Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [27]
“I shall be leaving in the morning for Plimlington East to see my children. I have been thinking that a holiday for just the three of us would be a wonderful tonic. We could disappear somewhere up in Scotland. I know of places where they don’t even have a telephone.”
Hansen set his glass down, walked to her, and took her hand.
“Will he forget me?”
“No, but he’ll get over you.”
She nodded. “That’s it then, isn’t it? ...”
“You do love him very much.”
“General,” her voice cracked, “please go ...”
Chapter Thirteen
April 20,1945
IT WAS EVENING. MAJOR Sean O’Sullivan sped down a German country road, second in line in the convoy of jeeps, command cars, and trucks making up Pilot Team G-5. Sean always took the second jeep, Maurice Duquesne the first. The Frenchman drove like a maniac; no one dared drive with him on his tail.
The cobblestone road was rain-slick and jarring. They passed through never ending forests, birch trees adding dark and eerie patterns to the miserable rain-soaked road. Sean hunched closer to the windshield.
Dr. Geoffrey Grimwood grimaced alongside Sean. From time to time low mumbles emerged through his moustache protesting the monstrous construction of the jeep.
In the back seat, Sean’s orderly, Private O’Toole, attempted to dismember three sticks of chewing gum. The massive Shenandoah Blessing slept, crushing O’Toole against the side of the jeep. His moon face rolled loosely on his neck and fell on O’Toole’s shoulder. The son of a bitch sleeps anywhere, O’Toole thought ... through the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, anywhere. Look at the ugly son of a bitch sleep with the rain leaking in and falling down his ugly neck. O’Toole shouldered Blessing’s head off him and tried to displace the limp body. It all rolled back on him.
A roadblock loomed ahead. The convoy drew to a halt before a submachine-gun-toting corporal. Sean got out, drew his poncho about him, and approached the guard.
“Password.”
“Wishing well,” Sean said, using the pair of “w’s” designed to twist the most willing German tongue.
One of these days I’m going to say “vishing vell” and scare the hell out of one of these guards, O’Toole thought.
“Glenn Miller,” said the guard.
“ ‘Moonlight Serenade,’ ” Sean answered.
“Hit me again.”
“ ‘Tuxedo Junction,’ ‘Little Brown Jug,’ ‘Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand.’ ” Sean imparted distinctive Americanisms.
“Pershing Square.”
“Queers.”
Silly damned game, Grimwood thought. The Americans go to ridiculous extremes to identify each other.
The guard was convinced the convoy was not German infiltrators. He advised Sean they were at the end of the line and a regimental headquarters was in a farmhouse in a clearing a few hundred yards removed.
“All right. Pull the convoy over. Put on a guard. Set up a bivouac.”
Sean, followed by his watchdog, O’Toole, slushed his way to the clearing and the farmhouse. Colonel Dundee welcomed them grumpily. “Dandy” Dundee, a self-made soldier, attempted to live up to his legend. His ulcer was killing him. He scratched his stubble jaw. “You guys from Military Government are always up my back.”
“Matter of fact, Colonel, we’ve been waiting to get to Rombaden for almost a year.”
“Ever drink this crap? Steinhager.”
Sean accepted the bottle, took a belt, passed it to O’Toole.
Dundee brought him up to date. He had sent a patrol into Rombaden and it had gotten clobbered. He drew back, dug in, and brought up two battalions of Long Toms and a battalion of tanks. They were now getting into position in the forest. Heavy mortars were pushed up forward so they could at least reach the suburbs. Dundee meant to hit Rombaden throughout the night with everything that would reach the city. In the morning a hundred air sorties were promised. Dundee belched the belch of a man whose stomach was in constant rebellion. Then he looked at Sean devilishly, as though he were about to impart a monumental secret. “Major,” he said with solemnity, “I’m going to cross the Landau tonight, two miles downstream.”
“Got a bridge?”
“Hell no! The goddam engineer