16	HIROSHIMA
diei, the cares of his parish—all combined to make him
fee! hardly adequate to the new day's work. There
was another thing, too: Mr. Tanimoto had studied
theology at Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia; lie
had graduated In 1940; lie spoke excellent English;
he dressed In American clothes; lie had corresponded
with many American friends right up to the time
the war began: and among a people obsessed with a
fear of being spied upon—perhaps almost obsessed
himself—he found himself growing Increasingly uneasy.
The police had questioned him several times, and
just a few days before, lie had heard that an influential
acquaintance, a Mr. Tanaka, a retired officer of the
Toyo Kisen Kaisha steamship line, an anti-Christian,
a man famous in Hiroshima for his showy philan-
thropies and notorious for his personal tyrannies, had
been telling people that Tanimoto should not be
trusted. In compensation, to show, himself publicly
a good Japanese, Mr. Tanimoto had taken on the
chairmanship of his local tonarigunii, or Neighbourhood
Association, and to his other duties and concerns
this position had added the business of organising
air-raid defence for about twenty families.
Before six o'clock that morning, Mr. Tanimoto
started for Mr, Matsuo's house. There he found that
their burden was to be a tansu, a large Japanese cabinet,
full of clothing and household goods. The two men
set out. The morning was perfectly clear and so warm
that the day promised to be uncomfortable. A few
minutes after they started, the air raid siren went off—
a minute-long blast that warned of approaching planes
but indicated to the people of Hiroshima only a slight