Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [190]
“I guess that’s everything,” he said, looking at his watch. Two hours to traintime. Bo sat on the locker and lit a cigarette. His unhappiness was apparent. “We’ve been together a long time, Bless. The major and you and me. London, France, Rombaden.”
“We’re all that’s left of the team,” Bless said.
The captains and the kings depart.”
Bo had received an excellent opportunity from a large and important law firm in Chicago. Its attorneys and most of its clients were Polish-Americans. At the end of the war the firm became flooded by those trying to re-establish contact with lost relatives or claim lost fortunes.
It was a natural situation for Bolinski. He was a good lawyer, experienced in displaced persons work, spoke fluent Polish and English, was an expert on indemnification and restitutions, and had built up contacts. It was the time and place for a young man to go far.
Bo sent Major O’Sullivan his request to resign from the Army. In a few months he would have been eligible for discharge, anyway, and Sean pushed it through.
Somehow the return to the States did not bring him the expected exaltation ... not leaving Berlin or even the anticipation of the reunion with his wife and children. He had convinced himself he had done enough and was entitled to leave. Yet ...
“It’s going to be a funny feeling to see a city not wrecked by bombs ... and look at people who aren’t hungry.”
“I reckon so.”
“What about you, Bless?”
“My discharge should be coming up in three or four months.”
“I’ll be glad when you get out of here. This city is like standing over a trap door waiting for the Russians to pull the lever.”
“We all want to go home,” Bless said. “That’s our national anthem.”
“We can’t all be made like the major.”
“Reckon not. The Lord put his finger on certain people to do the dirty work for the rest of us.”
“Don’t be so sure it’s out of love. He hates the Germans enough to stay here for a century so long as they’re suffering.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Bo.”
“Anyhow, it’s time to go in and say good-by to him.”
Shenandoah Blessing watched Bo’s train disappear from sight and hearing. He wheeled his jeep from trackside and drove back toward Headquarters. Bo felt guilty, but no one could blame him for wanting home, Blessing thought. Hell, everyone who could was pulling out these days.
They had offered him captain’s bars to remain in Berlin two more years. Small compensation for the losing battle being fought. Lil and his kids hungered for him and he for them.
Bless knew he was pushing forty-five. The law of the land said that Hook County had to reinstate him as sheriff. His first deputy, Charlie Durkin, had held the office for five years now. Charlie knew his way around and was a good officer. No doubt he had built his own political connections and had become entrenched. Blessing would have to face him in an election.
Had he returned at the end of the war, he would have won any election, hands down. But the days of returning heroes were gone. The war was over for nearly two years and wanted only to be forgotten by Americans. There would be resentment against him now. Soldiers in uniform were big people when there was a fight to be won, but these were the days when soldiers in outposts were forgotten.
A month after Bolinski left for the States, Captain Shenandoah Blessing stood at dockside at the American enclave of Bremerhaven in the British Zone as the first shipload of American wives and children arrived through a North Sea’s mist.
There was much weeping and embracing on the dock. Lil and the two kids dragged down the gangplank as did most of them, weary from the voyage. They stood and looked at each other.
“Hi, Bless,” she said.
“Hi, Lil.”
He scooped up his sons and they hugged him and said hello daddy and he said, my God, they’ve grown and the four of them walked slowly and tightly together for the shed.
Later a heavily armed train chugged through the unfriendly German countryside toward