She tossed her great wave of thick brown hair, sending it whipping round in a quick circular arc, an impatient gesture they all loved. “I cannot believe how much more…” her voice trailed off. “These Germans. Their secret police is much cleverer than my people.”
Her soft tone was so bleak, bereft of its usual lilt, that none dared offer a response, even in comfort.
“At the moment, it’s impossible, and besides, we were hoping for results from the one person here who is not British,” William said protectively. She turned to him with a scowl.
“The not British person is perfectly capable of achieving results, not to mention speaking your slow, brutal language, better than you Scottish–”
“I know lass, I know,” he quickly replied, grinning despite himself and their unenviable position. Jack and Alan stared at the bickering couple balefully, bemused at the prospect of energy being wasted on pointless quarrels.
“Then the only option left to us is in transit,” Jack observed, soberly. “Himmler’s car ride from the Savoy to the Dorchester when he meets Göring and von Ribbentrop for this meeting with the puppet government in-waiting.”
“Would be ironic if we killed him en route to the full and proper Friendship Pact with England,” Alan grinned.
“Britain.”
“Whatever,” he shrugged back. “You’ll get your independence soon, Jock, if they get their wish. Probably, like. Then they can seal off the border and wipe out everyone between Hadrian’s Wall and the Leeds-Liverpool canal. No soldiers wasted patrolling in Scotland, being shot at by your ugly ginger friends.”
William snorted ruefully. “All those centuries, it’s all we wanted. Now we’re a united nation we’ll be split, and all because the Jerries of all people can’t be bothered freezing in our snow when they could be freezing in Stalin’s…”
Jack turned and spat onto the floor, and an affirming murmur was shared. Spain taught them that the furthest extreme from an ugly extreme can turn out to be just as ugly in its own right; a poisoned mushroom, as Julius Streicher said about the Jews. But Soviet communism was a real poisoned mushroom.
“How are we sure they will even take the park road anyway? It would be uh, more fast to come via other side.” Mary observed. William stole a wink at Jack, who smiled a little. The ‘not British’ person was a smart girl, and asked a pertinent question while knowing relatively little of the city, compared to the local Jack. Even William and Alan had been there years.
“It’s what they do. Always loud, obnoxious, ostentatious.” Jack assured her. She looked at him blankly. “Grande. Magnifico,” he added quickly, circling his arms. “Extravagante.”
“Besides, even if Himmler crept in, chances are if we get in place assuming the Park Road is our best bet, we’ll snag Göring or Ribbentrop, or some big leader,” Alan offered. But Jack shook his head.
“The instructions were there for a reason. No Himmler – or Heydrich – and we call it off, wait to catch them going back to the Savoy. No use bumping some diplomat or even the fat boy. Besides, we’ll be able to tell by the security if that road’s in use.”
“It will be,” William said assuredly.
Alan shrugged again; it was becoming his gesture. “Aye, well… it would be bloody lovely as a little irony if we killed them en route to the Friendship treaty.” The grin that followed this was a little perverted for a murder mission, Jack thought. Even on Heinrich Himmler.
“Wouldn’t it just,” William smiled.
“To friendship! Salud” Mary cried.
“Cheers!”
They toasted the thought. Alan cleared his throat.
“By all accounts, Heydrich isn’t too concerned with security, he just drives around in his open top Mercedes, reg’ plate ‘SS-3’.”
“Why?”
He snorted. “Evil bastard said that if anyone tried to kill him, it would be the single worst day in the history of their country.”
The words slipped out, and he wished they could be unsaid as soon as they escaped his lips.
“Dark clouds over Newcastle today,” Jack said darkly.
But William agreed with the Geordie. “These things have to be said. This isn’t a game we’re playing, and he’s certainly not bloody playing. As to what Heydrich said, judging from the war in Poland he’s probably right.”
The bell tinkled in the next room, and a silence descended. None of the three seated in their booth in the saloon bar registered the sudden quiet.
“Himmler rides in an armoured car mostly, but you never know,” Alan said, the light of hope flickering in his eyes. “They could just take the normal staff car in England. Or even one of Heydrich’s, the open-tops he drives,” he said, even more hopefully. “From the Savoy to the Dorchester isn’t exactly far, and they’re going to have SS and Gestapo all over the place. They might get careless – Heydrich is never careful, anyway. Either way if we see Heydrich in the open I’m taking a pot-shot at him regardless of the orders. That’s too big a target to ignore.”
The low sound of the saloon door swinging shut snapped them out of their focus bubble, and back to the outside world. Footsteps were approaching to William and Mary’s back, though the booth obscured them from the rest of the room. Jack, seated opposite Mary and with the room in full view, had wide eyes. Rooted to their seats, the Scot and the Spaniard’s hands and jaws clenched, a chill running through them just to see Jack’s reaction.
After eight further steps across the thick carpet, a tall man in uniform swung into view for the rest of them. He stood proudly; tall, blond and blue, the young man wore an officer’s peaked cap standing high on his head, and the grey field blouse of the Wehrmacht. Shoulder epaulettes of silver-green braid with a stud, and jackbooted to his knees, the confident youngster was a German Army officer. Next to him stood an enlisted man, a soldier in a slightly less decorated uniform and with steel helmet in place of the cap.
“Aye up Mum? Guess wha’?” The blond, fat child screamed from the threshold, by way of announcing his arrival to the family home.
His stern, hawkish mother marched out of the kitchen to see him, the huge thuds of her footsteps on the panelled wood resonating loudly around the large, commodious house.
“What?” She snapped at him; her voice more suitable for the prehistoric beak of some angered bird than all the soft possibilities of a human mouth.
“I just saw Ms Rosenberg kissing Mr Heggerty!”
“What?” This time, the mother’s voice was louder.
The boy slapped his knees, in a mock-parody of adult merriment. In truth, he had seen his grandfather do it and hoped it made him appear more grown-up. His chins wobbled with laughter as the story came tumbling out in a verbally incontinent outpouring, worsened by a frequent, compulsive use of glottal stops combined with his abysmally low intelligence.
“Me and Johnny saw ’er! Saw ’er wi’ ’eggerty outside t’school and he kissed ’er, they was together, as sure as you like, it were Miss Rosenberg, Mam, and she do’n’t look ill at all–”
“Where were they?” His mother demanded, breaking into the stream of babble.
“Well we followed ‘em, and they went back to Mr ’eggerty’s ’ouse!”
His mother was shocked.
“Is that so? They told us that Jews were not allowed to teach anymore, they’ve been banned from all the major professions and from schools. I thought Rosenberg refused to register as a Jew, and took off?”
The boy looked at her, and shrugged, the great shoulders rolling as his fleshy arms flopped. He didn’t think about things like that. His mother considered him, her eyes narrowed, lips pursed.
“Well you be keeping it to yourself, don’t be telling tales, d’you hear me?” His mother demanded of him. Then she stepped briskly to the phone, and dialled a familiar number.
~
“Hello,” the officer smiled. “Do you mind if we sit with you for a moment?”
They were stunned. Heartbeats, and then Jack recovered his comp
osure, realising that if they were in trouble, evidently it could not be for the reason that by all rights it should be.
“Of course, by all means.”
“Thank you. We would like to talk with you,” smiled the German.
William and Mary scooted along the seat of their booth, until the Scot’s left shoulder was pressed up again the plaster of the wall. Jack squeezed a gobsmacked Alan along with his thigh, and the German officer sat down next to him, the enlisted soldier next to Mary. Adding to the disorientation of the group was their age. They’re bloody kids, Alan thought. It occurred to William that he, Mary and Jack were senior in age to these Germans by at least four years.
“What about?” Alan demanded, gormlessly. The other three groaned inwardly. The time that had elapsed since the German’s remark had been such that the Geordie came across as both slow, and belligerent. And aggression was the last thing they could afford.
But the officer smiled. Taking a packet of British Dunhill cigarettes from his packet, he lit once for himself at leisure, and then offered one to his friend.
“Danke,” the private said quietly.
The officer, almost as an afterthought, offered the packet round. With a shaking hand, William hastily collected two for himself and Mary. He knew better than to refuse the offer so soon, and besides, they were superior cigarettes to those he himself had been reduced to buying after the stash brought back from the hideaway had been used up.
The officer pointedly offered a cigarette to Alan, who lost the battle of willpower and accepted it. The German beamed.
“Whatever you like,” he said brightly, finally deigning to answer.
Nobody spoke. The appearance of the young officer had jolted them horribly. Adding to their confusion was his boyish face; dimples and clear blue eyes, a small pock mark above his left eyebrow the only imperfection on a child’s face. His friend, who had removed his helmet, was darker; brown eyes, short brown hair, closely cropped at the sides, and freckles. Both emitted an unusually fragrant scent; lightly perfumed, in their immaculate uniforms, they certainly did not resemble the soldier of both the partisans’ imaginations and past. They’d never seen anyone in a trench that even closely resembled these men. The Germans they’d known had been dirty, clad in leather and had not held themselves with military bearing.
The young German tutted, as the silence wore on, seemingly at ease in the discomfiting tension. “Come come… you were all talking freely before we arrived. Then again, I have quite clearly neglected to introduce us in the proper manner. I am Sebastian, an officer in the German Army. Lieutenant Sebastian Koller. This is Private Helmut.
“Hello,” Helmut said unsmilingly. Then, at the drop of a hat, he fixed them each in turn with a grin; his own freckled, schoolboy face unlined. The effect was sinister.
“Come come,” Sebastian said again. He spoke with exaggerated care, his Received Pronunciation English grating, like an insufferable public schoolboy lecturing proletarian employees, but with the German tint that further twisted the knife. “We are not Gestapo. Our uniforms are on clear show for you people. We are soldiers of the Wehrmacht. What is the problem?” He smiled again, expectantly. Alan, meanwhile, was fondly imagining breaking his glass over the Jerry officer’s young face, and the scene he envisioned sent him drifting into a full-blown daydream of prolonged, and excruciating torture. While it relieved his tension, the imaginings gave him a vacant look, which Helmut noticed curiously.
“I am Jack, these are my friends William, Mary and Alan,” Jack told Sebastian.
“Hello. My, my… what a pretty girl you are, Mary. And lovely to meet you Alan, William and Jack. Where are you all from?”
“London. Not far from here,” Jack offered, his own pleasant expression fixed firmly in place.
“Edinburgh,” said William, gesturing between himself and Mary. Fortunately, neither German pressed her. Sebastian turned instead to Alan, who jerked out of some reverie as though awakening from sleep. It made him look disturbed.
“Newcastle,” he grunted.
“Pardon?” Sebastian asked, wrinkling his nose. Helmut snorted loudly.
Jack’s right hand quickly gripped Alan’s thigh in warning, as his arms lay on the table. Alan knew better than to explode, however, and bit down on his sudden surge of irritation.
“I said New-castle. It’s up north… y’know like, up north in the country.”
“Up north in the country…” Sebastian repeatedly, quietly, and taking care to pronounce the words with clearer elocution than had Alan. The German lieutenant had the maddening air of a bureaucrat, or some lower ranking official that used an overly polite syntax and an affected elocution to raise the ire of those they dealt with. A man who took pleasure from inconveniencing people with his authority; the type who grows up dreaming of being a traffic warden.
The pedantic officer looked across to William and Mary. “And you are from Scotland, I believe – yes? Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, to the north of England?”
Jack bit down on his own exasperation. All fear had left him. If the officer really did have malicious designs on them, he thought, then surely his tactic was to bore them to death with his patronising pedantry. Or, just wind them up to the point of suicide which, Alan considered, might actually come, in the form of a double-glassing incident and the inevitable tender reaction of Heydrich’s Gestapo.
“Yes. Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, to the north of England,” William answered in a dull monotone.
“Then why are you here in London.” Sebastian suddenly snapped. As gradually as the tension had left, it returned instantly.
“We work down here. Have done for many years.”
“Aye,” Alan offered scornfully.
Sebastian fixed them all a lengthy gaze, and then sipped his malt whiskey. It was rare to see someone drinking whiskey, even in the pubs. Men came to pubs to drink beer – even wine was practically unheard of. In northern cities it was said that only one-in-twelve pubs served anything other than ale; be it bitter, mild or smooth. Alan had once searched Leeds for three hours before finding a pub to drink his favoured whiskey in, having found himself craving irrationally.
But Sebastian was a German. In rationed times, grey uniforms entitled the wearer to many things, and evidently a strong whiskey in a Bloomsbury pub was one of them.
Concluding a rather effeminate sip, Sebastian’s eyes roved over Mary with naked hunger, and then he looked to William. Spoke softly.
“I see… what, might I ask, is your profession?”
“I work in a factory with Jack. Mary works in a bookshop in North London.”
Even as he spoke, William cursed himself. The old lies. Germans could demand papers. Mary had hers, but his were invalid, and upon inspection he was most certainly not a factory worker. And should they arouse any suspicion, it would not take long to determine Mary was not who she said she was – faking her accent would only go so far.
The German considered them both, with narrowed, questioning eyes.
“What factory?”
“Am I under suspicion?” William demanded sharply. Fight fire with fire, his instincts told him. This kid is pompous, and in the midst of a drink. This is not the real deal. Bluff it.
The Scot’s well-honed instincts paid off.
“No, no…” Sebastian drawled, the infuriating closed-lip smile slowly spreading across his face. It made him seem no less dangerous to either William or Jack, who regarded him warily, trying to ascertain if the Wehrmacht lieutenant was playing a perverse game of cat and mouse. The man resembled a capricious predator that toyed with its food.
Sebastian straightened his immaculate army tunic, unnecessarily.
“You mistake me, William. I am merely asking you about yourself, to find out about you to satisfy my own interest and curiosity, as you would say. Like I assured you previously in this conversation, neither Helmut here nor myself are agents of the Gestapo. I am an officer of the German Army; a lieutenant, you would
say. I come from Hamburg.”
“I am from Munich,” Helmut offered.
He spoke louder than his previous terse statements, and in his voice William recognised the distinct Bavarian tones; only four words needed to plant images of lederhosen, mountains and huge jugs of lager in the mind. It certainly explained the pint of ale sat in front of him, that he’d almost polished off already while the rest abstained from their own glasses, absentmindedly distracted by tension. Helmut seemed the more likeable of the two, Jack thought, if such a word could be used for either of them. He doesn’t have the same arrogance, perhaps due to rank, or participation in victory. Drinking beer like a man. Not sipping whiskey with his pinkie finger poking outwards like Sebastian, as though anxious to embody one of the effeminate perverts in leather shorts sporting a walrus moustache that British Tommies had jokingly stereotyped ‘Jerry’ as, on the outbreak of war.
That, and merciless, obedient robots of Hitler’s will, he conceded sadly.
Sebastian noticed they all looked with interest on the soldier he’d brought with him.
“Helmut from Munich. You would love Munich,” he said, clapping Jack on the shoulder. “Beer and beautiful blonde girls. Of course William, you seem to have a beautiful girl yourself already, so the appeal may not be so high for you.”
“Aye,” he replied shortly.
If Sebastian was unfazed by their lukewarm reception to his company, or if he truly could not care less, none of the British could tell. He smiled pleasantly, murmured “how lovely for you. A beautiful girl,” and then chuckling to himself, stubbed out his cigarette and took out the packet to replace it. This time he did not offer a smoke to the others.
There was a moment’s silence; neither the British nor Helmut seemed to know what to say without Sebastian’s slightly mocking conversational lead. He seemed content to enjoy the second Dunhill, leaning back against the booth’s wall and inhaling the smoke appreciatively. He blew a perfect ring, then another, and a third. Despite themselves, they all watched the rings float lazily across the table, and then vanish into air.
Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! Page 43