Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 704: The Battle of London
Chapter 704: The Battle of London
It began with a low vibration, subtle, rhythmic, almost hypnotic.
At first, the citizens of London assumed it was another midnight train rumbling beneath the old city.
A distant storm offshore. A trick of wind.
But the sound grew deeper. Heavier. More industrial.
Like the heartbeat of some leviathan god stirring in the heavens.
Then the sirens began to wail.
They were supposed to be relics, antiquated, ceremonial, last tested during drills.
Few Londoners had ever heard them in earnest.
Not like this. Not shrieking in unison from every corner of the city like the howling of banshees.
Above, the night sky was black.
No stars. No moon.
But to those who looked up, the darkness was moving.
Dozens, no, hundreds, thousands of sleek shapes slid across the void like knife-blades.
Germany’s newest generation of high-altitude long-range bombers, the P.1108/I Fernbomber, rolled in formation across the Channel, their wide delta wings shimmering with condensation in the freezing upper atmosphere.
Each aircraft was turboprop-driven and capable of bearing payloads previously reserved only for ships.
They came in waves, escorted by squadrons of Focke-Wulf PTL-8s, turboprop powered fighters that were more reminiscent of a 2nd generation Jet fighter than a propellor plane.
From the radar stations in Kent to the airfields of East Anglia, the warnings came too late.
There were no scrambles.
There was no defense.
There was only sky… and fire.
The first bombs fell on the outskirts, Croydon, Bromley, Kingston.
At first, it was simple high-explosive ordnance.
Precision strikes on electrical substations, railway junctions, fuel depots.
As if the German command were testing the waters, measuring the city’s pulse before plunging the knife deeper.
Then came the second wave.
Napalm canisters burst over tightly-packed neighborhoods, setting entire city blocks alight with gelatinous flame.
The fire stuck to skin. Screamed with its victims. Londoners running from one explosion often found themselves engulfed by another.
Cluster munitions peppered industrial parks and docklands, sending thousands of anti-personnel submunitions scattering like locusts.
Hospitals overflowed within the hour.
Emergency triage centers had no roofs left to cover them.
Thermobaric bombs, the size of oil drums, struck at deeper infrastructure, underground command bunkers, hardened metro tunnels, even presumed shelters.
The concussive force flattened buildings, cracked foundations, sucked the air from lungs before the fireball followed.
The Fernbombers never dipped. Never turned. They dropped, circled, dropped again, refueled midair by tankers built from the same chassis waiting over the Channel like vultures.
Below, London howled.
The War Cabinet’s underground shelter shook as debris rained onto the city above.
Inside, Prime Minister Archibald Sinclair gripped the edge of the polished oak table, sweat dripping down his brow.
“This… This is the apocalypse!”
A junior staffer’s voice cracked.
“We don’t have an air force that can reach their altitude. Our fastest interceptors can’t climb that high without breaking apart.”
“The Americans will respond,” one general muttered. “Surely…”
“They won’t,” Sinclair interrupted. “Not until their own skies burn.”
There was silence, broken only by the dull thump of another fuel depot going up somewhere near Stratford.
The fire had reached the cathedral.
Soot-black snow fell through the broken roof, mixing with ash.
The great stained-glass windows shattered inward from the shockwaves, their sacred fragments glittering atop pews where the faithful once knelt.
Outside, someone, some damned fool, had tried to form a human chain with buckets from the Thames.
A man stood in the middle of Victoria Street, watching the flames crawl toward the Tower of London.
He didn’t run.
He didn’t scream.
He simply stood, as if trying to memorize the skyline before it vanished.
A final silhouette.
A final citizen.
—
—
Thirty kilometers off the coast, the Reichsmarine’s Carrier Strike Group Fafnir broke the surface of the Channel fog like a steel leviathan.
The SMS Hindenburg, Germany’s lead supercarrier, flanked by guided missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and two submarine hunter-killers, took up position directly east of the Isle of Sheppey.
Its flight deck hummed with readiness, air superiority squadrons armed, fueled, and silently taxiing under the red glow of naval deck lighting.
The strike group’s orders were clear: full maritime interdiction of the British Isles.
No goods in. No fuel. No medicine. No salvation.
Another task force, Strike Group Nibelung, moved simultaneously around the west, emerging near the Isles of Scilly to complete the encirclement.
Blockade protocol had been drilled for years. Now it was war doctrine.
—
Within Berlin’s command center of the OKL’s Strategic Air Division, the lights were dimmed, the screens humming with telemetry.
A soft voice crackled over the intercom.
“Second wave is returning. Estimated kill zones… confirmed.”
A senior officer lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “Any survivors?”
A technician responded dryly: “More than expected. Less than hoped.”
And in the room’s farthest corner, watching without blinking, stood the Reichsmarschall himself.
Bruno von Zehntner.
His expression gave away nothing. Not triumph. Not cruelty.
Just cold satisfaction, like a chess master removing the queen from the board.
“They thought they were untouchable,” he said softly.
“They were wrong.”
—
On the other side of the Atlantic the emergency cabinet meeting ran without sleep.
President Roosevelt stared at the photographs dropped onto the table by OSS couriers, still warm from the darkroom.
London was no longer a city.
It was a crater with street signs.
One of the aides, shaking, dropped a second file onto the table.
“Riots in Brazil. Argentina’s threatening to pull out of the Alliance. Peru’s power grid was taken offline last night. Another Werwolf cell, most likely.”
FDR ran a hand through his hair. “How many?”
“We estimate, conservatively, over a hundred thousand Werwolf operatives in the Americas, sir. Possibly more. They’ve been here for years.”
Silence.
Finally, Roosevelt asked:
“And the Fernbombers? Can we stop them?”
General Arnold answered grimly: “Not yet. Not unless we crack open the upper stratosphere. Our scientists and engineers are working overtime to find a solution to this. But as it seems now, these bombers can strike the East Coast from Berlin with impunity.”
The room fell still.
Outside, D.C. slept uneasily.
Inside, they all knew:
The wolves had crossed the ocean.
And they had brought hell with them.
