Nation's Pride
Prologue
November 1941. London.
The kettle let out a shrill whistle as steam jetted from its spout.
Arthur bustled over and lifted it from the stove, pouring a measure of the boiling water into a mug before sloshing the remainder into a wash basin set on a low stand.
He had been burning the candles at both a lot lately, and it showed. As the steam cleared from the mirror in thin wispy tendrils, his tired eyes stared listlessly back at his own dishevelled appearance. Dark circles had formed around his eyes from lack of sleep, and his hair stuck up on end from the countless times he had run his fingers through in frustration. A five o'clock shadow dusted the lower half of his pale gaunt face – but that he could fix. Slowly, with heavy weighted arms, he reached to pick up his soap and brush and, keeping his eyes fixed to his hands, he began to work up a lather.
After he had washed, shaved and dressed, and tamed his hair as best he could with a wooden comb that was missing half its teeth, Arthur sat down with the morning paper to a frugal breakfast.
Today, he was having a slice of stale brown bread, which he had lightly toasted under the grill and spread thinly with margarine. It was bland with all the chewy texture of a piece of leather; and not for the first time he wished for some eggs and bacon instead.
He washed down his toast with a mug of weak black tea sweetened with a little sugar. He had not had any milk to go with his tea for a while now. That was half a month ago, and it looked as if he would have to forego the sugar as well as he had just used up his ration. At the first sip, he realised with a pang of regret that it had gotten cold in the draughty room, which added to his disappointment. He drained the mug anyway.
He was out of the door at half past seven, pulling on a grey overcoat over his shirt and jacket, and skipping down the steps of his apartment onto the street.
Outside, the sky was overcast, and it was bitterly cold with a dry northern wind rattling past shuttered windows and sending brown autumn leaves skittering across the pavement. Few people were out in the streets that morning, walking hurriedly along a road empty of vehicles. There was a blanket ban on all personal automobiles earlier in the year, he vaguely remembered. Sometime back in August or so.
Arthur walked as everyone walked, in quick long strides of his legs with his head bowed and his hands buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat, eyes cast down to the ground littered with broken bricks and finely-crushed glass.
It was nine months into the Nazi occupation of Britain.
This AU takes its origin and name from Len Deighton's SS-GB, a novel set in an alternate history where the Nazis were successful in conquering and occupying Britain.