Free Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK! by Daniel S. Fletcher

eruption from Mary silenced them all. There was no trace of mirth now.
    After examining his glass for what felt like minutes, Alan cleared his throat again and looked up.
    “The Royals got out safe, obviously, so did Churchill. They had to drag him to the plane. Canada. The rest of his cabinet stuck around, obviously not knowing they’d be grabbed and held. Chamberlain and Halifax are being left alone, there’s talk Hitler wanted to set up a puppet government under them instead of Mosley for now, just to keep everything in place and running smoothly. But from what I hear Chamberlain’s ill, and not expected to see Christmas.”
    “Probably a blessing,” Jack opined gloomily. They all murmured assent.
    “So Hitler remembered the Munich conference,” William noted. “Interesting.”
    “Aye, probably why they scratched Neville’s name off the arrest lists. Viscount Halifax has been spared, but I don’t know anything else about arrests.”
    He looked confused for a moment, as well he might. It was the most curious thing about the occupation thus far – relatively peaceful in London. This den of Jews and subversives , as Hitler and Goebbels had ranted, and everything Lord Haw Haw had silkily purred on Radio Berlin; the British warmongers ; the communists, the socialists, the ‘decadent’ writers; why had the city been spared the customary bloodbath? Why hadn’t the SS-Gestapo and security police arrived in force to turn London into a thick-walled torture chamber?
    “Alan,” Jack queried, “Why aren’t the round-up squads operational yet?”
    He hoped if he verbalised the thought, that at least one of them may be able to offer some insight. But there was silence, and the Geordie shrugged.
    “How do we know they’re not? I’ve not heard about the big guns landing or anything, but for all we know they’re attached to the army rear-lines. Or focusing on the continent. France and Holland. Or still busy slaughtering Poles. I don’t know…” and his lack of knowledge on a vital issue seemed to almost pain him. He didn’t have a source in the know. It was a mystery.
    There was another silence, as each of them collected their thoughts. Finally, it was broken by the least impetuous of the group in William.
    “Well… whether we know about it or not, it’s safe to assume there’ll be the usual cleansing. Let’s just see how things pan out…”
    “In the meantime,” Jack added solemnly, “we hang tight. No foul play – yet.”
    With that, each of them drifted into their own thoughts, as a sudden flash of lightning signalled an imminent lashing rain, which pelted against the pub windows like a possessed spirit bringing threatening auguries for the serious young people inside, lives dedicated to a grim cause from which there could be no escape now, no compromise, no surrender. They, or it, would fall. It was the irrevocable nature of the fight, on either side of the dividing line.
     

Simon lit a cigarette, deeply thankful that he’d stocked up on his preferred American Lucky Strikes prior to tighter rationing. Lord help those on the black market cigarettes , he thought. Just smelling them is bad enough. Having to actually smoke one would be like volunteering as a chimney sweep in some Charles Dickens novel .
    It had been a good day, in the circumstances. The writer reclined at ease, in the large, studded leather chair he’d bought for the desk, and running his hands gently through the thick clump of knotted hair on the crown of his head, breathed easily for the first time in what felt like days. Only as he did so did the realisation set in that his chest had been contracting, and his trapezius muscles were tensed. Sucking gratefully at the Lucky Strike cigarette, he began to pen a diary – his own private act of defiance.
    Printing subversive materials extolling the people to resist German propaganda was his outward contribution, though how long he’d last, the young journalist was blissfully,