Mr Two Bomb

by William Coles

  Was there a moment, perhaps, when I thought that Mako had got her just desserts? When I thought that it was a fitting end for the woman who had not believed me about the bomb that had dropped on Hiroshima?

  Not for one second did I think that. I swear it. At that time, there was not a drop of anger in my body – no, that would take a full hour to manifest itself in all its glory, and most timely it was too. All I could feel as I took in the enormity of Mako’s injuries was this overwhelming sense of pity.

  The girl gaped at Mako’s ravaged body. She had coped well with tending those strangers at the Hijiyama school just two nights previously. But it was difficult to equate this shrivelled, burned piece of humanity with the beautiful woman who had made her tea only a few minutes before.

  I clasped the girl on both shoulders and her eyes falteringly met mine. “It’s down to the two of us now,” I said. “Can you stay here? I will find some way to get them to the hospital.”

  “A handcart?” she suggested.

  “A handcart would be perfect. Look after them both – you’re in charge now!”

  “I always was in charge!” she called after me, and it did my heart good to know that, even after this second bomb, the imp was back.

  The devastation was every bit as bad as Hiroshima. How can I find fresh words to describe this second wasteland? A wasteland is a wasteland. There are no neat little gradations to describe the varying degrees of destruction. All about me was exactly the wholesale carnage that I had witnessed three days earlier: the smeared houses; the charred telegraph poles tumbled like kindling; the pall of smoke and dust that hung heavy in the air; and just the overall sense that everything in sight had been smashed by a single swing of some gigantic wrecker’s ball.

  Through the sea of flame, I could just make out some of the factory chimneys, black and clawing at the sky. The great red brick cathedral, the focal point of so many million Christian prayers over the years, was in its death throes. It was already nothing but a decapitated corpse, with its bell-tower and twin domes swept away by the bomb, and now the firestorm was finishing off the job.

  Out on the rubble-strewn street, dead neighbours were locked in all manner of ghastly contortions, all of them in the exact place where they had been snatched away by the bomb. An old woman who had used to look after me as a child still had the spade in her hand which she had been wielding in the garden. A teenager whom I had known since he was a baby, now nothing but a carbonized husk, hands fused over his face, thumbs covering his eyes just as he had been taught; I only recognise him because of his distinctive brown shoes. And a couple sprawled in front of an ornamental pond, their heads immersed in the water, as if they had used their last drop of energy to crawl there and then expired at the first sip.

  All of this I had seen before in Hiroshima. It was just an unending picture of death in all its grotesque variety – but these people were not strangers, but neighbours whom I had known all my life.

  There was no time even for shock. I would look and perhaps recognise the charred body of an old school friend – and I would move on. My grieving would have to wait. The dead I could do nothing about; as for the living – well I would do my best.

  I took a few seconds to work out which one of my neighbours might have possessed a handcart, or some sort of barrow. Then it came to me, a picture of a smiling, sun-wizened man, pushing a handcart that was piled high with garden produce. I screwed up my eyes in concentration as I tried to remember where he lived; it was not quite that street, but close by. Was it a parallel street?

  I loped as fast as I could over the smouldering rubble, picking my way to the end of the road before taking a left. I was sure it was down this street, followed by a left turn, but the roads were now nothing but lines of demolished houses. The further I went, the more I was beset with fears that I was wasting my time; how could a wooden handcart have survived this butchery? Would it not be better just to pick Mako up and try to carry her over my shoulder?

  I paused on the street-corner, mind tick-tocking over whether to go straight back, when I heard a voice call out to me.

  “Hi!” came the cry. “Got the time to talk to an old sailor?”

  At first I could hardly make the man out from all the rubble he was propped against. It was Yoshito, one of my father’s old friends; he had used to dandle me on his knee when I was a small boy. He was covered in dust and seemed to have dug his way out from the ruins of his house. One of his legs had been broken, his foot kicked out to the side at a crazy angle, and for a moment I was struck with how he looked like a puppet with its strings cut.

  I stopped and gawked at him. He was lying on the ground with his head pillowed on a broken piece of timber, from where he had a grandstand view of the approaching firestorm.

  He nodded at the solid wall of flame, which stretched right across the valley and up to the first of the terraced fields. “There’s not going to be much left of Urakami after that.”

  I looked from Yoshito to the fire and back again – and made a decision. “I’m getting a handcart,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, and I do believe that he had a trace of a smile on his face. “I’m sure it will be quick. We all have to die some time.”

  “Not if I can help it,” I called out, tearing off down yet another street of ruined houses; already my mood was lifting – because, even if I did not find the handcart, I would still save them. If needs be, I would carry them both, Yoshito and my wife, one on each shoulder; I would carry them till I dropped; I would find a way. I would do it.

  It was still a relief to recognise not the house but the large garden at the back of it – and there, sheltered behind an old brick wall, was the handcart, black and decades old, and with a couple of spokes missing from one of its wheels. I could have kissed the cart I was so pleased to see it.

  The wood was hot as I grabbed the two handles, sending a volt of pain up my burned arm. I gritted my teeth and only held tighter onto the cart. It was nothing, I kept telling myself, nothing at all; my very pain was an affirmation that I was still alive.

  The return journey was much slower going. I bumped the handcart down the pathway and onto the street. There was rubble everywhere. A couple of times, I had to clear a path before dragging the cart through – and all the time aware of this wild firestorm, like a ravening beast that was breathing flames down the back of my neck.

  Yoshito was still lying awkwardly on the ground, with his hands now calmly clasped on his stomach. “You got the handcart?”

  “Of course – and you’re getting on it.”

  “I said not to bother. Save yourself and your pretty wife.”

  I dragged the handcart up alongside him, before squatting down and picking him up in my arms. “Save your breath. You’re coming whether you like it or not.” I gasped. His legs were now draped over my burnt arm and the pain was agonizing. From what had been just a mild throb, it was like my skin was being played over with a blowtorch. I flopped Yoshito onto the handcart. I did not even like to see what my arm looked like.

  “Devil!” I screeched, more in annoyance at my own frailty. If I’d had a piece of leather, I would have stuffed it into my mouth to bite on. As it was, I took out all my pain and rage on the handles of that handcart, digging my fingers deep into the wood.

  What a strange sight I must have made, as I alternately cursed and kicked at all the debris that blocked my way. I think the girl must have heard my mad raging screams even before she saw me. She was twitching with nerves, terrified that, true to past form, I had abandoned her, Mako and little Toshiaki; and once upon a time, I well might have.

  “Bring Toshiaki over!” I called out, my voice only just carrying over the roar of the firestorm. I pulled the handcart up as close as I could to the ruins of my old home and, as I stepped back over the rubble, I tried to shake some life into my screaming left arm. Was there any way that I could pick Mako up with my right arm alone?

  I tried, but I c
ould not even begin to lift her. I slapped myself twice, hard, on the cheek, working myself into a perfect fury, before bending down and picking her up in one smooth movement. My arm sizzled with pain as it was abraded on the jagged ground beneath her. I held her close to my chest, carrying her back over the ruins, and the memory that came back to me was so absurd that I almost smiled. I had remembered how, on the day we had married, I had carried Mako over the threshold of the very house that I was walking on now; what more appropriate way to say goodbye to my old family home than to be carrying Mako out of it?

  As tenderly as I could, I placed her on the handcart next to Yoshito. I winced at the sight of her chest. She had been skinned from practically her hips to her collar-bone; her flesh looked like raw whale-meat dusted with grime. The front of my shirt was covered with the flaccid grey ribbons of her skin.

  “Put Toshiaki on the cart,” I ordered the girl.

  “I will carry him.” The boy looked from me to the girl with shocked eyes.

  “Do as you please.”

  I led the way, face set in a perpetual scowl of pain as I dragged that black handcart the one kilometre up Motohara Hill. I did not look back. There was no time for thought. I was aware of what was generally occurring around me, of Yoshito’s yelps of pain as his leg pitched against the side of the handcart, or the ruts in the road that seemed to be shaking the cart to pieces. But my sole focus was on getting the handcart to Urakami First Hospital, more commonly known as St Francis’ Hospital. It was usually a gentle stroll of a journey, I knew it well and had made it so many times over the years. Now, with that hellfire at my heels, it was perfect torture.

  There was the dead weight of the cart, the endless debris that clogged up the road, and the searing pain of my arm – and, as if that was not enough, the firestorm seemed to be coming at us from all sides. I remember letting out a great howl of rage – “Devil in hell!” – as I saw that our route up the hill was blocked by a wall of flame. I had no option but to trundle the cart back down the hill, and work my way round the blaze. As for the girl, she followed me in docile silence with Toshiaki fast in her arms; I think she was just letting my rage do its work.

  How I howled and cursed as I dragged at that handcart. Mako appeared to be unconscious, but my father’s sage old friend was flat on his back and gazing dispassionately at the firestorm.

  Amongst the bodies on the road was a woman who was crawling up the hill. “Help me!” she called out, pleading to me with stricken eyes. “Help me, please.” She was a woman in her twenties, and one side of her body had been burned, her left arm and leg turning a purplish brown.

  I pulled up the handcart alongside her, trying to work out if I could take her up the hill as well. Perhaps she could sit on the end. It would be impossibly slow. I felt that I had already reached my limit.

  “Please,” said the woman again, before breaking off to cough as the smoke snatched at her lungs. “I want to live.”

  I was in an agony of indecision. I wanted to help her; I wanted to help everyone. But to pull three people up that hill? Could I?

  The girl sidled over. “I will help you,” she said. “Can you walk if you lean on me?”

  “I – I will try,” said the woman.

  Yoshito had turned his head and was watching from the handcart. “Let me hold the boy,” he said, beaming as the girl passed Toshiaki over.

  I stooped and helped the woman to her feet. The girl was brilliant. I know that her unending chatter had, at times, got on my nerves. But on this occasion, she realised she had to draw the woman’s mind away from her injuries.

  “This is the second bomb we’ve been in like this,” she said as the woman clutched onto her shoulder and made her tentative first step. “We came from Hiroshima this morning – and look what happened! Down comes another bomb. We arrived just in time. Perhaps we’re a magnet for these new bombs. Is that possible? Do you think that if we went to another city, they would drop another bomb on us there too?”

  Within five minutes, she had already discovered the woman’s name, her occupation and where she lived – and, more importantly, they had walked more than 100 metres up the hill without the woman appearing even to notice it.

  I was following in their wake with the handcart. I thought the burning sensation in my left arm could not have been any more painful if they had chopped my hand off. Just grasping the cart’s handle was bad enough, but pulling it up the hill, with my cooked sinews shaking with the strain, was torture. I remember how my mouth was champed tight shut and my eyes screwed into gimlets as I concentrated on doing nothing more than counting to ten. Head bent down, I would count each step and, when I had reached ten, would start all over again.

  We were making headway. There seemed to be a clear path to the hospital. But just when my spirits began to lift, I looked up again to see that the road was blocked – completely blocked by the ruins of two houses.

  I was a mule that had been given a task and could think of no other way of completing it. So, with a grunt of pain, I started to drag the handcart up over the rubble. It was insanity. One wheel had caught behind a piece of concrete, yet still I was straining at the handles, believing that brute strength would ultimately win.

  I pulled and I pulled and when nothing happened, I pulled some more.

  “Stop!” screamed the girl, who was a few metres ahead of me. “You will break the handcart!”

  “It’s the only way.” Again and again, I lunged at the handles.

  “Why not take them off? You could carry them over?”

  “Because... ” I was still so set on hauling that handcart over that hillock that I could hardly understand what she was saying. Take Mako and Yoshito off and carry them over?

  “Because I’m an idiot!” I screamed at her.

  I took Mako first, who was like a rag-doll in my arms, and then Toshiaki. Yoshito seemed quite calm as he handed the boy over. “Leave me,” he said. “You don’t have much time.”

  “Be quiet! You’re coming,” I said, scrambling back over the rubble again.

  Yoshito was the heaviest of them all. He noticed my short pants of breath. “Sorry I am so heavy.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  The fire was almost upon us now, burning embers flicking past on eddies of smoke. I placed Yoshito on the ground and darted back over the rubble to retrieve the handcart. Even without its load, it was still unwieldy.

  I worked myself into a fury of indignation. How could we have come so far, only to be thwarted by something like this? I lashed out at a stone. For once I was able to harness my rage and let it work for me. I had to strain at each wheel, tugging them separately over every blockage. I kicked and shouted and acted like a crazed Samurai.

  Sometimes though it works. I would not recommend it. But sometimes rage can give that extra fillip of strength to help you over the line.

  And that, eventually, was the way that we arrived into the grounds of St Francis’ Hospital, along with a band of other injured vagrants, their hair on end and their clothes in tatters. What a relief it was to have dragged that handcart into the compound and to let go of that infernal torture-machine – and, as I looked about me, I wondered why we had come to the hospital in the first place.

  It was completely ablaze, flames spouting from the windows, and smoke torrenting from the roof-tiles.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I question the need for Fat Man.

  There was a reasonable case for dropping Little Boy. Without that first bomb, Japan would have probably continued the war until the entire country had been crushed like a grape. Among the Big Six were a number of warmongers who were all for committing a nationwide version of Hari-kiri. Their battle-cry was – genuinely, ‘A hundred million will die together!’

  But Little Boy had given our ministers all the excuse they needed to surrender. And I am sure they would have surrendered – especially after Russia had entered the war. But still they dithered and they hummed, and meanwhile the Yankees methodically went
about their business of dropping a second bomb. They dubbed it, by the way, ‘a quick one-two punch against the Empire’.

  But there was never any need for the ‘quick one-two’; Little Boy had in itself been a complete knockout blow.

  If the Yankees had given us a few more days before dropping Fat Man; if our inept leaders had run up the white flag a little sooner; if Russia had declared war a month earlier; if, if, if...

  You may have noticed that I am obsessed by that one little word: if. I constantly ponder how differently my life might have turned out.

  The reason is because not once, but twice now, my life has been saved through matters of such total inconsequence. In Hiroshima, I happened to walk into the warehouse a second before Little Boy exploded; in Nagasaki, I was saved by the girl’s high-flying kite.

  But it is impossible to weigh up these personal hypotheticals without also evaluating how Fat Man came to be dropped on Nagasaki in the first place. We had the most appalling bad luck.

  Fat Man – named, so they say, after Britain’s plump Prime Minister Winston Churchill – had from the first been earmarked for Kokura. Kokura had one of the biggest munitions plants in Japan, far more substantial than those of Nagasaki.

  The B29 that was picked for the job was called Bock’s Car. It was a state-of-the-art bomber and the mechanics had been swarming over it for days. And yet on the day that Fat Man was due to be dropped, Bock’s Car’s reserve full pump would not work, severely curtailing Major Chuck Sweeney’s flying time.

  And so, inevitably, tragically, Bock’s Car hums high over Kokura, desperately hunting for a glimpse of the city through the clouds. Sweeney is under the strictest orders that he can only drop the bomb if he has visual contact with the city. Once, twice, three times the B29 passes over, but each time the cloud cover is so dense that nothing can be seen.