Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [311]
“For Christ sake ... knock it off.”
“Twelve thousand, nine hundred tons ... I wish that Scott and some of the other boys could have lived ... so, they’ll phase out the operation, they’ll phase us out ... like old Gooney Birds ... and Buff Morgan will run around picking up medals in our behalf. When you’re in Utah ... get yourself down to Malibu so we can do a little fishing.”
Clint caught the flight surgeon’s eye. So did the general.
“I’m supposed to thank you for saving my life,” he said wearily. “Thanks.”
Chapter Forty-one
“BERLINERS! THE BLOCKADE IS over!”
At midnight of June 11, nearly one year after the Soviet blockade, the first convoy of trucks rolled onto the autobahn through the Soviet Zone and beyond the checkpoint at Helmstedt.
Denied a celebration for many years, the Western Sectors erupted into the wildest night the city had ever known. Great delirious crowds surged before the American and British headquarters. Before the Borough town halls they chanted by torchlight for their leaders.
Soldiers from the West were mobbed on the streets and kissed and loved by the women and embraced by crying, usually unemotional German men.
In the middle of the night the first trucks of the convoy reached Berlin and were drenched in flowers.
Across the Brandenburg Gate in the Soviet boroughs of Köpenick, Treptow, Lichtenberg, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Weizensee, Pankow and Mitte the streets were empty. It was gloom and quiet, an ominous forecast of the life to come.
Igor Karlovy received a knock on his door. A squad of NKVD men told him to pack a single bag, immediately.
Sean sat alone in the room in Reinickendorf. Down below he could hear the singing, the cheering, see the torchlights.
The end of the blockade had come to him as a bittersweet victory. He could no longer hold his secret in him. Ernestine arrived rumpled and breathless and bursting with joy but she saddened the moment she saw Sean.
The black mood had come over him again. She had been patient. In the beginning it seemed that they were going to pull through. They were much in love and struggled together to overcome. For a time she believed they had passed the crisis.
And then something happened that Sean kept buried in him. He would cling to her in desperation ... then drift away beyond her reach.
He had taken it badly when Blessing and his family returned to America to resume civilian life. His periods of detachment grew more often after that.
It became unbearable at times. She brought herself to the point of having it out. But the fear of losing him kept her quiet at the last instant and she was patient. While Berlin bathed in revelry, Sean drifted away once more.
Again that night he floated in the half world of nightmares. Ernestine lay awake seeing him fall down, down, down, beyond all help. His tortured dreams were punctured by the hilarity in the streets.
“Ja! Ja! Berlin bleibt!”
“Wunderbar! Alles ist Wunderbar!”
“Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!” they chanted. “Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!”
Sean saw himself stand in a rage above Dante Arosa. German woman! How could you do it with a German woman! He groveled at Dante’s feet and the young officer kicked his ribs ... German woman! Arosa taunted ... I give you the choice to resign from the Army or join the SS!
Maurice Duquesne laughed hilariously. Naive American. You must roll in the sweat of your enemy!
Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!
Ernestine tried to touch him as he sweated and knotted with the pain of his dream.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! beat a makeshift drum made of a dishpan.
Torches! Lines of snaking people in the streets ... lines in the dirge to the Schwabenwald Concentration Camp. Look at the concentration camp, you people! I am O’Sullivan! I am the law! Look, dirty Germans, look!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Kathleen Mavourneen, the gray dawn is breaking ...
The sound