Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! (5 page)

He trailed off, the blue eyes sliding downwards in an affectation of disquiet. Stanley rankled at the impertinence of the German officer, in leaving the issue vague – a matter of honour! Some of the more knowing of the assembled rolled their eyes; others scowled. It was no secret that SS and, it was said, even Wehrmacht conduct in Poland had been abysmal. The legitimate persecutions of Germans living in the lost lands of the ‘Polish Corridor’ that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany after the Great War, was used to justify embarking on an orgy of unadulterated violence and terror, news of which slowly seeped west. Fire, bullets, bombs and rope; the four weapons freely wielded by the SS in the excessive brutality of their campaign. However, some of the more naïve British soldiers looked uncomfortable or even ashamed; embarrassed by the ungentlemanly conduct with which they were being accused of waging war.

“Furthermore,” Stanley blustered, indignant. “I should like your word of honour as an officer and a gentleman, that the rumours we heard of an SS massacre of British POWs as the Pas-de-Calais front collapsed, is categorically not true, Sir!”

“It is categorically
not
true, Sergeant Hitchman,” Major Wolf instantly replied, unwavering and firm.

James noticed shrewdly that the younger officer who had read roll call had looked down at his feet, as though embarrassed. The major added, “Waffen SS participation on the battlefield initially caused elements in the Wehrmacht command to register their resentment, to effectively have the panzer formations folded into the army and the divisions absorbed. False complaints of SS military capabilities and conduct were a natural by-product, but ultimately fruitless as the Führer was most delighted with the performance of the Waffen SS, the military bearers of his
political will
, if you like, and as such, the regular army dissidents in question have been brought to heel.”

This was met by silence.

“Are there any other questions?” The major asked, affecting an air of innocence. At least, that’s how it looked to Tommy, who piped up.

“When are you krauts going to let us go home?”

Again, with uncanny sensory awareness and speed, Major Wolf’s icy blue eyes found Tommy, fixing on the young man with unwaveringly intensity. “I’m sorry, Private?” he asked softly. Shouting was unnecessary; the only sound heard was faint birdsong from the thin, sickly trees around the camp, their gnarled branches twisting grotesquely in living death.

Tommy was unrepentant, to say nothing of unfazed. Being under fire in the terrible German onslaught had changed the men; all were hardened, calloused by combat. Stung by defeat, but unbroken. The German sized him up impassively, calmly holding the cockney’s stare with an unwavering cool. Tommy did not drop his gaze. Major Wolf approached him, unhurriedly, the dull thud of the jackboots echoing slightly in the total silence.

Before the major physically reached Tommy, the British soldier preempted the threats he suspected would surely follow.
In for a penny, in for a pound
, he thought darkly.

“I said
when
are we going to be let home. The war is over,
unfortunately
.”

The clip-clop of jackboots continued at the same maddening pace, until Major Wolf reached Private Tommy Watson of the BEF. Despite himself, at close proximity, Tommy began to feel uncomfortable. Wolf was roughly the same height – six feet – but with the jackboots, cap and the impeccably sleek uniform, medals on his chest visible through the open black trench coat, Major Wolf was an undeniably commanding figure. The icy blue eyes weighed him up and down, neutrally.
Calmly
.
That terrible calm
.

“Is it not customary in the British military to address a superior officer by his rank title?” he asked.

Tommy suspected that punishment would follow.
In for a penny
…

“As long as he’s in the military too,” he blurted.

At that, Wolf smiled; a small, toothy gesture. Perfectly neat, white teeth in a straight row. There was not an element of his personage that wasn’t kept immaculate.

In the shocked silence, he stepped forwards until he was unnervingly close. When he spoke, it was with the same awful calm.

“I hold the rank of
Sturmbannführer
, or ‘Major’, young
Private
. It applies throughout the SS. I served on active duty in the Waffen-SS; Czecho-Slovakia, and then Poland, where I commanded a panzer battalion, and then once again when we conquered Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and
Great Britain
in the space of twelve weeks. Now, I have a new role. You will address me as Major, Private, and I will not ask again.”

Tommy willed himself to hold the major’s gaze, but wilted under their resolute will of steely blue.

“Private?” Wolf asked.

“When do we go home, Major Wolf,” Tommy mumbled, looking at the floor.

“As soon as the Führer deems it appropriate,” the SS officer said with a pleasant smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “In the meantime, any problems you gentlemen have settling in to life at St George no.5, please do not hesitate to bring to my attention any problems that you have, through Obersturmführer, or
Lieutenant
Hoffman, my immediate subordinate here at St George no.5 and the designated liaison officer between you enlisted men of the British Expeditionary Forces here, and the
Schutzstaffel
officer class.”

And as he began to briskly stroll back to the gates, he turned, briefly, to address the ranks of men, saluting as he did so. “Good day, gentlemen.”

Major Wolf turned back, and marched briskly through the gates leading back to the long brick building, which he entered, disappearing from sight. Lieutenant Hoffman, the officer whom had barked out the roll call, resumed the position left by the camp Commandant.

“Sergeant Hitchman, this company is yours to organise. Lunch-time in the mess.”

If Hitchman was taken aback, he recovered quickly.

“All right men. Dis…MISSED! Fall out!”

The men filed out in orderly fashion. Stanley surmised they were glad of the continuation of military discipline. In tough times, the military order was a comfort in and of itself. It was their salvation after catastrophe.

Tommy, Brian and James Wilkinson hung back. James Fletcher winked, muttering “fill me in later. I’m hungry.” They filed in just before Stanley, marching off to lunch like some strange training drill, under the still watchful eyes of the SS, and then they sat straight down at a table with Stanley.

“That’s not wise, Tommy old boy,” Stanley began. With ‘his boys’, he didn’t bother with military rank; he’d enlisted too, after all, and he enjoyed the affection they bestowed on him as the older man. Their collective bond was strong;
had to be
strong, after the Meuse, retreat, Dunkirk… capitulation.

“The last thing we need is to start antagonising Jerry while we’re fenced off here in the damned forest.”

“I was only saying what everyone was thinking, Sarge,” Tommy scowled.

James raised an eyebrow. “
Aye
… maybe there’s a reason no one else said it though? Oh, and uh… nice touch in disrespecting him.”

“Well someone had to stick up for us, and I didn’t hear your contribution you gormless nancy.”

“Ah, interesting choice of insult from a London boy.”

“What?”

“You soft southern bastard; London is nothing but plague, perverts and chimney sweeps. I’m not gonna be called a coward by Oliver Twist’s retarded uncle.”

“Yes you bleeding well are, you sheep-shagging scallywag.”

“
Original
Twist, the sequel.”

The flat, deadpan Yorkshire attitude and dry northern humour was his primary tool against the more headstrong cockney. Naturally sardonic, the northerner is often more than equipped for the verbal spats with their southern counterparts, whose lazy reliance on ‘caveman’ stereotypes often results in a verbal unravelling. Sarcasm is a weapon, and James was the brand of Yorkshireman that had difficulty answering the first question of the day in a serious manner. Tommy, too, came from a close-knit urban community, and carried its traits of easy argument and masculine chest-beating. Something about the debate just appealed to the tribalist nature of an island people with imperialist goals;
in lieu of external enemies, fight and hate each other.

James and Tommy – neither man harbouring any real ill will – both privately enjoyed their silly squabbles, and with the stress of war, had come to rely on the routine for its assuring familiarity. It gave them a semblance of home life, however slight. Being interned had, thus far, done little to change either man or the dynamics of the wider group.

“Shut up, you northern ponce,” Tommy snapped back.

“Shandy.”

“It’s
grim
up north…”

James nodded, supremely pokerfaced. “
Shandy
.”

“Pigeons, whippets and coalmines,” Tommy sneered, before reciting, “Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred, strong in’t’ arm an’ thick in’t’ head!”

“
Compelling
! Leeds United. Parks. Trees. Country pubs. Cheap beer. No shandy.”

“You’re not even
from
Leeds, you Yorkshire twat!”

Tommy’s voice betrayed angst. James was calm. The others suspected that he would have worn the same pokerfaced expression had he been part of the
B Company 2
^nd
Battalion
that faced the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift.

“Shandy.”

Stanley sighed at the familiar argument. “All right, all right,” he interjected wearily; clipped Norfolk tones cutting through the distinctively accented north and south spat. James tipped his typically Yorkshire flat cap to the cockney, and looked to Stanley, who resumed: “We’re in a bad spot right now, chaps. A
bad
spot. The jolly
good
news is that we’re apparently a damn sight more worthwhile than the Poles, and the SS are being uncharacteristically nice. I say until we work out what the devil is going on around here; we do our best to keep it that way.”

“So what do we do?” Brian asked. It was the Yorkshireman that answered.

“Go to class and learn how to be a perfect Nazi. Learn some German while we’re at it.” James scowled. “Then we’ll be able t’order sauerkraut in Hamburg, and one of those giant mugs of ale without using a translator. Family ’olidays…”

“Hilarious guv’nor,” said Tommy sourly.

“No, it’s very much not,” the Sergeant said, and shrugged. “But given the circumstances… in all probability, he’s right. Let’s just see what our new SS friends like Major Wolf have in mind.”

James, unusually talkative but warming to his role as a sardonic commentator, looked over to the SS guard on duty in the dining hall. “I’m not looking forward to t’ next full moon.”

“The Land That Time Forgot,” the man intoned to himself, under his breath. The words were lost to the winds. As the gusts subsided at intervals, the sound of his footsteps echoing in almost total silence was unnerving; it felt like the main street of some remote Texan ghost town; a desolate chunk of humanity in the desert. Certainly not a central district of the capital of western civilisation; London, the city and beating heart of the world’s largest empire.

“For
now
,” he muttered again, verbalising his thoughts. All senses tingled; he was conscious of the rustle of leaves, shrill whoosh of the wind He crept on, through the eerily silent streets of Bloomsbury.

The windswept street on which proudly sat the Royal Oak public house was a cobbled, stony testament to hundreds of years of London history; the loves, lives, blood sweat and tears of the capital’s melting pot of people had bled themselves over the stones until they were etched into the very fabric of the city itself, becoming part of its eternal energy, ethereal and tangible alike. The road seemed indistinguishable from the multitude of identical streets around that part of Bloomsbury, reassuringly in the interregnum between fashionable and unintimidating to the common man, and was a welcoming enough place for the Londoner in need of a drink.

“Perfect,” old Arthur Speakman the landlord would say. “From the writers to these
petit bourgeois
the commies always chelp about, workers, students, graduates, locals to passing trade from the centre, we ’ave it all. We’re the hub.”

Famed for its group of resident writers and intellectuals that took the area’s name as their own, and with a hotpotch that covered all bases of the lower-middle and middle classes, Bloomsbury was, much like Camden, a mixed bag. It was not uncommon to hear a medley of dialects from around the capital spoken there; indeed, several regular voices in the Royal Oak had more than a hint of Bow Bells, as opposed to the more local twang of vowels and consonants that is fostered within the sound of the church bells of St Pancras and St George. The trademark garden squares that punctuated the dense mass of duplicate streets and the Royal Oak attracted clientele that often stretched from as wide as Camden to Covent Garden, right across the capital’s central districts. On summer’s days, with birdsong and sunlight brightening
the appeal of the Bloomsbury garden squares, the Royal Oak pub was a heaving mass of booze-soaked Londoners whose city experience was only brightened by its energy.

But in these dark days, the once welcoming street had an eerie gloom to it, as though a cold shadow had crept in with the early autumnal winds and taken its people unaware. Its icy grip was wrapped around the hearts of every living thing in sight; even animals no longer lingered, their scurried patter through the shadows encapsulated the mood among the human populace, whose bowed heads and hesitant gait betrayed latent unease. Verbalised thoughts were shared cheerily enough; foreign invasion and occupation was not enough to quell black humour in England. Even death cannot crush the spirit in which it exists.

However, it would take more than banter to genuinely lift the mood. People were thankful that alcohol had not yet been rationed in the way that fruit was, yet the sight and sound of uninhibited laughter was long gone.

“Ten at bleedin’ night, would you credit it?”