Young Writers Society

The Human Bullet

The young man sat there and stared at the pristine blue sky, clutching his gas mask. He could smell the salty sea air, hear the squawk of birds flying overhead and feel the roar of the aircraft returning from their daily assault. The officers would cheer at the sight of the planes, hug the men as they eased themselves out of their seats and applaud at how valiantly they had fought the enemy – and won.

Except now there were no cheers. The pilots had not the seen their foes off today; in fact they hadn’t seen them at all. When the sky would have teemed with the sounds of shells, explosions and crashes, it had succumbed to the eerie stillness of their absence.

He grew impatient as he waited. Waited for the men several feet below him to spot those telltale shapes on their radar. Waited for the call to battle stations and to his arsenal of artillery. Waited for the moment when he would leave this foul place, the inky blue abyss stained with the stench of its victims, and retreat to the sanctuary of his wife and three children. He crossed the deck and descended to the officers’ mess two floors below.

Someone greeted him. “Hey, Stan. You doing fine?”

“I’m just tired, Joe.” He gave a shiver. “And sick. Sick of being here.”

“Sounds like you need some of my famous coffee.”

A laugh. “Who said it was famous?”

“My dog.”

Stan perused the scene while Joe disappeared behind the counter. He spied his other friends smoking cigarettes and telling each other bad jokes about the Japanese. He moved to join them, waving.

“You’re late!” one of them shouted.

“Yeah, but not as late as the waiter!” Stan replied.

Another cried, “Tell us a joke!”

“I don’t know any good jokes.”

“Oh, come on! I’ll start: ‘There was an American, an Englishman and a Jap…’”

“Don’t forget the Scottish,” a third cut in.

Stan was too busy waiting for his stupid coffee to think of jokes. “Look, guys, I don’t know why you find it so funny.”

The others groaned. “You tell us every time… Give us a break! … You’re too cold to be with us…”

Someone killed the cacophony. “Coffee, sir?”

“Thanks.” Stan tasted the drink. “It’s good. Very good.”

Returning the compliment, Joe simply smiled. Yet he couldn’t help but detect a hint of sarcasm in his friend. And he agreed with such disdain. Joe’s Famous Coffee didn’t look like coffee, or taste of it – instead it felt like brown water.

High above them, a small plane had locked onto its target. It had blended in with a routine aircraft patrol on its way back home before locking on to its target – one of the enemy’s flagship aircraft carriers. The young assassin inside was fuming at his adversary’s advance. He knew they would win. Yet in some futile show of strength, he would prove to them just how wrong they were. The divine wind that fired him relentlessly onwards pushed the plane towards its destination.

“Just tell us the joke,” someone called.

Stan sighed. “Okay. There’s an American, a Scotsman, an Englishman and a Jap aboard a ship. A missile hits the ship and it starts to sink. The American cries, “I’m going!” and jumps into the water. The Scotsman shouts “Me too!” and also dives in. The Englishman shouts “I’ll follow you!” and also leaps into the water. The Jap-”

A crash rippled through him. Screams pierced the air. The once lively scene evaporated into a technicolour blur amid the smell of gunpowder and the silhouettes of bodies. Smoke filled his vision.

Gasping for oxygen, he fell to the floor and reached for his gas mask, pressing it against his face. As the ship’s powerful circulation sucked the life out of the room, he crawled forwards, reaching out; he burned to find the door that would rescue him from such horror. The heat scalded his skin. The mass of corpses choked his path and he had to clamber over them, one hand at a time. He found Joe, but couldn’t save him now. He only thought about himself, concentrating on his own self-preservation, his own survival. His rage at whoever had done this transformed into a deep desire to escape and most of all, be with his family.

At last, his hand smacked the handle. Stan hauled his might against it and staggered up the steps to safety. He found two men and collapsed in their arms. The officers helped him up and dragged him past planes blasted in half, bodies strewn across the ship’s deck like broken dolls and a chimney of flames level with the sky.

Someone else tended to him as he lay on the ground. “Why – why do they have to do this to us?” he groaned.

“Because they’re Japs,” the young man answered. What a superficial reply, Stan thought. They may be Japanese, but this isn’t how you fight a war. People should fight man to man, like how it used to be done.

“…You don’t fight a war by blowing yourself up,” he muttered. “You can’t fight a war like this…” He drifted in and out of consciousness as the images he had seen flashed past. The bodies in the room. Joe serving him coffee. The birds squawking in the sky. A light glinted in the corner of his eye. He knew God was waiting.