The Cloud Atlas

My first thought was that the balloon had exploded, but when I looked up and saw it still there, I realized that the noise had come from Gurley's gun. Leave it to Gurley to shoot at something as big as a balloon and miss. He was just a few yards in front of me, holding the gun with both hands, head cocked to the side to help his aim. I came up behind him.

Once he sensed I was beside him, he lowered his gun and turned to me. The wind had picked up again and the balloon began to drift away from us. Gurley cursed, looked at me, and then raised the gun again. I put a hand on his forearm as gently as I could.

“Sir,” I started.

Gurley yanked his shooting arm away. “Don't ever,” he said, glowing red. Lily crept beside us and Gurley looked at her for a moment. “Get back in the boat, Lily.”

“Sir,” I said carefully. “Aren't standing orders now to, well, to not shoot them down? For fear of what the balloon might release?” Gurley wasn't listening. “I mean, even if it was a regular balloon-the explosives? If we fire at it from this close, we could-”

“It's not a regular balloon,” Gurley said. “And I'm not about to let some little Jap fire on us at will. Give me the goddamn glasses.” The balloon was still a hundred yards off, but just a few feet above the ground now, drifting slowly. A rope trailed along behind it like a tail. A rope, or perhaps that long fuse, the one that was supposed to ignite the balloon itself. But with the balloon so low to the ground, the rope or fuse kept snagging in the grass. Then the wind would pull it free, the balloon would bounce, and the rope would snag again. Finally, a clump of alderwood caught the fuse, and the balloon was trapped. Now, when the wind blew, instead of breaking free, the balloon pulled to the ground. As it did, we could see the man inside grow agitated. Gurley had the glasses, but it was still clear to Lily and me that the man was standing, peering about. Moreover, he looked drunk-or weak. As the basket pitched back and forth, he seemed unable to keep his balance. He would topple and disappear from view and then struggle up once more. Sometimes he wouldn't even stand; we'd only see his head, peering over the side like a little kid.

He should have noticed us by now, but there was no sign he had. He seemed too intent on the rope that had snagged to pay attention to anything else. “What are you going to do?” Lily whispered, angry. Gurley kept staring through the binoculars and said nothing. Every now and then, he'd shake his head, whistle low. Finally, he lowered the binoculars.

“Well, Sergeant,” he said. Then he turned to Lily and nodded. “Ma'am, if you'll excuse us.” He looked back to the balloon. “I'm not going to take the chance that he somehow gets that snag free and takes off again. There's no way we'd be able to keep up with him across this sodden mess. We're going to have to take him, or the balloon, or both, down. Sergeant?”

I shook my head. I wasn't sure what to do. The war had proceeded so slowly for Gurley and me. It was partly a function of our quarry: whatever the balloons were, they weren't speedy. Elsewhere, rockets flew, airplanes dove, bullets raced. But the balloons: you could watch them move. You never saw a bullet in flight, just the aftereffects of its stopping. A balloon let you see the whole progress of death, from anticipation to impact.

And though I didn't have the words to say it then, I knew Gurley was tampering with this measured, preordained pace. It was as though he'd placed the alderwood there, he'd arranged the snagged line, he'd frozen the balloon like we'd reached some crucial point in the training film that he had wanted me to study carefully. But I'd frozen along with the film.

Gurley was about to smack me back into motion when the film lurched forward of its own accord. A quick shout from Lily drew our eyes back to the balloon, where we saw the figure crane out of the basket and work at the snagged rope. Gurley shouted, too, and now the man looked up at us. I'm not sure what he saw, but it obviously frightened him enough to work at the cord more frantically.

Gurley fired a shot. The man looked up again.

Lily stood, and moved toward Gurley. As he took his second shot, she grabbed his arm. The shot went high. I saw something tug at the top of the balloon, but didn't take time to figure out if he'd actually hit it. Instead I scrambled to get myself between Gurley and Lily. But I was too late; he'd backhanded her with the gun. She fell, hands to her face, the too-red blood of a new wound leaking through her fingers.