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

partitioned.
    Jack turned on his heel and headed through into that section of the pub, its floor thickly carpeted in red and booths replacing tables and chairs. He slid into the furthest booth, occupied by a young man and woman of similar age – mid-twenties – both dressed similarly. No words passed between them, but almost as though by instinct, their hands slid across the smooth table surface and meet, grasping each other firmly.
    “Any joy, old boy?” William asked quietly.
    He was slightly taller than Jack, with near-shoulder-length dirty blond hair from which he had long since deflected any suggestion of cutting for anonymity’s sake. A quiet and more scholarly nature than the others in their collective merely disguised the same burning desire they all shared. His convictions had been expressed in no less violent a manner, at times, though he was free of the almost compulsive impulsivity of the others.
    Jack shook his head slowly. “No joy at all.”
    He sipped his beer thoughtfully, and looked at Mary, sat directly facing him, her dark, Latin eyes scrutinising his. He added quickly, “the rendezvous didn’t happen.” Theirs was a bond that neither required nor allowed for melodrama or one-upmanship.
    “Why,” she asked simply, the ‘y’ lingering a little with the Latin lilt on her tongue. She tilted her head curiously.
    “I don’t know.”
    She pursed her lips. Jack loved her unique movements, the way she physically presented each spoken sentence, though he was careful to keep that view private from William, her lover and fiancé. Jack had long since resigned himself to never acting on any impulse with her, nor expressing his deep lust and affection; quite deliberately spending little time over the past four years with her without William, Alan or another comrade being present.
    “I’ve no idea,” he admitted.
    Beats of dejected, contemplative silence, before Jack realised the inpact of his words, and he hurriedly elaborated. “No word at all from recon. No message to, or from, anyone. Forget the War Office, there’s no word even at recon level if there’s any kind of organised…” before William could hiss at him to be quiet, Jack nodded quickly, recognising his friend’s expression. He whispered “… I know … no intel, no radio operators broadcasting, no word if there’s even an organised resistance movement left, what happened or what’s going on now. There’s silence in every direction.”
    No one spoke for a moment. They all knew the gravity of being cut off, acting independently. It wasn’t in their nature to just turn their backs on the responsibilities they’d been entrusted with. But with no discernible support network, for supplies, information, instruction; they were adrift. The three of them all knew that their life expectancy could be measured in weeks, if not days, if they went ahead with any mission whatsoever.
    Jack leaned across the well-polished table to William. “I take it you didn’t get a note with your change?”
    William shook his head.
    “No such luck. Old Arthur hasn’t heard anything but radio static since the Germans took London.”
    “He was supposed to be our bloody focal point of information,” Jack hissed. William shrugged at him, pointing out the flawed logic.
    “We were supposed to kick Jerry’s arse in France. Hitler was supposed to be happy with reintegrating the poor Sudeten krauts back into kraut-land with the other sauerkrauts, one big happy kraut family of non-aggressive sauerkrauts,” William complained, his lilting Scottish accent more pronounced as he warmed to the sardonic commentary. “Munich was supposed to be ‘Peace in Our Time’. Bald olini and the Iti’s were supposed to keep Hitler out of Austria. Someone, somewhere, surely, we supposed to help the Republic when the fascists revolted – never underestimate the Catholic Church, of course. Versailles was supposed to keep Germany docile. The League of Nations was supposed to