“If I may so say, he was lucky you were there to protect him.”
“You may assuredly say so.” Her eyes misted with tears. “What matters is that he’s safe now. So am I, because they don’t know what he told me, and not having worked in the compound I never had to take their oath.” The moment of tears cleared to another smile. “If you can’t manage a third helping of paella, Luke, there’s apple crumble.”
“I’m not sure … Luke started to say.
“A pause till later?” she suggested.
“Great idea,” he replied.
“A walk to the beach and back? We could pick up another bottle of wine at the grog shop.”
“Another great idea, Rebecca.”
“Please call me Becky,” she said.
She was in her late forties, nudging fifty she admitted, and had been a nurse since she was twenty. She’d met her husband in Adelaide. Arthur was in the army, and had just returned from serving in Korea. She knew Luke had been a foreign correspondent there — Doctor Nakamura had told her — which made Luke realise why Yuri had thought Arthur Morrison might talk about the tests. Whether their paths had ever crossed in Korea was impossible to say, but to Yuri the fact of their being in the same war gave them a link in common.
Luke and Becky sat on a bench that overlooked the beach. Up on the cliff top crowds were dispersing after a day of whale watching. It was a warm night, a gentle breeze ruffled the sea, and she began to tell him about their life together. When she first met Arthur he was on the point of leaving the army, but jobs were hard to find, and they were saving to buy a house, so he decided to stay on. It was soon after their marriage that his unit was told they’d been selected for a special duty.
“Special and very secretive, Artie told me, and that was all he could or would say, except they were being transferred to an island called Monto Bello. I realised what the duty was, of course, once the bomb test was headlines in the papers. Soon after, the unit was transferred back to South Aussie. That was when I managed a move to the job at the Yalata hospital so he could spend weekends with me, and we put a deposit on the house and with our combined earnings started to pay off the mortgage.
“He never said much during the next few years about the bomb tests, but I knew they’d all taken an oath so I didn’t even ask him questions when he was on leave. It was after the fifth bomb test, that was about the time I began to notice he was unhappy. Odd things were happening that he didn’t like, but he couldn’t talk about them. And then he started to have skin cancers — not just sunspots, nothing normal; these were lesions that he tried to hide from me. In the end he said they were treating him at the Maralinga hospital, him and all the other soldiers. He told me quite a few of his company had the same sort of skin problems. I said they were more than ‘problems’, they were dangerous melanomas, and asked him to resign from the army, but he’d signed on for a fixed term and had two more years to serve.”
“And that was when these new tests began?” Luke asked. “In about 1960. The ones they called assessment trials?”
“Yes. I tried to ask him about them, but he wouldn’t say a word. Except he did tell me this was a lot more secret than anything else. No reporters were allowed, there wasn’t a mention in the papers or anywhere, but I knew something was peculiar because I was sure I’d read about a United Nations conference, and they’d reached an agreement to stop testing new nuclear devices. Or am I wrong?” she asked Luke.
“You’re not wrong,” he assured her. “It was agreed by all the main powers, even Russia, but the British scientists changed the name of what they were doing at Maralinga to get around the rules. And each batch of the new tests was given a strange name to confuse people into thinking they were just minor safety checks and quite unimportant.”
“Silly names like Kittens, Rats and Vixen trials,” Becky said, and before he could express his astonishment at her knowledge she added, “hundreds of trials were done under those names. Experiments with uranium and plutonium. Finding out what would happen if the material caught fire. Or if it exploded during storage, or in a case of accidental damage. Would the radiation be spread by the wind? And how far would it spread? Dozens of experimental exercises like that, and all of them very risky to the soldiers involved.”
“Absolutely correct!” Luke said. “How the hell did you …?” But before he finished the question he realised the answer.
“Artie told me everything he could. He was at home by that time, and on sick leave prior to being discharged from the army. They hadn’t the faintest idea how much he knew. Just as well, or I’d never have seen him again. By then he realised that he was going to die, and he said he had to pass on the knowledge to someone. It could only be me. Or else his mates would all end up with malignant tumours, if not in a few years, then certainly some day in the future. A lot of them were marked for death and hadn’t the faintest notion of it. He’d heard your doctor friend talk about that, how people were still dying fifteen years after the radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps Artie would’ve told Yuri a lot more, but they were hardly ever alone together. Never had a proper chance to confer. And there were also the photos. He didn’t dare give those to anyone. They were hidden somewhere in our house, but not even I knew about that.”
Luke looked at her strangely. It seemed like a change of subject that made no sense. “Photos, Becky?”
“It was in the last week of his life that he gave them to me. He said nobody will ever believe you, so you need these for proof.”
“What photos, Becky?”
“They’re at home,” she said. It’ll be a relief to get rid of them, but they’re in the safest place I could think of. I hope they haven’t spoiled.”
“Becky,” he persisted, “photos about what?”
“If I can fish them out, I’ll give them to you.”
“Fish them out from where?” Luke asked, now thoroughly mystified.
He brought a ladder from the garden shed. At the back of her house was an old metal rainwater tank, and he placed the ladder alongside it and watched Becky climb. She carried a torch and, after carefully clearing out the debris then removing the fitted leaf mesh, she shone the beam of torchlight into the dark interior. She stretched down to retrieve a dripping object, and held it up triumphantly for Luke to see that it was a bundle wrapped in oilskin, and had cork fishing floats tied to it with gut line.
“Fingers crossed the water hasn’t got in and ruined them,” she said, and handed him the package, then the torch.
They took it into the house, where Luke cut away the corks and opened it carefully, breathing a sigh of relief. Inside the oilskin was another layer of waterproof wrapping. The thick bundle of photographs were dry, and looked in perfect condition. He spread them out on the table, and looked at them in wonder.
Arthur’s skill taking shots so swiftly that no-one could observe him was astonishing. Even better, there were photos of actual tests with details and dates. He’d managed to photograph exhibits that had been set up to show progress to scientists in London, and all of them clearly labelled.
SAFETY EXPERIMENT 423, VIXEN GROUP. ACCIDENTAL DETONATION IN TRANSIT, FEBRUARY 1962, said one. ASSESSMENT TEST 207. KITTEN GROUP. FAULTY CHAIN REACTION was the next. Another trial, RATS 184. TEST OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL IN WINDY CONDITIONS. There were thirty of these enlarged photographs, all of them about consequences of damage, mishandling or other serious nuclear problems, all in perfect focus and beyond anything Luke could’ve hoped for. There were also four rolls of negatives. He could scarcely believe it.
“Just incredible, Becky.”
“There was no-one I could trust, so I hid them in the safest place I could think of. I knew they must be important.”
“Better than that. They’re proof, absolute proof of the things they were doing here. How on earth did he manage it?”
“Photography was always his hobby. He had a darkroom built at the back of the garage. He once said after he retired from the army, if they gave
him a pension and a medal, he’d take up photography. But of course there’s no pension, and none of them will ever get medals for what they did.” She brushed at her eyes and moved away to hide the gesture, returning moments later with a tiny camera. “He used this. He was hardly ever without it.”
“What a beauty,” Luke said, as she gave him the camera. It was a miniature Diana F+, that fitted neatly into the palm of his hand.
“He bought it ages ago when we were in Adelaide. He loved taking difficult snapshots of birds in flight, or sudden expressions on people’s faces, all sorts of things like that. Most times the people didn’t realise he was doing it, but I never imagined he was using it for this. I’d have been scared to death, which is why he didn’t tell me, I suppose.”
“I’m sure that’s why.”
“Not a word, till the day he died. Just said to bring his fishing basket. I thought he was hallucinating, but he kept on, telling me it was in the shed, which I knew, ‘cos it was a joke with us, how much it made the house stink when he brought it inside. They were in there, wrapped up under all the fishhooks and mess. I brought them to show him, but he’d drifted off … and never woke up.”
“He was a very brave man, Becky.”
“I’m starting to realise how brave,” she said. “They would’ve killed him for this, wouldn’t they?”
“He took enormous risks,” Luke said quietly, “he realised he and his mates were being treated like guinea pigs and he wanted to leave the proof. Well, this is it, and it’s not going to be wasted. Yes, they might’ve killed him, or locked him away so he could never communicate any of this. But now a great many people are going to remember your husband and what he did.”
“I’d rather he was here listening to you,” Rebecca said, “but I’ll take the next best thing. His name in your book when it’s published.”
“You’ll get more than that,” Luke promised. “Arthur will be in it, so will you, once I establish there can’t be a backlash against you. But I don’t see how there can be, since you’re not bound by an oath.” Then after a moment he asked, “Would you be interested, if I can persuade the publisher, for an expenses-paid trip to London to attend the book launch?”
Her eyes widened. “You’re joking?!”
“I’m not. I mean it, Becky. I’ll be talking of what your husband did, and of how you helped make this breakthrough, so I want you there.” He had already decided if the publishers demurred he’d kick in from his own bank account. This was pure gold; the photos would back up his entire research and make publication a certainty. Not even governments could argue against this kind of evidence.
“We’d better open that other bottle of wine,” Becky said, “and drink to book launches and my husband.”
“Done,” Luke agreed, and while wrestling with the cork asked her how he could find out what happened to an Aboriginal woman whose child had been still-born, and who’d been last heard of in the Maralinga hospital.
She thought for a moment, frowning as if trying to remember. “Do you mean the Pitjantjatjara family with the two kids?”
He stared hopefully at her. “It sounds like them. The family name was Warlapinni, the wife’s name was Maysie. She had two kids, a boy and a little girl who would’ve been nine at the time. This happened last January.”
“It must be them. The pregnant woman who lost the baby was the husband’s sister? Is that right?”’
“Yes.”
“In the end she came to our hospital,” Becky said, “they wouldn’t accept her at Maralinga.”
“Why not?”
“Someone decided she didn’t qualify.”
She saw the expression on his face, and said in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m afraid she never recovered from the shock of the radiation, or losing the baby. She died soon after she was admitted. Didn’t they even bother to tell the family?”
Luke shook his head. Someone decided she didn’t qualify. It seemed to sum up the way people were treated in this blot on the Australian landscape, where so many dirty games had been played.
“I’ll be in touch,” Luke said to Becky Morrison the next day while they were waiting for Todd to return. He felt immensely grateful to her. Without her contribution there’d have been no final chapters to the book. No proof of the way some British scientists and others at Maralinga had treated Australians in such a derogatory way. He felt he had to write these last chapters while they were still churning angrily in his mind, and when Todd arrived back to pick him up Luke asked him an urgent question.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to do for years,” he said. “How can I get a single sleeper on the Indian Pacific?”
“You mean from Adelaide?”
“No, I mean from here. I need a few solitary days, just me and my typewriter, to get all this down.”
“For a start you’re in the middle of bugger-all,” was his typical Todd-like answer, “with due apologies to Rebecca. I mean we could drive you to Cook, that’s the nearest stop here on the Nullarbor. Could get you on board there, if they’ve got a spare bed. But do you go east or west? Going west to Perth is just like a hop, skip and a jump.”
“I want the whole bit,” Luke told him, “and I need about four or five days, so I’d better go west to Perth, then try to get straight back on the train for the return trip the same day or night if possible.”
“Just you and your typewriter.” Todd had a way of looking at people when he privately thought they were nuts.
“That’s right,” Luke insisted.
“I always had a feeling you were one snag short of a barbecue. Twice across the Nullarbor,” Todd grinned. “Do you realise how many mallee bushes and gibber stones you’ll see?”
“I’ll be writing, Todd. Head down, arse up. Looking forward to three meals a day in the dining car, and sleeping at night to the rhythm of the rails.”
“No accounting for taste. Sounds troppo to me,” he said, and turned to Rebecca, “What do you reckon, Beck?”
“Troppo he isn’t,” she said. “Single sleeper. First of all I’ll phone through and make sure they have one. Then we’ll get him there. We’ll take him to Cook, flag down the express this arvo and make sure he gets on the train. The sooner this manuscript is finished, the safer for all of us.” Her lined face creased in a big smile. “And the sooner it’s ready for launching, the sooner I get a chance to see London.”
FORTY-TWO
By the time he reached Perth, then made the full reverse trip, Luke had spent nearly five days traversing Australia by train. For the first part of the journey to Perth, and the return across the Nullarbor, it was uninterrupted bliss. He’d managed to obtain a Gold Kangaroo twin cabin, wanting the extra space so he could be undisturbed. It was expensive but worthwhile; he had the luxury of a sleeper with its own shower and bathroom, and was able to work at hours to suit himself. He went to the dining car for meals, and avoided the temptations of the club car and its bar, working each night after dinner until late, as the pages multiplied. It was remarkable. In the final stages of a book he was normally restless and hardly able to sleep, but across Western Australia he slept perfectly, lulled by the measured tempo, waking to a luxurious breakfast then back to his solitary cabin and the typewriter. With the long and uninterrupted stretches he wrote fluently and with growing confidence.
Reality occurred at Port Augusta, where he had to change trains because of the different state rail gauges. Again he had the benefit of a single cabin and was able to work until reaching Melbourne, then again continued steadily during the next stretch to Albury on the border of New South Wales. Here there was yet another different rail gauge and another transfer.
By then, despite the stops and changes of train, he’d completed his final chapter, and proofread it during the last few hours until the train journeyed through the Sydney suburbs, with its clutter of backyards, and reached Central station. Back at the Menzies Hotel, Luke bundled up the final chapters and sent them by express airmail to his publisher, as wel
l as a copy of the entire manuscript to his London agent.
So it was done and he had no clue what the reaction would be. Without it he felt empty. It had been such a part of his thinking for so long, ever since Kaito and even before then, his youthful reaction to the two atom bombs and the visit to Hiroshima to see for himself the graveyard without a tombstone. Now the book was in other hands, facing the judgement of other people. Each time Luke experienced this strange sense of loss when a book was completed, almost a reluctance to let it go. Articles for newspapers and magazines were quite different, taking a few days or weeks to write and published soon afterwards. The whole process over and finished in a short space of time.
But a book to him was like a child, and he always felt nervous after submitting one for judgement. Having airmailed the two packages to London, he had the stupid illusion it was an infant sent to school for the first time, with the parent (himself) remembering his own bullied schoolyard initiation, and worried about its reception.
To rid himself of this daft paranoia he found a new neurosis, starting to realise how much he missed the constant movement of the train. He had an absurd idea that he’d like to try all the other great railway journeys, the Ghan, the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Trans Siberia and the Orient Express. Instead he was sitting in his room at the Menzies, trying to think of what would be the sensible thing to do next. There were some close friends he must see, before his return to London.
He made a list, but didn’t ring them. That was when he decided it was time to be truthful; there was only one person in the whole world he absolutely had to see first. But did she wish to see him? Well, there was one simple and obvious way to find out.
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