Black Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  Babs flaked out, trying to hide her shivering under a stack of blankets, I could not relax, went to the Radio Car, found our equipment had been only lightly peppered with shrapnel, no major damage. Just to our morale. Großdeutschen Rundfunk was bombasting away, touting the glorious victory they had just won over the enemy at Xilin Gol, Karamay, and Harbin, not hard to suppose those places had been plastered too. Looked like an attack on the Air Service, and it was even easier to guess that something big was coming our way. A good offense is the best defense; that is part of the General Staff’s core makeup. Carved in granite. They had their little armor-plated ducks in neat rows, and were going for it. Probably smuggling arms and advisors into Mexico by U-Boat, if I had my guess. I wrote my suspicions down, sent them off, then set off for bed, but before I could leave the Signal Corps car, they handed me a flimsy. It read; “PEPARE TO MOVE TO END OF LINE-STOP-TWO CAMOUFLAGE CARS TO JOIN YOUR PRESENT LOCATION-STOP-AWAIT ORDERS-STOP-REYNOLDS-ENDS.”

  Say what? I told the Signal Corps to keep me informed, I went off to beddie-bye. Babs was sleeping the restorative sleep of the emotionally drained, I recognized the symptoms. I slipped in next to her, and passed out myself. A few hours later, I felt her start awake with a cry. I held her until almost noon, when we were on duty again. “Rise and shine, dear heart, work to be done.” She grumped a little, but a few cups of therapeutic Irish coffee and a plate of eggs had her moving again, if still quiet and introspective.

  Her only comment was, “I dread the dark.”

  “I understand. I will get Conductor Earl to get us some issue trenches dug toot sweet. If he hasn’t done it already.”

  “He would do that?”

  “Count on it. Us old lags know the score. Bet on it.”

  “Your vocabulary changes when you talk about military stuff.”

  “You bet your ass.” I winked. “We will have you cussing like a trooper PDQ.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  >>>>>>>>

  I took a turn around the immediate vicinity before dark, found slit trenches in progress everywhere, planes being dispersed out into the desert, and even more to the point, a new air strip being laid out with lines of old tires and torches, well equipped with searchlights and ack-ack in sandbagged revetments. A couple of crews were slapping black paint on pursuits, and I got the message. “Fool me once, fuck you.”

  We got another message, three days to get ready, I managed to finagle a couple crates of Thompsons, fifty tin hats and even some of those new-fangled bulletproof vests, made of silk and cotton quilting with steel plate in obvious places. I was dubious, they might stop pistol rounds, but had to be useless against jacketed rifle rounds. But what the hell, they might make the women feel a bit safer. We had a couple days of sandbagging the radio room, and held Thompson familiarization at a nearby range, mostly for morale purposes.

  The Cammo Crew showed up on the third day, a box car of canvas and paint, and a passenger car of Chinese and American stagehands and sailors under the command of a CPO named Weeks. Bob Weeks. He was profane as any stereotype sailor, but not at all burly. Slender and somewhat feminine, in fact. He said he had been a set designer and painter for Broadway and San Francisco theaters, “But I saw how the wind was blowing, saw how much the Hoovers hated the Artistic Community, so quick-like joined the Navy. I had a Masters in Design and a MFA, so they made me a noncom, because they had no idea what else to make of me. And here we the fuck are.”

  “Let me guess. This is all Eppi’s idea.” He looked blank, I added, “Commander Epstein.”

  “You fucking catch on quick. Good. When do we start?”

  “PDFQ,”

  “Fine with me. Dinner time yet? We don’t have a mess. Just a camp stove and a rice boiler.”

  “How many men do you have?”

  “Ten men and eleven women. Seamstresses and sailmakers. Most of the men are stagehands and riggers. Most of them can handle a paintbrush. Why?”

  “Too many for our dining room, but not too many for our cook. Get them sorted out on the platform in one hour. Meanwhile, take a couple of men, women, and see what you can find to feather your nests at the thieves’ market. The biggest one is about a half mile that way.” I pointed. “Here is some silver, it goes pretty far here.”

  “I got you. A couple of our Chinese are from San Francisco. We can cope.”

  “Good man.”

  >>>>>>>

  By the time he got back, and the rice was cooked, his men had erected a canvas pavilion on the platform for shade, liberated enough ties, bricks, and boards to throw together benches and rough tables, and were gathered around, slurping down coffee, waiting for their grub. I began to entertain hope for these guys, irregular as they might be. I cornered Bob Weeks, mentioned that I could always use literate Chinese speakers, he promised cooperation, and fell to whatever strange Hispano-Chinese concoction Olga and Su-mi had cooked up. I availed myself of a bowl, it was some sort of red soup, full of meat, maybe tripe, eggs, and noodles, don’t spare the chilies. Not bad. Not bad at all. I went back and scraped the pot for another bowl.

  I looked up, and Conductor Earl was there waiting on me. He had our marching orders. Three hours. “Anything you need, you better ask now or do without.”

  I just looked over to Weeks, he stepped up. “Another box car to work in, and some sort of kitchen facilities is all I need, sir.” The sir was superfluous but appreciated. A little of the old oil. Conductor Earl just nodded, and limped off to the Yard Office.

  I had work to do too. Head count, make sure none of my people were off getting drunk someplace, have Su-mi take a couple of guys and make a final run for groceries, check the water, make sure all the guns were loaded, the helmets and vests were in place, all that idiot check sort of thing. Going out to Injun territory this time for real. We pulled out of Xilin Gol right on time, a couple hours before dark, with an extra boxcar and some sort of field kitchen car tagged on behind. Headed west and south down a brand-new track. Weeks’ people were working as we rolled, even though they had to clamber over the roofs to get into the box cars.

  >>>>>

  We got maybe a hundred miles, which is nothing out here, before we came to the rail head, the end of the line. Or nearly. They had a siding for us, there was a hill on the north side, a few trees, a seep of water, fairly nice for a desert. This was a gravel desert, not sure if it was the Gobi, the only maps we had were pretty sketchy, make do. What difference does it make? I don’t get paid extra for being a connoisseur of deserts.

  As soon as we stopped, it was well dark, all the train lights were out, Weeks’ guys started putting stage-set panels in place alongside the cars and slapping paint on everything in sight. All by lantern light. I left them to it. They had sand-colored tarps and wooden braces to break up the straight lines of the Recon Train. It was my shift on the Radio Room. Cobblers and lasts, you know. I had confidence in the stagehands, I used to hang out with some of them in New Haven, and I was sure that if we were to play “do you know?” for a while, we would find mutual friends. Stagehands are “can do” people with very little edge to them. Good folks. They have to be, to put up with all the egomaniacs in the theater.

  Canada was buzzing, the French and Anglo hams were all over the airwaves, it was easy to suspect the Brits were subsidizing their Loyalists, and the French were desperate, they needed any help they could get, Montreal had not fallen yet, but you knew it had to be hanging by a thread.

  Patton was announcing a thrust from Detroit to reinforce Toronto, but the real shocker was the call for volunteers for an official Militia, the Free American Army. You know they were getting desperate, the ads were all over the airwaves. I wondered who they thought they could get to sign up, people who had managed to avoid the draft all these years? Draft the Klan, that would help. Asshole. The irony was palpable even ten thousand miles away. And the desperation. Bet he wished he hadn’t sent all us cannon fodder to China. He also promoted himself to Generalissimo, six stars, maybe seven. We had a
ll lost track of his bullshit well before we had been deported. Enough had been had years ago.

  Stations were coming on the air in Mexico and points south, Lupo reported, they were getting support from someplace, probably German money and equipment coming through Franco. I wondered what the superlative of “cluster-fuck” was. Whatever it was, we had one. Maybe three of them. I was losing count here. China, Mexico, and Canada. So much for The War to End All Wars. Now, the war we needed was in the States, but that would be worse than the other three put together. I know my people, and I read a book or two on the Civil War. I had even met a few veterans of that disaster. Remember what Sherman said. “War is Hell.” And he raised enough hell to be an expert on the subject. We surely did not need another one of those. So, what to do? Live the best you could and do what you can. One day at a time.

  A quiet night, but the day was a hectic dose of the old army game, hurry up and wait. The cammo looked great, or rather, didn’t look like anything at all, which was perfect. We got the word to stow all our commo flats, as soon as that was done, we moved out, over bumpy track to the next segment. You could see the truck-based rail crews raising dust, leapfrogging to the next break in the line, see camps breaking down where the junction points had been. Really impressive organization, but Hodges was known as a master of logistics. Boring gritty stuff that keeps your personal ass alive.

  We made another hundred, then hid in plain sight and watched the Gothas drone over, headed to Xilin Gol, Dalny or someplace, I tried to feel compassion, but in honesty, all I could feel was mild joy that we were not getting bombed. We did get a notification over the Army channels that the Japanese had set up serial production of pursuit monoplanes in Hong Kong, which was a really good sign. More making something out of nothing.

  We made it to and through Ulan Bator the next day, kept rolling even though there was a daylight harassment bombing from invisibly high Zeppelins somewhere in the sky above. There did not seem to be a lot of damage to the city, and another track joined us from the northwest, probably from Chita. That one was brand new too, we could see freight trains and work trains for miles, as the lines merged. They had priority, of course, so we cooled our wheels for quite a while to let the important stuff go on ahead. I was happy to let them lead, not too happy to have to sit there all naked in the sun. It was five hundred miles to Jiu-quan, six hundred more to Urum-qi, then another hundred or so to Karamay, which was my best guess as to our destination.

  If we really were going to thrust into Kazakhstan, there was no other way to go. Anybody who could read a map would have to see that. Lots of desert, no roads.

  >>>>>>

  Amazingly enough, we made it into Jiu-quan and the Great Wall the next day, then had to hang around while the trains were sorted out and the deadheads made up for the long haul back to Chita for the next loads. Jiu-quan was looking more like Chicago than an ancient Imperial city these days, amazing changes in the month I had been gone. Train yards ten or twelve tracks wide, motor pools and tent encampments as far as I could see. It was getting close to October, but the weather was still hot, dry, and dusty with the dust of centuries, whipped up by thousands of trucks and tanks and cars. I was struck by the odd thought, that the better an army is at destroying shit, the better they must be at building shit. Logistics they call that. Hodges was there, deep in planning with Stillwell. We could not get close, but I cornered Ray Reynolds, my liaison, for a dinner and a briefing.

  “We have some good news,” he began, even before the soup was served. “The Persian Shah has made contract and has promised to keep the southern route closed, in exchange for materiel support.”

  “Guns.”

  He nodded. “And trucks. He has some limited supplies of gas and oil for us too. Not much, but every little bit helps. The British had established a huge depot and refinery there for their navy, and miraculously, most of it survived.”

  “And so?”

  “Hang around, we are waiting on tanks and planes. Once Hodges gets all his little fuzzies lined up, we will move faster than you will believe.”

  “A word to the wise.” He just winked. Message received.

  Later that evening, I had half an idea, sent a telegram to Ken Inahara and Eppi, asking them if they could make an aircraft carrier train, with a catapult or something, to get pursuit jobs into the air at a moment’s notice. It didn’t take long to hear back from both, basically saying, “Great idea. Take care of it, would you?”

  Someday, I might learn not to lead with my chin. I took the flimsy to Weeks, he called a couple of his boys, sent me off to find a pilot or two, and started scratching away on big sheets of newsprint. I had time to find the pilots, send Conductor Earl to join in the fun, and find lunch before Weeks sent a messenger to bring me to see what they had haggled out.

  Turns out that the catapults they use on aircraft carriers run on steam, so it was possible to mount a short rail on a flatcar, run steam to it and get a plane up to airspeed in a second or less. I wondered if the pilot’s head might snap off and tumble behind in the prop-wash, but the pilot, Buzz somebody, laughed in my face. Pilots are insane, ever notice?

  >>>>>>>

  I had a little private time, spent it playing chess with Barbara, one way to get to know somebody is to play games with them. She kicked my ass. I hate chess. I am incapable of keeping my mind on the game, but I hate losing. I never said I made sense, even to myself.

  I was saved from further humiliation by a visit from more damn aviators, at least these were ones I liked; Maggie White and Stan Gilliam, my aerial photography crew, looking for orders. I told them all I knew, which was not much. “My best guess is that we are going through Urum-qi, that’s six hundred miles, and then another hundred to Karamay. After that, only Hodges and God know, and I’m not sure about God.”

  Maggie ignored that witticism; “We brought all three planes, but we are short a photog. Any leads?”

  “I’ll find somebody. Or just go ask Ray Reynolds, he is our liaison to the real army. Drink?”

  Stan looked wistful, but Maggie said, “Just tea for us. War zone.”

  “No kidding. And it’s going to get worse, real fast.” We had tea and maps, plotting out Hodges’ probable course to flank and cut off the Trans-Siberian. One thing sprung out. There was nothing there. The biggest town was called Akmolinsk, and it did not look like much. It was over seven hundred miles from Karamay, and about two-fifty more to Omsk. A long haul from here. There were damn few dots on the map, Ekibastuz, and Pavlodar, but there was no information. The battered Britannica was silent, except to note that Akmolinsk was the second largest city in Kazakhstan. In 1832 the settlement was granted a town status and renamed Akmolinsk, a modification of the original name, which meant "a white grave." So jolly, these nomads.

  Russia, the Russian Empire, had been trying to take over Central Asia for a very long time, with varying degrees of brutality. It was all part of the “Great Game,” a centuries long struggle with the British to control the center of the world. It all came down to Afghanistan, and as always, Afghanistan was not going to play ball with anybody.

  The Kazakh people didn’t want to play either, but they didn’t have any convenient mountains to hide in. The Russians had better luck slaughtering their herds and disrupting the traditional nomadic lifestyle and livestock economy, with some Kazakh tribes being decimated or worse. The same old problem that doomed the American Indians. Tribal people are so used to fighting each other, the feuds go so far back, that they never can unite, even to survive.

  The Kazakh national movement, which began in the late 19th century, sought to preserve the native language and identity by resisting the attempts of the Russian Empire to assimilate and stifle them. It only sort of worked.

  From the 1890s onward, ever-larger numbers of settlers from the Russian Empire began colonizing the territory, in particular the province of Semirechye. Once the Russians completed the Trans-Aral Railway from Orenburg to Tashkent in 1906, the game was over. Just lik
e the poor American Indians, they had nowhere left to run. A specially created Migration Department oversaw and encouraged settlements to expand Russian influence in the area. During the Nineteenth Century about four hundred thousand Russians immigrated to Kazakhstan, and maybe a million Slavs, Germans, Jews, and others immigrated to the region during the first third of the Twentieth Century

  Once the Czars fell, the Kazakhs revolted, but as soon as the Reds gained power, things got even worse. Slaughter followed slaughter. A mess, with shit sprinkles on top. As much as anyone could tell, the population was ten million or so, down from perhaps twice that before the glorious revolution.

  There was a coal field at Ekibastuz, a lake and a railway line, and a river at Pavlodar, a few big old shallow lakes, probably salt, and a lot of white space on the maps. Which was all well and good, but not buttering any parsnips. “Maggie, obviously, you won’t be able to do much from here, you will have to base yourself out of Karamay. Again, talk to Ray Reynolds. Want me to walk over with you?”

  “I’m a big girl.” She said, and rose. Barbara reminded me that we had a shift to cover I the Radio Room, so off we all went. The Mexicans were on duty, they seemed excited, I asked the obvious.

  Lupo explained. “Colombia has declared war on Estados Unidos. Troops are moving into Panama. Argentina is talking the same way. Los Alemanes are sending ships to establish a naval base there.”

  “Los Alemanes? The Germans?”

  “Si. Yes. This is very good, and very bad.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “They cut the Canal, that will hurt us, no?” He said. “Us here in China?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. The Canal has been closed off and on. I think it just reopened. We can get all we need from the West Coast ports, I suppose. Trains across the States, and…” Shit. “Lupo, I just don’t know. Who knows? How many troops can Colombia send to Mexico?”

  “No sabe. I don’t know either.”

  “Go take a break, get a meal, I can see this is going to be a long night.”