1989
I was quietly working in the lab at the School, it was lunch time, I think, when one of the pupils, a girl, asked me what the wailing noise was. "Oh" I said "it is an air attack warning". "If it a Russian Missile attack then you have 3 minutes to live". The girl wondered what she could do in 3 minutes. I said "I would be best to lie down away from the windows in this inner corridor and put your hands over your face and face downwards, if it is not too close we might survive".
I went into the prep room and locked the door and made a cup of tea. Nothing happened. So I rang the operator and asked for the civil defence. The chap at the other end said that there had been an air burst high up but the missile had fallen in a nearby village.
I said that since the high explosive had detonated but not the atomic charge then there was no danger of an atomic explosion.
Then we heard the sirens again. The girls asked me, I said "It is the 'all clear', the Russian hydrogen bombs did not go off but one fell in *************". "Oh" she said "that's near me". I said "It is Ok none of them went off, they were made by a team who were disaffected by communism and did not support the system".
The girls got up and hugged each other, I got kissed.
Then I remembered how way back in 1969, when I had a job at **************** in the research facility, I had been approached by an agent who thought I was a sympathiser and was asked for full details of our reduced yield atom bombs that were for triggering hydrogen bombs.
I told my line manager and we set about designing a bomb just for the Russians in which the yield was reduced to zero.
In this bomb there was a reduced mass of fissile material but an increased high explosive charge in a lenticular form. I was so designed that it looked like it would work and nearly did, a nearly right design that I am particularly good at.
The report was written up and a test report made, the duff bomb was tested at Womera and found to exceed design specifications.
I then passed it to the agent who paid my employer, through an American Bank $3,000,000. It included some sample warheads clearly labelled "Dummy" to clear security.
I was amazed when it became apparent that the trick had worked!!!!
I had to keep quiet and pretend my support for all that time (30 years), a real nightmare.
The other funny story is that when the Soviets had massed their forces along the East/West border, I got quite worried about a communist invasion. I then rang up the East European telephone operator that I had phoned before over a girl friend in Bulgaria and asked to speak to the commander of each Russian army in each of the countries in turn. I said that I was Marshal Zukov and ordered them to return to their bases in Russia, one said that they did not have any and so I said that they should build them, I spoke to the real commander and he agreed with me about peace and retired to bed dreaming of his holiday by the Caspian and his five Daughters Mercs.
The next morning their army left sharp at 6 am local time. I understand the soldiers were very pleased.
I nearly died laughing!
I was than rung up and asked for further instructions, I sent one army to Vladivistok, another to Archangel, another to Moscow and another to Southern Russia.
I designed a number of other duff items for the Russian Army, like suggesting that the big guns could benefit if the lead seal was slightly thicker to make better seal giving more power (the shell did not fit the barrel). I think they did this to other tube launched weapons , and I designed a petrol with a beetroot extract addition to increase calorific value (Made by extracting boiled beet with xylene and then evaporating). It was actually sugar and this clogged up the tank and lorry engines very quickly.
Well I also designed a transistor amplifier that nearly worked and one that fused when connected to the power.....
Well I did have to do it "For the glory of communism", and after all I was in the target area!
And they did ring me up and ask if there had been an explosion, I told them it was very high, an air burst to high up to be noticed.
Well there is not much gold in communism, especially its glory.
In fact the Russians must have sent a second wave, the first were dummies, it was the day of the hurricane, as the sirens went off for the second time I put on my woolly hat, it was winter so I had wool on all over, and then recall covering my face body and hands with "baco" aluminium foil we had in the lab, one of the girls got on top of me and kissed me through the foil and then the bomb went off and I could see through her head like an x-ray then she was gone and her hand that was gripping mine under the foil went limp and I think some did the same, then I recall Margaret our head of department coming in and saying "What happened? What happened? She picked up the foil and looked horrified and only the hand was left all the girls had vaporised leaving their clothes the girls behind 900 dead in that school where I worked, the next day when I went to work millions of trees and been blown down and the green house had burst apart and torn to shreds, only an atom bomb could do that. I was not allowed to take photographs. Jenny who I was with jumped on me tore my clothes off and got on top. The building I was in had vanished (a hut) and I was lying on the ground.
We walked back home through the ruins of our town and all around was destruction and there was fire in the sky when I got to my home it was a ruin with my mother inside but there was no sound. Then a lorry came by and they said get up and we will look after you. I got on the open back and then suddenly everything went white and I went to sleep. I do not know how long I slept but when I awoke the houses were there and my smiling mother came to the door. It was all right!
But as I went around everything seemed different like a thousand years had passed, people believed different things and there were different things in the shops. The neighbours had changed, some were the same. I just did not understand it.
I met Margaret (our head of science) asleep on a park bench, she said she had no money and had lost her pension, so we went and had a meal together, and overnighted in the hotel nearby, her husband had died in the explosion and she had nowhere to live, I met her again some time later on a nearby railway station and she ran in front of a train "Don't stop me" she said "I don't want to live". She was cut into three pieces by the train so I got on the train and it went on.
I am very unhappy.
I have been told that the British had atom bombed Moscow the next morning but that bomb did not go off either. Perhaps I designed that one too after all I am a pacifist and marched with the CND.
Of course it could have been our fleet of star ships who used their atom bomb quenchers that stopped the bombs going off! We tested that back in 1969 in Oxfordshire with partial success but our technical staff must have improved it by 1989.
Possibly the star ships matter creators had rebuilt all that had been destroyed. I just do not understand it at all.
It is like it was 1000 years ago and there has been a temporal discontinuity.
Chris.