That gave him the idea of volunteering to work in a hospital, and in the ensuing days, his services were accepted at several places where he helped with some of the more odious tasks, such as carrying out bodies. When one doctor asked him why he was doing it, Joe had drawn himself to attention and announced proudly, "Even a one-armed man can serve his emperor." The doctor had sucked in his breath and bowed to Joe in deference and respect to his sense of honor.
From several nurses, he heard the complaint that they had no bandages, no medicine, and, even if they had, these wouldn't work against the new sickness caused by the bomb.
From doctors he heard puzzling comments over the weakening effects of radiation. They wondered why some were spared while others were dying, and they compared notes while in his hearing.
The doctors were perplexed by people who appeared healthy, then collapsed, sickened, and died from radiation poisoning. How, they wondered, did one treat wounds that would not heal and burns that could not be quenched? Almost to a man they cursed the United States for the agony it had brought to Nagasaki. There were no curses for the Japanese government. Whatever thoughts the medics might have had in that regard were kept prudently in check. Anyone might turn someone with dissident thoughts in to the national military police, the kempei.
Usually the kempei wore ordinary military uniforms with distinguishing red and khaki armbands, and Joe saw several of them. Just as often, though, they wore civilian clothes and kept their identity a secret. From his briefings, Joe knew they were ruthless and, as the situation in Japan deteriorated, were becoming brutal. In many cases, they had the right to inflict summary judgment and punishment upon individuals.
Joe never stayed long at one place, often just a few hours, as he drew himself closer and closer to the center of Nagasaki. As he passed through the devastated and flattened city, he wondered just how the damage at Hiroshima could have been worse, yet he had been told that it was. Kokura, he'd heard, had suffered about as much as Nagasaki.
But it was Nagasaki that interested his superiors in the OSS. Nagasaki was on Kyushu, and that was considered relevant because of the open rumors that gave Kyushu as a probable, but still secret, target for the invasion. Hell, he thought, some secret. Even the Japanese he overheard speculated that Kyushu was a likely place for the Americans to land.
Nagasaki's destruction had occurred more than a month earlier, and the United States was concerned about the effects of lingering radiation on both places and people. Joe'd been given little packets of film to utilize in areas or on things where he suspected radiation. He was told that the extent to which the film was exposed would indicate the strength of radiation. He unobtrusively tagged these and checked them in private.
As he performed these experiments, a disturbing picture emerged. First, while radiation had dissipated somewhat, it had done so inconsistently. Areas in Nagasaki were still so hot that the Japanese had cordoned them off and permitted no one to enter. He wondered what effect the radiation would have on an American army moving through the area.
He found that people who had been under the mushroom cloud when it slowly fell back to the earth were seriously ill, with many of them dead or dying. The bomb had generated dirty outbursts of rain, which contaminated drinking water.
Most disturbing were the continuing incidents of seemingly healthy people who suddenly came down with serious cases of radiation sickness. Joe could only speculate on the causes. Either they had come in contact with something that was radioactively hot and had cooked them, or they had been contaminated earlier and it had taken days, even weeks, for the sickness to reach a point where they were incapacitated.
Joe found both options equally disturbing when he again contemplated the idea of GIs moving about and fighting in the poisoned land.
As to the other wounds he saw, the burns and fractures were nothing he hadn't seen before, only multiplied a thousandfold until the sheer numbers became numbing. That so many civilians had died came as no surprise to his sensitivities either. He had seen what modern warfare could do to Italian villages and knew that death in war was indiscriminate. However, he was concerned by the many cases of blindness. Most people who had seen the atomic explosion had suffered at least some vision damage. It was worth noting and he filed it mentally.
He was also intrigued that not all people near the center of the blast were killed or injured. The many hills in the area seemed to have shielded some from the effects of the blast, although others had been hit by the radiation that fell from the bomb cloud if they were unlucky enough to have it blown in their direction.
It was time to unearth his radio and report. Not only did he have enough information to give his masters, but he felt a strong urge to let them know he was still alive, and that he had not gone down with the Moray, which he presumed was listed as missing. He hoped he wouldn't have too much trouble with the code they had given him. Joe would have to keep his messages short and to the point, changing frequencies and radio locations with each message. Trouble was, he now had a lot to say and doing it would entail a lot of risk.
Nomura trudged the weary miles out of Nagasaki and onto the hill where he had squirreled his precious cache of supplies and equipment. With his stomach aching with hunger, he was even looking forward to army rations, although he would have to be careful and not eat them all up. At best, he had enough to last him only a few weeks. After that he was adrift along with the civilian population of Japan.
He looked across the valley and saw motion on a hill about a mile away. Joe squinted and watched. It was definitely a human, although he- or she for that matter- seemed to be moving erratically. Probably someone else who was injured or deranged, he decided, or even one of the numerous blind people. Well, well, he had neighbors. Nothing surprising and certainly nothing to be alarmed about, although he made a mental note to check out the surrounding area once more. With so many refugees about, things could literally change overnight, and there was always the possibility of the kempei doing some random snooping.
As long as the threat was not too great, he was not worried about taking care of himself. Along with the radio and the food, the OSS had thoughtfully provided him with a number of weapons, including a couple of Japanese ones. If necessary, he had no qualms about using them on some of those people who looked like him.
Joe glanced across the valley again and realized that the person he'd seen had disappeared from view. Now he definitely thought he should check things out a good deal more thoroughly. And he would take a Japanese pistol with him when he did it.
Chapter 13
Their first look at the tortured island of Okinawa came when the C-47 transport plane banked slightly while still several miles away from the long, thin island. From that distance, the island looked to Paul Morrell and Capt. Tom Ruger like a pale strip on the horizon, an item in the vast ocean that was barely worthy of notice.
Okinawa was innocuous and deceptively like a score of other islands they had either flown over or stopped at briefly. Even as they flew closer, they had a hard time thinking of the apparently tranquil patch of land as a cause of so much bloodshed.
"They fought like hell for this place," Ruger muttered. "I wonder what they'll do when we actually land on Japan proper?"