Atomic Testing

by Alan Tucker

  I remember how lonely I felt back then. Maybe that’s why I’m always keen to make friends now. I wasn’t allowed to have any friends visit at the time I most needed them.

  Thank goodness I had my comics and the cricket on the wireless. And Mum.

  Thursday, 23 July

  My classmates said they were scared of catching polio and so did Mr Crouch. It’s usually caught by young people, but older people like him can get it too.

  They wanted to know how long I was in hospital, how I got rid of the polio and how I got it. The person who asked that said he’d heard it’s caused by not keeping clean. I told him that wasn’t how I got it. ‘Quite the opposite. I caught it in the Townsville swimming pool.’

  After I was put into hospital they fumigated Mum and Dad’s house and they had to stay home for three weeks. It’s called quarantine. The neighbours used to buy food for them and leave it at the front gate. When they were allowed out again some mothers wouldn’t talk to Mum in case she was still contagious.

  I couldn’t move for weeks and needed help to go to the toilet. That was really embarrassing. I got lots of bed sores because I couldn’t move and the nurses used to cover me in powder, just like a baby.

  One night I fell out of bed. The doctor was very excited. He said my muscles must be getting stronger if I could move enough to fall out.

  At the beginning, when I was really sick, I couldn’t talk properly because my throat muscles were tight. I was lucky my lungs worked okay and I could breathe.

  A boy in my class said his cousin had to live in an Iron Lung for months because his lung muscles stopped working. It’s funny, I was petrified they’d put me in an Iron Lung and yet I’m not afraid of being locked inside a rocket ship.

  Someone asked me where I went to school while I was sick. I told them I missed a whole year while I was in hospital and did little bits by correspondence when I was feeling better. Mum was my teacher. Some of them didn’t know what correspondence is so I told them. There was heaps they didn’t know. I hate talking about it. It seems so dumb. I just want to forget about it now that I’m better. It’s no big deal. Half of the people who get polio recover fully. I hope I do. My legs are still a bit weak. I’ll never run in the Olympics or play cricket for Australia, but I will play cricket.

  I told the class one good thing about having had polio is that my arms are really strong. ‘I can beat anyone in an Indian arm wrestle.’ Mr Crouch let me wrestle three boys. I beat each of them easily. Dave thought that was the best part of my talk.

  Another good thing about catching polio was getting Rusty. He’s been my best friend since Mum gave him to me.

  The dumbest question anyone asked was, ‘Can you get polio by sucking chook or magpie feathers?’ Even Mr Crouch knew that wasn’t true. Who’d do that, anyway?

  Jonathon said people in England contract polio too and the American kids said it’s there as well. Scientists aren’t sure how to stop people getting it, but they’re working on it. Robert said his dad knows a scientist who’s developing a vaccine. Someone asked what a vaccine is. It’s an injection that stops you getting a disease.

  I don’t want anyone else to be as sick as I was. Maybe I should become a scientist and discover the vaccine myself.

  Friday, 24 July

  Dave told me my talk was really interesting. He reckons it’s amazing that I can walk now after how sick I’ve been. He said he’d hate not being able to walk and taking months to learn to walk again. Dave’s not very patient.

  I told him callipers were better than crutches because it wasn’t so obvious you were crippled. They both hurt when you were learning to use them. The crutches bruise under your arms and the callipers bruise your legs. The doctors and nurses made adjustments to my callipers every day when I first wore them, to make them fit better.

  Robert and Jonathon had an argument after school. Robert was mucking around and called Jonathon’s father a boffin. He didn’t like that. What really made Jonathon cross, though, was when Robert called him a ‘Pom’. He said it was an insult. Robert said it wasn’t. I said I thought it was okay. Dad’s always talking about ‘the Pommies in Woomera’ and ‘the Pommy test cricket team’.

  Dave agreed. ‘A Pom’s a Pom. What’s so bad about that?’

  Jonathon’s mother arrived then to pick him up so the argument stopped.

  Once he’d gone I asked Robert what a boffin is. He said it’s a scientist.

  ‘That means your dad’s a boffin, too.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why I wasn’t insulting Jonathon’s father. If I had been I’d have been insulting my father as well. He’s such a snob, that kid. You can tell by the way he talks and because he won’t play with us on the weekends.’

  I said he can’t help the way he talks. Mum calls his way of speaking ‘the Queen’s English’. As for not playing with us, I asked Robert if he knew how strict Jonathon’s parents were. I said Jonathon wanted to play with us but his mother’s scared he’ll get dirty or sunburned. Dave said that’s true and told Robert to stop whinging.

  ‘I’m not whinging. It’s a fact that the Pommy scientists get all the best houses.’

  After he left Dave said he thinks Robert’s jealous of Jonathon. ‘Who cares who’s got the biggest house? I hate houses. I prefer being outside.’

  7.30 pm

  While we were having tea I told Mum about my talk to the class and she told me more about the Sister Kenny Polio Clinic in Townsville. She’d told me before but I’d forgotten most of it. Mum thinks Sister Kenny’s a saint. Dad said Mum deserves a medal for the way she nursed me.

  ‘She might have followed Sister Kenny’s methods, Anthony, but she also put in a mighty effort. She bathed you in hot water to relax your leg muscles, cold water to stimulate them and rubbed your legs every day with all manner of ointments and oils to get you back on deck.

  ‘Mum got your legs moving again, son, long before your feet touched the ground. Your mum’s a good nurse, Anthony.’

  Mum looked embarrassed. ‘I was a good nurse, Frank. It’s now six years since I worked in a hospital. Nursing would have changed a lot in that time.’

  Then she smiled and said she knew what Dad’s game was. ‘You’re handing out compliments because you men folk are planning on sitting up half the night listening to another silly game of cricket.’

  I told Mum I wanted to play cricket one day. She answered, ‘Not while you live under this roof, Anthony.’ I didn’t bother to argue with her.

  I told Mum about the argument between Robert and Jonathon. She said that some people measure their success by the level of their education, the importance of their job and the size of their house. ‘But look at your father’s friend, Kenny. He’s got very little education, lives out bush and dresses like a swagman, but he’s respected by everyone, including famous scientists.’

  Tonight’s day two of the fourth test. England batted last night and we got them all out for 167. We’ll beat them this time, for sure.

  Saturday, 25 July

  Mum was really excited today. She got a big parcel on last night’s Tea and Sugar train. It’s filled with library books that she ordered from the library in Adelaide. There’s no library in Woomera apart from the one in the school, and she’s not allowed to borrow from there. Mum wishes she’d found out weeks ago how to borrow from Adelaide. I hope the books make her less grumpy.

  She used to read and garden and visit her friends every day in Townsville. Since she’s been here she hasn’t had her books, her garden or her friends. Dad thinks that’s why she’s not happy. He gets cross with her and says she needs to get out more so she can make new friends. I’m different from Mum. I go out tons more here than I used to in Townsville.

  I slept in this morning because last night I sat up listening to the cricket. Australia are one hundred runs ahead on the first innings. If it doesn’t rain again we’ll go one up in the series.

  Sunday, 26 July

  Dave and I have decided we aren’t going to shoot n
ear the tanks any more. If someone dobs on us we’ll lose the gun and get into trouble with our parents. Or at least I certainly will. Dave might not.

  We don’t need to shoot birds because there are plenty of easier targets at the moment—rabbits. They hop around in the daylight because they’re blind with myxie and can’t find their burrows. They’re such easy targets that we have a competition to see who can hit one from the furthest away. Dave’s still the best shot, but I’m improving. Robert is hopeless. He misses by a mile. You can see the puffs of dust where his shots hit the ground.

  I did my best-ever drawing tonight. I started it late this afternoon and it’s already finished. It’s only little. It shows a rocket exploding before it could blow up a city. I drew a dotted line to show how it had been intercepted by a Jindivik that blasted it out of the sky. BLAM! Another city saved, and this time without the help of Superman. I’m getting really good at drawing rockets. And I’m getting rich. I wonder who will buy this one?

  Monday, 27 July

  Today’s newspaper said we won the Korean War. Korea’s near Japan. I don’t know much about wars except Australian soldiers always win. I wonder if we dropped atomic bombs to beat the Koreans like we did the Japanese.

  Mum was pleased with the news. When I asked her why she said she was opposed to wars.

  ‘But Dad’s in the Army. You have to believe in wars.’

  She explained that it was exactly because Dad’s in the Army that she prays for peace. She doesn’t want him killed.

  I think that’s strange. Surely soldiers are in the Army to fight. I told her that Dad’s a really good shot and he’s brave. He’d help us win a war. She said as brave as Dad is, he wouldn’t have a hope in the next world war because of atomic bombs.

  I told her I don’t think she’s right. America’s the only country that has atomic bombs and they won’t attack us. She said that’s not correct. The Russians have atomic bombs too, and they’re our enemy.

  I wonder if Australia will ever have its own atomic bombs. I guess that’s why we’re helping the British. They’ll use their bombs to protect us against the Russians.

  Tuesday, 28 July

  I asked Jonathon if the British will help Australian scientists build our own atomic bombs after we help them test theirs.

  ‘Not necessarily. British scientists helped the Americans build their bomb, but after the war the Americans refused to share the technical knowledge. The British Government is more generous than that.’ He thought we should feel privileged the British Government chose Australia, out of all the nations in the Commonwealth, as the test site.

  I was curious to know what was so special about an atomic bomb and why they were so difficult to build. Jonathon said they were different from normal bombs, where a detonator explodes and sets off an even bigger explosion.

  ‘To create a massive atomic explosion you need miniscule particles called atoms.’

  He held up his drink bottle. ‘In here is water. If I heat it the H2O atoms break up into tiny particles, form steam and float away. If I freeze the water, the atoms join together and form an icy lump. If water did not consist of atoms, it could not change form and shape.’

  Dave looked puzzled. ‘How do you make an explosion from water?’

  ‘You don’t, David. I used water only as an example to explain how everything is made up of tiny atoms.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes. Your paper school books, your wooden cricket bat, the hard blackboard, the soft chalk, even you. Your body couldn’t change and grow if you weren’t made up of tiny atoms that are able to rearrange themselves.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m a walking time-bomb that could explode at any minute?’

  Jonathon sighed. ‘You’re getting off the track. Atomic explosions are created by the energy that’s only inside the atom of special elements. Human flesh and bone atoms are not the right type.’ He went on to explain that inside every atom are even tinier particles that float around each other like planets around the sun.

  Dave snorted. ‘That’s impossible. Do you expect us to believe that inside an atom, something that’s so small we can’t see it, there are even tinier things spinning around in orbits?’

  ‘Yes, and if you fire a tiny high-speed particle into one atom and knock one or more of the ‘planets’ out of their safe orbits, they ricochet off each other and crash out of their atom’s shell, which releases energy. And as each one of those freed ‘planets’ crashes into other atoms they free other ‘planets’ which ricochet off into other atoms. Thus with one small man-made action you can quickly cause a massive chain reaction that releases atomic energy. And because all that energy is released, an atomic explosion occurs.’

  Dave looked puzzled. Then he smiled. ‘So firing something into an atom is like throwing a cat among pigeons or loosing Rusty into a nest of rabbits—they charge off in every direction?’

  It was Jonathon’s turn to look perplexed. ‘That’s not how I pictured it, but you have provided an interesting example, David.’

  Wednesday, 29 July

  The fourth test match ended in a draw too. Australia only needed another thirty runs to win but we ran out of time. We still had six wickets left. England made it a draw by batting slowly. We scored our runs twice as quickly as they did. Dad reckons they’ll kill the game for spectators if they continue to bat so slowly.

  I hope they don’t. I want to go to a real live test match one day.

  Friday, 31 July

  I sold my latest drawing. A boy in third year bought it for sixpence. Dave doesn’t like him and didn’t want me to sell it to him. He says he’s a bully, just like his old man, who’s a security guard. The security guards think they’re tough because they check everyone’s passes every time they go in or out of the village. Dad goes through a lot more than we do. They know exactly who he is but they still make him stop and show his pass. He calls them Little Hitlers because they love their little bit of power.

  ‘They all know me. I’ve been here longer than any of them but they still make me show my pass everywhere I go. You’d think they owned the place.’

  Mum doesn’t like them either because she’s noticed they never smile and they don’t mix like most people in Woomera. Not that Mum mixes much.

  Saturday, 1 August

  Only three weeks till the holidays. Soon after that it’ll be cricket season in Australia. I can’t wait. Mum’s not looking forward to spending summer here. She’s heard it’s incredibly hot.

  Dad’s all excited because an Around Australia car rally, called the Redex trial, is about to start in Sydney. He showed me the route on a map. Two hundred cars are going to drive up the east coast through Brisbane and Townsville, then go inland on the dirt roads until they reach Darwin. Then they’re coming right down the middle of Australia to Adelaide. Dad said locals from here have to travel to Port Augusta if they want to see the cars.

  He doesn’t know how many will be left in the race by the time they get this far. ‘Bush roads are hard on cars, especially if you try to belt along on them.’ He laughed and said, ‘That wouldn’t worry me though. I know how to drive on outback roads. I’d love to be part of something like that.’

  Mum didn’t think it sounded like much fun. She said men love to waste time playing around with machines, making them bigger and more powerful.

  ‘For what? Why can’t they spend their time making life better for people like Sister Kenny did, instead of trying to make it worse?’

  Sometimes I can’t work out why Mum and Dad got married. They don’t seem to have much in common. Dad’s always been interested in motors and driving and being out bush. Mum likes town life and helping people. Dad says that’s why she was such a good nurse. I wonder why she doesn’t go back to nursing. I don’t need her help any more. My polio’s gone. Maybe that’s why she’s so grumpy. She doesn’t feel needed.

  Tuesday, 4 August

  Dad heard through the base wireless that the rally cars passed through Townsville
today. His mates are as excited as he is. Mum said men who are employed to defend our country should spend more time doing that job and less time thinking about unimportant things like car races. I don’t think she really meant that. It’s hard to tell at the moment. She’s grumpy most of the time.

  Mum often says she wishes she was back in Townsville, but tonight was the first time Dad’s said that. He only wished it because the rally cars are passing through there.

  Friday, 7 August

  Mum’s expecting another parcel of books today. I hope they arrive because when she’s reading, she’s not so grumpy. She didn’t used to be like this. Dad says Woomera brings out the worst in some people.

  ‘It’s the isolation. Hopefully she’ll come around.’

  Dad’s heard the rally cars are due in Darwin this weekend. They’ll be heading down this way soon. He can’t wait.

  Sunday, 9 August

  Dave, Robert and I played in our yard all afternoon. Mum was happy. She likes it when I play where she can keep an eye on me.

  Talking about the rally reminded us that we each had a few old Dinky cars. We hadn’t played with them since we were little kids. We got a spade and made roads, bumps and jumps for our own backyard Redex course. We spent more time making the track than we did playing.

  Dave was a terrible driver. He pushed his cars too fast and they kept rolling over. He lost rally points every time that happened, so even though one of his cars was always the first to finish, he never won a race. He lost too many points. Robert said that’s how the real rally works. The winner is the car that loses the least points while finishing each stage.