Polar Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  She just nodded and ran. I followed her down the hall, looking for a trap door. Nothing. But there was one in the other bathroom, with a short ladder bolted to the wall. I dragged a trunk in, upended it, clambered up there, punched the trap open, then went back down for my rifle. I was so keyed up, the climb seemed easy.

  From the roof, and this was the tallest building on this side of the block, I could see fires, hear shooting on the north side of the city, I had an idea that was residential, Chinese, but there was little to see. A clutter of low tile roofs with occasional bursts of smoke and flames. I could see the hill we used for the range, but I could not see the bottom of it. There was a roil of men from the Cannery, looked like they were piling out and getting organized into ranks. HQ and the Train Station were clearly visible, a lot more activity there, trucks racing back and forth, lines of soldiers headed north. No drill then. I wished I had binoculars. Then I remembered what good targets they made, and stopped wishing. Futile anyway.

  Hurry up and wait. The old Army game.

  I didn’t have long to wait. I saw Peaches and Frances herding our people home, they were not running right up the middle of the road, but in two lines, hugging the buildings to either side. Good. Somebody knew something. I stuck my head down the hatch and bellowed, no answer.

  “Shit.” Once more down the ladder, thunder down the stairs, I saw Cookie coming out of the other bathroom, she was white as a sheet. Puking, no doubt. Celia met me and looked a question at me. “Back me up, our people are coming, I have to open the dock doors.”

  She asked no questions, but looked firm. I got the bar lifted, then got an inrush of sanity, lay on the floor, pushed the door open with my rifle muzzle. “Peaches!” I yelled.

  “Here!” They hotfooted it down the alley and up on the dock. All there, Lou was the last one in.

  “That was fast.”

  “Yeah, we heard the shooting and were headed back when Jeff came to get us.” Frances said that, she looked like a different person now, and not a happy one either. I knew that look from my mirror. A dough who had been through the wringer and was bracing for another trip. I noticed she had a touch of five o’clock shadow. Least of our problems.

  “Good. Take four or five people, Jeff, get up on the roof. Peaches, you take the second floor. Isis, you and Juan and Lou come with me, You too, Justine.”

  “Wha…” Justine was taken aback for once in her life.

  “Shut the hell up. We have a paper to get out. Isis, can you write Chinese fast enough to get copy to Lou?”

  “Mandarin. Yes. I can. If I can find a brush and ink.”

  I had seen some brushes in my desk. “Hired. Let’s go.” Outside, behind us, the firing peaked. I hoped it was our troops impacting the enemy, but take no chances. “Peaches, concentrate on the back. Hanson and a squad are due here ASAP. Don’t shoot them.”

  “Shoot them? I’ll fucking hug them.”

  “Go for it.”

  >>>>>>

  Lizzie had been keeping the radio log, Vladivostok had gotten off the dime, declared itself the Soviet Socialist Republic of Siberia, and been granted recognition by Germany, England, something called the Russian Republic, and Italy. World War Two was open for business. This is your new boss, just like your old boss. The new boss was somebody named Comrade Stalin. Steel. That sent a chill up my back. Damn, we were a long way from home. Even worse, home wasn’t home anymore.

  With Isis here, we could scan Chinese radio stations. There were quite a few, but we had to depend on her to tell us who was who and what was what. She wrote out the story of the fall of Hong Kong and the Establishment of the SSRS in Chinese and Russian, I proof read the Russian, looked good and we handed all that to Lou and Juan, they set to work instantly. Somebody tapped on the front door, I peeped out, it was Hanson and ten men. I let them in, he sent his men straight out to the roof, after a few words. I said, “Glad to see you. How bad is it?”

  “It’s pretty chaotic out there. We think the attackers are troops of a warlord of the Zhi-li clique, General Wu Pei-fu. They seem to have some British backing and officers. At least they have Brit khaki uniforms and Enfield rifles.”

  “I imagine those are a drug on the market right now.”

  “Not counting the ones the Germans captured. A mess.” Hanson noted.

  “Jesus. That’s a lot of firepower. What do we have?”

  “All our heavy stuff in Vlad is gone. But on the good side, we have re-directed the ships in transit to head here. With the Japanese in Shanghai, and keeping the sea lanes open, we have a fighting chance.”

  “You are trying to cheer me up?”

  “Not really. The Hoovers and Patton are in a bind, they have to rescue some victories to make up for the troops lost in the Atlantic. There is more unrest in the States. Things are getting dicey on the Home Front. Some troops are getting mutinous, guess where they are headed? ”

  I didn’t have to guess. “You have any numbers on how many were lost?”

  “No. And we will probably never know. Worst disaster in American history.”

  “The Civil War cost over six hundred thousand.”

  He just shrugged. “I know.”

  “My god. We are so fucked.” He didn’t reply, just stared into my eyes until I had to look away. “Fine. We have a paper to get out. We have names of the Commander of Hong Kong, the victor?”

  “Call HQ. Ray will know.” He slapped my shoulder. “When you get some papers printed, I will send a couple men to run them back to HQ.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Lou had the first proof sheet. I checked the Russian and English, handed it to Isis. She ran her finger down the columns, nodded. “Tell Lou five hundred. Damn, we need a web press.”

  “On the list,” Hanson agreed, “On the list.” So, while Juan ran the press, I worried. That got boring, so I hefted my butt back on the roof. The sun was thinking about setting, the firing was at a lull, then flared up, not far away either. Closer than the firing range hill, for sure. These soldiers had binoculars, but even without them, I could see a scatter of civilians running blindly towards the main drag behind us. The scatter became a flood, the firing increased markedly. I got worried. Put rifle in firing position. Wish I had a couple of sand bags. Wish in one hand, shit in the other. The civilians washed past us, followed by some white guys in khaki, not uniforms, just… I got it. They were turning and firing behind them every few steps, one or two fell thrashing to the ground.

  “Hey rube!” I called at the very top of my voice. One or two heads turned to look, I stood and waved, a dumb thing to do, but I didn’t have much choice. I thought the biggest guy had red hair, so I took another chance. “Red? Red Sovine?”

  “Who wants to know?” Yeah. That was him.

  “It’s me. Miles. Hurry! Back door down that alley!” I cascaded down the ladder, down the stairs, ran to the dock doors, and threw them open. Bad move, a couple of shots zipped past my ears. I flopped down, tried to find a target. Somebody across the street? Another alley that cut all the way through that block. I saw short figures with cartridge belts across khaki. A lighter shade than we used. They had white cloth with red writing wrapped around their heads. Thanks for the nice targets, assholes.

  They were obviously trying to cut Red and his boys off. We can’t let that happen, can we? More shots blasted out over my head, so loud they hurt. The four or five enemy in the alley flopped, we didn’t stop firing until the stripper clips were empty. When I was sure that they were down, I hoisted up my flab and dug for the end of the alley.

  Hooking my left eye around the corner, I saw Red and a couple dozen of his ‘bos running toward me, flat out. Behind them came a hundred or more Chinese guys with those rags around their heads. The wall was on my right, so I would have to expose myself to shoot. So I did. The fucking Chinese were waving Enfields and oversize swords in the air, chanting something. I supposed they were having so much fun they hadn’t bothered to reload. They had ten rounds, but often had to load one round
at a time, slower than our stripper clips. Fuck that. I gave them five of my best, then ducked back to reload. By then Hanson’s guys and even some of our girls were with me, kneeling in the road, taking their time, chopping down the Chinese. It was over in a few minutes, Red’s troops gasped past us, then immediately fell to the ground, reloaded and started shooting at the attackers. Even a dozen trained soldiers can put out an amazing amount of fire in a few seconds. We did.

  The warlord’s troops had enough, this was no fun anymore, they turned and bolted, leaving lots of bodies on the street. I became aware of faces popping out of second story windows all up and down the street. Red was heaving for breath next to me, still ready to fight.

  “You want to catch your breath and gather up all those rifles?”

  “Jesus. Fuck me. Sure. Give me a minute, will ya?”

  >>>>>>

  We didn’t get all the rifles, the locals from the street were stripping the bodies before we could even get our breath back. There were very few wounded among Red’s men, anybody who had fallen behind had been hacked to death with those big swords. I got back on the phone, called in a report, Ray said that thrust had been the high water mark, it was a mop up operation now. Could have fooled me from all the shooting in the middle distance, but fuck it. I needed a drink. Or twelve.

  And I needed to put out a paper. Holy fuck, I had forgotten deadline pressure. Get the team back on the job, ask Sovine and his boys to stay the night, interview a few of them, call Ray again to get the scoop on the warlord, even opium-crazed mercenary mass murders like it have their names spelled right, get Su-mi back on the job, scraping up enough rice to feed all these people, and while I was at it, try and figure out what this Comrade Stalin guy was up to.

  “Isis, you ever hear of this Stalin?”

  “Very bad news. He was a bank robber for the Bolsheviks.”

  “Do tell.’

  “I know him.” Amazingly, Cookie spoke up. “I know him, and I know you too, Miss so-called Isis, do I not?”

  Isis was shocked dumb, could only get out two words. “Aja Janova?”

  “Yes, Nadia. Nadia Yelena Akhtiorskaya. Me. We have changed since Tsaritsyn, have we not?”

  “You two…” I stammered. “Never mind. Cookie? Aja? Continue if you please.”

  “Nadia and I were very young, idealists, during the Revolution. My father was a Serb scholar, I grew up in Tsaritsyn. He was a language teacher there. Nadia…”

  “I don’t care about her. I need her. Stalin.”

  “He was there too. A brutal man, but a poet, an atheist divinity student. A meteorologist. He robbed banks, held up trains for the Bolsheviks. When the October Revolution broke, he was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities' Affairs. That means he fomented revolutions, then repressed or betrayed the uncontrollable revolutionaries to the Whites. Once the civil war broke out, the Reds against the Whites, Lenin formed a five-member Politburo, which included Stalin and Trotsky. In May 1918, Lenin sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn. Stalin challenged many of the decisions of Trotsky, ordered the killings of many counter-revolutionaries and former Tsarist officers in the Red Army. He was ruthless beyond the meaning of words. He burned villages to intimidate the peasantry and discourage bandit raids on food shipments. In May, the next year, in order to stem mass desertions he had deserters and renegades publicly executed as traitors. When the Germans defeated the Whites, put in their puppet government, we all fled to Siberia. Stalin had been exiled there time after time, each time he managed to return to the West. He had lots of contacts. After Lenin was poisoned, Trotsky fled to Mexico, Stalin was all they had. A perfect bandit king. And now he is an ally of Germany and Great Britain. And we have nowhere to run.”

  “The end of the line.” I found a glass, poured her a drink. “Now, Isis. You want to tell your story?”

  “I? I am nobody. My mother was minor aristocracy in Tsaritsyn. She committed an indiscretion with a very rich, very handsome Malay. He was riding the Trans-Siberia Railway, supposedly hunting tigers. He had hunted tigers in India, Java, Burma, and Bengal, and simply wanted to complete his collection of tiger skins. I was born, educated, proved to have an ability for languages, and a certain attractiveness toward men. I knew Stalin, he knew my mother, she had a fling with Bolshevism. She had many enthusiasms. She died, the estate was lost to the Germans, who had no use for a dark-skinned heir, I fled to Shanghai, then Vladivostok, and here I am, forced to live by my wits. Much like you, Aja.”

  Cookie spat on the floor, but said nothing. I asked her, “Can we trust this woman?”

  “As long as she has no place else to go. Yes.”

  “And you? Can I trust you?”

  “I too, have nowhere else to go. I will service you to the best of my ability. It is all I have.” She shrugged to move mountains. “There are worse men than you.”

  “You have no hopes? No dreams?”

  “I hoped…wanted to go to America. But it is no better than the rest of the world now, is it?”

  “I see. In that case, we better win this fucking war, shouldn’t we?”

  “Or die trying. Agreed.” Isis nodded to that.

  “Okay, back to work. We have a paper to print.”

  >>>>>>>>

  Just as we were getting back to work, the guards on the roof called out, “Halt, who goes there?”

  The unmistakable voice of Ruby Wilson graveled back, “Tell Miles we brought him a present. Open the fuck up before we drink it all ourselves!”

  “Hell’s fucking bells, Ruby, why don’t you just knock?”

  She was with less than a hundred of her women, all in field gear, all of that same blue gray material. They were armed, dangerous, and looked like they had just seen the elephant and spit in his eye. Some were bloody, all were dirty and smoked up, and they were followed by a long line of coolies in straw hats bearing chests and boxes on bamboo poles. “Yeah, well, maybe we are a bit fired up. We just kicked some serious ass on these warlord assholes, we captured their supply barge, and we thought we would share some of the goodies with you. You are a jake guy, even if you are a dick wearer.”

  “Thanks, I guess, What ya got?”

  “We got booze, food, we got lots of ammo, some gold, lots of silk. That asshole had a barge decked out like a fucking palace, we snuck up on his ass and ripped it all the hell off. You can have some of the booze. Oh, and we got a couple of tugs. We called in, and the General said to tell you to tell that Eppi guy to come get them. We left a dozen sisters to guard the boats. So? What the fuck?”

  “Fucking welcome indeed. You want to come in? Take a break?”

  “Naw, we got to go home and celebrate. No men allowed.”

  “Going to let your hair down?”

  “You fucking know it. We showed them, we showed the General and we showed that fucking Sovine. We can do a lot more than run fucking sewing machines.”

  “Never doubted it.” She waved to some of the coolies, they dropped their loads at our door, then the whole mob of them marched off home, in high glee. “Red, let’s get these inside, sort them out, have a few belts. You want to stay the night?”

  “Naw, we best get back to the Cannery. We got to tell the women that their men are gone. And we have to call that asshole Delany, let him know how many men we got left.”

  “What’s he got to know for?”

  “He’s the fucking colonel of the Irregulars. Big chief honcho in charge.”

  “Who knew? Okay. Do what you got to do. Pile up your stuff, I have a flivver to run it back to the Cannery. You guys are whipped.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. I’m getting too old for this doughboy bullshit.” No sooner had he left when Ken Inahara showed up with a guard of soldiers, showing how he rated. I could read between the lines that weren’t there as good as anybody; Hodges needed this guy, needed him in good shape. He brought me a thick stack of official NKH Press releases concerning their conquests, the Fall of Hong Kong, similar stories. “And here is my private phone numb
er.” He handed me an index card with a few lines on it.

  “Private?” I asked, meaningfully.

  He understood. “It does go through the HQ switchboard. I am waiting for the line to the Salvage Dock, so would you pass a message?”

  “Of course. I have to go there first thing in the morning anyway.”

  “The Imperial Navy has decided to equip your Commander Epstein with an old but serviceable salvage ship, a few sets of diving dresses, similar equipment.”

  “I’m sure he will be grateful.” More wheels cranking away.

  “Three days. He needs to provide a berth, clear a safe path through the mine fields…”

  “I understand. I will have him call you, ASAP.”

  “I can ask for no more. Good evening.” Yeah. So far.

  >>>>>>

  We sent the newly printed papers off with a couple of Hanson’s men, investigated our windfall in moderation, and retired. Cookie was different, somehow, now that I knew who she was. Or who she had been. She could not hide in anonymity any more. Least of my worries. I was too tired and selfish to worry about any of that crap. There was a war on, you know.

  The morning was all journalism. We had a battle to report. Hanson got them to send over an After Action Report, I cribbed from that with one hand while scanning through the Japanese stuff. A little of that, and I promoted Justine to Editorial Assistant, had her write that story. She lacked the blood instinct of a good reporter, but she was quite literate, could express herself clearly, and wrote legibly. All good things.

  Once we got that ready to print, Isis set to work translating it three ways, and feeding the copy to Lou and Juan. Then it was time to go visit Eppi. Cookie and I drove to the salvage dock. I took her, because I was getting an inkling that she was going to suddenly promote herself out of the whore corps. What she might become was another matter entirely. Scary, in fact. But, Isis being here had changed something, she could no longer be the anonymous Cookie, girl whore. I resolved to not call her Aja until she asked me to. Hard to figure women, especially for somebody like me. Not that there were all that many in my category, at least I hoped not. Never mind. Get my ashes hauled, as long as she would take the contract, after that? Improvise.