Black Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  “And in Mexico?”

  “In Mexico is worse. Blood.”

  “Okay, Lupo, you have been straight with us, we will be straight with you. You go find a couple three guys with good Spanish and English both, women, men, I don’t care, round them up and get them back here. We need this all on paper, tied down good and solid. In black and white. you understand?”

  He waved a half salute, turned to go, but I stopped him. “One thing you know, Hodges is organizing a Spanish division, the 35th. You want to stay with us, you stay. You want to be a major or captain in Hodges’ army, you find me somebody to do your job and go for it. I know Ray Reynolds and Hodges think highly of you, so if you want the opportunity, then take it.”

  “I stay with you. Only opportunity I want is to go back home and save my people. This is how you say, unbearable. I no stand for this shit.”

  “Yes. I hear you. We all want the same thing, and somehow, someplace, we will get back and get our goddamned country back from those sons-a-bitching bastards that stole it from us. One way or the other. If we have to destroy fat Hermann and every kraut asshole between here and Calais, we are going to straighten this shit out. Correct?”

  “Si.” That’s all he said, but this time he gave me a real salute, turned and ran off. He looked like a man who knew where to go looking for help. I felt a tiny little stir of hope.

  >>>>>>>>>

  My day for being sneaked up on. I turned back to work, and Isis was there, quizzical look on her usually impassive face. Maybe it’s just me, I find dark faces hard to read. “What?”

  “Do you not understand what comes next?” She moved closer, so she could whisper, “You are fomenting revolution. You don’t know what Patton will do next? What he is doing now?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Now that you are important to him, not just a dumping ground for misfits, like Siberia used to be, he will send, he has already sent, counter-revolutionaries to spy on you idiots. Your IB, and more secret agents from organizations you have never even heard the names of.”

  For a second I wondered if she was one of them herself, playing a triple or quadruple game, but in that same instant, I realized, deep down in my Russian soul, that it didn’t matter. Nichevo. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. So, all I said was, “I suppose you know best. You have played these games a lot longer than I have.”

  “No game. What will you do about this threat?”

  “I? I will do nothing. Try to keep my big fat yap closed. You, on the other hand, will come with me to see Ray Reynolds, and tell him what you suspect. Give him a primer on counter-counter intelligence. We are all under sentence of death, anyway, they knew we were unreliables when they sent us here, so nothing has changed, not on the first level. We all were under constant surveillance back in the states, this has just been a little vacation from the scabs and the spies and the stooges.”

  “Vacation is over. Grab your hat. Let’s go.” Which reminded me, I still needed a fedora. We stopped at a few street vendors on the way to HQ, plenty of them near the train station, but no luck. My head is too damn big. Many people say so. I supposed I could pull the insignia and chicken salad off my issue hat and wear that, anything to keep the sun off. Maybe a pith helmet, if I could find one.

  It took only a few words for Ray to pull us into the General’s office, and have Isis explain her concerns. Hodges listened intently, saying little, as usual. Finally, after ten minutes of lurid tales of betrayal, he raised a hand, and quietly said, “We are aware of this problem, perhaps we have not given it enough weight so far. You have shown us the problem; do you want the job? That would be in addition to your work with the Recon Office?”

  “I could set up a staff, establish procedures, and so on. Americans just do not have the experience needed in these matters. These are deep and murky waters we swim in now.”

  “That will be sufficient, Colonel. This will be George Marshall’s headache in a very short time. We may not be as completely naïve as you suspect. The States have been a police state for a long time now, especially at the top and bottom of society. General Patton is a suspicious man, with an extreme dislike of criticism. But no matter. Marshall will be bringing a large staff, and most assuredly, some of them will be working for the IB. We, on the other hand, will soon have more obvious enemies to deal with. And we will be mobile, which will help maintain our security. You see, I have given this matter some little thought, myself.”

  Which reminded me. “Speaking of being mobile, General, it has been suggested that we requisition a Pullman or two right now, establish a duplicate Recon Office, so that when you give the word, we will be literally ready to roll.”

  “Excellent idea. They do not have Pullmans out here, they have compartment cars, but we will do what we can. There is a gracious plenty of civilian rolling stock at least. Good thinking, Miles.”

  “It was not my idea, our office manager, Peaches, the ex-nurse, came up with that one.”

  “Ray, take a note. Get Miles a couple of cars, a dining car too, find a convenient siding to park it on, and make sure this ‘Peaches’ gets a nice little bonus. That will do for today, thank you both. Carry on, Colonel Akhtiorskaya, Colonel Kapusta. Good day.”

  I can take a hint. “Ray, that is Peaches Donovan. I’m not sure what her real first name is, if you need it for the paperwork.”

  “I’ll take it out of Petty Cash. Not a problem. You run kind of a loose ship over there, don’t you?” But he was smiling as he said it. “As long as you get the job done, you can call them all ‘Rover,’ for all I care.”

  Point taken. I let Isis take the LaSalle, let her do what she needed to do on the Counter Intelligence front, I walked back, still looking for a lid. I finally got smart and looked for a Russian street vendor, not Chinese. We have big heads, right? All the first one had were Jewish looking black hats, almost as wide as sombreros, but needs must. I spent a whole dime, re-creased the crown so I didn’t look quite so much like a rabbi, and went off quite contented. I may have looked like a bandito, but at least the sun was kept off my bald spot. Bald spot? The whole top of my fat head.

  It dawned on me, threading my way through the motley crowds, that this posting was a hell of a lot better than France had been. I was not in a trench, I wasn’t lousy, I had cooked food, a woman to fuck, no matter what her real game was, and even if we all got killed this evening, we were far ahead of the game. People worry about the end of the world, but all of us over here had seen so many worlds end so bloodily, that a mere Armageddon would be a week’s vacation with pay. Apocalypses would have to line up and take numbers to get through to us exiles.

  >>>>>>>>

  As I had to walk past the Bulletin office, I thought I would poke my head in and see what they were up to without me. I had started the damn thing, then got kicked upstairs to run what amounted to an intelligence group, the Recon Office. My old whatever she was to me, Justine, was at her desk, front and center, rattling off copy on a fairly-new Underwood.

  She glared at me until I truckled a little, made inanities, complemented her editorial-hood-ship profusely. There were three women in the back corner with headphones on, twisting dials on three or four radios. “I see you are monitoring radio channels too?”

  “For what little good it does. The BBC is hopeless, all they have are cricket scores and the doings of the Royals, the German stations are only slightly better. They have ten stations controlled by the Post Office, no amateurs, everything is tightly controlled. Großdeutschen Rundfunk. They only report victories. All victories, all the time. I suppose they think they are fooling their populace, but they are not fooling anybody else. Every conquered country, France, Belgium, Denmark, has just one station, no better than government issue propaganda. All of them are so many wastes of time.”

  “So what do you have that is worth a shit?”

  “Well, NKH, Japanese State Radio and Radio Japan, their English Language Service, aimed mostly at their ex-pat communities in Hawaii and
South America… But you know all that.” I didn’t speak. “What we did find, is a strong Francophone radio community, you remember we spoke of the French Empire?”

  “I do. Third largest in the world. Or it was.”

  “It appears that many homeland French left the war zone and fled to the colonies, especially in Northern Africa. They have not taken kindly to being assimilated into Grosse Deutschland, and are fighting back. Algeria is the most reactive, Senegal and Morocco not far behind.”

  “The Moroccan troops were very good in the war in France. I suppose some must have survived, unlikely as it seems. They were treated as cannon fodder.”

  “The real news story is Quebec. Many French refugees settled there, many more widows and orphans and invalided veterans were sent there for safely, and they are fighting Patton fiercely. It is good tank territory up there, they call it La Prairie, but Quebec goes all the way to the Arctic Circle, and a lot of it is heavily wooded.”

  I got it. “They have ham radios.”

  “Indeed they do. They communicate all over the world, they seem to have some alliance with the Spanish-speaking people of the Americas and Portuguese fishermen from the Azores, they smuggle arms to the north, and to Mexico.”

  “The Caribbean has been a nest of pirates for a long time.” I remembered. “Cuba is ours, as if anybody gives a shit, but Jamaica is British…”

  “More or less. We are not getting much word from there. There may be a revolt. Something about the Maroons, whoever they might be. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are much as they were before the Peace Treaty, but we suspect there is a lot of smuggling going on there.”

  “Rum runners turned gun runners?”

  “Much the same occupation, wouldn’t you agree?” She nodded confirmation to herself.

  “Pirates are pirates. Good work. I would like you to please share your radio logs with the Recon Office. We can share some of our intelligence with you in return, just assign one person to act as liaison. An hour a day, if that.”

  She nodded, then caught herself. “I need a small favor too. Perhaps two birds with one stone.”

  “Shoot. I mean, sure, why not?”

  “You remember Verna? Mrs. Atkinson?”

  “Refresh my memory?”

  “She is the widow of a Methodist minister, a missionary, she was working with Juan? You met her, at least once in the Lithography Shop.”

  Wan, his real name was, a local Chinese printer, he had worked for me when I ran the Bulletin, then got promoted to head the Lithography Shop. He had no English, had no desire to learn, but was a complete professional as a printer. Good man. Justine went on. “He found a Chinese wife, she is fluent in several European languages, and so he let Verna go. And Cookie.”

  Cookie was Aja Janova, a very lost Serb, who had been my, let’s say, lover for a while. She had been exiled from so many countries she had lost count, given up, become a whore. And a junkie opium smoker. Then she had taken up with Juan, was now at liberty, I supposed. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Verna is old fashioned, and a Christian.” Her mouth twist told me things that her words did not.

  I got it. “She does not approve of your… Arrangements.” Justine and a few boatloads of women had been exiled for being “Unnaturals”. Some were lesbians, some were suffragettes, and some were even odder.

  She nodded. “Of course. She is a good worker, needs a situation, and so…”

  “Fine. Send her on. But no Cookie. I have… errr… allied with Isis, and the two of them do not get along.”

  “I thought they were old friends. They grew up together. They are from the same town.”

  “Not friends. Not at all. And I need no addicts in my organization.”

  “You drink.” She said flatly. Fuck you, Justine. I would like you a bit more if you did not always have to stick the knife in. It might have been her superior upbringing, she was a Lowell of the Boston Lowells, or maybe she was just a natural-born bitch.

  “I used to drink. However, after Maeve was killed, I seem to have outgrown my last bad habit.”

  “That’s odd. Trauma makes most men drink more.” She does not have a high opinion of mere males.

  “I guess I just fell through the other side. You keep Cookie, or run her off, send what’s her name, Verna over, we need more Chinese speakers. I have to get back to the shop. Have a nice day.” You butt-frozen bitch. I didn’t say that, but I meant it.

  “Why don’t you take Verna with you?”

  “Isis has the car. I’m hoofing it. When she gets packed, I can send a car. Good?” She shrugged. Close enough.

  >>>>>>>

  And so, to work. Yelena was there when I got there, running the dials, making notes. She looked askance at me, I just said, “I stopped into a few bars to get a feel for the street. An old habit.”

  “You don’t look drunk.”

  “I didn’t drink much. A couple beers. Half beers. Bars look a lot different when you are sober. Noisy, for one thing.”

  “Are there many bars? There was just the one. Feniks.”

  “They are popping up everywhere. One thing us Americans are good at, is drinking and opening bars. Nichevo.” That word is a verbal shrug. She didn’t even bother commenting, probably wondering how long my sobriety would last. Good question. I didn’t even care, one way or the other. I had a lot bigger things to think about. I got a call from the USAAS downstairs, they had three planes for me, another Trimotor and two trainers, one converted to a camera plane with a large format Speed Graphic set into the floor. I found Stan, sent him over to check out the camera plane, the Trimotor was destined for Maggie White, then I went looking for another cameraman. Nobody in our office wanted to play, but just about then I got a call from one of Justine’s people to come get that Verna, and get her settled in.

  I took the Maxwell, Verna was packed and ready, eager even. While she loaded her stuff, she traveled a lot heavier than us refugees did, I explained my quest to Justine’s office manager, Paula. “You have any spare cameramen? Women? I need somebody that wants an adventure.”

  She thought for a suspiciously short second, then waved to a girl pounding a Royal at another desk. “Barbara, you said you did photography for a hobby, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I mean… Sure. I do.” She was under twenty, looked Jewish, slender, well bred. Diffident. We could fix that. Her lantern jaw might be an indication of stubbornness, which was all to the good, in this business.

  “You want to fly?”

  “In airplanes?” She looked a little shocked.

  “Is there another way?”

  “Sounds like fun.” As quick as that, she made up her mind. Good sign. “Sure. I’m not doing much here. No offense.” Looking closer, I could see that she probably did not fit in. She wore traces of lipstick, dressed with a bit of care, as if she might want to appear attractive. To attract men, for example. Right. Getting the plan. A normal girl was a pink monkey in this office.

  “You type at good speed. Any languages?”

  “High school French and German. I was at Radcliffe. I was working on Mandarin and Japanese, but am far from fluent.” She looked bravely up at me. I am kind of large, and imposing until you find out what a pussy I am.

  “And they deported you because you are Jewish?”

  She almost smiled. You could call it a smile. “My mother was the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He was also president of the American Jewish Congress.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “I do not know. He was a prominent Democrat.” Flat words to hide horrors. Another survival technique. She would do. You can tell the ones that might have a chance of surviving. You could call it an attitude, but it’s deeper than that. Bone deep.

  “I understand. Get your things, you’re hired.” Oh, details, “What’s your name?”

  “Barbara, Barbara Wertheim.”

  “I’m Miles. Welcome to the crazy house.” She just nodded. A ser
ious young lady. Her things were a ditty bag and a blanket. Another good sign. Back at the ranch, we managed to double up a few people, get a room for Barbara and Verna, but it was tight. Yelena’s three new friends were behind a curtain at the end of a hall, and Lupo and Olga had another couple in with them, along with all their radio gear, a desk and a couple of chairs. I called Ray Reynolds. “We are bursting at the seams, here, Ray, we need a couple of apartments, even a tent or three. I know we are moving up, but it’s tight here.”

  “I got you two compartment cars, a coach, and a diner, I’ll send a runner to show you where it is, Under control.” Good man; a competent aide knows what you need before you know you need it.

  “Moving fast here.”

  He winked. “You have seen nothing yet. Your Peaches is a real go-getter. We are impressed. If she wants a commission, she can write her own ticket.”

  “I doubt it, but I’ll ask.” As predicted, she would not go for it. All she wanted was an automobile of her own, I wrote a chit for the DAT House, they were assembling a lot of trucks and tanks and cars for Hodges, and my credit was good. It better be after all I had done for Jimmy Bolton, the manager. Never mind. He was a good guy, and if he got full of himself, I knew how to let the air out of his tires. I knew I needed to run down to Port Arthur proper, the old Naval Base, and see how Commander Epstein, Eppi, was doing with his most recent impossible job, but it was dark, or nearly, and I had had a long day. My ass was still tender; a thousand miles of dirt roads had not helped one bit.

  I ate something, one of Su-mi’s improvisations, and went off to bed. Isis was not at home, no telling where she might be. We all had our private vices, and anyway, an empty bed was a good thing sometimes.

  >>>>>>

  As usual, the morning was another crisis cut with emergency with chaos sprinkled on top. Scattered reports from Stockholm and Reykjavik were saying that the combined British and German fleets had shelled ports in Iceland and Greenland, also shelling was reported in St. John’s Newfoundland, and someplace called Cartwright in Labrador. Where ever the hell that was. A glance at the map showed that a Naval Base in St. John’s would close off the St. Lawrence, and allow the Germans to funnel troops to the Quebecois insurgents. They had control of the Atlantic, and were using it. An obvious next step was to Quebec City, which had been the capital of French Canada until the Brits had ripped it off in seventeen-hundred and-who-gives-a-fuck. Seven Years War, French and Indian War, all that good shit.