Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (64 page)

All day, more parts of Andrew’s body shot off the wire, until he had no head, no arms, just a bloody stump, a neckhole spurting blood, a lump of torn flesh, stuck in the shellhole watching his brother’s body shot to pieces, until the last chunks of it fell from the cruel wire, not enough spattered fragments of gore left to be held up.

The German, pleading for his life, a scared kid of twenty, hesitation, then the memory of their boys being strafed by the machine guns, Andrew’s body, his mother’s son, the German pleading, begging for his life, Andrew’s body in the wire, begging Bill in English, rushing forwards, thrusting the bayonet through his abdomen, the strangled cry, thrusting again, again, again…

Walking down the gangplank in the middle of a trench; sleeping soldiers, some with rats crawling over them, half-dead from exhaustion and stress. How can life continue after this, he thought, how can life continue after this, how can we go on after this, how can we…

A sniper’s bullet, slamming into David’s temple at the point where a slight step up raised the tall man’s head to a point slightly higher than the parapet. He fell sideways into the mud, oozing blood from a neat hole in his skull. Death came to him faster than anything possible.

Announcement; the Germans surrender. As of 11 o’clock, the 11
^th
of the 11
^th
month, November 1918, the guns will fall silent, and the war will be over. Congratulations, men, we have won. Silence.

Christmas, back home. Maureen stricken.
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles
, he sang.
Pretty Bubbles In The Air
. Silence.

The first day of 1920; his father John, reedy voice crackling with the strain of age, weakened by consumption. Where’s your pal John, and Maureen? Why isn’t Andrew here? How come you never bring your mates around anymore, Billy? Where’s your mother?

His father, dead; a yellow, waxy skeleton.

The memories of those terrible years resurfaced, and Bill smiled to think of them, remembering those faces for the first time without the pain of absence, the sting of regret. He imagined an imminent reunion. Would it happen?
Hope so
, he thought. Bloody well hope so.

Time had passed slowly, like a slug crawling across a razor blade for eternity. Sisyphus. A Heraklean labour. Today, the sun was shining. There was joy in his heart.

Bill made his way through the streets of Bloomsbury, weaving through the Russell Square, attracting curious glances from the handful of people strolling through with their dogs. His chest was puffed out, and he marched proudly, swollen with intent and the glory of mortality.

It occurred to him that while he had survived the Great War, all that followed subsequent had been a proxy life. Now, he was emancipated. Death held no fear for him. The knowledge that all will soon end adds a brightness to each image, a beauty in each visage and a sweetness to each scent.

Exiting the square, he passed the British Museum, glancing almost scornfully at it as he did so, and reaching the alleyway with its quiet, slumbering pub, a more brisk walk took him out onto the Tottenham Court Road.

Bill turned left, and headed south.

A light breeze pleasantly wafted over his face, blowing the newly neatened hair back behind his head as he strolled downwind, nearing the tobacconists, where he sometimes bought cigarettes. The girl there was nice; Maisie, her name was. She was always kind, and spoke warmly and intelligently to him. To his regret, Bill realised that the great majority of the time he had entered to chat to her, alcohol had rendered him somewhat senseless, and he imagined the ordeal for her, dealing with his acrid stench and, quite possibly, drunken rambling; whatever unintelligible, nonsensical gibberish escaped his lips. It simply wouldn’t do. Today was a day of change.

Bill decided to go speak to her today, but to his regret, the shop was closed.

Her brother drank in his pub, he remembered suddenly. Obviously the Londoner was the one called Jack, as the fiery one was a Geordie and the one with the pretty girlfriend was Scottish.
Don’t call them Scotch
, he noted,
they don’t like it
. The Jack lad was a nice enough chap. Bill regretted that he had not made more of an effort to speak to him. They had spoken only a few times, but Jack seemed intelligent, and earnest.

As he passed the shop, Bill realised that what he’d done would be relayed to Jack, so Maisie would in all likelihood hear about it. That was something, at least. He couldn’t understand how he had let himself become such a shell of a man.

Sunlight, hidden behind the clouds suddenly burst anew over the London streets, and Bill smiled to feel its rays gently dusting the skin of his face.

It feels good to be trimmed. To feel sunlight on my cheeks. How did I lose the plot?

It doesn’t matter, he decided. Today was a great day. A
new
chapter
.

Tottenham Court Road ended with the junction at Oxford Street, ringed on all sides by lumpy buildings scarred by polluted air. Grey, of a dirtier shade than charcoal, surrounded them on all sides, assailing the visual sense. This was where Bloomsbury merged southwards into the heart of London; only a mile to the south stood Westminster Palace and its Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the hallmarks of England and the British Empire. Welcoming the sound, sight and smell of the London traffic, Bill unhesitantly went south, towards the river and Westminster.

It was not long before he saw the first German patrols.

A click of the pistol’s cocking mechanism and Bill fired over; two rapid shots that took the Wehrmacht soldiers by surprise. One was caught straight through the throat and collapsed, gurgling a choking death rattle before bleeding out on the cobbles, while the other bullet punched through his comrade’s chest. Covert in his strike, Bill had slipped around the corner into the parallel street, and the confused shouts of the other German troops who’d been caught unawares receded as he continued south to where the Wehrmacht checkpoints would undoubtedly be.

Weaving across the lanes that led towards Trafalgar Square, Bill continued to veer away from the increasing volume of audible German activity nearby, and he slipped through grey streets in the silent slumber of occupation, cutting through a blind spot between Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square. Eventually, back on the wide street and walking southwards, Bill neared the square, passing the statue of Great War nurse Edith Cavell at St Martin’s Place, which had been marked off. Evidently, the rumour that either Hitler or Heydrich demanded its removal was true, he thought.

In reflective mood, Bill paused by it, reading the inscription: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no bitterness or hatred for anyone.”

Fighting back tears, Bill nodded up to her, smiling. He now knew her peace.

Down the road, the German checkpoint at the edge of Trafalgar Square. It was little more than a roadblock manned by three bored looking soldiers, haphazardly checking the identification of the few stragglers passing through. Bill approached them.

“Papers,” a bored Wehrmacht soldier intoned. He had a coarse, pockmarked face. Bill surmised him to be thirty-five or so, not much younger than he was. Old enough.

“By all means,” the Londoner smiled pleasantly, and withdrew his pistol, firing into the chest of the startled soldier, who died quickly.

Bill was quicker to react than the dying man’s
kameraden
; he let off two quick shots that felled the fascist soldiers and sidestepped the roadblock, clinging to the shadows as he stealthily darted into Trafalgar Square. Distant shouts grew louder, and German guns were concentrated towards the area of unrest, but despite three bullets being fired towards the massacred roadblock and the source of their danger, the square’s guards were neither close nor quick enough to shoot the exposed British soldier, who reached the centre of the square in the style he had traversed No Man’s Land in all those years ago.

Taking refuge behind Nelson’s Column, Bill settled himself with the statue as his impediment from the massing Werhmacht at the Arch; firing off to his right as the several soldiers whose roadblock faced The Strand took position thirty metres south of him, the aged veteran sent one man scrambling away, hit his comrade in the leg and in doing so, he managed to clear his unprotected flank of enemies. The main bulk, he knew, were further south down the road and would be there soon.

Nelson’s Column stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square, with no additional cover nearby, and exposed on all sides in a wide public space. Bill had not chosen a spot that he could hold indefinitely; indefensible, at best, it offered a brief haven for a shoot-out.

Bill thought of his dead father, his dead brother and his dead friend, smiling genially as their faces swam before him, before at last settling his mind’s eye on sweet Maureen’s memory.

I’m Forever Blowin’ Bubbles
, he crooned to himself,
pretty
bubbles
in the
air
…
They fly so high, they reach the sky,
And like our dreams, they fade and die…
Fortune’s always hiding, I looked everywhere,
I’ll be blowing bubbles, soon,
And I’m sure I’ll see you there
…

Bill’s piercing eyes crinkled, and a single tear leaked down either cheek to the curved lips of his wide smile. He glanced up to the sun, calmly enjoying the gentle touch of its last kiss on his handsome face as he grinned, silently thanking whatever energy it was that created the cosmos. Drawing the pistol with the cavalier dash of a buccaneer, Bill Wilson yelled out a piercing war cry and sprinted out, firing bullets over to the German positions, too many of them, his wildly inaccurate shots bursting four times from the gun before he was brought down in a hail of bullets, and he crashed hard to the ground, dead, in the shadow of Nelson’s Column.

By now the high speed chase was over. A frantic Alan roared out of the boundaries of human settlement and into the kind of tree-lined country road that looks like it migrated to the London area from another part of the country; foreign, alien, natural. The motorbike spluttered at its maximum speed, willed on by its frantic rider. He knew there would be army checkpoints on the road ahead; SS-Gestapo, and likely soldiers at his back. Escape had proven difficult; he had reached his bike, using the chaos of the crowds, but not without pursuers. The subsequent mad dash had drained the bike of much of its remaining petrol, and it was a bittersweet moment when he finally broke free of his dogged German followers. His fuel was low, and while he’d escaped the city and the soldiers, it was painfully clear that the ensnarement operation would now be in effect. The enormity of what they’d tried to do, and what they’d done, was too great.
Bikes, cars and trucks. Guns, and evil intent.

Tears streaking his face – half from the wind whipping unforgivingly into his eyes as the bike screamed away through the streets –Alan raced further out of the city, pushing deeper into the countryside, and he put one final burst into the engine until he saw water. There, down an embankment to his left, some distance from the road and beyond the trees that lined it, he caught a glimpse of water.
Oh God, there’s water
. Trees, leaves grass… water.

Veering away off the asphalt, Alan knew he was in contact with the man-made world for the last time.

Good
, he thought.
Thank God
.
Or whatever force there is
.

The bike shuddered down the grass embankment, through a gap in the trees that opened up before him. He rolled down the unspoiled turf of the bank to a clearing of undisturbed grassland that surprisingly, given the relative lateness of the year, had seemingly retained all its green splendour. Adrenaline coursed through blood that had run thin in his veins, and he paused, panting on the bike. Trees overlapped above his head, forming a natural enclosure and offering a strange protection from the sky; an enclosed world. His eyes blearily, feverishly, appreciatively absorbed every visual.

Those fucking bastards. Those fucking fascist bastards
.

Sunlight pierced the branches with a scattered array of thin beams, almost mockingly bright. After a while, still not hearing the sound of any pursuing vehicles, Alan patted the bike, and shuffled over to the water’s edge, beyond the leafy ceiling. The open sky, with nothing human or man-made in sight. Alan stared hungrily around the little lake, before gazing up. The sky, he noticed for the first time, was a lovely blue; somewhere between a deep azure and, in part, a light periwinkle; dotted and specked with clouds. It belied the time of year.

His jaw bunching in a rush of nervous energy, Alan pulled the Star 7.65mm pistol out of his lined black leather jacket; every inch the anti-fascist freedom fighter. The gun had been procured in Barcelona from a member of the CNT anarchist’s brigades, not long after their arrival, while the group of friends were
all still members of the POUM.
Those were the happy days of ’36, when all anti-fascists – regardless of party or theorist loyalties – were undisputed comrades in arms, united against fascist tyranny, embracing indiscriminately and singing through the streets. That died, as had, he realised now, the idealistic egalitarian dream itself.

In a moment of quiet regret, Alan conceded that their hopes and dreams had been purely quixotic. If right-wing tyranny had not engulfed them, combined with religion, then the murderous left they had naively believed in would have inflicted a Stalinist hell on the west. If both extremes failed; the ruling classes and financial masters would impose corporatocracy, and perpetuate serfdom. Whatever the form and label, rulers would rule, and the powerful would wield power.

It would never end.

The left extreme had proven as ruthless and obnoxiously, foolishly cruel as that of the right. One had triumphed, the other failed, but the ruling class and corporate plutocrats still sat atop the pyramid either way.
All the bloodshed of young men, ultimately fighting for nothing
. Musing on the cruelties of their lives, the Geordie was suddenly weary, tired of it all. Let them struggle on in their pretentious, blind ostentation.
Let them bow and salute, or fight and fall
. Oddly enough, the cold, clammy metal of his tried and trusted pistol was comforting. Alan’s hand shook, but his body was still, a lonely silhouette by the waterside.