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

by Daniel S. Fletcher

  “So why did you not join the SS, Herr Oberleutnant?” Helmut asked.

  His own hometown was the spiritual home of National Socialism, and it surprised him to find an army officer who was Heidelberg educated and yet strongly in favour of the government.

  “I would have, private. Like I said, after my studies I just wanted to fight. Educated men became army officers quite easily. With the benefit of hindsight you might be referring to me as ‘Haupsturmführer or Sturmbannführer Koller, as we speak.”

  Helmut nodded, but noting the self-promotion quietly, he didn’t answer. Only agreement with party zealots was wise, particularly when they held military rank over you. But it was the party line he adhered to more than the army rank differential. Anyone could be denounced. And as Helmut’s own family were rabid National Socialists, he was immune to such talk. Bluster did not bother him. Throughout his teen years, Hitler’s Germany was all he had known. The SS were therefore as natural as the sight of trees or cars or children to him. It was much the same for Sebastian, clearly, but in him Helmut recognised the diehard Hitlerjugend fanatic; the intense child who would have spent his summer days patrolling parks and pools to ensure Jews did not use them, or standing sentinel outside Jewish shops and businesses to intimidate and discourage Germans from entering.

  So stupid, such men. For Helmut, National Socialism was about expediency and power, and he was sure that Hitler and Göring would agree. He was a pragmatist, with thankfully pure German blood, and he would use his advantages to get ahead. But for the fanatics such as Sebastian Koller, the revolution was liberation and Mein Kampf was The Bible – its words were edicts from on high; unalterable and perfect. The Führer’s word was the word of God.

  Helmut pondered that it was strange that such educated Nazis as Lieutenant Sebastian Koller would not examine Nietzsche’s doctrines and reach important conclusions on the current political movement that embraced them. Scapegoats, patriotism, militarism and nationalism; all tools of power. Not a holy crusade for German Blood.

  Sebastian glanced around the pub, sensing that their presence had lost its initial effect. His eyes came to rest on a solitary figure, still wearing his bulging great coat indoors. An unshaven man, a drunken sot slumped in his seat; eyes downward cast and fixed on nothing in particular at all. Even through his instinctive targeting, Sebastian found to his surprise that he was also curious about this man.

  He strolled confidently to Bill Wilson’s table.

  “Hello? How are you, good fellow?”

  Bill continued to drink, without acknowledging the German lieutenant’s presence. Sebastian lost his triumphant poise, and leaned down to try to force eye contact. As he did so, Bill sat up straight in his chair.

  “Fine, thank you.” The response was cool.

  “What is it that you do, Sir?” Sebastian asked him, a little uncertainly.

  Bill met his eyes coolly. “I live.”

  An awkward pause was broken only by a small noise from Helmut, drawing attention to the smirk he failed to suppress.

  Leutnant Koller faltered, and then nodded, his expression grave. “OK… well, we are going to talk to other people. We drink here now. My name is Lieutenant Sebastian Koller. You are welcome to join us for a drink whenever you like.”

  Bill’s face was deadpan. “Cheers.”

  He slowly raised his glass to his wet, bristling lips, and drank deeply.

  Sebastian and Helmut shared a glance.

  “The man must be a halfwit,” the officer sneered in German. The sentence sounded somewhat brutal to uncomprehending English ears. Der mann müssen schwachkopf sein.

  Behind Sebastian, the door of the pub swung shut, and the bell’s tinkle indicated the surreptitious departure of the rest of Arthur’s patrons. In the public room, now only one other table was occupied, and Sebastian turned his gaze to it. Towards the piano in the far corner, to Bill’s back, a solitary young man was watching the German soldiers pensively. Sebastian approached the table, with Helmut in tow, taking his time. The pint of British pale ale each of them held did little to diminish their outward appearance.

  “Hello. How are you young man?” Sebastian asked pleasantly, in his sickliest English yet.

  Charlie Lightfoot stared into his pint. He’d only just got it as well, tiring of his lonely vigil, squandering a vital ninepence on the ale. And just as he sat down to enjoy his indulgent pleasure, the laughing voices next door turned out to be German. He could’ve sworn it was Alan.

  Sebastian cleared his throat unnecessarily loudly.

  “Did you hear me, young man? I enquired as to how you are? Why is it your friend left so quickly, with the other gentlemen? We wished to have a drink with the pair of you. With all of you, in turn of course.” He smiled the sickening sweet grin again.

  “I don’t drink with the enemy,” Charlie almost shouted, looking at his drink. The cockney’s face flushed. He bitterly regretted his pint, and just wanted to be left alone.

  “The enemy?” Sebastian said, affecting an air of mock surprise. “You’re not Jewish are you?”

  “No, I’m bleeding well not,” Charlie snapped back.

  Sebastian exchanged an amused glance with Helmut.

  “OK. Well… as you like.”

  Beckoning to the private to slide along the bar, Sebastian stepped away from the table and leaned on Arthur’s side counter, crossing his feet and resting his bodyweight on the left forearm that draped across the wood. Lounging like this, with the pint glass held casually in his other hand; Sebastian Koller continued to smile placidly at the cockney, as though the heavily breathing Charlie was his prey. Ten seconds passed, and the boy remained subject to the German’s fascinated gaze. Bill, at the next table along had his back to both of them, and was quite motionless.

  Charlie’s breathing intensified, and his body language became erratic under the prolonged awkwardness of Koller’s composed, leisurely scrutiny. He fidgeted and squirmed, spasming in small wriggling movements until he could take it no longer. Jerkily raising his glass, Charlie downed the two-thirds-full glass of ale in five big gulps. The young lad jumped to his feet, and with no room beside the wall to circumvent his table and bypass Bill’s, he had to walk past the watchful Germans. In his own excitement, the boy’s gammy leg failed him, numbed as it was from being stood still or sat down for the whole day. Catching against one of the stools, he stumbled into Sebastian, knocking the unprotected pint glass into the German’s chest and spilling a measure of its contents down the woollen feldgrau.

  The cockney boy straightened up in horror and his eyes met Sebastian’s, which were equally wide, too stunned to react. Charlie opened his mouth but no words came, and after mouthing a wordless noise at the soldier, he quickly hobbled across the bar and out into the street, moving as quickly as he ever had in his life and puffing with the effort.

  The group stepped out into the chill of a late autumnal evening; for the first time, it truly felt like winter. The proper seasonal weather felt like it was finally beginning to assert itself.

  Walking some distance to the east of the pub, they stopped, lingering at the entry to one of the leafy public squares, which, deserted, sat forlorn in the middle of the neighbourhood.

  Alan finally voiced what they all felt.

  “Fuckin’ ’ell, man…”

  A burst of spontaneous laughter ensued, more than a little hysterical. It was of a nervous, ejaculatory kind, the release of suppressed emotions and fears.

  “Did that just really happen?” William asked in genuine amazement.

  “Fuck me,” said Jack, all ten of whose fingers were snaked through the tousled bush of his hair. “I think it must’ve done. Either that or I just had the same dream as you lot.”

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” Alan grinned. He took out a small metal flask of whiskey from the inside pocket of his leather coat, which they passed around. “Of all the times we could have sat down and drank with a pair of Jerries!”

  “For God’
s sake, we were sat there talking about killing Himm–”

  “Shut up you twat,” Alan quickly hissed, silencing William. After a second they all snorted in merriment again, due to the irony of the less-than-diplomatic Geordie pleading caution from the studious and careful Scot.

  “Touché,” William conceded, choking a little on the rough whiskey.

  “Let’s hope they’re as lax tomorrow,” Jack pointed out more soberly. They all fell quiet. “Rendezvous at eight o’clock, which gives us plenty of time, and the plan stays the same. William and I, throw the apples, as we try and get some rounds off. We aim under the car. We’re lying in wait further along the trail. Agreed?”

  “No I do not agree with your plan,” Mary snapped, hotly. “The girl is going to fight too.”

  Jack and William protested at once.

  “No, Mary we can’t allow that.”

  “No you’re bloody well not!”

  Mary scowled at her lover. “Well sorry, but the chica is equal to–”

  “The chica is someone I fucking love with all my heart,” William stormed, taking her by surprise with his uncharacteristic explosion. “And you’re damn well not going to throw your life away on this mission. If,” he tried to put it lightly, “we fall, then you see what happens next. You will lay low. You can stay with Jack’s Mum and sister. If it comes to it, you of all people will be able to sneak out and get a boat west. There’s a whole Spanish-speaking continent out there.”

  “No!” Latin anger danced in her eyes, and from her tongue. “Do not dare patronise me you –”

  “I’m sorry Mary,” Alan butted in. “I’d give you the sniper rifle, but no offence, you’re a rubbish shot. We need to make sure, 100% at least one of these bastards fall.”

  Mary was slightly mollified. “I know, but this is our fight.”

  “It’s not,” William said firmly. “We won’t allow you a weapon. If you wish to fight, then we refuse to. You will do this alone. We go into hiding… but that won’t happen, because we know you believe in this too much to stop us. No, Mary, we care about you too much. And to me, even killing an SS chief isn’t worth losing you.”

  She was stunned into silence.

  Jack took advantage of her surrender. “OK, so we stick to the plan? Rendezvous at eight,

  And that was that. With purpose, they all clasped hands, knowing as they did so it was their last great pact.

  “We did the right thing, didn’t we?” William asked. They knew he didn’t just mean the assassination plan.

  Jack shrugged. “Who knows? Only history can judge us. And who will write our history?”

  “We could be a footnote,” William suggested.

  “Or a chapter,” Alan snarled.

  “Or a book.”

  “A long bastard, like War and Peace,” Alan continued hotly.

  “And what will the book say?” Jack asked, cutting him off. “Who knows what history will record, or who records it. But here and now, where we stand and as we see it… yeah, I think we did the right thing. Many people exist who cannot say that.”

  They all stood in the cold, their hot breath forming vapid mist in front of their eyes.

  “Likelihood is that we all die,” Jack admitted. “But it will be worth it to get rid of Himmler or Heydrich. It’s for the good of humanity.”

  “We’re not strangers to this… but never in the fight against fascism, not even in Spain, did we ever undertake something so important… something certain to kill us.”

  “We will do it,” Mary said clearly. “We will do it.”

  And then Jack bade them goodnight. “Get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow is… well… it’s a big day, isn’t it?”

  They squeezed their cold hands tightly against each other, and hugged, tightly, as a group, before splitting and heading off into the frosty evening in different directions. Within twenty seconds they had all vanished, and the street was empty, as though they had never been there at all.

  The wind whipped Bill Wilson’s hair back as he stepped out into the unforgiving cold. A strange, sweet smell hung in the air, and the darkened skies were laced with ominous clouds scattered sparsely in the distance where the fading light still glowed.

  Bill set off on the familiar route home. As he cut through the fence opening and into the public square that he used as a shortcut, the grizzled Londoner heard a piteous moaning sound emanating from a particularly thick bush of foliage, where the surrounding shrubbery and trees’ overhang produced a small copse of sorts. He had heard enough human pain to know that the sound was not animal. Looking left and right, he took a brief moment to decide his course of action, and then sighing, forced his way through the undergrowth to the small, dark clearing.

  A whimpering figure on the ground moaned as he burst through.

  “Hey, hey…” Bill said, not unkindly.

  The writhing figure stilled, at the sound of a familiar, if rarely heard voice.

  “You all right boy?” Bill asked.

  “Don’t know. I don’t think so.” The response was a low, wheezing groan.

  Bill sighed, his hot breath showing as mist in the frosty night air. He couldn’t just leave the boy out in the cold, bleeding and hurt.

  “You’d better come with me. Let’s get you cleaned up, my lad.”

  He knelt down, and with a firm grip, gently helped the young man up to his feet. Staggering slightly, the pair made slow progress to Bill’s flat, despite its proximity only several streets away. When they got there, Bill rested his injured companion against the wall, and unlocked the door with a steady hand. He helped him inside, through the entrance hall, their feet thudding against the thick wood, and into a living room, whereupon Bill lit one electric light, and started a coal fire.

  Straightening up, with the crackle of flames burning, he turned to smile at his guest.

  “I’ll make us a cup of tea, then we’ll have a look at them cuts.”

  Bill bustled off. His guest rose, and limped over to the mantelpiece, where a framed photograph showed a group of men in military uniform; the standard British Army issue. There, front and centre was none other than Bill Wilson; clean shaven, with short hair, looking fit and strong. A smile split his face; perfect teeth and handsome, sharp features. Several medals lay around the photograph, haphazardly placed.

  Presently, Bill shuffled back into the room.

  “Here’s your tea, lad,” he said, offering it. He showed no surprise to see his military photograph had elicited such naked surprise.

  “Charlie,” the lad mumbled, embarrassed.

  “What’s that?”

  “My name. It’s Charlie.”

  “Oh… right. Yeah, I knew that.” He smiled. “My name’s Bill. Pleased to formally meet you, Charlie boy.”

  And his manner was so genial, so obviously genuine that Charlie wanted to cry for what he’d said to him just a few short hours prior. The quiet, slow rumble of Bill’s deep voice moved him immensely. Charlie felt tears prick at his eyes, and covered them with his hands, pretending to check the surrounding cuts.

  “Right, old bean, let’s have a look at you.”

  He helped the young lad over to the settee, laying him out flat. Bill had a cloth and some vinegar, and he began to treat Charlie’s various cuts and scrapes; many of which were a result of being dragged across the pavestones, as well as from fists and feet.

  “Ah, Christ!” he moaned. “Stone me; they did a number on me all right.”

  Bill passed no comment, placing a reassuring hand on the boy, before gently cleaning a large cut over the cockney’s left eye. As he winced, tensing up with a sharp intake of breath, Bill patted his shoulder gently.

  “Nearly done, boy.”

  “Bill!” Charlie said through clenched teeth.

  Bill Wilson’s face melted into the first grin that Charlie had seen in the flesh. It transformed his face; briefly, he looked like the young man of 19 or 20 from the picture.

  “OK, that’ll do you…” he paused. “T
hey did a good job on you.”

  “Bastards,” Charlie said, with hollow bitterness.

  Bill nodded slowly. “Yes. That they are, boy.”

  He put down his little towel that had been used to dry Charlie, having washed the cuts and covered the poor lad in hotly stinging vinegar. Bill considered him. All the spite seen earlier had been kicked out of him. He looked like a lost boy, in need of a father. Or a friend.

  “OK… I’ll get some blankets. You’re not going to make it home tonight.”

  Charlie laughed at that, a tad ruefully, which made Bill frown.

  “I aint got no home, tell the truth.”

  Bill stared. “Is that so? Hmm… are you homeless?”

  Charlie regretted telling him.

  “Yeah… well, I stay at the poorhouse sometimes, but I can’t stand the bastards that run it. More often than not I grab my sleep where and when I can, steal it here and there. Got a mate who lets me crash every na’an’ again. Sell stuff; treat me self to the odd pint. There’s others worse off,” he added, defensively.

  Bill considered him anew.

  “You hungry, lad?”

  Charlie grinned; Bill saw he had a canine tooth missing, and blood specked his gums and teeth. “Nah, I can’t eat. Thanks though.”

  He lifted his shirt to inspect the bruising on his black and blue body. Bill whistled on seeing it.

  “Christ, boy,” he said quietly. “They enjoyed themselves.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’ll be out of your way in the morning.”

  Bill shook his head dismissively. “Don’t worry about that, boy, get some rest.”

  And carelessly grabbing the medals on display, Bill left him to retrieve some blankets from his bedroom, bringing them back and layering them over the stricken Charlie.

  “OK, well… good night.”

  Charlie was already passing out.

  “Yeah, good night… oh, and Bill?” he slurred, sleepily.