“I have seen them. They work. The first bombers might get through; the rest are like flies in spider webs. You have to see it to believe it.”
“Here’s hoping you know what you are taking about.”
“They worked fine a few days ago down in Medicine Hat. Those little Teal planes are worth their weight in gold, too.” As if to validate my words, a flight of Teals zoomed over, barely a hundred feet up. I thanked the Captain, made a note of his name, and pressed on. I came up on a line of ambulances waiting to go into action, I stopped to chat with the nurses, they are the best humans out in any battle. And the bravest, but they won’t ever admit it. Like my buddy Peaches.
The senior nurse was killing time, playing gin rummy for matches with a couple doctors and a driver or two. She was nowhere near as beat up as my old pal Peaches, was in fact rather petite, if you didn’t count the eyepatch. I asked her for her name, and how it was going. “Kaminski. Ruth. It’s okay, I guess. I seen worse. At least it ain’t raining.”
“You from Mass?” I knew from her dese and dose accent.
“Rhode Island. Newport, where the rich bitches come to play. I was sent off to Dalny for having a bad attitude, and I’m working my way back.”
“I was there too. Dalny?”
“Yeah, then up to Vlad. What a piss-hole that dump is. It’s been so beat up so many times it’s a wonder they have enough rubble to rebuild it with.” Just then somebody blew a whistle, horns sounded, and doughs cranked over the trucks and ambulances. “We’re in the shit now, Miles. Best head home.”
“Not my job to stay home. Mind if I tag along?”
“Fucked if I care. Your ass, Ace. Hop in.” She was in a big old FWD truck, a solid tired monster that carried the surgical tent and supplies. The front seat was easily big enough for Ruth and me and a driver, who was not a small guy either. You can’t be to horse one of those big bastards around. We were first in line, following an MP motorcycle that was leading us into trouble. We were well out of town here, bumped down over the roadside ditch, and set off across what had been fields, and now was just more army encampment. The shell fire over the horizon increased, the disassembly line of bombers overheard kept rolling like clockwork. I deduced that the shit was truly on.
We lumbered past an artillery park that was not in action, a regiment of tanks that were firing up to go someplace, and arrived at no place in particular, a crossroads with what was left of a church. It had a few shell holes and had been stitched with machinegun fire a few times, but was in fair shape. Ruth didn’t fool around one bit, she had the church cleared, latrines dug, a bunker sandbagged, and the Red Cross flag run up a stripped tree in jig time. Easy to see she had done this before.
I had time to shoot a few action shots, behind the scenes deal, get quick bios of a few people, before the first casualties were flivvered in. Nurses are number one in my book, but the ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers are next on the list. Going into combat armed with nothing but a fucking shoulder patch makes you a better man than me, every day of the week. I just stood back, shot a roll of film, and once the wounded were stabilized, I tried to talk to the ones that weren’t all doped up. “So, buddy, what’s going on up there?”
The guy was a kid, probably a farm kid like Sidney, his leg was all wrapped up, but his color looked good, his eyes were clear. “I messed up. Tried to hop a ditch, somebody left an old disc harrow in the weeds. I’s all right. Thirty stitches.”
“You infantry?”
“Yeah. From outside Calgary. Stanley Hopf. My dad runs a cattle ranch.”
“You feel strange fighting the Germans, Stan?”
“My dad was born here, he said the Hopfs left nothing in the old country worth going back for.”
“Yeah, my dad said the same. I was born in Odessa. Fuck them.”
“It riles me a bit when people cuss the Krautheads, but I can take it. I know who I am and where I came from.”
“Good man. You want me to get you something?”
“I’ll wait for the nurse. She’s cuter than you are, no offense.”
“None taken, Stan. You just relax, do what they tell you, and you will be back on your feet in no time.”
“I have my eye on one of the nurse’s aides. Pretty cute. She’s from Bellingham in Washington. I might come out of this with a wife, I play my cards right.”
“That’s the spirit.”
>>>>>>>>>
I talked to enough doughs to get an idea what was happening, the infantry was spreading out across the fields, the motorized was following the roads in that damn square layout. That made it easy for the enemy artillery to target them, artillery loves grid patterns. Right down the latitude and longitude. The Teals were working against tanks and trucks, but were less effective against artillery in bunkers. That meant the poor bloody Infantry had to winkle them out, one by one. The Anglo-Germans seemed to not have enough infantry up here, but that was just a guess. Maybe I could bend the ear of some officer and find out what was going on, but that was not really my job, was it? I missed my access to the teletype and worldwide radio contact. The Lincoln was pretty nice, but not luxurious enough to have an automotive radio. I had heard of them, but never actually seen one. They cost as much as some cars, and the war had pretty much put an end to all that rich kid bullshit anyway.
But that gave me an idea. They said I was incommunicado, only my dispatches were going out, but somebody someplace was listening to Crazy Radio. I just had to find them. Who did I know in the Signal Corps? Right in one, my girl Frankie. I hitched back to my car, finally figured out where our camp was and found herself. “Sure” she said. “we are not supposed to listen to civilian sources of news, but rules are made to be broken. Let’s go have a drink.”
She had an old Nash, so old it had to be cranked, but it ran well. We headed back into Kindersley, she found a pub near Town Hall where the local movers and shakers moved and shook. They had all the comforts of home, a bar, a radio, a grill, and a stack of newspapers. Great. And I had missed dinner too.
Frankie knew me well enough to leave me alone, just make sure my glass and plate were full, get me food I could eat with one hand and half an eye. The radio was mostly music, the news had everything going swimmingly for the Reich, there was mention of the Battle of Medicine Hat, but it was downplayed, emphasis was on the organization of the Confederacy and the incorporation of the province of Texas into the Reich. Our paper was a bit more open, they must have assumed that it would not be distributed much beyond Pacifica. We were East Pacifica now, or Vancouver Province, Northern California was Bay Province.
They had my stories from a few days ago about Medicine Hat, nothing after that. George Olsen was in Tucson, or had been two days ago, he reported little to no opposition. El Paso was still a battle zone; Santa Fe was solidly Euac now.
Hilda posted another transparent touristy piece from Cancún Mexico, admiring the beaches, which was all fine and dandy until you looked at a map, and discovered that Cancún was only a hundred miles from Cuba, and maybe eight hundred from Houston. Maracaibo, the main port of Colombia was about twelve hundred miles south and east, so an air force in Cancún, could cover a lot of ocean that other people might want to consider their own.
Cancún was also a little over two thousand miles from Los Angeles, that meant two or three hops for transport planes or Gunships. Very fucking interesting. If you could close the narrows from Cancún to Cuba, then the Kriegsmarine could be shut out of the Western Caribbean, which would be the only part that Euac had to control. I didn’t know if there were still any US Troops in Vera Cruz, but it seemed doubtful, as there was no more USA. Did the Confederates or the Reich have troops to spare? Not after Medicine Hat they didn’t. Then that mean that the assault from San Diego to El Paso was another feint, another way to keep the Anglo-Germans looking in every direction but the right one. And that meant?
Well, it meant that Cuba, perpetually restless Cuba, that had been under US occupation for forty years and more
was the key to that whole southern front. Havana was one of the great harbors of the world. And… Damn, I didn’t know enough, and needed more resources than this pub had. Time to say fuck it, and go write up my brave nurses of the wheat fields story.
>>>>>>>>
We had another air-raid that night, a big one, but the bombs all landed well north and west of us, north of the town, out in the prairie someplace. Frankie told me in the Mess Tent that the Signal Corps had dummied up a town out there with car headlights, and lanterns, to let the krauts waste bombs on unharvested wheat. She said; “We are letting them win themselves to death. They have won so often, all over the world, that they are set in their ways, and can’t imagine that anybody would have the nerve to fuck with them. But that stunt at Eagle Mountain pissed a lot of people off, there was no need for that shit, just being dicks. So, all bets are off. And the Signal Corps will have a lot to do about fucking them over.”
“And you are part of it. Any word on your radio trailer?”
“Soon. Real soon. I want you to talk, to be interviewed, too.”
“If I had any idea what was actually going on?”
“That would spoil your innocent boyish charm.” She laughed around a piece of bacon. “They have set up spoof radio stations that travel around and pretend to be different headquarters, broadcasting false movement orders in an easily broken code.”
“How do the real units not get fooled?”
“We don’t do any of our business on the air. All written orders or teletypes. They have ways of telling if the lines have been tapped, but it’s all over my head like the sky.”
“How tricky. Not being tricky is the biggest trick of all. And when you do your radio show, you will use false unit IDs and shit like that.”
“You got it. Fuck’m they can’t take a joke.” She winked.
“Sounds like fun. I have an idea that all this, us and the Euac push towards El Paso is all misdirection, the real deal is the Caribbean. You saw the Teal airplanes, but the Loon is the same deal on hydrofoils. In smooth water, it should go like fucking stink. I don’t know exactly how big a ship can go through the Panama, I mean the Colombian Canal, but I think I remember that Teddy Roosevelt made it to pass Dreadnaught Class ships. So, my bet is that a big chunk of the Japanese Navy is in the Caribbean, or is on its way. I have no idea about our Navy, but chances…”
“Are pretty fucking good that they are there too, or on the way. Even an old flatfooted doughboy like me knows that the Germans can’t get to us without going around South America.” No flies on Frankie.
I felt dumb. “Cape Horn. Right. Not a chance of that. So, we really don’t need a navy, do we? I missed that. We sure are not going to fight the Japs. They need us to cover their flank, and we need them for everything else in the world.”
“Right. They have us by the balls, but we don’t have a real fight with them. They have the brown people, we have the whites that are not total assholes, and Euac has a whole continent to play with.”
“A continent and a half. If they join up with Brazil and Old Spain, they would have a hell of an empire.” I can follow a train of thought, if you hit me over the head with it. “Have the Philippines joined Pacifica yet?”
“No, not that I have heard. Australia is closer to getting off the dime, but the Flips are hanging fire.”
I had a sudden attack of worry. “I wish I could contact Hilda. She is about to be neck deep in the shit. She’s not like us, she never played these games before.”
“How did she do up at Eagle Mountain?”
“She was a champ, a real trouper.”
“You sound like you actually like her?” One of those loaded questions.
“Frankie, I’ll tell you straight. She is growing on me.”
“Like a fungus? Take a bath in kerosene.” I almost got pissed, before she laughed in my face, let me know she was fucking with me. “See? You do care. Good for her. You two are not like me, you need people.”
“You don’t?”
“I might.” She considered my smart-ass remark seriously. “Once I get sure of who I am, then that would be the next step. That’s how that shit works, right?” She laughed again, stole my last piece of bacon as she stood. “Got to go, there’s a war on.”
>>>>>>>>>>
Then the question was what kind of trouble to get into today. I still didn’t have any idea how the battle was going, it seemed a little quieter today, but no farther away. As much as I hated the idea, it looked like I would have to try and promote an airplane ride, and see for myself. I could go check on Collins, see how he was doing, and talk to people. Maybe I could sneak a look at some aerial photos. I did have my Very Fucking Important Asshole Pass, my VFIAP, that and a line of shit might work.
Crank up the Chevy, head out to the Airfield. Walker was not around, so I made a pest of myself until somebody took mercy and told me where to find Collins. He was less than chipper, but awake and reading a Saint book. I had to do my “aw shucks” routine, neither of us could put a whole lot of sincerity into it. Shit happens, sometimes you live through it. That chunk of oak could have just as easily impaled me as him, we weren’t three feet apart. You can’t figure shit like that. Only idiots think that God cares about them personally. But he scribbled a few names for me to interview, he thought that Major Griswold might be susceptible to my boyish charms. “Worth a try, anyway. She’s a good egg, she likes to come on tough as nails, but you can talk to her. She won’t take any bullshit though. You have been warned.”
“Thanks, buddy. You take it easy, and you will be back in the air before you know it.”
“Something to live for? Better than the fucking dog-faces. At least you get to sleep in your own bed at nights.” And fuck you too, buddy. Dog-faces? A new one.
I beetled off, found Griswold, Major Irma, and she lived up to Collin’s advance billing. Nobody to fuck with. When in doubt, tell the truth, it makes life simple with the straight ones, and confuses the shit out of the crooked ones. She thought for a minute, no more, and went for it. “Of course, we are running photo operations, two seaters with wide format Thornton-Pickard stereoscopic cameras built in. You can fly, or you can operate the camera. They use large size film holders like a Speed Graphic. Two shots at once, we don’t have to take too many photos to cover even a large battlefield like this one. Game?”
“I best be the photog. I am barely a pilot, not much of a photographer either, but I have used a Speed Graphic before. I am hoping I can take a few snaps with my hand held 35mm?”
“Of course. We run missions at dawn, noon, and dusk, the different shadows reveal different aspects of the terrain. It is quite an art, one that is rapidly developing. The mapping applications are perhaps most important, but perhaps I bore you?”
“Not at all. This is fascinating. Was this your field of study before the war?”
She almost smiled at that. “I was a ten-year-old child before the war. I studied Fine Arts until five years ago, at Cornell. In New York?”
“I’m from New Haven. I understand.”
“My husband was the photographer of the family. We were assigned to the AEF, in France, doing photoreconnaissance for the Army, and… You can guess the rest.”
“Your husband was a casualty?”
“He is still alive. At least I hope he is. New York State was still free. He is in a Sanitarium in the Catskills.”
I didn’t want to know any more. What good would it do? A world of pain, more every day. “You have my sympathy. We have all lost so much.”
“Indeed.” She shut that line of conversation down. Slam. “I will have an orderly take you to the Pilot’s Locker Room. You know the drill. Your pilot will be Absalom Jones. He prefers to be called simply Jones. A good man. You will be in good hands. We have not lost a crew for weeks. Three weeks.” She didn’t offer me good luck, and I didn’t ask for any. Serious shit requires skill, not luck.
Jones was taciturn, but competent. “This should be a milk run, we will hea
d west, gain maximum altitude and come back over target. I’ll tell you when to shoot, you just keep the film changed. There is an oxygen bottle, but it’s only good for a half hour, so use it sparingly. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. You’re the boss.” And don’t you forget it, unsaid. This was a lot more professional than the few runs I had made back in China, Jones had a routine, all I had to do was follow it, and this intercom was electric, a lot better than the pneumatic ones I had used over there. We were in one of the same old Jap-built Curtiss copies we had used before, this one was a lot more modified, the engine seemed a lot stronger, for one thing. A milk run.
We flew west for quite a while, back, I supposed, into Alberta, gaining altitude all the way, then back, still climbing. The land was dead flat, sprinkled with lakes, perhaps ten percent of the territory was water. There was quite a bit of green even this late in the summer, everything possible cut up into fields for different crops, I supposed. They looked different, but I’m a city boy. To the north, the trees got scrubbier, and more bare rock poked through the green and the yellow. Glaciers had scraped this land down to the bone.
As we came back east, I could see Kindersley was the spearhead of a very broad front, all swept back from that little town and Route 7. Trenches and gun emplacements were clearly distinguishable, at least on our side. Looked like slow and steady winning the race. We were high enough that I could see the hundred miles or so to Saskatoon, even though the air was crappy, like it always is over battles. Messy places, battles. I could make out the Airfield north and east of town, the three-hundred-foot shapes of the zepps clearly discernable through the glasses I had remembered to bring. I tried a few long shots with my Leica, but it was dubious I could get anything worthwhile.
Below me, I could easily see that the Anglo-Germans were coming out along the Trans-Canada Railroad, spreading out from there, tanks and trucks raising long punctuation marks of dust as they spread out across the fields, trying to stop us, but attacking. Best defense and all that happy horseshit. They didn’t seem to have a whole lot of heavy artillery, but neither did we. Call it a wash. They didn’t seem to have many, if any armored trains, I could see flatcars loaded with tanks and trucks, boxcars probably full of infantry, but nothing big. I could guess all that crap was coming here from Europe as fast as possible, but it wasn’t here yet.
Brown Bear Blues Page 20