I was first up the ladder, followed by the girl and then Shinzo, who was breathing heavily even after that modest exertion. And there by the river wall, the three of us stood in disbelieving silence. The firestorm was all but burned out, though right across the horizon could be seen little turrets of smoke. In every direction that we looked, north, west, east and south, the city had been turned into a wasteland. But that simple word does not begin to convey the wholesale destruction that had been wrought on Hiroshima, as its every street and everybuilding had all of them been reduced to ash. It was a desolate, grey moonscape where life had been erased off the earth – so bleak, so dead, that it seemed as if no trace of life could ever exist there again.
Through the smouldering rubble, we could make out about 20 or 30 larger concrete buildings that had somehow survived the bomb. They lingered on like the last remnants of some ancient civilisation. As for the rest of Hiroshima, it had been as comprehensively excised off the face of the earth as Sodom and Gomorrah.
It took some time to get our bearings as almost every single landmark had been annihilated – and those that had not been razed to the ground had been damaged beyond recognition, their concrete walls blown out, and their steel girders buckled away from the blast like storm-blown trees.
“That must be the Exhibition Hall by the Aioi bridge,” Shinzo said, pointing seawards. “I can just make out its dome.”
“And there’s Hijiyama Hill!” said the girl, dancing excitedly. “That is where we start looking.”
I squinted through the smoked sunlight as the hill swirled in and out of view. “I want water first.”
That morning the city was quite different from the Hiroshima of the previous afternoon. Although there were a few odd patches that had not been caught in the firestorm, most city blocks were now nothing but identical grey squares of ash and rubble. They stretched on as far as the eye could see. It was impossible to believe that anyone could have survived this hell.
Yet, like so many hardy cockroaches, out of the carnage started to emerge the survivors. Many of them were still horribly wounded, their burns turned from red to black, and the loose skin now snipped from their backs to reveal raw flesh. The weakest of the victims had been carried off in the night, cut down by either the firestorm or the cold. We walked past many of them, now black and completely carbonized, their twisted arms captured in the final agonies of their death throes. In one awful knot, two adults and two children were huddled together in a circle, with arms, legs and torsos all now fused together in some grotesque black tableau of a family united in death.
The girl held tight onto Shinzo’s hand, watching the horror in mute shock. As we walked down the once teeming streets, there was an unending variety of ways that death had been visited upon these people. And, just when you thought that you were hardened, inured, to it all, up would spring some fresh horror to revolt you anew.
I was still desperate for water, but all the taps and stopcocks had run dry. The bomb had wrecked every one of the water-pipes, reducing the water pressure to nil. Many people must have died from sheer thirst alone.
The one sight that I will never forget was of fifteen, twenty people clustered around a bone-dry tap, their hands clutching out for water. They had died in a great heap, one on top of the other. The vision that still springs to mind is of flies caught in a honey-trap.
I have not begun to tell you the worst of it. Shinzo, still thinking of his stomach, had spied a small plot of garden that had not been touched by the fire. It seemed to have belonged to some municipal building, now nothing but rubble, and the workers had turned the garden into a vegetable patch. Shinzo had found a sizeable pumpkin. It was quite cooked through and, although it was now cold, we squatted on some concrete blocks and ate every scrap.
“Pumpkin for breakfast,” said Shinzo, chiselling the last of the flesh off the skin with his teeth. “Lovely.”
The girl was swinging her legs back and forth as she twisted her hair into ringlets. “I don’t think my grandmother is alive any more,” she said.
“You’re probably right,” I said, brutal to the last.
“It is difficult to tell,” said Shinzo. “Your grandmother was working in the Shima hospital? Then we will go and search for her when we have found Tamiko.”
How my ears pricked up that. Not content with getting me to search for his sister, Shinzo was now volunteering me to search for the girl’s grandmother too? And why stop there? Why not return to Sumie’s scorched house to see if I could pick up a few charred scraps from her body there?
Before I could say anything too unpleasant, I went off to explore the garden. I thought I had spotted a watertank towards the rear.
I picked my way through the scrubby vegetation, all of it glazed with grey dust. I could hear a trace of the girl singing a ditty to herself. Behind some singed trees was the watertank; they used them for fire prevention. The tank was of a good size, I remember, and could have handily swallowed up a large car.
The first thing to assail my senses was the sound. It was the buzzing drone of a beehive.
A black blur of flies was seething above the water. Two crows hopped on the side of the tank, pecking at a piece of gristle. A steady trickle of water dribbled out from the green overflow pipe. And only then – then – did the smell hit me. I almost gagged, whipping my hand up to cover my nose. It was the smell of carrion and flesh that has been left to rot in the sun; it was the smell of a fly infested slaughter house on a hot summer’s day. It would come to be Hiroshima’s trademark smell of death and over the next two days it was everywhere. But that first time, just 24 hours after Little Boy had been dropped, it caught me unawares.
The moment I smelt the stench I should have turned on my heels and quit the garden. But I found myself drawn to the watertank. What manner of thing had been caught in there to attract so many flies? What could have produced this foul odour?
As I approached the tank, the two crows flew away, but the flies still hovered and swirled – feeding, ever feeding, off the limitless food beneath them.
I peeped over the edge. It took a second to register what it was that I was actually seeing. It was a human stew tank, so thick with bodies that they were squeezed in as tight as sardines in a can. I do not know how many people died in that tank as they sought to save themselves from the flames, but on the surface alone I counted over 15 heads, their empty eye-sockets turned sightlessly to the skies. Their bodies had swollen in death, compacting against each other till the tank was nothing but a solid mass of dead flesh. How could this have happened? How had they all come to seek sanctuary in this same watertank?
My gaze wandered, to be caught by the piece of gristle that the two crows had been eating. It was a single human eye, tinged with the opaque grey glaze of death. It was that, more even than the smell, which made me retch on the spot. Pumpkin cascaded into an orange pool at my feet.
I stumbled back to the others. “Find anything?” asked Shinzo.
“Nothing that you want to know about,” I replied, but it made no difference. All around Hiroshima were scores, if not hundreds, of similarly choked watertanks, and Shinzo would soon see them for himself. The very next day, we witnessed some soldiers trying to clear one, but the bodies were packed so tight that they couldn’t be shifted. Eventually, the soldiers had attacked the side of the tank with sledgehammers, cracking at the concrete until a large slab broke away. Water and bodies cascaded through the breach. In that watertank alone, crammed from top to bottom, there must have been over 70 bodies.
On we went to Hijiyama Hill, meandering from one pitiful death to the next. It was like some interminable chamber of horrors, for even when you thought you had seen the worst of it, there was always some fresh hell to repel you.
Hijiyama Hill, a spacious clump of greenery to the East of Hiroshima, had escaped the worst of the firestorm, but all about it the buildings and houses had been utterly destroyed.
Searching for Tamiko, as we went from one body to the next
, was one of the most dispiriting jobs of my life. We were looking, in particular, for a distinctive square-faced watch with a steel-link strap that had been given to Tamiko by her father. Shinzo said that she might also be wearing a black belt with a steel buckle. As a last resort, we were also searching for a gold tooth that had replaced one of her canines.
These were the ways, then, that we hoped to find Tamiko, and from street to street we worked our way through the ruins, checking for any identifying marks. We were frequently unable to tell the men from the women, and Shinzo would stand there squinting into the mouth of a charred skull, praying that he would not catch sight of that tell-tale gold-tooth. The girl – only seven-years-old, remember – did not show even a hint of distaste as she inspected a blackened arm for any remnants of Tamiko’s steel watch.
We found a running tap beside some ruins, from which poured a small but steady stream of water. There were two bodies sprawled beneath, the water still splashing on their outstretched hands. Shinzo and I dragged the corpses away to make room for the girl. How I twitched with impatience, as she sedately knelt before drinking straight from the tap. She seemed to take an age, sipping slowly and letting much of the water fall straight to the ground. She wiped her mouth and, even before she was on her feet, I was flat on my back and letting the water pour into my open mouth. I gulped it down, the sweetest thing that I have ever tasted. When I’d had my fill I lay with my mouth open to the heavens and let the water cascade over my hair, my face, my chest.
How long I kept Shinzo waiting, I have no idea, but he was such a kind man, bless him, that he did not have the heart to tell me to move. Instead, he stood patiently at my feet, and when – finally – I was done, he knelt at the tap without a word and drank up the water from his cupped hands. As we moved off, he found a bucket and filled it with water. It was heavy, but he insisted on taking it with us.
We came across the occasional survivor and Shinzo would seize upon them to ask if they had heard of his sister or knew her whereabouts – to be met with a shrug and a soundless shake of the head. Most did not say a word. There was an awful silence about Hiroshima that morning, as if we were all shrouded in grief.
Shinzo would thank them all the same and would offer them water from the bucket. They would kneel and drink, cupping their hands to draw the water to their parched lips, and would often remain there as we went on our way, squatting disconsolate in the dust.
The girl’s energy was boundless. She was like a puppy dog, poking here, ferreting there, and not a trace of squeamishness as she examined bodies and blackened limbs. And she would quiz the victims in the same way, ignoring their horrible suppurating wounds to ask them if they had seen Tamiko. She had found a mug and would cheerfully bring them a cupful of Shinzo’s water before taking her leave.
As for myself, what was I doing on that hot day as Shinzo and the girl pointlessly trawled the streets in search of Tamiko? At first I went through the motions. I would follow the pair of them through the ruins and if I chanced on a body, then I would give it a cursory examination. I suppose I kept my ears open for any cries for help. But I had neither the energy nor the inclination to question any of the survivors.
We continued to roam through the ruins until the afternoon. It was as hot a day as I had known all summer and I was in a foul temper. Why was I wasting my time looking for a corpse in this city of corpses? Did I not have a wife and child waiting for me in Nagasaki? I admit that my reunion with Mako was not something that I anticipated with relish; I did not doubt that within five minutes of my arrival back home, the screaming would start – irrespective of the fact that I had just survived the world’s biggest bomb. But that boy, our dear little boy, I truly doted on him. I would have crossed oceans to see him – and can only wish that it was mere distance which kept us apart today.
I was mulling over these things as I sat on some concrete steps that led to another house that had been razed by the firestorm.
Shinzo, sweat pouring down his face and still toting his bucket, wandered over. “I thought we might have a look on the hill,” he said.
Hot, tired, hungry, I just stared at him, raising a single eyebrow. How much longer did he want to carry on searching for his sister before he got the message? She was dead – and if she was not dead, she was dying, and if somehow she had survived, then eventually they would meet up. What did he not understand?
“Will you come with us?” How forlorn Shinzo looked, standing there with that stupid bucket in those bedraggled clothes. His hairless paunch bulged through his shirt.
I looked at that great belly, flopping over his trousers – and realised something was missing. “Where is your moneybelt?”
“Lost in the bomb. Sorry.” He put down his bucket and scratched at his groin. “Will you come?”
I did not reply. With his money-belt had gone half my money too. I stared down at my boots, those heavy work boots that belonged to my father. They were caked in dry mud.
Shinzo moved onto scratching the lice at the back of his scalp. How often had I seen that particular action before? “We’ll not be long. You’ll still be here?”
I looked past Shinzo to the girl who was nosing through the wreckage of another house. It was all so pointless. Why were we spending another moment in Hiroshima? It had ceased to exist as a city.
“Yes,” I said – and when he lingered, feebly mopping at the sweat on his brow, I gave it him straight. “You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting our time. Your sister is dead. She was a nice woman, a kind woman. But she is dead and there is not a thing we can do about it. So I know that this hunt may be helping you to assuage your grief, but it’s hopeless. We can achieve nothing. Nothing! Your sister is dead – so why not start thinking about the living? You have a bride waiting for you back home in Nagasaki – and without a doubt, she currently believes she is your widow.”
“Tamiko might still be alive. Lots of people survived.”
“It is a waste of time. We could spend weeks here – and for what? So, that at the end of it, you can find a watch or a belt buckle that was once worn by your sister?” I clutched my hands to my head, my fingers kneading at my forehead. The sun and the lack of water had left me with a searing headache.
The girl had stopped roaming the ruins and had sidled over to Shinzo, where she clutched his hand.
“We’re going to search the hill,” Shinzo replied. “Will you be here in three hours?”
“Yes,” I said, spitting the word out in my anger. “You are wasting your time, my friend.”
Shinzo smiled, before pronouncing in courtly fashion, “Rejoice that I would do the same for you.”
They turned towards the hill – but I am sure that he was still able to hear my tart rejoinder: “Do not expect me to return the compliment.”
Then and there I was tempted to leave Hiroshima – and I would hook up again with Shinzo whenever fate decided it. But I was exhausted. I found a little patch of grey grass that was in the shadow of some rubble and cleared it of stones. Then, still cursing Shinzo and his fool’s errand, I went to sleep, promptly and with not a thought to my own selfishness.
Did I feel guilty? Not in the slightest. We must each of us take responsibility for our own decisions, and that especially held true for toiling over Hijiyama Hill in the heat of the day. In fact, it was not me that was being selfish, it was Shinzo! How could anyone have been so thoughtless as to take a seven-year-old girl out in that heat to search for a corpse?
I was awoken by the girl’s cries and could see from the long shadows that it was already late-afternoon. I had been asleep for over three hours.
I got stiffly to me feet, and could tell from Shinzo’s hangdog posture that they still had not found his sister. He looked shattered, his face, hair and clothes all matted with dust. I did not feel a gram of sympathy.
“We know where she is,” said Shinzo. “An aid station has been set up in a primary school. A woman thought Tamiko might be there.”
“She did, di
d she?” I asked, brushing off the worst of the ash and dust from my trousers. “Why did she think that?”
“She had been searching for her daughter. She had seen some other girls there from the same work party.”
“Very well.” I replied curtly. My mind was made up. I wanted to get back home to Nagasaki as quickly as possible. As far as I was concerned, I never wanted to set foot in that perfect hell of Hiroshima ever again.
“The woman said it is close by,” said Shinzo. “It should be minutes away.”
It was dusk as we finally walked into the grounds of the Hijiyama Primary School. I was incandescent, steam practically venting from my ears. For although we had known the address, street names were meaningless in the wreckage of Hiroshima. Up and down those hellish streets we had roamed, each of them near identical to the next, as my smouldering temper was stoked into an inferno.
Shinzo had asked more than 20 people for directions before finally, and quite by chance, we stumbled across the school. We had smelt it long before we saw it – a quite horrible stench of cooked meat that wafted on the wind. The building was surrounded by blazing bonfires, at least ten of them and each over two metres high. They burned long into the night. I smelt that awful reek every day for well over a month, and never once got used to it.
The primary school, with those flickering fires all about it, looked the very epitome of a portal to purgatory. I do not know how the main building had withstood both the bomb and the firestorm, but its stark black lines brooded large against the starlit horizon. Satanic looking men laboured in the dark, their shadows stretching long over the rubble and the debris. Over the crackle of the flames could be heard the sound of children screaming; endlessly screaming for their lost mothers. The sound of those high-pitched screams drilled through my ears, reverberating in my skull until all I wanted to do was run for the hills.
Shinzo, holding the girl’s hand, led the way through the porch and into the main hall. I followed a few steps behind them. If the outside of the school had been purgatory, then this hall was hell itself, containing such a welter of indescribable misery that it is difficult to know where to begin. Lying in a disordered sprawl upon the floor were hundreds of victims. From their slight figures, they mostly appeared to be children, but burned and mutilated beyond all recognition. Some of the injuries were so appalling that it was difficult to believe these frail little bodies could still contain a flicker of life.
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