“This should take some of the heat off of us,” I hoped out loud, but there were few cheers for my reasoning.
“More troops and more imports for Germany in the long run,” noted Peaches.
“I will be happy enough to survive the short run,” I replied.
Just as dawn was breaking, and we were yawning and thinking of passing out for a few, the roar of engines starting down in the airfield put an end to all thoughts of resting. A quick call downstairs brought the news that Hodges had ordered all trained pilots and operational planes to Xilin Gol, “for advanced training.” Gee, I guess somebody actually listened to me. Which should have made me proud, but instead made me even more scared. If the next observation I came up with was wrong, I could do erase all the good I had done, and more. The answer was obvious. Don’t fuck up, fat boy. And coffee. Lots of coffee.
We watched the planes lift off and head west, then I had even more coffee and tried to distil all my nightly gleanings down to one sheet of prose. That simple plan was sidetracked by Lupo and Olga handing me a wad of paper with their Spanish language listening results. As it happened, the most fruitful sources were Franco’s Spain and Argentina, recently under a military-backed government, José Félix Uriburu, who had replaced the Radical Civic Union president, one Hipólito Yrigoyen, who had been unable to cope with the Great Depression.
In any case, Argentina had a large German and Austrian immigrant population, and were not inclined to love the Yankees at the best of times, much less after we had invaded a fellow Spanish country. Argentines had been the most numerous of the volunteers who traveled through Spain to fight for the Germans. I wondered if any of them were on their way to Mexico. I told Maeve, “They called the Endless War the World War, but that was penny-ante poker compared to this one.”
“Don’t try and cheer me up. Keep writing, I’ll round up some breakfast.”
“Rice and eggs? I would kill for bacon.”
“Dream on, lover boy, dream on.” The actual information about the Mexican War was sketchy, it was more what was not said. Mexico City had not fallen, and although Mexico City was only about two hundred miles from Vera Cruz, the US Army had not gotten there yet. In fact, there was some mention of the Battle of Cordoba. A glance at an atlas showed it was only twenty miles from the sea. Not good for the good guys.
I cast a question to Lupo, he shrugged, “Lots of Mexicans in your Army these days.”
“My army?”
“If so it happens, yes.”
“And a whole lot of veterans over here. A lot more sunk in the Atlantic.”
“Yes. Morte. I wanted to join your country. Now?”
“Fuck, Lupo, I would like to join it myself. But they kicked me out. I’m an immigrant too, and worse than you, my country is gone.”
“You are Russo? Russian?”
“Da. Si. Yes. How do you say, we are so fucked in Spanish?”
“Estamos tan jodido.”
“Write that on our flag.” He almost smiled at that. I didn’t. What I said was, “You two get some sleep. You are doing a great job, and I am grateful. Well done.”
“Thank you, Major.”
“You are most welcome, Lieutenant. Anything you need, money to get settled in, just let me or Peaches know.” I dug out a couple of sawbucks, handed them over, did not toss them. A good man, I wanted him to know that I thought of him as such. In my mind, I thought that the once great US Army was being selected for political loyalty and racial purity, and now they were up against a whole country of tough little patriots, ragged though they may be. Although I do not know a whole lot about Mexico, but I knew their history was a bloody mess, even by Russian standards. Enough said.
We made it to lunch before they called and said our plane was ready. We ran right over there, Maeve checked all their work twice, read the worksheets, checked everything else they had not done, controls, engines, original fuel tanks, lights, all that, then turned to the crew chief; “Looks like it passes. Tomorrow at dawn.”
“The General was expecting you to fly tonight.”
“The general is not flying this ship. I am. There are no lights at Xilin Gol, and very little else. At ninety miles an hour, Xilin Gol is five and a half hours away, even if everything goes right. Which it never does. Plus I need some paperwork on this mission. Is Hodges sending an Envoy?”
“Lady…” He began until her glower cut him short. “Captain, I don’t know. I was not told. I assumed…”
“Don’t assume. Find out. We will be here at dawn. You will have my ship fueled and ready.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“If you have a sign painter, have him put ‘Spirit of New Haven’ on the nose.”
“He is a she, Captain, but consider it done.”
“Touché, sergeant, carry on.”
>>>>>>>>
Early to bed, early to rise. Too bad we missed a whole night’s sleep. We needed a team, but we didn’t have one. Isis was too valuable to the Radio Monitors to take, and she had only limited Mongolian anyway. That Oblenski guy was hanging around, looking hungry, so I asked him if he knew how to handle a .50, he said yes, and off we went. That made three. I hoped Hodges had us an envoy, a translator, and a cameraman, but that was about all I could do on that front. Hope in one hand…
We needn’t have worried, Sam Browning was there in a fancy new uniform, polished leather attaché case under arm. He was the envoy, no surprise there. The cameraman was a no-nonsense woman in twill, Maggie somebody, and the translator was nobody but our new old buddy Aneko, in a snappy but non-definitive uniform of USA khaki.
Maeve did one more check of everything, found a leaking fitting on a fuel tank, a few other minor details, checked the engine oil again, we found our seats, I was promoted to copilot, the props turned over and off we went. The machine gun was mounted in a hole cut in the corrugated roof, right behind the pilot’s seats. Oblenski had a half barrel to stand on, some attempt had been made to bolt it to the floor, an obvious lash-up. It was impossible to hear anything over the roar of the radial engine at our toes, the intercom was scratchy and faint at best, so I was just along for the ride. I had a couple of clipboards, one covered in celluloid, and a handful of grease pencils, so I could communicate my navigational results to the boss lady, not that we had to do more than go west. Flying looks so free and easy from the ground, with the bellow of the engine dulled by a few thousand feet of sky, but when you are right there, dragged behind a thousand or so horsepower, you realize that every mile per hour of airspeed, foot of altitude is a separate brutal miracle. Planes fly because they force the air to support them, to make it as hard and solid as pavement. One tiny failure, and down you go. Simple as that. But you would never know how cold and inflexible those equations are when you are standing on the ground looking upward with your mouth hanging open.
These jolly reflections were interrupted by Browning, who tapped me on the shoulder with another celluloid clipboard. “Circle port for photo run” it said. I showed to Maeve, she nodded, and banked left. We did three wide circles, Sam tapped my shoulder, gave me the thumbs up, and off we went west again. There seemed to be a lot of traffic on the road to Xilin Gol, I assumed Maggie was clicking away, but we had no other interests for the five hours, a little more, it took to get to the Airfield. That was a different matter. There were planes and trucks parked all over the desert, more or less neatly, and somebody had a smoky smudge fire going to show wind speed. We had no real idea of the availability of good grade gasoline at Ulan Bator, so we landed, topped off our tanks, grabbed sandwiches, coffee, and water, and we off again in less than an hour. We did do a wide circle to photograph the roads coming in and out, the surrounding landscape.
It was another six hours to Ulan Bator, we had lots of light left to find the airfield, it was pretty primitive, and obviously there were no formalities. A few planes parked in the desert, some obvious wrecks. No tower, a couple of mud brick buildings, a barracks, and a neat little frame Commandant’s
office.
After a hopefully inconspicuous photo run, we landed, taxied as close to the buildings as seemed polite and waited for a couple of soldiers to ride over on their battered old motorbikes. Their rifles looked clean and in order, however. Aneko and Sam climbed out, and dickered with the soldiers, eventually the officer waved us lowly crew types toward a mud brick building that had some relationship to a tavern, the four of us headed there, while an old Citroen touring car came for Aneko and Browning. We found foul beer, some more of that fermented mare’s milk, decent water, tea and most importantly, a three-holer outhouse. Literally holes in the floor, no seats. But we made do. Airmen are tough.
Maggie and Maeve put their heads together over a bottle of booze of some kind, while Oblenski, Bob, and I sampled the local beer. It tasted of horse ass. While we were having fun comparing it to various foul things, a USA half ton truck rolled up, and officer and two privates got out and came inside. It took a minute, but I recognized the captain, he was William Doyle, the AEFS historian. He looked like a man that needed a drink. “Hey, Bill!” I waved. He took a double take, and bustled right over. I pointed at the landlord, made a drinking gesture.
“I was looking for the Americans, but you get around, don’t you?”
“I thought you were on your way to Dalny?”
“I am. The Line is a mess, we took that truck, then saw your plane.”
I had to ask. “What’s wrong with the railroad?”
“What isn’t? The Krauts are bombing the bridges, it’s jammed up with west-bounds, and then they hit the yards last night.”
“In Verkhneudinsk?”
“Where else?” The bottle arrived, the landlord with that magic known to his trade brought whiskey, Maeve and Maggie joined us, bringing what was left of their jug. “It’s a mess. I was glad to leave.”
“Are we holding them?”
“As far as I know we are.”
“So far, so good.” Oblenski said.
“But neither far enough, nor good enough.” Maggie spoke up. Amen, sister.
>>>>>>
We killed those two bottles, at least us three guys and Maggie did, Maeve is a responsible person, and a pilot. I took a hint, and drank less than I usually do. We told lies, and I tried to pump Doyle for war news, but he didn’t really know much. Irkutsk was still in our hands, a ridiculous amount of materiel was hidden in the woods and up valleys all around Verkhneudinsk, and Chita was packed with reserves. Doyle had not been in combat, “Just a desk jockey,” was his word, so his practical knowledge was pretty slim. But it seemed that nothing calamitous was happening. Air raids in Verkhneudinsk as a matter of course, dog fights overhead all during the daylight hours.
Oblenski had more to say, mostly about the home front situation. “That Son of a Bitch is trying to run anybody that’s not pure white ten-generation American the hell out of the States. He and John Hoover and that triple dyed bastard A. Mitchell Palmer, have really got it in for us Polacks. The Micks, the Niggers, and the Dagos too. Tell you the goddamn truth, I am just as happy to be over here in the war zone. At least you might be able to tell who the enemy is over here.”
“Don’t count on it.” Doyle said. “Nobody can sort out all these twenty kinds of Russians, and as for the Slants, it’s a bloody miracle they can tell one from another. There have been so many centuries of backstabbing over here, that God himself would want to kill the whole lot of them and start over.”
They went on in the vein for a while, I was more interested in hearing Maggie talk. Maggie White, half Jew and half Mick, she had been in the wrong place at the right time, taken pictures of cops and the Klan cleaning out a colored section in Cleveland. A small left wing paper had printed the pictures, and she had wound up in the hold of a steamer, headed for Dalny. Same old story.
Oblenski had been home on leave in Wilkes-Barre when the Feds busted the UMW for being commies, “Which they were. But they tried to rough up my mother, and I kinda beat the crap out of a couple of them. It didn’t do any good, I don’t know what happened to my mom and my two sisters. I came to in a boxcar near Pittsburg. I had my dog tags, and my ID, so I got promoted to rail guard, riding herd on the deportees. I took the job, thinking I could help them a little. I guess I did some good, for all the good that did. We all wound up here, any goddamn way. Fuck it.”
>>>>>>>
A lot sooner than expected, Aneko and Sam Browning were back with the word; “We have at least found out who to talk to.” Sam said. “We have to sort all this out, you need to fly right back and bring me whatever the General sends. Probably gold.”
“You didn’t bring gold?” I was getting used to how things worked out here.
“I didn’t bring enough gold. And I am only a captain. I have a provisional lease on this airfield, permission to improve the road from Xilin Gol to Verkhneudinsk. That is a big start. There are tribal alliances to sort out, territorial problems, something about an inheritance I didn’t quite get. But…”
“Right. Aneko?”
“She stays with me. She has a letter that needs to be delivered. ASAP.”
“And PDQ too. On the way.”
I saluted Browning even though he supposedly worked for me, asked, “Anything else?”
“I want Oblenski as a guard. Maggie’s pictures are high priority too.” Nothing else to say. We double timed to the Ford, Doyle’s two soldiers were left with Sam, he needed the truck anyway, and off we went. Flying is boring, until it isn’t, but this time, it stayed boring all the way. We made it back to Xilin Gol just before dark, got a few hours of sleep and a meal, were off again at daybreak. Before noon we were back at Dalny, Maeve decided to wait until the next morning to leave again, plugs needed changing, as did the oil, she had a check list. I took Billy Doyle back to the Recon Office, somehow that had become the official name, and settled him in, while I tried to catch up with my real job.
The big news was that the Royal Australian Naval Cruiser, the Adelaide, had struggled into the Madagascar port of Toamasina. Much battered, and in a state of mutiny after the Captain and most of his officers had been lost in a direct hit on the bridge from a Japanese shell. The crew had requested asylum, and reported that the Allied German and UK forces had suffered a major defeat, at least as far as they could tell, in all the confusion. Airplanes, probably from carriers. At least, they were sure that nobody had come to their assistance. A slightly later dispatch indicated that a Japanese warship had sent a cutter into the harbor with some communication from the IN Fleet, but further word was lacking.
There was nothing reliable out of Mexico either, but Canada had been declared “pacified”. Quebec was not mentioned. There was some commentary to the effect that Canada, as the province of an enemy state, would be absorbed into the States, setting off a mild stampede as a wild assortment of crooks, grafters, conmen, and general reincarnated carpetbaggers headed north to ride the gravy train. And bad cess to them all.
I had to play catch up, nobody else could do my job, and although there was not a lot of earth-shattering news, somebody had to boil it down for the General. Me. Peaches was a great worker, but no writer, Isis had more than she could do making written translations for whoever wrote the radio logs. Boiling down disparate sources to a coherent narrative might not be an art, but it is a skill. One I possessed. I scraped off my desk, collared Doyle, and set to it. By dinner time we had good copy, I had it couriered to HQ, and went to find the Maeve person.
She was glad to see me, “We might as well make an early night of it, I leave at dawn.”
“Just say when.”
“You are not going. Hodges is sending a team and a lot of gold. Things are beginning to boil. He told me to tell you, every cobbler to his last.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry. I suppose a few hundred pounds of gold is worth more than my fat ass.”
“Fishing for compliments? It’s not all that fat.”
“Kindest words I have heard all day.” I hugged her. “What do you want for dinner?
”
“He suggested we try a bar called the Feniks. He said you know where it is.”
“There is only one. Hmmm. My little suspicion bump just woke up, Somebody is up to something.”
She looked up at me, head cocked like a robin. “What is it telling you?”
“We will know after a few drinks, I suspect. Hodges knows me a little too well…”
>>>>>>>
When in doubt, follow orders. Part of successfully following orders is realizing when somebody is smarter and in possession of more of the facts than you are. I knew that applied to Hodges, even more so to the gentleman who was waiting for us at a table in the corner. He was wearing unmarked, fairly filthy khakis, his work duds. He didn’t speak, just nodded as I pulled out a chair for Maeve, settled into one myself. There was a bottle of Irish whiskey on the table. “Maeve, Eppi. Eppi is Chief of Salvage for the Port of Dalny. Maeve is chief pilot for the Recon Office. As I am sure you know. Drink, dear?”
“Old Bushmills? Uisce beatha? Eight hours, bottle to throttle. Hit me.”
Eppi just beamed at her. “This is supposed to be sub rosa?” I asked.
“Not at all. I would have had you driven to the ship, if that was so. This is just a casual meeting of old friends, by accident.”
“As it were. So to speak.”
“Correct.” He winked. “And I am no longer COS Dalny, as of next week I am Chief of Salvage Port Arthur.”
“Moving fast. A week?” It dawned. “You are taking a vacation”
“A short cruise up the coast. To relax.”
I had never known Eppi to cut anybody any slack whatsoever, so I winked back. “Just a casual dinner?”
“Of course. Your naked diving ladies have improved our seafood selection remarkably. Crabs? Salmon? The lobster is quite good, but they unfortunately have no claws.”
“You order, you know best.”
“I have been teaching them how to make a decent chowder. We could start with that.” He held up a hand, the waiter was there as fast as if he had popped out of the fifth dimension. “Three chowders, a bread platter.” He turned to us. “Water, tea, or coffee?”
Polar Bear Blues Page 24