The Bomb Read online

  Then a Sumner landing craft brought Commodore Wyatt and several other officers ashore, plus Azakel, the governor's interpreter. Azakel went straight to Chief Juda, ignoring Tara. He told Juda that the governor would like to reenact the scene of February 10, the day that the villagers agreed to give up their homeland to please the Lord, for the newsreel cameras.

  Juda agreed as Tara walked away, furious.

  Sorry thought about following her but didn't. He wanted to see what else was going to happen.

  Azakel told everyone to go back to where they'd been that Sunday three weeks ago. They went, like the sheep Abram had described. Wyatt sat on a palm bole, old Lokwiar sat on a box; everyone else sat in the sand. Leje Ijjirik was wearing his Japanese soldier's hat.

  The scene of that fateful February day was reenacted several times, to be used for navy public relations purposes.

  Sorry heard Azakel tell everyone to smile. He noticed that only a few people did. Most sat looking down at the sand. Were they ashamed at being chased off their own land? Or were they just numb? Sorry didn't know.

  Before the cameras were put away that day, they were focused on children playing in the lagoon, laughing and shouting, having great fun. Lenses were aimed at any smiling faces that could be found. Anyone seeing the films of those faces would think the villagers were quite content to give up Bikini so that all mankind could learn more about the atom bomb.

  Watching the filming, Sorry thought that Abram would have shouted, "Letao!" Liars.

  So he did.

  The Fifty-third Naval Construction Battalion, a thousand men, the famed Seabees of World War II, builders of everything from barracks to entire air bases, had orders to arrive in early March. They would change Bikini to an atomic test site with their bulldozers and welding torches and electric saws and concrete mixers. To help in such work, twenty dump trucks and three cranes were to be put ashore. They would look odd on the scenic village main street, rolling over the crushed pink coral.

  11

  Maybe it was just his imagination, how his mind was working that morning, but the dawn of March 7,1946, was one of the most beautiful Sorry had ever seen. Jonjen awakened them, and Sorry and Lokileni, joined by Tara and Mother Rinamu, Jonjen and Grandmother Yolo, went out to the beach to watch the sun come up. There were folds of low clouds to the east, and the sun turned their curled, dark toppings to yellow-gold as it rose. The sky, a deep, deep blue, seemed to touch the ridges of gold. A warm breeze was blowing, feathering the lagoon with small whitecaps.

  Then the other villagers came out of what was left of their dwellings, now just stark frameworks with a few old sun-bleached thatch roofs left, to join in a final, silent viewing. They stayed on the beach until the sun was well above the horizon.

  After all that he'd said, so many times, about wanting to leave the atoll to see the ailīnkan, now Sorry desperately wanted to stay.

  ***

  In the late morning they began to load all their possessions into the 1108. An amphibious vehicle called a Duck made trips from what used to be their houses into the ship, small children riding on top of the loads, having the time of their lives. They were shouting and laughing. The laughter of the children was the only laughter that afternoon.

  Sorry and Jonjen very carefully carried the chest of drawers and placed it in a safe spot on the lower cargo deck. Also the fine wooden chair from Nantil. Most of their other things were bundled into matting.

  More unplaited pandanus was carried aboard by the armful, and more sheets of corrugated iron from the Bikini cisterns were hauled by the Duck.

  Except for the small children, everyone was busy, and the American newsreel cameras rolled once again. Back and forth the villagers went to the 1108, until everything had been stripped.

  The outrigger canoes were the last to be loaded. The huge crane lifted them up like they were feathers and lowered them gently to the main deck. Sorry helped secure them.

  ***

  When Lokileni was a little girl, Mother Rinamu had made her a rag doll. Lokileni had named her doll Leilang. As she and Sorry took a last look around the place where their dwelling had been, she said to Sorry, "I've been thinking about Leilang and where to leave her."

  "Why leave her?" Sorry asked.

  "I want something of myself to stay here. Maybe she can watch over our land until we return. But where to put her?"

  Sorry felt a lump in his throat. "How about wrapping her in sennit and putting her up high in that palm?" He didn't know what else to say.

  "Do you think the wind from the bomb blast will blow her out?"

  He looked at the soiled old doll, then at his sister's troubled face. He sighed and said, "How about putting her in the ravine? Then the hot wind will just sweep across her."

  Lokileni sighed, too, and shook her head. She put the doll against her cheek and fought back tears. "No," she said, and tried to smile, then knelt down.

  He watched as she kissed Leilang good-bye and sat her in the sand, her back against a dwelling upright. Lokileni looked up, eyes glistening.

  Then it was time, close to two o'clock, to board the 1108. But as they walked toward it as a family, they realized that Grandmother Yolo wasn't nearby.

  They'd seen her less than a half hour ago while they took the last armloads to the main deck. They searched the beach and called her name. She had a habit of wandering off.

  The few people still onshore joined them in looking for her.

  Jonjen suggested, frowning, "Her favorite rock?" It was on the ocean side, of course, the rock on which she sat to communicate with the spirits of the sea.

  Sorry joined his mother, Tara Malolo, and Lokileni in scrambling in and out of the ravine. A worried Jonjen stayed behind.

  Soon they could see the rock. Her frail figure wasn't on it: the ocean beach was deserted. The rumbling rollers were high this day, topped with white fringes; they crashed on the reefs, throwing up spray that sparkled against the sky.

  They searched along the reef for almost an hour, but there was no sign of Grandmother Yolo. She was not hiding. She had joined Sorry's father in the ocean grave and would never have to face Libokra.

  Weeping softly, they held each other in sorrow.

  Then, slowly, they went back to the lagoon to tell Grandfather Jonjen. Trembling, he looked in the direction of the barrier reef, closed his eyes, said a silent prayer. Finally, he said, "I should have gone with her."

  ***

  Dr. Garrison had come in from the Sumner to wish them good-bye. He'd brought simple gifts from the ship's store for Tara, Lokileni, and Sorry.

  Sorry's mother and Jonjen went aboard the 1108, heads bowed.

  Sorry and Tara talked for a few minutes with Dr. Garrison. Then Tara said, "Please tell us the truth. When do you think we can come back here?"

  Dr. Garrison looked slowly around the island, then finally back at Tara. "No one knows. Maybe never," he said with sadness.

  Maybe never! The words cut into them, draining them. The truth, at last. They could feel the enormity of what he'd just said. Maybe never.

  They managed to say farewell to Dr. Garrison and shook hands with him. Then, as they walked toward the LST, Tara said to Sorry, "Tell no one. There must be hope."

  The tank ramp was drawn in, the bow doors were closed, and the diesels began rumbling at the stern. Acrid smoke blew across the boat as the engines were started. They were sailing with the tide.

  Dr. Garrison stood within a cluster of officers and enlisted men on the sands. They were waving goodbye. Then he turned his back and began to walk toward what was left of the village, appearing unable to watch the scene.

  Soon the 1108 began to pull back, going in a half circle as the water deepened. Most of the villagers were lining the port rail on the top deck. Sorry looked around through a glaze of tears and saw that even the older men were fighting emotion. The hurt gripped chests and throats. Hands were held to lips.

  It was Grandfather Jonjen, mourning the death of Yolo, who bega
n to sing. The others joined him.

  O God, our help in ages past

  Our hope for years to come

  Our shelter from the stormy blast

  And our eternal home.

  Tara reached over and took Sorry's hand. He put his arm around Lokileni's shoulder, and his jaw quivered as the voices faded back into silence.

  Tara stared at the island. Her eyes blazed with anger.

  As they passed it, the starboard rail of the Sumner was lined with officers and sailors waving good-bye. Some of them turned away, too.

  The outbound course was near where the Nevada would be anchored.

  They went past Bokantuak and Eomalan and Rojkora, where Abram and Sorry had met the giant tiger shark; then on past Eonjebi and out into Enyu Channel.

  As the noisy diesels pounded away and the islanders watched, Bikini became smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, until it finally disappeared.

  ***

  The 1108 rocked on through the night, sounds of the sea slapping against her steel sides. Bodies on matting were scattered over the main deck, each family staying close to their possessions.

  Tara chose to remain on the foredeck, lost in her thoughts, staring into the darkness. Sorry went up there in early evening and stood by her. After a while, Sorry's mother came up to stand beside Tara, and Sorry went below.

  Soon he was side by side with Lokileni on the cold steel of the main deck, which was made for tanks of war, not sleeping people. They lay stiffly and silently on their mats, feeling the chill dew, missing the softness of sand.

  There was now an airstrip on Enyu, carved out by bulldozers. Other ships of the support fleet were also arriving; at least two thousand sailors went ashore every day for recreation in what was once Bikini village. The village had almost vanished. Five concrete basketball courts had been poured. There were four baseball fields and ten volleyball courts where palms once fluttered in the wind. There was an officer's club and an enlisted men's club serving ten-cent beer. "Radio Bikini" was broadcasting daily to the world from the island. Bikini had been totally Americanized.

  12

  In the morning, not long after breakfast, with a school of porpoise romping around the bow, they sighted a small island just outside Rongerik lagoon: Bok, guardian island of the atoll. Sorry knew the voyage would soon be over. They'd passed Tara's home, on Rongelap, during the night. At least now she'd be just eighteen miles from her family.

  The foredeck was soon jammed as the passengers eagerly looked at the main island before the anchor was dropped. The beach was wider than Bikini's, and one area was covered with red hibiscus—always a good sign. The palms and pandanus trees didn't look too bad from the distance. With the sun shining brightly, they could see the white tent roofs of the dwellings, their new homes. The church and community buildings, including Tara's school, had been erected. From a mile away, it looked like a good island.

  Tara came up behind them. "We can't go to the beach until the tide is higher."

  So they spent the day impatiently, sitting, walking around the ship, talking, looking toward shore. Sorry was anxious to see where they'd live.

  "If the wooden floor in the new dwelling bothers you we can always take it up and sleep on the sand," his mother said.

  Sorry said, "This lagoon bothers me. You could put it between Rojkora and Enyu, and not have room for a canoe race." He was sounding like Abram.

  "It is much smaller," she agreed, "but let's hope it'll be full of fish."

  "I haven't seen many so far," he said, and walked away in disgust.

  Chief Juda, Manoj Ijjirik, and Tara rode a landing craft to the beach to mark each family's dwelling. Before they left, Tara said, "Not everyone is going to be happy with where we locate them." The idea was to keep the families in more or less the same groupings they'd had on Bikini.

  Sorry's mother said, "We can always trade."

  ***

  The tide became high about five o'clock, and the 1108 got under way for shore, the big nose shoving up on the beach a few minutes later. After they found the tent house with "Sorry Rinamu" marked over the doorway in red crayon, they began to carry everything to it. Thick brush was still around the housing, though a lot had been cleared away by the Seabees.

  The sailors rigged floodlights, and laden with goods, the people moved between the LST and their dwellings. Salt mist coated everything.

  The next morning, Lokileni helped around the house, unpacking what little they had, while Sorry worked with the few remaining Seabees to build several more cisterns.

  In the afternoon, they went off to explore the new island. After they'd walked a ways along the lagoon shore, Sorry said worriedly, "Where are the fish, Lokileni? Where are they?" He had his father's eye for locating them.

  They didn't see the great schools of small fish that were always chased by larger fish in the Bikini lagoon. They walked close to the waterline and didn't even see very many jebak, the useless lizardfish that usually prowled the bottom near shore. Nor could they see any halfbeaks feeding on algae.

  Sorry said, "Maybe they're just not around this island."

  There were other islands, of course. But it was disturbing te see a tropical lagoon where so few fish were evident More than that, it was frightening.

  They walked into what looked like the thickest of the palm groves. There was a lot of brush around the palms since they hadn't been tended in years. Tara had said the people of Rongelap came over to pick coconuts but didn't stay to work in the groves.

  Sorry and Lokileni went back out to the beach and slowly circled the entire island in less than an hour. Near the village they heard children screaming and began running toward them. A Kejibuki boy of maybe four was on his back at water's edge, holding his right foot up in the air. His arms thrashed and he rocked on the sand. All of the children were crying, but he was wailing the loudest Flapping on the sand in front of him was a stonefish, the most poisonous kind of all. A spine had entered the child's foot while he was wading.

  Sorry scooped him up and ran to the navy medic who was with the half dozen Seabees still on the island. The wound was cleaned and the boy was given a tetanus shot, but by nightfall he was near death.

  Slowly, the boy recovered, but Sorry soon discovered that other poisonous creatures swam in the lagoon—the beautiful zebrafish, kale, and the ugly scorpionfish were plentiful in certain areas.

  ***

  Everything bad that they'd heard about the atoll now seemed to be true. The palms were older, and many weren't productive. The coconuts were smaller, and there weren't enough of them to make copra production worthwhile. Even the coconut husk fibers weren't strong enough to make good sennit. The pandanus trees didn't have as many leaves. There were no taro pits. Maybe Grandmother Yolo was right. Perhaps the ekejab, the evil Libokra, did still lurk in the lagoon with the stonefish and hover over the lagoon at night.

  By the end of the first week, they were already unhappy and homesick, but Chief Juda kept insisting that things would soon be better.

  The houses had a paint odor and their floors creaked. The navy canvas locked smells in. Sorry complained, and his mother said, "Let's take the tenting down." The usual thatch walls would go up instead.

  "We have to leave here. We have to go back home," Sorry said.

  "That's impossible."

  "I'm not so sure," Sorry said.

  His mother looked at him and frowned.

  About 5,000 white rats, 204 goats, 200 white mice, 200 pigs, and 60 guinea pigs were to be placed on certain target ships three days before the bomb drop.

  13

  Lieutenant Hastings had given Tara a navy safety pamphlet on radioactivity that had been prepared for the Crossroads press corps. She'd gone over it a half dozen times, trying to understand it. Finally she brought it to school to use as lesson material for older students.

  Sorry listened through a window.

  "'There are two types of radioactivity. One is natural, the other man-made. With natural rad
ioactivity, we are bombarded every day by rays from the sky. And, in some areas, natural radioactivity comes from metals like uranium ore.' What will happen at our atoll is man-made..."

  She saw that the class was lost already and put her hand to her forehead.

  "All right, an atom bomb is a bomb whose explosive force comes from a chain reaction based on nuclear fission, this time using a substance called plutonium, made by man. It's very complicated ... and ... I'm sorry..." Shaking her head, she folded the pamphlet and said, "I tried."

  Frowning, upset with herself for not being able to explain in simple terms what the scientists had written, she added, "The world would be a better place if they hadn't discovered how to make such a terrible weapon."

  Then she shifted to English lessons.

  Sorry's mind wasn't on the lessons. He kept thinking back to what Dr. Garrison had said about the disease called leukemia, and how the fish and plants and trees could become sick.

  ***

  What enraged Tara the most was what the navy was now saying to the world. She had a new American-made radio set and generator, given to them by the commodore. She listened each afternoon, scribbling away.

  At one evening news gathering—the same as they had held on Bikini—she said bitterly, "An admiral in Washington told reporters today that we're adjusting nicely over here. Said we're completely happy. He said Rongerik is a bigger, better island than Bikini. He's never been here!"

  As the long days were passed in trying to adjust—and the villagers did try very hard—the navy flew newspapermen and radio commentators in from Bikini to cover the "primitive natives," as one reporter said.

  "We are natives, all right, but not from the Stone Age," Tara said.

  Every time correspondents arrived, Tara would try again to tell them exactly what had happened on that Sunday in February.