Chapter 486: Déjà Vu
“Dr. Brandt, it’s good to see you,” Churchill said. At 8:00 AM, he had found his personal physician and invited him to sit down for breakfast. The meal was not lavish, consisting of only a few pitiful potatoes and some vegetable leaves.
Churchill picked up some food with his fork and put it in his mouth, frowning. The man sitting opposite him, Dr. Brandt, had not made a move to eat. He just looked at Churchill, his eyes filled with unease and worry.
Churchill put down his fork, swallowed the food in his mouth, then picked up a napkin and wiped his lips. Only then did he speak. “I’ve asked you here for no other reason, really. I just wanted to ask a professional about methods of suicide.”
He spoke the word “suicide” softly, without trembling or any other adverse reaction. It seemed he had been contemplating it for a long time and no longer had any fear of death. Dr. Brandt stared at his former patient and did not reply for a long time.
So, the former Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, had no choice but to speak again. “You know my character. I do not want to be a prisoner! To be captured once in a lifetime is enough. So I am determined not to let the Germans capture me a second time.”
Dr. Brandt knew what Churchill meant. The great former Prime Minister of Britain had been captured once during the Boer War. Although he had escaped shortly after that brief capture, the Boers at the time had offered a reward of £25 for the return of the escaped Englishman, dead or alive.
See that? The life of the famous Winston Churchill was, at one time, worth only £25. If you can’t get a feel for that amount, it’s about a thousand or eight hundred RMB today—roughly the price of a domestic Xiaomi mobile phone. Pretty cheap, right? Tempted? Well, even if you are, there’s nowhere to buy one.
“The German army is only 50 meters from here. If I don’t want to be captured, I only have one choice. Dr. Brandt, the Prime Minister of Britain cannot be captured by the Germans, can he?” Churchill continued, seeing that Dr. Brandt was still silent.
“You have many ways to retreat,” Brandt finally said. He was a doctor and was unwilling to offer advice to someone who wanted to commit suicide. But since he had come, he had decided to try to find a way for his old friend. “Even if you are captured, it’s not the end of the world. You are only a former Prime Minister of Britain.”
“My friend, if I live, I will be tormented every night by the souls of those who died for me! Right now, whenever I close my eyes, I see their faces!” Churchill said to Brandt in a mournful voice. “I persuaded them to die, and in the end, I live. This is not right. This is something that should not have happened!”
“My God. What have we done?” Dr. Brandt said, looking at Churchill in anguish. “Give me a few hours. I will prepare what you want. Winston, as an old friend, I must remind you that many things were not your decision alone, so you should not have to bear all the pain yourself.”
“I know! I know!” Churchill sneered and stood up. He walked to the map of London hanging on the wall and said, “I will wait for them in hell. I will wait for them to come down, one by one!”
After speaking, he turned around, a hint of an apology on his face. “You see, Brandt, my friend, I originally invited you for breakfast, but instead, I’ve spoken of so many sad things. I think that without me, Britain will soon return to peace. At that time, our people will live very happy lives, right?”
“Let’s hope everything is as you say,” Brandt said, standing up and making a gesture of departure. “I am not in the habit of leisurely eating breakfast before I send someone poison, so I will not be joining you. I will bring what you need before noon. I hope things do not get worse.”
“Thank you. I will wait for your good news,” Churchill said with a wry smile, then sat down and continued to eat his breakfast. Half an hour later, the Germans began to shell the nearby area. The battle had begun again. The British army fought to the death to defend the nearby buildings, and the fighting was extremely fierce. Later, the Germans used artillery to directly destroy the buildings, finally pushing the battle to the intersection.
The British tank was quickly destroyed by a German rocket launcher. The British soldiers near the tube exit fired frantically at the Germans. The battle continued until after 10 AM, and the tube entrance was still under British control.
The British soldiers inside the underground had almost all been deployed. Fortunately, this was not the area of attack for the German special forces, so the porous defensive line still held. Churchill was still sitting in his office, looking at the small, exquisite pistol on his desk. It seems I won’t be able to wait for the good stuff like poison after all, he thought.
The door was pushed open. Brandt walked into the room with a bottle of a pale white solution. He carefully placed the poison on Churchill’s desk, then looked intently at the former British Prime Minister.
“You don’t want to watch me die, do you?” Churchill forced a smile. “Just wait for me outside the room. You can come back in a little while.”
“Winston… after taking this drug, you will soon go into convulsions and die. So you’d best put the pistol under your chin and take the medicine at the same time, then pull the trigger as quickly as possible. This will lessen your suffering,” Brandt said, looking at Churchill, his final words.
“Thank you, my friend. I think you had best leave this place. The Germans will do everything they can to find you and ask about my whereabouts. At that time, no matter what you say, no one will believe you. They will never find my body, never!” Churchill said to Dr. Brandt with a smile. “Leave here. Go to a place where no one can find you! Goodbye!”
“Goodbye, Prime Minister!” Brandt replied, tears streaming down his face.
He pushed open the door with difficulty, looked back at Churchill one last time, and then, with a push from the sergeant, left Churchill’s room. The intermittent sound of gunfire could be heard from not far away. It was clear the Germans were very close. Some British soldiers were leaning against the wall with their guns, aiming at the entrance to the bunker, from which a clamor of noise was coming.
Brandt heard soldiers shouting slogans of “Long live the British Empire!” When he had arrived, he had seen many wounded soldiers polishing their pistols. He knew that many would commit suicide before the Germans broke in, but to now hear the sounds of these suicides still made him, as a doctor, feel very uncomfortable.
Thump! A muffled gunshot came from the room. Brandt froze, the turned his head and looked at the heavy door. The sergeant walked expressionlessly to the door and pulled open the huge iron gate.
Churchill was slumped over his desk, his blood already staining the documents and maps. His favorite cigar had fallen to the carpet. The bottle of poison, some of its contents gone, was still on the desk. It looked clean and neat. The hole in the back of his head proved that he should not have suffered much at the time of his death.
“Germans! Open fire!” a voice shouted from not far behind. A British soldier, holding his gun, cried out, followed by the sound of intense gunfire and shouting. The Germans had broken into the air-raid shelter. It seemed they had found this unusual place and were trying their best to break in, to find something useful to them.
The sergeant remained expressionless. He gave a salute to the body of Prime Minister Churchill, then took out several hand grenades from his pocket. “Mr. Brandt, I am under orders to destroy the Prime Minister’s body. Please leave.”
Brandt looked at the sergeant as he walked towards Churchill’s body, his mind a blank. He glanced at the poison on the table, walked forward, and, under the sergeant’s watchful eye, picked up the remaining poison and raised it over his shoulder. “Long live the British Empire! Cheers!”
After speaking, he drank all the liquid inside, and his face became distorted. The sergeant pulled the pins on the hand grenades, then placed the slightly smoking grenades next to Churchill’s body. After placing several of them, he held the last one to his own chest.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Before the German soldiers could rush into the bunker, the blast wave blew the iron door off its hinges. At 11:27 AM, the German army occupied the underground air-raid shelter where Churchill had been. They found three mangled bodies inside, but they were so badly damaged that they were unidentifiable.
In the end, only one body on the floor could be identified. Documents found on this body proved that it belonged to Churchill’s personal physician, Brandt. The other two bodies were unidentifiable. It was only from the fragments of their clothes that it was analyzed that one might be Churchill, and the other should be a British soldier.
That afternoon, at 5:00 PM on April 23rd, the British soldiers guarding London were ordered to lay down their arms and cease all resistance. From this moment on, the ruined city of London was officially and completely occupied by Germany. The most brutal battle of the British mainland campaign, the Battle for London, was officially over.
The Commander-in-Chief of the German occupying forces, General von Rundstedt, announced the Führer’s amnesty in a radio broadcast. From this moment on, any British military personnel or civilians who laid down their arms would be protected by the German army. Infants and women would be cared for, the elderly and the wounded could receive food. British soldiers would be held as prisoners of war, but they would no longer be held responsible for their previous resistance to the German army.
Akado, upon receiving the news, was silent for a long time. Churchill’s death was a déjà vu, reminding him of the famous film Downfall. He poured himself a glass of champagne, Churchill’s favorite drink, and raised it high. “Godspeed. You were a respectable Englishman.”
Published: 2025-08-29T02:37:56.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-11-26T11:32:31.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c486-deja-vu-137600871
Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com