted. “Interesting.”

“Aye, probably why they scratched Neville’s name off the arrest lists. Viscount Halifax has been spared, but I don’t know anything else about arrests.”

He looked confused for a moment, as well he might. It was the most curious thing about the occupation thus far – relatively peaceful in London. This
den of Jews and subversives
, as Hitler and Goebbels had ranted, and everything Lord Haw Haw had silkily purred on Radio Berlin;
the British warmongers
; the communists, the socialists, the ‘decadent’ writers; why had the city been spared the customary bloodbath? Why hadn’t the SS-Gestapo and security police arrived in force to turn London into a thick-walled torture chamber?

“Alan,” Jack queried, “Why aren’t the round-up squads operational yet?”

He hoped if he verbalised the thought, that at least one of them may be able to offer some insight. But there was silence, and the Geordie shrugged.

“How do we know they’re not? I’ve not heard about the big guns landing or anything, but for all we know they’re attached to the army rear-lines. Or focusing on the continent. France and Holland. Or still busy slaughtering Poles. I don’t know…” and his lack of knowledge on a vital issue seemed to almost pain him. He didn’t have a source in the know. It was a mystery.

There was another silence, as each of them collected their thoughts. Finally, it was broken by the least impetuous of the group in William.

“Well… whether we know about it or not, it’s safe to assume there’ll be the usual cleansing. Let’s just see how things pan out…”

“In the meantime,” Jack added solemnly, “we hang tight. No foul play – yet.”

With that, each of them drifted into their own thoughts, as a sudden flash of lightning signalled an imminent lashing rain, which pelted against the pub windows like a possessed spirit bringing threatening auguries for the serious young people inside, lives dedicated to a grim cause from which there could be no escape now, no compromise, no surrender. They, or it, would fall. It was the irrevocable nature of the fight, on either side of the dividing line.

Simon lit a cigarette, deeply thankful that he’d stocked up on his preferred American Lucky Strikes prior to tighter rationing.
Lord help those on the black market cigarettes
, he thought.
Just smelling them is bad enough. Having to actually smoke one would be like volunteering as a chimney sweep in some Charles Dickens novel
.

It had been a good day, in the circumstances. The writer reclined at ease, in the large, studded leather chair he’d bought for the desk, and running his hands gently through the thick clump of knotted hair on the crown of his head, breathed easily for the first time in what felt like days. Only as he did so did the realisation set in that his chest had been contracting, and his trapezius muscles were tensed. Sucking gratefully at the Lucky Strike cigarette, he began to pen a diary – his own private act of defiance.

Printing subversive materials extolling the people to resist German propaganda was his outward contribution, though how long he’d last, the young journalist was blissfully, worryingly unaware. But this, his diary, was the private resistance that he himself used, in the forlorn hope that perhaps the leather notebook and his thoughts could possibly survive the mayhem to be read one day, in a free world, by a free people; an insight into occupation and life under the jackboot.

It had taken him several days to relax. A member of the dissident writer’s movement named Walter had been captured in London, and punished mercilessly. Simon did not personally know the man –an acquaintance of Eric, and other familiar faces of the ’30s who had been at home on the political left – but regardless, the ghastly nature of the news still shook him to the core. It was not so much the failure and resulting arrest that disturbed him, but the baffling, brutal barbarity of German vengeance. Evidently, Walter’s Hebrew heritage swung the balance. The freelance journalist had gotten careless at the printers; snatched by the Gestapo or SD, he’d been hauled in for interrogation. Days later, the poor writer’s family received his severed tongue in a box. A note written in blood explained in vicious, vivid detail that by the time the poor, doomed writer had died, Walter was not only missing several other limbs – diabolically heinous – but even worse; that he had been castrated and blinded prior to death.

Presumably, blood loss had spelled his demise, given the protracted torture and the nature of his many grievous injuries. Simon found himself fervently hoping that the mercy of unconsciousness had descended on him as early as possible, acutely sensing his empathy surge, before realising with a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach that it was inconceivable that Walter had not suffered tremendously and at length, given the horrific nature of his tortured ordeal.

Such horror was unfathomable, and it hit hard with those guilty of the same crimes as the condemned man. Reverting to cannabis was misjudged; it merely led Simon to protracted bouts of intense introspection, after which it took several sober days and a considerable mental readjustment for him to recover his flagging spirits and resume writing, encouraged as he was by the others.

Today had been a revival. Musing over the materials he’d typed, the young writer even dared to consider the possibility that his day’s literary yield was equal to Eric’s standards. Restless, he rose and approached the mirror, peering into the flecked brown of his own eyes. He was not Orwell. Shaking his head slightly, the writer resolved to return to the hemp; ego-checks were essential, in order to keep progressing. Packing his huge wooden calabash with the cannabis, he puffed happily, allowing the tempo-switch to come into effect, sensing his thought processes changing along with his vision.
Slow down
, he told himself, setting the tone.
Never get ahead of yourself. Keep going. You are not Eric yet, but you could be
.

He returned to the great desk and with fountain pen in hand, he opened the leather notebook, dipped his quill’’s nib into ink and he inhaled deeply, preparing to write.

Possibility is limitless
.

Smiling, the scribe repeated his simple mantra thrice until satisfied, and then reached for the calabash, his good humour returning.

Simon used none of the four comfortable rooms downstairs as an office, preferring to dedicate the space to bookshelves and homeliness; tables, rugs, ornaments. He liked writing in the quiet solitude and security of his own bedroom, with its wide desk and ample drawers, reclining couch, four poster bed and comfortable chair. Each room of the house was adequate to host a number of guests in, tended lovingly by his mother, whom he’d insisted move in after the death of his father. At any rate, her house had been in no less peril during the Blitz than had his own.

“But I couldn’t possibly get under your feet, my darling boy,” she’d tried to protest, voice crackling. “You don’t want your old Ma around.”

“Why?” He’d inquired, with genuine curiosity.

“You’re a young man,” she warbled, “a bachelor. You don’t want
me
cramping your style…”

Chortling to himself, he’d responded by promptly packing her valuables into a suitcase, deflecting her protestations as he forcibly moved her possessions. It took a considerable time; Simon’s family were well-to-do, and both the houses were filled with trinkets and assorted items of taste and style, nothing chintzy or kitsch; a large assortment of material wealth that had been discerningly collected over time.

Looking around his large, spacious bedroom almost compulsively, with its thick carpets, ornate rugs and furnishings and gleaming mahogany, the writer tried to settle; dipping the nib of his quill into a small vat of ink, and he set to recording his thoughts; praying, even as he did so, that one day the words
could
, and
would
, be read by others. Deciding that having not made a diary entry in weeks, it was best to explain what
had
happened first and foremost, before chronicling what
was
happening.

Perhaps it would survive, perhaps not. How many Samuel Pepys’ had been lost to history? How many chronicles of human drama; from love to fear, suffering and triumph alike, had been swept into the dustbin of time; lost in the annals and archives of humankind’s bloody advancements..