Polar Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  “That shows a marked lack of respect.”

  “Yeah. He must have pissed them off bad. Probably an amazing fuckup.”

  “If Patton won’t even let him get slaughtered gloriously in France…” He didn’t have to finish that sentence. Patton was the military genius of the age, had written the book on tank tactics, replaced Pershing as commander of the AEF. Of course the tanks were all bogged down, buried in the mud now, but for one glorious summer they had looked like they were going to break through the German lines and end the Endless War. Until it rained. I was there. An unholy mess. Some pictures do not leave your mind. Smoldering tanks full of charred bodies are one of them.

  Just to change the subject, I asked, “You want to get a cab? You must have a lot of gear, if they expect you to raise a bunch of battleships.”

  He looked sour, waved his small duffle, let it fall. “This is all I have.”

  “Oh.” Another orphan. The plot was getting clearer. We were not here to get anything accomplished, we were here to quietly vanish. And bad cess to us, as the fucking Irish say. I grew up with the Irish, they used to beat my ass for me, until I got big enough to return the favor. Fuck the Irish. They were impossible before the Revolt. Now? Fuck them. I’m not prejudiced. I’m experienced.

  Headquarters had been patched up, had a repaired roof on it, probably had been a bank at one time. There were more khaki-clad soldiers in soup-plate helmets on the corners. It looked like somebody was expecting trouble. Plenty to go around. They let us enter, we got past the Staff Sergeant at the desk, we were offered a seat on a bench and a cup of coffee from a huge percolator against the back wall. The office was quietly busy, consumed vast amounts of coffee, but nobody was eating at their desks, most officers and non-coms were not wearing their ties or jackets. A red-headed lieutenant in complete uniform bustled out from an inner office corridor, and came to greet us. The aiguillette worn on his left arm told us he was an aide-de-camp. He seemed friendly enough, smiled and stuck out his hand for Epstein to take, although a salute would have been more in order. “Commander Epstein, welcome to Dalny. I’m Ray Reynolds, I was most impressed with your books. The General will see you in just a minute. Is there anything I can get for you?”

  “No thanks, Lieutenant. I’m well rested from the train. I understand you have a few wrecks for me.”

  “I have several harbors full of wrecks. Is this one of your experts?” He asked, turning to me.

  “No, not at all. I am a civilian writer, seconded to the Signal Corps. The captain in Vladivostok said you needed somebody to send code. We just traveled together. My name is Kapusta.”

  That made him scan me up and down, quite a chore, there is quite a lot of me. He tried to smile, with partial success. “I’m sure that will all work out somehow.” I felt an undercurrent of tension, Reynolds was not telling us something. I didn’t cause waves. Lots of time for that later.

  Eppi got right to the point. “What do you have for me to work with?”

  “What…? Didn’t you bring a team?” Reynolds was more resigned than shocked. I was getting a feeling, and not a good one.

  “Me, myself, and I.”

  “I… see. We have… I don’t know what we have. I’ll get back to you…” The ascending wail of hand-cranked sirens interrupted his musing. He didn’t even curse. “Air raid. This way please.” We hurried down to the far end of the hall, through a steel door and down a flight of stairs, another. Lots of footsteps followed us, we just had a small head start, being on our feet already. We made it to the basement, there were khaki cots, jugs of water, buckets to piss in located in the corners. Reynolds clicked on battery lamps as we headed to the back end of the cellar. It looked like a well-practiced drill.

  “You do this a lot?” I asked as soon as the three of us had our butts on one of the cots.

  “More than I like, I guarantee you. If it’s not the damn Germans, it’s the Nationalists. “

  “The Reds, you mean?”

  “The Reds are lucky to be able to fly a kite. Chiang Kai-shek, he has zeps and planes, he is for sale to the highest bigger. Warlords hire him to bomb us, no one ever seems to quite know why. And you know where he gets his Air Force?”

  “From us. The USA. Uncle Sap.”

  “Correct.” He was going to say something else, but a stick of ten or twelve bombs walked across the city behind the back wall. I cowered. I can’t help it. Shell shock. At least they were far enough away that I didn’t scream out loud. They were not close. I can tell. Eppi was calm, if a little sweaty, Ray was so mad he was vibrating. I could feel the cot shake.

  “So, if you have no help for me, and our own allies are bombing us for money, what am I supposed to be doing here, may I be so bold as to ask?” Eppi asked, sarcasm dripping off his tongue and puddling on the cement floor.

  “You are doing what we are all doing. We are not here to do anything, we are here to be killed and forgotten. That’s what.”

  “You are not kidding….” Not a question. Another stick of bombs hit, a little farther away. Not a serious attack then. More dust fell from the floor joists above. A wood floor on a bomb shelter? Futility. A flight of zeps dropping one stick each, then fleeing before they were ranged in. I could hear the crack of ackack guns finally firing, not much chance of any hits this night. A flight of zeps were usually five, three to… ten more explosions, closer this time. Two more.

  Reynolds grabbed my sleeve in his passion. “They could not give a fat flying fuck about China. There is nothing here but too many people, some coal, and more misery than the human mind can imagine.”

  “The railroad.” Eppi pointed out, his voice steady.

  “Only worth a shit if somebody wants to attack Germany by going all the way across all of Asia. Fat chance of that.” Reynolds spat. “Look at the General.” He waved in the direction of a thin man in a modest uniform, a single star on each shoulder reflecting the dim lamp light. “He is a great general, and even if he wasn’t, he is a good general. He cares about his men, he is a master of tactics and logistics, he has never been defeated. Ten years in France, slogging through hell, and here is his reward.”

  Hodges was standing upright, chatting with his men, smoking a cigarette in a short Bakelite holder. He looked like a small town banker, but he did not look one bit scared. “So why is he here?”

  “Because Patton hates him. No one knows why, and Hodges never lets on that he and Georgie are not the best of friends, but here we are, with no mission, no tanks, no heavy artillery, and no funding.”

  “Men?”

  “We have more men than we can handle. But they are all politicals, colored troops, odds and sods, as the Brits say. More coming every day. We get troop ships in here, they creep into the Ferry landing past all the wrecks and mines, we bring the men ashore in lifeboats, and here they stay.”

  “Why don’t they attack?”

  Reynolds was almost livid. More bombs fell, even farther away. “Attack? Who? We can’t get anywhere from here. We could go to Vlad, but they are supposed to be on our side, the drunken bunch of lay-a-bouts. We have men, units, for a thousand miles and more out the Trans-Siberian, and they are hung out like clothes to dry on a line. We can’t get to Shanghai or Peking without ships, warships, and we have none of those. The Japs hate us, they hate everybody, the Nationalists are only in it for the loot and what they can suck from Uncle Sap, the Germans are just waiting to make a deal with the Japs and go through this place like a dose of salts. There are a lot more players, the Czechs, a bunch of warlords, the Coreans, the Brits, the Mongols, some Siberians, God almighty himself has no idea what any of those bastards will do next, and here we sit, in hell’s annex, just waiting for the ax to fall.”

  “So, again, why am I here?”

  “You must have pissed somebody off.”

  Eppi shrugged. “The story of my life.”

  >>>>>>>>

  After the sirens stopped wailing, we waited another half hour, then walked back upstairs and had anoth
er cup of coffee. It was not very good coffee. But considering where we were, it was good enough. The Brits, Chinese, Russians, and Japanese all drink tea, of course. We finished our cups, Hodges was there in the outer office, quietly talking to his staff. After we were done, he personally walked over, shook hands, and showed us into his personal office. It was as plain and unadorned as he was, the only attempts at decoration were a few photographs of railroad engines on the walls in the spaces between maps.

  The maps, in turn, were pinned with ribbons of many colors showing positions of the various forces, and flagged pins making US detachments. It was easy to see that we were out on a limb, a peninsula called Liaotung depending from the back side of the larger peninsula of Corea. Port Arthur, the ex-naval base was forty miles back west of us, that city was called Lüshun. Dalny nearly closed off a larger bay, probably civilian, and was in turn guarded from the East China Sea by another peninsula capped by the city of Chih-fou. South from there was the metropolis of Shanghai, which was on the open ocean, below the latitude of southernmost Japan. Hodges caught me studying the situation, and with a tired twinkle in his eye, asked, “Well, what do you think?”

  I answered for us both. “I think we are a long way from home, and no way to get back there.”

  “Tactically?”

  “Is ‘we are screwed’ a valid situation update?”

  He allowed himself a dry chuckle at that. “You are an honest man, Kapusta, and no fool. So what can we do for you two orphans?”

  “I thought we were supposed to help you, General.” Eppi placated.

  “We are all in the same boat, Commander. Do you want me to tell you what particular creek we are up without a paddle?”

  “I understand. I see you value plain speech. So do I. Miles possesses the same virtue, perhaps to a fault.”

  “Obviously. Gentlemen, let us not beat around any bushes. We are not in an emergency, but we are in a very bad situation, in the long term. I see before me two very creative people, and yes, Mr. Kapusta, I have read your novel. I allow myself one bourbon and branch every night, and one hour of pulp fiction. It helps me relax, you see. I rather enjoyed “Leather-wing Bat,” and your name was odd enough to stick in my memory. Commander, your books are old favorites. I admire your resource and determination. We, in Dalny, need these qualities, and more.”

  “So, General, what exactly is your mission?”

  “My orders are to establish a port and a base, to provide support and maintenance for the South Manchurian and the eastern thousand miles of the Trans-Siberian, with a view to supporting future operations into the interior, when and if so ordered.”

  “You need the port first.”

  “I do. Port Arthur proper is probably beyond hope. Full of mines, unexploded bombs and shells. Torpedoes. The records are long lost. Dalny Harbor is bad enough. It is full of mines and wrecks too. The Japanese or somebody keep dropping mines into the harbors, they do not want us to succeed in getting this place open. Nothing is moving.”

  “I have ships lined up to be unloaded. I have thousands of men requiring rations every day, and their food has to be unloaded onto lighters by hand and rowed to shore through minefields that have been here for twenty-five years and more. They tell me the mines are corroded, can go off with the slightest impact, or not go off at all, and there is no way of telling which until some poor fool runs a boat into one of them. That happens every day, every other day, with luck. Once I can unload supplies and materials, equip the men I have, then we can set to building a fortified base, following the rest of my orders.”

  “Sir, yes sir. I will get right on it.” Eppi saluted, and turned to go.

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand your requirements. I will need to survey the Civilian Harbor, inventory salvage equipment, if any, interview personnel. I will need quarters, and a liaison officer to your staff. That will do for a start. The sooner started…”

  “Very well, Commander, carry on. Tell Ray Reynolds to give you a couple of sergeants and a squad of enlisted men. Make sure you draw side arms. Everybody here that is not a spy is an out and out bandit. Take Kapusta with you. I need no press reports or code work at the moment. He may become useful to you.”

  He didn’t say, “But I doubt it”, the words hung, unspoken in the air. I saluted, kept my yap shut, and followed Eppi out the door.

  Eppi, a driven man, could barely wait for his guard squad of ten men and two sergeants to put on their helmets before charging off to the harbor. Or what had been the harbor. The older sergeant was Blake, the other, an immigrant kid, was Lupo. They had been allowing Mexicans, Cubans, and Filipinos to get their papers by doing a double hitch in the Service for years now. The Flips were the best. I didn’t ask Lupo where he was from. Lots of time for that.

  It was a mess. Most of what we could see was masts and funnels sticking up out of the water. I’m no expert, but I sort of figured that was a bad sign. I watched him closely, his eyes swept the huge harbor, seem to count the drunken tilted masts sticking up through the foul, oily water. His shoulders sank, he sighed a massive sigh from the depths of his guts. Then he braced himself, turned to Blake. “You know where the Harbormaster’s Office is?”

  “Yes, sir. It was right over there. That pile of rubble just there.” He pointed to a scatter of bricks, beams, and twisted tin roofing. A collapsed black mess.

  “Very well, then. Sergeant, where could we find some tools, perchance?”

  “Not sure, sir. There were some repair shops a half a mile or so over that way, I think. We have only been here a month or so.”

  “Carry on, Sergeant.” He led the way, we followed through piles of burned sheet tin, you could see that some attempts had been made to improvise shelters out of the wreckage, there were obvious cook fires, here and there, drifts of rags and blankets under lean-tos of various sorts. Men stared at us, sullenly following us with hurt eyes. I got curious. That’s another of my major character flaws.

  I found a burly guy, he had a pistol in his belt, almost a full set of clothes. I caught his eye, nodded, and said “Dobroye utro priyatel'.”

  He looked at me slunch-eyed, said, “I don’t talk that crap. Speak American, you want to talk to me.”

  “Fine. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  “Name’s Delany. What’s it to you?” A Mick. Fuck him.

  “I’m part of the Salvage Team. We are going to fix up this shithole. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Delany?”

  “Fuck Jim I’m doing here. We were deported from Southie. The IBs think we have bad attitudes. They sent us here, and here we stay. Sometimes they have a shape up for stevedore work. That’s it. What’s it fucking to you, fat boy?”

  “I could get you some work. If you had a better attitude. Otherwise…”

  “Yeah?”

  ‘Fuck the fucking Irish.” He looked me up and down, I let my hand fall down on the grips of my new Colt. He blinked twice and backed down.

  “You need help, I’ll be here. This is my turf.”

  “Fine. Later. My name is Miles. See ya... Delany.” You got to talk their language. I got a few dozen steps before he made up his mind.

  He came running after, I slowed, did not stop. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s fucked here. It gets on your nerves, you know? I need the work. What can I do?”

  “What do you do?”

  “Labor. Dock walloper, pick and shovel. I can drive a team, not much call for that these days. I was in the AFL for years…” He let that hang.

  “Which is why you are here.” Flat. I know.

  “Fuck Patton and fuck Hoover.” He knew too.

  We caught up with Eppi and the troops at the end of the next pier down, they were halted at a grimy block building that still had its roof, two good sized chimneys at the shore end, one still standing, the other half gone. The windows had been shattered long ago, but you could see they h
ad been that pebbled glass with the wire in it. They were eight feet off the ground, some sort of industrial building for sure. Eppi was frowning at the oversized steel roll up doors, I tapped his shoulder, introduced him to the new work force. “Eppi, this is Delany. He wants to work.”

  Eppi barely glanced at him, estimated his size, large, and nodded. “Delany, get those doors open.”

  “Yes, sir.” He went about it logically, actually tried both big doors to see if they were locked, threw his weight on the personnel doors next to them. No dice. He shrugged, looked back at me, “You’re big enough, boost me up,” he said, pointing to the most damaged window. The sill was maybe eight feet up. I bent over, braced myself against the wall. He took his boots off, they were on their uppers, then hopped on my back, clambered up to the window sill.

  “What’s inside?” Eppi asked.

  “Machinery. Big machinery. Lathes and shit.”

  “That’s what we want. Need a lever?”

  “Naw, I can reach the catch…” He grunted, something screeched, he said, “There. Be right with you.” There came a thump as he hit the floor, a few curses, sounds of a path being cleared, then the man-sized door closest to us creaked upon. We all trooped over, Blake set a guard to keep an eye open for trouble and we took stock

  “No pumps,” Eppi said. “Welders, gas and electric. Good. Nice big compressor. Fine. Blake, what’s the story for power?”

  “The steam plant is still up, lots of coal, most of the lines are down, or broken.”

  “Good enough. Send a man back to Hodges, tell him this is going to be Salvage HQ. we need rations, more men and gold to hire some workers. Bedding. Can do?”

  “No gold, we have script, good for extra rations, beer, clothes. There is a General Store back near the Train Station.”

  “Company store kind of deal?” Eppi asked.

  “Yessir.” He gestured to one of his men. “Carson, you heard the Commander. Go.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Eppi turned to me next. “You are in charge of Civilians. Tell Delany to round up a couple dozen men, sweep the floor in there, clean all the machines, make me an inventory, don’t let these wharf-rats steal me blind. Can do?”