Fireflies by Ben Byrne

in a two-month-old edition of Popular Science .
    â€œDon’t worry about Eugene, Mr. Ward,” I said. “He likes to keep abreast of his ignorance.”
    Eugene yawned deliberately, and went off to lie down in another part of the carriage. As the train rolled slowly eastward, Ward puffed at his cigar in the contented manner of a commercial traveller. He seemed to have visited half of the country already, though he said he’d spent most of the war in China.
    â€œI was based in Chengtu for a spell myself,” I ventured.
    He examined me, as if sizing me up. “Well, perhaps we’re kindred spirits, then, Lynch.”
    He took a flask of whisky from his kitbag and handed it over. I swallowed a glug with relish and he nodded for me to take another.
    â€œWell, that’s my sheet. How did you find yourself here, Lynch? You must have seen action, I suppose.”
    â€œWell, sure,” I shrugged. “Where should I start?”
    The train gave a loud shudder as the wheels shuttled on the rails. He glanced outside, where dusk was gathering now in the paddies.
    â€œWe have plenty of time.”
    As I told him about my war, the sound of Eugene’s snoring drifted from the next compartment. I felt vaguely resentful — I realized that Eugene hadn’t once asked me about my service in all the time we’d been back together. Ward’s manner was avuncular and invited confidences. As the train shunted toward Tokyo, he offered me more whisky from his flask as I recalled to him days and nights hunched over the viewfinders in the belly of Flashing Jenny , mapping out the country piece by piece.
    â€œYou drew up targets for the Super Fortresses?”
    â€œEyes of the 21st Bomber Command.”
    The previous September. Arriving at the Isley Field airstrip on Saipan, fresh and bright in our gleaming new photo-converted Superfort, straight off the line. Bombs out, cameras in. At our first briefing with General Curtis LeMay, then head of strategic air operations, we were informed that the best map we had of Japan was from National Geographic . Our job was to remedy the situation. All through fall, we flew dozens of missions, debriefing LeMay in his Quonset every day at thirteen hundred, pointing out the spillways of the naval yards; the carriers and cruisers; the munitions factories turning out aircraft engines and locomotives; the heavy guns and rolling stock.
    At dawn, one by one, the silver dream-boats floated off from the runways. Dipping with the weight in their bomb bays, they ascended, their fuselages dazzling bright in the first rays of sun. After dark, the ground crewmen sweated it out on the airstrip, puffing cigarettes, gazing fretfully at their watches and up the sky, until the low drone of motors sounded faraway and finally the powerful landing lights lit up the runway and the first returning planes touched precisely down.
    In January, we were relocated from Saipan to Harmon Field at Guam to be closer to LeMay. Operations staff were no longer interested in industrial targets, he informed us. Instead, we were to identify the most densely packed residential areas in each Japanese city, and to grade them according to the most inflammable areas.
    â€œThe fire raids?” Ward asked.
    My scalp prickled. I pictured my map of Tokyo up on the wall, the wards marked in varying shades of grey according to their population. By then we had fire jelly and white phosphorus that would stick to skin, paper, or wood and burn like hell until everything was gone. To the west of Tokyo, the new suburbs were blank white. To the east, the old wards, Fukagawa and Asakusa, were shaded jet black.
    â€œThe night of the Tokyo Raid,” I said. “Lord God. You could see the flames from two hundred miles away.”
    Pillars of smoke rising to 18,000 feet. A wave of heat blasting up, the sky bright outside the windows of the plane. My hand pulling hard on the camera crank, over and over