Free Day of the Bomb by Steve Stroble

tell me. Our
allotted time for walking is almost over.”
    “I eavesdrop on the guards.”
    “But you speak only German and English. How could
you…”
    “And I understand enough Russian to get by. Listening
to the Russian-speaking Jews at Treblinka taught me. They used
Yiddish and sign language to explain any Russian word I did not
know. But speaking your native language is too hard.”
    “You rat! All these months you’ve made me speak to
you in German and English.”
    “It’s been good for us. Our English is much improved
and your German is much improved as well. My mother would like you
for that even though you’re Russian.”
    Arkhip shook her head. Despite their differences in
religion, nationality, and background, they had become friends. And
a friend while isolated in a compound was a valuable asset as they
worked on what Comrade Stalin had dictated as the number one
priority to keep America from bombing Moscow, Stalingrad,
Leningrad, and every other sizeable Russian city just as they had
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. “I think we should test the bomb in Siberia
as close to the Pacific Ocean as possible.”
    “Why there? So they can send us to a nearby gulag if
we fail or don’t cooperate?”
    “Every scientist knows the prevailing winds travel
from west to east. That way the radioactive material kicked up into
the atmosphere would mostly land on Japan, Korea, and in the ocean.
A little bit would reach Canada and America. But even a tiny amount
falling on them would please Uncle Joe.”
    “I hate to disappoint you but the rumor is we’ll be
setting up the test site to the south where it’s much hotter. It
seems that we’re copying the Americans. But it makes sense to work
in an area without severe cold and twenty feet of snow.”

10
    “Where do these rats go, sir?”
    Ensign Rhinehardt scanned his chart.
“Over there.” He pointed to a section of deck not yet populated by
some form of four-legged mammal. Might as
well call me Old MacDonald and this ship my farm. If Captain Uley
had told me I’d be doing this, I would have never
extended.
    It took the sailors another hour to position the
animals. The goats, tethered to racks, were left with bowls of
water and piles of feed. Such provisions mystified one seaman. “Why
bother with food and water, sir? Aren’t they all going to die
anyway?”
    “I don’t know. You’d have to ask the scientists back
on ship and at base about that.” Scenes of the victims of
radioactivity he had seen in Nagasaki ten months earlier replayed
in his mind like a B-movie starring some of Hollywood’s army of
lesser-known actors. “Maybe it’s their last meal? You know, like
what the condemned prisoner gets before they fry him in the
electric chair.” He walked the deck of the target ship a last time
and inspected the pigs, goats, rats, and guinea pigs that were
going to experience America’s fourth atomic bomb explosion in a
personal way. No protective glasses for these brave “volunteers” in
the name of science. No safe distance from the blast either. That
was reserved for those on the observation vessels that would sit
far back from ground zero.
    As their launch chugged back to their ship the seaman
continued to question his ensign, who did not mind because he
thought it to be a sign of respect rarely encountered during his
time in uniform. “You think all this muss and fuss is worth it,
sir? We already know what the bomb did to Nagasaki and
Hiroshima.”
    “The ones who fight wars from some office in the
Pentagon want to know just how an A-bomb would affect ships at sea.
So first the Army brass and Navy brass fight over the details of
the test for months and months. Then it’s all downhill from there.
It’s like PFC Dalrumple, God rest his soul, used to tell me: ‘To be
a plumber you need to know two things, crap floats downhill and
coffee break’s at ten. To be a grunt you have to know two things,
crap floats downhill and coffee break is after we hurry up