Armageddon - Leon Uris

“But there’s something else?”

Sean turned his back.

“Why did you make this trip?”

It became so easy to talk with Poppa beside him this way. He always understood. He knew from the first instant that Sean was in a turmoil. “I’ve been asked to stay in the Army. General Hansen wants me to go to Berlin.”

“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,” he said over the intercom. “Where you heading, Major?”

“Berlin,” Sean O’Sullivan answered.

Part 2

The Last Days of April

Chapter One

April 12,1945, Berlin

THE AIR-RAID CELLAR beneath the Falkenstein house shifted with a sudden violent jolt. A wide split opened in one of the walls spewing a shower of granulated plaster. The precious Rosenthal china, which Frau Herta Falkenstein had meticulously wrapped and stored for safety, careened out of an overturned barrel and splintered into a million bits.

Hildegaard Falkenstein whimpered in her mother’s arms.

Another blast! Another! Another! Each closer than the last. The cellar plunged into darkness. A match flame groped for the candle on the wooden table in the center of the room.

“Is everyone all right?” Bruno Falkenstein asked.

Herta and the two girls answered haltingly.

Another hit sent all four of them to the damp floor flat on their bellies. “I can’t stand it any more!” Hildegaard shrieked. She beat her fists on the floor and writhed hysterically. “I can’t stand it! Kill us! Kill us!”

“Keep her quiet!” Falkenstein commanded of his befuddled wife, but the girl continued her tantrum. Hildegaard was becoming more unraveled every day. By the second or third hour of the raids she was usually in a state. Bruno pulled his daughter to her feet, out of his wife’s grasp, and slapped her hard across the cheek.

“Quiet! I demand it!”

She stifled her sobs to whimpers. “Yes ... Father.”

On the opposite side of the room Ernestine clawed through the silt which had fallen from the ceiling over her cot and nightstand. She cut her fingers digging for the little music box, clawing in desperation until she found it. A part of it showed in the debris; she worked it clear and took it up. Five of the ten figures of Prussian Hussars had been knocked off, the box was chipped and gouged. She blew off the dust and wound it ever so carefully and pulled the release plunger. The five remaining horsemen began to circle around and around on the top and the music tinkled and she hummed.

Once there was a faithful Hussar,

Who loved his love for a year or two,

A year or two ... or three or four ...

He swore he’d love her ever more ...

And the crash of the bombs seemed farther away, particularly to Ernestine. They all breathed deeply during the respite. Frau Falkenstein petted Hildegaard, who had slowed to a jerky sobbing.

But the calm was short-lived. Another wave of bombers passed in on the tails of the first and another load of hell from the skies whistled down upon them and the flak crackled back and the room danced again.

Now Bruno Falkenstein’s nerves were also shredded. “Pigs! Dirty American pigs! Ami beasts!”

No one seemed to hear his protest.

Ernestine had drifted into tranquility. Years and miles passed by as she watched the little music box, transfixed. “The Faithful Hussar” ... how many thousands of years ago was it? Only six faithful years? It was 1938 then and there was peace. Peace ... what a strange word. Could it have only been six years ago? I was only seventeen then. Oh Lord! The bombs have been falling on Berlin for a hundred years. Dietrich, my love! The bombs have been falling on us night and day for a hundred years. Oh Dietrich ... my photo album was burned in a raid so long ago I have forgotten what you look like. Can you forgive me?