The map had two pink countries, three green ones, two yellow, an orange and a brown.
They said you could make one in just four colors—a math professor from New Jersey proved that—but I didn’t try. We used a five color press. I worked at Modern America Printing. We made maps.
“Never a border without a color change. You don’t want Russia to bleed into Turkey, or Spain into France.” That was rule number one. There are other rules you don’t notice. “Too much green in the upper left,” they said. I liked green and they didn’t. It made the land solid and alive. “Use it for highlights. On long, thin countries like Chile.” What a rule! That was their idea of a map.
I wanted to do more. A color here, the right combination there and it could change things. The colors would mean something. Greenland isn’t yellow anymore. I did that. And I always wanted Russia pink. We didn’t have dark red like the Ruskies wanted, but pink was pretty close. I would send the map down pink and they would send it back. “Pink too heavy in the northern latitudes. Try yellow.”
I wanted to change Canada, too, but it was always pink. That was a rule. Everything England ever touched had to stay pink, like its prissy little queen. And Russia and Canada both in pink drowned out the US. I thought Canada would have been a lovely orange. But it stayed pink and Russia went green in the ’62 version, yellow in ’63, then went purple in ’64 and looked like it would stay that way.
This map had it green. It was a ’62. A lot of complaints came in that year. “A red garden spot,” they called it. Then yellow pushed it too close to China—that was the story around the office. But finally purple reminded them of the tsar. That’s Russian for Caesar. It’s what they wanted. I just wanted pink.
A ’62. That’s six years back, but it’s a North-East Europe and nothing changes there. The action was in Africa. The old maps had colonies all in one color—except the important borders like French and Spanish Morocco. Now it’s a rainbow. That was my work. It was my first challenge. Then Asia started changing. Jake handled that though. He was pretty good. I trained him before I left.
I looked at green Russia and beside it, at Poland, all brown and boxy.
I was watching Poland tonight. That’s my job now. I watch out for Poland every day. I got drafted into the Army after American Maps. Maps weren’t strategic enough for an exemption. That’s what my draft board said.
I had always wanted Poland green. The key was uniting Germany. Its two colors unbalanced everything. And Poland turned up brown. I heard Russian maps had only one Germany, but they did lots of tricks. They moved Moscow—to fool our airplanes—and even moved some lakes and mountains around. We couldn’t do that. There was a rule.
Germany always went down divided. It would be sent back otherwise. Jake said he would keep trying to make it one. He called it my dream, that and a pink Russia.
I looked down at the typewriter. “Troops of the Polish 83rd Armored Division in maneuvers. Four radio transmitters active 1400-2000 hours on 1 Dec 1968. Practice communications noted.” I added, “All other communications normal.”
I should have reported the messages that Bitzer brought in but that was at 10 and this was supposed to go out at 9:30. I signed the form and carried it to the radio room. Work was almost over. My shift was eves--that’s evenings in army talk--and it went until midnight. Joe came in then but tonight he was at the movies and I told him to see the end. It was a John Wayne. He liked that stuff.
The map hung in the front of the room with lots of desks facing it. You could look up and see Poland, just waiting there. I was in the back desk. It was safer. Sgt. James usually sat under the map and watched us. He was in charge but got orders from upstairs. They came through a pneumatic tube. It would spit out orders for him. And snort when we sent up replies.
Pins with little flags stuck in all over the map. These were divisions. They had 10,000 men. I lost two divisions one day, but we got them back. Stillman went through the trash that night and found them. He used to work here too.
Sgt. James had a long ruler so he could point anywhere in Poland without getting up. He never said city names, just motioned that his mouth was full and pointed. At first he tried to say the names but we would correct him. Bydgoszcz, Rzeszów, lots of good, spitty sounds. Sgt. James was the only one who didn’t speak Polish in the room. “I speak sergeant and that’s good enough.” That’s what he would say.
Pointing worked OK, but sometimes we would get the towns mixed up. It was hard to tell them apart from so far away. Remember I sat in the back. The reports got confused, but Sgt. James never knew. He didn’t read them. He was waiting to retire after 19 years as a cook.
Our desks were lined up on straight, white lines painted on the floor. Sgt. James was proud of that. He did it one night. Before him, it was a maze. Once you could only get to the back desks through the latrine. Stillman did that. He would map out secret routes to the door and leave them on my desk. I had to burn them though. He stamped TOP SECRET on them. You can’t leave secrets lying around—that’s a rule.
Sgt. James’ desk was centered over the lines in the front. He would check desks every hour. The room was very neat. But I would usually kick Joe’s desk out of line, then he would bump mine and then all the others got twisted a little and the file cabinets moved. Then—WHAM—Stg. James banged Poland with his ruler and we would realign the room.
At 1530 we sent our reports. Except now I sent out mine at 2130 because I had got changed to eves. My message would be passed around in Washington in one half hour, or if something important happened, it would go faster. There are lots of secret ways to send it. I won’t tell you about them.
I was looking at Poland. It is a flat country, like a big hayfield. My grandmother told me that. She was from Zielona Pole. That means green field. It’s near the 10th Division today.
I still had to type up the numbers that Bitzer had heard before my shift ended. There were about ten pages of numbers. “46523 66525 76428 66904.” That was the first line. I got most of them right.
They put the messages in a computer in Washington. It rearranges them three billion ways. Sometimes they figure out the code. The Poles are pretty smart but they buy their codes cheap, from Germany. They don’t always get the best. The last message Washington figured out was an order for band-aids. We put it in the file.
Here’s how it works: Bitzer listens to the messages, I figure out who sent them, and downstairs they resend them to the US. We are a post office for wayward messages.
“We are intelligence, not spies.” That’s what Sgt James told me. But I know the truth. We can be shot for this. I mean blindfolded and shot, not normal shooting-back shot that most soldiers get to do. There are rules for wars and we broke some. Sgt. James never mentioned this. I had to look it up. It is rule number seven. No dum-dums—those are bullets that hurt more than regular ones, no saw teeth on your bayonet, no shooting nurses and no reading other people’s mail. Radio messages are a kind of mail. So I was a war criminal like some of those Nazis: Hitler, Gerring and Patton.
I typed the Polish messages on US forms. Downstairs they put them in US code and radioed them. I wondered if Polish Intelligence troops listened in and typed them down and sent them in their code which we heard and coded and then they listened for again. It kept us going.
I was halfway through when I remembered that Stillman had left his weapons cache. I wanted to try it. It was in the safe under secrets. Stillman left last Thursday. They said he was lucky. He would have Christmas at home. Then he would go to Vietnam. “I’ve got the luck of the Irish,” he told me. I’m not sure I know what that means.
The safe combination was secret, so we couldn’t write it down. We had to keep it in the safe. I can tell you now because they change it every month. It was 7 right, 20 left, 36 right. No one could ever remember so we made up a code on the map. We made three new divisions this month: the 17thRifle Division, the 30th Land Mortars, and the 46th Rockets. You probably figured out the code. Just add 10. We kept the new divisions near Russia. Sometimes they moved towards Germany and Sgt. James called an alert.
I took the box out of the safe. It was in the secrets folder painted red. Stillman had built it. It was filled with lists of Polish generals and their phone numbers. I pulled out the false bottom and saw what I was looking for. Stillman had worked on it for two years. He was all alone at night. There wasn’t much to do. Poland is pretty quiet these days, but Stillman worked harder than I do. I sleep under the desk. Some sleep in the latrine but under the desk is better.
I took one out of the box and shot at Warsaw. We weren’t supposed to. Stillman invented the dart gun. It was really a blow gun that shot map tacks stuck through pencil erasers with onion skin cones taped on the eraser. They could bury themselves in concrete. Who would have believed that?
Before Stillman we just had rubber bands. Water guns were too messy.
Stillman smuggled in a bamboo tube to shoot with. I just rolled up a desk blotter and left no evidence. They caught Stillman smuggling out the bamboo. He had a message on him too. It was the Polish Band-Aid Secret. They didn’t arrest him though. He was lucky.
I shot at Warsaw again and hit the suburbs. Warsaw is a good target. It had lots of people. Stillman could hit town hall. I was just a suburbs man.
Stillman liked playing beer darts, too. He played with the Germans in town. They just threw them at the target, though. Stillman said, “They are the best.” They can dot the I’s in Wiener Schnitzel. That’s a small town near Poland.” He liked jokes. But the Germans could never shoot at Warsaw or even get near our map. There was barbed wire around the building and soldiers guarding us who didn’t understand what we did. The Germans all knew. Only the guards believed the parachute trap story. That’s what we had to call our big radio antennas.
Warsaw was getting pretty tattered. Stillman wanted to replace it with Chicago. They are a lot alike. He cut it out of Illinois. I thought we should just replace all of Poland. Even the countryside was ruined with pin holes. The divisions moved around a lot.
Really, we should order a new one. I like new maps. The countries are all clean and bright. All in order. That’s the real reason why I worked for Modern America. I would sit in the storeroom and just watch the maps. It was like travelling, but not as messy. One inch to ten miles is the best. Then you can see everything.
I hope some of Jake’s maps are still there in American Maps. They go pretty fast, I hear. He doesn’t do them anymore. He got drafted too and I don’t know who took over. Jake wrote me sometimes. He said Poland was almost green last year. They changed it back at the last minute.
Joe should be here soon. We talk a lot. It’s lonely here at night. There used to be four guys on. Then you could play cards. Two left for Vietnam in August. Miller might come back. Jackson got shot though.
I just delivered the messages, but you never see who radios. You put them in a slot and ring the bell. It’s like being a mailman. You can’t get in because it’s very secret. They have a door like a safe and you need the combination. I tried some numbers written on the wall once. It’s good they didn’t work. They might have shot me.
I guess I’ll tell you. Stillman said he might not show up in Vietnam after Christmas. He said Canada looked good right now. His job would have been to tell them where to drop bombs. That’s what they use this stuff for. He didn’t want to do that.
Joe talks about Vietnam too. He thinks we’ll all get sent. He’s tall and scared he will get shot. Tall guys make the best targets. I’m short so I’m OK, except for mines and booby traps. That’s what Sgt. James told me.
I checked the map yesterday. Just in case I go. Vietnam is pink on the top and green on the bottom. Sort of like a flower.
