Polar Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  “I shot three rolls, and am losing count,” she said over the intercom. “Let’s go. We need to warn them.”

  “And we need to get there before they do.” An exaggeration, but not a huge one. Out of time. I headed east.

  >>>>>>

  We almost made it. I was dropping and slowing down for my approach, perhaps a bad move, but my mind was a little busy right then. One of those German Observation planes saw me, and firewalled the throttle to get me before I could land. He had a few miles per hour on me, but Isis saw him and screamed into the intercom. I took a quick look, then jammed the throttle forward, flinging the ship into as fast a left bank as I could manage. I heard her Browning chatter behind me, she was not firing bursts, she just held the trigger down and hosed the tracers on target as best she could. I side-slipped to the right, wiped off more airspeed, and looked for the strip. Black bursts of flack sprouted all around me, and I had barely enough brain power to hope they were shooting at the Kraut and not at me.

  Isis’ gun fell silent, out of rounds, or barrel melted, who knew? Who cares? I found the strip, no planes blocking my path, and I dumped it into a fast dead stall just above the runway. The German Scout roared past us, smoking a little, and veered away to smash into the Great Wall off to one side, behind the Tower Building. I could see the Luftstreitkräfte markings as he zipped past. I chopped the throttle, held the stall, and smashed down almost vertically onto the hard pan of the runway. Wham!

  The drop was not real far, twenty feet, maybe, and the undercarriage took most of the impact. Most is not all. I was knocked groggy, lost vision for a few seconds, maybe longer. When I was able to focus again, people were shouting at me. I thought they were cursing me out again, but they were telling me to unbuckle and run. “Your fucking plane is burning!”

  That penetrated my whirling brain. I popped the latch on my seatbelt, and crawled up and out. It hurt, but I didn’t have time to care about that. Flames were licking out of the engine and attacking the thin aluminum over the gasoline tank. I could not run, but I shambled as fast as I possibly could to safety. Once again, I almost made it.

  >>>>>>>

  This time I came to when somebody dumped a couple of buckets of water on me. I rolled over to find I was in the center of a crowd of airmen and soldiers. The backs of my legs and my ass started to hurt. A lot. Isis was standing over me, looking concerned, I hope. Pissed, maybe. “Can you walk? You want a stretcher?”

  “How… Was I burned?”

  “Pretty much. Your trousers are in tatters. You should probably should not be laying in the dirt.”

  “I would have figured that out eventually. Stretcher, please.”

  Four or six strong men carried my fat ass inside the walls, took me to sick bay, and other people fussed over me. It would have been enjoyable, except for the pain and the knowledge of impending doom. It’s always something. The doctors cut my trousers and pants off, slathered me with some stinky salve, and said things like “This may sting a little” and “hold still, you are just making this harder.” Sorry, doc. Eventually they quit whittling, applied a few patches of gauze, and gave me a bottle of paregoric to nip on. I managed to stand, Isis slipped on my boots and tied them, I belted a khaki sheet around my waist, and I was ready for duty. I was outside blinking in the noon sun, when bells rang and sirens wailed. “All troops to the wall! All troops to the wall!” Motors could be heard approaching from the west, until they were drowned out by the snarl of V-twin motorcycle engines inside the walls. Isis and I ran as best we could for the Wall, snatched Springfields from a stand near the stairs up, and found loopholes in the parapets to shoot through. The roar from the bikes increased, the gates were thrown open, and hundreds of motorcycles throbbed out, a figure in white in the lead. They flew American flags from some of the bikes, but details were lost in the rising dust clouds. The horizon in front of them bristled with oncoming enemy trucks, it began to dawn on me that we were in serious shit.

  More engines to my right. I turned to see a few flights of Curtiss Pursuit jobs lift off from the airfield and scream toward the enemy. They stayed low, on the deck, and wasted no time on subtlety or gaining better position. “Balls to the wall.” I said out loud, and stood up between the crenellations to get a better look. History, that’s what this was.

  From my left, companies of soldiers in khaki came double timing it down the Wall, peeling off one by one to assume firing positions all along the Wall. On second look, all of them were black. Remus’ boys. Men.

  The towers that studded the wall at regular intervals housed machine gun nests, and I could see that the brick walls were thick enough to stop most bullets, if not the big stuff. I hunkered down, and started laying out stripper clips. “Isis, dear heart, you move a lot faster than I do. Why don’t you run down and snag us as much ammo as you can carry and a few canteens of water. This is liable to be a long afternoon.”

  “Okay with me, Miles. Anything else we need?”

  “A few grenades might come in handy, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes. I do. Right back.” She left her rifle and ran down the steps. I wondered if she would come back, then I wondered what the fuck a captain and a colonel were doing playing line soldiers on top of the Great Wall of China. Oh, right. Trying to stay alive. I remember.

  Some of Remus’ guys filled in the positions around us, they carried Tommy guns and light machine guns, welcome to the big time. They were not bowed down with belts of ammunition and magazines, but only because they were large lads. Isis ran back, quicker than expected, and we lay back down, set our sights to the highest range, and waited. She obviously knew all about bolt action rifles, I felt no need to offer advice.

  >>>>>>>>

  We did not have long to wait. A black sergeant took up position near us, he had binoculars, seemed to know what he was doing. “Set your sights to two thousand yards. Load and lock.” A clatter of bolts. “Take your time. Relax. All the time in the world…”

  The Pursuits had veered off to the north, the right, and had vanished, then suddenly they were back, still on the deck, in line abreast, guns blazing as they cut swaths across the flow of the attackers. As soon as they were there, they were gone again, leaving swerving trucks and wreckage behind them. Hodak’s bikers were next to attack, they ran straight into the mass off the enemy, finding crevices in the wave of attackers, penetrating deeply into the lines of trucks. The Iron Wolves could only fire pistols and carbines, they only had one hand to spare, but some of the bikes had side hacks with .30 caliber belt fed machine guns mounted. At closing speeds of close to a hundred miles per hour, and all the dust, it was impossible to make out details, but the resulting wreckage and fires were easy to see.

  That big sergeant was still counting down for us. I hadn’t noticed, but a smart general would have set out flags or other range markers for just this purpose, and Vinegar Joe was far from letting flies settle on him. “Get ready,” The sergeant commanded. “Get set. Take aim…. And… Fire!”

  Again, rifle bullets would not make huge impacts on the onrushing trucks, but some did falter and swerve aside, just a few, but they did cause confusion, slowed the attack just a little. That was when the machine guns on the towers, and the artillery behind the Wall cut loose. There was no doubting those impacts. Whole trucks flew up into the air on black bursts of solid smoke and shrapnel, came down as scrap iron. We just kept firing, running through stripper clips as fast as humanly possible, Isis was faster than me, and I had been a professional. Damn.

  Just when I thought we were winning, armored trailer trucks, tankers, and heavy dump trucks raced out from the back of the pack, and headed straight for the gates in the Wall. What? We all concentrated our rifle fire, but it was obvious that .30-06s were not going to do the job.

  The main gates were about a hundred yards to our left, and we were glad of the distance. The trucks hit the wall, the gates, and exploded violently, so loudly that all the other explosions were shocked to silence. I screamed “What the
fuck!” and could not even hear myself. The air was full of very lumpy smoke and flame. Time seemed to pause. Then all that crap came down again. Hard. Even as far away as we were, chunks of ancient bricks pelted us. Guess who forgot their helmets?

  We still had our leather flight helmets on, they might have helped a little. We lived. Screams of the less fortunate were drowned out as the enemy gunned their engines, and headed for the gaps where the gates had been. That move presented their sides to us, gave us targets, but also brought their truck-mounted machine guns into play. I had just decided that all was lost, and that I was too beat up to run, when Vinegar Joe snapped the trap. From innocent warehouses and shacks backed up against the Wall, scores of tanks smashed out through the brick walls and opened fire on the onrushing trucks. I should have known. Nobody would have left that clutter of buildings in such an obvious place unless they had a reason. But I catch on slow.

  On cue, the artillery opened up again, including, it looked like, the Ackack firing flat trajectories at point blank range. I wanted to stand up and cheer, but I’m not that stupid. Nobody else was either. Our planes came back to make another run, just to add to the confusion. It worked. Some of the enemies decided to turn tail and run, while the others behind in the dust cloud piled into the chaos. It got very hard to get any idea what was happening in that huge scrum. Things would explode, pieces of metal and bodies flip up out of the murk, fall back in without rhyme or reason. We kept pumping rounds into the mess, until our rifles were almost too hot to hold. The air over the sights was rippling from the heat. God knows if the barrels were even approximately straight.

  “Cease Fire!” That bull-necked sergeant yelled at the top of his voice. We sort of heard him over the din outside the Wall. I reloaded, we were almost out of clips, and reached for the canteens. First rule, take what you can get, when you can get it. I drank, handed the canteen to Isis. I had to tap her shoulder with it, to make her pay attention.

  “Wha…?”

  “Drink. You look like hell.” It was true. Blood was dripping down her face, something had opened her brow, that cut had lots of company. Outside things were getting even worse, worse for the enemy. More tanks thrashed and bellowed their way up from deeper in the city, piled right into the melee. Isis finally came out of her trance, took the canteen, drained it, then noticed the blood dripping down her face. “Sergeant?” I waved, not getting up. The air was still full of lead. I knew he would see me, people like him never miss a trick.

  “Yeah?”

  “You got a medic? My… This woman… The Colonel needs a little bandaging.”

  “Least of my worries.” He took another look, focused on our shoulder insignia. “Who the hell are you people? You wearing a skirt?”

  “We are pilots. We got shot down and burned already today. We were in sick bay. They had to cut my trousers off after the crash.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Now I seen it all. Go on, go about your business, we got this covered.” I took a look, not much to see that made any sense, but the enemy were not coming through the Wall anymore. “Keep your heads down. Sir...errr…s.” We had him baffled, for sure. A new sensation for him, no doubt. Do him good.

  “Not a problem.” We made our way down the stairs, more or less holding each other up, not an easy thing to do on stairs. Troops were forming ranks in the courtyard in front of HQ, everybody in combat gear, helmets and light packs, lots of ammo. Trunks were pulling into lines behind them. Time to move out. Screw that. We found the AMEDD Field Hospital, they were preparing for the onslaught, but at the moment had only a few wounded, mostly doughs who got careless up on the wall, most of the men at the gates had been killed outright.

  An aide directed us to a bench, then noticed our insignia, and took us to a better grade of bench. “Did we win?” He asked.

  “So far.”

  “Seems a bit anticlimactic.”

  “Count your blessings.” I said. “Why don’t you just bring us a bottle of antiseptic and some gauze, and we will take care of ourselves? You are about to get very, very busy, whether you know it or not.”

  “Yes, sir. As you wish. Right back.” When he returned, he had one of those basins, a handful of gauze, and a bottle of vodka. He also had an expectant look, that I recognized from long experience. “My prescription…” He said. I had my wallet in my breast pocket, I gave him a five spot. Money well spent. I still didn’t want to get drunk, but medicine is medicine. Pretend he was a doctor.

  Isis focused on the bottle. “Can we drink that?”

  “We can sure give it a shot.” I was a gentleman, I handed her the bottle first. So there we sat, sipping on the jug, wiping blood off of each other’s faces, and listening to the battle outside wind down. Some of the vodka got used for antiseptic. After about half the bottle, a medic showed up, had us stand and strip on the spot. He had an orderly wash us down good with real antiseptic, stuck gauze and adhesive tape here and there, pronounced us in good enough shape to go get killed elsewhere.”You need a few stitches, but I can’t afford to waste a good bed on you two. Walking wounded. Lucky stiffs. You want some aspirin?” We took a bottle. And gave thanks.

  >>>>>>>

  “So now what?” I asked her, hoping the answer involved a bed. The words were barely out of my mouth when a shavetail ran up, saluted Isis, said, “General’s complements, Colonel Akhtiorskaya, and he wonders if you are able to resume your duties yet?”

  “Ahhh… Of course. I am. You have orders?”

  “The General suggests you gather a squad, and investigate the wreckage of the attacking forces. He wants to know who they were, and where they came from. Gather up any papers or other evidence, unit badges and so forth. At your earliest convenience.”

  “Such as right now. I understand. Do you have orders for the Captain here?”

  “Not as such, no. He is not one of your experts?”

  I saw my chance. “Of course I am. Recon Officer Kapusta from Dalny, on detached duty on the Western Front. At your service.”

  “Carry on Captain, Colonel. I will so inform General Stillwell.”

  He handed her a sheet of paper, saluted again, ran off, across the now nearly empty courtyard. “I don’t know about you, Isis, but my earliest convenience would be a few days from now.”

  “You said you were the expert…”

  “So I better get to my experting.” We found the Officer of the Day, he found us a dozen men, and I had them find shovels and rakes and a couple of GI garbage cans. Isis looked at me crossways, I said, “I have done this before. We need gas masks too. Good thing we haven’t eaten. This is going to be awful.” I had had to clean up after one of Patton’s tank attacks ran into a minefield one time in France. The PBI. The Poor Bloody Infantry had taken the field, then we had to clean up the mess. I still get the shakes. I was going to get them again. My poor brain was going to just flush itself down my spinal cord someday, like a turd down a drain, and everything would be all better again. Or not.

  We got loaded up, filed out through the tramped-down rubble of the main gate, and set to work. It was obvious that nobody had really told Stillwell what magnitude of a job this was. We needed a brigade, not a dozen men.

  I directed the men around the most battered and burnt stretch of rubble, no papers left in that mess. The bodies were little twisted things like burnt logs, they didn’t even smell too bad yet. The blackened burned grins of white teeth glinting through the char were the worst parts. Press on. We got to an unburned area, started shaking down the trucks and bodies for identifications. This was unburned, but a mess, trucks crashed into each other, blown apart, flipped into the air to land willy-nilly.

  The bodies were scattered everywhere, more outside the trucks than inside, more of a blessing than not. Isis had some idea of the tribes these clowns had belonged to. They had no uniforms for the most part, but she was getting some information from their turbans, headdresses and jewelry. Of course they had no IDs of any kind. Fancy daggers in various patterns were a
ll they had. She had a notebook and a pen, was taking notes of some kind. We did the dirty work, we broke off any license plates we could find, dragged the bodies out with the rakes for Isis to investigate, and rummaged through the glove boxes and luggage for clues.

  One of the men, a weedy little corporal asked, “Captain, what about their money? Lot of these assholes have money belts.”

  “I don’t see any money. Keep it… Wait. Is it German Marks?”

  “Some. A little of everything. British Shillings from India most of it. Silver.”

  “Try and keep track. It might be important. Keep the coins, but keep track.”

  “Anything you say, sir.” And so it went. The GI cans filled up with paperwork and license plates, I had two men stack the rifles, Brit Enfields, of course. A lot of small arms and classy jeweled daggers vanished into pockets, but I ignored that. I sent a guy back to tell the OD we needed a bunch of Chinese laborers to bury the bodies, sort out the scrap, all of that shit, and so it went. Was it more boring, or more disgusting? It was not fun. At least these bodies were fresh, those poor jodhpur-wearing SOBs we pulled out of those tanks in France had been in there for more than a week, most of them. We didn’t even need the gas masks. We found some unburned jerry cans of gasoline, used that to wash our hands, and that helped kill the smell too. Tricks of the trade.

  It was hot here too, but drier, fewer flies. Count your miserable blessings. We were finding about one obvious German, at least one soldier in German uniforms for every three trucks. Some of them looked a little swarthy, but what the hell.

  Once we got away from the burned-out places, there were even a few living men, although living was a generous term. We dragged them into shady spots, gave them water, if they could drink, make sure they were unarmed, and sent another man back for medics. “This is too big a contract for a dozen people, Isis.”