Chad Thumann - The Undesirables

Jack hammed it up, pushing back his chair and raising his leg like a choir girl, his bare foot resting on the table. “Tra ra ra boom de-yay,” he sang, mimicking a well-known cancan while he pulled off his pants as if rolling down a pair of silk stockings.

The girls laughed at the show and joined his song. “Tra ra ra boom de-yay!”

Jack stood on the chair and swung his pants around his head, letting go so that they flew across the table and landed on Bel’s shoulder. He then swiveled his hips as he unbuttoned his shirt. But before he finished, he pointed at the girl. “You, too!”

Bel laughed and stood on her chair. While everyone sang, she and Jack unbuttoned together. When they were finished, they wiggled out of their shirts and threw them at each other, wearing only undershirt and bra, respectively.

Suddenly a cold draft hit them as the officer’s mess door swung open, bringing sunlight with it. “What the hell is going on in here?”

Everyone spun toward the door, where Colonel Harris stood, fully dressed, aghast at the scene before him. Colonel Harris was Major Bovington’s replacement, and the men hadn’t yet gotten to know or to trust him.

“Just a little recreation, sir,” Jack answered, managing not to slur his words.

“Looks like a damned whorehouse,” the colonel growled in outrage.

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Jack replied, slyly turning the accusation back on the colonel.

The colonel flushed red. “Just get your damned clothes on and report to HQ.” He turned on his heels and marched back out into the cold.

Jack frowned at Bel and shrugged. “Sorry, beautiful. Duty calls.”

Bel frowned back at him.

Colonel Harris’s office was ice-cold. He even had a fan on. But Bobby was hot anyway, from the liquor. When he, Wally, and Jack entered, Colonel Harris made them stand at attention before him.

“Do you know why we’re here?” he asked, pacing back and forth in front of his desk, a scowl etched on his face.

“Lend-Lease,” Wally replied. “Helping to give the Russians airplanes.”

“Funny, and here I thought we were supposed to be fighting the Japs and the Krauts,” the colonel growled.

“With all due respect, sir, so did I,” Jack agreed.

With his talk of fighting, the colonel was fast gaining their respect.

“So I bet you’re wondering why we’re cooling our heels here, out in the middle of nowhere instead of down south helping 11th Air Force kick the Japs out of the Aleutian Islands?”

“I’ll admit I had that thought,” Jack said.

“We all did,” Wally added.

The colonel turned his appraising eye on Bobby.

“What about you?”

“I know why we’re here,” Bobby admitted. “It’s not to give the Russians airplanes, and it never was.”

The colonel nodded, keeping his eyes on Bobby. “So why don’t you tell your friends?”

Wally and Jack both gawked at Bobby. They had no idea of the true, secret mission they were supposed to be on. Bobby took a deep breath and laid it out for them: how the army was afraid Russia would lose the war, how they didn’t want Russian oil and industry to fall into German hands, and how they were using Lend-Lease as a pretext to scout out potential bombing routes.

The fact that he was drunk made it easier. He was ashamed to have kept it from them this long, and he was relieved, finally, to be letting the cat out of the bag.

The colonel nodded with satisfaction. “They warned me you were smart.” He turned to Jack and Wally. “So you see, our mission in Nome is a helluva lot more important than kicking the Japanese out of some islands nobody really wants anyway.”

He let that settle in for a moment, holding the silence.

“But sir,” Bobby began, then stopped.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

Bobby wanted to continue. The trouble was, the room was spinning. He took another deep breath and steadied himself. “I thought that mission was scrubbed, on account of the Russians insisting on flying the planes themselves.”

“It wasn’t scrubbed,” the colonel said, “just put on ice.” He looked over the assembled pilots. “Believe it or not, you three are among the most experienced pilots we have. Navy’s been in a few scraps, but we’ve mostly been sitting on the sidelines. Didn’t it ever occur to you how strange it is to ground three experienced army pilots in northern Alaska?”

“Of course it did, sir,” Jack offered.

“We were waiting. Hoping that our time would come. And guess what? It’s come.”

“How so, sir?”

“Russians want a summit. A face-to-face with General Marshall. Of course the Russians can’t leave the USSR, seeing as they’re fighting for their lives. Which means they want the general to come to them.” The colonel smiled and leaned back in his chair. “We agreed.”

Like Jack, Bobby was even beginning to like the colonel. Because he immediately caught on to what the colonel was implying. He might be drunk, but he wasn’t stupid. “Under the condition that we fly the general there?”

“Of course. We can’t entrust the safety of one of our most important generals to Soviet pilots, can we?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Jack said.

There was still one piece that Bobby couldn’t wrap his head around. “But we’re fighter pilots.”

“So?” the colonel said.

“The general will be in a transport, won’t he?”

The colonel’s smile got bigger. “We’re in a war, son. Who knows where the front will be by the time the summit takes place? Gotta protect General Marshall from a potential German air attack. It would be stupid to let him fly naked, without fighter support.” The colonel winked.

Then he leaned forward. “The summit’s taking place in Chelyabinsk. I want you three to remember.” He pointed at Bobby. “This one here has a photographic memory, or so I’m told. But that doesn’t mean we’re not counting on the rest of you, too. We need to know everything you see. No detail is too small.”

Jack nodded. “We’ll take good notes.”

“No, no notes,” the colonel scolded. “This is the Soviet Union. Their NKVD is no joke. They catch wind of why we’re really there, you three won’t make it out of the country alive. Understand?”

Bobby replied for all. “Yes, sir, we understand. When do we leave?”

“Summit’s in two weeks. You leave in five days.”

Bobby nodded at that. Five days was plenty of time to sober up.

By the time the three American aviators were dismissed, the Russians’ planes were already prepped.

Bel, Katia, and Lenka were now covered up in full-body flight suits. They were just climbing into their Airacobra cockpits when Jack, Bobby, and Wally walked up to wave good-bye. Katia and Lenka smiled and waved back, but Bel jumped back off the ladder and trotted over to Jack. “Come, I need to show you,” she said, taking his hand, mischief in her eye.

She and Jack ran through the snow and disappeared into one of the hangars. Some moments later, they reappeared and then separated, Bel to her plane and Jack to the company of his two friends.

“What was that all about?” Wally asked.

“She wanted to show me something.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“Her panties.”

Wally gaped at him.

“She said a deal’s a deal,” Jack continued. “And she wanted me to know that she, too, has nice legs.”

“Did she?” Bobby asked.

“Bobby, boy, I think I’m in love.”

“Yeah? Well, join the club.”

The engines roared above, and the three pilots looked back toward the runway. The Airacobras were lifting up just in time, speeding toward the ocean, their metal finish gleaming as they rose up into the cold sunlight.

Bobby couldn’t wait to follow them, across the sea and deep into Russia.

Madame Nadia put down her baton and looked out at her orchestra. They timidly avoided her eye, expecting her to berate them at any moment.

That was her instinct. Their concert in Alexander Gardens had sounded awful, and today’s rehearsal was no better. The young musicians were sufficiently skilled at their craft to impress a group of uncultured proletariat, but they would need to do far better if they hoped to impress an American general, or Josef Stalin himself.

Madame Nadia had berated the children dozens of times already, to no avail. She couldn’t rap their knuckles, either; that might detrimentally affect their playing abilities. She considered paddling them, but that would require making them get up and leave their instruments, and the lesson would be lost. So what was left? What could she do? She had to reassess.

“That’s enough for now,” she told them. “Let’s take a break for lunch.”

The children looked relieved. And then began the scrape and shuffle of putting down instruments and folding up music.

Madame Nadia turned her back on the orchestra and walked out of the auditorium. Her office was only a hundred feet from here, but her mind was a thousand miles away, in Chelyabinsk. How would Josef Stalin react to their performance? He wouldn’t be pleased, she was sure. On the other hand, perhaps his expectations would be as low as that of the proletariat they’d just performed for in the park. After all, they wouldn’t be presenting a full concert in Chelyabinsk; they’d be performing only a sort of background music during the summit’s opening dinner.

No, Madame Nadia decided, hoping for an uncultured audience was a fool’s game. She had to find a way to impress them, regardless of their level of sophistication. Perhaps the piece was the problem. The Rite of Spring was difficult to perform, and it wasn’t exactly easy on the ears. It was clear that many of her young musicians didn’t like it. Who was to say Stalin or the American general might not feel the same way?