Bomb (9780547537641) (15 page)

Then the villagers went to a church service. Grandfather Jonjen read from the Bible and prayed for God to protect His children and allow them to change the minds of the white men and convince them not to drop their terrible weapon over the home lagoon.

Then they sang "Amazing Grace," faces toward heaven.

After the service, Sorry led Tara and Jonjen, each wearing leis and warrior headbands, down the hibiscus path to the canoe. That was in the tradition of the old tribes, who went off to war in fifty-foot canoes, with their clamshell axes.

The villagers lined up on either side of the path, clapping hands and wishing them well. Even Leje Ijjirik was there slapping his palms together.

Sorry's confident face seemed to be wreathed in gold from the early sun, the way the leaders must have looked when sailing two hundred years ago—strong and handsome.

Good-byes were said, the lateen sail was raised, and the canoe, with Jonjen and Tara in it, was shoved out into the water by many men. Sorry leapt in.

He broke out in a wide smile and held his fingers up in the sign that the Americans had taught them, the victory sign. The villagers kept waving until the red canoe with the white sail grew dim on the horizon and went out through Bok Pass.

 

On June 30, a reminder signal went out from the command ship, Alt.
McKinley,
"One July Is Able Day." Within minutes, final preparations were made on instrumentation ashore and aboard the target ships. The pigs, goats, caged rats, mice, and other animals were in their assigned positions. In the late afternoon most of the support ships still in the lagoon began to leave. A few stayed behind to check on the target vessels and make certain all personnel had been taken off. The support ships were assigned to areas east and northwest and would stay in those relative positions until after the bomb drop. The Alt.
McKinley
had been code-named
Sadeyes
and the silver-colored bomber,
Dave's Dream,
had been code-named
Skylight One.

The clouds hid the red canoe on the way to Lomlik. Now and then they'd hear the sounds of aircraft engines above; there seemed to be dozens. One sounded as if it would break through the low clouds. At times, there was light rain.

Looking up at the cloud cover, Tara asked, "What are they doing?"

Sorry had no idea.

If the clouds parted and that aircraft found them, they'd likely be reported, be forced to turn back. The radio had said that all sea traffic had to stay at least 150 miles away from Bikini during the next three days.

Sorry stayed to the north of the atoll and sighted Nam, then Worik; and finally, at sundown Sunday, there was long, skinny Lomlik, where the Rinamus owned land. The clouds had pulled back in midafternoon, and by twilight the canoe was in the home atoll.

Bikini Island was only a smudge, but even in the poor light of sundown they saw that the face of the lagoon had changed completely. In the far distance were the anchored dark forms of the larger ships, the aircraft carriers and battleships.

Most of the "live" ships had departed, leaving the "dead" ones, many with animals aboard, to wait the night out. A tower with a big instrument on top was mounted on Lomlik, facing the target ships. Sorry had an eerie feeling as they pulled near its steel legs. It looked mean and hateful in the shallow light.

Sorry had been to Lomlik dozens of times to pick coconuts, Jonjen many more times than that. Jonjen looked around their land. He said, "The white men always seem to spoil whatever they touch."

They were home—but they weren't home, because this wasn't home to them anymore, wasn't the lagoon that Sorry had grown up in. It was a foreign water now under a foreign flag. They couldn't see any change on Bikini itself; it was too far away in this graying dusk. But they knew the change was there. The beautiful lagoon had turned hostile, its outriggers replaced by warships.

They talked very little. There was not much to say. What could be said of the bomb, and of the bomber that would be up there tomorrow morning with a Fat Man in its belly?

They ate K-rations, and just before bedding down, Sorry said, "Have you changed your minds? If you have, go over on the barrier beach in the morning. If I can't stop the bomb, you'll be safe there, I think."

Tara said, "We're going out with you, Sorry."

Jonjen said, "I didn't come all this way to sit on the barrier beach."

"I want to head for the target fleet not long after midnight," Sorry said.

They stretched out on their mats, and soon Grandfather Jonjen, at peace with his world, was snoring away, as usual, under the stars.

Neither Sorry nor Tara could sleep.

Sorry said, "When I was seven, we knew the typhoon was coming. The old men, like Jonjen, could tell it was coming our way by the looks of the sky and by how the breeze was blowing, the smell of the air. The birds vanished from the atoll and even the fish went to the bottom. I'd heard about typhoons from Jonjen and was so frightened I could hardly speak. After a time of total silence, with not a whisper of breeze, it roared in, sending us up the palms and destroying the village. I feel like that now, Tara. Frightened, suddenly. It's so quiet here; the lagoon is so black."

She said, after a silence, "I was thinking yesterday that we were too young to die. Why should we take this chance? About halfway here I thought about asking you to turn back. Then I thought about what Abram would do. He would keep going, I knew, and he would shake his fist at the navy."

"That's what I thought, too, when that plane came so low. Abram would keep going. So we've come all this way and must go out there tomorrow morning and hope they'll see us..."

Sorry finally dozed off.

Around two o'clock, he awakened Tara and Jonjen to say, "Let's put the red sail on."

That took about ten minutes.

Then they ate K-rations again and were ready to go, Tara and Grandfather Jonjen climbing into the canoe.

Sorry shoved off and caught the light breeze, sailing south toward the target area in the pitch-dark lagoon.

They didn't speak, worried that the white man's electronic ears might hear them. Ears that Dr. Garrison had described.

 

At
5:43
A.M.
,
July
1,
on Kwajalein, the four engines of
Dave's Dream
mumbled sweetly as it taxied out to the long runway, the atom bomb tucked in its belly. Then the engines began to roar as pilot Woodrow Swancutt opened the throttles.
Dave's Dream
quivered at runway's end while all the instruments and dials were checked one last time. Finally, the brakes were released and she began to roll, gaining speed until liftoff.

 

At dawn, under high scattered clouds, they hid in their canoe by the stern of a ghostly LST that was anchored about three miles off the beach, north of the
Nevada.
Sorry had often fished in almost the exact spot.

As the sun slowly began to light up the abandoned island, they could see the south end no longer bore any resemblance to what they'd once called home. Even from three miles away, the high steel towers and buildings were plainly visible. The navy had only left a few palms here and there.

It didn't seem possible there could be such change in five months.

Grandfather Jonjen glared at the island as if the devil himself had made the changes.

Tara turned and finally whispered, "Do you realize we are the only humans within miles of here?"

***

It was a few minutes after eight o'clock on Tara's watch when the sky suddenly filled with all sorts of aircraft. Bombers, seaplanes, fighters. Sorry had no idea what they were doing. Some were at low altitude, so the three of them sat in the canoe, hunched down, hoping they wouldn't be seen yet.

"They'll land a seaplane and jerk us out of here," Sorry whispered.

His idea was to raise the red sail close to when the bomb was scheduled to drop, and steer north, away from the
Nevada.
He worried about the breeze.

Tara asked, "Will we be six miles away?"

Sorry nodded. "I hope so."

Grandfather Jonjen said he'd estimate the distance to the huge target ship, glowing in its red coat, and wait until the bomber could be seen before beginning his prayers.

"Please be certain," Sorry said. Six miles was critical.

Then the other planes went away, and the three of them faintly heard a sound from above. They looked up to see sun flashing off a silver bomber.

Sorry said, "I think that's it."

 

Dave's Dream
arrived over the lagoon at 8:26. "This is
Skylight One, Skylight One.
Ten minutes before first simulated bomb release. Stand by. Mark: Ten minutes before simulated bomb release. First practice run.
"

 

Sorry and Tara ran up the red sail and the wind caught it. They shoved away from the LST, and Sorry steered north, watching the sky, saying, "Remember, the radio said they'll make several practice runs. Maybe they'll see us down here."

To Grandfather Jonjen, he said, "Tell me when you think I'm six miles away from the
Nevada.
"

The wind wasn't helping.

 

"
This is
Skylight One, Skylight One.
Five minutes before actual bomb release. Mark: Five minutes before actual bomb release...
"

 

Sorry said to Tara, "Start flashing the tin lid. They'll see it."

Eight-thirty had come and gone.

Waiting, Sorry thought about the unknowing animals, the goats and pigs that were shaved and smeared with antiflash ointment; about the white mice and white blood cells and leukemia; and about the fish that might glow....

 

"Skylight One. Skylight One.
Two minutes before actual bomb release. Mark: Two minutes before actual bomb release. Adjust all goggles. Adjust all goggles.
"

 

Tara stared at flashes of sun reflecting off the bomber in the blue sky. "Look down, please look down here, please look down here..."

 

On the battleship USS
Pennsylvania,
a metronome was inches from an open microphone, counting the seconds, heard around the world.
Tock, tock, tock, tock, tock ...

 

At that precise moment, Sorry realized the madness of what they were doing, the madness of where they were, the madness of trusting Jonjen to put them in a safe position.

Up there in the aircraft, the pilots would be looking only at the USS
Nevada.

Nothing around it!

Not a single tiny red canoe moving slowly north.

Madness!

They were insane. The three of them in their crazy war canoe were insane.

Grandfather Jonjen, eyes closed, was holding his Bible and praying. Sorry and Tara stood and looked up at the flashes and prayed. God alone could save them now.

 

"Skylight One, Skylight One.
Coming up on actual bomb release. Stand by! Stand by!...Bomb away! Bomb away. Bomb away...
"

 

The light from a million suns flashed over the lagoon, then there was a clap of thunder so loud that it burst eardrums.

A second later, Sorry, Tara, and Jonjen seemed to be encased in shining glass, wearing skins of glass.

From the center of the target ships rose a ball of violent red, turning pink, streaked with chalk white. It grew rapidly, like an evil flower, a huge, whitish pink rose with a white stem lengthening by the seconds, becoming a giant ice-cream cone.

Becoming a white cauliflower.

Becoming white death.

The animals didn't even have time to scream.

In a moment, the heat wave, a wind from hell, caught the red sail and thrust the canoe across the water as if it were a balsa chip, blowing the sail out as if it were a loose kite.

A moment later, a ten-foot wave hurtled across the water, tossing the outrigger up, then throwing it down angrily.

The wave traveled with a wet hissing sound.

Then there was total silence in Bikini lagoon.

***

The Able bomb had spent its energy, had spewed its poison.

Its killing had only begun.

The explosion took place within a few millionths of a second. Soon, drone planes with Geiger counters began flying over the atoll, listening for the inevitable radiation clicks; then drone boats, also equipped with counters, wound among the target ships. Some had been sunk; others were heavily damaged; some were burning; but most were still afloat. Several hours later, slowly, carefully, support ships edged back into the lagoon, the men aboard listening for the Geiger chirps.

About 10 percent of the animals were killed instantly. Others would die, in time, from radiation. Still others would never bear offspring. Soon, aboard the Noah's Ark ship, there would be a poignant scene: a shaved radiated goat would be strapped to a table for a blood transfusion.

***

By mid July of the next year, the food supply on Rongerik was so low that the villagers were cutting down palms to eat the hearts. What fishing there was couldn't feed them.

A gruel made from coconut meat, coconut water, and flour mixed with cistern water was the primary diet by February 1948. The navy flew in emergency food. The villagers were then moved to Kwajalein and spent the next seven months there while Chief Juda and the other
alabs
searched for another home.

Finally, they decided to go to Kili, 450 miles away. A "wet" island, Kili has fine palms, breadfruit trees, and even bananas, but no lagoon or harbor. It is completely surrounded by barrier reefs, and on many days even small boats cannot land. Many of the world's first nuclear nomads still live there, almost fifty years after the Able shot. Isolated there, more than six hundred descendants of the displaced Bikinians face a dark future.