Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (27 page)

“Fuck –
international
… and flags, you
berk
.
This
here is
our
country, and it’s occupied by bloody Germans.
Fascists
, you twat.” Alan hissed at him across William.

But still, the same dismissive, slow nod and indistinct mumble from Duncan. The words had no effect whatsoever. There was a rumble of noise across the pub, however; Jack realised that their noise had been carrying in the silence. He glanced around; quiet, unchallenging eyes met his briefly, and looked away. He snorted, and turned back to face Duncan, who was calmly answering Alan’s incensed entreaty.

“We chose to believe in a class struggle; the
salt of the earth
, the people who make the system work. Us. And we lost. But, it turns out that all is not entirely lost.”

That shut Alan up. His mouth opened and closed, like a goldfish, blinking dumbly.
Not entirely lost.
William himself was mortified, and forced himself to look across the table at the two Jack’s, sitting side by side. He winced as Duncan continued, verbalising that which was unspeakable, unutterable.

“Because, it turns out that this Nazi piffle is actually a kind of warped socialism after all. Now, don’t get me wrong; look at it closely enough, and they’re in bed with plutocrats and corporations,” Duncan suddenly came alive, revitalised like his former self. The most politically passionate worker they had ever chewed the fat with over beers, with a formidable mind. “Big business funded these reactionary shysters. The same plutocracy they blame on Jewry, they’re happy to accept funding from to maintain control. Capitalist monsters have nothing to worry about investing in fascist foreign countries; they’re
stable
. They invest, and rely on a murderous police force to keep things on an even keel as the investment starts to bear fruit. Look at the war! You don’t see the bankers in top hats shuffling through London, do you? They’re not affected by this, are they? Not for all the tea in China. They’re still laughing every morning. Fascism is just as good as democracy to them, if not better.”

“
Not entirely lost
,” Alan repeated pointedly.

“Yeah,” Duncan sighed, realising that such a taboo statement had to be defended. “OK… the Nazis are swollen, fat and greedy with German big business, American dollars and, let’s be honest, British pounds. There’s still a ruling class that sits above law and borders. But look
beyond
the racist bollocks. They’ve tried to eradicate unemployment in Germany. They want to do the same
here
. Every home-grown industry goes under the state, totally nationalised, and programs are set up to help assimilate people into the system of work. Public projects, a permanent need for labour.”

He stopped, taking a small sip of his beer, knowing that no interjections were likely. Sated, Duncan continued quietly into the accusatory silence. “Beyond the factory conscription, there’s plenty of workers who have it just fine staying and working
here
. Families are being fed. Why d’you think that after London was secure there’s not been bombs all over the place? And once they’ve secured Leeds and Manchester and Glasgow, strewth, who knows where else – why would it be any different for the northern monkeys as here? People don’t fight when they can eat. The majority just want to be led, earn money and live as easy a life as possible.”

Duncan shook his head slowly, retreating back into himself. “Like it or lump it, lads, we can’t overthrow them anymore, they’re not even breaking the British Empire up and bleedin’ hell, as workers we may even come to accept this regime as it rebuilds and builds a new, strong system for a new decade.”

In the astonished silence, Jack Dash found his voice. “That’s bloody hard for me to hear, brother. But I do concede; Jerry does want to reward the worker, build strong nations on the foundation of the working man, and they’re keeping things good… and until then, I’m not sure I could advocate more of our boys throwing their lives away on –“

“
Hold
on,” William interjected, cutting the monologue short. “What you’re saying is; National
Socialism
is better than no socialism at all? The worker still wins? That’s a justification for not fighting?” The young Scot shook his head in disbelief; Alan, meanwhile, looked like he was ready to attack the two Dockers; lips fixed in an ugly sneer, fists clenched. His whole body betrayed fury and tension.

William inhaled the slightly sour air of the pub, collecting his thoughts. How had this happened?

When he spoke, his voice was full of suppressed anger, and he found himself unable to look to his left at the big man. “So the Stalinist, communist, pro-Soviet Duncan McGrath follows the word of Comrade Joe to the letter – I assume the POUM are Trotskyite-fascists in your book, aye? We never did clear that up, us being former POUM of course. We’re fascists. But
National Socialism
is an
accepted
form of socialism. Well,
viva libertad
, you fucking
bastard
.”

The charged atmosphere was unspeakably foul, its vile tension insidiously spreading through the dank and spacious pub. The vile smell grew in strength, and with it, the nervous pressure of the moment only intensified. Jack realised it was a lost cause, but still spoke into the deathly silence:

“So with the dead in France, the prisoners of war and the practically forced recruitment of tens of thousands of able-bodied workers to German factories, as long as the workers get paid on time and not hassled, and a few more slackers get bunged into jobs building roads and tanks, it’s ok to do nothing… even
accept
the way things are?

Jack Dash shook his head. “Not quite. I can’t abide this. And as soon as things take a turn for the worse – and at some stage, they will – I’ll lead a group myself.”

“Will you now,” Alan sneered, oozing contempt. But Dash held his gaze.

“Yes.”

“So why not now?” But even as he said it, he knew that they wouldn’t take him. They came for an old comrade of the old war, who’d fought the common enemy. They couldn’t take in some new blood in occupied London that they didn’t know, hadn’t met and had never heard of, whether he was willing to fight or not.

And Dash knew it too. “That can’t happen. But one day, when the wounds have healed, when our lads are allowed home and when we’re ready to strike, we will. Wrongs will be righted. There will be liberation, brothers.”

They believed him, but it was useless waiting with him. When you’d tackled the enemy, been hurt by the enemy, assailed by the enemy’s malice, and felt the breath of the enemy on the back of your neck, there could be no biding of time, no waiting for stability, no licking of wounds. They were irrevocably set on their path.

But Duncan? He’d fought, too. There was a moment’s silence, as they looked at him, compelling him to speak in his shame, and then he did. Duncan began to unload as he hadn’t before, as he
never
had before. It was as though each word pained him, a savage burden that grew heavier with each reluctant syllable.

“You speak of overthrowing the enemy. You can’t know how it felt, when the fascists won. I was still there as the northeast fell. I saw the tanks roll over the bodies of our comrades. I saw the executions. I saw the rapes.”

Alan’s hand slid under the table to grab the wrist of William, who’d gone instantly white. The roles had reversed; now William was in danger of doing God knows what to the big dock worker he’d once called a friend. Spain was still raw for all of them, but for him, some wounds would never heal. The muscles in his jaw bunched as he bit down. William was desperate to break his glass over the docker’s face, and slash his huge face until it pulsed and flopped; dangling, torn flesh, leaking life-blood. The Scot was infuriated, barely able to maintain his calm.

Duncan continued, completely oblivious to the change in his former friend.

“… And I saw all our blood and sweat and tears, our beliefs come to naught. Do you know what I did? Came home, spitting thunder, about how I was going to murder every fascist and Nazi and Falangist I saw for the rest of my life. Cried myself to sleep at night. I wasn’t a father, any longer; my little girl barely recognised me. Agnes tried to reach me and couldn’t. How can you reach out to them, to explain what it’s like?”

He shook his head. “And then Poland. I tried to sign up the next day, September 4
^th
. Wouldn’t let me; too old. Well, bloody hell…” a bitter laugh escaped him, hanging harsh in the quiet. “You’d think they needed every man they could get. And then, defeat, and I knew they were coming here. All the ideals and dreams, a brotherhood of workers stretching from Moscow to Warsaw to Madrid to London… gone. And you know what?”

“What?” Alan asked, sourly. His hand still gripped William’s wrist.

Duncan shook his head yet again, this time in disbelief. “When the Nazis touched down here I couldn’t even care. Trying to remember my
anger
and
hatred
of them, and what I believed in and fought for, and fought against… it’s like looking at an old photo album of school days, or reading my childhood ambitions. ‘I want to be the heavyweight champion of the world.’ ‘I want to be Viceroy in India.’ I can’t even bloody remember what that anger felt like. It’s a different person. I’m
dead
inside.”

He looked at each of them in turn, dumbly wondering if they understood. Jack and William weren’t sure what to think; it shocked them to see what had become of Duncan McGrath. But it was easy to hide behind depression and pain. Jack was sick at heart, and he stopped himself retorting to Duncan’s apathy. Instead, the Londoner caught William’s eye.

“Do you remember what you said to me, when we first reached Barcelona?”

“What?” William asked blithely. He just wanted to leave this miserable tavern now, no longer caring about what McGrath had to say. He felt suffocated, and wanted to get as far away as possible from the baleful influence of a defeated comrade consumed by misery, who’d given up on everything – including himself.

But Jack reminded him of his old words.

‘“A strong man doesn’t let fate overwhelm him, he fights for his cause, and he isn’t afraid of the future, he creates his own’.” Jack quoted. Alan remembered with sudden vividness the moment those words were spoken, as they waited to disembark from the crowded train, cramped and jostled but exhilarated, finally heading out to find people thronging joyously through the Barcelona streets.

William laughed hollowly.

“How very poignant I was.”

He drained the dregs of his ale, and stood up. Alan sprang to his feet and stepped aside to let him out, and Jack, too, slid out of the booth wordlessly, without looking at the veteran communist or his friend. He headed towards the door, as Alan and William cast a last contemptuous glance at the shell of Duncan McGrath.

“No pasarán,” sneered Alan, and he turned disgustedly on his heel and stalked out. William raised a mock fascist salute before following. With the haunted eyes of the pub boring into their backs, Alan hawked up a wad of bile, and spat a great blob of green phlegm onto the dirty wooden floor on which their boots smartly clip-clopped, echoing as they exited the threshold, leaving broken men in their wake.

~

Later that night, Mary lay with her neck nestled into the crook of her lover’s armpit, a thick cascade of hair flowing down past the ribcage and tight muscle under it; a small figure nestled against his larger frame, breathing in his scent. Neither had bathed that day, and the addition of alcohol to their chemical balance had contributed its own almost-indistinguishable odour trace, but Mary breathed in deeply, nostrils flared, filling her lungs with the smell. It was a scent only identifiable with good things, for her, in a world becoming crueller and starker by the day.

Through the window she could see stars in the black sky. For minutes she’d gazed sightlessly at them, her thoughts invariably wandering back to the march of jackboots and sight of uniforms that filled her dreams, until their pinprick lights came into focus.
If there is a force out there, let it be one that deals in kindness and peace. Let it shine on those that wish peace and forgiveness to the world.
She had no time for thoughts of the God worshipped in the west, or any religious institution or following, cult or creed. And after her desecration of churches on the Aragon front, joyful retribution dished out in the vengeful spilling of priests’ blood, she was certain that if there truly was a Christian God, he most definitely would have little time for her.

If there was, though; let it not be said that Franco, and now Hitler and Mussolini’s purges were righteous retribution. Seven years, her people had been persecuted, and at various times for one thousand years before that. Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich had only seen its seventh savage summer; if the Führer had his way, his Reich would ensure that her people suffer for a thousand years more.

Mary believed in life’s beauty and solidarity, but the era she lived in had betrayed her innocent ideals and dreams. Europe in the 1930s had turned her from a pretty, wide-eyed child into a fiery, bitter young woman with vengeful thoughts.

“Are you ok?” William said softly. She knew what he meant.

“Don’t worry. We pretended to be Catholics for centuries in Spain. History is full of Hitlers’ for the tribe.”

“I mean you. My girl.”

She chuckled, lowly. “Sí, guapo.”

William gently ran his fingers through the threads of her hair, an almost fatherly tenderness to his caress. Life had been hard and tough for his girl, since the dread nightmare of the uprising and the unspeakable torment she’d endured in The Fall of Catalonia. Her physical allure was obvious; after four years he had still not become accustomed to it, nor had familiarity diminished his awareness of her fierce Mediterranean beauty, with its high cheekbones, pouting lips, dark eyes flecked as they were with colour and passion; an expression that could range from intense focus to anger to happiness and back again, in the space of seconds. Yet the abhorrent realities of her experience tempered his passions for her with a gentleness, something paternal or avuncular as well as love and attraction in the sexual sense. The fierce little girl had grown up in a cruel world, and no loved ones could protect her from it. She had been disillusioned from parental and social protection in her teenage years, with the outbreak of a savage war between her own people. Mary had learned firsthand the basest cruelties of a cold world, and that no one could protect her. William had sworn when they left the Spain that whatever happened, from that point onwards,
he
would.