Day of the Bomb (8 page)

“Freedom?”

Typical German. Always wanting what
he can’t have.
“Yes, Comrade Franz. Freedom
would be very nice.”

“Please don’t be so formal. After
all these months, can I not be Wilhelm and you, Arkhip? All of that
saying
comrade
in
front of our names is a joke.”

“As you wish, Wilhelm.” He had earned at least that
much; the number tattooed on his arm was his reminder for life of
his days spent at Treblinka. One of the few survivors by the time
Russian troops entered the camp, Wilhelm had been sent eastward
once his background became known. After all, such German scientists
were spoils of war. If he were allowed to return to his native
Germany then the Allies would surely snatch him and send him to
America. Being a Jew, maybe he would someday relate to Herr Marx
and Herr Lenin, Jews who had birthed their versions of the
socialist utopia that controlled Mother Russia. But he had proven a
disappointment. Having refused to work on Germany’s program to
develop an atomic bomb, he now provided the bare minimum of effort
to the USSR’s efforts to join the nuclear club. Such an ingrate.
Had not Russian troops fought and died to liberate him from the
Nazi death camp? Typical hardheaded, cold-hearted kraut, Arkhip had
concluded. But a good source of information, nonetheless. “Have you
heard anything new?”

“Evidently, Russia’s spies are providing bits and
pieces of data for us. I suspect it won’t be too long before we’re
shipped off to build the bomb. Can’t be doing it here, so close to
the Kremlin.” He pointed toward Moscow, twenty miles to the south.
“Something might go wrong. Uncle Joe wouldn’t like having Moscow
getting radiated. Just the blast and cloud would make him wet his
pants.”

Arkhip could not stifle a laugh as she pictured the
most powerful dictator on Earth with wet pants. “So true. We’ll
have to test it where it won’t harm anyone, at least no
Russians.”

“The Americans tested their first bomb in the desert.
The rumor I’m hearing is their next test will be in the South
Pacific.”

“How do you hear the rumors before anyone else?”

“First I must swear you to secrecy. Repeat after me.
I, Arkhip Yankhov swear on my mother’s grave not to reveal
Wilhelm’s top secret.”

She took the oath. “Okay, I swore. Now tell me. Our
allotted time for walking is almost over.”

“I eavesdrop on the guards.”

“But you speak only German and English. How could
you…”

“And I understand enough Russian to get by. Listening
to the Russian-speaking Jews at Treblinka taught me. They used
Yiddish and sign language to explain any Russian word I did not
know. But speaking your native language is too hard.”

“You rat! All these months you’ve made me speak to
you in German and English.”

“It’s been good for us. Our English is much improved
and your German is much improved as well. My mother would like you
for that even though you’re Russian.”

Arkhip shook her head. Despite their differences in
religion, nationality, and background, they had become friends. And
a friend while isolated in a compound was a valuable asset as they
worked on what Comrade Stalin had dictated as the number one
priority to keep America from bombing Moscow, Stalingrad,
Leningrad, and every other sizeable Russian city just as they had
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. “I think we should test the bomb in Siberia
as close to the Pacific Ocean as possible.”

“Why there? So they can send us to a nearby gulag if
we fail or don’t cooperate?”

“Every scientist knows the prevailing winds travel
from west to east. That way the radioactive material kicked up into
the atmosphere would mostly land on Japan, Korea, and in the ocean.
A little bit would reach Canada and America. But even a tiny amount
falling on them would please Uncle Joe.”

“I hate to disappoint you but the rumor is we’ll be
setting up the test site to the south where it’s much hotter. It
seems that we’re copying the Americans. But it makes sense to work
in an area without severe cold and twenty feet of snow.”

“Where do these rats go, sir?”

Ensign Rhinehardt scanned his chart.
“Over there.” He pointed to a section of deck not yet populated by
some form of four-legged mammal.
Might as
well call me Old MacDonald and this ship my farm. If Captain Uley
had told me I’d be doing this, I would have never
extended.

It took the sailors another hour to position the
animals. The goats, tethered to racks, were left with bowls of
water and piles of feed. Such provisions mystified one seaman. “Why
bother with food and water, sir? Aren’t they all going to die
anyway?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask the scientists back
on ship and at base about that.” Scenes of the victims of
radioactivity he had seen in Nagasaki ten months earlier replayed
in his mind like a B-movie starring some of Hollywood’s army of
lesser-known actors. “Maybe it’s their last meal? You know, like
what the condemned prisoner gets before they fry him in the
electric chair.” He walked the deck of the target ship a last time
and inspected the pigs, goats, rats, and guinea pigs that were
going to experience America’s fourth atomic bomb explosion in a
personal way. No protective glasses for these brave “volunteers” in
the name of science. No safe distance from the blast either. That
was reserved for those on the observation vessels that would sit
far back from ground zero.

As their launch chugged back to their ship the seaman
continued to question his ensign, who did not mind because he
thought it to be a sign of respect rarely encountered during his
time in uniform. “You think all this muss and fuss is worth it,
sir? We already know what the bomb did to Nagasaki and
Hiroshima.”

“The ones who fight wars from some office in the
Pentagon want to know just how an A-bomb would affect ships at sea.
So first the Army brass and Navy brass fight over the details of
the test for months and months. Then it’s all downhill from there.
It’s like PFC Dalrumple, God rest his soul, used to tell me: ‘To be
a plumber you need to know two things, crap floats downhill and
coffee break’s at ten. To be a grunt you have to know two things,
crap floats downhill and coffee break is after we hurry up and
wait.’ It’s like that for the Navy, too. The head bone’s connected
to the neck bone. The neck bone’s connected to the back bone…” He
continued his song until he had reached the toe bones. “And that’s
you and me, seaman. We’re just the toe bones putting test animals
on a fleet of our ships and some Jap ships to see what the next
A-bomb will do to them.”

The seaman winced. “Actually, sir, I think you’re a
foot bone because you’re an officer. Us enlisted are the toe bones.
Maybe that’s why so many of us get broken I guess.”

The ensign smiled. “You got a pretty good head on
your shoulders, sailor. You ever think of moving on up into the
officers’ ranks? That is, if you’re still going to put in your
twenty years of service so you can pull down a pension like you
said before.”

“I don’t know, sir. I’d probably be a fish out of
water as an officer. I’m all right with obeying orders. Giving them
is just not too appealing to me. Besides, after my assignment in
the Marshalls is up I’m going to transfer over to the Seabees. I
love working with machines and tools.”

“At least you’ll be happy then.” Happiness? How to
measure it? Sally was anything but when Fred had extended “because
I have to sort some things out.”

“Things, what things are you talking about?” She had
written back.

“I have to understand these new atomic bombs. Life
will never be the same again for any of us.” He had replied.

“Just as long as you don’t hook up with some Hawaiian
honey in a grass skirt, Japanese Jane, or Polynesian Pam,” she had
warned in the letter in which she finally relented.

Happiness? Just an illusion, that mythical pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow just over the next hill because the
grass is always greener in another place at another time under
better circumstances, he finally had concluded.

***

A B-29 Super fortress dropped the bomb the next day.
It exploded about 600 feet above the waters and in the middle of
the ships anchored in Bikini Atoll. Because it was larger than the
first one tested a year earlier in the deserts of New Mexico the
observation ships pulled back ten miles from the blast’s epicenter.
Other bombers outfitted with cameras instead of guns filmed the
blast. Drone bombers flew through the mushroom cloud to take
readings. Based on data garnered from the aftermath of the bombings
on Japan, scientists had determined the radioactivity levels would
be lethal for any human flying aboard the drones.

Within hours, crews approached the ships that had not
sunk or capsized. The ensign and seaman returned to retrieve the
animals they had anchored to the deck of a ship that still floated
upright.

“Okay, the scientists especially want the survivors,
men,” Rhinehardt said. “So be careful with them.”

“So they can give them medals and then a burial at
sea?”

That wise crack produced enough humor to deaden
senses. The initial sights and odors of radiation burns and sounds
of animals dying agonizing deaths had sent a couple sailors to the
side where they vomited breakfast into the waves below. Especially
pathetic was the billy goat that had butted some of the sailors
during his stay on their ship and transport to his final berth.
They had adopted him as a mascot and started a betting pool in his
honor as to how many weeks he would live after the blast. Now he
lay on the deck, still bound to the rack he had been tied to in the
name of science. Gone was the spark of fire in his eyes, his feisty
attitude that said, “I was drafted into whatever craziness you
humans are up to but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” His
glassy eyes no longer radiated life or received images to transmit
to his brain because he had been looking the wrong direction as the
initial flash of the bomb lit up the sky.

“Looks like Horace isn’t going to make it another
day, boys,” the sailor who had named him said. “Who was it that bet
that he’d only live just one week?”

The keeper of the betting pool chart pulled it from
his pocket. “That would be Fernandez. Hey Fernandez, how did you
know to pick a week?”

The winner to be shrugged. “Lucky guess, I guess.
Besides, I saw too many Japs die while I was there at Yokohama. You
know, survivors from Hiroshima. I figured poor old Horace wouldn’t
do much better than they did.”

“Well, you figured right.” The sailor next to Horace
gently shook the goat. “Horace just stopped breathing. That makes
you $16 richer, you lucky dog.”

***

After the surviving animals had been delivered to
the team of scientists, Ensign Rhinehardt ate dinner with one of
them. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but can I ask you some questions?
Or is what you guys are doing all classified?”

“Ask away. I don’t know any top secrets. I’m too low
level.”

“I just don’t understand why you need to put animals
out there to get blasted by the bomb like you did.”

“We need to nail down adequate data on the effects of
radioactivity on living organisms. It’s the best way to do it.”

“But couldn’t you do all that by studying the
survivors in Japan?”

“We need some long term data. Because our test
animals have much shorter life spans than humans we can extrapolate
the data quicker, especially what kind of effects radiation might
have on offspring. Our test animals produce babies much quicker and
a lot more of them than the A-bomb survivors in Japan ever
will.”

“What?” He dropped his forkful of chipped beef on
toast as he tried to keep his shaking tray from sliding off of his
lap. “Are you telling me that radiation might affect the kids who
are born to the survivors of radiation exposure?”

“Maybe. Nailing that down is the million-dollar
question for us right now. Let’s say a woman who survived Hiroshima
has a defective kid somewhere down the line. What caused it? Did
that same kind of condition that her baby has run in her family
back for who knows how many generations? Or was her kid born all
messed up because mama-san almost starved to death during the war?
Or is because some of her eggs got toasted with a little bit too
much radiation? The worst of it is that females come equipped with
all their eggs at birth, thousands of them. That means even young
girls that got radiated might give birth to a deformed kid years
later. Or maybe it was papa-san’s gonads getting radiated that
makes him produce some defective sperm?” He shoved a spoonful of
rice pudding into his mouth. “There are so many variables to filter
through that it will take years before we know much of anything.
Add in the language barrier. We use a translator to question
mama-san and papa-san about their family histories. How much gets
lost in the translation? A little? A lot? Or just enough to screw
up our research? Like it or not, lab animals are a whole lot easier
to work with. All the ones I’ve ended up dissecting just sort of
seem to accept their fate. That’s something I’ve only seen in about
one out of a thousand human beings. We just plain bitch and
complain and cry a whole lot more than any animal ever does.”

***

The next day the ensign and seaman went aboard a
ship that had tested at a dangerous level of radioactivity as part
of a crew to try and scrub away the residue. Halfway through the
task, the seaman decided to entertain his shipmates during a break.
He began by clicking out a tap dance in front of his captive
audience. As his toes and heels counted off a sixteen/sixteenths
beat he improvised his song:

I’m Popeye the sailor man!

I sail on an old tin can.