Robert Motherwell, Beside the Sea #24, 1962 |
On that morning - the morning of August 6 - the Service Corps of the Second Middle School in Hiroshima had been listening to an exhortatory address on Temma Bridge, or some other bridge in the west of the city, when the atomic bomb fell. In that instant the boys were burned from head to foot, but the teacher in charge had got the whole party to sing, pianissimo, a patriotic song: "Lay Me Beneath the Waves." When they had finished, he gave the command "Dismiss!" and himself led the way in jumping into the river, which happened to be running high with the tide at the time. The whole party followed suit.
Black Rain, chapter 1 |