The innkeeper stared at him. “But sir…”
“Don’t argue,” Jackson stated grimly, seeing the face of post-war Britain in his mind’s eye. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant place to live. “I want you to see to it personally, and not a one of them is to be harmed until they have a fair trial, understand?”
The innkeeper shuffled off, and Jackson devoted himself and his soldiers to securing and counting the prisoners before herding them out of town towards one of their former detention camps. The innkeeper and his men returned with some unwilling captives, mainly young women, although he had clearly taken Jackson’s words to heart. Only one of them had had her head shaved.
Jackson shook his head slowly. The invasion might have been defeated, but the scars would remain for a very long time. Families would be torn apart, communities would wage war on one another, feuds would be nurtured for years to come. Was such a country really worth fighting for? He imagined their possible future and saw nothing, but darkness.
* * *
Although there had been hundreds of acts of resistance in the final few days of the German offensive, it still surprised Gregory Davall to see how many people had come out of the woodwork claiming to have been insurgents all along. Janine — her role unknown to all but the Grey Wolves — had narrowly escaped having her hair shaved off, and since then, an armed Grey Wolf had remained with her at all times. Davall wouldn’t hesitate to shoot one of his former townspeople. Their gratitude was severely lacking, even though he had lost his wife as well.
“She was a magnificent woman,” he said to Janine as they stood together in front of the mass grave. The Germans had dumped all the bodies into the same grave. The townspeople were promised that the grave would be dug up and the civilians buried in a proper grave, but Davall wasn’t too keen on the idea. Kate would never have forgiven him for allowing her body to be disturbed after she was buried. “She deserved better.”
“I know,” Janine said. Her scars hadn’t healed much in the time between Stahl’s death and the liberation of Felixstowe, but dressed properly for once, it was much harder to tell that she had been hurt. Her appearance always made Davall smile. He’d seen her without clothes, in circumstances that should have embarrassed both of them, but now she looked more attractive than undressed. “What are you going to do now?”
Davall smiled sadly. “I’m not going to stay here,” he said after a long moment. “There are too many people who blame me, us, for the deaths of their wives, and they will be taking it out on us after a few days. I can’t gainsay them. Perhaps, if I had surrendered, it would have been easier for us.”
His voice broke off.
“I’m going to take James and go north,” he said after a moment. He didn’t miss the brief expression on her face. “Do you want to come with me?”
Janine reached out and gave him a hug.
“There’s nothing for me here either,” she said. “If you’ll allow me to come with you, then I will be happy to follow you anywhere.”
Davall kissed her and led her back towards the village green. Churchill was supposed to speak to the townspeople. He was the first of an endless stream of government ministers who would be coming to tell them how sorry they were that the townspeople had been put through hell and that it wouldn’t happen again. Particularly if the townspeople voted them in again. Davall suspected that there would be a few changes to the country in the next few years. There were hundreds of thousands of people with guns now, and the determination to use them. The next trade union dispute might get very interesting.
“Or maybe I’ll go into politics,” Davall mused as they reached the village green. The MP for the area had been in London during the occupation and had been strongly condemned for remaining there, rather than sharing the trials and tribulations of his people. Davall’s fighting credentials were first-rate. “What do you think of that?”
Janine considered it.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “What’s wrong with earning an honest living?”
* * *
Winston Churchill insisted on visiting the liberated area as quickly as possible, despite the unified opposition of Monty, Alexander and Alex DeRiemer himself. A company of soldiers had been devoted to his protection as he was driven along battered roads, passing British soldiers mopping up after the fighting had died down. They finally drove into Felixstowe as darkness fell. The streets were still brightly lit. A street party was going on that rivalled anything that DeRiemer had seen since the end of the last war, but then that had been a messy and inconclusive ending to the fighting. The British Empire might not have defeated the Nazi beast and killed it in its lair, but it was a clear and very conclusive victory. The invasion of Britain was over.
DeRiemer smiled as he took in the crowds. It was a strange mixture, from British servicemen to other Commonwealth soldiers, Canadians, Australians, Indians… all blending together into one strange mass. Three different bands were playing three different tunes, all trying to drown each other out and drag as many dancers as possible into the dance, while the inns had thrown themselves open and were pouring free beer into the hands of anyone who cared to take it. The soldiers, at least, were fairly disciplined. The townspeople, liberated from the Nazi shackles, danced and sang as if there were no tomorrow.
Churchill loved it. He was down off his stand and mixing with the crowd before DeRiemer, or any of his bodyguards, knew what was happening. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, to assure him that they wanted no one else as Prime Minister or to encourage him to join in the dance despite his advanced age. It was growing darker and darker, but the lights kept the town awake despite the blackout order. DeRiemer silently prayed that the Germans wouldn’t launch a spiteful attack on Felixstowe, just to pay off some of their hard feelings. He wouldn’t have put it past them.
“This is impressive,” Truman said from his position in the car. The American Ambassador had insisted on coming as well, and Churchill hadn’t forbidden it. Indeed, Churchill had been delighted to have a chance to show his friend what free people could do. The war was far from over, after all, and American help would still be vital in winning the next round. “There will be celebrations in America as well.”
“This was a battle,” DeRiemer said tersely. He thought cold thoughts about Project Omega and wondered grimly if the Germans had such a project. The Americans had been tight-lipped about their own progress. Who knew where they stood with such weapons? “We have not yet won the war.”
Churchill finally mounted the stand, and something reassembling quiet fell. “We have won a great victory,” he said, his voice echoing out over the village green. “We have defeated a German army on our own soil through the courage of our fighting men and the determination of our population to never bow the knee to Adolph Hitler and his Huns! We have fought and won the first of many battles of this war.”
His voice grew in intensity.
“This is not the beginning of the end,” he said grimly. “There will be much more blood, toil, tears and sweat ahead, with reverses that will challenge our faith in ourselves and victories that will make this one look small. This is, rather, the end of the beginning; we took on a surprise attack and defeated it, proving to Hitler and his men that we cannot ever be beaten! In their newly-built cities, they tremble now, tremble at the thought of their empire coming to an end as we prove to the world that they can be beaten. We have much to be proud of, in our way, but most of all we should be proud of the lesson we have shown the world… that the Nazis can be beaten!
“Across Europe, in France, in Norway, in Denmark, in Russia… they know, now, that the Germans were beaten,” he proclaimed. “Hitler’s Knights of the Iron Cross… beaten. General Rommel, the man who never lost a battle, lost one today. In countless hearts, a new hope of freedom burns now, with the fuel that you have provided them. They now think of freedom as a goal, something they can reach, and we will be there for them. This war will not end until we have marched into Berlin and bur
ned the core of Hitler’s evil regime out of existence, but today, we have proven that it can be done.”
He lifted one hand in a gesture. “Tremble, Hitler, in your lair. Tremble, Himmler; tremble Speer, Goring and so many others, all men of hatred and evil,” he said. “Tremble, for the world now knows that you can be beaten… and you will be beaten. There is no place where you can hide, nowhere where you will be safe from us, if it takes us a hundred years. We are coming for you!”
The crowd went wild. If Churchill had meant to say something else, it was completely drowned out by the cheering and then by singing. DeRiemer felt a tear in his eye as the song rose in intensity, the first time that God Save The King had been sung in Felixstowe for months. Tomorrow, the citizens of Felixstowe would discover that Free Britain wasn’t an easy place to live, with rationing and economic problems, but for tonight, they could dance and sing.
Churchill stepped down and the three men stood together for a long moment, watching the celebrations DeRiemer looked up at Churchill, seeing the famous cigar moving in the air as Churchill’s face seemed to lock permanently into a mischievous smile, almost like a little boy contemplating a prank. Churchill’s sense of humour was a little odd, but DeRiemer wondered, just for a moment, what he was thinking. Taking his courage into his hands, he asked as much…
“Hitler,” Churchill said, a wry smile covering his face. “I was just wishing that I could see Hitler’s face when he hears the news.”
DeRiemer nodded in understanding. The two men had been enemies for so long that they defined their respective sides. They were both warlords, both very aware of their limited time on the Earth, and both a mixture of brilliance and stubbornness. And they loathed one another; if the source in Berlin was to be believed, Hitler had been furious to learn that Churchill had escaped death twice. Churchill had tried to have Hitler killed, but by the time he had signed off on Hitler’s death, it had been too late. Hitler had never been in any real danger.
Churchill’s smile grew broader.
“I suspect that the person who told him is dead by now,” he said after a long moment. “Hitler was never good at dealing with bad news.”
Together, they watched until the bonfire finally burned itself out, and then headed back to London. There was work to be done.
Epilogue
Berlin, Germany
The face of Adolph Hitler was frozen in a mask of pain.
He’d been raving at the unfortunate officer who brought him the story, screaming at him that Rommel would never surrender, would sooner die than surrender, and then he’d just stopped. Before Himmler could summon medical aid for the Fuhrer or clear the room, Hitler had fallen backwards with a strangled cry and collapsed on the floor. The SS doctor had pronounced it a massive stroke, and confirmed that it had not been an assassination attempt. The very relieved officer had been allowed to depart. Within minutes, the others in the room had departed as well. Kesselring and Speer, Himmler knew, would be preparing their own plans. When they met again, they would be competing for the throne.
Himmler left the doctor to move Hitler to somewhere where he could lie in state, although that might not be such a good idea if the doctor couldn’t alter his face. The building was already aware of what had happened, and word would have spread across the Reich by now; it would complicate an already-complex situation still further. There would be little room for a private strike for the throne, not with the eyes of everyone who mattered in Germany watching them. It would have to be a triumvirate, of course. The pressures of the war would demand no less; there was no room for a power struggle when Germany was fighting for its life.
He prided himself on his ability to think rationally under almost all circumstances, and even the defeat and Rommel’s surrender didn’t faze him. If nothing else, it was something that could be used to force some of Hitler’s other favourites out and it hardly meant the end of the war. The Kriegsmarine had taken a beating, the Luftwaffe had taken a beating but while the Reich’s ability to invade Britain had been wiped out, the British could hardly launch an invasion of the continent. The Americans had moved to support their British cousins, but that too only opened up new fields for the Reich. It was time to put Italy and Iran firmly in their place, either as subordinates to Germany or as more occupied states. Hitler’s affection for Mussolini and the Shah had kept them in power way past their usefulness. Now, without the Fuhrer, they could be brought to heel. Himmler suspected that they would see reason.
He had a trump card. The file sat in the SS castle, a file regarding science that Hitler himself had banned, because it had the taint of Jewish science around it. Himmler had no such prejudices, no real belief in the inherent failure of Jewish researchers. Besides, it would be simplicity itself to have the project reclassified as the work of German researchers. The only people who would know any better would be himself and the researchers, and both had strong incentives to remain silent. The author of the file had promised that they could have, with unlimited resources, a working model in less than a year, perhaps much less. With such a weapon, the world would be at Germany’s feet… and Himmler would become the master of Germany.
The war was far from over.
The End
Afterword
What was the decisive battle of the Second World War?
That’s not actually an easy question to answer. I polled a handful of people with limited knowledge of history and got the usual suspects; Midway, Stalingrad, Britain, D-Day, Kursk and even the Bulge. Those certainly are the battles that resound down the ages, but I am not convinced that they were decisive in any real sense of the word.
Take Midway, for example, immortalised by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya as ‘the battle that doomed Japan.’ It was certainly a spectacular and unexpected victory, with a result that looked astonishing, but how important was it in the long run? The American economic powerhouse was building up to grind Japan into powder; even if we reverse completely the outcome of the battle and postulate the complete destruction of the American fleet, the United States will still break even by 1943 and completely overwhelm Japan by 1944. Japan may survive into 1946, but under increasingly heavy bombardment; Japan will not win the war. Midway, in a broad historical sense, is meaningless.
The same can be said of Stalingrad, the Germans had extended their supply lines so far that disaster was inevitable at some point. Britain, even if the RAF had been defeated, the Germans would still have faced awesome problems in landing. Kursk and the Bulge came too late to offer Germany any hope of survival. Even if they had been reversed, the Allied economic power would have ground Germany into the dust. D-Day, of all the ones that were listed, had the greatest chance of altering the outcome of the war, but even so, the atomic bomb was on the way, the Allies had massive air superiority, and the Russians were pushing in from the east. A lost D-Day might have altered the final settlement of post-war Europe, but it wouldn’t have saved Hitler’s regime.
The more I looked into the Second World War — and it has exercised a fascination for me since I was a child — the more aware I became of the underlying economic factors that helped to determine the outcome of the conflict. The same factors that proved that Midway was meaningless, a short-cut to victory that the US had no right to expect, also prove that the actions or reactions of the powers involved in the war were often determined by their capabilities, both short- and long-term. The Axis Powers went into the war without the economic bases they needed to sustain their grab for world power and, eventually, lost the war. Japan’s mad decision to attack Pearl Harbour and Hitler’s even madder decision to add the United States to Germany’s list of enemies ensured that the Axis would lose. Where the decisive battle then?
Actually, I think there were two points that might have determined the outcome. The Battle of Moscow may well have been the last chance for the Germans to win the war outright. (Nothing could have saved Japan.) If Germany had won, they would have taken the USSR’s centralised command hub, captured o
ne of the most vital rail and communications hubs, and quite possibly killed Stalin himself. The fall of the city would have shaken the Soviet regime to its foundations, encouraged rebellion against Stalin and the Communists, and made organising resistance much harder. The planners and engineers who made the USSR tick would have fallen into German hands. Without them, the process of salvaging and rebuilding as much of the USSR’s industrial might would have been almost impossible. Stalin or his successor might even have done a deal with Hitler to save what they could…
The second decisive battle is far less well known. Nomonhan. It is not a name to conjure with in the West, and yet it might have been far more important than it seemed back in 1939. The conflict started in earnest in late May 1939. A Japanese force, the Yamagata detachment, was sent by the Kwantung Army to defeat a Soviet unit that had crossed the Halha River into what the Russians believed was Soviet territory but the Japanese claimed as their own. It ended in a sudden Japanese disaster, as an entire regiment in the detachment was encircled and annihilated
The Kwantung Army - much against the will of Tokyo - decided to retaliate in force, and committed a full Infantry Division, the 23rd, and a number of additional units, among others two tank regiments. Japanese Army Air Force Units, which had missed most of the 1937 combat in China, also got to show themselves against the Soviet Union’s massive air force. The Soviets also gathered a fairly large force, including veterans of the Spanish Civil War. (Many of those experienced leaders were purged between 1939 and 1941 and were not available to face the Luftwaffe during Barbarossa.)
The Japanese attacked in the beginning of July, the 23rd Division crossing the upper reaches of the Halha while the mechanized elements struck directly at the Soviet forces on the right bank of the river. After some initial gains, large Soviet mechanized forces counter-attacked, and the Japanese were stopped some 3-4km:s from the Halha, their lightly equipped armour regiments shot to pieces by swarms of Soviet BT tanks. The Japanese renewed their offensive in late July, their forces then reinforced by heavy artillery from the homeland. This time the attackers were stopped dead in their tracks by the Soviet defenders. Then the battered Japanese dug in and waited for the Russians to make the next move.
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