“I just did what needed doing. One has one’s obligations.”
“Look, Justine,” I had to put my oar in. “You are welcome to stay here, I’m not trying to run you off, but this is an almost all male establishment here, except for Hilda and Mary. You and I have never hit it off, for whatever reason, but you do good work, you stay on task. But when the boys have a few belts after putting an edition to bed, we might get a little rank. Guys being guys, and all that shit. You can trust them to act right, but you can’t expect them to not act like a bunch of soldiers and college boys. Men. I cannot guarantee you won’t be offended. In fact, I could just about lay money that you will be offended. And you haven’t even met Demetri yet. He runs a blue movie house, has a string of models. I don’t ask him what he has going for himself, because I don’t want to know. But he does work we need, that’s all I care about. You catching my drift here?”
“I do understand. I thank you for taking my… proclivities into consideration. I think that is wise. Frances, can I be housed in a ground floor room? These stairs are a bit more effort than I care to expend every time I have to use the bathroom.”
“I can give you a suite. Or, at least half a suite. Crazy House was quite a large estate in its day. Grab your stuff, let’s hit the road.”
“I have very little. Rita? Can you pack our bags, please?” The nurse just nodded and headed upstairs. Done.
As Justine turned away, Frankie leaned closer to me, and not quite whispered, “I actually came down to buy uniforms. A word to the wise.” Oh. Fucking really? I punched her shoulder, not real hard. She went to help, Hilda slipped me a hug, whispered, “You might just be growing up yourself.”
“Here’s hoping.”
>>>>>>>>>>
We heard on that new clear channel station out of Houston, KTEX that the Kriegsmarine had moved into Houston, they broadcast the flag-raising ceremony. With extra brass bands, cheerleaders, and marching cowboys. Something to be proud of, no doubt. So now the enemy had been ceded two big bases on what had been US soil. Somehow that just pissed me off more than all the other insults and abuses we had suffered for the last ten years and more. And there was shit we could do about it. They were too far away, and had the biggest navy in the world. Oh, well, fuck it. We had a job to do.
And that job was putting words on paper. Turn your anger into words and call them an editorial. The whole trick of editorial writing it to say the words everybody else wants to say, before they know they want to say them. It’s a knack. Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, eye on the clock and ear to the ground. Now try to get any work done in that position.
We also heard that Admiral Epstein had moved the Pacifica Navy Headquarters to Pearl Harbor, a very strategic move. Nobody was going to get there without a major fleet operation, and if they tried, Eppi would find ways of making them sorry they tried. Japanese or Germans, it would be sticking your dick in the pencil sharpener to rape the canary. Lot of blood for very little action. If the Japanese were adopting the hydrofoil technology to real warships… Holy fuck. What an idea.
An even crazier idea hit me. If you could find enough crazy assholes to suicide hydrodomes full of explosives into battleships, like the glider bombs that the Germans used so spectacularly, then the whole idea of a navy was obsolete. How big could you make one of those shaped charges? Was there a limit? Wait and see.
>>>>>>>>
Meanwhile, get some damn words on paper. Writing serves as a kind of meditation for me. Things come to me, things connect to other things, sometimes they make sense. If Frankie was down here, getting fitted for uniforms, did that mean she was joining the Army again? Not bloody likely. How about war correspondent? And why would Prime Minister Arbuthnot, my pedantic old buddy, clue me into what had to be a super-secret plan to go fuck with the Krauts? And why tell us about the Loons and Teals? That at least had not revealed itself yet. It had been a week. What was the necessary time delay before they got rolling on the Calgary offensive? A week? Two? What could I do about it? More precisely, what did Arbuthnot expect me to do about it? The only thing I was good at was puking bullshit on paper. Therefore… He expected me to write. Something.
He had liked my Mississippi Thrust paper. So, who was going to go where? The Mississippi Thrust had to be pretty damn close to the Texas border, and if they had any troops at all, they had only two places to go. They could link up with the Germans coming south, or they could go west and fuck with the Euacs out in the desert. And who did we know that was good at fighting in deserts? Well, the name that popped up to mind was sweet little Ivan Hodak. The very same guy who had real good hoodoo with a few hundred thousand assorted Mongol motorcycle motherfuckers. But they were two weeks away at the very least. It had been only a couple of days since the attack, so nothing could happen for a minimum of twelve days. So, that meant that all these potential offensives, the Teal and Loon attack in the Caribbean, the Calgary push, and the Mexico del Norte strike could all happen at the same time. Two weeks from now. And fifteen days from now was the Fourth of July. They wouldn’t be that obvious, would they? There comes a point where the sneakiest thing you can do is to do the expected. Double reverse psychology. A one and a half gainer into a dry pool if it didn’t work.
So, let the assholes cheer and march and play crappy music. They were winning so much they had destroyed empire after empire. Russia, Spain, China, France, the USA, all gone like Nineveh and Tyre. Down to two now, and only one could survive, if any. And the odds were that none was the magic number.
We got the Confederacy Victorious issue put to bed, even though it caused heartburn in us Yankees, and called it a day. It was not hard to figure that there would not be ravenous crowds clamoring for this edition, so the Hilda and me called it a day, had a few drinks and shared a muggle, and went to bed, in the hopes of a better world when we woke.
>>>>>>>>
The news Saturday was that the Persians finally admitted their control of Karachi when the broadcast the news that they had leased part of the port to the INN for a refueling base. It probably had been the case for months, but they were feeling secure enough to admit the obvious. That meant that even if and when the Suez Canal was reopened, the Kriegsmarine was going no place fast. The Reich might own the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean, but the other seas were INN territory, and liable to remain so.
The alliance between the Reich and the Confederacy set off such an orgy of bombastic self-congratulation that there was almost nothing else on the airwaves for more than a week. Even Radio Home and Crazy Radio carried little else. It was so all-pervasive, that I began to smell a rat, and when VEUAC joined in, my suspicions just deepened. On paper, it looked very bad for us, Pacifica, Australia, and South Africa were the only Caucasian nations outside the Reich, and how long could we survive? The Krauts called us every name in the books, made up a few, and studiously ignored Nippon, as if they would vanish if snubbed like presumptive peasants. I fooled around with the Almanac, and out of the two billion people on earth, about a quarter were arguably white, and under the control of the Reich. The Japanese and Chinese and Indians were about half of the rest, and the Spanish were about a hundred and fifty million, counting the Portuguese and Brazilians. The EUAC controlled about ten percent of that, probably about the same as Pacifica, although we hadn’t been conducting any censuses recently. If ever.
All the Anglo-Germans had to do was consolidate and wait for us to fall into their clutches, then we could cleanse the world of all the lesser races, and live happily ever after. In fucking heaven. Once again, the Endless War was over. I lost any interest in counting how many times it had been declared over in the last few years. Just to amuse myself, hoping it was what Arbuthnot expected me to do, I started exploring ways the last few remaining free people could if not win, at least teach Fat Hermann a little respect. It all came back to the navy, and that came down to the hydrodomes. It seemed likely that the Cormoran had not been able to get off a detailed report, and I
had been particularly vague in my reporting. What little I could find out about the Hale rockets said that the US Army used them in the Mexican–American War back in 1846, or so, almost a hundred years ago, and back then they flew a little less than a mile. That was black powder. We had better explosives now, more stable and controllable. It said that the British Army experimented with Hale rockets during the Crimean War, and officially adopted them twenty years after we did. I couldn’t see that they had been used in the First Civil War, but I didn’t have the resources for real research. I did find out that they could weigh up to sixty pounds and were “noted for their noise and glare on ignition.” So, that meant they were good targets for artillery counterfire. And cannon shot farther and hit harder, but were a lot more expensive and harder to transport.
There seemed to be no reason that bigger ships and planes than the Loons and Teals could not carry a whole lot of the little bastards, and just smoke the shit out of anything they were aimed at. The warheads on our rockets were more than three times the size of the whole original Hale rockets. I wondered how many a Trimotor could carry. Four or six anyway. Well, fuck, write it down. If you had to you could pretend it was pulp fiction. All of which might be jerking off to the bible, but like other masturbation, at least kept the simple-minded busy.
>>>>>>>>
A couple of days went by, with nothing more exciting than Justine’s debut as a radio announcer. She did a good job, there was an edge of pain in her voice that had not been there before, no matter all the other shit she had lived through. There was still ostensibly little to report, the Euacs announced the reopening of the ports of San Diego and Los Angeles, and that English names were being translated to Spanish, Long Beach was now Playa Larga. Big deal, but if it makes you happy… Lupo’s Spanish station was up and running, becoming more important every day.
Later that day, a messenger brought a note, that just was a telephone number, which seemed a little odd. Always a glutton for punishment, I dialed, and a rough male voice answered, “Marcus.” Giving away nothing here.
“Miles Kapusta. You wanted me to call?”
“Correct. You don’t know me, but I am your new contact. If you have to ask to who, you are too dumb to know, and I know you are not that.”
“Sometimes I wonder. But, I understand. Any messages now?”
“Not at the moment. You might want to blue sky another paper on the course of the war, as you see it.” A real growl of a voice, but polite enough. I decided I did not want to get this Marcus asshole pissed off.
“Actually, I did that a day or so ago.”
“A messenger is on the way. He will mention my name.”
“Which is probably not your name, but a rose by any other name…”
“Is as sweet. On the way.” An educated growly bear. Fine. I gathered up my rantings, sorted out one of the carbons, and slipped it in an envelope. Back to the salt mines. I was about ready to trot out a few silly season stories, the perennial frying eggs on the sidewalk, but Vancouver never gets that hot. What’s an honest newspaper hack to do? Out of boredom, I called up Crazy House, with no other intention than to give Frankie some shit, but she wasn’t there, and the desk girl wouldn’t tell me where she was. “May I speak to Peaches? This is Miles Kapusta.”
“I’m afraid that Miss Donovan will be tied up in meetings for the rest of the day. I will make a note, and see that she gets it just as soon as possible.” Really? I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the game was afoot. I could have been pissed that I was out of the circuit, but then again, Marcus… Pay attention, fat boy.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Another slow couple days went by, nothing to report except the Texans and the Mississippi Thrust linked up in some damn place called Texarkana, more rejoicing from the ungodly. The big fort up in Wisconsin. Fort McCoy, had been turned into a major Anglo-German bass, Festung Kitchener, which was a dandy little bilingual insult. Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, yadda yadda, had been the inventor of the scorched earth policy against the Boers and had established concentration camps during the Second Boer War. He also played a central role in screwing up the beginning of the First World War, and turning it into the Endless War we all knew and loved. In 1914 Kitchener became Secretary of State for War. He foresaw a long war, and promptly failed to plan for enough artillery shells to fight that same long war. He made up for that minor oversight by using his own noble likeness to organize the largest volunteer army ever seen, sending a few odd million idiots off to die in the mud and blood and the gas.
It was not hard to see this as a not very subtle warning to any locals up there that they could expect to be volunteered into the victorious Reich forces, and if not, they would be free to enjoy concentration camps and scorched earth, as much as they could, until they got the message and played ball. Empires do need their cannon fodder. And as they are immune to irony, the fact that Lord Kitchener had been killed by a German U-boat was incidental to the story.
At least it gave me a story in a slow news week. The sense of impending action would not leave me, every day stretched my nerves tighter than a fiddle string, so it was almost a relief when Marcus called late that night. “Kapusta, we need you to provide three reporters for road trips. I can’t say more, but that will be three separate trips, each for a week, no more. They need to be at Bellingham Air Base tomorrow at noon, packed and ready to travel. They will need cameras and lots of film. They will be allowed to post dispatches, but otherwise they will remain incommunicado for the duration, so pick your best people.”
“I’ll take one of the spots. And I suppose George Olsen, he did a good job at Long Beach.”
“I don’t need to know that. Just be there.”
“On it.” I couldn’t claim the mantle of prophecy, but the shit was beginning to cascade. It had to, any fool could see that. Let’s just hope that the Germans were so busy basking in their own glory that they could ignore the obvious for another week.
I called for attention, said, “The shot is about to hit the fan. Vanc Intelligence needs three volunteers to go haring off to cover three stories for a week. I will go, I volunteered young Olsen here for another, we need one more stooge.”
“Where are we going?” Hilda asked, with a little more interest than I expected, or wanted.
“I don’t know, but I suspect one to Calgary for that attack, one to El Paso for a ground attack into Texas, and one naval attack in the Caribbean someplace. I have no control who goes where. All guesswork at this point.”
“I’m your man. It can’t be much worse that that little jaunt up to Eagle Mountain.”
“Hilda?”
“Did I stutter? Count me in. I can write and I can shoot, and I want to go. Any questions?”
“On your ass be it. Tomorrow at noon in Bellingham. We will take the Buick. Tommy, you’re in charge. Dip into petty cash and get another sedan. Don’t bust the bank.” He just mocked a salute. Good man.
>>>>>>>>
We hashed it over on the way down to Bellingham, and decided that I would take the Calgary story, that being the most dangerous, the best place for some poor SOB with infantry experience, young George would go with the Caribbean assault, and Hilda would go with the land forces across the southwest. All guesswork at this point, we could be going to Persia for all we knew, but that was as good as we could figure with the shreds of information we had. We just had to hope that the brass hats wanted to keep us alive long enough to report. Another decision based on inadequate information.
We guessed right, but we needn’t have bothered worrying about it. The major, Walker, who met us at the base, was taken back with Hilda’s presence, but was capable of changing plans in mid-stream. “The Euac ground attack is going to be rough, no place for a woman. That force will be augmented with a division from the Baikal Republic. On motorcycles. You,” He pointed at Olsen, “that’s your billet. Ever ride a motorcycle?”
“Once. On a dare. I was drunk.”
“You lived. That makes you an expert. Mam, you will go with General Earhart’s forces, here’s your billet and travel documents. Fill in your name, next of kin, all that. Same with you…”
“Olsen. George.”
“Olsen. That hanger over there. A staff car will take you, mam, to your staging area. And as for you, Mister Kapusta, you come with me, we are going to the same place.”
>>>>>>>>>>
Kiss the Hilda and follow orders. They ran us across the field in another staff car, the base was growing as you watched, and that was not the biggest surprise. “What?”
“Oh, the plane?” It was obviously a hack job on your basic Trimotor, the builders had put two Tri fuselages side by side, attached a fat bridging wing below the joined one on top, and added engines until they got bored. “That’s just called ‘The Five,’ or the LRT. Long range transport. There are plans to mount ordnance on the lower wing segment. But this will do for now. The need for a long-range transport plane is obvious.”
“Let me take a wild-ass guess. Zepp buster?”
“I can’t officially comment on that.” Which would have been impressive, if he hadn’t winked. And I’m not a blind horse.
They told me it was four hours to Calgary, to take a good piss, this model didn’t have a bathroom, just a funnel and a hose for emergencies. Roughing it. There was only one cockpit, on the left, that side had the passenger seats, the right side was cargo. Rough and ready, the seats might have been ripped out of a train car, but fuck it. Go.
Flying over the Rockies was educational. There was no way any damn army was going to get through those mountains against any defense at all. The Canadian Pacific had to loop way north of the border to follow the passes, there was obviously only one way through there.
Calgary was backed up to the mountains, in the plains, looked like a lot of lakes, but it was hard to see much, details were obscured with smoke and dust. Dry on this side of the mountains, and there was a whole lot of excavation and road building going on.
Brown Bear Blues Page 16