“I don't know, sir,” I mumbled, adjusting the focus. Finally, I found the curious soldiers. I scanned up the hill ahead of them, along the path the balloon had torn through the grass and brush, until I reached the balloon itself.
Something had pierced the envelope, and the balloon now lay on its side, seemingly gasping, as if it had beached itself.
“Look like rain?” the colonel asked, and answered himself by laughing once. “Sunny and seventy through the weekend?” he added, checking his watch. “Weather. Five bucks says this is a Navy toy.”
I held my breath as I followed the balloon's shroud down to its pay-load. I'd never seen a hot-air balloon other than in photographs, and if anything, this balloon looked more incredible on the ground than in the air. The soldiers were almost upon it now, and I frowned, realizing that they would soon obstruct my view.
That's when I saw the fuse.
And then another, and another. And then a whole tangle of them came into view as I studied the payload more closely, and realized that each was a carefully wired charge-
“It's-a-bomb-sir,” I said. I couldn't be sure-the soldiers were in the way now, milling about, but-it had to be. I'd never seen a weather balloon, but I'd seen plenty of bombs in the classroom, and they-
“Sergeant?” the colonel asked, as if I'd reported sighting a seagull.
“A bomb, a bomb, a bomb,” I said, the words tumbling out so rapidly, it felt as though they were causing me to fall forward-and then I was-falling, running down the hillside toward the balloon.
I hadn't saved Gottschalk, hadn't even had a chance to.
As I ran, I stumbled, the binoculars caught me in the jaw; I tore them off and threw them away, yelling all the while. Behind me, the colonel must have been yelling, too, but I don't remember that. I only remember thinking, for a split second, that I had indeed fooled time, and that I was the only one moving. The soldiers, the bomb-laden balloon, the colonel-everyone was still, awaiting my intercession.
The first blast-just the noise, not the force-sent me to the ground. When I got up, I saw flames, and heard screams so fierce it was like I could see the sound. I began running even faster until I heard the second blast, tripped again, and lying there, finally realized I was too late.
One of the balloon's incendiaries must have detonated. It was later determined that the first blast had only wounded one or two of the soldiers, but the fire ended up claiming them all. The fire would have caught up with me as well, except that within a minute or so more of scrambling toward the crash, I was stopped by a steep, sharp ravine that had been invisible when I first started out. I picked my way down into it, but then discovered I couldn't climb the other side. Eventually I had to follow the ravine all the way down to the beachhead, watching the smoke billow just above me, out of reach.
ANOTHER RAVINE, on the far side of the crash site, and a fire road- a hopeful name for a swath of bare earth-did more to contain the blaze than anything else. By the time they had figured out a way to pump water up the hillside, the fire was mostly out. That night, the bodies of the soldiers were recovered, and around midnight, a pair of military policemen pulled me from my bunk and drove me as far up the hillside as their jeep would take us.
They delivered me into the care of the colonel. Earlier in the day during the cleanup, I'd offered my services but had been rebuffed. I wasn't sure if the colonel had summoned me now for apologies or blame.
“Turns out we lost two of our three bomb disposal guys in the fire,” he said. “Third's on leave. So we've got you.” He jerked his head up the hill, where gas-powered floodlights illuminated a still-smoking black field. Now I would say that it looked like lava, but back then, I'd never seen hot lava, not even pictures. Back then, it looked like what it was-scorched earth, a little piece of hell. “What happened?” he asked.
“Sir,” I said, looking up the hill, “I'm guessing it was some kind of incendiary-”
“That's pretty fucking brilliant, Sergeant. What was your clue? The six-acre brush fire?”
Another jeep, and then another, arrived.
“Wait here,” the colonel said, and I did, because it looked for all the world like aliens were stepping out of the jeeps. Six men in silver flash-suits and gas masks finished zipping up, checking gear. I'd seen fire-retardant clothing during my bomb disposal training-but nothing like these outfits, this late at night, lit by lights high on a hill.
“Who's in charge here?” said the only one of them not suited in silver.
“I am,” said the colonel.
“You were,” said the man, a captain, closing the distance. “We'll take it from here.”
“I lost five men,” the colonel said. “Is this your goddamn weather balloon?”
The captain nodded his men up the hill, and they began a surprisingly rapid ascent. Then he turned back to us. “It's mine now.”
“Whose was it? Where did it come from? Why wasn't I alerted?” the colonel asked.
“That,” the captain said, “is confidential.” That clearly wasn't good enough for the colonel, but before the colonel could blurt out another question, the captain looked at me and asked, “Who's this?”
The colonel drew himself up. “This asshole, supposedly a bomb man, was the first to figure out that the balloon was booby-trapped.”
“Bomb disposal?” the captain said, peering through the dark. “What's your name?”
“He was a little damn slow,” the colonel said. “A few minutes earlier, he could have saved some lives.”
I looked at the captain: “Belk, sir.”
The captain barked a little laugh. “You don't say? Sergeant Louis A. Belk?” I nodded. “How do you like that? You're mine, too. Wait for me in the jeep.”
I was glad to leave the colonel to him, and watched from a distance as the two officers argued. Finally, the colonel offered up a bit of a smile, and the two of them walked over.
The colonel regarded me, savored, and smirked. “You poor sap,” he said. “Whose ass did you forget to kiss?”
I looked to the captain. He looked at the colonel and then at me. “I am carrying orders to remove you from Camp Sunshine here, immediately, and deliver you to Elmendorf Field, Fort Richardson, Alaska,” he said, and then hiked up the hill toward his men.
“ Alaska,” the colonel repeated, very pleased.
I watched the captain exchange words with his men, who now had their masks off. Then he walked back toward us and climbed into the jeep.
“Bon voyage,” the colonel said to me.
“I'd keep clear of the area,” the captain said. “Just in case.” We all looked back up the hill, where the men now had their masks back on. The jeep sputtered to life and the captain steered us down the track he'd come up.
Hands on hips, feet apart, the colonel watched us drive away. I stared back at him for as long as I could, until I couldn't be sure if I was seeing or imagining him.
WHAT NEITHER THE colonel nor I knew at the time was that one of the most closely guarded secrets of World War II had exploded right in front of us.
The Japanese were bombing mainland North America. And the attack was far more widespread, and had gone on much longer, than the infamous raid on Pearl Harbor. In many ways, it was much more audacious. Certainly the censorship campaign that surrounded the bombing campaign was audacious: American authorities ordered nothing be reported. In the months to come, I would learn a little more, but only a little. The complete history-such as it is-I have come to learn only over the course of many years.
In mid-1944-not long after I enlisted, as it happens-a Navy ship made a curious discovery just off the coast of Southern California. The lookout first reported a downed pilot; what he could see through his binoculars had all the looks of a parachute. But there had been no word of any sorties being flown in their sector that day, and certainly no word of any mishaps. Upon drawing closer, the ship found no evidence of a pilot or plane, and when the material was hauled on board, it appeared to be a large hot-air balloon of rubberized silk. Instead of a basket, it contained a peculiar sort of crate, to which were affixed various instruments. One of the communications officers said it looked like a weather balloon. Thus mollified, the ship's captain brought the balloon and its crate home, where it was packed off to a warehouse in Long Beach. Word was sent to the weather bureau to come collect their fallen star.