Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK!

by Daniel S. Fletcher

  “Hello,” she said with the unmistakeable air of sardonic cordiality. It was wasted on the fascist.

  “Awroight,” he drawled, barely glancing at her as she moved around the shop, gazing disinterestedly at the various items the owner had added to what was essentially a tobacconists, in an attempt to make good during rationing. The fascist bit down on the ‘t’ at the end of the word, a letter usually omitted in the quick, natural pronunciation of real East Ender cockneys; as a result, it seemed he was almost self-parodying the mockney-cockney routine.

  “All right,” she replied scornfully, mocking him.

  “’ow’s it ga’an then, lav?” he asked disingenuously, without looking round.

  “It’s going.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, it’s ga’an quite well, all things considered.”

  “That’s an intriguing opinion. Not a valid one, but it’s interesting.”

  A small double-take of surprise, and then the fascist chuckled again. “Well, you and everyone else will come to see sense soon enough, love. Don’t you worry your pretty little ’ead about that…”

  “Who or whatever ‘sense’ is, coming from you I can only hope I don’t see it.”

  The swarthy man opened his mouth to retort, and then decided against it, scrutinising the girl with a grin. She realised he had probably been a confrontational mental midget for much of his life, and only now was he realising that he actually wielded some real, tangible power. Seeing him in this light, she shuddered slightly to see his volte-face, hoping he wasn’t planning a methodical attack, be it verbal or otherwise.

  Maisie cast a disdainful glance at his friends; big, thickly set, close cropped hair, boulders for heads, and all clad in ominous black. They looked like bear wrestlers. The greasy braggart, on the other hand, looked like a Jewish troglodyte. If ever an ugly caricature of Slavic ‘untermenschen’ came to life from the pornographic pages of Der Stürmer, it was this fascist. Maisie couldn’t understand the dynamic of the scene playing out before her eyes. How were they waiting around for him, listening to and tolerating his inane, nasty fluff? And all a member of the exclusive blood family, Mussolini’s baby of 1922 that had grown to monstrous proportions. It should have died in Rome, stillborn and unmourned, buried in an unmarked grave.

  “I’ve read about you somewhere,” she blurted out suddenly, impulse once more getting the best of her.

  The monster nearest her uncrossed the massive arms that were straining at his shirt sleeves, and looked over at the shopgirl with dull eyes. “What?”

  “You were…” Her eyes flashed, as though having a brainwave. “Aha! You… were under a bridge, waiting for the Billy Goats Gruff.”

  If Maisie expected an explosion of rage, at least after the period of silence required for the big man to register the joke, she was left sorely disappointed. The bear wrestler, scratching the cleft under his ear where a bushy sideburn grew, merely grunted incoherently, and then asked her to explain the remark. She shook her head, and he dropped the issue, scowling suspiciously as he lapsed into a brooding silence. The young man, however, took umbrage to her humour, and decided to cow her into the proper deference that he felt was only right and due.

  “Well, you’re pretty funny aren’t you?” He leered at her with yellow, if evenly sized teeth.

  That was something, Maisie thought. If there’s one thing that’s right with him, his yellow teeth are perfectly even. Not jagged, or crooked. The colour of bananas, perhaps, but at least they’re even.

  She smiled, maddeningly pleasant.

  “I don’t know… my brother used to tell me my jokes were rubbish, and he wouldn’t make me an honorary boy.”

  She shrugged, regretfully, flicking a strand of curly fair hair out of her eyes. “He laughed, but said it was because they were so bad. Jokes so bad they were funny, y’know? Then we’d play-fight.”

  “So you’re a fighter,” he sneered, looking to his pals and awarding her a profile of his misshapen head and teeth. “Shame you weren’t in France.”

  She pretended to consider. “That did occur to me… though at the time I must admit I was glad. Too many fascists there. The risk of coming across some violent, racist idiot was far too great. It’s a real shame how things turned out.”

  Ratlike eyes bulging; the slimy runt could not answer at first, absorbing the impertinent retort with barely concealed anger. Yet the eruption of rage never came; controlling his breathing, the runt simply stared at Maisie for twelve seconds, before his eyes lost their fury and began insolently roving over her body at leisure. This was a more effective insult than verbal barbs, and one that she couldn’t simply toss back at him with scorn. Fascists, of varying nationalities, de facto ruled Britain. He was a party member. That’s how it worked. He was in power. For all her bluff, she was just a shop girl.

  Mortified, she sat back behind the counter, so that only her head was visible to the odious fascist. Deliberating, the runt flexed his jaw, and then performed some further theatrics to simulate rumination, in the pretence that he was in the process of considering her situation with some significance, wielding some as-yet unspecified power over Maisie.

  “Well…” he finally said, “… you’re obviously not a Jew at any rate. Which is a shame, cos I’d lav to paint a big star on your window, perhaps come in and trash the place every naa’an’ again”. He glanced at her little pile of books behind the counter. “Perhaps take a piss. Or see if your little book piles are harbouring any subversive material… that would be fun.” That leer again, the two curled slabs of raw meat that were his lips twisting grotesquely. She wondered if he was born with them. He added, “Best to be sure that things are properly above board, after all.”

  She nodded slowly, as though in sympathy with his burden as a defender of All Things Fascist.

  “Well, future plans aside, if you’re not here to buy anything, I’d ‘lav’ it if you and your friends here…” she stopped herself, before using a profanity. They wouldn't make her lose her dignity. Not this idiot. Not this bullying, sneering little nobody; a child in a man’s body, albeit a malnourished, misshapen one. Not this cretin.

  “… Would pack it in. And leave. Thanks!”

  She smiled sweetly, noting to her satisfaction that his eyebrows rose in surprise at her coolness. Much to her own amazement, the fascist duly turned and walked out, his friends following, rewarding her bravery with one last, lingering sneer.

  Her mood though, had dipped as they left, emitting menacing vibrations even in exit. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the hundreds, or even thousands of idiots like the young weasel of a fascist who had bothered her would grow accustomed to their roles as legally accepted bullies. That was the nature of brutal regimes and dehumanisation. How many Sturmabteilung brownshirts had been good sons and brothers, nephews and friends, in Munich, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Berlin? How many nice boys in Madrid and Barcelona, Rome and Paris – capitals of European culture – had taken to the worldview of scientific racial superiority and right-wing political extremism? And how many in the nightmare Germany had become warped and transmutated into powerful men of ugly actions; how many good sons grew to beat communists with coshes, fire bullets in street skirmishes, throw glass and chairs in beer hall brawls, and force Jews to lick pavements, sweep up the broken glass of their own shops and houses, parade them through the streets with bloody noses and humiliating placards, burn their properties on Kristallnacht, support the legal privations inflicted and contribute to the persecutions and misery; all done with the sole intent of unifying one tribe by robbing their fellow man of dignity?

  And – unthinkable as it was – how many had turned against their own friends and family?

  The idiot would be back, Maisie realised. And he’d return meaner, more cocksure and a more dangerous enemy.

  She returned to the counter, choosing a familiar book without so much as a browse through her pile of potentially subversive materials, to while away the remaining hour of a quiet day reading Arthur Conan
Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Even though she’d left cigarettes behind in her teen years – an old, furtive rebellion of yesteryear – Maisie was strongly considering opening a packet of Dunhill’s or Chesterfields and lighting up a fag, just for a leisurely, calming smoke, to mortify any Nazis or British fascists who might walk in and see her poisoning the life-giving vessel of Aryan blood… when a tinkle of the doorbell signalled the glass-panelled door swinging open, and two German soldiers stepped in.

  They looked earnest, she thought. Still, don’t discount some capricious act of arrogance or cruelty. Not from this lot.

  The taller of the two approached, glancing left and right as though to ensure they were alone. This was odd. Germans who wanted behind-the-counter goods didn’t pay attention to whoever else was in the shop – not those in uniform, anyway. They paid no heed to queues. In any event, with so many of the British fighting men or those of age absent for various reasons, there was little perceived threat anyway in the more established occupational zones.

  “Hallo,” he said. His voice was slightly singsong; distinctive, though she did not know what accent it was. No doubt they’d all come to be versed in the intricacies of German nuances soon enough, she thought tartly. She smiled pleasantly in response, with a level of cool sardonicism that an outsider to the British Isles would likely miss.

  The young soldier smiled a little wryly, as though he correctly surmised her coolness to him.

  “May I have some Chester… nein, ah… perhaps, I should like to have some Dunhill cigarettes please?”

  The tone was over-exaggerated, a level of careful precision in his elocution that no average Londoner would ever employ. Nor most of the country, come to that.

  She turned, eyes sliding to the shelf behind her and she retrieved them for the young soldier. His friend stepped outside to wait for him, a small tinkle announcing his exit. Maisie serenely tossed a packet of Dunhill on the counter, which seemed to amuse him.

  “I have never tried British cigarettes before,” he said pleasantly.

  “It’s a filthy habit, it will kill you,” she returned coolly.

  “I suppose you are right. At least this death would be my choice, however…”

  “Choose wisely then.”

  He laughed at that; neat white teeth in a wide, smiling mouth, the corners of which were slightly upturned in his dimpled cheeks.

  He was, she noted with annoyance, a handsome lad. Perhaps three-to-five years younger than she, possibly still a teenager. Blond hair cropped at the sides, the longer strands of his fringe swept across an unwrinkled forehead and strong, angular face with pronounced cheekbones and jaw. His eyes were the pale grey-blue of Hitler himself; one of Nazi Germany’s supermen, the new breed of master race.

  “Ja, I will try. Perhaps some Lucky Strikes if you have any, or…” his slightly singsong voice trailed off. They both knew that with shortages of American cigarettes and roughly two thirds of the available pre-war imported goods, that one must consult the black market to satisfy their needs. Even with the post-Churchill usurping government’s capitulation, and the black day of Wehrmacht troops marching through London, many of the parasitic scavengers and opportunists had remained in the shadows. Even previously respectful citizens had turned to the black market for income to help support their families.

  “Afraid not today, Hermann.”

  He laughed again, widely, utterly unfazed by her cheek. “‘Fritz’ would be the German way, fraulein. Like your ‘John Smith’. As soldiers, you are Tommy and I am Jerry.”

  “Well, enjoy your Dunhills, Fritz. Say hello to the other Jerries.”

  “I shall,” he smiled, stifling laughter. “I am billeted nearby here, now. When it’s time to make my next choice of death, I shall see you again. Auf wiedersehen, fraulein.”

  One last smile, which split into a toothy grin as the young soldier tipped his cap, turning away to the door. Maisie didn’t utter a goodbye, but instead looked down with an effort of will that was not inconsiderable, and somewhat flustered, the London lass reopened her book. To her chagrin, it took her a minute or two to properly refocus on the prose of Conan Doyle.

  I shall. So proper in his English. Such quaint language, the berk. It was laughable, really… what did he hope to achieve what that ridiculous attempt to be polite? With his singsong voice, eyes paler than a ghost the colour of Caribbean sea and his stupid dimples…

  Maisie slammed her book down, crossly. She grabbed a packet of cigarettes herself and lit one, billowing smoke as her eyes filmed with thought.

  Outside, the young soldier inspected the reddish, regal looking packet and its ‘Dunhill Superior Cigarettes inscription’ with interest, before tearing the seal open in haste and producing a fag each for himself and for his fellow obersoldat Johan. Even now, he mused, with wars and invasions and privations, rationing, curfews and whatever else, the international corporations continued to make their profits. Cigarettes and whiskey would always sell. The fat cats’ profits would still flow like a river. Goebbels at his most hysterically socialist was right about that much, at least, even if he no longer said it, with his master Hitler and superior Göring embracing investment in the Reich from foreign big business, and relying on oil and iron ore agreements. And with the industrial conglomerate of the Hermann Göring Werke, and numerous corporate power plays and mergers, the Reichsmarschall himself was a major player in the business world now in addition to dual roles of almost unsurpassed authority in both the political and military realms.

  “British?” Johan queried in their native tongue. There was doubt in his voice.

  “Don’t be a German snob, you nationalist swine,” he chided. Snorting, Johan lit them both. There was little danger in such remarks; the two men knew each other well, and there were large sections of the Wehrmacht that held no love for the Nazis, even those who supported the expansionist policy. Both had shared many conversations regarding the transparency of post-Versailles military glorification that had permeated everyday German life for two decades.

  The young, blond soldier looked around with interest, surveying a hesitant blue sky specked with clouds and grey streaks of water droplets and vapour. “It’s not too bad, today.”

  “We’re not supposed to smoke until we’re off duty, anyway,” Johan reminded him, accentuating his East Prussian manner in mock-haughtiness. “Duty to the Fatherland comes first. The Führer is a teetotal non-smoker, don’t you know.”

  “We can’t smoke because Fat Hermann orders it?” he asked coyly, puffing away at his Dunhill and grinning. “He breaks every law Hitler ever made.”

  “The Reichsmarschall–”

  “Fat Hermann’s Luftwaffe adjutant is a Jew. That’s a breach of the race laws.”

  “Reichsmarschall Fat Hermann to you, obersoldat. Don’t you forget it.”

  “How could I forget Prime Minister, Reichstag President, Master of German Forestry, Nazi police founder & Marshal Kummerspeck of the Greater Reich?”

  Johan chuckled; smoke billowing out through his mouth. “How you avoided Dachau I have no idea.”

  A typical East Prussian soldier, though enlisted, Johan shared the consensus opinion of the officers about the ‘Bohemian Corporal’ and his paladins. He was twenty-four, but had already developed the Prussian military manner, cloaked though it was in knowing humour.

  “Just in case you ever do get sent down,” Johan added, “you might as well tell me about those old friends of yours who disappeared. God, it’s not like you are the only one in that regard.”

  “Another time,” came the sober reply.

  Johan recognised something in his tone, and did not press the matter.

  The strolled on southwards to the end of Tottenham Court Road, and rounded the corner on to New Oxford Street, which was a busier hub of life. Two women aged around ten years older than they approached on the pavement, and both soldiers gave them a cheery greeting.

  “Don’t you leer at me, you Jerry bastard!” one of them snarled.


  They marched past, scowls etched into their faces. Both soldiers halted, caught by surprise, and turned to watch incredulously as the women stomped away.

  The two women put a safe distance between themselves and the Germans before speaking again.

  “Can’t stand the bloody sight of the bastards,” Nancy spat with feeling.

  “Same, Nance. Just glad they’re not crawling all over the East End.”

  Which Goebbels had promised they would. Which had scared, and then confused them. Which they left unspoken.

  “Every time I see the filth I start thinking ‘you could have killed Tommy’.”

  Her friend tutted sympathetically. “Don’t be daft, Nancy. Tommy aint dead.”

  “I must say,” Sergeant Stanley finally relented under Tommy’s insistent pressure, “we have indeed fallen on our feet here, chaps.”

  “Yes!” Tommy cried. He slammed his card deck on the round little table in front of him. “I knew you’d come round. It’s all right.”

  James, sat on the barracks steps behind them, snorted loudly; a derisive explosion of phlegm and scorn.

  “Bloody fantastic. Tables, chairs, get to play cards, smoke cigarettes freely, drink beers and learn German. You’ll be bloody Seig Heil’ing next you twat.”