Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (59 page)

A whimpering figure on the ground moaned as he burst through.

“Hey, hey…” Bill said, not unkindly.

The writhing figure stilled, at the sound of a familiar, if rarely heard voice.

“You all right boy?” Bill asked.

“Don’t know. I don’t think so.” The response was a low, wheezing groan.

Bill sighed, his hot breath showing as mist in the frosty night air. He couldn’t just leave the boy out in the cold, bleeding and hurt.

“You’d better come with me. Let’s get you cleaned up, my lad.”

He knelt down, and with a firm grip, gently helped the young man up to his feet. Staggering slightly, the pair made slow progress to Bill’s flat, despite its proximity only several streets away. When they got there, Bill rested his injured companion against the wall, and unlocked the door with a steady hand. He helped him inside, through the entrance hall, their feet thudding against the thick wood, and into a living room, whereupon Bill lit one electric light, and started a coal fire.

Straightening up, with the crackle of flames burning, he turned to smile at his guest.

“I’ll make us a cup of tea, then we’ll have a look at them cuts.”

Bill bustled off. His guest rose, and limped over to the mantelpiece, where a framed photograph showed a group of men in military uniform; the standard British Army issue. There, front and centre was none other than Bill Wilson; clean shaven, with short hair, looking fit and strong. A smile split his face; perfect teeth and handsome, sharp features. Several medals lay around the photograph, haphazardly placed.

Presently, Bill shuffled back into the room.

“Here’s your tea, lad,” he said, offering it. He showed no surprise to see his military photograph had elicited such naked surprise.

“Charlie,” the lad mumbled, embarrassed.

“What’s that?”

“My name. It’s Charlie.”

“Oh… right. Yeah, I knew that.” He smiled. “My name’s Bill. Pleased to formally meet you, Charlie boy.”

And his manner was so genial, so obviously genuine that Charlie wanted to cry for what he’d said to him just a few short hours prior. The quiet, slow rumble of Bill’s deep voice moved him immensely. Charlie felt tears prick at his eyes, and covered them with his hands, pretending to check the surrounding cuts.

“Right, old bean, let’s have a look at you.”

He helped the young lad over to the settee, laying him out flat. Bill had a cloth and some vinegar, and he began to treat Charlie’s various cuts and scrapes; many of which were a result of being dragged across the pavestones, as well as from fists and feet.

“Ah, Christ!” he moaned. “Stone me; they did a number on me all right.”

Bill passed no comment, placing a reassuring hand on the boy, before gently cleaning a large cut over the cockney’s left eye. As he winced, tensing up with a sharp intake of breath, Bill patted his shoulder gently.

“Nearly done, boy.”

“Bill!” Charlie said through clenched teeth.

Bill Wilson’s face melted into the first grin that Charlie had seen in the flesh. It transformed his face; briefly, he looked like the young man of 19 or 20 from the picture.

“OK, that’ll do you…” he paused. “They did a good job on you.”

“Bastards,” Charlie said, with hollow bitterness.

Bill nodded slowly. “Yes. That they are, boy.”

He put down his little towel that had been used to dry Charlie, having washed the cuts and covered the poor lad in hotly stinging vinegar. Bill considered him. All the spite seen earlier had been kicked out of him. He looked like a lost boy, in need of a father. Or a friend.

“OK… I’ll get some blankets. You’re not going to make it home tonight.”

Charlie laughed at that, a tad ruefully, which made Bill frown.

“I aint got no home, tell the truth.”

Bill stared. “Is that so? Hmm… are you homeless?”

Charlie regretted telling him.

“Yeah… well, I stay at the poorhouse sometimes, but I can’t stand the bastards that run it. More often than not I grab my sleep where and when I can, steal it here and there. Got a mate who lets me crash every na’an’ again. Sell stuff; treat me self to the odd pint. There’s others worse off,” he added, defensively.

Bill considered him anew.

“You hungry, lad?”

Charlie grinned; Bill saw he had a canine tooth missing, and blood specked his gums and teeth. “Nah, I can’t eat. Thanks though.”

He lifted his shirt to inspect the bruising on his black and blue body. Bill whistled on seeing it.

“Christ, boy,” he said quietly. “They enjoyed themselves.”

“I’ll be all right. I’ll be out of your way in the morning.”

Bill shook his head dismissively. “Don’t worry about that, boy, get some rest.”

And carelessly grabbing the medals on display, Bill left him to retrieve some blankets from his bedroom, bringing them back and layering them over the stricken Charlie.

“OK, well… good night.”

Charlie was already passing out.

“Yeah, good night… oh, and Bill?” he slurred, sleepily.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks mate. Thanks for this…”

Bill’s mouth curled into a half-smile.

“Night.”

The light turned off, leaving Charlie in the dark warmth, lit by the light of a low, crackling fire; flames flickering patterns against the wall.

Bill went into his own bedroom, turning on a gas light.

On the chest of drawers, he deposited the medals down with the others he’d amassed, and considered the other framed photographs he owned that stood there. There was one of his wife, Maureen. She was smiling, happy. Another of their wedding day. They had married quietly, with a few friends present in a small ceremony in a Whitechapel Church whose name Bill could no longer recall. He gazed at the smooth, unwrinkled photograph. She was beautiful. He himself had a face as unlined as the picture in its cheap frame.

He sighed. Her death in the influenza epidemic that followed the Great War had been as hard a blow as any dealt him in the trenches. He still bitterly missed her. Not a day passed without his thoughts inevitably drifting to sweet Maureen, like a dull ache.

Something stirred in him.

Bill looked in his wardrobe, where a collection of old, dapper suits of charcoal grey, in a tapered cut rested in pristine condition. Tweed, and bottle blue blazer jackets and coats had been slid to the far right; one garish pinstripe suit had pride of place in the centre, and on the left, Bill’s army uniform. He took out the field blouse, slipping into it for the first time since November 1918.

The return from France. The quiet months. A year. Being able to smile again. Songs, laughter. Then Maureen’s illness. The sharp, searing pain. Then, alone. Daggers, stabbing,
slicing
. And then, the numbness.

Long months of quiet.
Years
. Two decades. The pain disconnected. Solitude became normality.

Bill stared into his full-length mirror, and felt the flush of long dormant feelings aroused beneath his prickling skin.

Turning back to his chest of drawers cabinet, he raised the picture of Maureen to the light. He remembered singing to her, as she lay stricken, dying. All the confusion of the long years of war, the hatred and death, stuck knee-deep in the mud and blood.

“I’m forever blowing bubbles,” he murmured, reliving as he did so his crooning to her, stroking her soft hair as she lay barely moving on her deathbed. He crooned, into her ear. Crooned through her pain. Their favourite new song.
Forever blowing bubbles
…
Pretty bubbles in the air. They fly so high, they reach the sky, then like my dreams they fade and die
…

At that, the first tears in years trickled down his burning face, sliding inexorably into the unkempt growth of hair that grew so wildly around handsome features.

The shrill ring of the telephone pierced the tranquillity of the Royal Oak’s royal suite.

Heydrich started in surprise. Having long-since finished his daily meetings – a repetitive succession of expository projections-of-force, over his SS counterparts and various bureaucrats alike – his explicit instructions were that no calls were to disturb him, unless from the Führer himself. He had even, struggling to contain his laughter, told the Hotel staff to insist even to Reichsmarschall Göring and Reichsführer-SS Himmler that he was resting, and not to be disturbed unless urgent.

This call was significant. With deep concern, Heydrich picked up the phone, his small blue eyes already narrowed in suspicion.

“Reichsprotektor. Hallo?”

Ten seconds later, his face became grave, and then some time after, the smugness returned.

“Tomorrow, yes? And before… yes… that is definite?”

Heydrich lightly picked up a thickly-buttered scone, which he smeared jam over, before demolishing it in four bites, all done whilst listening to the phone call in high good humour. An incredulous smile had curled over his high, horsey features. After another minute of listening keenly, the voice in his ear finally petered out.

“Why, thank you for this call. That is most interesting, my friend. Most interesting indeed…”

Heydrich promptly rang off, and stepped to the window, looking out over the Thames thoughtfully. The electric light of street lamps scattered across the Embankment and Westminster lit up the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and he stared across the magnificent vista of London, his eyes filmed with thought.

“Most interesting…” he murmured. In his mind’s eye, a plan began to form.

The flash of the dark blackout curtains let a streak of pale light permeate the room, and Charlie awoke instantly, with the instinct of one accustomed to sleeping in hostile environments, instantly alert to danger. His eyes came into focus, to see Bill stood holding a tray, smiling at him.

“Morning Charlie…”

“Morning, Bill…” Charlie groaned, as a wave of soreness from his battering suddenly seized him. “Bloody hell.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Charlie tried to laugh. “Like a football that has been kicked around for too long, ready for the bin.”

“Try to get this down you.” Bill told him, offering the breakfast tray. Charlie accepted it gratefully; the older man had prepared tea, a plate of buttered toast and an egg.

“Strewth, Bill… I aint eaten an egg for over a year!”

Bill smiled indulgently. “You must be ravenous.”

“Ta, Bill.”

Charlie began to scoff the toast and egg greedily, wolfing it down like a starved urchin.

“Bill,” he asked, between hefty mouthfuls. “Why you helping me like this? Especially after I sounded off at you like a bleedin’ berk.”

“What could I do, leave you there?”

Charlie shrugged. “A lesser bloke would have. Can I ask you some’ing, Bill? Are all those medals yours? The ones that was up there.”

“Oh,” Bill looked embarrassed. “I only took them in… well… I just felt they shouldn’t be out on display. Like it’s pride. Nothing to do with you being here, lad.”

Charlie chuckled at that. “Bloody hell Bill, I wouldn’t give a monkey’s even if you ’ad taken ’em out cos you thought I was a tea leaf. You put me up, di’n’t ya? You gave me a roof, mate.”

He finished his meal, and sipped the tea gratefully.

“You still ain’t answered though,” the boy added with a wink, which stretched the skin of his sore face and made him wince.

Bill sighed. He got up, and stood by the window, looking out.

“Yes.”

“You won ’em all?”

“All won for defending
King and Country
.”

Bill shook his head sorrowfully, his back to Charlie, who frowned in slack-jawed amazement. The sardonic tone Bill had answered with was mired in resentment, bitterness and pain. How could he feel that way?

“But… you aint proud of all them medals, Bill? I would be.”

The older man continued to stare out of the window. Charlie’s tone was pleading, almost begging him to… he didn’t know what; admit, confess, change his views… whatever it was…

“But you’re an ’ero, Bill. You’re a war hero.”

Bill Wilson turned to him, with steady gaze, a fire burning in his eyes. Charlie felt a tingling of his senses to look at him. It was as though the old drunk he’d seen staggering out of the pub was now a man of extreme gravitas, from whom emanated an almost elemental power.

His deep, steady voice rumbled with quiet force.

“Medals can’t bring your mates back. I didn’t receive a medal for holding my brother in my arms, watching him die in the mud; choking his final moments away as his own blood clogged his throat… they gave him a medal for dying, though.
Thanks, boy
. With deepest, heartfelt sympathy from the people who caused the war, profited from the war, then celebrated the war. They gave out medals, but it was our blood spilt in the stinking mud that earned them. And for
what
? You expect me to be proud. You don’t understand. No… war is
carnage
. No one wins, not the soldiers anyhow. I don’t know why a new generation of idiots have inflicted that hell on us again… led by the two biggest idiots of all, Hitler and Göring, who personally experienced the horrors of the last one and still unleashed it on the world.” Bill shook his head, reliving hell in his mind’s eye. “Perhaps they cared more about losing than us survivors did about winning. No, I’m not proud. I’m not a hero… I never was. Just a man who was put in hell with a few million other brothers, and told to kill…”

Bill stood motionless, his eyes betraying the horror of some nightmarish reminiscence. Charlie was stunned, stammering.

“You’re still an ’ero to me, Bill.”

The hazel and yellow eyes rested on him again, steadfastly. Anger burned in them like forest fire.

“I’m no hero. I never was. I’m just an old soldier, whose life was stolen; a tool of the government, thrown in there as a young man and told to kill. It’s all an illusion. None of it’s valid, son. Don’t believe the establishment’s lies… rulers rarely love, and those who gain power always do so to
wield it
…”

Memories of noise and gore, gunfire, explosions and screams filled his head, and he let the hellish reel of devilish images play across his mind for another moment in the nightmarish past before forcing himself back into the present.