Polar Bear Blues: A Memoir Of The Endless War (The Endless War. Book 1)

by Steve Wishnevsky

  In the event, Eppi was not at home, although the harbor was a bustle of activity. There was a cluster of action around the spot where he had said the dry dock was sunk, the two salvaged Marus were covered with bamboo scaffolding, looked like chipping and painting were underway, and the fisher folk women were working almost out of sight in the harbor, well past the wreck site where the Eiben was anchored.

  I saw Stearns on his way back in, so we waited, he told us that Eppi was working down at the Ferry Landing, where we had rescued Ruby and Red Sovine. I gave him the word about the Imperial Navy Salvage Ship that was on the way in three days. He made a note, he had an envelope of releases for the paper, and off we went.

  Back down the coast road, newly posted signs told me it was Dong-bei Road., past the Machine Shop, that was humming too, same with the DAT House. They may have had their problems, but they didn’t tell me about them, so they didn’t exist. I had to wait at an intersection for a long convoy of trucks to cross in front of me. They seemed to be loaded with more Section Fives, but I didn’t know where they could be coming from.

  At the ferry Landing, Eppi was filling the hole in the bow of the H.R. Hayes with forms cobbled together out of scrap wood, a crowd of coolies killing time nearby, and a couple truckloads of bags of cement. Not hard to figure out the plan. Make a note.

  Eppi was in the midst of it, dusty and dirty as anybody in his crew of Section Fives, banging nails with the best of them. I waited until he was done with the job at hand.

  “Miles.” Of course he had seen me.

  “Commander. I have a present for you. Courtesy of Ruby Wilson.” I handed him a map Ruby had scratched out for me.

  He looked it over. “North side of the peninsula. Was that where those soldiers landed?”

  “Exactly. Ruby sneaked up on them, killed the guards, and, she says there are two tugs up there, a some barges, she didn’t say how many.”

  “Tugs!” That lit a fire under him. He waved at one of the carpenters, “Plant? Take over. String the steel, tie it in real good, do not pour until I get back. Understand?”

  Plant looked none too bright, but he nodded, said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Unload one of those trucks of cement, give me five ratings with rifles. Be right back.”

  “Sir. “ He pointed at a vaguely familiar guy. “You, Briggs, and four more, go with the Commander. Do what he says. For a fucking change.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I knew Briggs, he was that overage private with the bad attitude who had led me to the Feniks bar. He was a civilian now, probably as worthless as ever. I bet he could shoot, though. You can tell. We loaded and unloaded, while Eppi climbed up the ladder to the ship, came back with a paper wrapped package. He squeezed in with me, so we could talk, and I was not about to let Cookie ride with the Section Five guys.

  “Tugs?” Eppi is all business.

  “I haven’t seen them yet. We had a skirmish at the Bulletin. We didn’t lose any, but Red Sovine’s boys got shot up pretty bad. Then Ruby showed up, full of piss and vinegar, she told me to tell you, so I did. That’s all I know.” I putted back to the center of town, saw that all the main streets had sign posts in English, guards at every intersection. And there were pursuit planes in the air, one after another, a very good sign. “I thought you would be more excited about the Salvage Ship?”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “You don’t trust the Japs?”

  “I don’t trust my own government. Why should I trust somebody else’s government?”

  “If you put it like that.”

  “I don’t think you realize just how deep in the shit we are.”

  “Educate me.”

  “If the Atlantic is closed, millions of American G.I.’s can’t get home.”

  “I got that. They are hostage for a peace treaty, I suppose.”

  “Correct. Which Patton will never let Hoover sign.”

  “Never.”

  “So that means that the flow of European refugees he has been using to prop up the economy and stifle dissent is ended. But he still has to exile an ever-increasing number of rebels, deviants, and general low-life rabble.”

  “To here. So we can fight his war for him. That’s obvious.” I was getting a collapsing feeling in my fat gut.

  He dropped the logic bomb in my lap. “Do you find it equally obvious that he intends to win this war?”

  “Shit. Shit fire.” I was stunned. “No. I just assumed that. But if he doesn’t want to win, he just feeds our unnatural asses into the meat grinder. And when it’s all over, he has a nice, white, self-sufficient country, that can never be invaded. Not by anybody with half a brain. Any sort of a Navy will keep us safe…. But…. Canada…”

  “Correct. The Brits could station enough troops in Canada to make life very difficult for us. We could not stop them without a fleet. And…?” He prompted.

  “He has to know that. There must be a deal. Has to be. And if there is…” I trailed off. “We are so fucked.”

  “If the AEF was the same sort of barrel scrapings that we are…” More logic. I hate that shit.

  “I don’t like this at all.” I admitted.

  “If you had read any of the mumbo jumbo bullshit that these Theosophists believe in you would like it less.”

  “Have you just changed the subject? Who are the Theo-who-the-fuckists?”

  “A cult, perhaps. An aristocratic philosophy that believes in the Divine Mission of the Aryan Race to cleanse and purify the Earth, and bring a New Age of Peace. They believe in Eugenics as a Holy Mission. As well as a few dozen other, even more idiotic ideas, such as Vegetarianism, The Hollow Earth, Spiritualism, Astral Projection, and so on.”

  “How do you know this?”

  He moved his lips into something that might have been a smile. “One of the pollutions they wish to remove from the human race is the Jews. Trust me on this. Turn left here.”

  The sign said Shu-gang Road. I knew where we were, HQ and the Train Station were left, north, and the machine shop was right a mile or so. It’s a good thing your body can drive all by itself, because my mind was churning futilely. “So they want us dead. Us mongrels. You Jews. Niggers and all of them. Uppity women. Unnaturals. They are cleansing the States, then will eventually make a deal with the Germans, and live happily ever after. And we can’t stop them.”

  “No, We can’t. But the Japanese might. The Japanese and the Hindus and the Filipinos, and the Chinese and… You know. The trash of the world.”

  “A thin reed.”

  “You got it. Stop at HQ, we need a squad of soldiers.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Needed a lot more than that, but I held my peace.

  >>>>>>

  While he was inside, my mind was churning. “Cookie, you want a drink?”

  “You think that is going to help?” She said scornfully. “What if he is right? What if Fat Hermann wants to clean us scum off the face of the earth?”

  “What what? I have no doubt Eppi is right. He was right about the King of England. He knew that the peace deal was in the works a week or more before it was announced.”

  “So you want to crawl into a bottle and stay there?”

  “What’s got into you, Aja?”

  “You call me that? You dare? You would use Aja like you use Cookie? Like a whore?”

  “You came to me, damn it. Why fuck with me now?”

  Her face was red, eyes narrowed. “You…” She forced herself to calm down. “I explain. All my life I wanted to go to the States. I came to you, you are Russian from America. Yes? You could help me, if I was nice to you?”

  “Sure. I would. I like you. You are beautiful.” Honesty made me add, “If nothing else. I could never afford a woman a beautiful as you. But now?”

  “Now we go no place. We go from frying pan to fire. You say that?”

  “Yes. I understand.” I went to touch her, she batted my hand away.

  “You understand nothing. Russia was empire. Great country on face of
earth. Now? What is it now?”

  “Nothing. A battlefield. A place where so many armies fight that no one can keep them sorted out. Hell.”

  “And America will be like that.” She spat.

  “Yes. I cannot deny your words. You speak the truth. So you tell me? What can we do? Go to fucking Burma? A long walk.”

  “I could fuck Jap bastard? Live there?”

  “No. They are as racist as anybody. You could fuck all of them you wanted, but it would do you no good. You can’t immigrate. No whites allowed.”

  “Then?”

  “Then we do what we can with what we have. There is nowhere to go. Everybody dies. Here we are, here we stay. We have to fight. It’s all we have. And I like you.”

  “Like?”

  “It’s all I got. Take it or leave it.”

  “Fuck you. I take it. There are worse men.”

  “Yeah. That does not make me feel better, but it is the truth. I am an asshole, but there are a lot worse assholes than me.”

  “Asshole.”

  “There is a phrase in English. Cold comfort. That’s all we have. Cold comfort. And maybe we will die quickly.”

  “Something to live for, Miles. A quick death.”

  “Yeah, Aja, it will have to do.”

  >>>>>>>

  The peninsula was only a few miles across, we made it, Eppi had promoted two truckloads of doughs, one in front and one in back. Here, away from downtown, there were more bodies on the roads, all stripped naked. A frugal race, the Chinese. Dogs and ravens were at work cleaning the meat off the bones. I tried to ignore all that. “So how is it going?” I asked Eppi.

  “We get the Hayes afloat, and we can start landing freight at the Ferry landing. We are lightering off people and light cargo at the village the fisher folk come from, that’s called Ling-jiao Bay. It’s over to the left of the Ferry Landing, but it’s just a little cove, hidden behind some hills. The good thing is that it wasn’t mined. The women have cleaned out Hei-shi Reef Bay, the Ferry Landing, so that job is almost done. And a tug or two will help a lot. We have one more wreck to clear to get the main port open. But it is a big one. A 4,160-ton cruiser, the Takasago. Once that is cleared, we will have a port. A tight port, but a port. We have more than a dozen ships full of materiel, tanks, planes, artillery, off shore, just waiting on me.”

  “This Takasago is a big ship?”

  “Big enough. Almost four hundred feet long, forty-eight foot beam. Two ten inch guns, ten five inchers. Had a crew of four-twenty-five. Most of them survived, it sank slowly. But, a job of work.” We arrived at the barges, five of them, old wooden craft, four of them shabby, one painted crimson and gold, in fact it had a pagoda roof, and the eaves looked gilded. Eppi looked around, said. “I thought you said there were guards posted?”

  A woman’s voice came from the deckhouse of one of the barges. “You don’t identify yourself, and you will find out how well these are guarded.”

  He did a double take, we had been suckered, then he raised his voice. “Commander Edward Epstein, USN. Chief Salvage Officer, Dalny Port.”

  “Say the magic word, and the door will open.” A woman with a rifle stood up. She looked like she could handle it. “Annie Brennan. No title. You ready to take over?”

  “Yes, Mam, that’s why we are here. You need anything?”

  “I look like a Mam to you?” In fact, she did not. She looked like a lumberjack, even without the plaid shirt and the ax. Nobody to mess with, shit sure. “My girls need a ride back to the Sisterhood. That’s all.”

  “That can be arranged. Where are the tugs?”

  “Anchored off shore, a mile or so. Valuable items, those tugs.”

  “Mrs.… Miss Brennan, are you claiming ownership of those tugs?”

  “Missus. Probably the Widow Brennan. As if that mattered. And I might be doing just that. You’re the salvage expert. You know the law, just like I do. What do you say to that?”

  “Tugs are worthless without a captain and crew.”

  “And I was Captain and damn near all the crew of the diesel tug, “Narcissus.” Vancouver Island. How do you like those apples?”

  “You want a job?”

  “You don’t fool around, do you, Eddie?”

  “I have a job to do. You want to help, or you want a ride back to your Sisterhood?”

  “I never did want to play soldier. What you paying?”

  “I don’t care. Set your own wages. Gold.”

  “You got to be kidding me,” she frowned.

  “Try me. Piss or get off the pot time. I don’t have more than a few hundred with me, here, but you get those two tugs to the Salvage Dock, I will pay you a thousand. Each. Gold. You want to keep one, I will pay you wages, contract per job, write your own ticket.”

  She thought for a minute. “Ruby said you were a straight shooter. Me and her go way back. In Seattle. Skid Row. We been through the goddamn mill, me and her. If she says you are jake, then that’s good enough for me.”

  “Fine. Bring the tugs back in, wait here, I will send a launch with a pilot.” He reconsidered. “Never mind. I’ll go with you. Nobody knows these waters better than I do. Did you see any charts on board?”

  “All in Russian or some other kind of hen scratches. They don’t make no damn sense to me.”

  He looked at me. I got a familiar sinking sensation, which I hoped would be confined to my fat gut. “Miles? You up for a cruise?”

  “Oh, fuck me, why not?”

  Annie had one more question. “What about these barges?”

  “I can always use anything that floats. Why?”

  “I thought I might like to live in this fancy one. I could sleep on silk, for once in my life. That’s why.”

  “No problem. We need to get the other four to the Ferry landing, we can make a dock out of them. The last one is your bonus, if you can get us there without hitting a mine.”

  “Don’t want much, do you?” She hollered, women popped their heads up all over the five barges. Good damn thing we didn’t start any shooting. Our soldiers looked a little abashed. They were supposed to be the professionals he, but they were standing flat-footed out in the open, and people under cover had beads on them. Live and learn. I was gaining a lot of respect for these tough babes. I can recognize people who have been through hard schools. It leaves marks.

  >>>>>>

  Annie and maybe twenty of her girls stayed with the barges, while the rest rode or hoofed it back to the Sisterhood. Eppi conned one of the tugs, Annie took the other helm. The soldiers and I did what we could, which was not much. It took a long time to get the barges lashed together, I suppose that’s the right word, and off we went. Eppi’s tug in front, Annie pushing. Cookie and I had a debate about the safest place to ride, she stayed in the palace barge, I stayed up front with the Commander. I had to translate the charts anyway. Nerve-wracking business, but Eppi knew his business.

  As soon as we were chuffing out into the big bay, the sea, whatever they called it, the chart said Bo-Hai Sea, but it wasn’t fifty miles across, Eppi unwrapped his package, it turned out to be an American flag. He had one of the troops run it up the stubby mast, and off we chugged. The sea was calm. We kept to the main channel, stayed well away from the actual Port Arthur, which looked like a half-submerged junkyard in the distance. A mess. There were quite a few other ships in the other bay, or bays, it was pretty complex out there, with a lot of traffic to the port of Peking, Tian-jin, so we just followed the buoys, went with the flow.

  I found a set of dividers, guesstimated sixty miles, a hundred kilometers. “Six hours?” I asked.

  “We won’t be that lucky. “ Eppi calculated. “I hope we can make it to the Ferry Landing by nightfall, if not, we will have to anchor offshore and wait for light.”

  “Such fun. At least we have beds. Maybe there is some rice and tea left.”

  “Good thought. “ He turned to the nearest soldier, that Sergeant Lupo again. “Sarge, get a couple of men, search for food, see w
hat you can scrounge up.”

  “Yes, sir. Want me to look for fishing gear too?”

  Eppi pointed at him, snapped his fingers. That was high praise. “Do it. Good thinking.”

  “Us Mexicans know how to survive, Commander.” And off he went. The cruise was uneventful, except a Japanese warship, a gunboat or destroyer, slowed to look us over, Eppi had the ensign dipped, the courtesy was returned, and on we chugged. The US Navy.

  >>>>>>>

  We did make it to the Hei-shi Bay, if not all the way to the Ferry Landing itself. Annie anchored the barge train, Eppi ran me ashore in his tug. The concrete crew was done with the forms, Eppi turned right to that job, ordering lights strung and cement mixed. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye, I knew better, just hefted my rifle and hoofed on home with Aja by my side, Lupo and his squad around us. Company felt good.

  Amazingly enough, Peaches, Isis, and Justine had managed to get four pages written, composed, and printed, and were working on an edition for tomorrow morning. I scanned the copy, it looked good, real good, and glanced at the radio headlines. Ships sunk off the east end of the Panama Canal, deck gun fire into Portsmouth, and mines discovered in Chesapeake Bay and New York Harbor. The insurance companies were having fits, all available ships and airships were on anti-submarine patrol off the East Coast, and maritime commerce was at a dead stop. I scribbled a story on the salvage operations I had seen, turned over the latest batch of notes I had been given, and dragged my tired ass to bed. I didn’t even molest Aja, she did not protest.

  I was getting used to starting off my mornings with a bang, but this time it was barely past midnight. One huge explosion to start off the new day, then sustained small arms fire from the direction of HQ. I got on the horn, got the word to sit tight, watch for infiltrators, and keep calm.