Day of the Bomb

by Steve Stroble

  Convinced he had been sentenced to a netherworld where animals ruled over humans, Jason let his head plop back on the wet sand and drifted back into unconsciousness. The monkeys continued their chatter.

  Kong ignored them. Innately curious, he had to know if the human in their midst was alive and what treasures he had brought to Monkey Island. Kong noticed one of the man’s pockets bulged so he slid his paw into it and retrieved $207 in U.S. paper currency soaked in saltwater. The bills tasted bland so Kong spit out what he had bitten off and took the money to the troop, which quickly tore the ones, fives, tens, and twenties into bits as they fought over the booty. Their pandemonium caused the invader to stir.

  “Water…got to have water.”

  The movement and words caused the monkeys who had ventured within ten feet of Jason to scatter as they renewed their warnings to Kong.

  Kong retreated five paces but the man’s pleading expression made him linger.

  “Water…water.”

  Kong understood the repeated word to mean breadfruit. So he scampered to the nearest tree, climbed it, and knocked a plump breadfruit to the ground. Then he rolled it to Jason’s side. The fall had split the ripe fruit and the smell of the pulp wafted up the famished man’s nose. He forced his body into a sitting position and scooped the mushy pulp into his mouth. Ten minutes later the only creature on the island willing to help him rolled a coconut to him. Jason smashed it on the largest rock within reach until he could drain its liquid through a crack into his parched mouth. Revived somewhat, he turned to his new friend and named him.

  “Thanks, Kong.” Jason finished breaking the coconut into pieces. He tossed a chunk to Kong and they gnawed at the white flesh of the nut. The monkey liked this human, the first who had not tried to shoot him so that he could be barbequed on a spit.

  He chattered to his troop that this human was different.

  Jason watched the monkeys communicating. “Yeah, you’re Kong all right. The king of Monkey Island. So what’s it like living here? Any friendly natives around, Kong?”

  Kong cocked his head.

  “You know. Me Tarzan. You Kong. Where’s Jane?” Jason traced the outline of the female of his species.

  Kong scratched his head.

  “Never mind. I got to figure out how best to get off of this piece of rock.” As Jason stood, Kong ran back to his own kind. “See you later, Kong.” He waved. “Find water first.” He repeated the Professor’s words. “You can last for weeks without food but only days without water. Shoot, what I wouldn’t give for a K-ration right now.”

  Ah, K-rations, color coded meals known the world over to GI Joes. Brown boxes were for breakfast, the green ones for supper, and blue boxes for dinner. Yummy for your tummy. That is if you’re stuck on some island in the middle of the Pacific and they are the only food available. Take your pick: canned meat, biscuits, cereal bars, powdered coffee, fruit bars, chewing gum, sugar, cheese product, bouillon, candy. Yes sir, complete meals in a box with wooden spoons, water-purification tablets, can openers, cigarettes, and matches, what more could you ask for? The supper boxes even came with toilet paper. Did not need it too often though because the tropical heat dehydrated you so much that regular bowel movements became a thing of the past. Jason had considered writing the War Department to include laxative in the K-rations but his lieutenant had refused to find out the address of the Pentagon.

  Walking the perimeter of the island took a half hour. During his trek, Jason spotted the hulk of the PT boat, abandoned after it had been officially classified as “not worth repairing” by a salvage crew sent to recover it. The sight of it removed only a little of the aloneness that he felt. If push comes to shove, I can use wood from it to start a big enough fire to bring a rescue ship or plane to save me. Tired after his hike and still hungry, he hunted for coconuts that had fallen to the ground. After finding and eating two of them, he sat down to “think this thing through.” That was what Pop had always said: “Son, remember the four Ts whenever you get yourself into a fix. Think the thing through before you do anything dumb. If you don’t, I can guarantee that you’ll end up regretting whatever you end on up doing.”

  While in the water, Jason had mostly prayed for the first twelve hours. When the hallucinations set in he talked more than he prayed. Now he was no longer in danger of drowning, being eaten by sharks or barracudas or getting stung by jellyfish or devil rays but still had to be careful not to walk barefoot in the water because stepping on a stonefish could be fatal. That went for walking barefoot on the coral on dry land or in the water as well because the infections from the cuts would kill him also, only a lot more slowly than sharks, barracudas, or stonefish. His feet still protected by his boots, he reverted to thinking. As usual, he searched for a cause to his problem. How did I get into this mess in the first place?

  Maybe it was the Professor’s fault, him and his method of remembering which cards had been dealt from the deck of fifty-two. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Mom had always said. But getting to keep two of every three dollars won at blackjack and only paying the Professor one out of three dollars was a dream come true. Besides, he even fronted the initial gambling money from his bigger paycheck.

  Oh, their relationship had all started out innocently enough. At first they just talked about the war. The Professor figured it would take “at least 500,000 and maybe as many as a million men to invade Japan. Look at how many it took to invade Normandy,” he had said. “And that was just to finish off Hitler’s armies. But these Japs are different. They don’t care if they live or die. I figure at least a twenty to fifty percent casualty rate for us when we go ashore in Japan. They even got two-man mini-subs that are nothing more than oversized torpedoes. Lord only knows how many of those they’ll throw at our ships when we get close to Japan.”

  Mini-subs? Ha? You Navy swabbies got it easy. Try coming ashore with us instead of sitting offshore in your nice warm boats with your warm chow. As usual, you Navy boys will be safe and happy as a clam watching all the action from what you call your battle stations. Oh, all right, I forgot. You take your lumps, too, I guess. Some of you poor saps have to drive the LSTs to take us and the tanks and the trucks ashore. Then there’s your crazy pilots that fly off of the carriers. Those guys are nuts! Who ever heard of landing a plane on a flattop that’s bouncing up and down and side and side, much less taking off from one? And don’t forget the Seabees. Man, can those guys build things. I ought to know because my old man works construction. He wouldn’t believe his eyes the way they throw up buildings and scratch out airfields on chunks of coral that don’t look big enough for any plane to land or take off from. Invade Japan? It’ll be the marines who go in first, as usual. Semper fi, first to die. Make the folks back home start to cry. Then us grunts will go in next singing:

  Over hill,

  Over dale,

  The Japs hit us without fail

  As the dogfaces go rolling along.

  With a hi, hi, hee,

  They kill us with glee

  And banzai their way to glory!

  Think this thing through. You were right, Pop. The more I think about it the less I like the sounds of it. Don’t forget I enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor got blown to hell. We got guys back on that boat who’ve only been GIs for less than a year. ‘Cruits is what we call them, short for recruits. There’s got to be at least one of them willing to die in my place when we invade Japan.

  Come to think about it, what about the Professor and those other college boys? They told him to finish up college first. That way he didn’t have to put on his uniform until the summer of 1942. Me? I was on a ship headed across the Pacific by that time. Lord, have mercy; I can’t even remember the names of all the islands we took away from the Japs. The worst of all was the Philippines. Too many damn civilians and prisoners of war that you had to be careful not to kill. How are you supposed to liberate an island as big as Leyte or Mindanao or Luzon when it’s crawling with civilians?
Oh, sure. They were sure glad to see us. “Hey, Joe! Hey, Joe!” That’s all we heard for months and months. But the worst of it was seeing the dead prisoners there in Manila. No, I take that back. Even worse than that was the big POW camp north of Manila where they held all the American troops that survived after the Japs invaded the Philippines. The ones that survived? They looked to be more dead than alive to me. God, I still hate thinking about their stories about that death march from Bataan. If any of them fell down or lagged behind they stuck them with their bayonets or cut off their heads probably just to save bullets! From what I saw at that POW camp, there were more graves than survivors. You’re right. Thanks, Pop. You told me life is all about being a survivor.

  One of Mom’s admonitions surfaced: “If you get in a fix, Jason, pray.”

  He prayed aloud, certain God was more likely to hear him. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven…” By the time he had prayed “Thy will be done…” he stopped. Wait a minute, is it God’s will I die in this stinking war or that I survive it somehow?

  A day and night of thinking slowly convinced Jason that any rescue of him would only serve to make him part of the invasion of Japan, which in turn might make him a part of a telegram sent back home informing his family that “We regret to inform you…” Or maybe they’ll send out one or two guys in their Class-A dress uniforms to tell Mom and Pop in person. All that’s left to do after that is to switch the blue star flag in the window to a red star flag. That way anybody passing by the house will know I’m not coming back.

  No thanks, President Truman and Uncle Samuel. I think I’ll sit the big one out. Let’s see now. The Professor said it would probably take another year for the war to finally end. He turned and etched the date into the trunk of an eighty-foot tall breadfruit tree: 8/7/45. Tomorrow he would make a notch, followed by one for each succeeding day. When he reached four notches, on the fifth day he planned to scratch a diagonal line through the first four. On and on the notches would continue until…Let’s see, what’s 365 divided by five…He did the math by using the sand as a tablet and his finger as a pencil. Okay, seventy-three groups of five days and then I’ll build the bonfire so they can come and finally rescue my sorry butt. Until then, it’s me and Kong against the world. I’ve had a bellyful of killing Japs while they try to kill me back. I wonder if they ever get to feeling the same way about us?

  He looked up at the cloudless sky. “Sorry, God. Guess I’m too afraid to really find out what Your will is.”

  Chapter 4

  “…kechenoiah!”

  Glossolalia, speaking in tongues. Mrs. Sally Rhinehardt was okay with it, as long as it was confined to the first century Christians uttering an unknown language. But today was September 1, 1945, for goodness sakes. And this was a memorial service for dearly departed PFC Jason Dalrumple, lost at sea in the Pacific sometime during the first weeks of August. No one was certain of the exact date back here at home because the military could be pretty tight-lipped about details that might endanger strategies, missions, and troops. “Loose lips sink ships,” the poster downtown at the theater had read. The fact that Jason was dead and gone would have to suffice. Sally had heard stories about holy rollers, Pentecostals who supposedly swung from the light fixtures, rolled on the ground, and spoke in tongues, languages unknown to both speaker and hearer alike. The strange words just spoken unnerved her. Not only because they were unknown but also because she was unknown in this strange church.

  I knew I shouldn’t have come. I only did because Fred wrote that I should go and represent him. No one ever told me that they speak in tongues even at their memorial services.

  Growing up in Kentucky, she had been exposed to Catholics, Hard Shell Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and even snake-handling churches where one’s faith was proven by the number of rattlesnakes one picked up during the services. But Pentecostals? “No thank you,” had always been Sally’s refrain. “They’re just so boastful about their being filled with the Holy Ghost. They make the rest of us Christians sound like second-class believers in Jesus,” she had said whenever the subject was discussed.

  Sally scanned the pews for a familiar face and counted two she knew from the factory where all three worked. She stopped counting when the lady in front of her popped up like a clown released from a jack in the box. Sally’s breath caught in her throat as she leaned as far back in her pew as possible to distance herself from the one to her front.

  “Do not grieve for your son. Even now he lives.” The jack in the box lady settled back into her pew.

  A kind-looking woman who sat next to Sally reached over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, honey. That’s the interpretation, dear,” she whispered. “First the utterance in tongues, followed by the interpretation. Everything done decently and in order, just like the Bible says it ought to be.”

  Sally mouthed a “thank you” to her as the pastor continued his homage.

  “Thank you, Lord. Yes, Jason Dalrumple lives on in heaven above where he dwells forever and ever in the presence of his Lord Jesus Christ.” He paused. “Sister Gonzalez will now lead us in a final hymn.” He nodded to the organist, who hit the first notes of What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

  Sally waited in the pew for a few moments so she would be the last one to shake the hands of the family who stood by the door. At least that way I won’t have to hang around very long and make small talk. Down the line she went, meeting Jason’s parents, two brothers, and two sisters. Outside in the parking lot, she met Thelma Pollack, until now only a face from work.

  “Don’t you work at the factory, too?” Thelma asked.

  “Yes. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. So did you know Jason?”

  “Yeah. We were engaged.” She shrugged and held up her unadorned left hand. “He never even got around to getting me a ring before he shipped out. Typical Jason. Where’d you know him from?”

  “I didn’t. But he was a real good friend of my husband, Fred Rhinehardt. They met on Fred’s boat.”

  “The Professor? Yeah, Jason wrote me all about him. You had any lunch yet?”

  “No.”

  “The Dalrumples invited me to the reception but I made up an excuse to get out of it.” She sighed. “They even wanted me to stand in line with them and shake everybody’s hand but I talked my way out of that too. Don’t you hate funerals? They’re too depressing.”

  “Why don’t we go over to Tom’s Diner? The food’s not too bad.”

  “Okay. Mind if I catch a ride with you? Jason’s brother brought me to the service but he’s already trying to move in on me now that Jason’s gone.”

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  Sally pointed at her 1933 Chevy sedan. A gift from her father, it was dented from a lot miles traveled on rough roads but reliable enough to survive parts shortages caused by war rationing. Thelma appreciated her deliverance from the Dalrumple clan so she offered to buy Sally’s lunch. They ordered a basket of fried shrimp, a chocolate malted milk, and a soft drink from one of Thelma’s pals she had met in high school.

  “Sorry to hear about Jason, Thelma.” The waitress shoved her pencil through her hair and onto her ear. “I was going to come to the service today but my boss wouldn’t let me have the day off.”

  “That’s okay, Wanda.”

  “Be right back with your order.”

  Thelma ate her shrimp plain; Sally drenched hers in catsup.

  “You’re not from around here, huh?” Thelma drained the last of her soda.

  “No. I’m from Kentucky originally. I just moved out here because a cousin told me there was work at the factory.”

  “Yeah. We got a lot of folks moving here for work once the factory got orders to supply the military. I sort of could tell by the way you talk that you weren’t from around here. You going to be moving back home to Kentucky after Fred gets back from the war?”

  “I don’t want to. There’s not much in the way of work there. Daddy’s just a dirt farmer. Most of the boys in those parts
work in the mines or the sawmills. At least they did before they all went off to the war.”

  “So, how’d you meet Fred?”

  “I took a trip up to Ohio with my mom to see her folks. Fred was back home there on vacation from college. I met him at a dance. We started writing each other and got married before he left for San Francisco to ship out.”

  Thelma sighed. “Well, at least he’s romantic. You’re lucky. All the Dalrumple boys are sticks in the mud. I only dated Jason because he’s a really hard worker. His brothers like to honky-tonk and fight too much. You like working at the factory?”

  “Yes. All except for…”

  “Darryl.”

  Sally laughed. “How’d you know?”

  “He flirts with me too. Just like he does with most women. He’s a jerk. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. He’s been that way ever since high school.”

  “Just between you and me, I complained to Mr. Monroe about Darryl and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Darryl’s left me alone ever since. He gives me the cold shoulder now, which is fine with me.”

  “You’re kidding! I think I’ll have a talk with Mr. Monroe during my next shift. Well, we best get going. I promised my mother I’d be home to help her fix supper. You like stew and biscuits?” Thelma placed a dollar on top of the bill.

  “Yes. I sure miss my mom’s cooking.”

  “You got some change for a tip? All I have on me is this last dollar bill.”

  “Sure.” Sally tossed a dime and nickel on top of the dollar.

  “Why don’t you come along home with me? It’s nice having someone to talk to. Real nice. I’ve been kind of lonely ever since Jason died. Him coming back here was what kept me going. I could use a friend like you right about now.”

  Chapter 5

  For three years, Ensign Rhinehardt had spent more time on ships than on land. So going ashore, even on a conquered nation’s land, was welcomed. Memories of the damage he had seen inflicted on islands by conventional bombing and shelling had convinced him that dropping atomic bombs on two cities instead of invading what would have been by far the most heavily defended island yet was probably the best choice that President Truman could have made. As he walked down the gangplank he wondered what FDR would have decided.