1945 by Robert Conroy Page A

the
Moray
.
    After a few questions from their sergeant, Joe realized that his disguise worked. A one-armed veteran in a tattered uniform was of no concern or threat to the patrol. The soldiers were solely interested in whether he had seen or heard anything unusual regarding the explosions. They didn't even ask to see his carefully forged army papers. He was just too innocuous. He told them he had heard the explosions, but had seen nothing, and they brusquely sent him on his way.
    The next day, Joe joined the milling throngs of refugees that clustered around hospitals and stood in long lines at food distribution centers near Nagasaki. He'd seen refugees before, but never so many, and never with so many of them injured. The hospitals were obviously overwhelmed by the catastrophe and could only handle the more serious injuries. Simple burns and broken bones didn't qualify one for medical care. These victims either found help elsewhere or endured. There was no choice for them.
    Joe had also never seen so many people who both looked like him and who were in such obvious physical and emotional agony. The sight of the children, mute with horror, moved him more deeply than he ever thought possible.
    However, without an arm and dressed in tatters, he blended in perfectly. This made him confident and he wandered about, listening to conversations, and occasionally asking questions of medical personnel who were helping to treat the most horribly injured. To his surprise, many were more than willing to talk about their experiences, although he got depressed when people inquired of him about their loved ones. He was a soldier, wasn't he? They thought he should know these things. It almost made him weep when they asked him about missing children.
    That gave him the idea of volunteering to work in a hospital, and in the ensuing days, his services were accepted at several places where he helped with some of the more odious tasks, such as carrying out bodies. When one doctor asked him why he was doing it, Joe had drawn himself to attention and announced proudly, "Even a one-armed man can serve his emperor." The doctor had sucked in his breath and bowed to Joe in deference and respect to his sense of honor.
    From several nurses, he heard the complaint that they had no bandages, no medicine, and, even if they had, these wouldn't work against the new sickness caused by the bomb.
    From doctors he heard puzzling comments over the weakening effects of radiation. They wondered why some were spared while others were dying, and they compared notes while in his hearing.
    The doctors were perplexed by people who appeared healthy, then collapsed, sickened, and died from radiation poisoning. How, they wondered, did one treat wounds that would not heal and burns that could not be quenched? Almost to a man they cursed the United States for the agony it had brought to Nagasaki. There were no curses for the Japanese government. Whatever thoughts the medics might have had in that regard were kept prudently in check. Anyone might turn someone with dissident thoughts in to the national military police, the
kempei
.
    Usually the
kempei
wore ordinary military uniforms with distinguishing red and khaki armbands, and Joe saw several of them. Just as often, though, they wore civilian clothes and kept their identity a secret. From his briefings, Joe knew they were ruthless and, as the situation in Japan deteriorated, were becoming brutal. In many cases, they had the right to inflict summary judgment and punishment upon individuals.
    Joe never stayed long at one place, often just a few hours, as he drew himself closer and closer to the center of Nagasaki. As he passed through the devastated and flattened city, he wondered just how the damage at Hiroshima could have been worse, yet he had been told that it was. Kokura, he'd heard, had suffered about as much as Nagasaki.
    But it was Nagasaki that interested his superiors in the OSS. Nagasaki was on Kyushu, and that was