The Cloud Atlas

thought the incendiaries meant it was unlikely germ weapons had been aboard-and if they had, they'd likely been incinerated.

Even so, I held my breath as much as I could as I ran for the river, expecting the fire or a belated blast to take me down before I'd made twenty yards. But twenty, fifty, one hundred yards went by, and I was still upright and running, ricocheting through the spruce down to the river. If anything exploded, the noise was lost to the rapids, which I followed back down to the trail, and then the trail into Anchorage. Instead of dissipating, the smell of smoke had only grown stronger the farther I had run. And once I was running along the city streets, I could see why-a great column of smoke now rose from the forest.

I didn't stop running until a hungover soldier, sprawled on the sidewalk, called out to me, “Didn't have enough money to pay 'er?” Then I realized I'd attract less attention on the nearly empty streets if I walked, and so I did, straight to the Starhope. Lily had to have escaped the forest before me. But the front door was locked. Lily's window was dark, and no one came to it when I called, not even Gurley

EVEN THOUGH IT WAS almost 10 A.M. when I got to base, I had decided to follow through on Gurley's orders. To be honest, part of me wanted to escape Gurley and the growing mess-which now included a balloon crashing in our backyard, not to mention a forest fire-and part of me thought I might be better positioned to help Lily. Little Diomede might be a barren rock in the Bering Sea, but it was well out of Gurley's sight. I'd discover a way to sneak off and find Lily-and Gurley would never know.

But Father Pabich would.

“My favorite sergeant!” he said when I walked into the terminal.

“Father,” I said, quietly.

Either Father Pabich didn't detect my anxiety or didn't care. He got up from the crate he was sitting on and came over to crush my hand.

“You look like twice-baked dogshit, Sergeant,” he said. “I'll take that as evidence you've been working hard.” I thought he might take silence as evidence I agreed, but when I didn't answer, he said, “Sergeant? Haven't seen you around, haven't seen you at Mass. Only one good excuse, and you better have it.”

I took a deep breath, trying to reacclimate myself to the real world: the war, Elmendorf, Father Pabich. I tried to smile. “I've been saying the rosary?” I said.

“Goddammit, son. Learn that joke from your little Protestant friends? Just for that, let's have you say the rosary, three times, each day this week.”

“Sir,” I said.

“I warned you,” said Father Pabich.

“Father?”

“And pray a special devotion to our Blessed Mother,” he said. “Now then-”

Two other soldiers walked in, and Father Pabich smiled and shouted at them as well. I was relieved to be out of the spotlight, and maybe sad that I no longer warranted it. He brought the two men over, introduced me-two Polish boys from Chicago. Good boys. They were shipping out to the Aleutians, and he was going with them. They'd be there for six months; Father Pabich, two weeks. Laughter. Some of the soldiers out there hadn't seen a priest for a year, he said. Any longer and we might lose them to a wandering Russian Orthodox missionary. Laughter. The two Polish guys looked younger than I, and even more embarrassed. We all smiled, though, and sincerely, because this was our priest. One of us. For us. And here he was, in Alaska, the abrupt edge of the world, tending to the likes of us-when we all knew none of us had souls worth tending. We were boys, after all, about to leave our teens, and we were being sent out to kill people.

Though Father Pabich had been out to the Aleutian Chain just last month, he was going again-all the other chaplains, of every faith, had been called elsewhere. Not that anyone begged for the duty. The conditions were too harsh, the men beyond saving: those who didn't kill themselves or each other were often done in by the weather. Father Pabich had almost been stranded on Kiska during his last trip.

“I was supposed to be on Kiska for only an hour,” he said, settling back. “I was spending my time on Attu, but they flew me out to Kiska, said the men would like a visit-said they had more than twelve Catholics there, and that's my rule: when you outnumber the apostles, you get a priest. So I went.” He patted his pockets for a cigarette, but one of the Chicago boys leapt in with his own pack. Father Pabich removed one, winked, and pocketed the pack. “Williwaws? You know what I'm talking about? Those Aleutian storms when the rain falls up as much as it does down? I'm in a PBY-Navy's flying me-goddamn pilot is flying like he's an atheist. Like he's not going to have God to deal with if he crashes that goddamn bird into the side of goddamn Kiska. Excuse me.” Puff. The other Chicago boy wanted a cigarette. He pointed to the pack in Father Pabich's pocket, but Father Pabich waved him off. “So we land. I almost drown getting to shore, but I get ashore. The pilot's said I've got an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. Storm coming in and then nobody's taking off. So I get inside. First of all, there aren't twelve Catholics. There's six guys, tops. And one of them's a Jew. Tells me he is.Tells me he is. But he says they're all going to die. The island's haunted with ghosts from the Battle of Kiska, storms a-coming, wild dogs-and I don't know what. Scared. Wants to go to Mass. What am I supposed to do?” Shrug. “Like the Holy Father's gonna know.” Puff. “But I've been using up precious time talking to this one. So it's on to Mass. ‘Oh, no, Father,’ this other one, red hair, now says to me. ‘I got to go to confession. I can't receive communion if I'm not in a state of grace.’ Jesus Christ, is what I tell him. We're all going to be in a state of death, son. But-right, what does the Bible say? This might be Jesus Himself talking to me. So I sit down, send the other boys out, start with the confession. In the name of the Father. Now-of course you don't reveal what's said under the seal of confession, but mind you, he's not saying anything of interest. He's been on Kiska, for Christ's sake. The world has been sinning against him. But he's going on and on. Talks about his Friday fast. Says he's been eating things on Friday. Like what? I say. ‘Like meat, Father,’ this one says. Meat! When he'd been lucky to get a goddamn ration of meat out there. No time now. It's going to be a twenty-minute Mass at this point. No Litany of the Saints-like I can afford to piss them off. Hurry up, lad, I tell him. What other sins you got? Let's go. You ate meat, now what else, what else?”

Father Pabich leaned back, took a long drag, grinned ear to ear. I remember thinking, here's a man about to risk his life flying into the world's worst weather, and he couldn't be happier if he were the pope himself.

“You know what he says?” Father Pabich leaned forward, and then bellowed, “ ‘PEAS’! Oh, sweet Jesus, ‘What else, son?’ ‘Peas, Father.’ Oh my Lord.” We laughed. Everyone in the terminal laughed, but no one laughed harder than Father Pabich, who roared until he coughed and teared up and accidentally lit a small fire when his cigarette fell from his fingers into a nearby wastebasket.

I suppose that's how Gurley was able to enter without anyone noticing.

I was helping the Polish guys put out the fire when I heard my name. I straightened up, but didn't turn around-I wasn't nearly ready. They called Father Pabich's plane. He picked up his bags, smiled, and punched me the best he could with his elbow. “Be a good boy, now,” he said. “Fight us a good war.” I'd like to say that I ran after him, told him an elbow wasn't good enough, that I wanted to shake his hand before we parted, receive his blessing, but I didn't. Gurley was already coming toward me then, so I blame him, not the Japanese soldier who, a month or so later, overran Father Pabich's position as he was giving last rites to a Marine on Okinawa. The Japanese soldier bayonetted them both.

“Sergeant,” Gurley said, grinning for some reason. “I greet you with the very best of news.” I studied the exits, decided which would be easier to reach. But I didn't move.

First, Gurley said, he was not going to charge me for disobeying orders-though I had clearly done so since I was still in the terminal instead of on a flight to Little Diomede. But the better news was that he no longer wanted me to go. He had found a far more important and interesting task, much closer at hand. He couldn't tell me this in the terminal, however, and so ushered me outside, hand at my elbow.

“Sir,” I said, “I thought we agreed. I thought it was clear that I should go. That this would be best.”

“Would have been best, Sergeant,” Gurley said. “But things have changed. This is what happens in war. We must let bygones be bygones, we must put our differences aside, and we must-”