Hiroshima Sunset

by John Kelly

That night, Amanda double-checked everything. Her only previous overseas trip was a short holiday in Fiji. That was before 9/11, when being invited to sit in the cockpit of a Jumbo 747 for a few minutes was not unusual. It was a different story now, with micro-restrictions in place limiting the size and contents of her toiletries; everything had to fit in a transparent zip-lock bag. So much extra care to ensure baggage security, needed to be considered. Finally, with everything arranged and nothing to do except go to bed and sleep, she settled herself with a cup of hot chocolate, nestled under the covers and continued with the journal about Derek Avers?..

  The move to the Nippon Steel Works was a huge moral booster. By the time it was complete, enthusiasm for the real work at hand was high. Soldiers had adjusted themselves to their new barracks, regular patrols of the civilian area had started and a routine of drill and general cleaning was in progress. One morning, Lt. Kelty asked for a vehicle and driver to take him to Hiroshima. It was more out of curiosity than duty; he just wanted to have a look at the place, to see what damage had been done. I was given the task and picked him up outside battalion H.Q.

  'We're going into Hiroshima private,' he said to me. 'I think we'll take the inland road and come back via the coast road. That should give us a reasonable picture of what happened.'

  'Do we need any protection sir?' I asked him.

  'What for?' he replied.

  'I'd heard that people are getting sick in Hiroshima sir,' I told him.

  'Where did you hear that?' he asked.

  'There was a woman at the front gate yesterday asking for some cleaning work. We had to send her away, but she was asking for medicine for the bomb sickness,' I told him.

  'I didn't realize you could speak Japanese, private?'

  'I don't sir. I tried to memorize some of the basic phrases on the ship coming up. But she spoke a little English. She said people were sick. When I asked how sick, she said, hair fall out, gums bleed, diarrhoea, dark purple spots on skin. She asked for penicillin for the doctor down the road.'

  'What doctor?'

  'She said his name was Doctor Kano, I think. He runs a clinic close by. She said he was trying to get penicillin from the occupation army.'

  The Lieutenant was silent. He seemed deep in thought.

  'I suppose they would be suffering a shortage of supplies. I'll take a note of that and see what I can do. Where is this clinic?'

  'She said it was down the road a bit, toward Hiroshima,' I told him.

  'Perhaps we'll see it along the way. Let's go.'

  We set off down the road and after we had gone no more than a mile or two, we passed by a sign outside a modest building. Written in English, the sign read, M. KANO, M.D. MEDICAL AND VENEREAL. 'There it is, sir,' I said. The Lieutenant took note.

  'Medical and venereal, eh,' he said. 'I guess he would need penicillin wouldn't he?' The Lieutenant then pulled out a notepad and wrote something down.

  'I suppose,' he began, thoughtfully, 'human nature being what it is, and even with a strict 'no fraternization' policy, men are men the world over, and where there are men, there will be women to provide a service.'

  'I guess that's the way of it, sir,' I said with a grin.

  'Well, in that case, if our Dr. Kano is looking after the good health of the girls, he will need all the penicillin he can get, won't he?'

  'Yes, sir,' I replied.

  'You'd better pull over and I'll see if he's home.'

  I pulled up the jeep in front of the house, and Lieutenant Kelty jumped out.

  'Wait here private,' he said, as he marched up to the front door, knocked and went inside.

  About a half hour later, he emerged, smiling and shaking hands with a convivial looking gentleman in his fifties. The two of them looked as though they had done a deal as the man handed the Lieutenant two bottles. They said goodbye, and Lt. Kelty returned to the jeep, taking care not to drop the bottles.

  'Suntory Whiskey,' he said. 'Nice fellow,' he said, as he carefully wrapped the bottles in some towelling.

  'We need to see that he is supplied with a few things.'

  'Would this be your first fraternization, sir?' I asked cheekily. The Lieutenant grinned. 'Let's go private.'

  As we continued on, crossing over a river, it was impossible not to notice the poverty and destitute circumstances of the local villagers. People huddled together outside wooden huts, with neither running water nor power. Young children, barely five years old, dressed in flimsy shorts and shirts, or dresses and only a jumper over their top to protect them from the cold. They were wandering the streets, searching for something to eat. Old men stood motionless as we passed by, as if waiting to be interrogated or arrested, we thought. But no, they were hoping we would give them some food. As we continued on, the road became less populated and we noticed fewer buildings. More and more, we saw damaged wooden houses, some leaning to the left and right as if blown by a great wind. Increasingly, the amount of rubble on both sides of the street mounted up, and yet more damaged properties; these clearly having suffered from fire damage. The Lieutenant asked me to drive slowly lest we hit someone or something. People were not moving quickly; they appeared lethargic, morose even, their faces while devoid of expression, unable to hide an unmistakeable look of hopelessness. Then, we saw increasingly, make-shift shacks, put together with anything that would give shelter. But before we had a chance to take stock, the buildings were no more and we came upon a sight so staggering that we found it difficult to believe. As far as the eye could see, perhaps as much as four or five miles, all the way to the inland sea, a vast area of devastation. It was as if we had entered a land of ruin, where everything that was ever there before, had been reduced to a twisted, mangled wasteland of metal, rubble, ash. As we drove along a badly broken bitumen road, with buckled tram lines down the middle, burnt out trams had been thrown metres off their tracks and lay on their side along the roadway and across flattened rubble where shops used to be. We drove past row upon row, street upon street of burnt out, flattened, ash and debris. Only the odd ferro-concrete structure was still partly standing, but completely gutted inside; the rest a black, ashen wasteland of destruction. The Lieutenant told me to stop.

  'Where is Hiroshima?' I asked.

  'This is it,' he said, his own shock and disbelief apparent.

  'But,' I said, not wanting to correct him, 'there's nothing here, sir.'

  'I can't believe one bomb could do this,' he uttered, as we passed the remnant of a car that lay as if partially melted away, with the front vaguely resembling a collapsed cauldron. Here and there, a makeshift hut came into view, where a family member returned to claim the land where once stood what was his house, before the bomb. Then, as our consciousness gradually adjusted to absorb the enormity of the cataclysm, we passed a huge camphor tree, uprooted, and burnt out, its eerie root system, trunk and branches, now a blackened silhouette against a white concrete building behind it. We noticed more makeshift huts, put together by residents unable to find anywhere else to live. We passed by in silence, but inwardly, felt sickened at some of the injuries sustained by people, whose faces were horribly disfigured from burns. Others, who could only walk with the aid of an improvised crutch, were huddled over their support, trying to move away from our car, and revealing huge growth lumps on the backs of their necks.

  We continued on, through this blackened landscape, until we came to a bridge and turned left, where a large ferro-concrete structure stood, its dome roof still intact, but the building itself gutted within. Driving slowly, parallel to the river, we continued to see people trying to re-establish themselves in makeshift huts with no more than a piece of corrugated iron placed on top of wooden supports, to protect them from the cold and rain.

  'That must be Ujina down there; the port area,' Lieutenant Kelty said, pointing to some buildings about three miles away, but clearly visible, with nothing standing in between to block our view. 'Some of us will be working down there,' he said. 'That's where the Japanese soldiers, ret
urning from the Pacific, are being repatriated. My God, if any of them live here, look what they have come back to! How are they going to feel?'

  'Did we do this, sir?' I asked without thinking.

  'What do you mean we, private?'

  'Us, sir,' I said, 'the allies. Did we do this?'

  Lt. Kelty did not answer at first. He looked across to the other side of the river, toward the mountains, where the scene of devastation was the same; total destruction on an unimaginable scale.

  'I suppose we did,' he answered finally, 'if you want to put it that way. But, I don't know if those who made the decision really knew what they were doing. How could anyone imagine doing this, and still give the order?'

  Unable to continue concentrating, with her eyes demanding sleep, Amanda marked the spot, put the journal on the bedside table, turned out the light and went to sleep. Tomorrow morning would come soon enough; she could continue the story on the plane.

  10.