Bahrain

Bahrain enters the novel through Jack Greywolf’s recollection of military service: at the end of the 1980s, it was the setting of his first frontline duty and part of a program that deployed dolphins in combat. The episode makes the country a concrete location in the history of MKO, the covert use of marine mammals as weapons.

Bahrain in Greywolf’s recollection

Greywolf tells Leon Anawak that the same kind of operation had taken place in Bahrain. At the time, he says, he did not know about MKO; his own system had done what was expected of it, while the military was using dolphins in dangerous missions. He remembers that the Navy sent some animals into enemy territory by parachute from three kilometres up, with some failing to survive the drop. Others were pushed from helicopters without parachutes from a height of twenty metres.

Military use of dolphins

In Greywolf’s account, the dolphins were made to attach mines to enemy warships and submarines. If a situation looked risky, the charges could be detonated as soon as the animals were within range. The method made the dolphins both instruments of attack and bodies exposed to the danger of deployment. Greywolf recalls that he remained in the Navy despite learning what MKO involved, telling himself that combat already meant deaths and that a few dead dolphins did not warrant protest.

Narrative significance

Bahrain is not developed as a geographic portrait; its significance comes from the history Greywolf attaches to it. The recollection reveals the military’s treatment of animal lives as expendable and Greywolf’s own complicity: he admits that he was good at handling animals, but calls himself stupid for agreeing to help. His account places his later involvement with MKO in a longer pattern of service and rationalization, before he was sent to San Diego to work on research into using orcas to carry nuclear weapons.