Day of the Bomb Read Online Free

two minutes earlier. “Dolphins! A whole raft load
of them!” He cursed.
    The pilot shrugged and climbed back to 200
yards above the Pacific. He scanned the gauges. “We’re down to half
a tank. Time to head back to base.”
    “Yeah. I guess so. Too bad we couldn’t find
that sailor.”
    “The word I heard was that the guy was a
grunt who went missing off of some transport ship.”
    “Oh. Maybe he should’ve signed up for the
Army-Air Force instead. No way those Jap torpedoes or kamikaze
pilots can get to you way up here in the wild blue yonder.”
    The pilot laughed. “Maybe so. But those
Zeroes sure can do some damage.” He ran his hand over the patched
cockpit, which had been riddled by enemy bullets three times and
then stretched his left leg, through which one of the bullets had
traveled. Since then the leg either ached or throbbed, depending on
the temperature and humidity.
    At first Jason thought the seaplane was a
bird. But when it passed overhead 800 yards to his left he heard
its twin engines. Too weak to wave his arms, he yelled at his
rescuers instead. “Hey! Over here! About time you flyboys showed
up.”
    But the plane droned back to base, search and
rescue slowly ending after two days of trying to spot a tiny dot in
a sea of blue that stretched to every horizon. After the first
three hours of staring at the water and listening to the engines’
nonstop drone, even the best of searchers were lulled into a state
of being semi-hypnotized. As the plane continued to shrink back to
what looked like a bird, Jason ran out of time to curse, cry, or
pray. Now he was in the middle of the dolphins’ pod. One of its
more inquisitive members bumped him with his long nose. The fins of
his fellow dolphins terrified Jason.
    “Ahh! Sharks!” Every story Jason had heard
about the predators and the mangled remains recovered after one of
their feeding frenzies paraded through his sleep-deprived mind.
Some of the storytellers claimed it was better to take in
lungs-full of water and drown than be torn limb from limb by razor
sharp teeth. “Oh, God! Please let it be over quick!”
    Fear, dehydration, and mania quickly
exhausted the last of his reserves and he slipped into
semi-consciousness. For the next hour, the most rambunctious of the
dolphins played a game of water polo by using Jason as a ball.
Their goal was a small island two miles distant; one that Jason
would have passed by if not for the impromptu game. The dolphins
decided the game was over when they left their unconscious ball 120
yards from shore. Three-foot waves pushed Jason onto the beach.
    ***
    “ You’ve got to snap out of it, boy!
I can’t have any of my crew walking around like zombies all the
time. You’ll either get yourself or the rest of us killed. It’s
been weeks now since you lost your best friend. War is nasty. I’ve
lost more friends since Pearl Harbor than I have fingers.” Captain
Uley sat. “Coffee?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “You gave that up, too? You still doing
penance because you think your method of winning at cards killed
him?”
    “No. I guess coffee just doesn’t taste as
good anymore is all.”
    “I need your help, son.”
    He raised his head further. This was the
first time in almost two years of service to Captain Uley that he
had heard such a request, or from any superior officer for that
matter.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “What do you know about atomic bombs?”
    “Not a whole lot. I took physics in college.
That professor lectured a lot about Einstein’s theory of energy. He
talked like he actually understood it. Einstein was his patron
saint.”
    “Do you think the ones we dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki really did as much damage as the reports
we’ve heard about? It doesn’t seem possible for just two bombs to
destroy two whole cities.”
    “I don’t know. I…” He looked down at the
floor again.
    “Stay with me, ensign. No drifting off back
into your dream world. In another couple of days we’ll be