In the higher reaches of society, such views were being met with cheers and the clinking of glasses. Former Jewish business partners, merchants and traders became pariahs overnight. Those of mixed race who were in prominence became vocal defenders of western culture and blood, often having had no strong views in the years before 1940.
And those Jews rich enough merely smiled at all the subjective idiocy of the little people.
The middle classes and petit bourgeois were not immune to the grief-stricken torpor of the proletariat; the upper classes, most of whom had supported Franco in his authoritarian fascist/Catholic defence of the ‘old Spain’, were much more adaptable to the changing spectrum – being mostly above and untouched by its consequences – and ideologically more aligned to the centralism and stability that the extreme right imposed. Nationalising much of the industry and attacking unemployment was one thing; ensuring big business flourished and ‘old money’ prevailed was another. The toffs, all in all, seemed quite grudgingly accepting of the new order.
~
The tobacconists’ bell tinkled, and Maisie looked up from her copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles to see the young German soldier smiling at her that had bought a packet of cigarettes three days prior.
His friendly expression faltered in the face of her cool indifference; like a wave breaking against a cliff, before rolling back. The young man paused, discomfited, before quickly doffing his cap to the impassive girl and her steady gaze. He was certain that his failure to have done so immediately upon entering was obviously a cultural breach in the land of English gentlemen – hence her disapproval – and his face betrayed disappointment when she snorted quite openly at his attempt to win favour. Finally deigning to put the book down she approached the counter, her face an impenetrable mask.
The young German’s mouth opened and closed, briefly, and she reacted to his noiseless greeting with a firm, thin-lipped smile, tinged with a tiny trace of contempt.
“Hello again,” he smiled pleasantly, pulling himself together, having mentally abandoned the idea of flirtation and deciding to just replenish his smokes.
“Oh hello… still alive then?” she asked without interest.
He grinned, unused to such front from a woman. Particularly one so young, and vital. Girls close to his age had grown up under the Nazi yoke; the only real confidence and zeal any of them seemed to show was during suitable ‘Germanic’ activities or statements. Fear and caution stifled spirited girls elsewhere. Just like the boys. And their parents, and grandparents. Fear was insidious.
“Yes, still alive…” he smiled, “and I have decided to take a chance on one more packet.”
“It’s your funeral,” she deadpanned.
By now his awkwardness had disappeared, and the soldier was more than a little amused by the spunky English shopgirl, and his own previous inability to communicate.
“May I have a packet of Woodbines, please?”
She turned and collected them, at a leisurely pace. The light struck her hair and sent a blonde glow out, reflecting against the brown of polished wood. Maisie’s poise was loose; she almost sauntered back to the soldier with his cigarettes, before dropping them carelessly onto his outstretched hand. The packet bounced off his fingers and hit the floor; he quickly ducked to retrieve them, straightening back up to see an utterly unapologetic Maisie lighting a smoke of her own.
“Are you sure it is the right job for you, working at a Tobacconists?” he asked her, some incredulity breaking through his amusement.
“You have to take whatever is available in these times,” she replied, brushing a tuft of hair out of her eyes. “Are you sure being a soldier is the right job for you?”
He stopped his in tracks, letting out a half-laugh.
“Sadly, no.” She held his gaze, and he decided to trust her. “But I had no choice.”
To his surprise, she smiled at him in what looked like genuine sympathy.
“Never mind, eh.”
The tone was much softer than before, and the corners of her mouth twisted wistfully. She was sympathetic. Not so tough after all. Not such a cold fish.
Maisie passed the young soldier his packet of cigarettes.
“Danke,” the German said, gently.
She looked at him curiously. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tease you for cigarettes. There are more dangerous things happening out there, after all.”
He nodded, slowly, scrambling to find the right response in English.
“That is true. Anyway, who wants to live forever? I am sure that old people who cannot fight or make new children are probably considered unGerman in some way. There are laws against them.”
Maisie could not bring herself to reply.
“Do not worry,” he smiled again, the expression slowly splitting his boyish face. “English, German, it is the same to them. As long as we are young and it is possible to fight or produce children… we are in no trouble…”
He blushed, furious at himself for the clumsy attempt to backtrack, but determinedly maintaining eye contact. Blue on blue, his steady and strong; hers equally blue, but flecked with the slight gold of hazel specks. Freckles dotted either side of her perfect, narrow nose.
“Well,” Maisie replied quietly, clearing her throat. “That is a good one. I’ll have a smoke myself, today.”
“Danke,” he repeated quietly, tilting the paper packet slightly.
Beats of silence, then he plunged: “You don’t seem like the kind of girl I knew in Germany?”
“Oh?” she replied, eyebrows raised. But he could sense her interest.
Leaning in to the counter, he gave her the full beam of his smile. “Yes,” he purred, softly. “You are different. German girls my age grew up under Hitler. They are all the same; scared of being different, Aryan, talk about the same boring Germanic things, they all hate Jews…”
She stared at him, her eyes flickering fast from side-to-side in small movements, weighing him up. For his part, he did not blink; there was a twinkle in his eye.
“You are different. Anyway… I am needed. Auf Wiedersehen, fraulein…”
He held her gaze, searching for a semblance of warmth or compassion, or humour or dread in her eyes. He saw none; just curiosity, as she considered him keenly, judging his demeanour after the unexpected remarks. Despite himself, he could not help staring, maintaining the eye contact for several seconds after his goodbye. But she did not buckle under the pressure, with her composure regained, and when her right eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly in bemusement, he knew he had pressed it as far as he should, if not, indeed, a little further.
Replacing his enlisted soldier’s field cap, he dropped his gaze, only briefly discomposed, before doffing the grey wool to the English girl. Turning on his heel, the young soldier quickly exited out into the rare sunlight, moving away from the shopfront before sliding a cigarette into the waiting crevice of his lips.
For the first time in three days, Simon was calm.
Sat at his desk; attaching the Woodbine to his little gold holder, flicking open the heavy lighter and sucking down the smoke. Blowing swirls around him, letting it absorb into his flesh. Breathing deeply. It was his routine, the routine that calmed him. The routine that soothed him in the darkest hours of his life. His time alone, at the desk, expunging.
Placing the holder between his teeth where it pointed outwards, away from his eyes, Simon picked up his pen to write.
Diary,
I feel like I’m trapped in a dream from which it is impossible to awaken.
Walking through my own streets, the busy roads, the garden squares and riverside embankment and Fleet Street and Whitehall and every other monument and sacred place of London there is… and seeing the German soldier.
But no horror can equate to the spectacle seen at the Savoy.
Göring.
That corpulent beast, swollen, having eaten Europe whole. His air force bombs barbecuing cities in their entirety, in preparation for his monstrous appetite to
come along and gobble them up, like the fairytale villain of a Brothers Grimm story.
The man himself, in framed pictures, television broadcasts to his adoring German public, those left alive, who see him as a happy, fat figure of fun.
The WEASEL next to him, grinning ear to ear. Shyster! Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England!
“This man,” cried Göring, “more than any other fought to protect the Aryan peoples from economic enslavement from world Jewry and the odious financiers spawned from Europe’s Court Jews.”
The rest of his speech beggars belief. Turns out old ‘Monty’ signed away the wealth of Czecho-Slovakia, and literally transferred their gold to the Reichsbank after Hitler’s armies absorbed the rest of their country – so much for his sole aim to rescue the Sudeten Germans, mind you!
Simon paused, his hand shaking. Göring, fluent in English, a monster apparition in the room. A handful of well-to-do friends and acquaintances having flocked to him – ambassadors, diplomats, lords, men who had visited Carinhall and hunted with Göring in the days before war. He basked in the limelight; a fat, perfumed, strutting Nero, a deputy-Caesar.
Simon could see why he’d been advised to ‘dress formally’ – nothing but a sea of morning coats, top hats, sleek American businessmen with neatly parted hair and older, aristocratic and upper class British toffs clad in their dapper best. Most were laughing. Every table, including Simon’s, had been laden with wines, champagne, cheese and meats, and assorted cakes, pastries and delicacies. Rationing was still in effect. Simon wrote about what he’d realised at that very moment, gazing across a sea of smiling, flushed faces.
This class of people will never go without. They’ll never be affected by war. They’ll always prosper, regardless of what happens at the political and social levels. They are above everything and everyone. The world is run on money, and money runs the world.
After thirty minutes of singing plaudits and platitudes to the assembled, the Reichsmarschall called, “and now, dear friends, leaders in our western world – this shall not be a usual night of German speeches and bombast! Let us enjoy a night in the company of friends and associates!”
“Hear hear!” cried dozens of British and American gentlemen in response.
The journalists’ pool was summoned to him back in the River Suite, in between the conference and the buffet. The lights of cameras flashed; all taken by Germans in some kind of uniform or other. Journalists crowded around with pens and notepads.
Reichsmarschall, what have you… what do you… does Herr Hitler… economic partnerships between… who instigated… the questions reigned in, and Göring, his large belly stretching at the sleek fabric of an all-white uniform obscenely bedecked with medals, roared his answers back jovially, the huge, glowing moon of a face beaming, the very epitome of conviviality. He radiated power, like a great, benevolent authority.
“The reorganisation of a world freed from economic and cultural slavery is a matter for the governments of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, the British Empire and the leaders in each field,” he’d declared, with gusto. “With such men as Montagu Norman, and a new system of cooperation, the great Aryan nations will continue to grow from strength-to-strength! And perhaps even our American friends across the sea will come to see the advantage of a great union of the world’s leading nations and cultures.”
The cunning instinct of a fox, the body of a pig, and the empathy of a pure sociopath. Not to mention, the understanding of human judgement and emotion. He watched us all drink in his words and his jovial nature and attitude and smile, yet no one seemed to identify the small light of triumph that shone in his eyes through the good-natured posturing.
Unbelievably, the banker had been worse. Simon had longed to ask Göring about the violent SA purge – an organisation he set up – the concentration camps, and the Kristallnacht pogrom. Of course, he couldn’t. But Simon, let alone ask questions, found himself unable to so much as look at Montagu Norman without feeling queasy. His vicious, rat-like smirk. The glint of triumph in his eyes when Göring sang his plaudits. His almost knowing amusement when the titanic figure in world politics draped his arm lazily around the little man’s shoulders.
They told us to expect pictures, that we only had to provide written copy and yes, the assured of us the importance of the occasion. The news would only be released two days from then, with the Reichsmarschall safe and sound back in Germany. In the meantime, it’s time you gentlemen enjoyed the buffet! Eat and drink your fill, esteemed guests!
Simon stopped. There was little need to go on.
In the event, he’d not touched the sumptuous buffet laid on for them, nor had he sought the company of any of the guests. One journalist he knew tried to engage him in discussion, affecting an air of secrecy as he pontificated in low mutterings as to where this could lead. Simon, though, had detected the underlying excitement of the man, and had rudely turned away, making an abrupt exit to the Savoy’s American bar; unusually quiet, for nine in the evening, with plenty of free tables. The glitzy bar gleamed white and yellow, its brightness reflected and magnified by the mirrors, sleek and flashy. There, several cocktails at the bar and then smoke in a far corner of the seated area calmed him, as he absorbed what he’d witnessed elsewhere in the grand settings of the hotel. Neither the tuxedoed pianist playing Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, nor the other guests in the bar interrupted his rumination.
The sound of classic German artistry was an almost unbearable assault on the senses. But this was not the night to complain.
Eventually, when enough time had passed, Simon rose to his feet, slowly made his way down through the high domed ground floor back to the main foyer, footsteps echoing horribly in his imagination. He briskly stepped through the great halls, down to the river entrance, and faced with the frosty night air, the journalist grudgingly accepted his ride home.
It had been an uneasy decision, but with the horrible feeling of isolation and gloom setting in around them – even in the comparatively nice surroundings of Bloomsbury, with its quiet garden squares and leafy, tree-lined lanes – the comrades-in-arms had settled on trying to enlist the help of old fighters and with it, all being well, the concurrent support network that had proven so reliable.
The trip was not taken lightly.
It was a dangerous risk to take, travelling across the occupied city together and as such, they insisted that Mary stay in Bloomsbury, taking care to reassure her it was common practise leave a soldier behind should the excursion lead to disaster. Either way, the Barceloniña had not been happy; unleashing the first Latin rage and tantrum at her William in two years; eyes burning as she babbled a relentless stream of perfect English interlaced with Catalan curses, vehement, spat at speed.
They understood her frustration; the old war had been equal rights combat, and before communist cannibalism, many female fighters had signed up to the anarchists and Marxist militias. Mary, caution abandoned, released a torrent of furious passion at her friends. But, the context was extreme, and they all loved the girl with a fervour they were once hesitant to admit. It was quite impossible to retain any anger towards her, and even enraged, she found it difficult to maintain her rage for long. Mary embraced them all before they left, squeezing each of them tightly and blessing their journey.
“Go time,” Alan muttered quietly as at long last, they stepped out into the cool, dark London evening.
William snorted. “We’re not going to face anything scarier than that, anyway… perfect motivation.”
Jack and Alan guffawed at the resentful, sulky tone of the chastised lover, and the Scot soon joined in the group laughter.
Stealthily, the group rolled through the city with exaggerated care. They circumvented the very centre of the city, where they knew that German patrols were likely to accost them, to check identification as standard procedure, if nothing else. Their papers would be of no help to the discerning eye, they knew; three men in their early and mid-twenties, of military age, travelli
ng after dusk across a watchful London ruled by wary conquerors. A straight easterly route for several miles before heading south would take them through the East End and on to where they suspected they’d find their old comrade.
An old fighter… Alter Kampfer, the fascists would call him. But he was a veteran of the left, and had vanished from their radars; consumed as they were by the irresistable Germans, victorious everywhere.
They knew Duncan McGrath of old; he had been an older head who greatly helped ease the teenage Jack’s transition into the communist party and thence, along with William, into Spain. Both had torn up their CPGB Party membership cards as soon as was safe in the aftermath of betrayal in Barcelona, when thousands of Marxist militia members of the POUM returned on leave from fighting fascism at the front to find themselves labelled ‘Trotskyite Fascists’ and criminal traitors. Their own status as communists and the helpful usage of a veritable thesaurus of Lenin jargon likely saved their lives, but the affair destroyed their belief in the international communist cause. When Franco’s tanks rolled into Barcelona, the group barely escaped north and into France, after which they vowed to never support that ideological extreme again. To their shock and bewilderment, even as they returned to fight the last eighteen months of a doomed war as part of the organised communist army – the PSUC proper, suspecting that their preferred ideological comrades the Catalan Anarchists would be next in line to be outlawed and cannibalised – they realised then and later that General Franco’s secret police squadrons were merely continuing the ignoble work of the Russian security police services and their seemingly subordinate Spanish Communist Party allies. Night arrests, imprisonments and executions were not a consequence of fascist rule; only the persecutors changed.
Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! Page 19