When he reached Port Chicago on Monday the transfer of the bomb from railroad freight car to the hold of Quinalt Victory was well under way. Marston’s expertise had been of immense value, he would be told. He encountered Captain Kinne himself on the pier and the usually stern Kinne recognised him and thanked him for his assistance.
Powerful electric vapour-lights had been rigged to illuminate the operation once the sun had set and their peculiar glare gave the faces of the men on the pier, both white and coloured, a ghostly look.
Marston walked to the end of the pier. When he turned back toward the centre of activity he saw that all eyes were fixed on the delicate work at the Quinalt Victory. He checked his wristwatch and saw that it was ten o’clock. Bright moonlight was reflected off the surface of the Bay.
Instead of climbing down the ladder to the water’s surface, Marston left his clothing in its usual neat pile, stood on the edge of the pier, and dived into the Bay. He swam to the seabed, taking delicious water in and passing it through his gills, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the faint phosphorescence that provided illumination in this world.
He turned to observe the hull of the Quinalt Victory. He was astonished at the number of human-like forms moving around the ship, gesturing meaningfully to one another, attaching something, something, to the metal hull of the Quinalt Victory.
Marston swam toward the ship, curious as to what the creatures were doing. This was the first time he had seen them using anything that looked like machinery. As he drew closer several of the creatures turned and swam toward him. As they approached he realised that they were like him in every way. The wide mouth and triangular teeth, the splayed limbs, the webbed hands and feet, the hooked claws, the oversized eyes and flattened noses.
How had he managed to pass among men until now? How had his alienness gone undetected? The scarf and dark glasses had helped but surely he would be caught out soon if he tried to continue his masquerade as human. He raised a hand and gestured, showing these aquatic beings that he was one of them, telling them in their own language, a language which he was just beginning to comprehend, that he was not a human, not a land-dweller.
He was not the enemy.
He was shocked by a brilliant flash from the Quinalt Victory, a glare that seemed as bright as the sun. Marston felt a shock wave, felt its unimaginable, crushing pressure as it reached him. Then, even before he could react, there was a second flash, this one brighter than a thousand suns, and a second shock wave infinitely greater than the first. But he felt it for only the most fleeting of moments, and then he felt nothing more.
HISTORIC NOTE
At 10:20 p.m., Monday, July 17, 1944, a huge explosion occurred at Port Chicago, California. Two ships were moored at the loading pier of the naval station there. The E.A. Bryan was fully loaded and ready to leave for the Pacific theatre of operations with a huge cargo of high explosives and military equipment. The Quinalt Victory, a brand-new vessel built at the Kaiser Shipyard in nearby Richmond, California, was preparing to take on its own cargo.
Some 320 individuals were killed in the explosion, most of them African-American stevedores. An additional 400 persons were injured. A common form of injury was blindness caused by flying splinters of window-glass in naval barracks. The main explosion was preceded by a rumble or smaller explosion, reports differing, which drew many off-duty stevedores to the windows to see what had caused the sound.
The brilliant flash, the roar of the explosion, and the shaking of the earth that resulted, were seen, heard, and felt as far away as the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco.
The Bryan, the Quinalt Victory, the loading pier, the railroad spur running along the pier, and the ammunition train that was parked on the pier at the time, were all totally destroyed. The town of Port Chicago was obliterated and a visitor to its site today will find only a few forlorn street markers to show where
once a community thrived.
While official statements about the disaster aver only to the high explosives which had been loaded in the E.A. Bryan, critics in later years suggested that the explosion was nuclear in nature. In the summer of 1944 the atomic bomb was top secret and the very existence of the Manhattan Project was shrouded in layers of security. But once the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, speculation began that more than dynamite had been involved in the Port Chicago disaster.
If the Port Chicago explosion was indeed nuclear in nature, further speculation is divided between those who believe the explosion was accidental in origin, or was in fact a test by the United States government to measure the effects of a nuclear bomb. Certainly the weapons base at Port Chicago would have made a fine test subject, with ships, a railroad spur, temporary and permanent buildings, and many hundreds of expendable human subjects.
Perhaps the Port Chicago explosion was a nuclear accident? If so, it represented a major setback to the American nuclear weapons project. The successful Alamogordo test did not take place until July 16, 1945, one day short of a year after the Port Chicago explosion. Nuclear weapons were exploded in the air over Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following month, bringing about the end of the Second World War and providing an object lesson for Josef Stalin.
Where the Port Chicago naval weapons depot once stood, there is now the Concord Naval Weapons Station, a major loading area for the United States Pacific Fleet. The storage of nuclear weapons in barrow-like bunkers at the naval weapons station, while not officially acknowledged by the US government, is one of the most ill-kept secrets of our era.
VOICES IN THE WATER
by
BASIL COPPER
I
IT WAS LATE February when Roberts bought the mill. He was a successful artist and had long been trying to get out of London. The mill was a big place and one advantage was that it had already been partly converted into living accommodation. A lot more needed to be done in the way of renovation, but the price was right and Roberts snapped it up.
Another motivation was that his great friend Kent, an author, lived only a mile or so away. In earlier years Roberts had illustrated a number of Kent’s books and a lasting friendship had been formed during that period.
The estate agent, Cedric Smithson, a big, bluff man with an iron-grey moustache, who had first taken Roberts on a guided tour, was enthusiastic about the possibilities. It was not just the usual estate agent’s purchasing ploy, so Roberts was quick to catch the other’s reference points. It was also fortunate that central heating had already been installed throughout. Roberts had gathered that the previous owner had intended to make the mill his permanent residence, but his wife had left him for another man, and in the face of this personal disaster he had lost all heart in the project and had returned to London.
Another attraction for Roberts, apart from the size of the place, which would easily lend itself to further accommodation for friends as well as a large studio and another area which would provide an elegant gallery for viewing sessions for his wealthy clients, was the enormous north-facing window in the area he intended to create his studio. All in all, the facilities already existing would provide a cosy home during the bitter winters Sussex sometimes endured.