Polar Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  Shanghai was still unsettled, NKH announced that a column was being sent towards Nanking on a “punitive mission.” That usually meant rape and atrocity, but none of my business. Chaing was going to have to pick sides PDQ, one way or the other.

  No sooner had I started scanning the copy for the next edition, when a convoy of staff cars pulled up outside. I didn’t even have time to brush the crumbs off my front when Hanson, Ray, and General Hodges strode in.

  I tried to salute, but Hanson snapped, “At ease,” and Hodges came up to me and shook my hand. “I think you can wear your civilian hat for the foreseeable future, Miles. Do you understand what I require?”

  “Best spell it out, General.”

  “I am pleased at what you have accomplished, both at the Machine Shop and here. They say that an army marches on its stomach, but its nerves are made of paper. I need you to print that paper. I need forms, I need ration books, I need passports, I need more printed matter than I can imagine at the moment.”

  “Maps?”

  “Very good, Miles, very good. Can do?”

  “I do not know. I need a lithographer, a photographer, an etching plant, a special press for the oversize maps… But a stone press is not complicated. I could have one made in a few hours at the Machine Shop, I suppose.”

  “I can’t use suppose.” He said, with that famous twinkle.

  “I understand. I will do my best. Money. Mostly I need money.”

  “How much money.”

  “I don’t know. Thousands. Give me one day, I will figure the number of men I need, and get right back to you.”

  “One day. Excellent.” He unbent enough to slap my shoulder, winked and was gone. Hanson stayed behind.

  “Oh, cripes.” What have I gotten myself into now? Any task has parts. Break them down. Make lists. Start at the beginnings. Hanson was looking at me like a puppy dog. “Yes?”

  “I work for you. Orders?”

  “The Engineers are supposed to have some sandbags for us. If they do, round up some coolies, fortify the outside walls, set up an OP on the roof, and see what you can do about a bomb shelter. See Justine for ready cash. If not, improvise. Hodges does not look like he wants to dawdle.”

  “Correct. Yes, sir.”

  “I’m in civvies, but no matter. Get it done, Hanson, get it done.” As he turned, I remembered, “I need a window, some kind of a hole in the wall so we can divvy out the papers to the newsboys, collect our money without either having the front door or the loading dock out back jammed with kids.”

  “Sandbags, bomb shelter, window for kids. Got it.” And he was gone. Peaches, bless her heart, came back with a couple four coolies toting a large slab of slate, it might have been the base of a pool table, but it was flat and black and would make a blackboard. It took most of the staff and a few mashed fingers, Jeff got pinched pretty good, but we got the bastard leaned up against the wall near the radio corner. We had some chalk in the office for some reason, so we were in the bulletin business, so to speak.

  Isis, who seemed to have taken over the radio corner, seized the chalk, and started writing.

  SALVAGE ON CRUISER TAKASAGO UNDERWAY.

  JAPANESE PUNITIVE FORCE REPORTED NEAR WU-XI

  PANAMA CANAL REPORTED BLOCKED ON ATLANTIC SIDE BY WRECKS.

  PORT OF NEW YORK BLOCKADED BY U-BOATS

  GOERING REOFFERS PEACE TEATY TO PRESIDENT HOOVER

  CHIEF OF STAFF PATTON; “NUTS TO THAT!”

  GREATER ASIA CO-PROPERITY SPHERE DECLARED; HONG KONG, SHANGHAI, BURMA, VIETNAM, KYMER REPUBLIC, KINGDOM OF THAILAND, KINGDOM OF MALYSIA, INDONESIAN CONFEDERATION, CHOSEN-CHINA. TREATY SIGNED IN TOKYO.

  Well, that seemed like quite a lot, didn’t it. I looked over the printing shop inventory, tried to think of something useful to do. “Isis? I need a flyer, in three languages. Help wanted. I’ll give you a list of positions we need. Put our address, and phone number at the top, you know what to do.”

  “Okay, Miles.” She looked like she expected more from me, I wondered if she know Cookie was kicking the gong around, and maybe she thought I was going to need a new girlfriend. Best not get involved in that. A ready-made triangle to get stuck in? Not on my watch. No lack of whores in China.

  I scribbled a list, handed it over. “I don’t know what these words mean.” She complained.

  “Ask Juan and Lou. They should know.” That led to a loud huddle, with lots of scratching of characters on the desks, and the palms of their hands. Sometimes I think Chinese is even too hard for the Chinese to handle.

  “Lou says, he can do. Find people. For money. Wants to be the boss.”

  “Deal. Tell him, if he can do this, he can write his own ticket. We have a whole Army for a customer.” That took a while to sink in, then Lou and Juan started squabbling even faster. I asked Isis, “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem. He says there is a lith-o-graph-ee plant in Port Arthur. For the Russian Navy. Was that right? Lithography?”

  “Exactly right. How big was this plant?”

  “He says fifty men. Made charts for Russian Navy.” Dumbass. I should have known. I had seen the charts, they were clearly marked, “Printed in Port Arthur.”

  I looked around, no Hanson. Screw it. I picked up the phone. “Ray? Miles? I have a lead on some equipment we need to print maps. I guess. I need a squad of men, ASAP. Thanks.” I told Isis, “Tell Lou we need a map. Thanks. He just earned a big bonus.” I handed her the inventory sheets, said, “Translate this to him, as best you can. We are in the printing business.”

  “What are we doing now?”

  “You just hold on to your hat. Life is going to get real interesting, real fast. You might need goggles.”

  >>>>>>>>

  The squad arrived, three real trucks, Dodge Brothers, not DATs, ten men in each, armed with Thompsons, not just Springfields. Serious hint from Hodges. Ray himself was in charge, with the ubiquitous Sergeant Lupo in the second truck. I loaded up my fat ass, collared Lou, Isis and Jeff, off we went. I had the map, but obviously, Hodges wanted this done yesterday. We had to fight traffic until we got past the Ferry Landing, trucks and tanks roaring full tilt toward the Railroad Yards. The coast road continued past the landing, over a hump of hills and we got our first good look at fabled Port Arthur. A rusted spread of smashed iron that extended from the hills to well out into the bay. A much nicer port than either of the ones we had opened, but not one that was going to be useful anytime soon. There was the whole turret from a battleship of some sort, tossed like a toy into the middle of the street we had to go down. Oh. Crap. We went around.

  There were people here, Chinese, living in patched up hovels, here and there. “Isis. What do these people live on?”

  She asked Lou, replied, “They dig out scrap copper and brass and sell it to the Japanese. From the fishing port. Very hard work, very poor people.”

  “Yeah. No doubt.” Even from here, we could see that the beach and the bay waters were still fouled with oil and other iridescent substances. More than ten years after the Russians scuttled their ships and left, this place was still unfit for human habitation. Non-Chinese human, at least. Those fuckers could live anywhere. I had heard a joke about two Chinese guys marooned on a desert island, when they were rescued ten years later, they had both become millionaires by trading their hats to each other.

  Like that. We picked our way towards the bay, past buildings collapsed into the streets, open pits that had been basements, and over drifts of bricks and other unburnable rubble. It looked like we were the first trucks to drive these roads in a very long time. You could see where telegraph lines had been pulled down for the copper, holes dug into the streets for the plumbing, I suppose. A large anchor in front of what had been an Admiralty office building was being industriously sawed at by a dozen ragged men. They looked up long enough to classify us as not being a threat, went back to work.

  Eventually, we arrived at the shore road, turned right, and stopped a block or so down at a collapsed singl
e story brick and block building. Lou indicated that this was our target, we all piled out to investigate. After Lupo posted guards and pickets, of course.

  Something big had torn a crater the size of a city bus in the street in front of the building, but the back part of the roof was still more or less up. So go look. The front door was a pile of rubble with roofing tin crumpled over it. We walked around the left side, no door, but the back of the building had all we needed. “Ray, we are in business. Get a crew here as soon as you can.” I patted one of the large slabs of fine limestone stacked up against the rear wall.

  “I don’t get it. What makes you so happy? Rocks?”

  “Exactly. Lithographic stone. Solnhofen Limestone. From Germany. The only source in the world. There is a little from Kentucky, but it’s not as good. I can make the presses, make the gravers, but the stone is essential.”

  “And here it is.”

  “As you say.”

  “Fragile?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Ray nodded, called over his sergeant. “Lupo, you are in charge. Secure the area, set up a perimeter, bivouac. All the usual. I will take one truck back and bring back a company.” He looked over the stack of stones. “Twenty truckloads?”

  “At least,” I agreed. There was a loading dock nearby. “I’ll get inside and see what is salvageable. We will need a building, of course.”

  “Of course. Right back.” Which was a dubious assertion, but stet. We pried the big rolling door open, and crawled inside. Right. Presses, lots of paper and ink, hand tools. No much to it, given skilled engravers. Lou was all over the room, touching this, weighing tools in his hand, seeing if the rollers on the presses were frozen. It all looked okay. His shoulders were back, he was standing taller.

  The offices had been in front, they had been smashed, but the shop was mostly there, thickly covered in cement dust, but even the little gravers were in their racks at the work tables. No mystery, there was nothing to steal here. Little brass collars around the gravers. I made an inventory, a few guesses as to the square footage we would need, similar pie in the sky. I had that sorted out when Ray roared back with ten more Dodges and fifty men. He brought me a couple envelopes full of different colored tags, red, green and yellow. “The stuff you want at the Bulletin Office gets one color, green, say, the new shop next door gets yellow, and the lithography shop gets red. We want this done. Now.”

  “I got it. Stand back. Leave the stones until you get us a new building. I’ll tag the yellow and green. Green first.” I waved Isis over, gave her the plan and a stack of the red tags. “Tell Lou to red tag the stuff he wants for his shop. I’ll go back and tell them to clear space for the green stuff. The yellow will have to wait on the cement to dry. Got it?”

  “Is there some kind of hurry?” She asked.

  “Do the words, ‘there is a war on’ not convey meaning to you?”

  “You mean now?” She fixed my eyes. “Right now?”

  “Right fucking now.”

  “No wonder Aja has been hitting the pipe,” she said. I just nodded. Get to work.

  >>>>>>>>

  There were a few job cases, Russian of course, and a couple more letterpresses. A very nice composing stone. All green tags. I suspected that the rotary presses and the Linotype were going to be all English, so the old Bulletin office was going to be the three language Job Shop, the new room would be the newspaper, English only, and the Litho Shop would be Lou’s baby. I knew all he needed was the copy, he could run the jobs no matter what language they were in. Fine. A plan.

  Not much here was going to get the yellow tags, but we could sort that out later. If I know the Army, they would already have everything we needed, down to paper clips and toilet paper. Not very inventive people, but give them a job, and stand back. So that made me capo de tutti capos, as the ginzos have it. Needed more interpreters.

  Which reminded me that the radio room would have to move to the Rotary Shop. Fuck. I needed more people. Call Hodges. His problem. The green tags were all affixed, the first trucks backing up to the loading dock. “Ray, I will go back with the first load and start moving shit around. I hope the floor will take it, but we will burn that bridge when we get to it.” He nodded, I beckoned to Isis. “Coming or going to stay with Lou?”

  “I better get back to the radio. Lou is a smart guy. He will work it out.”

  “Let’s roll.” Lupo drove us, we arrived in the midst of a three alarm cluster fuck. The radio was telling us that the combined British and German fleets were landing troops in Karachi, Bombay, Goa, Chochin, and Colombo to “restore order.” Don’t you just bet. A glance at the map told me that we could expect the Battle of the Bay of Bengal as soon as the Imperial Navy could get there.

  As if that was not enough, Australia had declared independence from perfidious Albion, and applied for membership in the Greater Southeast Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, effective immediately. That would have left the Philippines hanging, but the President of the Senate, one Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina, declared himself Governor of the Territory of the Philippines, and instantly petitioned the US Congress for admission as the Forty-ninth state. Ratification was expected as fast as it could be pushed through Congress, the only real question was if Hawaii would be adopted to make an even fifty. Patton did love his stars.

  Justine had a story started, Isis dove into the translations, and I went upstairs for lunch, or whatever it was. Cookie was at the table, sipping tea and looking wan, I kissed her forehead and said a few words. She tried to smile, but without success. I let it lay. Everybody has problems, and hers were not going to be mine.

  I finished my food, eggs on rice, went back down to see about the Rotary Shop. The concrete was poured, the walls were being laid up with sandbags, and some of the machinery was outside in crates. I went back for the inventory, tried to sort out where I wanted what, not that simple a job, actually. The linotype used molten lead, and it and the big press ran off of a steam donkey engine. Old fashioned, but that was what we had. So the engine had to go on the outside of… that wall. It needed a chimney or at least a smoke stack. This place had been a forge, or a smithy, so I had lots of bricks to use. I found Flannigan, told him what I needed, we scratched on pieces of paper, came up with a plan. He marked lines on the ground with lime, detailed a couple of masons to do the job. Easy peasy.

  And all the while, the convoys rolled on by. I thought about going down the to Ferry Dock to watch them unload, but enough for one day. The results were evident. I went back to my job, turned out there was a line of men, mostly Americans, looking for work. Grab a stack of paper, start taking names. One evident problem, nobody had addresses. Even if they did, there were no postmen. Another little problem for Hodges. I sorted them by nationality, talked to the ones that had English or Russian, lined the others up for Juan and Isis to sort out. The ones I liked, I had come back tomorrow, the ones I really liked, I gave a few silver bucks. Insurance. We could use some strong backs anyway. I actually knew one of them, Arthur Marx, he had been a pavement pounder for the Daily Forward and the Daily News back in the City. Him I hired.

  “Art, how many languages you have?”

  “English, Russian, German, French, two kinds of Yiddish, and some Polish.”

  “Hired. Where’s your bindle?”

  “I have a blanket roll. We just got off the boat. They are cleaning us Yids out of New York City. It’s fucked up.”

  “Here’s a sawbuck. You are a reporter.” I turned and looked. “Peaches, meet Art. He is our new reporter. Take him upstairs, feed him, see if there is room to crash, even if he has to sleep in the hall. We need him.”

  “I wanted to be a reporter. What’s the matter with me? I’m a woman?”

  “You are his boss. Okay? Reporter, odd jobs, gofer, anything I tell you to do. Good?”

  “Great. Come on, Art, let’s get you settled. This place is a madhouse, you will fit right in.”

  >>>>>>>>

  Even after dark the convoys rolle
d past. If I had stopped to think of all that meant, I would have been scared shitless, so I didn’t. The phone rang. It was Ray. “You under control?”

  “Funny man. I’m busier than the one-legged guy in the ass-kicking contest. So what now?”

  “I, the General wants you to take a couple of days off, have a nice vacation…”

  “You are scaring me. What do you suggest for this little vacation?”

  “A simple jaunt to scope out Bradley’s HQ in Irkutsk. Fly out, come home on the Express. What could happen?”

  “I don’t want to know, and I don’t want to find out. Jesus.” I sighed. “When?”

  “Tomorrow at dawn. I’ll send a car.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  “You afraid of flying?” He mock sympathized.

  “I never flew.”

  “New experiences are often broadening.”

  “As long as my broad butt is not spread all over the taiga, fine.”

  “Dress warmly, it’s cold up there.”

  “Thanks for the concern.” He hung up, without even laughing in my ear. I found Hanson, Isis, Justine, Pearl, and Arthur Marx, gave them their orders, there were no decisions to be made, just keep it running. If I wasn’t back when the new presses were ready, then somebody else would have that little problem. And went off I went to bed. This time I took a bottle. Cookie was stoned out, I didn’t disturb her slumbers. Everybody deserves their own poison. My dad used to say that everybody commits suicide in the long run. On that cheerful note….

  >>>>>>>

  The crack of dawn was as ugly as the crack in my ass, or so I felt. Pearl knocked on the door to wake me up, Cookie was not in bed, not in the bathroom either. Fuck it. And her. I seemed to have lost my rosy pink disposition someplace. Su-mi had a cup of tea and a couple of those damn sweet rolls ready for me, the staff car was ready at the door. I grabbed my toothbrush, pen and notebook, and my Colt, that’s packing in a war zone. I stuffed a pair of socks in my pocket, and ran for the car. Hanson saluted as I passed, Justine gave me one of her patented “What kind of male type idiocy hell are you up to now” looks, everybody else had their noses to their particular grindstones.