Maralinga

by Judy Nunn

  ‘Gardiner, was it?’ he asked as they set off for the township, Daniel having loaded his two bags into the back of the Land Rover.

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  ‘First name?’

  ‘Daniel, sir.’

  ‘Goodo, Dan.’ On such occasions Harold liked to present a casual and friendly front. ‘Marvellous day, what, hardly a breath of breeze – let’s hope the weather conditions remain the same next week, eh?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir.’

  ‘Mind you, one can never tell what’s going on up there.’ He squinted as he raised his eyes to the mild scattering of clouds high in an otherwise clear, blue sky. ‘Could be wind conditions we know nothing about. The final decision will rest in the hands of a few. We’ll be at the mercy of the meteorologists, no doubt.’

  ‘No doubt we will, sir.’

  As they approached the village, Harold instructed Daniel to drop him off at headquarters, where his office was permanently maintained by his cipher clerk. The buildings allocated for VIP accommodation were close to HQ in any event, and he had no need to freshen up. ‘Only flown in from Adelaide, after all,’ he said to the young lieutenant. ‘Hardly the long haul.’

  Having travelled to Australia in the relative comfort of a Qantas Airways flight, Harold had whiled away several days in Adelaide, timing his arrival at Maralinga to coincide with the final briefings before the test took place. He saw no point in hanging around in the middle of a desert any longer than was absolutely necessary, although he’d come to the personal conclusion that Adelaide wasn’t really all that much better.

  ‘Thank you, Dan,’ he said as he picked up the two bags Daniel had lifted from the Land Rover, ‘most obliged.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’

  But Harold Dartleigh had turned his back and was already striding towards the doors of HQ, his mind on other things. He would pretend interest in the boringly predictable reports that had been submitted to Ned Hanson, he thought, and then he’d send Ned off to lunch. A private meeting with Gideon was bound to prove far more interesting.

  It did.

  ‘I’ve managed something of a coup,’ Gideon said boastfully as he lounged in one of the wicker chairs opposite Harold’s desk. The second lunchtime shift being underway, there were fewer men in the building than normal and it was unlikely he’d been observed entering Harold’s office. Not that it would have mattered particularly – Gideon was observed everywhere about the village.

  Harold made no reply, waiting for him to go on. He found the arrogance of Gideon’s body language annoying, but when Gideon showed off in such a manner, there was usually a good reason, so he turned a blind eye.

  ‘I’ve wired the telephones of five key scientists –’

  ‘Heavens above, have you really?’ The body language was instantly forgiven.

  ‘Including Sir William Penney’s.’

  Harold guffawed. ‘Good God, wouldn’t he have a fit if he knew!’ The thought pleased Harold immensely. ‘Well done, I must say. How the hell did you manage it?’

  ‘Their egos made it easy,’ Gideon said with a careless shrug, although he was very much enjoying himself – he did so love impressing Harold. ‘They wanted instant access to each other without having to go through the switchboard, so I provided them with personal interconnecting phones. Lovely bright red ones – they liked that touch. The sixth of the set is in my office at the storage depot – I can tap into each and every one of them whenever my pilot light flashes.’

  ‘Excellent work,’ Harold said approvingly. ‘Good man.’

  ‘I must say, for the most part, they’re a frightfully boring lot.’ While basking in Harold’s praise, Gideon continued to pretend nonchalance. ‘Half the time I can’t understand a word they say. But there is one chap I believe you’ll find very interesting.’

  Harold could tell from the gleam in his eye that Gideon had made some sort of breakthrough. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Dr Melvyn Crowley, head pathologist and a megalomaniac of sizeable proportion,’ Gideon announced with a ring of triumph. ‘Crowley sees Maralinga as the perfect grounds for experimentation on all levels. The use of human guinea pigs is already planned to a certain extent, but he thinks, in the name of science, full advantage should be taken of Maralinga’s isolation and the opportunity it offers. Given our precarious times, all ends justify the means, according to Crowley.’

  ‘You learned this from your telephone tap?’ Harold was most surprised.

  ‘Not exactly, although the disagreements he has with Penney speak for themselves – they both seek the same ends, but Penney’s reluctant to push things to the absolute extreme like Crowley. No, I learned it more from the horse’s mouth so to speak.’ Gideon’s eyebrows arched suggestively. ‘Melvyn’s frustrated in his work. He seeks an outlet through which to express himself and, as you know, I’ve always been an excellent listener …’

  ‘Good God, man, I told you there was to be no funny business here,’ Harold said with a flash of annoyance. ‘Those were my orders –’

  ‘And I’ve obeyed them to the letter.’ Gideon held his hands up in a gesture of innocence. ‘I’ve done my job, nothing more. I encouraged the man to talk and he did.’ His smile was satyr-like. ‘I can hardly be blamed if Melvyn Crowley is smitten.’

  Harold’s annoyance abated as quickly as it had ignited. There was no denying Gideon was good – one of the best. But of course he’d recognised him as a natural right from the start – it was why he’d recruited him. Harold Dartleigh was as proud of his own talents as he was of his protégé’s.

  ‘So tell me why I’d find Melvyn Crowley so very interesting,’ he said.

  Having made his impact, Gideon dropped the indolent manner and leaned forward, eager to communicate.

  ‘Crowley desperately wants the freedom to make decisions he believes others are too scared to make. He says that all of the scientists want to use every experimental opportunity Maralinga has to offer, but that the upper echelons amongst them are frightened of the public outcry should word get out.’

  ‘So Crowley would welcome approval from a higher source. Excellent,’ Harold said with a smug chuckle.

  ‘And on being granted that approval,’ Gideon continued, ‘he would most certainly provide you with all the detail Penney wishes to keep to himself. The guarded reports that come in via Ned Hanson could be thrown out the window.’

  ‘Excellent, Gideon, excellent. I shall pay Melvyn Crowley a visit and assure him he has the full approval and protection of MI6. After all, the experiments conducted at Maralinga are for the good of Britain – Dr Crowley is doing his country a great service.’

  ‘He certainly is,’ Gideon agreed, and they shared the self-congratulatory smile of a job well done by a first-rate team.

  Harold’s social chat with Daniel in the drive from the airport proved ominously correct. After months of meticulous planning and with all in place for the initial Buffalo test, codenamed One Tree, the final decision rested in the hands of the meteorologists, and their predictions were not favourable. To avoid contaminating Maralinga village and Watson railway station to the south, steady winds were necessary to carry the cloud in an easterly, northerly or westerly direction for at least twenty-four hours. According to the meteorologists’ reports, however, the wind patterns over the test range continued to fluctuate and, as each day passed and yet another test firing was aborted, the strain of being on constant standby started to take its toll. Servicemen who’d been living with the promise of action became restless. They craved excitement, and if a scuffle broke out in the beer garden, the protagonists were urged to turn it into a fight for the amusement of others as men sought ways to alleviate the irritation and boredom of repeated disappointment.

  Tempers were fraying amongst the scientists too, who felt thwarted and frustrated by the continuous postponements. None more so than Sir William Penney.

  ‘It’s sheer political procrastination, Colonel,’ he complained in private to Nick Stratton after
the sixth aborted firing. ‘The safety committee has overreacted to a ridiculous degree.’

  The Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee (AWTSC) had advised against the latest firing in the belief there was a chance that fallout carried east might be brought down by the rainfalls that had been forecast over Adelaide and Melbourne. Sir William vehemently disagreed. In his opinion, the amount of contamination, should such an incident have occurred, would have been negligible.

  ‘Radioactive counts in the rainwater have been magnified out of all proportion by political troublemakers,’ he continued. ‘The committee must be made to recognise this, and Menzies must be approached and warned that this form of interference is counterproductive.’

  Nick listened attentively as Penney vented his spleen, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He agreed wholeheartedly with AWTSC’s findings. In fact, during his previous day’s meeting with the committee’s three founding members, he’d openly supported their decision, which was most unlike him. His job was not to lend opinion, but to report and to liaise, which called for a great deal of diplomacy, and at times restraint. On this particular occasion, however, he’d been unable to resist voicing his agreement. He’d considered this the first decision the committee had made that actually had Australia’s interests at heart.

  Colonel Nick Stratton’s job was not an easy one. As the Australian Defence Department’s liaison officer to the British Ministry of Defence and the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, headed by Sir William Penney, his principal ally should have been AWTSC. The committee’s founding members were Ernest Titterton, professor of nuclear physics at the Australian National University, Alan Butement, chief scientist in the Australian Commonwealth Department of Supply, and Leslie Martin, whose career as professor of physics at Melbourne University and scientific adviser to the Defence Department combined both academic and civil duties. All three were eminent scientists with a wealth of experience in defence-oriented ventures, and the appointment of each to the Maralinga project had been approved by both British and Australian governments. There was, however, an imbalance. Of the three, Martin was the only Australian born and bred. Titterton and Butement were both British, both had accepted post-war positions in Australia, and their scientific experience had been principally gained while working on top-secret British and American allied defence projects. To Nick, it was patently obvious that these men’s loyalties lay with the mother country. He was further aware that Leslie Martin was kept on the outer to a certain degree and, at times, denied access to data that had been supplied to his colleagues.

  Nick Stratton was possibly one of the few Australians who knew that his country’s perceived representation in the scientific aspect of Maralinga was a sham. But he was also one of the few who knew the reasons why. The situation was a delicate one, and dictated primarily by Anglo-American relations.

  Following the war, the United States government had decided that the safest way to thwart atomic proliferation was to keep the relevant technology in American hands. The British, denied the support of their former ally, had therefore turned to Australia to provide atomic test facilities, but in so doing they had found themselves in an awkward situation. They hoped, through their atomic experimentation, to revive Anglo-American relations, but if they were to involve the Australians on a scientific level, they would risk contravening the American non-proliferation policy. The situation was further aggravated by the United States’ innate distrust of Australian security measures.

  Ernest Titterton and Alan Butement had provided the perfect solution. They were ideally qualified to represent the host country, but neither was actually Australian. Furthermore, both men were highly respected in American scientific circles, having contributed significantly to joint wartime atomic projects. America wholeheartedly approved the choice.

  As a salve to Australia, Britain had invited Leslie Martin to join the team, albeit reluctantly, and, in the early days, as an observer only. The eminent nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant, however, Australia’s foremost authority on atomic energy, had been deliberately, and insultingly, excluded. The Americans considered Oliphant and his outspoken views a security risk.

  Nick recognised the fragile issues at stake. Indeed, he had to. It was his job to recognise every aspect and to play the game accordingly. The British were toeing the line for fear of offending the Americans, and the Australians were bending over backwards to appease Mother England. Australia needed Britain, just as Britain needed America, and he was in the middle, fielding on all sides. He would shortly be fielding the Australian press too. Following the One Tree detonation, he would be the public relations voice of Maralinga and, as such, virtual spokesperson for all parties.

  Nick Stratton’s job was a challenge at the best of times and, though he had no wish to be back in the front-line, he did occasionally think that fighting in the jungles of New Guinea and on the battlefields of Korea had been a great deal simpler.

  ‘I’m relying upon you, Colonel.’ Sir William Penney’s diatribe had come to an end. ‘It’s not in your charter, I realise, and perhaps it’s even a little unethical of me to suggest it, but surely you can bring some influence to bear on the safety committee. They need to be made aware that these unnecessary delays really cannot be tolerated.’

  Nick recalled the look he’d exchanged with Leslie Martin during yesterday’s meeting, as Titterton and Butement had hummed and hawed about whether or not the firing should be aborted.

  ‘I agree with Leslie,’ he’d heard himself say, to the astonishment of those present, not least of all himself. ‘It’s not worth the risk.’

  The burly Australian had given him a none-too-subtle wink, while Titterton, with slender fingers, had patted down his perfectly parted hair and Butement had polished his spectacles yet again. The two had not liked him at all for voicing his opinion, but they’d liked even less the thought that he might voice it elsewhere. Nick, in speaking out, had swung the balance.

  ‘Of course, Sir William,’ he now said. ‘I shall attempt to bring to bear whatever small degree of influence I may have on the committee, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel. The sooner we get on with things, the better for all concerned.’

  For once, Harold Dartleigh was in agreement with William Penney. He wished they would just get on with the job and blow up the damned bomb. But he was keeping well out of the political debate, which was hardly his area, and anyway it bored him. His meeting with Melvyn Crowley had been far more to his liking, and ultimately more constructive.

  Even without Gideon’s description, Melvyn Crowley had been exactly as Harold had imagined him – colourless. Short, balding, physically under-developed and with glasses, he was a typical boffin in Harold’s opinion. But there was something else about the man that Harold found eminently familiar: the manic gleam in his eyes, which even the thick lenses of his spectacles could not disguise. Crowley was the sort who would have been bullied at school, and now, given a little power, liked to make others pay for it. Harold knew the type well. Every man who’d been to a British public school did.

  Dr Melvyn Crowley, of the renowned Birmingham medical research team, headed the principal pathology unit, which was located in the decontamination and radiobiological zone, one and a half miles east of the village. Access to the DC/RB area, as it was known, was highly restricted, and those visitors who had gained prior permission entered under military police escort, for here was where the plutonium was stored and the bombs constructed. Here, too, were the experimental laboratories, and also the decontamination units, a series of white vans linked to each other, where those showing high radiation readings would be forced through a process of vigorous cleansing.

  Harold had needed no special pass to enter the DC/RB area, but he’d nevertheless been personally escorted to Crowley’s laboratory by a member of the military police – ‘for his own safety’ he’d been told. It appeared even the deputy director of MI6 was not free to wander at leisure around
the secret heart of Maralinga.

  Harold had emphasised to Crowley the casual nature of his visit – ‘just wanted to say a brief hello to you chaps who are doing such a sterling job,’ he’d said. Then he’d shared a cup of tea with the scientist, noting the way Crowley’s eyes lingered on the young assistant who delivered the tray – another symptom Harold recognised from public school days. He’d be willing to bet Crowley didn’t acknowledge his homosexuality – the man wouldn’t have had the guts – but there was no doubt Crowley lived with a chronic lust, possibly alleviated by the occasional male prostitute when time and place permitted. Little wonder, Harold had thought, that Gideon had made such inroads.

  As they’d drunk their tea, Harold, in his insidious way, had encouraged Melvyn Crowley to talk freely.

  ‘I imagine these delays must be particularly frustrating for a man of your talents, Dr Crowley. You must be positively champing at the bit.’

  ‘Oh, indeed, Lord Dartleigh, indeed I am!’

  ‘These damn safety issues are too restricting all round, in my opinion. Pity we can’t hurry things along a bit, what?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll be able to pick up the pace after the first firing,’ Crowley had said a little guardedly. ‘There’s a natural tendency to be over-cautious at the start of a series.’

  ‘The over-cautious don’t win the race though, do they, Melvyn?’ Harold had noted the immediate impact as he’d cut to the chase. ‘Caution is hardly the keyword in a global battle for nuclear supremacy. Britain needs to use every advantage she has to hand, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Well, there’d been no looking back after that. Gideon had been spot on, Harold thought – it didn’t take much to crank Crowley up. But Gideon was wrong in one respect. Crowley wasn’t your run-of-the-mill, blinkered megalomaniac. Crowley was actually a smart thinker.

  ‘We choose middle-ranking officers with career ambitions and encourage in them ideas of heroic proportions, Harold, that’s the secret.’ Melvyn had quickly embraced the suggestion that as like-minded, forward-thinking men, he and the deputy director of MI6, a peer of the realm no less, should address each other on a first-name basis.