Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (62 page)

“No one ever asked, Art.”

Winking as the barman, he took an exultant sip of the whiskey, marvelling at the taste. Of all the things this island has contributed to the world, and the advancement of civilisation, Bill decided, whiskey must surely be one of the best.

He voiced as much to Arthur, who was only half-listening, his eyes drawn one particular medal in pride of place on Bill’s chest.

“By
Jove
. Is that a Victoria Cross, Bill?”

Bill patted the little gunmetal cross, hanging from his left breast by its crimson ribbon.

“Yes… it is.”

Arthur stared at him, open-mouthed. The Victoria Cross was the highest military decoration for an armed forces serviceman in the British Empire, and even in the Great War it was a rarely awarded trinket. Only exceptional courage and performance could be honoured in such a way. It was an award solely intended for those of extreme valour. And this was the man, Arthur noted with astonishment, with whom he’d shared perfunctory small talk every day for nigh on two decades, only infrequently engaging in meaningful, or personal, debates.

“Christ Bill… what did you do to get that?”

The old soldier’s rugged, yet striking face, newly exposed by the beard trim, was utterly expressionless. “I did what was necessary.”

Bill Wilson downed his whiskey with aplomb.

“Same again, please Art… and have one yourself.”

Arthur was still visibly taken aback by the transformation of the handsome, grizzled man who stood so powerfully in front of him, as though reborn. “Don’t mind if I do, Bill. And might I add, it will be a pleasure.”

He poured them both a whiskey, repressing the consuming urge to query Bill about the remarkable alteration that had transpired in less than a day. With glasses in hand, they toasted each other, warmly. Bill proposed his own; resuming his clipped, cultured tone as he did so:

“To old friends, our
loves
, our
lives
; to comrades lost, to those we’ve forgotten and those who have forgotten us; to the dead, the living and the yet-to-be; to times gone by, good and bad, and perhaps one day, a better future.”

“I’ll drink to that, Bill. I will drink to that.”

~

Bill was a man of great patience, but as expected, he did not have long to wait. A great clatter of the door, and two Wehrmacht uniforms noisily stomped into the Royal Oak public bar, their exuberance echoing around the wooden room, with two giggling young ladies clutching them as they careered inside. The din they made was more than enough to attract Bill’s attention, sat as he was by the piano, unobtrusively, bristling with quiet repugnance.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Arthur said, patiently. “Lovely to see you again in the Oak. You certainly seem to get a lot of spare time in the course of duty.”

Sebastian’s smile faded as the mask slipped, for a moment.

“That is so, yes indeed, Arthur Speakman the landlord. But it is not for you to comment on the workings of the German army, is it?” he chastised, waggled a finger at the man who was almost thrice his age in a parody of pedantic admonition. In his corner, Bill grimaced, quietly seething.

“No, indeed,” Arthur managed to say, at his most unctuous. “Now, what can I get you gentlemen and your lady friends?”

And as the self-satisfied German turned to speak to his companions, leaving Arthur waiting patiently, Bill’s own patience reached the end of its tether. He rose to his feet, straightening the blazer of his fine suit and strolled to the bar, taking up position behind the arrogant lieutenant.

Eventually, Sebastian Koller deigned to acknowledge his presence, and turned to the older man, not recognising him for a moment. His eyes narrowed as he did, incredulous, before setting on the prominent Victoria Cross.

But Bill did not address him. His eyes were fixed on the Germans’ companions.

“Hello girls. I want you to step into the saloon while I talk to these men.”

“You what?” one of the girls said uncertainly. She reeked of cheap perfume; Bill hid his distaste, masked with a pleasant smile and an unruffled air.

“Now,
please
… Shift.”

Beats of silence, as the girls gave querying looks to the German lieutenant, unsure of themselves. Bill stood proudly, his chest thrust out and his jaw set, like a prize-fighter. The awkward pause grew, and then Sebastian seemed to reach a decision. He nodded at them, curtly, and they promptly disappeared into the saloon, casting uncertain glances back at the dashing, middle-aged British man in his fancy three-piece suit and war medals. Helmut sighed theatrically, taking his elbow off the bar and coming to stand next to the lieutenant, side-by-side, and together they faced down the impertinent Bill.

“That was very rude,” Sebastian admonished him quietly, a shark’s smile in place.

Bill shook his head. “No, calling me a halfwit is very rude,” he told him in perfect German, before smoothly reverting back to English. “Quite an obnoxious insult, after a rude and transparent attempt to intimidate members of the British public, who were peacefully drinking in this pub.”

Helmut was open-mouthed.

“Yes… it is you,” he said slowly, in English. “From yesterday?”

“I see you are very well decorated,” was Sebastian’s haughty observation, his eyes now narrowed to slits.

“Oh yes,” Bill nodded, taking a step closer to the German. “I did a lot of killing for them.
Dozens
I killed. Dozens of
your
lot.”

“Is that so?” Sebastian tried to sneer.

“Yes, it is so. It is
indeed
,” Bill breathed, violence in his eyes as he took another step forwards. “I still
see
a lot of them… in my dreams. I see them screaming on the end of my bayonet, or twisting, broken, into the mud in front of me. I once seized a machine gun in a Boche trench… or rather, one of
your
trenches, and turned it on the retreating Jerries. Six of us reached it, of the dozens who charged that section, and your lot died in droves. I remember the hail of bullets, and a line of men being cut down like flies, like grey shadows, falling. This medal,” he said, tapping the Victoria Cross, “… was for that, and another time like it, when I alone survived in my whole platoon. The whole company numbered nine out of two hundred and thirty, by the end.
Nine
. Can you imagine? By the Spring of ’18 they were sending green kids to make up the numbers. School kids, lying about their age to get sent to France after being taught the
glories
of war; then, terrified by reality, having to run sobbing through the quagmire at machine gun fire, getting shot or blown to pieces, then being eaten by rats. Seventeen year old boys screaming in a muddy trench, bleeding like stuck pigs with their innards hanging out, intestines spilling out into their laps, calling for their mothers as they spluttered and choked to death.
That
, young man, is war. Not very
glamorous
, really. Not a happy time for me, or something to be proud of. Yes, I killed a lot of men.
You
ever killed anyone?”

“No,” Sebastian admitted, his face flushing.

“And
you
?” Bill asked Helmut gruffly, turning his burning glare to the Bavarian private.

“Nein.”

Helmut looked down at his feet, shamefaced. Bill’s contemptuous gaze took them both in.

“No, I
thought
not. Came bloody close though last night didn’t you?”

Sebastian stared at him, malevolence returning. “I do not know what you mean.”

His tone was dangerous. Bill registered that the German’s patience was at an end. He had pushed his luck further than expected. The bully was evidently regretting his own cat and mouse game of toying with the British man, which had spectacularly backfired, and his resulting action would be predictably violent. Only shock had made him defensive; any longer, and the German officer would stop tolerating the importunate, fearless confrontation.

Snick of a pistol action as Bill drew his gun, its loud roar freezing Sebastian as the old British soldier fired a bullet into Helmut’s thigh. The impact of its deafening gunshot shuddered through everyone in the pub. The Bavarian screamed, collapsing in a heap as the girls listening from the saloon bar struck up a terrified wailing din. Sebastian’s growing anger evaporated with the shock of the moment; he stood open-mouthed, rooted frozen to the spot. Bill trained his gun on the lieutenant; still mindful of the writhing Helmut on the ground, but the younger German was preoccupied solely with his wounded leg from which dark claret freely flowed.

“There’s a clue,” Bill remarked calmly to the shocked Sebastian. “The fella had a bad leg.”

“What…”

“The boy you nearly killed. He had a bad leg.”

“
What
!”

Bill fired a bullet into Sebastian’s right leg, where it lodged in the femur, and the Wehrmacht officer fell twisting with an awful, piercing scream, searing pain shooting through him as he howled. A prolonged stream of obscenities and wails erupted from his effervescing mouth, while Helmut grimaced and groaned beside him, wriggling in agony.

“Does that help jog your memory?”

Neither German was able to answer. Bill placed his foot carefully on Helmut’s gunshot wound, pressing down mercilessly while he disarmed the young man, before doing the same to Sebastian, pinning him with greater malice. The lieutenant yelled out as Bill’s foot crushed his damaged leg, and the cockney calmly unholstered the luger pistol and pocketed it, after appreciatively inspecting its design.

“Art?” Bill called. “Come here, mate.”

Arthur hesitantly shuffled out from the stock room. He’d served in the war, and was no stranger to gunshots, but the prospect of a gun battle in his own pub with the occupying Germans had been too much for him to witness.

“Yes Bill?” His voice shook, barely audible over the German cries.

“One for the road please, Art. Best make it a large one.”

Arthur inhaled deeply, composing himself, and nodded to his long time customer. The sheer normality of the drink order helped him recover his wits quickly. He chose his finest glass and filled it with ice, then poured Bill a large Scotch, serving four fingers worth, almost reaching the rim of the glass.

“That’s on the house, Bill.”

Bill Wilson raised the glass and toasted him, with an approving tilt of the head.

“Very decent of you, Art.”

The Victoria Cross recipient took an appreciative sip of the Scotch, smacking his lips. “That’s a right touch.” Nodding gratefully, Bill tipped his head back and drained the glass in one go, without the trace of a wince, and then turned to the stricken soldiers, trained the gun downwards and fired one last bullet into each.

Drenched in a hot sweat that made his clothes cling to his perspiring flesh, Jack tore through the ginnel, having abandoned the vehicle and pelted out of it, confident that he had shaken his German pursuers. The alley connected two contiguous neighbourhoods, running alongside a long, corrugated iron fence, flanked by a small woodland area enclosed by a wall at its other side. He pelted through, footsteps crunching on the gravel as he evaded litter, branches and leaves, until he burst out into the adjoining neighbourhood and a quiet residential street.

There was nothing but silence in the sleepy suburb. Not even birds could be heard from the small, rectangular woodland of trees, floor matted with the decay of dead leaves.

Jack jogged down the gently sloping road, passing the slew of semi-detached houses… 113, 111, 109… until finally he reached house number 69, and hurriedly extracting a small key from trousers that clung tight to his legs, the frantic young man let himself in to his mother’s abode.

He burst through the door, turning to his immediate right to rifle through the cabinet by the threshold. Behind him, curious as to the sudden commotion in the hallway, a young man appeared, perplexed, with questions forming on his lips.

Jack turned, and stared into the blue eyes of a German.

Without hesitation, as though electrified, the young Londoner withdrew his gun, reacting quicker than the unprepared Wehrmacht soldier, and his bullet shot Hans through the neck.

As the young man collapsed to the floor, leaking a spreading pool of dark blood on the polished wooden tiles of the hallway, Jack stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, before coming to his senses and racing upstairs. He ran into his old bedroom, flipping the bed over and frantically rooting around for the ready-kit of supplies, ammunition and medical equipment that he had left there. After only seconds of intense searching, Jack grabbed the necessary materials and pelted back downstairs to where a bleary-eyed Maisie was entering the hall, newly awoken by the sound of the shot.

Her eyes opened wide at the sight of her stricken Hans, and then wild-eyed, she turned her gaze to the unexpected sight of her brother, gun in hand, rucksack slung over his shoulder and another large bag in his hand. Her eyes searched his for understanding, as the horror of the moment overwhelmed her senses. He stood frozen, the light of comprehension dawning in his eyes as he bristled at the sight of his sister. Fury took him, and he reached the bottom of the stairs, dumping everything but the gun and turning angrily to the girl.

“You…” he began slowly, shaking his head in tiny, jerky movements, as though begging her to deny the undeniable.

Grief and misery finally welled up in her, after the shock of the moment had dissipated.

“What have you done,” she screamed at her brother, dropping to her knees to cradle Hans’ head in her arms. The hole in his neck leaked blood, spilling over the white folds of her neat dress, and she pressed her face gently into his, pulling back up as he groaned, choking on the crimson fluids that pulsed through his throat.

Jack stared aghast.

“You are with him?!” he screamed, blood vessels bursting in his sweat-soaked face.

His sister continued to sob over Hans’ body, holding her own bloodstained hands to her leaking eyes to examine, moaning in horrified disbelief.

“You’re with him! A
German soldier
!” Jack roared even louder, infuriated beyond the limits of reason as spittle flew from his enraged mouth.