Reckless

by William Nicholson

  Then the rivers and the bridges and the big shrine of Hiroshima came into view and Tibbets began the countdown. They were over the target at 08.15:15 local time and that’s when the bomb dropped. As soon as it was away the whole plane gave a great jump and Tibbets took it into its tight turn, losing height fast. Then the bomb went off with a bright flash and the shock wave chased the plane and Bob Caron in the tail said, ‘Here it comes!’ and when it hit them the plane snapped all over, even though by then they were ten and a half miles away. They looked back to see what had happened to the target but all they could see was black smoke and dust and this tall, tall cloud, and right at the top, the colours. Salmon and pink and yellow flame. Then they headed away over the Sea of Japan.

  ‘Dutch,’ said Tibbets, ‘what time were we over the target?’

  ‘Target time plus fifteen seconds,’ said Dutch.

  Tom Ferebee snorted.

  ‘What lousy navigating. Fifteen seconds off!’

  No one spoke about what was happening on the ground. Don Albury, co-pilot on the picture plane flying with the Enola Gay, looked down at that great cloud, and the rainbow colours streaming out of it at the top, and said a little prayer.

  ‘Lord, please take care of them all down there.’

  *

  General Groves phoned Dr Oppenheimer at 2 p.m., Santa Fe time, that same day.

  ‘I’m very proud of you and all your people,’ Groves said.

  ‘It went all right?’ said Oppenheimer.

  ‘Apparently,’ said Groves, ‘it went with a tremendous bang.’

  *

  The president learned the news while he was at lunch on the USS Augusta, en route to Newport, Virginia. Excited, he turned to shake Captain Graham’s hand.

  ‘This is the greatest thing in history!’ he said.

  He then made an announcement to all the crew gathered in the mess hall that a successful attack had taken place on Japan with an extraordinary new weapon that was twenty thousand times more powerful than a ton of TNT. The crew cheered and clapped. The president and his party then attended a programme of boxing bouts on the ship’s well deck. The display came to an abrupt close when the ring collapsed, injuring a crew member, who was struck on the head by a post. The president and Secretary Byrnes visited the injured man in the sickbay to be sure he wasn’t seriously hurt.

  In his statement released to the press, Truman said, ‘The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.’ He revealed the scale of the Manhattan Project: up to 125,000 individuals working for two and a half years. ‘We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history, and won. It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.’

  6

  On the second evening of Mary Brennan’s visions the priest was out on the sand of Buckle Bay as the sun was setting, along with Ned and Betty Clancy, who’d heard the tale from Eileen Brennan, and Michael Gallaher, who had followed out of mere idle curiosity. As the sun went down in the west Mary Brennan walked out alone towards the water’s edge and stood there, very still. They couldn’t see what she saw, but they could see the way her arms went out, and the look in her eyes that shone like the setting sun. They heard her speak, she said, ‘Yes, Lord,’ and, ‘I’ll tell them, Lord.’ The priest watched closely and he was moved. This is true faith, he told himself. Whether the vision was real or not, he could not doubt the child’s ardent and innocent surrender to her God.

  Then Eileen Brennan was nudging him and saying, ‘The sea! The sea!’ The priest turned his gaze from the girl to the sea, and saw to his amazement that it was no longer moving. Just as the girl had said, a stillness had fallen over the world. He looked at the others and saw that they saw it too.

  Mary Brennan let out a cry, and fell to the sand.

  ‘Mary!’

  Her mother ran to her, and drew her up to her feet again.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘The chastisement,’ said Mary. ‘Oh, Mam, it was terrible! The great wind will take everything!’

  ‘Our Lord is warning us,’ said Eileen Brennan, turning to the priest. ‘You must tell the Holy Father what my child has seen.’ And to Mary, ‘When will it come, this great wind?’

  Mary shook her head. She didn’t know.

  ‘Sure, you should ask him,’ said Eamonn, who saw matters in a practical light.

  ‘The sea was still,’ said Eileen Brennan. ‘Just like you said. The father saw it too.’

  ‘I did so,’ said the priest.

  ‘He’ll come again,’ said Mary. ‘One more time. Oh, Mam, I do love him so.’

  ‘I’m sure we all do,’ said her mother.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be the war?’ said Bridie. ‘There’s terrible things been doing in the war.’

  ‘There’s always war,’ said Father Flannery. ‘I’m thinking it’s the godlessness. The young people today have no respect.’

  ‘Our Mary has respect,’ said Eileen Brennan.

  ‘Your Mary is a child of God,’ said the priest. ‘When she lifted up her sweet face to the west I saw the light of heaven in her eyes.’

  ‘You must send word to the bishop, Father.’

  ‘I shall send word to Monsignor McCloskey,’ said the priest. ‘In Donegal.’

  *

  Monsignor McCloskey drove up to Kilnacarry the very next afternoon and met Mary Brennan in the priest’s house. Monsignor McCloskey was much of an age with Father Flannery, but he was a varsity man with a narrow face and sharp little eyes. Father Flannery begged him to go easy on the girl, aware as he was that these varsity men had little time for peasant superstitions.

  ‘If this is a true revelation, Dermot,’ said Monsignor McCloskey, ‘it will be proof against my reasonable doubts. If it is nonsense, then the sooner we put a stop to it the better.’

  The monsignor requested that he interview Mary Brennan alone; which is to say, without the rest of the clan. Father Flannery remained in the room, and took notes. Mary bore herself with great composure, and seemed unafraid of the monsignor, for all his close-fitting cassock and his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘Now then, Mary,’ said the monsignor. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that sometimes we think we see things when we don’t. Just the same way we have dreams that feel so real, but when we wake we know it was all in our imaginations.’

  ‘Yes, Monsignor,’ said Mary.

  ‘Having a dream of Our Lord is a holy thing, and a blessing, and shows what a good girl you are.’

  ‘It was no dream, Monsignor.’

  ‘Dreams don’t only come when we’re in bed at night, Mary. They can come in broad daylight, when we’re wide awake and have our eyes open.’

  ‘Then am I dreaming now, Monsignor?’

  ‘No, Mary. Not now.’

  ‘How am I to know when it’s a dream and when it’s real, Monsignor?’

  ‘Ordinary life is real, Mary,’ said the monsignor. ‘When something extraordinary happens to us, we have to ask ourselves if maybe we’re dreaming.’

  ‘Maybe Jesus came to me in a dream, Monsignor.’

  ‘That is what I’m trying to establish, Mary.’

  ‘But Monsignor,’ said Mary, her innocence striking like a sword, ‘if Jesus wanted to come to me, it would never be ordinary. So it would have to be a dream.’

  ‘Well, yes, Mary … ’

  ‘I don’t see that it matters what you call it,’ the girl went on. ‘What matters is that he was so beautiful, and so loving, and I am to be his voice and give his warning, before it’s too late.’

  The monsignor fell silent, perplexed.

  ‘He was crying, Monsignor. The sins of the world made him cry for us. He told me we must love each other or perish. He told me a great wind would come. He showed me the great wind. The sun went out and the wind swept over the land and all
the trees and the houses and the people in them were destroyed. He told me I must tell everyone, Monsignor, before it’s too late.’

  ‘When will it be too late, Mary?’

  ‘I don’t know, Monsignor. I think he may tell me that this evening.’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘He’ll come to me for the last time. He promised.’

  ‘May I be there, Mary? Would you mind?’

  ‘No, Monsignor.’ She sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘Why would I mind? I would wish that all of you could see him as I see him.’

  ‘Why do you think he has chosen you, Mary?’

  ‘I asked him that, Monsignor. He said, because my heart is open, and I have faith.’

  The monsignor sighed, and looked round to meet Father Flannery’s eyes.

  ‘I shall join you this evening,’ he said.

  *

  On the final evening of Mary Brennan’s visions the little beach was crowded. Word had spread far beyond the village. There were people from Rosbeg and Portnoo and Ardara and Kilkenny, such a scrum that Eamonn Brennan and the priest had to make a space for Mary to walk clear to the water’s edge. Monsignor McCloskey was there, and a man from the newspaper come up from Donegal with a flash camera.

  ‘You’ll not be making flashes at her when she’s talking to Our Lord,’ said Father Flannery, and the cameraman said no, he would take his pictures afterwards.

  Mary Brennan was not disturbed one bit by the crowd. The priest asked her if she would like them sent away, and she said, ‘No, Father. The more who come the better. I have so many people to tell.’

  It was this that impressed the priest as much as anything, the humble practical way in which the girl saw the whole business as a task entrusted to her, much as you might give her a letter to take to the post. There was no vanity in her. So supposing Jesus had a message to give to the world, who would he choose? Surely just such an innocent child as this.

  As they waited for sunset there was much talk in the crowd about the now famous stillness. They all knew that at the moment Jesus came walking on the water, the sea would become still. Only Mary Brennan would see and hear Jesus, but all of them would witness the stillness.

  And so it proved. Mary went forward, apart from the crowd, and reached out her arms. The sun, partly in clouds, sent out its golden setting light over the water. And the sea became still. Not everyone saw it, but many did. Father Flannery saw it. The monsignor thought he did not see it, there were waves still washing in to the beach, and out to sea there was the gentle heave of the swell. But then for a moment there did seem to come a pause, and a silence. But perhaps he only imagined it.

  Mary spoke to Jesus, they saw her lips move, but no one heard her words. Then after a little time, in the afterlight of the sunset, she turned and faced them all, gathered in the little rock-girt bay.

  ‘Dear friends,’ she said. ‘I’m not speaking to you in my own words, but in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m only the voice.’

  This voice was soft and small, and partly obscured by the hiss and rush of the waves. Those who were nearest to her remembered what she said and repeated it afterwards, and out of these repetitions came the prophecy, which took several forms. However, everyone who had been present that evening agreed that Jesus, speaking through the child, was saddened by the sinfulness of mankind.

  ‘Why do you hurt each other so, when I made you to love each other?’

  Mary spoke of Noah and the flood, when God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt and filled with violence and said, I will destroy man who I’ve created. Now such a time had come again. This time all living things would be destroyed by a great wind. Everyone remembered Mary speaking of the great wind.

  ‘When this great wind sweeps over the land,’ she said, ‘it will be made clean. Jesus told me these things weeping.’

  They remembered that most of all, how Jesus wept for the child, there in Buckle Bay.

  ‘Tell my children,’ said Mary, speaking in the words given her by Jesus, ‘you must love each other or perish. Time is running out. I asked my Lord, When will this happen? He told me, Yours is the generation that will perish. I asked my Lord, What can we do? He told me, Love each other, and love my Father in heaven. I asked my Lord, will there be a warning given to us before the great wind comes? He told me, When the time is near I will speak with you again.’

  So there it was: the warning, the prophecy, the promise. All this was felt to be a great honour and a responsibility by the people of Kilnacarry.

  ‘Now I’ve done as I was told,’ said the child in her soft voice. ‘I’ve spoken all the things he said. There’s nothing more.’

  As she fell silent the flash camera exploded with a pop, and her ecstatic face was lit up for a second, and they all saw. The girl’s simple clear speech had a profound effect on all who heard it.

  ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the Holy Martyrs!’ murmured old Molly Lynch. ‘Haven’t I been saying it for years? The world has gone to the bad.’

  In low voices they repeated to each other the words of Mary’s warning, crossing themselves as they did so. The two priests conferred in undertones as the crowd dispersed into the night.

  ‘There’s nothing against the doctrines of the Church in what she says,’ said the monsignor. ‘A call to repentance is always timely. But this talk of a great wind disturbs me.’

  ‘That’s the part they’ll all be spreading,’ said Father Flannery.

  ‘We have to guard against needless panic.’

  ‘That, and the stillness.’

  Monsignor McCloskey said nothing to that, but Father Flannery could tell that he had been affected by the evening’s events.

  ‘I believe her to be honest,’ said Father Flannery.

  ‘Oh, she’s honest, all right,’ said the monsignor. ‘But even an honest person can be deluded.’

  ‘Did she sound deluded to you?’

  ‘Time will tell. The Church in her wisdom does not rush to judgement on such matters. It was thirteen years before the visions of Fatima were declared worthy of belief.’

  *

  The next day, August 9 1945, the local newspaper carried an account of a terrible new weapon that had been dropped on Hiroshima to end the war against Japan. Father Flannery read about the ‘cosmic bomb’ which harnessed ‘the force from which the sun draws its power’. He read how a single bomb had destroyed an entire city, ‘wiping it off the face of the earth’. He read how there were many more such cosmic bombs waiting to be unleashed.

  ‘The great wind,’ he murmured to himself.

  On that day the lethargy dropped off him, and he made a resolution. He would break himself of the little selfishnesses of the priestly life. He would devote the rest of his days to propagating this message God had seen fit to put into the mouth of a child of his parish. He would build a shrine at Buckle Bay, and make it a place of pilgrimage so that the word might be spread far and wide. And he would protect Mary Brennan, so that her purity of heart might remain untouched, and God continue to find in her a vessel for His word. There was after all, by her own account, one final warning to come before the prophesied destruction.

  Ours is the generation that will perish.

  7

  His name was Rupert, which she found funny because it was like Rupert Bear. But even at the age of seven Pamela understood that he was not a funny man but a sad man. She liked this about him. She too was sad, as was only proper for a child whose father had recently died. She also liked Rupert for not being in love with her mother, the way everyone else was.

  ‘Mummy, why doesn’t Rupert like you?’

  ‘Who says he doesn’t like me?’ said Kitty Avenell, sitting before her dressing table in her bedroom, brushing her hair.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t look at you that way.’

  Kitty laid down her hairbrush and met Pamela’s eyes in the mirror.

  ‘What way?’

  Pamela obliged with a simpering ogle. They both burst into la
ughter. Pamela loved to see her mother laugh. She was so pretty anyone would fall in love with her.

  ‘Well, thank goodness he doesn’t,’ Kitty said. ‘That just goes to show how sensible he is.’

  ‘I think he’s sad.’

  ‘Why should he be sad?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t have a wife, of course.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t want a wife.’

  ‘Of course he wants a wife! He’s old!’

  The year, which was 1950, had excited Pamela very much when it first began. It seemed so different from 1949, so new and full of possibility. Forming that big round O in her exercise book at school had felt grand and noble. But then everything had gone on just the same.

  Not just the same. Daddy had his accident. Funny how she kept forgetting about that.

  Rupert was only visiting them for the day. Really he had come down to Sussex to talk to Larry Cornford, who just about lived with them these days. Larry was supposed to be married to Rupert’s sister, but now they were getting a divorce, which meant Larry wouldn’t be married any more.

  Pamela found Rupert in the room called the study, that was full of her father’s books. It still had her father’s smoky smell even though no one used it now. Rupert was gazing at the bookshelves.

  ‘Hello,’ said Pamela.

  She wasn’t shy with grown-ups. It was one of the things everyone remarked about her.

  ‘Hello,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Are you looking for a book?’

  ‘Not really. But there are some very interesting books here.’

  ‘I’m not really interested in books,’ said Pamela.

  ‘I am,’ said Rupert.

  This surprised Pamela. Her response had been of the kind that usually elicited a smile, a knowing glance, as if to say: She’s very sure of herself for her age. But Rupert simply took it at face value.