Armageddon (6 page)

Sean said things were swell at Queen Mother’s Gate; Tim said they were swell at Braintree; Henry Pringle paid his personal respects; they drank some more.

Tim was spotted and called to the piano, where the big-busted redhead delighted the flyers of Squadron Ten by standing next to him and wiggling in time to the music. Tim’s entrance on the scene dictated a round of Irish ballads. A third and fourth round of drinks led directly to a seizure of nostalgia and Tim sang his father’s very favorite in a handsome, rich Irish tenor ...

Kathleen Mavourneen! the gray dawn is breaking. The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill ...

“The son of a bitch can do everything,” Big Nellie said. “He’ll be a cinch if he runs for Congress ...”

The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking ...

Kathleen Mavourneen! What, slumbering still?

After the fighter pilots of Squadron Ten had been moved to tears, the redhead excused herself to tidy up and Tim returned to the booth.

“Well done, lad. You’re in fine voice tonight,”

“Nellie. I’m in a bind. I need a room.”

Bradbury shrugged. “There’s an all-night party going on at the flat.”

“So, take her to a hotel,” Sean said.

“She’s got a mental block about hotels.”

“Here. Take the key to my place. I’ll take a hotel room.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, Nellie.”

“Sure you would,” Nellie answered. “Besides I’m pushing off early. I’ll be flying on a special mission tomorrow.” He looked Tim squarely in the eyes as he handed him the key. “I’m going to ride an Invader. They’re taking a crack at a V-1 base.”

Tim took the key, avoiding both the other men’s eyes. “Should be interesting,” he said.

The correspondent rose to his full reaches of six feet six inches and lumbered across the room. His journey was punctuated by handshakes, back-slaps, and hi-Nellies.

The brothers were alone. “What’s the matter, Sean? You look real down.”

“We’ve got all weekend to talk about it.”

“Christ, I’m sorry. I’ve got to get back up to Braintree first thing in the morning. Let me put whozits in a taxi and send her home. We can hole up at Nellie’s and talk.”

“The gesture is out of character. I’ll slip into Nellie’s place later and sleep on the living-room couch. Well have a chance to talk in the morning.”

Tim began to protest, but the big-busted redhead returned and her mere presence swayed the argument Sean’s way. Tim and the girl left the Blue Hawk after “regretting” Sean could not join them.

Chapter Seven

“W
AKE UP, SWEETHEART.”

Sean blinked his eyes open. Tim, dressed and shaven, stood over him. He looked around. He was in Big Nellie’s flat. He came to a sitting position cautiously. His head throbbed. His mouth held a foul taste. The smell from the kitchen of breakfast cooking added to his discomfort.

“One thing I can’t stand,” Tim said, “and that’s a drunken Irishman.”

“Where’s the broad?”

“Just put her in a taxi. We never heard you come in. What time was it, anyhow?”

“Hell, I don’t know. We closed the Blue Hawk and hit a private party. Pringle poured me here.”

Sean wove to his feet and threaded an unsteady course to the bathroom, threw up, then dunked his head in a basin of icy water. He spread a line of toothpaste along his forefinger and pushed it over his teeth, fished through the cabinet for a brush and comb. The mirror revealed a stubble-chinned, bleary-eyed man in the throes of a monumental hangover.

He went to the kitchen, where Tim labored over the stove. Sean opened the refrigerator and mumbled about no fruit juice, but there was beer. He uncapped one. Thank God Nellie still keeps his beer cold. He flopped into a chair and asked what time it was.

“Six-thirty. I’ll get the eight o’clock train from Waterloo.” Tim shoved a plate of ham and eggs before Sean. He balked.

“How’s the redhead?”

“Cynthia? Good lay. Besides, she is a nice kid. Lost her husband in Greece. Got a seven-year-old boy. You ought to give her a call one of these days ... if Nan ever gives you a night off. ... Listen, big brother,” Tim pursued, “you’re not the binge-throwing type. What’s bothering you? Nan?”

“Partly.”

“Trouble with you, Sean, you’ve always got to fall in love. You’ve got to make a big affair out of it. Christ, can’t you take these women with a grain of salt?” Tim chewed a bite of ham, then waved his fork under Sean’s nose. “You’re going to get yourself in a real sling with this Milford broad.”

‘Tim ... I love her. I love her more deeply than I loved that other girl. I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”

Tim dropped the fork and sighed. “You poor bastard.”

“I said I love her.”

“Sure, I can picture it now. You, me, Nan and Dad out at Seal’s Stadium drinking beer and watching the ball game on Sunday afternoon.”

“Smart ass ... smart ass.”

“She’s not one of ours and we’re not one of hers.”

“Who in the hell says we’re talking marriage.”

“So, what are you talking about, Sean?”

Sean shoved the plate away, snatched the beer bottle, and sulked from the table. He leaned against the wall ... glowering, sulking, sipping. Tim’s hand touched his shoulder.

“I’m on your side, Sean. A woman like Nan’s got more class than you and I will see in the rest of our lives. I guess she must be pretty easy to fall in love with. But I come down from Braintree every week and see you eating your heart out. You can’t get to needing a woman that much knowing you’re going to have to give her up.”

“You’re right, of course, but it’s not that easy to kiss her off. I don’t know if I could stand to be in the same city with her and not call her. I keep telling myself to transfer out ... but ... you know how I feel about General Hansen. He’s fighting the whole goddamned Army and State Department. I can’t quit him, either.”

“Well ... you might as well eat your breakfast.”

They both picked at their food listlessly. Sean gave up trying to eat. “Nan Milford isn’t all that’s bothering me. Tim O’Sullivan is bothering me too. I hear you’re turning into a real hot pilot.”

“Big Nellie talks too much.”

“He just confirmed what I already know. You were shipped out of your fighter squadron for your own good. You were put into Invaders to slow you down because you were too reckless. Now, you’ve figured how to win the war single-handed.”

“What the hell do you want from me!”

“Stop carrying the flag, Tim. You’re always carrying the flag. When you were ten years old you wanted to join the Irish Republican Army.
Erin go bragh!
Up the Republic! At ten! And if I hadn’t stopped you you’d of quit college and joined the Lincoln Brigade in Spain.”

“At which time,” Tim interrupted, “my brother the fighter dramatically held up his hands and said, ‘I took two fights to pay your tuition and broke my hand. I’ll break the other one to keep you in school.’ ”

“So maybe I was wrong? Maybe I did something bad?”

Tim became quiet He shook his head. “You’re never wrong, Sean. You never let me get into trouble ... never let me get hurt.”

“What is this obsession? What makes you so angry ... hell, when we were kids and we used to climb down to the caves at Sutro ... Liam ... Liam would talk about the Irish poets and you would talk about the Irish terrorists.”

“How in the hell can you remain so impersonal to a war that’s taken our brother!”

“Don’t you think I’ve cried for Liam?”

“You sit there day after day, week after week in those rooms at Queen Mother’s Gate. You know what the Germans have done! Don’t you ever feel like you’re going to break apart for the wanting to get back at them!”

Sean shook his head with a measure of guilt. “I suppose my judgment is a job qualification. I can’t let personal emotions get mixed up in it.”

“That’s it then,” Tim said, “your war is careful. Mine is another kind. And neither of us is wrong.” Tim grabbed his brother’s arm excitedly. “When I was a fighter pilot and we were coming over German land I almost always saw Liam’s face outside the window. I would see him smiling softly the way only he could ... I would hear him reading to us in the caves. And then ... I would visualize Liam’s grave. I want to tell you, Sean. I begged for strafing missions. I liked to watch Germans scatter and cower in ditches. I wanted to fly so low I could chop them up with my propellers.” Tim’s eyes became watery. His voice softened. “Private Liam O’Sullivan ... age twenty-two. Major in literature. Liam was a poet. Poets shouldn’t die. You and I would have done all right by Mom and Pop ... but Liam ... he could have brought us honor. Oh God! Why does the wrong brother have to die?”

Tim began to weep. He always cried when he spoke about Liam.

“Liam said revenge for revenge’s sake is immoral. Call it off,” Sean pleaded. “Fifty-four missions is enough. You’ve shot down ten enemy planes and destroyed a rocket base. Tim ... we’re winning this war, now. We’ll be landing in Europe in a few months. You’ve got to start being careful.”

Tim bolted from his chair. “Shut up. You’re starting to disgust me!”

Sean grabbed his brother and shook him. “Goddamn you, Tim! Goddamn you! Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself! You want to put Momma and Poppa in the grave beside you!”

“Don’t ask me to fight your war. I am what I am.”

Sean’s hands dropped to his sides helplessly. “I’ll get myself squared away and ride down to the station with you.”

Chapter Eight

A. J. H
ANSEN SAW
in Sean O’Sullivan the image of himself, a defiant young officer before a superior, demanding a combat command.

“So,” snorted Eric the Red, “you want a transfer. You got nut aches to be a hero. Congratulations. That’s just what this Army needs, one more infantry company commander.”

“I’m not cutting it here, General.”

“That’s damned well for the General to decide.”

“You’ve got my report all doctored up to conform with policy and high-sounding ideals, but there were just too many things I was forced to write that rubbed against my grain.”

He even sounds like me, Hansen thought. How many times have I justified my existence as a desk jockey? How many nights have I gone to sleep making myself believe that I was in the most important service I could render? How many lies have I told myself after my ass has been burned?

Just today, Hansen thought ... just today.

There had been another frustrating experience at Supreme Headquarters as Hansen pleaded with American political commanders to listen to British advice. The invasion of Europe was at hand. Hansen begged them to plan battle tactics ahead within a framework of post-war political settlement. But all those mummies could think of was how to crush the enemy, how many rolls of toilet paper to land in France, how quickly they could all get home and forget the whole ugly mess.

A. J. Hansen had kept an almost singular watch on the Russians for years. He watched the Russians snatch up eastern Europe without protest, and watched Russia spread its tentacles into American and British spheres in Greece and Italy and into the French Underground. Hansen knew his Russians from firsthand dealings. But his arguments hit a dead end.

And now, there stood before him a young man unable to reconcile himself to eating similar crow.

“It takes a rare kind of man to serve his country without the benefit of pyrotechnics or reward and a different kind of courage to keep your mouth shut and go on working and believing when you are positive those around you are wrong. We don’t have enough men of this kind of dedication, Sean ...”

“That’s only part of it, sir. I’ve tried to stick because I know what you’re up against.”

“Then what is it, man?”

“Maybe I long to have a piece of this war like my brother has. I have wished many times I could be as devout as you. But, this work here has never given me that sort of fulfillment.”

“And maybe you’re looking for an easy way to end it with that woman. Sure ... get yourself transferred. Let the Army settle the affair for you.”

“That might be part of it too.”

Hansen stood and turned his back to Sean, stared through the window from his third-floor office down into the vast courtyard of Queen Mother’s Gate. “The General requests,” he said, “that the Captain remain in this command.”

Hansen nearly choked on his humiliation. He could go no further now. He could not put into words the needing of Sean’s keen mind, the respect of foolhardy pride, or put into words admiration for the kind of loyalty Sean had given him. Nor could he get into that part of it about having three daughters and no sons. From the first bombastic clash almost two years ago there had been that strange sort of devotion that men find for each other in times of war.

“I’ll give you your piece of this war,” Hansen said. “It will mean staying here at Queen Mother’s Gate, losing more arguments to stupid bastards, eating crow. It will mean that seeing or not seeing that woman remains within your resolve.”

Sean did not answer.

“This mission will set up a Pilot G-5 Team to study a German city. This city will be learned so that every street, every citizen, every function is known. We will build a scale model in one of the conference rooms ... fly aerial recon flights over it, know more about it than we have ever known about any piece of territory in Germany. This pilot team will have to have an answer for any possible question ... sewage ... Nazis ... displaced persons ... whorehouses. This is the textbook town from which we will gain insight to learn how to govern Germany. When the invasion comes the pilot team will move into Germany and continue on from theory to actual practice. We will test new laws, ideas there first ...”

The pilot team for Germany! This was more than the piece of the war he had reckoned on. Sean knew that on an impulse General Hansen had taken another gamble with him. Such a command should go to someone with solid experience in government ... someone not so stubborn.

“I could let you down very badly, sir.”