Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [93]
“Well, Mother and I won’t be too disappointed. From your letters we had already anticipated there would be somewhat of a wait until your discharge.”
“You don’t understand, Poppa. It means ... at least four years ... maybe more.”
“Oh ... I see ... well now ... what do you think needs to be done?”
“I want to come home. I want to come home. We should be together now ... the three of us ... that’s what is right.”
“Sean, there are certain indulgences that all parents would like to have. We want the closeness of our children and the pleasure of our grandchildren, but far more rewarding to your mother and me is seeing you grow into the kind of man you have become. This great pride you have given us far outweighs our little selfish pleasures.” The wise father prodded his son to turn around and face him. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”
Sean pointed to the two empty beds. “I can’t go on living with their murderers.”
“This General Hansen. You have a great deal of admiration for him, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He knows your feelings about the Germans?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Knowing this and admiring you also, if he still asks you to go to Berlin it must be mighty important.”
Sean swung his feet to the floor, held his face in his hands. “Yes, it’s important.”
“Tell me.”
“General Hansen sees dangers facing us that few others will admit to. He needs to have certain people with him in Berlin who realize we have to hold a line ... until the rest of the country wakes up to what is happening. He’s afraid he might not be able to find enough people willing to ...”
“Haven’t you pretty well answered your own question?”
Sean sprung to his feet. “How about me, Poppa! Christ, I’ll be in my mid-thirties before I get back. I won’t be fit to compete in class with kids. I won’t be able to study any more. And it may damned well be too late to start a family. And us! Oh Poppa! I may never see you again ... I don’t want to be a soldier!”
Sean O’Sullivan cried in his father’s arms as he had not cried since he was a small child. “Oh God!” he cried, “I hate them ... I want to come home. I miss Liam and Tim ... oh God!”
“Sean O’Sullivan,” his father whispered, “you must be proud to be needed this way. I am a simple man and I do not have a command of language or philosophy. There is only one question you must ask and answer. Your mother does not count. I do not count. You do not count, or your ambitions or your life. Only one question.”
“What is it?”
“Is America worth it.”
They were smiling when Sean left the next morning, without heroics or tears. For them, forty-eight hours was food for an eternity of reveries. An embrace, a wave ... and he was gone.
The C-47 bounced in and out of the layers of cumulus clouds. The plane flew southeasterly over the Rhine River, past a field of shells that had once been Düsseldorf.
The copilot was crapped out on a litter in the cabin. Sean sat in his place. He put on the earphones, enjoying hearing the cryptic jargon of the flyers. The pilot flipped on the intercom switch.
“Hey, Major. Look at that friggin’ wreck down there. Like, Jesus H ... huh?”
The plane inched over Cologne. Only the twin spires of the mighty cathedral stood in the midst of a lunar landscape along the river bank.
“Pretty sharp shooting how they missed the cathedral.”
“Christ takes care of his own.”
“Major, those krauts aren’t going to dig out of this pile of crap for a hundred years.”
“Don’t make book on it.”
The pilot switched back to the en-route frequency and called Wiesbaden tower.
“This is Army four-seven-six-three calling Y-80, over.”
“Y-80 to Army four-seven-six-three, I read you five square, over.”
“This is Army four-seven-six-three. What is the present weather?”
“Visual all the way in. Winds five knots from the northwest.”
As they passed over Coblenz the pilot rechecked his ETA.
“We’ll be landing in twenty minutes,