Polar Bear Blues: A Memoir Of The Endless War (The Endless War. Book 1)

by Steve Wishnevsky

  Urum-qi, another five hundred miles further on, was another choke point, and the easternmost spot that had any pretensions to be better than a bare desert. Same deal with Jui-quan coming the other way. Jia-yu-guan, there were two towns there, was also the end of the Great Wall. It said that was called the Traveler's Gate or the Gate of Sighs. It was where people exiled from China were sent west out into the desert. Sounded good to me. They had a river there that had water in it some of the time, and maybe ten thousand people. If it was a good enough defensive point for the Ming Dynasty, it would probably do for us foreign Polar Bear assholes. Write it down.

  Obviously, a few pursuit planes in that burg could make life very difficult for anybody trying to cross that desert out there. The people were something called the Uyghurs, more damn camel fuckers, for all I cared. Noble, brave, self reliant patriots, I mean. Whoever, we would have to kiss their asses, so we didn’t make any more enemies. In a way, it was kind of nice to know we had more enemies to make.

  I sent Isis’ and my scribblings off to Hodges, then had rice and something for dinner, livened up with one glass of that brandy. Apricot, this time, I guessed. I found myself yawning, remembered I was a night short of sleep, and took constructive action.

  At least I tried, I found myself snapping awake worrying about Maeve, then staring at the ceiling until I drifted off again. As it was, when I finally did fall into a deep sleep, I overslept and was awakened with a shrewd forefinger digging my ribs and the loving words, “Wake up, you big lug, you got a lady who needs some attention here.”

  >>>>>>>

  She had had another milk run, no problems outside of picking up a few bullet holes while circling Chang-chung. They had spent the night at our base at Qiqihar, and toddled home quite contented. She was quite interested when I told her she would soon probably be traveling to Jiu-quan, and Urum-qi to shoot a photographic survey. “I love this shit, you know? Travel is so broadening, just like they say.”

  “It’s not broadening me, I’m wasting away to a mere three hundred pound shadow.” That’s when she hit me with a pillow. How I suffer. We had a day off, with just the usual rounds, the photos she had taken had been processed and duplicated, we had to file our set, then I took it upon myself to go visit the new Litho Shop, see if they if they could run us up some maps ASAP. I had hopes of old maps to add to our files. Intelligence work sounds so romantic, but I was finding out it was just another kind of library. I’m not a spy, I’m just a secret librarian. Sue me, libraries are safe places.

  I might have to talk to Cookie, but I’m tough, I could take it. I now understood some of her mood when I met her. She was a jonesing junkie. As soon as I gave her some money, she spent it on opium. Sullen and hurting, or stoned out, my choice. Screw that, and her. I had enough woman right now, an odd enough feeling anyway. So I took advantage. I made Maeve go with me.

  Lou was in his element, he even had most of a silk suit on, supervising at the top of his voice. Cookie, Aja, was following him around, step for step, arms full of clipboards. They had worked out some secret language of gestures and sparse words, she always had the right paperwork for him when he needed it. She looked both better and worse, studiously ignored Maeve, who returned the favor. His translator was another old woman, a white, Mrs. Atkinson, she was a Brit, widow of a missionary. She got my point across, Lou dug out some maps that might prove helpful. I congratulated his prosperity, and off we went.

  When we got home, Ray was in the shop, they were all fired up about a trip out to Jiu-quan and Urum-qi, as fucking ap. “What are we going to do for gas? Is there an airport?” Maeve asked, sensibly enough.

  “We are going to send out a convoy from Ulan Bator, we have permission for a base there. There is no government out there, and we need to move on this.”

  “Where are we getting the gas? The Japs?”

  “California. There are tankers headed to Qinang-dao. Patton has decided that he needs this war.”

  “To distract the people from what he is doing to them? Never work.”

  “You said it, not me. We have taken over the port, Qinang-dao, more oil and tankers are coming from Shanghai, the Japanese are letting us use their excess army capacity. The Japanese Army has some sort of post or fort out there in Jiu-quan, so there is supposed to be truck gasoline there, at least.”

  “Their troops are going to Burma?”

  “As good a bet as any. You just do what you did in Ulan Bator and all will be well. I will go with you as Envoy. We need a translator.”

  I looked across the room to where the crew was pretending to not be listening. “Isis? Up for a jaunt?”

  She just nodded. Easy as the road to hell. Maeve immediately took off for the airport to check the Spirit of New Haven, while I monitored all the radio stations, for all the good that did. The proverbial calm before the shit storm. This was the third day since Eppi and his ship had vanished, looked like five days up there, minimum. It would take us two days to get out to Jiu-quan, at least a day there, and two back, looked like I would miss all the fun. I dithered for a while, then called HQ. “Ray, were you expecting me to go on this flight to Jiu-quan?”

  “Didn’t I make that clear? You stay, she goes. Another real pilot will be more useful…”

  “Than an old fat librarian. Got it. Take care of my wife, would you?”

  “Are you married? Did I miss something?”

  “No, we didn’t tie the knot yet,”

  “I’ll fill out the paperwork, and file it. You are married. Boom.”

  “Just like that? Thanks. Don’t kiss the bride unless I am there to chaperone.”

  “Deal.” He chuckled. As he said it, I remembered a superstition of my mother’s; never use the word “wife” before the ceremony. Silly. Married is as married does. Done deal. Then I thought it would be nice to inform Maeve of her new status, so I beetled over to the Airfield, and told her. She looked at me for a long moment, long enough to make my guts churn, then gave me a huge greasy kiss and a hug that left stains all over my second best shirt.

  “You asshole. I really do love you.”

  “I… I love you too. You want something special for supper?”

  “Champagne is probably out of the question?”

  “I will go to Feniks and improvise.”

  “A cake?”

  “Whatever they have, I will get. They made bread, so maybe...”

  “Here’s hoping.” She kissed me again, and dove back into the engine.

  >>>>>>>

  It was quite a party. The chef at Feniks managed a dozen cupcakes, with orange frosting, no champagne, but they found a case of Saki, Japanese Army rice wine, for us. It turned out that one of the twelve bottles was some sort of rice moonshine, but we managed to cope. Americans are adaptable.

  We had a brief but intense honeymoon, all six hours of it, then I walked Mrs. Kapusta to her job, wondering if I would ever see her again. Somehow, a little non-ceremony made all this a lot worse. I wondered why I had done it. Not like there was any inheritance to worry about. Fuck it, we were not going to break any auctorial tables. I kissed her at the door, then stood back and watched her run her check list. The props turned, the sun rose behind us, I waved and she was gone.

  One more day till the balloon went up. I should have killed a bottle, and gone back to bed, but I didn’t. I read reports and worried, as if that would do any good. The rest of the crew was fairly hung-over, and with Isis gone, we were limited in our translations. Lupo had found some Mexican hams, and he was getting a lot of underground stuff from them. I had to brush up on my history, but the Second Mexican Empire had been a disaster and had only lasted a little over five years. The French army, one of the greatest in the world, had invaded Vera Cruz, just like Patton’s boys, in 1861. It had taken them a year and a half to take Mexico City, and Mexican patriots under President Benito Juárez had never been conquered. Too many mountains.

  ` France’s allies, the Brits and the Spanish had bailed out as soon as they realiz
ed what the game was, and the US, preoccupied with the Civil War, remained on the sidelines.

  We started shipping surplus arms to Juárez, the French gave up in ’66, and the poor chump Maximilian was captured and executed. His wife got back to Europe, where she went mad. Tough.

  What we were hearing now was that the Mexican patriots, the Juárezistas, were invoking their ancestors, some of whom were still alive, and were causing a lot of trouble for the Yankees. Volunteers were streaming in, Endless War surplus arms were flooding in from every direction, and some of the people Patton was trying to deport over here were making their way to Mexico to fight for the Republic. The terrain was rugged, tanks were worthless, and the troops were in no mood to get their asses shot off in a bullshit war. Lots of desertions, some officer assassinations, a steaming pile of crap from any viewpoint.

  The bottom line? The US Army had been decimated several times over in France, and a million or more of our best troops were feeding the flounder in the North Atlantic. My poor country.

  Such cheery reflections were interrupted, a few hours after noon, by a motorcycle messenger from HQ, and a note from the USAS Radio Room downstairs. The note was from Maeve, they were in Ulan Bator, no problems so far.

  The message was from another of Hodges’ Aides, he wanted me to ride up to observe the battle for Chang-chun and Harbin, shoot a few rolls of film with a hand camera, take what notes I could, look for enemy columns. Sounded like the B Team to me, but better than sitting around worrying. The good part was that we would be in an Observation Two-seater, the trip would be just that much faster. What could I say? Yes, sir.

  I just went upstairs, located my long woolies, then went down to Air Service, checked out the camera they had, made sure the lens was tight and well adjusted, you have to be real careful with those long heavy lenses. I’m not a photog, but I do know how to put the film in. This one was a Japanese copy of a standard Leica, so I looked it over extra carefully. No way did I want to juggle Speed Graphic film holders at nearly two hundred miles an hour. Film rolls would be hard enough. I made sure I had a long lanyard on the camera, it would not do to drop that sucker overboard.

  I met the pilot, another redheaded Mick named Kerry, but this one I didn’t want to marry. His name was James, and he was kind of cute, but not my type. We shook hands, set a time, too damn early o’clock, and I went off to bed. Hansen and Peaches were in charge, we ran down the list of things to monitor. Irkutsk was still suspiciously quiet, we had a report that our Air Service was experimenting with that dive bombing tactic, sauces for gooses, and all that.

  And so to bed.

  >>>>>>>>

  Up and at them. Couldn’t even have a cuppa, not with five hours until the next piss, I couldn’t. Diapers would spoil the romantic airman image, don’t you know? The plane was a Trainer, not a true observation job, so I had to stow my gear so it would not interfere with the duplicate controls cluttering up my cockpit. We took to the air. Army life is boring, except when it is terrifying, and flight is the same, only worse. It was fun to see all the ships streaming in to Dalny and Port of Qinang-dao, it sure looked like some arrangement had been arrived at, ships were backed up three deep at that port. Trucks and tanks were a steady stream up to Ulan Bator and Xilin Gol, trains nose to tail on the South Manchurian line headed north. Sure as shit something was going to happen.

  We buzzed on up to Harbin and Chang-chun, I took what pictures I could from just outside the Ring Rail Line , then noticed many columns of black smoke boiling up over Vladivostok, maybe sixty miles east. We conferred, Kerry and I, he decided he had enough gas to make the trip, so off we went.

  >>>>>>>

  Vladivostok was a long peninsula, maybe the size of Manhattan, between two deep bays with lots of guarding islands. They must have had Coastal Defense Guns out there, but it didn’t look like they had done them a whole lot of good, because both bays were crawling with our ships, warships to the east, and freighters to the west, the city side. The warships, mostly if not completely Japanese, were pounding the city with the big guns from five and ten miles out. Details were not clear, but I could see enough to take the occasional shot through the bursts of smoke. “How high do those shells fly?” Kerry asked me.

  “Half as high as the distance they travel. Miles. Don’t worry about it, you will never know what hit us.” A fifteen inch shell would not even leave dust, assuming it something hard enough to detonate the fuze.

  “Fuck that!” He veered away, but had enough grace to sweep up the west coast so I could snap a few shots. I saw a big ship, it looked like that one Eppi had salvaged, the Takasago, all rusty and hammered looking, it had a big white star in a roundel on the fan tail, and it had its blunted nose rammed right up into a line of docks on the eastern waterfront. There were a few docks there, what might have been an airfield or a parade ground. The ramp was down, and tanks were just boiling out of the hole onto the land. I had Kerry do one quick circle, so I could get a better shot, then a shell landed close enough below us to smack us around the sky a little. “Enough fun for me, I’m gone!”

  I could only agree. Time to go night-night. The sun was setting in our faces as we found an UAAS base right where the SMRR met the Eastern China Line, thirty miles south of Harbin. It was not much, but they had gasoline, food, and beds. And whiskey. Close enough. I sent my film back to Dalny by courier, and considered it a day.

  About three in the morning, the trains started to roll, both east and west. We got a message back from Dalny, first thing in the morning to run the loop again, Vlad to Chang-chun, Harbin, and west to Qiqihar. There was a small delay while the ground crew patched and doped a few bullet holes that we had accumulated without really noticing, then we were on our way. My butt was plenty tired from the hard seat and the vibration, but the thought that I could just as easily be on one of the troop trains below eased any complaints. I do know when I am well off. You might get killed in an airplane, almost guaranteed, but you were not liable to get hurt. Not for long.

  Vlad was quiet, or at least quieter, the smoke from the naval shelling had subsided, the smaller ships nuzzled into the shore, but we could hear plenty of firing, field artillery and tank fire. The battle looked what they call, “fluid” which means, a fucking chaotic mess. People were running in all directions, our khaki, Japanese Naval blue, and some in German feldgrau, but most in Russian black and white civvies. It just occurred to me to tell Kerry that we might be a bit too low, when he threw up his arms, screamed into the intercom, and slumped down out of my line of sight. I didn’t even have time to curse, I was too busy trying to get the control stick unshipped and clear of my crap.

  The Trimotor had two wheels up front, two pedals on each side, and this had the stick and rudder pedals, but the theory was the same. All I had to do was not panic. The stick wanted to dive forward, I guessed Kerry’s body was laying on it, but fuck that. I hogged it on back, felt the controls grab the air, and the dive eased up. I turned inland, west, we had been over the city proper, and I didn’t want to fucking land on a fucking building.

  Next problem. I had no throttle back here, and I could not see out front good enough to land, even if I could with the throttle wide open. I thought of unbuckling my belt, standing up to see if could stretch far enough to pull the throttle back, but that seemed too much like heroics for me. I just write adventure books, I don’t believe in them.

  Fuck it. Go west.

  That was a good plan until I started smelling gas. I couldn’t see any flowing, but the tank was in front of the cockpits, for weight balance, they told me, so I might not see anything, know anything until the bitch erupted in flames around me. Then I had a decision; land or water. Land. Kerry might be alive. Not likely, but… I banked the wings, Maeve had showed me that much, found where I was, I was on the west of the city, near the Takasago. I remembered there was a flat spot there, found it. Looked more or less empty, I went for it. It was going to be a crash anyway I did this, so it better be as soft a crash as I could ar
range. Plus people were still shooting down there. I set the nose down and tried to lose altitude, which increased my speed. Laws of physics and all that crap.

  I took the Takasago as the center of my circle, thinking that any Americans on board would see I was in trouble, and just kept forcing the little bitch down, tying to see as much as I could, which was not much. I was pissing bullets, but was not feeling the paralyzing fear that I had felt back in France. I had some control, was not just cowering in a hole, waiting to die. That backwards-ass thought gave me some strength, and I made another half-circuit before the engine sputtered and died. Good. That much less chance of fire. I rounded the bow of the Takasago, cursed a profane prayer to ignorant gods and pushed the stick forward.

  I hit a tent. Something big and brown and canvas. Things got real exciting for a few seconds there, then they stopped. Everything stopped. Everything but my heart. And I had to piss. I unbuckled my seat belt, and became aware that people were cussing me out. In American. Good enough.

  >>>>>>>

  “You goddamn stupid dumb son of a fucking bitch!” Some swabbie was cussing me out as he helped me clamber out of the plane. “You landed that piece of shit right on our Mess Tent, asshole!”

  Home again. My back hurt. “See about the pilot. I think he was shot.”

  “What?” Double-take. “Oh, sure. You’re not the pilot?”

  “I’m just the photog. See?” I held up the camera. “The pilot?” I could not see Kerry’s face, just a hump of brown leather back, but fuck that. I hobbled to the edge of the canvas, the tent, found a tree, whipped it out and pissed. It felt better than any piss in the history of the world. Sailors ran in from every direction, they lifted Kerry from the plane. A medic, corpsman, whatever they call them in the Navy, ran up with a bag and a stretcher, they started cutting Kerry’s flight suit away. I had to sit down, or fall down. I managed to get my ass on the ground without further damage. A triumph. I felt people were probably expecting me to do something. I wanted to cry.