Black Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  The next seat over was Commander, no, Admiral Epstein, Salvage Chief of Port Arthur, and the guy who saved our asses on a daily basis for the last year.

  They filled in the left side of the table next, that oily little guy from the airport, nice suit, no tie, big red star on his lapel. Closer up, he looked familiar… Babs touched my arm, whispered “Lavrentiy Beria. Comrade Stalin’s right hand man. A most unpleasant character. He was a Georgian, the when the security service of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic hired him while still a student at the Polytechnicum. A few years later he joined the Cheka – the original Bolshevik secret police. The Bolsheviks started a revolt in the Menshevik-controlled Democratic Republic of Georgia, and the Red Army subsequently invaded. The Cheka became heavily involved in the conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the Mensheviks and the formation of the Georgian SSR. By 1922, Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU.”

  “Lovely,” I whispered back.

  “In 1924 he led the repression of a Georgian nationalist uprising, after which up to ten thousand people were executed. For this display of Bolshie ruthlessness, he was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Transcaucasian OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. A few years later, he killed and betrayed enough people to become head of the Georgian OGPU; That brought him to the attention of fellow-Georgian Joseph Stalin. As a result, Beria became an ally in Stalin's rise to power. He also took over Stalin's holiday security.”

  “Ass-kissing for fun and profit.”

  “Stalin trusts very few people. Beria is one of them.”

  “Yelena, you just met outside? She knew Stalin well, said he had no friends, trusts no one.”

  “As much as he can trust. He is a horrible person; Beria might be worse.”

  “Keep smiling. Think happy thoughts.” After Beria and his translator, the next was another slight, non-descript Chinese man, very plain tunic with no medals of insignia. I tagged him as the Red Chinese even before that Ching-ling Soong took her place behind him. The next seated was Madame Chiang, with Yelena as interpreter. As if somebody schooled in our Georgia… Never mind.

  Vinegar Joe Stillwell was next to Madame Chiang, they exchanged pleasantries, as if they knew each other in the past. She was worth chatting up, a very striking woman.

  The last two seated were Hodges and General Bradley, with Ray Reynolds right behind them. Ray had a star too, advancement was fast in the Black Bears.

  There was a certain amount of chair scraping, throat-clearing, and flash powder flaring. All meetings are like that.

  Hodges stood in place, did not walk to the lectern, simply said, “I wish to welcome each of our distinguished guests to this conference, this preliminary meeting is more along the lines of an introduction to each other and to you in the audience, members of the Black Bear Expeditionary Forces, Civil Authorities of Urum-chi, who have so graciously allowed us to meet here, leaders of the Uyghur Community, all the other leaders of the local communities, Kazaks, Cossacks, Turkmen, Uzbecs, Kyrryks, and Tajiks, and of course, the Mongols. We have not forgotten that these are your ancestral lands, and we will be meeting with you on a personal basis to hear your concerns and address them as soon as possible.

  “The thrust of this conference is to ‘wage peace’ if I may coin a phrase, to establish a government or governments in this area and east of here in Han China, north to Siberia proper, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The US troops will not remain here, have no plans, no desire, to rule here in any fashion whatsoever. As we say in my home state of Georgia, we have no dog in this fight.” Some people in the audience might have bristled at that metaphor, but Hodges soothed them. “Not that I am comparing these nations out here to dogs in any manner, shape or fashion. You have been nations, civilized, far longer than we in the upstart USA have existed, and we have no desire to tell you your business, or to even suggest that our ways are better than your ways. The rules of the house are always right. And in any case, we have our own house to set in order. A large enough task for anybody.

  “Let me introduce the participants in this conference. To my right, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, of the Imperial Navy. Admiral Yamamoto is largely responsible for the wide-ranging strategy that successfully brought us to this table at this time.

  “To his left is Ivan Hodak, at the moment commander of our 37th Motorized Division. Brigadier Hodak has extensive lands north of Irkutsk, and hopes to return to his inheritance as soon as the situation stabilizes. To his left is Admiral Edward Epstein, Commander of Port Arthur and Dalny Harbor.

  “To my left, most of you know Joe Stillwell, he has long China experience, and is Black Bear Field Commander. Next to him is Madame Mei-ling Chiang Kai-shek, representing the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Chinese Party.” He got her name wrong, but old dogs, new tricks. “To Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s left is Comrade Cho En-lai of the Chinese Communist Party. And at the end, is Comrade Lavrentiy Beria, representing the Soviet Socialist Republic of Siberia.” He paused, then, “We will allow no questions at this point, there is a press release available at the rear of the hall. Deliberations will start immediately, and you will be notified when and if developments warrant; I also want to call Colonel Kapusta of the Recon Train up on stage to inform you of an… interesting development in Western Canada. Miles may be available to answer your questions, if he so chooses. Miles?”

  Thanks for the hot seat, Hodges, old buddy. As I passed, he shook my hand, and I felt the rustle of paper in his grip. I palmed it, slipped the note in my pocket. Courtney, you are developing a low talent for deceit in your old age. I didn’t bother with the lectern, just turned and faced all those eyes. Now that I could get a look at them, there were more kinds of people out there than I could have imagined, when I lived back in the states. All sorts of Oriental finery, and a lot more rough-looking tribal combat gear. Fezs and turbans and head scarves of every description. Embroidered skull caps and scalp locks looked like a booming business too. And every one of the bastards looked like he would be overjoyed to slit my throat with a rusty knife, if he thought it would liven up a dull day.

  “I’ll make this short and sweet. The two western provinces of Canada, British Columbia and Alberta, have declared independence from Canada, British America, and have a formed a new country, Western Canada. The new state has been recognized by Mexico, Japan, and Colombia. That’s about all I know. If you want to ask questions, I can tell you ‘I don’t know’ a few more times.”

  A few hands went up, but all the questions were of the “Is Canada one of the United States?” variety, except for one women, who rose and spoke before I recognized her. Justine Lowell, a Boston blue blood who had been exiled for lesbianism, and wound up running the Dalny Bulletin, a paper Hodges had me start a year ago. It took a story this big to get her out of her comfortable little office in Dalny. She repressed a smirk, and asked; “Colonel Kapusta, what long range ramifications do you see for the Pacific Rim states as a result of this development?”

  Thanks, Madame Pain in the Butt. “I have not had time to digest this development, as you call it, but obviously, this will give Japan, the Japanese Navy, a base on the West Coast. I seem to remember that Seattle and Vancouver are both on a large bay, or series of bays, that would seem to be tailor-made for a safe harbor. I think that the US Navy has major bases in San Diego, LA, and in San Francisco Bay. I really have not contemplated this question, this is all off the cuff. All I can do is state the obvious at this point. Thanks for the question. I think that will be all for this session, I was wounded, or shocked might be a better word, a few days ago, and I need to get some rest. You may quote may as saying that things are going to be moving pretty fast, starting right now.”

  I wanted to flee for my life, but that aide of Hodges’ was there, asking if I wanted to take notes on the negotiation sessions. I pled incompetence, but a puppy-dog look from Barbara made me volunteer her for the job. I don’t do shorthand anyway, and nobody but me can read my sc
ribbles. She was dumb enough to thank me, and I cowardly headed for the bar and the free lunch counter. The bar was a buzz of speculation in twenty languages, I just kept my head down and sucked down a few egg rolls and a glass of wine. Rice, maybe.

  While I was in line for a refill, that same aide brought me a note, “I’m going to be here all night, it looks like. This is all about the economics of the withdrawal. Eppi and some of Bradley’s staff, a General Marshall is here. There are revolts of the various nomads, Mongols and warlords, deals must be hammered out for the Provisional Chinese Government. I seem to have volunteered to help write the secret history of the Polar Bear/Black Bear/Grizzly Bear campaign. You might as well go home and rest. Love, B.”

  Grizzly Bear? Oh. I get it. The Grizzly Bear is the symbol of California. I scribbled back, “Will do. Love you. M.” And gave it back to the Aide. “Tell her I will leave the staff car.”

  “No need, sir, that is all taken care of. Officially she is to be on the General’s staff.”

  “Fine. I’ll just go lie down for a while.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  >>>>>>

  I remembered the note from Hodges on the way home. I read it in the glow of the backseat dash light, where I was sure nobody else could see me. Short and sweet. “Miles, I want you to set up a shortwave station capable of beaming voice and music back to the States. It must be truck-portable. CHH.” In my spare time, right? I managed to light the note with the cigar lighter, crushed the ashes until I was sure nobody could ever read it. The only reason for a shortwave station that could reach the states was to foment, as they say, rebellion, revolution, and a few more capital crimes. Looks like I would have to do better than Nathan Hale and develop a few more lives to give for my country.

  I checked the radio logs once I was back at the train, Brazil and Australia had also recognized Western Canada, and a bill was in the US Congress to the same effect. Nobody seemed to be sure whose side Western Canada would be on, were they the enemy of my enemy or the friend of my friend, both or neither? Were they in revolt against the Brits and Germans, against the US, or just out for their own survival? So many questions, so few answers.

  I gave the gist of Hodges’ note to Bob Weeks, he actually got a twinkle in his eye at the idea of a new challenge. He headed for the Signal Corps car, I headed for the rack.

  >>>>>>

  Babs woke me at dawn, we got a few hours of rack time, some of it sleep, before she went back to work at noon. “It’s a deal. Just dotting ‘I’s and crossing ‘t’s. That Admiral Yamamoto has it all laid out, they just have to co-operate with the inevitable. This was his plan from the start.”

  “All what plan?”

  “The war and all that. He is the adopted son of the Yamamoto clan, big Navy folks. It’s all ridiculously complex, but the Army and the Navy have been at odds, almost at war, for centuries. First he worked out a plan to give each side what they needed, got the plan through the cabal around the Emperor. Once that was done, the plan was automatically the Word of God.”

  “Almost literally.”

  “Better than literally. Not only did it have to be done, it could not be seen to fail, if it did, then the unthinkable had happened and people would have to pay with their lives.”

  “Executions?”

  “Suicide. They call it hari-kari, but the real term is seppuku. Belly slitting. It’s horrible. But they love stuff like that. Honor and all that sort of thing.”

  “Anyway?”

  “Anyway, we won. They won. The Japanese. The Emperor was not disgraced. The unthinkable did not happen.”

  “All’s well that ends well.”

  “Exactly. Now the Reds and the Nationalists can stop fighting, at least for long enough to let the dust settle and the railroads to get built, and everybody lives happily ever after. The Commies get the country, the peasants, the Nationalists get the cities, the Japanese get the ports, the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the resources they need, the Soviets get Vladivostok and all the taiga they can stand, and we get to go home.”

  “Just like that? Poof? Vanish in a cloud of dust?”

  “No, actually, we get to make sure the Germans actually leave, we get to finish the railroads, and then we get to leave. We get to keep Dalny, that whole Liaodong Peninsula, Port Arthur and all that. The Chinese said they could live with Shanghai and Hong Kong in foreign hands for a few centuries, they could live with us having Liaodong for a while.”

  “Really? And you think that is going to last? How long?”

  “Who cares how long? If it gets us home and Patton dead, I could care less, personally speaking. Historically, it may be a different matter, but we won’t be there to see it.”

  “And you get to write the book.” I said.

  “You are writing one too. I see you scribbling away. And books requite publishers, book sellers, book stores…”

  “Free newspapers to write reviews… Okay, Babs, I give. I’m just hacking away at a memoir, as if it could ever be published. Let’s follow the program, and get the hell out of this fucking desert. Summer is coming. And I just can’t see the Chinese, commies or otherwise putting up with the Japanese forever. Bound to be a war.”

  “The war will be between the Reds and the Kuomintang. Stilwell has no respect for Chiang, he calls him ‘Peanut’. The Madame is another matter, but seeing how her own sister is the big money behind the Reds, I think there will soon be a deal, that will, as they say, include Chiang out. That Chou En-lai is one smart character, and they do say that this Mao Tse-tung is a force of nature. Smart, dedicated, ruthless, and a great writer and rabble-rouser. Yes, I agree. We need to be gone from this place.”

  “Get your invisible Crayola and color us the fuck out of here.”

  >>>>>>>

  Hurry up and wait. The Old Army Game. I wondered that was in Latin, the best I could come up with was “Festina, et spera.” Miss Dimock, my tenth-grade Latin teacher would know, but she wasn’t available. You know this shit has been going on for a long damn time.

  I felt shamed enough to take a first pass at my memoir, typing up a rough draft, which actually seemed futile, but authors are self-centered assholes after all, and there was little to do with all this crap hanging fire like it was. Hanging fire is an expression from the black-powder muzzle-loader days. Sometimes you would pull the trigger, the primer in the pan would flash, but the gun would not go off. Then, you held tight to the musket and prayed. It might go boom, or it might not, you would never be sure until something bad happened. A perfect metaphor for a peace conference. It might go off in your face, or it might sit there dead as cornflakes. You pay your money and you take your chances.

  Barbara was gone all the days and most of the nights, she told me what she saw, but of course the real action was behind the scenes. Frustrating, but inevitable. They wrangled out the details in private, then had show meetings for the record, as scripted as a Broadway play.

  Meanwhile, a lot of nothing was happening elsewhere in the world. The Anglo-German thrust down the Connecticut River had reached a point, just north of Springfield, where the road nets worked in Patton’s favor, he could bring more troops and tanks to bear, and the enemy’s logistic lines were stretched and inefficient. Detroit and Pittsburg were cranking out tanks and guns as fast as possible, and with no unions to stand up for the workers, eight-hour days and weekends were things of the past. The European refugee workers were busting ass, they had to, there was no place to run after this.

  Nothing much seemed to be happening in or to the new nation of Western Canada, whether that meant that all the combatants were stretched too thin to respond, or else that Grosse Hermann and Patton had bigger fish to fry. Like each other, for example.

  The Panama Canal, now known as the Canal Colombiano, was open for business; the big question was, would they let German naval ships though? Of course, capital ships, battleships, were far too large to use it, but freighters full of Endless War surplus weapons could easily get to ports on the west co
ast of Mexico. The canal was closed to our ships, too, and there was fuck-all Patton could do about that. He had painted himself into the proverbial corner, and there was nobody left to get him out of it. You spend your whole life making enemies, and guess what? You have a fuck-load of enemies.

  We were a case in point. We could have won his wars for him, there were probably a hundred thousand of us over here, just in the Black Bears alone, but after he had screwed us over time after time, there was no way we would fight for him. Even as egotistical as he was, he had to know that. So, five divisions were left to wither on the vine, and he probably thought it serves us right. We weren’t there to crud up his nice clean white country any more. That was winning, that’s what he thought. There was a possibility that he would give up, and join the Master Race to conquer the world, like God wanted him to do, but chances were that he was too proud to take his licking like a man. He would have to admit he had ever been wrong, for one thing.

  A lot of us would have been just as happy to go down swinging, if we had half a chance of taking that bastard with us.

  >>>>>>>>

  All of which was just bullshit, pissing into the wind, but there was little else to do. I decided to get off my fatness and help somebody do something, even if it was just causing trouble. The back end of the train was a constant bustle of people coming and going, all bearing objects that had some resemblance to musical instruments. I recognized quite a few faces from the Friday show, it seemed like half the audience had been other musicians looking for a chance to play. But that’s the art biz for you. The audiences at poetry readings are mostly other poets impatiently waiting for their chance in the limelight.