Polar Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  “The doughs stole it and drank it up.” As if I couldn’t tell from the rosy glow of his nose.

  “How did you know?”

  “I been to this movie. In France.”

  “We went south to fight the Reds, they kicked our ass. In January. We could barely walk, the trucks were froze solid. We fell back to the Line, and there we stayed. I got sent to Hodges, some sort of repple-depple bullshit. Better than out on the Line. The Line sucks chancres.”

  “Jolly fun.”

  “Fuck that.” He drank again. “They sent us the 92nd and 93rd Infantry.”

  “Colored.”

  “Yeah. They all froze worse than us.”

  I nodded at the huge black guy. “He didn’t freeze.”

  “That’s Remus. He is nobody to fuck with.”

  “And the pansy in white?”

  “Ivan Hodak. Him neither. He runs a motorcycle gang, damn near an army, called the Zheleza Volki.”

  “Iron Wolves?”

  “You speak this Russky lingo?”

  “Yeah. You don’t?”

  “Fuck them. We better be getting back, tell them we couldn’t find a boat. Hopeless anyway.”

  I bent my head closer, whispered in his ear, “We are standing in a boat.”

  He turned white. “You…”

  “We will let Eppi worry about ways and means, He might be able to cope.”

  “Then where will we…”

  “Get something to drink? Compromise, my boy, compromise. You don’t know who Epstein is, do you?”

  “Wha…” We were headed out of the ferry by then. “Just another rich ass officer cunt.”

  “You will find out.”

  >>>>>>>

  It didn’t take very long. As soon as I gave the word to Epstein, even though it was full dark in a ruined city, he stepped into action. He sent runners back to HQ, organized the people he had on hand, including Delany, into an armed company, checked ammo and available lights, and had me lead them back to the ferry. Briggs had no intention of going back, but Sergeant Blake had his number. “Your choice, Briggs, with me or in the stockade.” Lupo stood behind him, a particularly evil glint in his eye. I deduced that Briggs was the HQ fuckup. Always one. And seeing he was still a PFC after all these years… PFE. Private For Ever.

  Lupo got to stay at the Machine Shop with Hoskins, wait for reinforcements. We shared out what few flashlights we had, checked our loads, and set off. There were scurries of people seeking shelter, but no opposition. We could tell eyes were on us all the way. We got to the block building, Eppi held up a hand for silence, then whispered, “Turn out your lights. Blake, I want a couple good shots covering us, don’t let them see you. Briggs, you come with us.” He pulled out his .45, cocked it. “Right behind you, Briggs. Act natural.” He tugged at my sleeve with his free hand, off we went.

  “There is a sign, I didn’t see what Briggs did before.”

  “Briggs?” Eppi threatened with a single word.

  “Yeah, I got it.” His voice did not shake, but he was not happy. He stepped forward to where a dim lantern hung from a leaning pole. He waved, made the sign, a voice from the dark muttered, “Good.” We went in. The band was playing now, tuba, banjo, clarinet, and about half a drum kit. It was odd music, never heard nothing quite like that before, sort of like Klezmer, sort of like that banned Jazz music from the States… No time for music appreciation. We bellied up to the bar, the bartender nodded.

  “Miles, pay the man.” I knew he did not want to show the pistol in his right hand. I pulled out a coin, it happened to be gold. I rang it off the bar. We got our drinks, shot them down. Eppi asked, “You own this place?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I asked politely. I might have a proposition of mutual benefit for both of us. Understand?”

  “I’m a partner. So?”

  “I need your boat. It’s about to sink anyway. You do know that?”

  “Hasn’t sunk yet.” The big brute was giving nothing away. But you could see his eyes calculating. There was a brain in there someplace. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “Ed Epstein. I’m the new Salvage Officer for this port. And you?”

  “Graham.” From the clipped way he pronounced it, I thought he might have been English at some point. Maybe in the Brit Army. They take all sorts. “What’s your deal?”

  “You want to talk here?” Graham shrugged, tapped a brass ship’s bell next to the door to the bar. A woman came out, she looked even rougher than the barkeep, if slightly smaller. “Anna, take over. If I’m not back in five, you know what to do.” She just nodded. Graham went out that open door, then one set in the wall a few steps down opened. He just waved. “Briggs, you vouch for these two?”

  “Who? Me? The Commander is real, I saw him with the General. I don’t know about this other lug.”

  “Close enough.” Graham led the way down a companionway, I think they call it, to a place where several cabins had been knocked into one. There was a good-sized copper still there, smelled like it ran on kerosene, long copper coil, an old Chinese man there, fiddling with the valves and sipping on tea from a pot that was set to brew over the same flames that fired up the boiler. The drippings from the coil smelled foul. I drink stuff like that?

  Eppi looked the rig over, said, “You get some asbestos or rock wool and insulate the firebox, you will use less fuel. The coil could be stretched out by half too.” He touched the tarnished copper to estimate the temperature. “Running too hot. You are getting too much steam, dilutes the yield. You want me to, I could fix it for you. In your new place.”

  “What new place?” Graham fumed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your ferry boat is about to sink. I can tell just by the way she rides her moorings. I can save her, I need a hull for salvage work. I am willing to rebuild a building for you, take a day or two. You will still be in business, I will have a hull. Deal?”

  “What about my still?”

  “I’m a Naval officer, not a Prohibition Agent. In any case, China and Russia do not have any bans on liquor, do they?”

  “They don’t have enough organization between them to ban anything, mate.” Graham’s accent got a bit sharper.

  “It is also in my interest to keep up my men’s morale. Men that work hard need a few drinks at the end of the day. It is only sensible to provide good liquor, food, and shelter for my men. I will have to employ many civilians. I could care less who or what they are, as long as they get the job done. Yes?”

  “Yes… I mean, maybe.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Eppi said, in a seemingly reasonable tone I was beginning to respect. “What do you want?”

  “For my boat?”

  “For your cooperation. Wholehearted cooperation. The international situation is finally changing, and not for the better. Do you understand?”

  “I heard a few rumors.” Graham admitted. “You hear a lot behind a bar. But…”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I have to talk to Anna. She’s the boss. Senior partner. Her word.”

  “You want us to wait here?” Eppi smiled a particularly cold smile, much like the ones you see at a high stakes poker table. “We do have more men outside. We don’t want them to get hasty or upset, do we?”

  “Be right back.” He looked to the old Chinaman. “Wu? Give them a drink of the good stuff.”

  Wu reached for a couple of those little cups they use, picked up a dark bottle in his other hand. Eppi said, “I would rather have tea, if you don’t mind.” Wu almost smiled, nodded his head, filled one cup, gave it to me, then set the bottle down, poured Eppi a cup of tea, almost bowed when he presented it to him. Eppi sipped, smacked his lips, also bowed, said, “Most excellent brew. Many thanks.”

  “Our house is honored. You have been in China long?”

  “A few days. But I know your people from the Golden Mountain, I appreciate good tea and good food. There is much to admire about your culture, Master Wu.”


  “Merely Wu. They call me Old Wu. I thank you for your kind words. You should have seen my city when I was young, it was truly a wonderful place.”

  “I am so sad to have missed it. Perhaps we can help rebuild it. That is actually what I am here for.”

  “You are an architect?”

  “I am a salvage engineer. My job is to clear the harbor, rebuild the facilities. Once that is done, trade should follow. “

  “I wish you luck. A most difficult aspiration.”

  “Wu, you speak like an educated man. Have you been to the West?”

  “I was a chemist. I worked for Bayer before the war. In Switzerland. Now? I survive.”

  “I apologize for criticizing your still, in that case.”

  “I am not a practical man, alas. Your suggestions are most appreciated.”

  “Perhaps we can get together, and make more improvements once we get you settled in a new location.”

  I had sipped my cup, said, “You may not need to. This is excellent brandy. Peach?”

  “Plum. The supply of fruit is the major difficulty. Our vodka is made from cane sugar, potatoes, wheat, whatever we can find. Things are unsettled.’’

  “To put it mildly.” Eppi said, Wu just smiled, sipped at his cup. Anna bustled in, a closer look left me in a mild state of awe. Looked like a woman and three quarters stuffed into half a woman’s dress. It was green. She was blonde. I knew her as soon as I noticed the breadth of her shoulders.

  “You are from Ukraine?” I asked in Russian. A mistake, she bristled a little, then nodded. Fuck her. I was raised to speak Russian. My bad Ukrainian would have pissed her off worse anyway. She turned her attention to the boss.

  “You are Eppi person?” She asked, in English.

  “Commander Edward Epstein, USN, at your service. Madam.”

  “Madam me no damn madams, Zhid. You want my boat?”

  He ignored the insult. “I do. I intend to have it, unless you can direct me to a better hull.”

  “If had better, would be in it. How much?”

  “A rebuilt building, technical help with your still, freedom from having to pay bribes, and all the customers you can possibly supply with booze.”

  “My guarantee is what?”

  “My word. The word of General Hodges. Your boat is waterlogged, sinking as we speak. What do you have to lose?”

  She thought for a minute, I suspected that she knew what he said was true. She shrugged to herself, said one word, “When?”

  “Now.” She stuck out her hand, Eppi took it. They shook firmly. “Now what?”

  “You send your customers home, get what you want to keep. Miles will lead you to his machine shop, you can bed down there, in the morning I will set a crew to fixing you a building. There are many to choose from. Then you can move your still.”

  “I bring guards.”

  “Of course.”

  “Done. We go.” Fucking Ukrainians.

  >>>>>

  Wu seemed to be more important than he wanted to appear, at least he carried nothing but his teapot on the walk to the Machine Shop, while Anna and Graham were pretty much loaded down with suspiciously heavy bags. Heavy like gold heavy. The bodyguards turned out to be the Micks, ten of them, they lugged the luggage and a goodly supply of booze. More than enough to last the night, for sure. Maybe they were boy scouts, wanted to be prepared. I bedded them down in the dark, whispered to Lupo to keep a weather eye on them, while I went back to watch Eppi at work. It was an education.

  In the matter of not fucking around, he was a world champion. He had Delany and his mob start bailing with any containers they could find, an old fashioned bucket brigade, while he had a head to head with the left-over customers who lingered to finish destroying whatever booze was still behind the bar. Anna had left three of the Micks to guard the still, we worked around them. Eppi had a few hand pumps he had scrounged up someplace, and one gas powered pump he called a handy-billy. Two men could carry it on handles like a stretcher. He had a hatch cover off and the handy-billy chugging away in jig time. He said it pumped fifty gallons a minute, which did not seem like much, but he knew his business.

  That Ivan Hodak shook hands with Eppi, and left with the air of a man on a mission. A steady stream of Hodges’ soldiers showed up, all with demolition tools, buckets, and more lanterns . They set to work ripping down the upper works of the ferry and bailing. It didn’t look like a lot was getting done, but I noticed the mooring ropes slackening. Hodak came back with about a mob and a half of women and half-grown boys, they all pitched in moving anything portable to the dockside and arranging a campsite in that half-destroyed block building next door. Cook fires were soon brewing tea and boiling rice, no matter that it was getting close to midnight. I wondered at all the activity until one of those tong highbinders came back with about a hundred coolies.

  Then things really started moving. The water just about flew up out of the hold, walls, bulkheads were ripped bodily from their mooring and carried whole into the new building, to be propped up with stacks of rubble to become partitions. It is a cliché to compare coolies to ants, but one that is hard to escape. Nobody on earth works harder, longer, for less. The ferry’s superstructure melted away, leaving only enough to support the wheelhouse and the stacks. This was a side-wheel double-ender, so it started to look pretty damn skeletonal in a few hours. By dawn, it was well afloat, the Chinese were patching the roof of the new building with whatever came to hand, and Anna and Graham were back with their crew to tear down and move the still.

  That gave Eppi, who seemed to never need sleep, room to get down to his actual job. He had enough Chinese and Russian to hire swimmers and divers, found some sheet metal and nails, and set crews to patching the outside of the hull with tin, and the inside with any kind of fiber they could hammer into leaks. A big caldron over a scrap wood fire was melting tar, which was soon smeared over any dubious places. Sailors do love their nasty old tar.

  Most of the coolies were sent to take a break, eat and sleep, smoke a few pipes, while a few of the freshest were set to hauling out the big iron ingots that comprised the ferry’s ballast. That let the boat rise out of the water a bit more, letting them stop more leaks. All the while the handy-billy kept chugging away, doing its bit. A little later, a fresh detachment of our soldiers showed up with a stack of script, rations, and more hand tools. The ferry was pretty dry, the next shift of coolies scraped the last of the water out, then Eppi had them heel the boat over, first one side, then the other, so they could patch and tar the last of the hull.

  The ferry had two boilers and pistons, one to each side of the deck. Once I saw the indefatigable Eppi checking and greasing every part of the steam engines, I decided that I had had a long enough day, even if I was supposed to be a lieutenant, and took my tired ass back to the Machine Shop and to bed. I didn’t even need a couple of drinks to fall out.

  And I didn’t have my usual horrible dreams. A bonus. Salvage? Eppi could start with my humble self.

  >>>>>>

  A messenger woke me at dusk with a note from Ray Reynolds and a set of silver bars for my shoulders. The note included a new ID card and a chit for a couple of uniforms at a tailor shop back near the Station. Later for all that. For the first time in years, I did not want an eye-opener. I knew from past spasmodic attempts at sobriety, that I needed one, but I didn’t actually want to drink it. It felt very strange.

  I looked around my little kingdom, a few men were racked out in odd corners, Hoskins was up, sorting hand tools, drill bits and end mills, there was a Chinese woman keeping a pot of tea steaming. I took a cup, then another, talked to Hoskins for a while. He was planning to get set up, get ready to cut metal as soon as we had power. I wished him god-speed, found my toothbrush and hair brush, put off shaving, then dragged my saggy butt over to see what that monster Eppi was up to now. Come to find out, he was not the only monster at hand. Graham, Anna, and Old Wu had the new building up and running, if not civilized, the still was steaming away
, they even had a hand painted sign up. The still-wet red paint informed me that this establishment was now “The Feniks.” Right. I did not correct their spelling. I’m a writer, not a fucking editor.

  “Good to see you, Miles.” Eppi said, flipping pages on a clipboard. “I need you to find me as many air compressors and water pumps as you can. Take Lupo and ten or twenty doughs, see what you can do. You need to get uniforms too. You got the paperwork?”

  “You never sleep?”

  “I got a few hours at noon. I’m good. Lupo is probably on board the Eiben.”

  “The ferry.”

  “The salvage ship.”

  “Sir.”

  “It’s named after one of my divers on the S-14. Good man. It’s hard coming up with names, you know?”

  “I know. I write fiction, you remember.”

  “I do. I may need you to keep a diary of all this…” He waved a hand at the harbor. “…endeavor.”

  “Already started, Sir.”

  “Carry on, Kapusta.” Almost all business. I was beginning to see what made Eppi tick. He actually loved all this shit. All of it, right down to naming the ships. Boats. Whatever. How did a ferry boat become a salvage ship? I guess when Commander Epstein said so. Good enough for government work. I went to find Lupo. First I dug the silver bars out of my pocket and pinned them on my shoulders. Somehow, that silly act made me feel better than I had in years. Strange. People are silly animals. Especially me. Lupo was supervising a mixed bunch of workers, they were scrubbing the decks and painting everything that would stand still with white lead. No telling where Eppi got the paint, but armies seem to always have plenty of white paint.

  As soon as he saw me, he saluted, then ordered a corporal to supervise the paint crew. “Commander Epstein gave me orders, Lieutenant. You would you like to go back to HQ for your kit? We can pick up a fresh squad there, no problem. Just as easy.”

  “As you recommend, Sergeant. Lead the way. I suppose a uniform is the first priority.”

  “You in Army before, Lieutenant?”

  “AEF in France. Two hitches, ’20 to ’24. Never got above Tenth Grade. I was just a dough.” Before he could ask, I added, “I was invalided out. Shell shock.” You only have so much courage. It’s a finite resource. Once it’s used all up, it’s gone. And god save you. But I didn’t say all that. He would find out.