The Scent of a Rose

The English nation knew that there was no way they could win this war alone,  the only chance they had was to stay on the defensive and pray to god that Hitler would find somewhere else to bomb. Not that he wished this hell on any of the other nations but England was a tiny country and could only handle so much.

“We need to utilize the early warning technology you mentioned earlier. As far as I know the Germans can’t make good use of it yet and we need all the advantages over them that we can get. Another thing of note is that the Germans have mostly short range planes and are staying around the ports mostly. We can use the Hurricanes to shoot them down. We need to get to a point where we can shoot down their planes faster than the bastards can build them and we need to launch another counter attack on Berlin. The most important thing is that England will be completely burnt to the ground before I see anyone in my land where a swastika. ” Arthur spoke with increasing conviction, slamming his fist on the table.

Hearing his words the entirety of the room went silent in admiration; this man truly was the embodiment of England.

The plan was to start implementing these strategies the following morning and have the Germans out as soon as possible.

Nobody could have predicted the hell they were about to go through though before they could breathe easy.

The raid started at night, like they usually did but the 400 German fighter planes weren’t usual and the amount of explosives he heard being dropped and actually struck fear in Arthur down to down to his soul. He could only imagine that the few planes reinforcements they had at the moment could actually do some damage.

Arthur made himself stand up from the crouched position he was in at the raid shelter they had made him evacuate to telling him that aerial battles were not for men like him, besides, they had told him “If they shoot you down, who will lead us to victory?” that had kept him quiet.

He looked out the small window and it was like a lightning storm, he shivered and averted his eyes starting to pace. The sound of bombs always made him nervous; he guessed it was a subconscious reaction to his earlier incident with them.   The raids never lasted that long though; he just had to wait it out.

Two hours later he got the report that the BBC Broadcasting House had been hit and that Oxford Street had been shut down with no sign of a retreat in sight. The railways and the roads were all shut down.

“How many have we been able to take down? Do we have any numbers yet?” Arthur asked, hopeful, but doubtful, that his strategy had been put into play yet.

“One sir.” Was the terse reply of the soldier.

“One? One what? One group? How many is in a group? One hundred?” Arthur was confused; the Royal Air Force had been doing the best they could so far.

“Well, sir, there were only 41 of us that were ready for combat…we only managed to take one down…”

Arthur said nothing in response; the soldier looked guilty enough as it was and he wasn’t about to add to the shame the soldier felt at giving the report.

Then both men landed on their asses as the room shook with the force of a nearby bomb and then there was silence. It wasn’t silent outside, no; the sounds of the relentless bombs would be burned in the mind of every citizen of London that night and for the rest of their lives. The silence was inside the raid shelter for the residents of the palace and that silence was louder than the bombs raining down outside because it was the kind of silence that was brought on by fear of the unknown.

The next morning the front page of the New York Times would read “London is rocked by its heaviest raid; buildings leveled, fires started as raid goes on steadily for hours. Death toll is up sharply. ” The statistics would go on to say that '400 were killed, 900 injured and 600 civilians were trapped in Balham Underground Station. ”

A/N: Sorry it took so long to update today, I have classes all day on Thursdays so for future reference Thursdays will be a late day for updates.

Also, in case anybody cares http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2607949/posts  is the New York Times article I was referencing.