Axis of Evil

Chapter Thirty: Race War

Salvation

Mississippi, America

31^st May 1941

Sheriff Jefferson Buckley had lived in Salvation, a tiny town out in the boondocks, for years and thought that he was used to the heat. It rose up from the ground, even in the darkness, and tonight it carried the stink of something… rotten. The very air felt feverish, as if it were too hot for any kind of activity, even the one that they were about to engage in.

“Take care of yourself, Jeff,” his wife said. Buckley smiled down at his wife, who had once been red-haired and beautiful. Years as the wife of the local sheriff had dimmed her fire, but he could still see the innocent young girl she had once been. Her body was still trim, even after giving birth to three children, and he kissed her once on the lips.

No nigger is going to have you, he thought grimly, and prepared himself as best as he could. The remainder of the posse would be making themselves ready as well and he wouldn’t disappoint them; the local sheriff had to be there to make the proceedings nice and legal. Buckley chuckled as he pulled on his gun belt; it had been fine when the niggers kept their heads down and out of his way, but as soon as they started to get ideas…

“I’ll be back,” he said, aping a character in one of the new movies. Salvation had been lucky enough to have a travelling cinema come to town; the citizens – no niggers, of course – had watched the movies with interest. Picking up his rifle, he headed out to the barn, where the posse had gathered; thirty men, armed to the teeth.

“Good evening,” he said, using the accent from another of the movies; a stupid high-class Englishman. “How are y’all?”

There was a series of mutterings. Some of the men, he realised with annoyance, were drunk already, clinking bottles under their arms. “We are going to go into Darktown,” he said, using the local name for the black section of Salvation. “Once there, we are going to search it from top to bottom for guns, which niggers are not allowed to have.”

There were chuckles. One of the prime actions, after the civil war had ended, had been to keep weapons out of black hands. “If we find any, the nigger in question is to be arrested,” Buckley said. “Any resistance, shoot to kill. I’ll square it with the state; we all know what duffers niggers are with guns.”

“Probably shot themselves while trying to escape,” a clearly drunken man said, laughing unpleasantly. “Come on, Sheriff; don’t we get any fun with the dark women?”

Buckley scowled at him. Rape was an unacknowledged way of keeping the blacks down; surely it proved how inferior they were that no black man would go to the defence of a raped black woman? There were nearly a dozen mixed-race children in Darktown alone, proof of the policy.

“Later, perhaps,” he said, knowing that some would certainly take the opportunity. “Now, is everyone ready?”

“Yes,” they shouted, and followed him through the streets into Darktown. Buckley made a face; Darktown stank. It smelt of houses and of unclean people, pigs and swamps and Africa. Not given to self-honestly, Buckley couldn’t acknowledge that his side of Salvation smelt exactly the same.

“Niggers, come out,” he shouted, firing once into the air. “Come out or we’ll shoot!”

Some doors opened; black faces peered out. “Come out into the square,” Buckley bellowed. “Come out, now!”

Slowly, reluctantly, clearly terrified, they came forth, standing in the square in their nightclothes. Some of his men ogled the women; their tongues hanging out. Buckley glared at them until they resumed guard position.

“Under the authority vested in me by the state, I am here to search your premises for guns,” Buckley announced. “If any of you want to make it easier, declare your weapons now.”

One young man began to protest; he was shot through the head. The blacks shifted nervously – Buckley could smell their fear and urine – but they didn’t move under the noses of the weapons.

“Search that house first,” Buckley commanded, detailing off men. Four men had to watch the blacks; the others went in pairs. Some of them, he was certain, would see it as an opportunity to steal; by the looks on their faces, some of the blacks knew it as well. “Move it!”

A single gunshot rang out, followed by another. “What happened?” Buckley demanded, lifting his rifle. “Answer me!”

“Nigger bitch shot Dawson,” one of his men said. “She had hidden under the bed and…”

One of the black men threw a stone. Buckley fired without thinking; the entire posse fired. The fight was short and savage, but there was no other possible outcome. Five minutes after the fighting had begun, the blacks lay dead.

Dawson, clutching his shoulder, cheered. “We whipped them good,” he hollered. Buckley felt sick for the first time. “We own this place!”

“Check all of the other buildings,” Buckley ordered, keeping his gorge down with an effort. “Round the rest up, then torch the buildings.”

The White House

Washington DC, USA

1^st June 1941

The headlines of the New York Times were clearly a mixture between two equally important subjects; BLACK OUTRAGES IN SALVATION and BRITISH SPACE DISASTER competed for space. For once, the paper made no excuses for the behaviour of the white inhabitants, despite taking a pro-white slant. The devastation was simply out of all proportion to any offence.

“We haven’t seen anything like this since the civil war,” Roosevelt said. He sounded vaguely stunned. Ambassador King felt burning rage growing within his breast; had he never considered some of the consequences of words compared to actions? What did truth; justice and the American way mean if you were black?

“The local sheriff was informed that the blacks were hiding subversives within their town and organised a posse to investigate,” Hoover said. His self-importance was more than King could bear at this time in the morning. “The blacks opened fire and…”

“And an entire population got slaughtered,” King snapped. “Do you have any sense of how important this is?”

Hoover ignored him, speaking directly to the President. “This is the direct result of a campaign of subversion,” he said. “All across America, subversives are meeting and plotting the fall of American democracy. Mr President, you must sign a bill authorising martial law across the South and end the insurgency once and for all.”

Without waiting for a reply, he swept out of the room, meeting Tolson outside for a late lunch. I hope that he bites your cock off, King thought with a sudden bitter anger, before turning back to face Roosevelt. The President looked older; his Vice President, Truman, was watching him with concern.

“How do we handle something like this?” Roosevelt asked. His voice was wavering. “Everything was nice and peaceful until you people arrived.”

“It was nothing of the sort,” Truman said. He’d been amused to discover that his actions on racial integration had made him a hero to the black population. “This problem has been growing for a while.”

“Did you know that the HUAC has started to plan inquires into shutting down the Internet?” Roosevelt asked. “Hoover – the faggot bastard – has been calling in every marker he’s owed, just to have the Internet attacked.”

The President’s sudden vehemence shocked King. “The Southern Governors – and some of the Northern ones – are demanding new laws to control…”

“Uppity niggers,” King snapped.

“As you wish,” Roosevelt said. “They want the entire region placed under martial law and the insurgency rooted out root and branch.” He glared down at the list of incidents; they were coming in with more and more violence, damaging lives all across the south.

“Not unless you can do it for the entire country,” Truman said wryly. The riot in Chicago had been brutal. “We have to win in Norway and then against Germany.”

“Hoover has been going on and on about communists,” Roosevelt said. “He thinks that the Russians have been supplying aid to the blacks.”

“There’s no proof of that,” King pointed out quickly.

“Who needs proof when Hoover is around?” Truman asked. “The fairy has a handle on half of Congress.”

“And he’s still talking to MacArthur,” Roosevelt said. “I have been thinking about offering him a combat command, rather than the training post at Fort Hood. Unfortunately… well, you know what the regulars think of him.”

King nodded. By now, the rumours had risen to MacArthur being in the pay of the Japanese, selling out his men for a comfy life in the future. “It would be one way of getting rid of him,” King said wryly.

“Then everyone would say that I’d sent him off to die, instead of leaving him in the training billet,” Roosevelt said. “Damn it; I wish I knew what they were doing.”

Colonel Palter, though no fault of his own, had found himself assigned to General Eisenhower as an unofficial aide. His experience at the countless little wars within the Middle East, and Central Asia, had been very helpful, although some of his ideas hadn’t been. No one in 2015, except the historians, had really understood just how limited their capabilities really were.

He smiled to himself. Eisenhower had been summoned back to the United States for a conference, something that would have been impossible before the Transition, or during World War Two, and he wasn’t enjoying it. Arguing with countless suppliers that he wanted more supplies heading to Norway now, not futuristic weapons in a year, was draining. Everyone was very keen to produce the B-29 design, ignoring the fact that it would be at least five months before one could be ready, let alone the hordes of bombers that LeMay was dreaming about.

“We need more aerial supply,” Eisenhower said grimly, and Palter smiled as the USAAF commanders collectively recoiled. “At the moment, we are not using tanks, but we’re slipping troops over the mountains and we need to supply them. The British can’t lift anything like enough for us, and we can build the aircraft required for it.”

“We have to win the war quickly,” LeMay said. “We can only do that by systematically destroying Germany’s abilities to wage war. A sustained, constant bombing attack could end the war within months, flying from bases in North Africa or England, perhaps even Norway…”

“What little airfields remain in Norway are being used by British close-support VTOL aircraft,” Eisenhower snapped. “What about our other supplies, eh?”

“Production of the Liberty Ships is only increasing,” a grey man said. He was from the Navy Department. “Almost all of the production ships have been earmarked for transporting supplies to Orkney, and from there to Bergen. You’ll have your supplies there, General…”

Palter smiled. The Navy was also keen on long-range bombers, although for different reasons. They wanted them to play a role in the antisubmarine role, and even the atomic role when that became available. They’d even begun planning a nuclear carrier, even though they were hardly necessary now.

“The problem is that Norway’s logistics are very poor,” Eisenhower snapped, not bothering to conceal his annoyance. “We’re spending too much effort trying to rebuild parts of their rail network – a futile effort in the time we have available – because you can’t drop supplies to us. This is not the desert; this is mountainous terrain that a few rock falls can totally block off.”

He waved a hand at the map. “Once we reach Oslo, we will need supplies to knock the Germans out of there,” he said. “The reconnaissance satellites” – Eisenhower had been among the approving crowd – “report that the Germans are digging in, gentlemen, digging in into terrain that makes Gettysburg or Cold Harbour look nice and easy. We have only forty thousand men there – and I can’t afford to lose many of them.”

“Could the British not bomb the defenders to hell and gone?” A man with a southern accent asked. Palter was puzzled; he didn’t know who he was. “We keep hearing things about wonder weapons, you know, and then there was the explosion in Romania.”

Eisenhower looked at Palter. “Precision weapons either require very good reconnaissance or teams on the ground guiding the weapons in,” he said. “The Germans have managed to surround Oslo with enough guards to make sneaking a team in very difficult, while reconnaissance is hampered as there are fewer obvious targets on the ground. There aren’t enough weapons to aim randomly.”

The Secretary of War coughed. “At least we are improving the number of troops conscripted into the military,” he said. “Black men are deserting in large numbers, I’m afraid, but we should be able to send you some reinforcements soon.”

“Blasted black propaganda,” someone muttered from the corner. “Don’t they know how lucky they are?”

“Reinforcements are not the problem,” Eisenhower said. “The problem is that we can only support a small number of troops at the critical points. We need, desperately, more aerial support.”

Ambassador King watched in silence as Eisenhower went through a dog and pony show on the results of the battles. He’d been relieved, along with Roosevelt, to learn that the invasion had succeeded, and that there was no chance that the Allied forces would be pushed back into the sea. Still, it had taken several days to sort out the situation on the ground, let along press the offensive towards Oslo – and the largest German force on the ground.

“At the moment, we hold all of Norway’s coastline,” Eisenhower said. He pointed at the PowerPoint display, which was displaying an interactive map. “I can confidently say that no major German force exists anywhere near the coast, although we cannot discount any stragglers from the Wehrmacht or the SS. Unfortunately, it took time to get the port working again, then we could ship in supplies and ship out the Germans to POW camps in the Shetlands.

“At the moment, General Patton has been probing towards Oslo, using infantry forces combined with British Special Forces,” Eisenhower continued. “As an aside, we have to have some of our people go through their training camp; we need more like them. Anyhow, it’s hard going for more than small groups; the road system has been wrecked by either the British airstrikes or the Germans in retreat.”

Roosevelt coughed. “Are you saying that we cannot get to them in Oslo?”

Eisenhower shook his head. “Of course we can,” he assured Roosevelt, and by extension the entire room. “It’s just going to be slower than we anticipated.” He adjusted the map. “We’re taking a two-tiered approach,” he explained. “One thrust will be mainly infantry and light tanks – very light tanks – moving overland. That thrust will subdivide; some will head directly over the mountains, others will go around the mountains. Whatever happens, we expect that we will be besieging Oslo within a week, perhaps two.

“At the same time, the Allied naval force will probe their way around the coast, eventually hammering away at the outskirts of Oslo itself,” he said, changing the map again. A big blue arrow advanced around Norway. “Although I don’t anticipate landing Marines like we did before, the Germans will have to be aware of the possibility – and they will have to take precautions against it.”

Roosevelt considered for a long moment. “What about the Soviet forces in the north?”

“So far, they haven’t moved,” Eisenhower said. “The Finns have been hitting them hard and that’s not good terrain for them.” He smiled. “Patton wants to challenge them anyway.”

“He would,” Roosevelt said. “Cordell?”

Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, spoke clearly. He didn’t often have a chance to speak on foreign policy. “We have been receiving feelers from the Swedish Government,” he said. “As you know, they are under German ‘protection’ from Stalin. If you are determined to avoid a clash with Stalin, we will have to decide on a course of action quickly.”

“Accept their feelers and move our troops into the country,” King suggested. “If we don’t make a deal with them, we will have to fight Germans moving up through Sweden.”

“That’s pretty much what Patton said,” Eisenhower injected. “Mr President, if the Swedes abandon Hitler, Stalin will walk in and take over the place.”

Roosevelt scowled. “Like Finland,” he said. Ambassador King nodded. “I suppose we could try to warn him off.” He nodded. “Cordell, see to warning Stalin that the United States would be most displeased if he did anything to violate the territorial integrity of Sweden.”

“I believe that Stalin will call our bluff,” Hull said grimly.

Roosevelt gave him a charming smile. “Who says I’m bluffing?”

“I feel almost like my old self again,” Roosevelt said cheerfully, over dinner. “I say, Ambassador; those medicines really work.”

“They are from seventy years in the future,” King said, sipping his wine.

“Now, you can sing for your supper,” Roosevelt said. “Tell me, will Stalin call our perhaps bluff?”

King smiled. “I don’t have a singing voice,” he said. “Depends on how confident Stalin is of ultimate victory. By now, he has to know that communism is a dead end – notice how he’s started privatising food production – but he won’t want his own power threatened. That’s what he was doing in Spain; a Republican victory might have been equally bad for the Soviets in the long run.”

Roosevelt smiled. “Why?” He asked. “Not that I doubt you, but…”

“Too far from Moscow,” King said. “Without a Soviet army in the nation, it might start having ideas, such as asking why Stalin got to make all the decisions? They might end up, horror of horrors, setting themselves up as a second centre of communism.” He chuckled. “Stalin might just be having plans to double-cross Hitler at some point, perhaps when we have him distracted and on the ropes.”

Roosevelt sighed. “Was it this complicated in the original timeline?”

King nodded. “No one dared to stand up to Stalin when he might have been stopped,” he said. “The world endured forty years on the edge of destruction because of that, Mr President.”

“You never crease to remind us of mistakes we haven’t made yet,” Roosevelt said finally, after a long pause. “Now we can make some new ones.”