Armageddon by Leon Uris Read Free Book Online

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