Brown Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  We were so high, I had to keep nipping at the oxygen to keep my wits about me. We were even so high, that we saw a flight of Gotha bombers, a dozen or more, well below us, making a run at Kindersley. Now there was a shot worth taking. I burned up a roll of film through the longest lens, I had to do quite a juggling act to keep Jones happy, swapping out film holders, and still getting my shots. It was easy to see the smoke and dust and fire from the bombs so far below us. I had hopes of a few good photos for the Express. Certainly, damn few newspaper guys had an opportunity like this.

  The shape of the battle was clear. They had punched into our territory, had established the Zeppelin base without any opposition except farmers with deer rifles, and now they were strung out on a limb, with a real army coming to overwhelm them. They were trapped, but looked to be too bull-headed to pull back to a defensible line. If there was such a thing out on the goddamned pool table of a Province.

  Of course, it wasn’t their fucking country, was it? They could talk all that Aryan bullshit they wanted, but the locals included a lot of Ukrainians and Finns and such square-heads, who were genetically white enough for anybody, but were also genetically incapable of trusting Germans. Somebody had told me the Klan had been strong up here, for some reason, so maybe the Reich had some support. Fuck them.

  I was running out of plates, Jones swung south to get a look at the spread of the battle, coming back about where I had been with the nurses yesterday. Another messy battle, hard to see through all the smoke and crap. “Okay, Miles, let’s head to the barn, we have earned a few drinks tonight.”

  “Suits me.” I snapped another roll of film on the way back, not really hoping for much, but you might as well give it your best shot. Yep. A milk run. Thank god for small favors.

  >>>>>>>>

  I typed up some sort of a story, I couldn’t actually say too much, and Jones was not giving me any quotes, but fuck it. Do it, slap it in Walker’s mail box and find something else to do. I had half an idea, thinking about Collin’s Saint book, ran into what was left of Kindersley, looking for some books, or anything else to feather my nest with. I needed another blanket, at least, the days were very hot, almost a hundred, but the nights were damn chilly. Fucking deserts. This was all farm land, but it still was a desert. Better than Mongolia, and I didn’t have to suck down fermented mare’s milk to get a little buzz. Actually, it hadn’t been that bad, not if you needed a drink bad enough. Anything for a buzz.

  Kindersley was moderately beaten up, it had been bombed, but not seriously. There was nothing there to bomb, the Headquarters and troop encampments were all out of town. I asked a few people, found a junk store set into what had been the basement of a Feed and Grain Store. The owner was an old Babushka, I tried to butter her up a little with my bad Russian and worse Ukrainian, she grudgingly unbent enough to take my money for some more socks, a couple blankets, and a whole box of cheap novels. I did not let her know how much I wanted them, got them cheap, and bought a kerosene railroad lantern to read them by. A good swindle session. A good deal is when both people think they cheated the shit out of the other. And you can’t spoil porridge with too much butter.

  Then I went home to my rolling rack, and wallowed in ridiculous characters and transparent plot devices until I passed out with a Thorne Smith in my hands.

  >>>>>>>>>

  Frankie rousted me out too damn early; “It’s here, wake the fuck up, Miles!”

  “Whaaa?”

  “My radio station. Shake a leg!”

  “Does it get the news?”

  “Of fucking course it gets the news! It’s a radio station. Dumbass. Drop your cock and grab your socks!” She seemed a little excited, so I followed orders. It’s best that way, when confronted with crazy people. The radio station was built into a monstrous big cab-over Autocar moving van, with a trailer behind with the generator. It came with a three-man crew, Dutch the driver, Lou, who was female along the lines of Peaches, as cook and dogs-body, and Sylvia, the engineer. Sylvia, Syl, showed traces of beard after driving all night, but nits were not picked. There was one more vehicle, a caravan of some antique British marque, containing that big Samoan nurse, Rita, Gail, the driver, and Justine Lowell; all female to common limits of measurement. Justine still looked more like Frankenstein’s monster than the Back Bay Blue Blood she had been two years ago. She had lost that eye, was wearing the darkest smoked glasses they made, but on the good side, not to say “on the other hand,” the cast was off her arm, and she had enough hair to mostly hide most of the stitches. Her attitude was tentative, almost gentle, she spoke softly, had obviously been taken down a peg or too, but was fighting back, trying to cope with the new Justine. Good for her. She had sand, that had always been true, but now she had to use it or go under.

  I had to go inside, ohhh and aww at everything. It was very nice, looked like a team of Swiss watchmakers had gone nuts trying to fit a whole radio station with two broadcast desks and an engineering console into a thirty-foot box, but they had managed. There was a collapsible antenna on top and even a couple of bunks over the cab. And a rack of tommy guns at the side door. Not fucking around here, somebody said.

  >>>>>>>

  Then there was nothing to do but fire up the generator and give it a whirl. She had an assigned frequency, but no call letters. Time to improvise. They warmed up the big tubes, Frankie sat at the mike, opened her mouth and said, “Good afternoon Pacifica, this is Radio Station CPAX, Pacifica Mobile Radio, an associate of CKYZ, Crazy Radio in beautiful downtown Coquitlam, Vancouver. CPAX is broadcasting from an undisclosed location near Kindersley, Saskatchewan. Stay tuned for the latest bulletins from the Saskatoon Front. And now, a few words from Miles Kapusta, War Correspondent and Chief Editor of the Grizzly Bear Express newspaper.” She gestured me to sit at the other mike, I gave her the finger but sat, as ordered. “So Miles, how do you like being on the front lines?”

  I wanted to say, “Fuck you, Frankie, I been here before and it sucks moose cock,” but I was nice. “It’s always inspirational to see our boys and girls doing the right thing, fighting the good fight for all of us in Pacifica. The day before yesterday, I visited a Field Hospital, morale was great, even the wounded knew that their sacrifices were in not in vain. An inspirational experience. I would like to especially thank Head Nurse Ruth Kaminski, from Newport, Rhode Island, for her marvelous attitude and PFC Stanley Hopf from Calgary, who showed marked bravery after suffering serious injury in the attack.” I managed to not say “inspirational” again, and she let me go.

  “Thank you, Miles, for those inspirational words. This is just a trial broadcast, we will be back at the top of the hour, with a bulletin of world news headlines. And now, a recorded program of music featuring the CKYZ Studio Orchestra, featuring Dippermouth Armstrong on the cornet. Take it away, Dippermouth.”

  >>>>>>>>>

  I made my escape from the mike, we all sat in the tiny control room, listening to Crazy Radio, making notes, while Sylvia cued up big old slow acetate discs of the music. There seemed to be a good-sized war brewing up in the Persian Gulf and the East Coast of Africa, but all the reports were from Portuguese stations, in Goa and Mozambique. Persia State Radio English Service was reporting the first elections in the newly independent nation of Kurdistan, out along the new Silk Road Rail Line, and there were reports of battles with what was left of the Ottoman Empire in Syria and Jordan. A good place for them.

  The People’s Provisional Government of China, the PPGC, also announced nationwide elections, and had roughed in an outline of a governmental structure, whatever that might turn out to be in practice. They finished off the news bulletin with a report cribbed from my two-day-old report on the field hospital, and mention that the El Paso Offensive was picking up speed “against sporadic resistance.” It would be sporadic until the Germans got enough tanks unloaded and in action, but why spoil a good story? George Olsen got a byline, all to the good.

  Speaking of bylines, I supposed it was time I went out and di
d a little work of my own, just for the appearance of it, you understand. I had done the Infantry and the Air. There was no Navy up here, a few Loons on the Saskatchewan River were not going to do much one way or the other. So, that left the Armor. I had never messed with them much, outside of a very nasty month digging what was left of our troops out of burned tanks after Patton’s super-duper war-ending offensive in ’20 had bogged down in the mud of the Second Battle of Amiens, what the Froggies called the Fourth Battle of Picardy. It’s been more than ten years, and I hardly ever wake up screaming about it anymore. Be brave, fat boy, they are not going to take you for a ride. Not if you beat them about the head and shoulders repeatedly until they get the message.

  So, ask a few questions, and follow a few directions, get to the Armor Park, south of town. It was bigger than the town of Kindersley, probably had a bigger population, and oddly, almost all the men I saw were Negroes. It took a minute to realize what the deal was, but then I saw the sign on the Headquarters building. The HQ might have been a battered old farmhouse, but the sign was fresh and bright with new paint. It said, “Home of the 33rd The Ebony Warriors.” Oh. Play nice, white boy.

  General Remus’s 33rd Division, mostly Southern Negroes, had been in Jiu-quan, guarding the Wall, and training all these motleys that had been going through there. Now they had moved everybody over here and forgot to mention that little detail. I knew that Ruby Wilson’s 34th had led the Bellingham Offensive, she was probably on Portland or even San Francisco by now. The 35th, the Hispanic Division were probably down in San Diego or points east. I already knew that the 37th Mechanized, the Mongol motherfuckers were down there, they loved deserts. The German counter-offensive might not be as successful as I had supposed, with those bastards in the game.

  So, that meant that General Delany’s 36th Division, they were mostly exiled union men and Bonus Army types were probably back guarding the fort in Dalny, Sakhalin Island, and anyplace else that needed guarding. It made sense, Delany’s Micks were the most likely to get ideas about going into business for themselves, or haring off to rescue South Boston, or some damn fool place. It all makes sense, once you know the answers. Whoever was trying to run the Pacifica Army had their work cut out for them. There had probably never been such a motley horde assembled since the days of the Roman Legions.

  But, here and now, I needed to walk chalk, as the Southern boys said. The blacks were justifiably suspicious of all us whites, I had managed to appease them when I was at the Second Battle of Jiu-quan, but still, you had to watch your mouth. I parked the Chevy, explained my business to one of the spit-shined MPs at the door, showed my ID, and was allowed to enter. The desk sergeant took my name, showed me a bench, and let me cool my heels for a good while. He was polite, but not allowing me any urgency. Eventually, he relented a bit, and invited me to have a cup of coffee from the office urn behind the dividing waist-high wall. It smelled foully of chicory, I don’t love coffee anyway, but I thanked him and sucked it down like a good little boy.

  While I was trying to suppress a few grimaces, a group of officers came out of the back room, and made for the coffee. I backed up a step or two, paid little attention until the biggest of the lot, a captain, said, “Hey! Don’t I know you?” He snapped his fingers twice, and said “Sure! You’re that radio guy. I never forget a face.”

  “Right. Miles, Miles Kapusta. You were a sergeant at Jiu-quan. We nearly got killed all day that day.” It came to me. “Jack? Is that it? That’s right, Jack Johnson. You’ve come up in the world, Captain. It took a minute, sorry.”

  “Sure, no problem. But I won’t ever forget the white men who gave up his bed for me. Damn, Mr. Kapusta, I was one tired man that day. That was one rough day, that was.” His fellow officers heard that, made no comments, but you could see their attitude change, just in their stances. I was allowed now, not some stranger to be watched.

  “Agreed. We barely made it. What that Wellington guy said, ‘A close run thing.”

  “I know that’s right. So, can we help you? I know you didn’t come her for the coffee.”

  “I run a newspaper now, the Grizzly Bear Express. The government wants me out here reporting for a week or so. They won’t just come out and tell me so, but something big is up.”

  “I know that’s….” Johnson stopped himself, looked at his buddies, got some nods back, went on. “Let’s go sit down, have a little confab. I’m thinking this is one time we can lay our cards out on the table, see if we can help each other.”

  “Lead on, McDuff.” He turned towards me at that, but one of his buddies gave him a subtle dope-slap, and off we went. Not much for Shakespeare, I guess.

  They led the way to a back room, a rough and ready lounge, some of the couches were made of hay bales and a couple of the tables were big cable reels. We settled in, the major, as senior officer, magically produced a jug, he tipped it into our coffee mugs and we set to. I would rather have not had the drink, but politeness indicated I shut up and drink.

  “So. Boys, this white boy is jake. He let me rack out on his own bed in the middle of a battle, when I was dead on my feet. He’s alright in my book. Mr. Kapusta…”

  “Miles, please.”

  “…Miles, this is Major Anderson, and these other boys are McKinley, Booker, Nehemiah, and Willie. The Major is a Willie too, but we call him Major, you know.”

  “Keeps down the confusion.” I took my cue. “Here’s the deal, all I really know. The Government picked three of us to go out blind, my wife to the Caribbean with the Air Service, my boy George to go across the desert with the Spanish and Hodak’s Mongols…”

  “Man, them motherfuckers are rough as a rat’s ass, I tell you what…” One of them, maybe McKinley, spoke up, the others nodded agreement.

  “No doubt. They nearly killed Hodak at Eagle Mountain, and he is un-fucking-happy about that.” I joined in, then continued, “so they sent me up here. I’m supposed to talk to people and file reports to my paper, but they really won’t tell me shit. But, only an idiot would not know that the shit is about to hit the fan.”

  “You got that right. But better not say too much. General Remus, he done like people running their mouths. Major? What you think?” I noticed their language was more down home back here in the lounge area. There were a few other tables of drinkers, but they didn’t appear to be interested in us. Maybe they were just playing pinochle.

  Major Anderson thought for a good long minute, then said, “I think… I think that if they want us in the dark, we stay in the dark. They treated us pretty square, so far, these Canuckers. I don’t know if it’s just because they never had to deal with us black folks, or what, but so far, so good. I may know more than I want to talk to you-all about, but that’s as far as I want to go with that. Now, what I can say, is that if Jack vouches for you, then that’s good enough for me. He’s a good officer, and even if he wasn’t, he’s a good sergeant, and a good man. So, here’s what I can tell you. If you were here, tomorrow morning at 0400 hours, then you just might see something worth writing down in your newspaper. You hear me?”

  I knew the Brits used a twenty-four hour military time, no AM and PM for them. Four in the morning. “Loud and clear. I have two ideas. One, I need a pass of some kind to make your MPs happy, and the other is, that my buddy Frankie has just started a radio station, and it just might be that colored soldiers don’t get to have their story heard, and if you want, I could fix that.”

  “A radio show? Back in Vancouver?”

  “No, a mobile unit. Right here. Well, a few miles on the other side town. What time is it now?”

  The Major looked at his old-fashioned railroad watch. “Just gone three thirty. Getting on toward dinner. We are all supposed to turn in early tonight, but I didn’t say that.”

  “To nobody not under your command. Fine with me. Want to go for a ride?”

  “No, sir, Mister Miles, but thank you. Come on out to the front desk, and I will give you a pass for the Division.”

  “I h
ave an all areas pass, but I suspect one from you on your letterhead will be more effective.”

  Anderson winked. “You catch on quick. I kind of like you.”

  “For a white boy? I appreciate it. It is an honor. I saw you guys fight at both battles of Jiu-quan, and you are the best.”

  Jack Johnson blinked, said, “Both battles? You a bad motherfucker, you are.”

  “Just following orders. The Second Battle was a bitch.”

  “I know that’s right. See you in the morning, Mister Miles.”

  “It’s a date, Captain Johnson, it’s a date.”

  I didn’t dance the Grizzly Bear on the way back to my car, but I wanted too. Jackpot. That’s what you get for playing nice with strangers. I found Sidney, had him pack the Lincoln for travel, clued Frankie in on the deal, had a nice dinner, and fell the hell out.

  >>>>>>>>>

  I did manage to get a little shut eye, but only because I have been to this movie before. You learn to get what you can, whenever you can, sleep is a valuable commodity. Sunrise was at 5:30. We were rolling two hours before then. As expected, we had to sweet talk the MPs into letting us pass, they were obviously on edge. I hadn’t ever heard that the 33rd had launched a big offensive like this before, so a little flop sweat was inevitable. We stayed well back, didn’t try and find Anderson, not our job. The line of tanks and troop trucks were illuminated only with dim blue headlights, but they stretched far out of sight. We fell in behind a line of QM trucks, and a couple of Field Kitchens, right where we needed to be. Somebody was set up, giving out coffee and doughnuts. The Salvation Army, bless them. People like that almost make you want to believe in god.

  Finally, at the appointed hour, Zero Five Hundred Hours, the whistles blew, and the attack began. There was no preliminary artillery pounding, everything waited until the second hands hit the magic number. The artillery cut loose, a rolling barrage, the tanks started to roll, we all waited our turns. The sky was gray in the east, clear, no clouds, we were attacking into the dawn. Not the best idea, but it works if it’s your only choice.