Sabina Murray - The Caprices

On the streets of Hiroshima people are moving. Moving. Moving. Packing their belongings onto handcarts, and the wheels sing out on the streets. They are secreting their most precious belongings away from the bombs. They are listening for the sirens, which howl, then are silenced, then howl again. They are walking their children to the parade ground and then home. They are tearing down houses, plank by plank, to clear fire lanes should the bombing come to peaceful Hiroshima. They are bundling letters of dead husbands, departed sons. They are bundling letters from the Japanese army that say “Akihiro died an honorable death in Singapore,” or Guadalcanal or Manchuria or Burma. Mothers are wrapping babies in padded clothing despite the heat, because they must do something to protect their children. Mothers are yelling at their children to stop playing in the street when there is supposed to be an air raid — the biggest yet. What sound reaches the pilots and crew?

Who does not want the war to end? Does Hirohito wish to spend another spring as prisoner of his generals? Do the generals wish to keep fighting? No. They only want to win. How many more must die? What can be done?

Let us all put down our weapons.

At the count of three, we will all put down our weapons. Everyone is listening. The Enola Gay roars over Hiroshima.

“On glasses,” says Tibbets.

And the bombardier, Major Ferebree, takes his position in the plexiglass nose of the aircraft. He fixes the Aioi Bridge in his cross-wires and locks his bombsight. Now it is automatic. In fifteen seconds the bomb bay doors will open and the glowing uranium egg — the sun’s surface contained in a steel shell — will drop to earth.

At the count of fifteen, we will all put down our weapons. There’s nothing left but to count. And we start. But it is already fourteen seconds. No, twelve. We must all put down our weapons. Ten. The bomb bay doors will open. Seven. We must all put down our weapons. It is time to stop. We are all ready to stop. At the count of three, we will all put down our weapons.