Tibbet signaled the crew they had arrived at the ten-minutes-to-target point. The crew shed their doubts and began to prepare for the bomb run. Trained almost to the point of brainwashing, they were robotic in their movements. The crew would perform their mission exactly as they were trained. They would deliver the pay-load to the target area. That was their job.
When the Enola Gay crossed above the city of Hiroshima at an altitude of 31,000 feet, the navigator reversed his cap and stared for the hundredth time at his charts. Checking, then rechecking his course settings, he shouted to the bombardier that they were approaching the targeted building.
The bombardier concentrated completely. Ignoring the sweat that dotted his forehead, he sat peering into the Norden bombsight, his breath coming in shallow waves. Positive they were above the same building he had been shown on the aerial photographs earlier that morning, he activated the release mechanism that freed the weapon they had nicknamed "Little Boy." Staring down through the open bomb bay the loadmaster watched as "little Boy" dropped from the belly of the plane. It twitched to the left and right, then steadied itself.
As if in a race with destiny, the bomb picked up speed and plunged rapidly to earth. Free of the 10,000-pound weight of "Little Boy," Tibbet wasted no time jamming the Enola Gay's yoke to the right. Steering the bomber in a radical turn away from land, Tibbet advanced the throttles, then watched the instruments that registered the engines'
condition with concern. The Enola Gay was in a deadly race against time to distance its crew from the unnatural cloud of poisons due to be unleashed by the explosion. The scientists had not released much information about "Little Boy" to Tibbet and his airmen, but one thing they had made clear.
Be as far away as possible when the weapon explodes.
When "Little Boy" detonated in the air 1,850 feet above Shima Hospital in Hiroshima, the Enola Gay was racing south at top speed. It was just after 8:15 A.M. As the mushroom cloud carrying thousands of screaming souls raced skyward, several of the crew peered from Enola Gay's windows to witness the fireball of death they had delivered. Few men have seen death — fewer still live to tell about it. Staring in mute horror, their faces lit by the blinding light of fission, the interior of the B-29 fell silent, save for the relentless droning of the engines. Ten minutes after the blast, as the shock of their actions began to abate, the copilot wrote in the pages of his personal journal, "My God, what have we done?"
It is a question as yet unanswered.
At the exact same instant in time 10,000 miles across the globe, the natural sun was turning Einstein's face a dark red as he lay napping on the stern of his sailboat, which was still anchored in the secluded cove. All at once, he awoke with a terrible feeling of dread.
Instantly, he struggled to a sitting position, wide awake. Hoisting himself to his feet, he felt strangely, indefinably, and unnaturally sad. His heart was pounding loudly in his chest. His entire body was clammy, as if swabbed with a horsehair brush dipped in a bucket of sweat. Rivers of sweat formed on his face and ran down, dotting his shirt like rain. He swallowed, a mysterious coppery taste in his mouth. And then he vomited on the deck.
Einstein searched the heavens for an answer but found none. He looked to the shore for a clue but could not locate a single animal. The turtles he'd watched earlier lounging on the rocks at the waterline were now gone. The flocks of birds that had flown overhead were nowhere to be seen. The bullfrogs were silent, the butterfly gone. As if in a bizarre natural void, the shoreline showed absolutely no sign of life. Unnerved by the unnatural scene, Einstein quickly weighed anchor. He pulled the rope starter on his tiny Sears outboard motor and waited until the motor caught, then steered the sailboat from the cove. Once free of the cove, he turned off the outboard and hoisted all sails. Steering the sloop north, he sailed toward Hartley's Marina as fast as the winds would take him. The winds, however, had changed since earlier that day and it took a great deal of work to make headway. Einstein continued to study the heavens for some clue to his feeling of dread, yet none was forthcoming. Deep in his heart he feared that he knew the answer to his feelings — he only hoped he was wrong. Spinning the wheel angrily, Einstein keeled the sailboat over on its side and ran north with the wind. As he steered into deeper water in an attempt to catch the offshore breeze and then angle his way back to land, he noticed a pod of whales in the far distance. One of the huge mammals, as if drawn to the sailboat by some invisible force, broke away from the pod and came alongside. Einstein watched as the whale paced the sailboat's speed, then breached directly amidships.
He jammed the sailboat's rudder toward land.
Ernie Hartley and Mike Scaramelli were sitting on a deck built off the back of the marina. The two men were lounging on red metal chairs shaped like clamshells. They shared the local newspaper, swapping sections across a white, freshly painted metal table as they awaited Einstein's return.
They're making quick work of rounding up the Nazis," Hartley noted, handing Scaramelli a fresh section.
"Still tough going in the Pacific, though," Scaramelli said and then sipped from a bottle of Bubble-Up.
It was slow at the marina that day. Hartley had been summoned inside only three times to tend the cash register. Twice he had sold live shrimp to fishermen for bait. Once it was to sell someone a wooden float for a crab pot.
From inside, perched on the ledge of an open window, a new Philco radio — which Hartley had recently won as first prize in a contest sponsored by an oil company-played big-band music through its large single speaker. The music suddenly stopped and an announcer's voice broke in with the news.
"News from the war front. The United States Armed Forces announced moments ago that they have dropped a new type of bomb on Imperial Japan. While details are few, the device appears to be a new fission-type weapon quite different and many times more powerful than any bomb yet detonated. Reports from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the target of the bombing, indicate widespread damage and loss of life. The Supreme Allied Command refused to comment on the device other than to say they hoped it would bring a quick conclusion to the hostilities.
"Now back to the music with recordings from the Glenn Miller Orchestra." Hartley ran inside. He spun the tuning dial of the Philco in an attempt to find any additional news about the bomb. Unfortunately, the only stations he could reach on the tuner featured either music or sports. Scratching his head, he walked slowly back outside to await Einstein's return.
On the horizon, eight miles distant, a boat under full sail appeared first as a white speck. Hartley trained his binoculars on the speck. The vessel grew larger as it neared and he struggled to make out the image. Still moving at full speed, the sailboat hurtled past the outer breakwaters and the far end of the harbor. From the sailboat's bow curled a wake of white water that signaled its haste.
"It's Einstein," Hartley said when he could finally catch a good view of the man behind the helm.
Hartley and Scaramelli raced to the dock to help with the mooring. Slipping alongside the dock, Einstein lowered the sails at the last moment. The sailboat's forward momentum was strong and Einstein ran to the bow and tossed a line to Hartley to slow the vessel.