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to guide it, but apparently there was a a genuine equipment failure this time,
and the bomb fell on an island.
January was hopping up and down, mouth hanging open, So we n-never
We never dropped an atom bomb on a Japanese city. That s right. Getty
grinned. And get this I
heard this from my superior they sent a message to the Japanese government
telling them that the
two explosions were warnings, and that if they didn t surrender by September
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first we would drop bombs on Kyoto and Tokyo, and then wherever else we had
to. Word is that the Emperor went to
Hiroshima to survey the damage, and when he saw it he ordered the Cabinet to
surrender. So . . .
So it worked, January said. He hopped around, It worked, it worked!
Yes.
Just like I said it would! he cried, and hopping before the priest he
laughed.
Getty was jumping around a little too, and the sight of the priest bouncing
was too much for
January. He sat on his cot and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
So he sobered quickly. So Truman s going to shoot me anyway, eh?
Yes, the priest said unhappily. I guess that s right.
This time January s laugh was bitter. He s a bastard, all right. And proud of
being a bastard, which makes it worse. He shook his head. If Roosevelt had
lived . . .
It would have been different, Getty finished. Yes. Maybe so. But he
didn t. He sat beside
January. Cigarette? He held out a pack, and January noticed the white
wartime wrapper. He frowned.
Oh. Sorry.
Oh well. That s all right. January took one of the Lucky Strikes, lit up.
That s awfully good news. He breathed out. I never believed Truman would
pardon me anyway, so mostly you ve brought good news. Ha. They missed
. You have no idea how much better that makes me feel.
I think I do.
January smoked the cigarette.
. . . So I m a good American after all. I
am a good American, he insisted, no matter what Truman says.
Yes, Getty replied, and coughed. You re better than Truman any day.
Better watch what you say, Father. He looked into the eyes behind the
glasses, and the expression he saw there gave him pause. Since the drop every
look directed at him had been filled with contempt. He d seen it so often
during the court-martial that he d learned to stop looking; and now he had to
teach himself to see again. The priest looked at him as if he were . . . as if
he were some kind of hero. That wasn t exactly right. But seeing it . . .
January would not live to see the years that followed, so he would never know
what came of his action. He had given up casting his mind forward and
imagining possibilities, because there was no point to it. His planning was
ended. In any case he would not have been able to imagine the course of the
post-war years. That the world would quickly become an armed camp pitched on
the edge of atomic war, he might have predicted. But he never would have
guessed that so many people would
join a January Society. He would never know of the effect the Society had on
Dewey during the
Korean crisis, never know of the Society s successful campaign for the test
ban treaty, and never learn that thanks in part to the Society and its allies,
a treaty would be signed by the great powers that would reduce the number of
atomic bombs year by year, until there were none left.
Frank January would never know any of that. But in that moment on his cot
looking into the eyes of young Patrick Getty, he guessed an inkling of it he
felt, just for an instant, the impact on history.
And with that he relaxed. In his last week everyone who met him carried away
the same impression, that of a calm, quiet man, angry at Truman and others,
but in a withdrawn, matter-of-fact way.
Patrick Getty, a strong force in the January Society ever after, said January
was talkative for some time after he learned of the missed attack on Kokura.
Then he became quieter and quieter, as the day approached. On the morning that
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they woke him at dawn to march him out to a hastily constructed execution
shed, his MPs shook his hand. The priest was with him as he smoked a final
cigarette, and they prepared to put the hood over his head. January looked at
him calmly. They load one of the guns with a blank cartridge, right?
Yes, Getty said.
So each man in the squad can imagine he may not have shot me?
Yes. That s right.
A tight, unhumorous smile was January s last expression. He threw down the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]