The Bomb Read online

  Tara stared at the officer, then said calmly, "Suppose we refuse to leave."

  Lieutenant Hastings took a deep breath. "Then we'll march everyone onto the LST. You're going to Rongerik, all of you! Believe me!"

  Tara translated for Juda and then said, "Oh? At gunpoint, Lieutenant?" She seemed to be enjoying the argument.

  Hastings reddened and fought to control his temper.

  Dr. Garrison took advantage of the lull and said, "Excuse me, I'm John Garrison. I was told on the Sumner to contact Tara Malolo." He spoke in Marshallese.

  "I'm Tara Malolo."

  They shook hands.

  Garrison introduced himself to Chief Juda and said, "I'm from the National Museum, part of the Smithsonian. I'll be all over the atoll for the next few months to take samples of bird, sea, and island life, then do 'before and after' studies."

  "Why the pistol?" Tara asked. Scientists did not usually carry guns.

  Dr. Garrison laughed. "To shoot birds. Made it myself—I have three other barrels for it. I'll try to take at least three specimens of all the wildlife, then come back here in six months, after the bombs go off, and make health comparisons. I just wanted to let you know I was here."

  "If you need help, call on me," she said with a smile. "You'll find a lot more birds on Nantil, the next island north."

  Garrison thanked Tara for the offer and went out to explore Bikini. He was the first of dozens of scientists who would descend on the atoll. Sorry and Lokileni followed him out, anxious to see him use the odd-looking pistol.

  As they left, Sorry heard Tara say to Lieutenant Hastings, "You haven't answered my question about the guns."

  The two atomic weapons for the aerial shot and the underwater detonation had been assembled at the Los Alamos laboratory, the same lab that had produced the Trinity test bomb and the ones used in japan. The new bombs awaited a ship ride to Kwajalein.

  Crossroads was appropriately named: Science had opened the door to the atomic age, and mankind was at the crossing of roads that might lead to peaceful use of the atom or to death and destruction around the globe.

  8

  A day later, at twilight, Sorry and Lokileni sat in the sand where the council building had been and listened to Tara relay the day's news. "The military station in Kwajalein isn't saying very much about it, but Honolulu is. Protests are starting." She had dialed in NBC-Honolulu on shortwave after the Armed Forces Network broadcast.

  "People are writing to the president and to the navy, senators, and congressmen. Some newspapers are saying not to drop the bomb. Some atomic scientists say to cancel the tests; they'll prove nothing. The destruction and death they'll cause is already known. There's a lot of talk about us, about Bikini."

  "Are you telling us the tests might be canceled?" Sorry's mother asked.

  "I'm only telling you what the radio said," Tara answered. "But if enough people protest, maybe the navy will postpone the tests or call them off. There is still a chance."

  "That's wishful thinking," said Leje Ijjirik sharply.

  "It does no good for the people to raise their hopes, Tara," said Chief Juda.

  "And how do we know that she is telling the truth?" Leje asked.

  "Come and listen for yourself," Tara replied evenly, calmly. Leje couldn't understand a word of English.

  The news session ended a few minutes later. Aside from Leje and a few others, almost everyone was still hoping that something miraculous might happen to put off the dreaded hour of departure. Grandfather Jonjen conducted prayer services at sundown, asking God to save them.

  ***

  On February 25 a landing ship tank 327 feet long, veteran of the Marshall Islands' battles, crunched up on the beach. The bow doors swung open and the loading ramp was lowered. Sorry had never seen a ship like the LST 1108, an ugly, bulky thing.

  It was the day the villagers finally surrendered, accepted their fate, acknowledged the power of the navy and the giant government it represented. They'd been foolish to think things could be otherwise, as Leje had said.

  The 1108 carried enough food to last a month on Rongerik. Thirty thousand gallons of fresh water. Tools, lumber, cement, tent frames; wooden floors for twenty-six dwellings. There were corrugated sheets of iron for water catchments and many other things that they'd never seen. The navy had taken charge, down to the last nail and bag of cement. The villagers were bewildered.

  Sorry willingly helped carry the new pandanus thatch that had been woven by the women. The dismantled pieces of the church and town council buildings went into the lower tank deck, along with the matting. Lokileni and Sorry worked side by side, saying little.

  In late afternoon, the 1108 pulled up her loading ramp and closed the bow doors. Her smoky diesels began spinning the two propellers, and she backed down off the sand. Twenty-two men had volunteered to go to Rongerik for a week, to help the Seabees construct the new village. The men stood on the bow, near the forward gun tubs, waving good-bye, their faces solemn.

  All others stood on the beach to see the 1108 depart. They watched until the shape of the tank ship began to dissolve in the distance.

  Sorry momentarily wished he were going along. He didn't know about anyone else, but he had mixed feelings during these last days on Bikini. He was overwhelmed with the Americans and all their possessions. He couldn't judge them as harshly as Abram had done. What he was wishing was that he were on the 1108 and that they were going not to Rongerik, but rather to America.

  ***

  After touring Dr. Garrison around the island, showing him the cemetery and Abram's fresh grave with its new headstone, the Japanese barracks, and the bunker where the soldiers had killed themselves—after walking him from one end of the island to the other—Sorry and Lokileni became his helpers. Into the canvas knapsacks went starfish and sea urchins and sea cucumbers and shrimp and crab, examples of every living organism they could find along the lagoon shore and over on the barrier reef.

  "Why?" Sorry asked.

  "Well, we want to know how the radioactivity from the bomb will affect living things on the atoll. If we know what happens to the fish, crustaceans, birds, plants, and coral, then science can perhaps answer some questions about the future of living with atomic weapons."

  "I'm not sure I understand," Sorry said.

  Dr. Garrison thought a moment. "Radiation, of course, is invisible. You can't see it, hear it, or smell it. But once it gets inside your body you can become very sick and even die. It all depends on how big a dose you get. You ever heard of leukemia?"

  Sorry shook his head.

  "It's a blood disease. White blood cells can multiply uncontrollably in certain conditions. It's one of the most dreaded forms of cancer, particularly among children. But no age is immune. Leukemia can sometimes result from prolonged deep X-ray treatments and other unusual exposures, like atomic explosions."

  Sorry still didn't really understand. White blood cells? He didn't know they existed. "Will that happen to us?"

  "No, because you won't be here, but the fish and plants and trees, even the sand, could become sick. There's something called fallout, tiny airborne pieces of radioactive debris from the explosions. The tiny pieces can get into the seaweed of the lagoon. A fish nibbles them and can become sick if it nibbles enough. The fish may glow. You eat the fish, you become sick."

  Now Sorry knew clearly why Abram had been so worried. Eat poisoned fish? He said sadly, "I wish America wouldn't drop the bombs here."

  Dr. Garrison looked around at the peaceful lagoon, the quivering palm fronds, the beauty of the island. "One part of me agrees with you. But the scientific part doesn't. I'm anxious to know what will happen to the fish, the plants, the trees..."

  ***

  One afternoon Sorry stopped Dr. Garrison for a moment at water's edge.

  "Tara said you know a lot about the atom bomb."

  "Actually, I know very little," said Dr. Garrison.

  "Do you know how far away any humans were when they tested that firs
t bomb?"

  "Six miles, I've heard."

  "Was anyone killed or hurt by it?" Sorry asked.

  Dr. Garrison shook his head. "I don't think so."

  "They'll drop the bomb here on a lot of ships?"

  "Yes, but on one in particular, a battleship, the USS Nevada."

  "The plane will be high up?"

  "About five miles, I've heard."

  "How will they see the battleship?"

  "They have very powerful bombsights. They'll see it, Sorry. I'm glad you're so interested."

  From that plane trip to Rongerik, Sorry knew it was easy to see things from the air. He'd seen the schools of tuna. The men in the bomber would be able to see him down on the lagoon.

  "Thank you," said Sorry. "I'll be here in the morning."

  "Thanks again for all your help," the scientist said, smiling.

  In Pearl Harbor, the USS Nevada, bombed and beached during the Japanese attack, was being painted a bright orange-red, with white stripes around the main deck edges. After the December 7 attack, she was repaired and refitted, and fought in World War II. Now the thirty-five-year-old battleship would be zeropoint, in the center of the target fleet. The aerial bomb would explode above her single stack.

  9

  Sorry sailed Dr. Garrison over to Nantil Island in early morning, and the scientist shot seven different types of birds with that strange-looking gun by noon. The Sumner's cooks fixed him boxed lunches each day, and he always ordered extra boxes for Sorry and Lokileni. But she'd stayed home that morning for school.

  Over lunch Dr. Garrison said, "Since we can't test humans out here, we'll use animals."

  He said that in several months a special troop transport loaded with animals, a navy Noah's Ark, would arrive. They'd take the place of humans.

  The navy was always doing strange things, Sorry thought.

  "Pigs will be used because they are comparable to us in hair and skin. Goats will be used because their body fluids are similar to those of humans."

  "They'll be killed?" Sorry asked.

  "Those on open decks will be killed instantly by the explosion. Others will just be radiated and then studied later by doctors. Others inside the compartments may not be harmed at all."

  The troop transport would serve as the animals' home until they were transferred to twenty-two of the target ships a few days before the bomb drop, Dr. Garrison said. They would replace sailors in usual battle positions throughout the ships. "White rats will be in engine rooms and living quarters. The National Cancer Institute is providing some special white mice that are prone to cancer and others that have seemed to resist it. After the aerial shot, they'll be flown back to Washington for study and breeding. Some might not be able to breed again."

  "Because of that poison you can't see or hear or taste?"

  He nodded. "Radiation."

  "Can't they do it any other way except by killing animals?"

  "Unfortunately, no. But I'm really fascinated by what they'll do. They'll dress some of the pigs in gunners' antiflash suits and smear them with regular antiflash solutions. Some of the goats will be shaved and daubed with creams. A goat blood bank is being collected to treat the radiation victims."

  "Will the animals be loose on the ships?"

  "No, Sorry. The rats and mice and guinea pigs will be in wire-mesh cages. Over six thousand are being built. The pigs and goats will have pens. The navy is buying five thousand bales of hay."

  Sorry had never heard of guinea pigs or some of the other animals. There were no white mice on Bikini. But the thought of animals being radiated shocked him.

  "Things far beyond our imaginations are going to happen here," Dr. Garrison said. "Big planes, bomber types, will fly through the radioactive cloud without pilots. They'll travel from Eniwetok and return, without any human aboard."

  "How will they do that?"

  "Radio remote control." He paused. "War is a terrible thing, Sorry, but it causes all kinds of advancements in science, medicine, weapons, communication, aircraft, even food. And something called television, pictures moving by electronic transmission, has been perfected in the last ten years. We'll use it for the tests."

  "Not a movie?" He and Lokileni had seen their first movie on the afterdeck of the Sumner.

  "Yes, but different. I've read it'll be coming into homes in five or six years."

  "Will we see it here in the atolls?"

  "Not for a long, long time, I'd guess."

  Disturbed, Sorry said, "Why has the world left us so far behind?"

  "Because of where you live. But in some ways you've been lucky. And a lot of people think they'd like to live on an island like this one. Few could do it. They'd starve."

  "Will we ever catch up?" Sorry asked, frowning.

  "I hope not. But if you do, I hope you'll do it slowly. There've been times when I wished the airplane wasn't possible, and I wished the atom bomb hadn't been invented, and maybe sometime I'll even wish that television didn't exist."

  He was beginning to sound like Grandfather Jonjen. "How can you make those wishes? You're a scientist..."

  "The things I usually study aren't modern. Most date back a million years, in one way or another."

  It was time to bag more birds.

  ***

  After returning to Bikini Island, Sorry sat beside Dr. Garrison near the canoe house, again waiting for the landing craft to take the scientist back to the Sumner.

  Sorry asked where the bomb would be dropped.

  "So far as I know, about three or four miles straight out there," he said, pointing to the lagoon. "That's where the Nevada will be, according to what I've heard on the ship."

  "Yesterday the radio said there'd be between ninety and a hundred other target ships."

  "That's what they told me in Pearl Harbor at the briefing. They're bringing some big ones in. Even captured Japanese and German ships. A couple of aircraft carriers, Independence and Saratoga. A bunch of submarines and destroyers. All kinds of ships."

  "Just to blow them up?"

  "Test them," said Dr. Garrison. "See if they can get hit by an atom bomb and still fight. No one knows what will happen, Sorry. That's the spooky thing."

  Sorry nodded gravely.

  "They don't want anyone killed out here. Hiroshima and Nagasaki scared everyone, even the scientists who made the damn bombs."

  "They should be scared," Sorry agreed, thinking, I am.

  "They plan to explode it five hundred feet above the Nevada when a B-29 Superfortress drops it."

  Then the landing ferry pulled up on shore, and Dr. Garrison returned to the Sumner.

  Thousands of letters were sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman and members of Congress. Even though Bikini was five thousand miles from California, people were frightened by Operation Crossroads. Would the bomb blow a hole in the earth's crust and allow the ocean to pour in, stopping the planet's rotation? Would all the seas turn bright yellow from radiation? Would the bomb burn up the oxygen in the atmosphere? Would there be a tidal wave in Hawaii? The navy hoped to win over public opinion through use of radio and newspapers.

  10

  A few days later, a navy newsreel team filmed the final village Sunday church service. The newsreels would play in movie theaters around the world, making audiences believe that the people of Bikini approved of the tests.

  The villagers always dressed up on Sundays. The girls and women wore leis. Tara had on a Hawaiian print, and Lokileni wore her only white dress. Sorry's mother wore her best dress, white with tiny purple flowers on it. Sorry had on his only white shirt and white pants. Most of the girls and women had red hibiscus in their hair. They looked pretty but were not smiling.

  Hymns were sung, and Grandfather Jonjen read from his Bible and preached while the cameras whirred away. The service was held not too far from where the church building had been, and Jonjen led everyone in prayer from his crude bench and table—the altar—asking God to spare the island and keep the people safe on Rongerik.
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br />   The service did not go well, since the newsreel crew kept moving the camera around, asking Tara to have Jonjen move this way or that way, look this way or that way, say again what he'd just said. Grandfather Jonjen was confused and Sorry was angry.

  Finally, Tara rebelled. "That's enough!" she shouted in English.

  Sorry felt the hours and minutes ticking away. Their time was almost up, every moment now was precious. The 1108 would soon push back up to the beach.

  Several photojournalists had arrived from New York, and Tara interpreted for them. At the same time, she tried to tell the islanders' story, how the navy had deceived them.

  "But the reporters don't listen," she told the villagers. "They seem caught up in what the navy is going to do. They wanted to know if I thought the bomb was going to blow all our palm trees down. I said that dried fronds might blow off but the trees would just bend. They all kept asking stupid questions like that—even typhoons don't blow palms down. None of them are really interested in us losing our island."

  The writers stayed for a few days, then a flying boat returned them to Kwajalein.

  Tara said that almost every newspaper in the world would have stories about the atom-bomb tests; about the simple, trusting people of the tiny village, isolated for decades from civilization, suddenly swept into modern times. The international airwaves were filled with radio broadcasts in every language. Thousands of still pictures were taken, in addition to black-and-white newsreel footage.

  ***

  On the morning of March 6, the villagers gathered again in their best clothes, swept the cemetery clean with fronds, and picked the last flowers that were blooming to decorate the graves. Grandfather Jonjen held a service to honor the dead, especially Abram Makaoliej, and bid them farewell for a while. Still cameras flashed and motion picture cameras rolled. Grandfather Jonjen, in the midst of honoring the dead, was asked to move toward a large white gravestone. Sorry saw Tara close her eyes in rage.