coffeebreakcigarette
Banned
1940, LA MANCHE, 17th of JUNE
The Frenchman had been a difficult man to convince, with the Baronet of Warfield[1] having to drag him to his airplane minutes before a possible capture by the Huns who had not the same misfortune of the Great War but had it seemed Fortuna Belli was on their side, with Poland already theirs and France almost certainly coming closer to the same fate. Spears didn't blame the guy for not wanting to abandon ship, to be a good captain, but this war wasn't like the previous ones.
The kind of wars were you surrendered "honorably" had died with the infantrymen of the muddy trench fields, or killing fields. The Krauts were now the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, leaded by white horse rider named Adolf Hitler and his cadre of hierarchs, at their command demon-like men with knives between their teeth, all vengeance-hungry wolves from East Prussia to Heidelberg.
He thought about the war to end all wars of barely more than two decades before, if it was all for nothing, if they really brought peace to a world that just the year before was refractured by yet another war nobody really wanted to fight if not for those above with power, those who weren't at the fronts but in their bunkers, forts and offices while young men were sent to die for the master plan, all pawns in irrilevant schemes of self indulging individuals like Hitler and Churchill.
Edward Spears pondered if it was worth even fighting. Many , even in his own city, didn't want another conflict who saw a good chunk of their generation blown to bits, maimed or getting the Spaniards' flu and returning in coffins, without limbs or ghosts of themselves.
He quickly changed subject in his own head, mostly because the commander Charles was someone you didn't want in your plane, he probably wished he never had forced the Frog to come with him, but he had said to himself "One less person under the jackboot is one more person fighting it", the same reasoning that saved the lives of over a hundred thousands soldiers [2], over hundred thousands that could still fight...
Then a buzzing crescendo came.
The terrifying tone came closer and closer, his heart pumping and deafing any sound around him, except the bullet's crackling, hitting his Dragon Rapide[3]. He could hear the commander girly screams perforating him as an arrow and Spears understood it would soon be over.
He was about to die in the Channel with an effeminate frog eater at his side.
He murmured :
<< Oh well. It was enjoyable while it lasted >>
The Hun plane managed to hit the engines, him and De Gaulle in a few fell swoops, with them and the Rapide quickly reaching the surface of the water.
[1] OTL Major-General Sir Edward Louis Spears, 1st Baronet, KBE, CB, MC (7 August 1886 – 27 January 1974) was a British Army officer and Member of Parliament
[2] TTL The WAllies don't manage to save as many soldiers as OTL
[3] The plane you see in the image.
NOTE : This is the Alpha I mentioned in some of my interactions here in alternatehistory.com , any corrections , observations and so on are welcome. This TL won't take my priority since I already have to do one with a Nuclear 9/11, also my exams and thesis.