They filed out, and were given striped pyjamas in the next room. How dehumanising, Naomi thought. A uniform of dirty pyjamas. She noted with horror that hers were stained with what looked horribly like blood, on one of the rough and frayed sleeve hems. It was too small for her, and its cloth quickly irritated her cold, wet skin.
Onwards they marched, through corridors whose smell strongly reminded Naomi of St. James’ Hospital. She glanced into the rooms they passed, seeing much the same thing; piles of rings, jewellery, brooches and the like; mounds of valuables and clothes were stacked. The whole building looked like a giant processing unit for personal items. And what of their owners, she thought. What of the people to whom these items once belonged?
Finally, the disorientated group were frogmarched out back into the sunlight, to a segregated barrack huts area separated by a barbed wire fence. Several makeshift guard towers were dotted along the wire at intervals, obviously designed in a hurry and reachable via ladder cut into the wood.
They approached a large, fleshy figure, built like a bull squeezed into an SS uniform, stood waiting in the area in front of the two accommodation blocks, spaced roughly one hundred metres apart. To his back, miserable prisoners scattered around were watching quietly. That was the scary part, Naomi decided, glumly. How broken they appear. Inanimate dolls; a parody of human life in all its possibility.
A black-clad figure, the officer wore standard SS field uniform, but sported the older greatcoat of black wool. It gave him the menacing appearance of the ‘Blackshirt’ of nightmares; the original SS, the first ‘Schwarze Korps’ of infamy that came to be feared throughout Germany as the elite armed bearers of Hitler’s will. He stood planted, possessed of some great suppressed malevolence, with the predatory air of a vicious carnivore waiting to pounce. The tall guard strode over to him, saluting smartly.
“Heil Hitler!”
The man almost lazily raised his own arm, first into a Hitler salute then, as though he’d changed his mind halfway through the manoeuvre, flicked his wrist back, in the style of the Führer, Adolf Hitler himself, acknowledging cheering crowds.
“Very well, Hauptscharführer. Line them,” he ordered in a low growl.
“Jawohl, Brigadeführer Globocnik.”
Odilo Globocnik nodded, and the junior officer organised the new internees into nine rows of four. I look forward to returning to Poland, Globocnik thought. To be the leader. ‘Jawohl, SS und Polizeiführer’. No chance of being called that here. That bastard Jew Heydrich. Reichsprotektor Moses Handel. Fucking yid kike bastard.
Still, he knew the prestige of the role in Britain. And as the Jew had promised him, it was all in preparation. Himmler, Heydrich assured him, has a special role for you in the east, Globus. I think it will suit your temperament. Use your time in Britain well. I shall be watching.
Slippery fucking kike, he mused.
Globocnik raised his hand.
“Jews and criminal subversives,” he began, his voice a guttural rasp of coarse German, each syllable steeped in a low, resonating anger, much like Hitler’s. The tall guard repeated his sentences in English for the benefit of the prisoners.
“… This is Konzentrationslager Catterick. Here you will find out the real meaning of work, and the danger of opposing the Greater Reich. Some of you,” he grinned nastily, “will not survive your stay with us. Works makes you free, but redemption does not come easy…”
Globocnik hawked up a great blob of phlegm as the translator repeated his little speech, and spat it into the thin grey dust of the asphalt, only a metre of so from Naomi’s feet. He was already bored with the rigmarole; merely trying to lead by example as the new system went through its infancy.
“Women and children on this side. Men over there,” he snapped.
The rows of four were obliged to approach Globocnik, whose pallid face glowered, his great coat billowing in the wind, framed against the sun like a Gothic vampire; a devilish incarnation of Dracula, or some kind of Dickensian villain. The big man oozed thinly veiled malevolence, and Naomi shuddered to the core as she searched his fleshy, brutal face for human qualities. None were evident.
The prisoners were separated as they neared Globocnik, split by gender into the two hut areas. As it came to the family’s turn, the screaming mother refused to be parted from her boys, until the SS waded in with their truncheons and forcibly parted them. Even in her own despair, Naomi winced at the screams. She looked down at her own feet as the terrible ordeal was worsened by Globocnik’s hungry, lingering gaze as he took her in, as a wolf would a sheep.
The family were separated by a double fence of barbed wire. The cruellest thing of all, Naomi thought, as she sized up the segregation boundary is that it’s only just too wide a gap to be able to touch. Agonisingly out of physical reach, by the smallest margin. The SS were, evidently, masters in psychological torture.
The gates slammed shut. The separation was complete. SS stayed on the outside to guard; Globocnik disappeared towards another building complex, with the exception of the blond female guard, hissing abuse.
Naomi was allocated a bunk in the female hut by the snarling blonde guard, who then left them to it. No guards remained; the new prisoners were left entirely alone.
“Stay strong,” a sad-faced girl told her. “Be quiet, and be strong. Things will work out.”
She squeezed Naomi’s hand, briefly, with a flimsy, bloodless grip before shuffling away and out to the yard; for, as far as she could tell, no discernible reason.
Naomi, in her forlorn, hopeless state, tried engaging some of the other interned women that were present in conversation. But her introduction and entreaties were quietly rebuffed, or lost as tiny mutters and indistinct noises. All had the same hollow, silent air of irreversible loss, and the vaporous demeanour of ghosts.
A resplendent figure of a man strolled out of his bedroom and across the entrance hall to the lounge. Charlie Lightfoot sat bolt upright at the sight of him. A charcoal grey, three piece suit and matching tie and fedora, with his war medals pinned prominently to his chest. Bill Wilson radiated power, exuding gravitas.
“Blimey!”
But Bill cut him off, his face set with resolve.
“This is your flat now, Charlie. Anyone asks, you rented this place from old John Wilson. That was my father. Or, as you won’t have papers, I imagine, if you can sort it out, make sure that the given surname on there is Wilson; you can be my son, and my Maureen’s boy. Born 1919, the year before she died, so you’d be about the right age.”
“Bill…”
“You’ll find some money in a tin in my wardrobe, and my suits. Do what my brother, and my mates couldn’t do, and a whole generation or two of lost young men couldn’t do. What this generation, from the looks of things, can’t do either, with warmongers at the top leadin’ ’em. I don’t know what the future will look like. But there will be one. And you have the chance to make it a good one, wherever you are, wherever you go. Make something of yourself. Don’t be another wasted life in war. Don’t serve rulers. Be independent. Be proud of who you are, and be strong. Take care of yourself boy.”
“What the hell you talking about, Bill?” Charlie was open-mouthed. “Don’t be rash, just… just think about it, all right? Just think about it.”
“Remember, Wilson. Thank you, Charlie boy.”
Bill touched the rim of his hat to the young man, and without another word turned on his heel and left the room. Charlie tried leaping up to pursue him, but was stopped in his tracks by the mutiny his body undertook, not least the bad leg which had plagued him since childhood.
“Bill? Bill! Don’t be daft now Bill, come on mate, come back and we can–”
The door slammed shut.
PART IV
Swaggering. Sauntering. Smirking, almost, with a leering scowl, and a long great coat that swept along with him as he strode to the open-top Mercedes; thus did Reinhard Heydrich leave the Savoy – resplendent in his role as Reich Protector of the realm.
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Sat alongside him in the backseat was a familiar figure; almost chinless, wearing rimless spectacles and a stern, schoolmasterly expression; a man feared and loathed even more than the ‘Blond Beast’ beside him, on account of – until recently at least – his far greater fame, and the infamy of his paramilitary army’s daring and despicable deeds.
Flanked by two other vehicles, SS-3 set off.
People thronging the main streets running parallel with the Thames River stopped to stare, gazing in a mixture of curiosity and reservation. Birds flocked overheard, flapping together through the cold air, and breath rose in a mist from the mouths of those slowly moving or entirely still figures who were quietly watching proceedings. The convoy purred on, down the Strand and along the Mall, where the sleek black vehicles rolled mercurially past the haunted shell of Buckingham Palace, bomb damage still evident on its flank. With soldiers lining the lane that led to the Wellington Arch, they made their slow progress onwards until curving round to the approach at Hyde Park corner.
~
In the park, Alan peeled away from Jack and William and made straight for the statue. There were no final words or moment of gravitas between them; feelings were clear, the intent was there, and the magnitude of the moment and their deed was not lost on any of them. Sentiment and hesitation had no place now.
“Not as busy as I’d have thought,” Jack murmured quietly to the Scot.
“No,” he replied thoughtfully. “And not as much in the way of troops either.”
William was right. They had expected a heavy line of army, SS or both to stand sentinel along the road and the route, but the troops were sparsely scattered, and inattentive to boot. There was a moderately sizeable crowd of curious passers-by – not as many of they had hoped, but more than enough for Alan to lose himself in after the shot that would change history.
They had no such illusions of their own survival.
Up ahead, the familiar figure in his close-fitting leather jacket slipped in with the figures milling around the Achilles statue known as Wellington Monument. They had decided to spurn the great Winchester sniper rifle in favour of a more subtle weapon – the Sten gun – which Alan concealed with ease beneath the leather of his coat without attracting much suspicion.
The spot was perfect, and oddly undefended. Even had he been firing a 9mm weapon, there was little chance of Alan missing from that range; at twenty-to-thirty paces and from raised ground, he could have hit the two German paramilitary leaders with a stone thrown by hand. As Hitler’s two most feared henchmen, it was remarkable that such an opportunity presented itself.
~
SS-3 swung around Wellington Arch, flanked by a convoy of cross-marked cars. Silent crowds watched unsmilingly at the unmistakeable profiles of the two men in its backseat.
Alan loitered, ambling over in as casual manner as he could to the monument, then lingering in place. There were no guards around the Achilles statue; the nearest were stationed at the fence, thirty paces away and keeping no particular eye on his position, their gaze roving across the massing London crowd almost uninterestedly.
Preceded by several others, SS-3 swung into place, and Alan sensed, rather than saw, the two men on the backseat. He surreptitiously hung behind the corner of the statue, spine-tingling chills running through his electrified body, and he noted with an overwhelming rush of recognition that it was the blond Heydrich sat in SS-3, with – incredibly – the familiar figure of a prim, bespectacled, almost-schoolmasterly man. His putative master.
Himmler and Heydrich, sat side-by-side.
Quick as a flash, Alan withdrew his weapon, spurning the monument’s base with a clear shot already in sight from his slightly raised vantage. It was a perfect spot for a successful shot, albeit without anything in the way of camouflage and with nowhere to hide. But the mission, Alan knew, outweighed his own life.
He locked on, his line-of-sight passing over Heydrich too quickly for regret or lingering doubt, and settled his sights on the unsuspecting face of Heinrich Himmler.
Alan pulled the trigger, and all hell broke loose.
Dropping the weapon, the Geordie ducked back behind the statue, every fibre of his being electrified with a rush of adrenaline that thrilled his nerves with a fiery charge. Mind racing, he ducked and, making sure to keep low, slipped into the gaggle of screaming people who were breaking for cover in all directions, a mass of flailing limbs and trampled women. German troops yelled out, and several bullets whizzed over in the direction of the Achilles statue, sending several innocent bystanders flying with a great spray of arterial blood. Just then, only seconds into the pandemonium, a great explosion was heard, and without hesitation, Alan scurried out towards the south carriage drive. Knowing that with German troops further back in the park, the escape route used after the confrontation with the British fascists would not have worked, Alan had kept his bike nearby to Knightsbridge, and in the overwhelming panic of the moment, managed to steal away with the crowd, wincing with every shot he heard fired into the screaming mass of people. No bullets strafed him, and managing to stay on his feet in the mad and frenzied dash of the panicked crowd, Alan fled the southern outskirts of the park and made for his bike, pursued by several Germans who had identified the occasional flash of leather as their man.
William for his part, having seen the shot land, ran forwards from the other side of the road and launched his grenade at the car with an involuntary yell. Incredibly, no German soldier was able to react, distracted as they were by the sniper shot from the other direction; all except the Blond Beast, Reinhard Heydrich. With the innate sixth sense of a cunning predator, he turned to William even as the grenade landed in the car, jumping out and crouching for cover as it exploded, sending horsehair flying from the ruined upholstery of the car, further despoiling the lifeless body of Himmler with its ruined face, a gigantic blotch of red leaking crimson blood like a cascading waterfall framed by dust.
Even as William went to withdraw his weapon, the prepared SS leader had withdrawn his own custom-made Luger pistol and fired twice, rapidfire shots into the kneecaps of the Scottish partisan. William screamed involuntarily as his legs collapsed from under him, twisting as he crashed into the road, where another bullet from a German soldier entered his left arm.
Moments passed, as Heydrich lowered himself to sit with his back to the wreck of SS-3, breathing heavily. The sound of warning yells in his mother tongue brought him back to life in a milisecond, scrambling around the embattled vehicle as a feminine scream preceded the explosion that sent flame flashing across the car.
Jack had determinedly lobbed his grenade, before firing on the nearest German troops to him and exiting. Hearing the scream that preceded the explosion of his grenade, it occurred to him for a split-second that Mary’s war cry had sounded similar in Spain, and he hoped that she had not joined the attack against their wishes. There was no time to find out; firing a third shot at a dazed Wehrmacht man who was blinded by the blast, Jack broke free of the pavement and joined the straggling or injured citizens who, for various reasons, were only just managing to flee the scene. He tore north and east, pursued by a brace of keen-eyed Germans, having been confident that the SS leaders were dead and now thinking only of escape. Firing back over his shoulder, Jack managed to create enough distance between himself and his pursuers, and he sprinted as fast as he could into the nearby maze of avenues, running frantically through the shadows of grey block buildings, adrenaline continuing to pump through his body, more alive than he had ever felt.
Suddenly panicked, Heydrich leapt to his feet and fled towards the next car in the convoy, his long, horsey face contorting in anger as SS-3 exploded in a great ball of flame. A bullet whizzed by the Blond Beast’s head, sending the SS chief himself crashing to the concrete as German shots halted another figure that had run forwards screaming. Mary was brought down, swarmed upon instantly by a gaggle of Wehrmacht security troops as they beat her senseless with the butt of their rifles.
T
wenty metres away, having seen Heydrich slip away from the impact of Jack’s grenade, a frenzied Mary had leapt to action herself, in defiance of the pleas and demands of the others. Her shot had missed Heydrich by inches, before the Spanish beauty was brought down in a hail of bullets too, and she crashed hard to the cobbles in pain and regret. The screams and yells intensified, even as the general pandemonium lessened as the crowds fled in terror. Astoundingly, the Reichsprotektor’s orders to the troops to not shoot-to-kill had been obeyed, and the second of four would-be assassinators lay bleeding on the parkside road. The stricken Spaniard tried to swallow the poison capsule she had prepared, but was prevented by the merciless blows that rained down until her resisting hands dropped limply to the ground. Both William and Mary lay prostrate; one agonised by pain and apparent failure, and the other unconscious, bleeding heavily from several open wounds. Yet immobile as they were, both were still very much alive.
Hauling himself to his feet, a dusty, blood-streaked and heavily perspiring Heydrich gazed around the scene of chaos, as the people left in the vicinity of the attacks slowly came out of their hiding spots. He gazed at the burning car, an inferno of flames licking at the supposed body of Heinrich Himmler, terrible brightness and the smell of roasted flesh. Surveying the aftermath of carnage, and with barely a glance at the stricken figures who were being inspected by German troops, Britain’s Nazi Viceroy began to laugh a high-pitched, hysterical laugh, swelling with pride as the apotheosis of his own existence occurred to him, and something more elevated than mere pride coursed through the blood in his thrilled veins. Heydrich felt unconquerable, a titan of history, and his proud laughter pealed out amidst fire and blood and death.
The doors of the Royal Oak opened, and sunlight pealed in to the slightly dingy room of polished wood as Bill Wilson strolled in, his footsteps echoing loudly as he marched to the bar with a purposeful stride.
Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! Page 47