Simon tried to speak, tried to sneer with each step, tried to voice and put words to the burning injustices on his tongue; that he was a spiritual son of Anarchy, and they were sons of Fascism and the two families were fated to eternal enmity as the quintessential forces of light and dark, Set versus Horus, they could kill him but they would Only Be Killing A Man, that his family was stronger and would ultimately prevail; that benevolence was more powerful than malevolence, that hate could never beat love... the heroic end, he felt it on his lips, his brain begged for the righteous verbal ejaculation of angered defiance but his body betrayed him, head spinning dizzily as the writer fought hard to stay conscious, his knees failing just before the machine guns sprayed a hail of bullets that strafed his broken body and stole his life; a soul released from its earthly torment.
Beneath an imperious Nelson’s Column that was rumoured to be destined for Berlin, the hastily erected wooden scaffold creaked under the weight of its occupants, watched by silent crowds.
“A degenerate, criminal writer, guilty of the most perverse subversion… and these reprehensible swine,” the German called, a huge vein pulsing on his neck, “… are guilty of one of the most despicable acts of cowardice in modern history. These so-called resistance members did nothing but condemn-to-death innocent members of the British public, by brutally murdering several Germans, and endangering the life of the Führer’s Reichsprotektor, General Heydrich; a man sent here to preside over a peaceful union between our two nations and to help transition the British Empire into the New Order in the World, as we face external enemies and the threat of world Jewry, communism and disease…”
The German paused. “This writer – a coward, hiding underground like a rat, had partners here in London, and led a network of sabotage and slander. And these so-called resistance members, whose stupid and criminal actions caused the deaths of many British civilians, were joined by another foolish criminal in their sinister Bloomsbury clique; a cold-blooded killer, who murdered several decent German soldiers right here in this square…”
His voice tailed off, stepping away from the public speaker as the words sank in. For effect, the German let the silence lengthen, waiting as he was for the symbolic eleven o’clock execution that Hitler had personally demanded from Berlin.
Sunlight chose that moment to burst through the clouds. Mary, William and Jack all gazed up to it, enjoying the last rays of sunshine on their skin. They were all barely able to stand up, as was the pencil-moustachioed writer alongside them, similarly condemned.
“We have lived in a day of sunshine, and die at the onset of night,” George Orwell murmured softly.
The German guards ignored their quiet dialogue, and Jack tried to chuckle through the broken teeth and bloodied, torn lips of his mouth.
“We are out of time, George. It’s an honour to die next to you, though.”
“And you, brothers and sister. The honour is mine.”
“All comrades, eh?” William added softly. “We outlasted the POUM, at least. Killed some fascists and fought the good fight a good while longer…”
Orwell glanced over at the handsome young Scot. “Funny. England was the most class-ridden country under that very sun that we’re seeing for the last time,” he observed thoughtfully, nodding up to the bright globe of light in the sky. “It was a land of snobbery, privilege and a pyramid hierarchy, ruled by the old and the silly. But compared to this…” he shook his head sadly, “… utopian. Yes… it is time we died, comrades. We are out of time. There is no redeeming spirit left in this age of the jackboot for the likes of us.”
The sun petered out and was lost, obscured by the enormous black and grey shape of slow-moving cloud that covered the entire expanse of the London sky. The light faded, and all was grey in the historic Trafalgar Square.
William cried softly to himself, physically and emotionally broken. Somehow, his Scottish nationality had seemed to offend the SS more so than even Mary, the Spanish Jew whom they had simply beaten senseless and left to bleed in her cell. The torture he endured, in comparison, was barbaric.
Laughing amongst themselves, his torturers had given him the choice; his mother, and sole surviving family member, could die in a concentration camp, or they would castrate him, in return for sparing her life. Choosing the latter, the young man blacked out repeatedly through the long torment of his ordeal, hoping to bleed to death, but finally waking up to find his wounds dexterously dealt with by the Gestapo’s resident experts in suffering. While the searing pain was unbearable, William had nevertheless felt a strong surge of pride as he woke that morning, comforted by the knowledge that his mother was safe, only to have his world shattered. Given a slab of hard, inedible bread for his breakfast, William was told by his gleeful tormentors that regardless of their pact to not kill her, they had passed on his mother’s name to the leader of the SS Einsatzgruppe Edinburgh.
Informing him that she would likely die within days, the Gestapo interrogators’ faces lit up with an astonishing pleasure, as the young Scottish lad tried to ingest the full horror of their cruel revelation.
Tears leaked down Mary’s cheeks, out of her reddened, black and bruised eyes. Her lover bore the marks of their brief, yet barbarous captivity, and Jack too was battered and broken, bludgeoned by the limitless rage of fascist aggression. But they all smiled, and nodded, thankful of the way they had spent their lives.
Perhaps, if National Socialism and the fascist movement collapsed, they would be remembered as heroes. All considered it, on the scaffold, but none bothered to verbalise the words. They were beyond self-justification, vindication and fanciful talk of a future that they would not, could not, see.
Suddenly, the German officer entrusted with overseeing the public execution sprang back to life, calling out into a near-silence that was peppered with the occasional piercing shriek of bird cry, as the prehistoric creatures swooped and flapped around the square that stood still, a noiseless, motionless mass of humanity.
“George Orwell, for your crimes you are sentenced to death.”
His hands tightly bound, Orwell cut a slender, unbroken figure as the guards approached, to fasten the custom-made noose around his neck. They were to be hung; not with rope, but with piano wire, to maximise the suffering and send a grisly message to those continuing to resist the Everywhere-Triumphant forces of fascism.
“Viva libert–” the writer began, but his intended final declaration of solidarity and brotherhood was cut short as the trapdoor gave way beneath his bare feet.
George Orwell kicked and writhed, trapped blood pumping horribly around the swollen veins of his neck, face and head until, after thirty seconds of horrific suffering, the dark crimson finally leaked from his nose and mouth, wire gashing his purple throat. Finally, after the lifeblood cascaded out of him, Orwell’s willowy body went limp and the twisted movements stilled.
Jack was next.
“I love you, Jack,” Mary called to him.
He nodded, pride in his eyes.
“I love you both. We did what was right. Viva libertad.”
Long live freedom.
Jack spoke quickly, to ensure that his final words were not interrupted by his ultimate fate. He had deliberately breathed lightly for several minutes, knowing that shallow inhalation combined with his fear would finish him faster as he thrashed and choked. Several seconds followed, but the drop did not come. Struggling to control his breathing, Jack quickly glanced around the sea of eyes boring into his bloodied face. Oddly enough, he felt calm, caring little how the people of his country viewed him – much less those of fascist persuasion – and though the cruel wire cut painfully into his neck, the young London lad turned to face his two dear friends, grinning as the trapdoor swung open and after a jolt, the light faded.
Mary.
“This swine is the typical Jewish rat, infesting European nations with their diseased poison,” the German announcer informed the silent crowds, many of whom were from Bloomsbury and had been forced to b
ear witness. “Having fought against fascism in Spain, particpating in the burning of churches and the killing of priests, this godless communist whore came to England to cause further violence and spread her message of hate…” the silken voice again trailed off, a note of relish audible in his sneering tone.
The Catalan revolutionary was terrified; her beauty somewhat diminished by the ferocity of her captors’ force, and scarred by their fists and blades, which had been used so terribly in a single night of awful interrogation. But at least death was waiting for her at the end of this ordeal, she thought heatedly, and then peace at last. The thought placated her somewhat. Her apprehension was solely for the horrific pain of the wire, yet its result no longer appalled. It was almost worth dying to never again have to contemplate the prospect of fascism, however excruciating its method. Death held no fear for her. She had been through worse.
Blinking away tears furiously, she turned to William as the savage wire noose was fitted around the soft skin of her shapely, slender neck.
“I love you so much,” she gushed. “More than I can say.”
Overcome, he nodded as though in a trance, hardly able to see through the watery veil of his own tears of grief. “I know, Mary I love you so–”
The sound of the trapdoor collapsing cut short his affirmations of love and he cried out, in physical pain as her body jerked with the jolt. Piano wire cutting deep into her neck, Mary made sure to turn away from her lover as the blood frothed up into, and then out of, her lovely, ruined face, and as the still-silent crowd watched in hollow fascination, the Spanish freedom fighter choked her last breath. Her body dangled lifelessly from the savage snare of her torment, while her spirit finally found peace.
Alone on the scaffold, and alone in the world, William broke down before the unwavering gaze of the silent British and hostile German onlookers, and the terrible wails of his agony broke free of his body, sending shivers down the spines of the assembled.
Epilogue:
Green countryside flashed past, flecked with the brown of gnarled trees, and looking for all-the world like England. The startling observation occurred to a sombre Maisie, but she kept it to herself, musing quietly.
The young soldier accompanying her was named Johan. He had helped facilitate the journey. It was the same boy that had been with Hans on his first visit to her shop.
“He was against Hitler,” Johan said, abruptly.
Caught off-guard, the English girl was startled. Since leaving England, Johan had barely opened his mouth, and she had begun to question his grasp of English. She knew what Hans’ feelings towards the National Socialist regime were – all too well, after he had spent weeks educating her about the grim realities of his country – but it was shocking to hear his friend say it so openly, and on German soil. If such statements were overheard, the future for Johan would become very grim indeed.
“He despised Nazis,” she muttered back, softly. “They killed his Jewish girlfriend years ago, and her brother.”
Johan whistled. “He told you that, eh?”
She scowled at him, in low humour. “Yes. He told me that, eh…”
“I’m sorry. I miss him,” he replied glumly, and the obvious sincerity of his grief brought Maisie to her feet, and she embraced the German soldier. His body tensed at her touch, but the memory of his old friend came to him, with whom he’d suffered the hell of conscription into the Wehrmacht, the horrors of Poland and the bombs and bullets of France and England. He fought back a tear, with a German soldier’s pride instilled in him, but it took a considerable effort to do so.
The countryside flashed past, until finally, they reached Berlin.
Having heard from Hans of the privations of the Reich’s capital in wartime, Maisie was astonished at the celebratory atmosphere that pervaded each sphere of German life she saw, as they traversed the sunlit streets.
The fear and repression described to her seemed entirely absent, and she realised with disquiet that with a popular government in power, all the regime’s spite and prejudice was being directed outwards; open hatred now the realm of the foreign outposts of National Socialism. Like Britain. Germany, she mused, might now be the heart of a Germanic Garden of Eden in the Reich, whose violent depravity had spread afar to more resistant lands.
The media, subordinate as it was to German interests, were circulating endless hyperbole and history-steeped vitriol regarding the deal that Reichsmarschall Goring had brokered with England, the smiling spectre of Heydrich in each photograph. An official ‘Peace and Prosperity’ arrangement had been made, between German Reich and British Empire, and as a vital economic, trading and – it was rumoured, strictly outside the realm of the press – military partner of the Reich, Britain received an immediate ceasefire from all Axis troops on its soil, the removal of all German military – Heydrich’s SS security police notwithstanding – from British territory, the continued union of the English and Scottish crowns; the maintainance of de jure control of British legislature – which included the abandonment of the recent German-influenced enactment of the 1935 Nuremberg anti-Semitic laws – and a total amnesty for all those guilty of resistance, sabotage or race. It was, to many, not merely a move away from Nazism, but a return to real peace.
And in this climate, Maisie had dared to apply for the travel pass. Aided and abetted by a sympathetic Johan, the sister of the resistance member who had – in their words – murdered in cold-blood an upstanding German soldier – was, to her amazement, granted the pass, for a leave of one week. Though apprehensive, she immediately left for the continent, bound for Berlin, Germany.
The capital city of Adolf Hitler.
After showing Maisie the Tiergarten and its pleasant zoo, Johan dutifully took her to the outskirts of Wedding; a notorious northwestern workers district – formerly a communist stronghold before the rise of Hitler – and as they strolled unmolested down a street that visibly increased in dilapidation with each hundred yards, they eventually came to a tired, detached white house, the paint of which cracked and crumbled as though the squat building had sustained massive damage through the turbulent post-Great War years that Germany had suffered through.
“Red Wedding,” he said quietly. “Around here is where the Nazis met their fiercest opposition. Street battles, gunshots, brawls, murders. Hans grew up around it.”
“It must have been awful,” Maisie replied quietly. He shrugged.
“Those were difficult times for all of us.”
“Did you hate them?” She asked him, curious about the reserved young man with whom her lover had shared such a strong bond. He cast a furtive glance around before replying.
“I’m from East Prussia. Hitler isn’t popular with us, even after reattaching our exclave to the Reich.”
She gazed at him, willing him to say more but he clammed up. It was a common sight in totalitarian states; a sentence started, then stifled, and the sudden descent into unquestioned silence.
“Did Hans fight?”
Johan smiled at that, relaxing. “This was a communist stronghold, so his hatred of Nazis makes sense. But he was never a communist. He hated the Reds just as much.”
“Hans hated extremism…”
It was as gentle an obituary as her man deserved. Saddening though the prospect was that her own brother – an extremist – had killed him as a symbol of that which he himself despised; Maisie felt a burst of pride for the good-hearted Hans she had fallen for. In a time of such widespread loss and grief, she could at least be glad that her lost Hans had spent the final months of his life in the passion of love.
After her proud, yet glum observation, Maisie registered Johan’s silent agreement and pause as a hint and she duly took the lead, asending the wide stairs to the front door. Lifting the ornate, heavy knocker, Maisie sent three booming thuds reverberating around the old house of her dead lover.
The door was answered by a startlingly young, attractive blonde woman. Her skin was impeccable, but the rings around her pale blue eyes
betrayed a stress and grief that Maisie knew all-too-well. Casting a wide-eyed scrutiny over the beautiful skin, Maisie saw Hans’ nose, his eyes and his mouth on the gorgeous face of the gracefully ageing German beauty, and though prepared for the moment, she felt hot tears welling up in her own eyes. The German gazed uncomprehendingly at her visitor, bewildered, before taking in the sight of a sombre Johan who doffed his cap, and with that, understanding hit her. Hostility melted away, and she held out her arms, outstretched and welcoming, as Maisie fell into her embrace, sobbing at the bitterness of their shared grief and the cruelty of human love in this world.
The gigantic, awful gates creaked and groaned as they opened, a harsh metallic sound cutting through the lilting, chirping twitter of birdsong. It was a sound that Naomi had feared she would never hear.
Odilo Globocnik had gone. Overnight, the savage Austrian vanished, leaving for some far-flung adventure or role in Reich territory, far from England’s green and pleasant land. Heydrich had appointed another Austrian, some cold-faced psychopath called Goeth who had apparently been serving in Leeds with the SS Security Police to take charge of the camp. Naomi was mortified to think that the same brute who had arrested her could be placed in command of the camp, but before their new overlord could make his presence felt, her entire barracks had been told to gather their possessions in five minutes flat. Fear had gripped them, until the runty, snarling female SS guard finally deigned to inform them that alas, they had nothing to worry about.
They were free.
Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! Page 51