Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (55 page)

Charlie’s independence was not profitable.

Time passed slowly, like a knife. Finally, the sun’s heat began to wane, and the autumnal breeze had an added lingering bitterness to the youth on the street, struggling to contain himself as the minutes crept by. Just as Charlie was beginning to consider spending his meagre daily earnings on a much-needed pint, a familiar figure popped into sight, almost shuffling down the street toward him in the unhurried pace of the unemployed. As he neared, the man gave no indication he saw the boy, who decided to pipe up anyway:

“Wanna buy a scarf, Mister?”

Charlie’s somewhat shrill voice, still with the vestiges of childhood, came out in a slight rasp from lack of use, catching slightly in his throat.

The sudden entreaty seemed to awaken the man from his reverie.

“No, thank you,” Bill Wilson replied, quietly.

Even in the Royal Oak he’d never spoken to the boy, who was relatively new around these parts, and Bill noted the distinct cockney accent for the first time with interest. Then as though a switch had been flicked, the light of his interest was extinguished, and he shuffled on without further comment. Charlie watched him, confused, as the heavy cotton-lining and collar obscured Bill’s head and the older man became a shuffling, great-coated silhouette, leaving him behind in the street. He’d been surprised to hear Bill speak; usually paralytic, rendered insensible from his steady silent diet of whiskey and ale in the pub corner; another casualty of the Lost Generation. Charlie watched him shuffle away. Anger, sharp and inexplicable, suddenly gripped him.

“Dare not spend your beer money, you draft
dodger
?” He spat impetuously on the ground, the fury of a child’s tantrum.

Bill slowly turned, like a man twice his age.

“I am a pacifist,” he said calmly. “Do you know what that means?”

“You’re a bleeding coward, I know that much!”

Charlie was apoplectic, almost hopping from his good leg to his bad in his pique, pouting venomously at the older man. Bill wondered if he was steeling himself to hobble over and attack.

He smiled pleasantly, to the cockney’s confusion.

“OK. Well… good luck with your scarves.”

He gestured without malice at the crude stall; a wooden school desk laden with small ornaments, with an inverted ledge on which the scarves were hung; all grey, or black, and thinner than was available in the boutique shops to the north around Camden.

The older man turned again, and shuffled towards the pub.

“Good luck being a fucking radio, you spastic
cunt
,” Charlie spat viciously at his back. Such language was unheard of in Bloomsbury; “radio rental” was cockney rhyming slang for one of an imbalanced mental state, and the other phrase was so utterly repugnant to the average London ear that it was rarely heard outside of the East End and dockland pubs. It was a taboo curse that carried significant stigma.

Bill made no sign he’d even heard. Disappearing through the doors of the Royal Oak, he left Charlie stood gormlessly in the street, alone again.

“If it wasn’t for my leg I’d be doing my bit, you hear me?”

Silence.

“I’d be doing my
bleedin’ bit
!”

But Charlie was shrieking at a building, on an empty street. He reddened, and the anger dissipated as quickly as it had erupted.

“Prat,” he muttered to himself. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was aimed at Bill.

~

Bill slowly trailed into the comforting familiarity of the Royal Oak’s public room, where Arthur was, as customary, polishing a glass behind the bar. Even in comparatively quiet times, the old publican had maintained an immaculate pub; gleaming and clean, with only the smell of smoke and ale betraying the place to olfactory perception as a London public house. Bill took a pipe out of the inside pocket of his heavy coat. He smiled genially, and started pouring a pint of thick ale before Bill had reached him.

In the next room, a rather more intense scene was developing, and pulses were racing somewhat faster than in the gleaming tranquillity of the public bar.

“We’ve got
one
chance at this. Just one.”

Alan was holding court, red-faced from a particularly heroic bout of drinking that had stretched over the previous days – a continuous ‘topping up’ of the nerves and ‘Dutch courage’, he claimed – but still largely in control of his faculties. “It’s me or Jack to take the sniper shot. Sorry to say it, but has to be the best marksman. You know I’d just as happily kill the bastards with the whites of their eyes showing.” He took a mighty swig of his ale, and grimaced. “Which brings me to that point. I’m out of range. At the same time on ground level… there’s simply no option other than suicide charges with guns and grenades.” He shrugged helplessly.

“For the Emperor –
banzai
…” William intoned.

He hoped that if it came to it, he’d have the courage to kamikaze in the style of a suicide charging a Japanese warrior. He’d seen enough during trench charges in Spain, on the Aragon front, and the results were often grim; lives bled out in the hot dust, an unforgiving sun burning down on them.

“Yes,” Jack interjected, shortly. “That’s the way. Only we do it for an ideal, not a man.”

That settled it, as it so often had before. They had all learned to trust Jack’s judgement, his cool and steady head that even by their unnaturally high standards, was remarkable for such a young man.

Jack clasped his hands in front of his face. “I’m trying in vain, at the moment, but…” he opened his hands, expression hopeful, “… if we can get another sniper rifle we double our chances. Doubtful we’d fail, in fact.”

William and Mary both chuckled at that; Jack wasn’t sure if it was mirthless. “We wouldn’t fail.” Mary smiled.

“Surviving’s another thing. But fail? Nah.” William raised his glass to Jack, who winked back. Bickering and tension expended vital energy, and morale was important.

“Touché.”

“Can’t we get Art to request one?” Alan piped up. He doubted it, but having not contributed to the discussion for several dozens of seconds, he decided it was time to sound proactive. But Jack shook his head.

“Nothing. He’s hearing nothing but radio static.”

“And you’ve heard nothing since?” Alan asked William, a little sourly. He’d since been informed of the Colonel’s approach to his fellow Scot to conscript the group to clandestine action. William shook his head.

“And you have not heard from anybody?” Mary asked? Alan confirmed with a shrug. Jack explained for the umpteenth time, ad nauseum, but in the hope it would help with the Spanish beauty’s determination, one way or the other.

“The radio is one-way at the moment, nothing incoming. No idea if any other cells are still out there or if they’re enjoying Gestapo hospitality. My guess is with orders to snuff out the local collaborators, choose if they’re bobbies, brides or bricklayers, plenty of local folk wouldn’t have been so keen to help. Especially after reprisals against the populace.”

He shook his head. They still couldn’t leave the Greater London area, which had been encircled by Wehrmacht checkpoints and strategically placed companies. They still had no idea how successful – or otherwise – concerted organised resistance was. Or had been.

“We’re stuck with one sniper, one normal. Mary, are you getting on with the floor plans for the Savoy?”

“No joy,” she said, adopting the England phrase with her own lilt. “I can not get near. Everybody working there is screenéd, is watchéd. And the hotel itself is… unassailable,” she said, dredging the old word up from their times in the trenches. Her pronunciation of it was distinctly Spanish. She shrugged, a little sadly. “There is no way we can attack them inside.”

She tossed her great wave of thick brown hair, sending it whipping round in a quick circular arc, an impatient gesture they all loved. “I cannot believe how much more…” her voice trailed off. “These Germans. Their secret police is much cleverer than
my
people.”

Her soft tone was so bleak, bereft of its usual lilt, that none dared offer a response, even in comfort.

“At the moment, it’s impossible, and besides, we were hoping for results from the one person here who is not British,” William said protectively. She turned to him with a scowl.

“The
not British
person is perfectly capable of achieving results, not to mention speaking your slow, brutal language, better than you Scottish–”

“I know lass, I know,” he quickly replied, grinning despite himself and their unenviable position. Jack and Alan stared at the bickering couple balefully, bemused at the prospect of energy being wasted on pointless quarrels.

“Then the only option left to us is in transit,” Jack observed, soberly. “Himmler’s car ride from the Savoy to the Dorchester when he meets Göring and von Ribbentrop for this meeting with the puppet government in-waiting.”

“Would be ironic if we killed him en route to the full and proper Friendship Pact with England,” Alan grinned.

“Britain.”

“Whatever,” he shrugged back. “You’ll get your independence soon, Jock, if they get their wish.
Probably
, like. Then they can seal off the border and wipe out everyone between Hadrian’s Wall and the Leeds-Liverpool canal. No soldiers wasted patrolling in Scotland, being shot at by your ugly ginger friends.”

William snorted ruefully. “All those centuries, it’s all we wanted. Now we’re a united nation we’ll be split, and all because the Jerries of all people can’t be bothered freezing in our snow when they could be freezing in Stalin’s…”

Jack turned and spat onto the floor, and an affirming murmur was shared. Spain taught them that the furthest extreme from an ugly extreme can turn out to be just as ugly in its own right; a poisoned mushroom, as Julius Streicher said about the Jews. But Soviet communism was a
real
poisoned mushroom.

“How are we sure they will even take the park road anyway? It would be uh,
more
fast to come via other side.” Mary observed. William stole a wink at Jack, who smiled a little. The ‘not British’ person was a smart girl, and asked a pertinent question while knowing relatively little of the city, compared to the local Jack. Even William and Alan had been there years.

“It’s what they do. Always loud, obnoxious, ostentatious.” Jack assured her. She looked at him blankly. “
Grande
.
Magnifico
,” he added quickly, circling his arms. “
Extravagante
.”

“Besides, even if Himmler crept in, chances are if we get in place assuming the Park Road is our best bet, we’ll snag Göring or Ribbentrop, or some big leader,” Alan offered. But Jack shook his head.

“The instructions were there for a reason. No Himmler – or Heydrich – and we call it off, wait to catch them going back to the Savoy. No use bumping some diplomat or even the fat boy. Besides, we’ll be able to tell by the security if that road’s in use.”

“It will be,” William said assuredly.

Alan shrugged again; it was becoming his gesture. “Aye, well… it would be bloody lovely as a little irony if we killed them en route to the Friendship treaty.” The grin that followed this was a little perverted for a murder mission, Jack thought. Even on Heinrich Himmler.

“Wouldn’t it just,” William smiled.

“To friendship!
Salud
” Mary cried.

“Cheers!”

They toasted the thought. Alan cleared his throat.

“By all accounts, Heydrich isn’t too concerned with security, he just drives around in his open top Mercedes, reg’ plate ‘SS-3’.”

“Why?”

He snorted. “Evil bastard said that if anyone tried to kill him, it would be the single worst day in the history of their country.”

The words slipped out, and he wished they could be unsaid as soon as they escaped his lips.

“Dark clouds over Newcastle today,” Jack said darkly.

But William agreed with the Geordie. “These things have to be said. This isn’t a game we’re playing, and
he’s
certainly not bloody
playing
. As to what Heydrich said, judging from the war in Poland he’s probably right.”

The bell tinkled in the next room, and a silence descended. None of the three seated in their booth in the saloon bar registered the sudden quiet.

“Himmler rides in an armoured car mostly, but you never know,” Alan said, the light of hope flickering in his eyes. “They could just take the normal staff car in England. Or even one of Heydrich’s, the open-tops he drives,” he said, even more hopefully. “From the Savoy to the Dorchester isn’t exactly far, and they’re going to have SS and Gestapo all over the place. They might get careless – Heydrich is never care
ful
, anyway. Either way if we see Heydrich in the open I’m taking a pot-shot at him regardless of the orders. That’s too big a target to ignore.”

The low sound of the saloon door swinging shut snapped them out of their focus bubble, and back to the outside world. Footsteps were approaching to William and Mary’s back, though the booth obscured them from the rest of the room. Jack, seated opposite Mary and with the room in full view, had wide eyes. Rooted to their seats, the Scot and the Spaniard’s hands and jaws clenched, a chill running through them just to see Jack’s reaction.

After eight further steps across the thick carpet, a tall man in uniform swung into view for the rest of them. He stood proudly; tall, blond and blue, the young man wore an officer’s peaked cap standing high on his head, and the grey field blouse of the Wehrmacht. Shoulder epaulettes of silver-green braid with a stud, and jackbooted to his knees, the confident youngster was a German Army officer. Next to him stood an enlisted man, a soldier in a slightly less decorated uniform and with steel helmet in place of the cap.

“Aye up Mum? Guess wha’?” The blond, fat child screamed from the threshold, by way of announcing his arrival to the family home.

His stern, hawkish mother marched out of the kitchen to see him, the huge thuds of her footsteps on the panelled wood resonating loudly around the large, commodious house.

“What?” She snapped at him; her voice more suitable for the prehistoric beak of some angered bird than all the soft possibilities of a human mouth.