Day of the Bomb Read Online Free PDF Page A

available. Take your pick: canned meat,
biscuits, cereal bars, powdered coffee, fruit bars, chewing gum,
sugar, cheese product, bouillon, candy. Yes sir, complete meals in
a box with wooden spoons, water-purification tablets, can openers,
cigarettes, and matches, what more could you ask for? The supper
boxes even came with toilet paper. Did not need it too often though
because the tropical heat dehydrated you so much that regular bowel
movements became a thing of the past. Jason had considered writing
the War Department to include laxative in the K-rations but his
lieutenant had refused to find out the address of the Pentagon.
    Walking the perimeter of the
island took a half hour. During his trek, Jason spotted the hulk of
the PT boat, abandoned after it had been officially classified as
“not worth repairing” by a salvage crew sent to recover it. The
sight of it removed only a little of the aloneness that he
felt. If push comes to shove, I can use
wood from it to start a big enough fire to bring a rescue ship or
plane to save me. Tired after his hike and
still hungry, he hunted for coconuts that had fallen to the ground.
After finding and eating two of them, he sat down to “think this
thing through.” That was what Pop had always said: “Son, remember
the four Ts whenever you get yourself into a fix. Think the thing
through before you do anything dumb. If you don’t, I can guarantee
that you’ll end up regretting whatever you end on up
doing.”
    While in the water, Jason
had mostly prayed for the first twelve hours. When the
hallucinations set in he talked more than he prayed. Now he was no
longer in danger of drowning, being eaten by sharks or barracudas
or getting stung by jellyfish or devil rays but still had to be
careful not to walk barefoot in the water because stepping on a
stonefish could be fatal. That went for walking barefoot on the
coral on dry land or in the water as well because the infections
from the cuts would kill him also, only a lot more slowly than
sharks, barracudas, or stonefish. His feet still protected by his
boots, he reverted to thinking. As usual, he searched for a cause
to his problem. How did I get into this
mess in the first place?
    Maybe it was the Professor’s
fault, him and his method of remembering which cards had been dealt
from the deck of fifty-two. “If it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is,” Mom had always said. But
getting to keep two of every three dollars won at blackjack and
only paying the Professor one out of three dollars was a dream come
true. Besides, he even fronted the initial gambling money from his
bigger paycheck.
    Oh, their relationship had all started out
innocently enough. At first they just talked about the war. The
Professor figured it would take “at least 500,000 and maybe as many
as a million men to invade Japan. Look at how many it took to
invade Normandy,” he had said. “And that was just to finish off
Hitler’s armies. But these Japs are different. They don’t care if
they live or die. I figure at least a twenty to fifty percent
casualty rate for us when we go ashore in Japan. They even got
two-man mini-subs that are nothing more than oversized torpedoes.
Lord only knows how many of those they’ll throw at our ships when
we get close to Japan.”
    Mini-subs? Ha? You Navy swabbies got it easy.
Try coming ashore with us instead of sitting offshore in your nice
warm boats with your warm chow. As usual, you Navy boys will be
safe and happy as a clam watching all the action from what you call
your battle stations. Oh, all right, I forgot. You take your lumps,
too, I guess. Some of you poor saps have to drive the LSTs to take
us and the tanks and the trucks ashore. Then there’s your crazy
pilots that fly off of the carriers. Those guys are nuts! Who ever
heard of landing a plane on a flattop that’s bouncing up and down
and side and side, much less taking off from one? And don’t forget
the Seabees. Man, can those guys build things. I