Spit and Polish

by Carl Muller

  But the Americans would not play. They knew that Japan would not bow. There had been fights to the death in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. No, there would be no ‘terms of surrender’. Unconditional surrender was what the US demanded.

  Oh, the Americans knew that Japan was collapsing. They had set up a code-breaking operation which was known as ‘Magic’. This Magic told US intelligence that Japan had begun to put out peace feelers through her ambassador in Russia. One cable intercepted by Magic told of the Japanese Emperor’s desire to see a swift end to the war. All Hirohito wanted was to be allowed to keep his throne. He, too, simply had to save face.

  So why the bomb? This is what some historians demand to know. If Japan was crying out for peace, was not there the opportunity to end the war without the bomb? Let Operation Downfall be the coup de grace. People even made strategic surveys. Japan was bleeding. She would have doubtless surrendered by November.

  Looking for reasons, it has even been said that the dropping of the atomic bombs was not really done to finish off Japan but to put the wind up on Russia. Others say that it was all a test and nothing more. Even the scientists were not really sure what they were producing. President Truman hadn’t a clue either. General Leslie Groves was the man in charge of the Manhattan Project. They called him the Atom General. He had 200,000 people working on ‘Little Boy’—a 20-kiloton atom bomb—in 37 secret plants and laboratories, and he, too, was worried. What if he was producing a dud?

  Also, other officers were sceptical. Even the White House Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy had opined that Groves’ ‘damn thing’ would never work! Groves couldn’t abide this negativity. He had spent over two billion dollars of State funds and consoled himself that the atom scientists were at least confident that there would be a big bang.

  But how big a bang? All the military planners expressed their reservations. Also, what would be the target? With LeMay pounding and wrecking Japanese cities, Groves considered Hiroshima. The boffins were enthusiastic. Hiroshima was a city of 280,000 people. It was surrounded by hills. Situated as though in a basin. The bomb would be better concentrated, produce a focussing effect and much blast damage.

  Then Groves switched to Kyoto. He seemed to like the idea of wiping out that ancient capital. Kyoto, with its many Buddhist and Shinto shrines, was an intellectual centre.

  It would make the thinkers of Japan appreciate the significance of the attack. He had one problem—Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who abhorred the way the war was going.

  Stimson was wholly ethical. He believed that civilized man must make civilized war. He hated LeMay’s firebomb tactics and now here was Groves with some sort of diabolical weapon no one had a clue about.

  He summoned Groves. ‘What is the target list for this A-bomb?’ he asked.

  Groves did not like this at all, but Stimson insisted. ‘Kyoto,’ he said.

  ‘No! Not Kyoto. How would you like it if Japan destroyed the Lincoln Memorial?’

  Groves fell back on Hiroshima.

  Stimson had his reservations. In his diary, he would refer to the A-bomb as ‘Frankenstein’, and also called it ‘the thing’, and peppered his entries with phrases such as ‘the dreadful’, ‘the dire’, ‘the awful’, ‘the diabolical’, and ‘the terrible’.

  All the while, America was mustering over one million men from the Pacific and Europe for Operation Downfall. To meet it, Japan was drafting suicide bombers who would wear belts of high explosive and hurl themselves at US tanks. Even Japanese schoolgirls were issued with chisels and awls. Their teachers told them how they should stab American soldiers in the abdomen.

  Stimson was old and weary. He felt like an old, gentle-minded dog among a pack of vicious pit bulls. He advised Truman to use the carrot-and-stick. ‘Let the Japanese keep their Emperor. And tell them that if they don’t surrender, we will use a terrible new weapon which can wipe out whole cities in a single blow.’

  The pit bulls would have none of it. Why warn the Japanese of any such attack? Wasn’t the A-bomb top secret? And what if this A-bomb did not work?

  Stimson was stubborn in his views. On July 2, 1945, he wrote to Truman, urging that the Japanese be given timely warning. ‘Japan,’ he wrote, ‘is not a nation composed wholly of mad fanatics.’

  But Stimson’s critics would not be budged. What of Pearl Harbour, they asked, and what of the Bataan death march? And what of the tortures? They called Stimson’s attention to a newspaper photograph which showed a Japanese soldier about to behead an Allied P-O-W with his sword.

  Truman weighed the matter carefully. He had come to dislike Stalin very much at the meeting of the Big Three at Potsdam. Stalin had not minced his words about his postwar ambitions in Eastern Europe. It would not be long, Truman knew, before this particular ally would turn enemy. Russia would be more ‘manageable’ if it knew that America had the A-bomb and was ready to use it.

  Also, it seemed that trying to make peace with Japan was like flogging a dead horse. Japan did not want to deal, he was sure, despite the feelers intercepted by Magic. In fact, the Japanese War Minister, General Anami was actually advocating national suicide rather than surrender.

  Again, Truman was convinced that the A-bomb would actually save lives. There would be no need to keep up the murderous firebombing of Japanese cities and there would be no need to sacrifice as many as 20,000 American lives in Operation Downfall. But there was one snag. Would the A-bomb work? How confident could one be, how brash, if one did not know what this much-vaunted bomb could do?

  The scientists were ready. The test would be conducted in the New Mexico desert. But they were still hazy about the bomb’s yield. Some thought it would incinerate New Mexico, others that it would ignite the very atmosphere. Others were more pessimistic. One man had even written a ditty which was painfully true of their doubts and notions of failure:

  From this crude lab that spawned a dud,

  Their necks to Truman’s axe uncurled,

  Lo, the embattled savants stood,

  And fired the flop heard round the world.

  July 16, 1945. When the bomb exploded at zero hour, it filled the sky and sent a column of green, blue and red fire 10,000 feet up, to billow like a huge umbrella. Shock waves broke windows 125 miles away. Groves said it was like several suns at midday. The yield had been up to 20,000 tons of TNT.

  So they had it! The most terrible bomb in the history of the world, as Truman noted in his diary. Now he was the most powerful man among the Big Three. Even Churchill noted that Truman became bossy and was filled with a new confidence. Stalin received the news coldly. He had to stay in the race. He secretly ordered his people to press hard on the Soviet Union’s own A-bomb project.

  There was little else left to do. On July 31, Truman gave the fateful order. On any day after August 2, weather permitting, the A-bomb must be dropped over Hiroshima. Let military objectives and soldiers and sailors be the target. Not women and children.

  Which shows how much he really knew about the awesome power he was about to unleash.

  51

  Of Sandalwood Paste and a Convent Bolt Hole and Going Home for Christmas

  ‘What’s so interesting about Rangoon?’ Aubrey demanded. The men were being ‘organized’. There would be specially arranged sight-seeing trips, a programme cordially offered by some cultural affairs something or another with slim, slightly-built guides who looked like well-sucked mango seeds.

  Ergo, the boys were not happy. They were taken to visit the Schwe Dagon, the Golden Pagoda, which was very big, very airy and very Buddhistic in tone and flavour. They were told in very hissy tones of the tremendous war damage compounded by Communist uprisings that had left the city looking like a well-punched paper bag. They were told not to wander into the narrow side streets and to stay on the main thoroughfares where there were people. Elsewhere, there were vile men in sarongs who cut throats for the price of a cheroot. They were told to visit the Merchant Club and stay clear of the Green Café and not roost at any roa
dside dive.

  The boys listened and changed their money to kyats and bahts. Poor rate of exchange, too, but what the hell, a man and his bahts are soon parted.

  The Ceylon ambassador to Burma insisted that the Ceylon Navy entertain and be entertained, and that turned out to be an altogether nice evening where a little stage was erected in a corner of the embassy garden and on which Leading Telegraphist Gibbs sang, and so did Telegraphist Roberts and others who were tone deaf, making several ladies blanch and complain of benumbed teeth.

  Amazing, Victor thought. Sailors were not worth their salt when chaperoned ashore and made to feel in advance the weight of sins they couldn’t commit. Also, he thought of the voyage home and knew that a lot of pent-up feeling would doubtless explode. As it was, Nathali had been overheard telling an indignant Hugo that he hadn’t come all the way to Rangoon (and with a broken head, too) to go on Sunday school picnics. ‘So we sail back in two days, no? So I’ll just stay on board and get drunk. Or I’ll go to the pontoon and wave my cock at the girls on the road. I’m not going anywhere else!’

  Yes, all things considered, it would do the men good to be let out on their own. This wasn’t Galle. They had to consider that they were strangers in a foreign land. So it was that Carloboy and Aubrey fared forth to see how quickly they could get into trouble.

  ‘The Green Café. That’s where there are all Burmese waitresses,’ Aubrey said, ‘Never fucked a Burmese girl. Shall we go there?’

  They had found the Merchant Club vastly uninteresting, but the Green Café had its charms. There was this door, and beyond it a flight of steps leading to the upper floor and there, in a long row of rooms were the youngest looking whores they had ever encountered. They clasped their hands in greeting and said in piping, flute-like voices that they liked foreign sailors. Satin-skinned and narrow waisted, small in stature and delicate of movement, they looked like fragile porcelain figures. Even as the girl stripped, Carloboy, his penis rearing uncontrollably, wondered at her seemingly youthful innocence. She knelt at his feet and held a bowl of jasmine water in her hands. With a soft tissue, she sponged his cock and ran long-nailed fingers along it. ‘You like I suck,’ she said.

  Her lips closed around the head and he felt her tongue dart, curl around the glans while her cheeks narrowed, then enlarged as she drew on it. He ran his hands down her head, to the nape of her neck and along her shoulders. She held the root of his penis and her head began to move down, engorging it. He took her by the sides of her cheeks, raised her face to his.

  ‘Is very big,’ she said.

  He clasped her around the waist, drew her to the bed.

  ‘You wanted to go soon, soon?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You don’t like to play. I thinking you in hurry.’

  ‘No hurry. Why do you say that?’

  ‘All come and go like this. Inside outside finished. You like me I think.’

  ‘Of course I do. But when you are like that what can I do?’

  ‘So I am pleasing you I think.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ and he spread her legs, traced a finger on the mount of her small cunt. He smiled, ‘You know what some buggers said on the ship?’

  ‘Please. Fast you are talking, what is buggers?’

  ‘It’s not a nice word. Men on my ship. They are saying mad things.’ His finger worked under her clitoris. It was small and very red. ‘They said Chinese girls have cunts the other way. And Burmese and Korean girls also. Like mouths.’

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘Still you say fast talk. I not understand.’

  ‘Never mind.’ He found her hole moist. At the juncture of her thighs there were lines of powder. She had hardly any bush, just a slight shadow of down. He was tumescent, dripping a long line on the sheet. Gently he placed his cock in her. She raised her slim legs onto his shoulders. He lay over her unmoving, told her to lower her legs.

  ‘Now what can you play,’ he asked softly and repeated the question slowly. ‘Can you play with me now?’ He rested on an elbow, squeezed her small breasts.

  ‘How I am thinking to play, but how I can?’

  ‘So suck it now.’

  ‘To suck? How I can do that like this?’ Her lips glistened with his tumescence.

  ‘Try. Suck it with your cunt. Make it tight.’

  She smiled. ‘Ah, you are not hurry, no?’

  Overhead the fan whirred. She began to contract her vagina, found it easier to do so when she slipped her hand down between his stomach and hers, massaged herself. The feeling was slow, delicious.

  ‘You like it,’ she murmured, ‘I also like. Everytime this I do after gentlemans go. Hurry hurry for them. You I like. You also like?’

  Carloboy began to move. Very gently. He pushed in, pressing her fingers, against her cunt, then withdrew very slowly, almost to the entrance, then plunged in again. She made a soft sound and her tongue washed her lips. A ballet of slow motion. And all the while her fingers moved between the hairs of his bush, round the head of her clitoris until suddenly, she jerked her hand away, put her arms round him, pressed them into his buttocks. He knew she was ready to explode. With a savage thrust he began to quicken, moving in, barely withdrawing but grinding into her, feeling her pelvis hard against him, the softness of her mount crushing into him. She lay, eyes turned up, panting, her fingers tight, pressing, pressing and even as he spent himself, she gave a sharp cry and he felt her labia grip him, felt her tighten, slacken, tighten convulsively. Her hips jerked as though with a life of their own and her hands came up to hold him tight, embrace him, force his whole self into her.

  ‘From you no pay to me,’ she whispered in a voice husky with spent passion, ‘You stay more time, I thinking you stay long long.’

  Carloboy couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine what Aubrey was doing either. He simply lay over her until her breathing eased.

  ‘You like? I like very much. You want going?’

  He shook his head. ‘I like to stay. But I cannot.’

  Her eyes were soft, doe-like. ‘Nothing you pay then. More than ten baht you give me. Here, you move and I give money. You come again? Don’t want you pay. You come?’

  He moved off her, flopped on his back, watched her rise, go to a little curtained niche. ‘I clean you nice nice,’ she said, sponging him gently and with much tenderness. Dipping her fingers into a smooth cream salve, she began to work it into his skin, all along his shaft, on his upper thighs, the pit of his abdomen.

  ‘What is that?’ he asked.

  ‘Is sandalwood. Make you nice nice. You like?’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  She took scented powder, pinches of it between her fingers, rubbed it in. She bent her head, kissed his glans. ‘Good man you are. You come again, no?’

  Carloboy stroked her cheek. Of course, he wouldn’t come back. They sailed tomorrow. Maybe he would never come back. And she was so lovely, so, so desirable. But she was a whore, and this was her whore’s business. She rose to place the notes he had given her in his hand. He shook his head. Somehow, he felt that this hour had been different, special for her. She was thanking him in the way she knew best, giving him back his fifteen baht. He pushed the notes into her hand, refused to accept them.

  ‘But you I like,’ she protested. Such a childlike simplicity. He embraced her, felt her breasts warm and soft against him. Then he kissed her, long and hungrily and she pressed herself against him and he felt himself hard against her stomach. She smiled, well satisfied. He had paid her a tribute. He had kissed her as a lover would. She watched him dress, then touched his face gently. He could have sworn that the stars in her eyes were shining through a mist of rain.

  ‘Oh what the hell,’ he muttered as he found Aubrey pacing the corridor.

  ‘What the devil, men, you’re taking so long. What were you doing? Pukka girls, no? No hair even on the pussy.’

  Carloboy nodded. They went into the street and suddenly decided to get reckless. They walked into a little dive and drank saki—colo
urless and lethal. It burned all the way down and Aubrey, who had no qualms, ordered a second dram and eyed the woman in the corner with interest. She smiled and came up. Then she fished in her jacket, pulled out a long black cheroot and asked for a light. Her face was a peculiar colour, daubed heavily with a thick, creamy substance.

  ‘That’s sandalwood,’ Carloboy said.

  ‘How the hell do you know that? Saw lot of women like this. Like white shit on the face. What for?’

  ‘Makes them fair. And makes the skin smooth. In the night they wash it off and go out.’

  ‘The girl told you? The one you screwed?’

  Carloboy nodded. ‘How was yours?’

  ‘Pukka.’

  No other details were really necessary. They strolled along Merchant Street, moving deeper into the town. Then they saw the girl.

  From fifty yards she seemed very nice. She swayed invitingly, like a windjammer in a high sea and she was different. She wore Western dress, trim high heels and carried a large handbag—not those Burmese sling bags. Aubrey declared that there was a wench worth knowing in all senses including the Biblical. Carloboy agreed. When on a formal visit to a strange country it was very good policy to win friends and exercise that Carnegie influence.

  Then, out of the indecent blue came a startling development. Their quarry was mincing past a typical Burmese suburbia—a row of little houses with latticed windows and iron-grated gates. Suddenly, a man in a heavily coloured batik sarong and light slippers darted out of a gateway, pushed heavily at the girl. She staggered, nearly fell and the man seized her handbag.

  Aubrey gave a whoop. As the bag-snatcher hared away, he leaped in pursuit. His cap flew off as he changed gears and Carloboy stood, astonished at the way the evening had changed. Pursued and pursuer were small dots on the horizon.

  Retrieving Aubrey’s cap, Carloboy swung on the girl who stood white-faced, against a railing. ‘Don’t worry, we will get your bag back.’