Mila 18 - Leon Uris

Simon made the mistake of coming down feet first. Although he was in a better position to grab with his hands, he could not see his direction or the ice slicks and could conceivably miss the chimney, for Andrei was unable to shout up directions without drawing attention from the street. Midway down, Simon had to turn his body so that he would come headfirst.

Come on, Simon. Come on, for Christ sake, Andrei muttered to himself. Time drawled on. Come on, Simon. If they get on top of us, we’ll be clay pigeons.

Simon Eden reached the chimney, put his back against it, and dropped his head between his legs, close to tears of sheer fright.

Next Chris. Wolf crouched in a rear guard, watching the rooftops.

Chris was racked with pain, dragging the game leg, but he came down fast and without hesitation. Andrei dared a peek around the corner of the chimney to the street. Luck was with them so far.

“Simon, get down there. Crawl forward as far as you can go. Stay on the crossbeams. The flooring under it is rotted away. Chris, follow him in. Move up as close against him as you can so there’ll be room for all of us.”

Simon went headfirst into the hole. He slid his body over the beams. The joists formed a sharp angle at the beams, so a large man like Simon Eden was all but wedged in a vise. He pushed forward with the greatest effort until he came to a dead end.

Chris followed him, struggling with the painful leg.

Andrei looked up the roof to Wolf and waved for him to begin his descent. Wolf hated the roofs. They made him dizzy. He had moved a few yards when all he could see was the edge below him and all he could think of was his body hurtling down a sheer plunge of five stories to the pavement. He closed his eyes. Everything began to spin. He froze on the spot Andrei and the chimney seemed miles away.

Andrei snarled. He wanted to shout up to Wolf, curse him, prod him, order him. Time was running out. Should he crawl up after Wolf? No, that would certainly attract attention from the street. But if he allowed Wolf to stay where he was, Germans would be above him at any second.

“Come on, lad,” Andrei prayed. “Come on. Move, boy, move.”

The sweat in Wolf’s eyes turned icy. He lifted his head. “Got to ... got to ... got to ...” He crawled an inch ... another ... “Got to ... got to ... got to ...” Closer, closer, closer. Andrei scampered up, snatched his hand, and dragged him down the last six feet. Wolf was shaking.

“Get down there,” Andrei said, hurling him headfirst into the hideaway.

Andrei went into the roof last. He was greeted by an accumulation of sixty-five years of filth and cobwebs. He stretched his body downward until he was stopped by Wolf’s feet, then eased his upper half down. He lay flush against the chimney. Andrei lifted the tiles from his prone position and slipped them back into place. When the last tile was fitted, the eaves were plunged into darkness.

The four men were locked in a lightless coffin. They lay inside a triangle formed by beams, rafters, and the wall. Each man lay on three two-inch boards which supported his body at his calves, thighs, back, and shoulders. Beneath the beams was a rotted floor, part of which extended into the eaves, directly over the street.

The face of one man touched the feet of another end to end. Their movement was limited to a few inches. They could turn over from back to stomach only with a slow effort.

“Everybody all right?” Andrei whispered.

They answered in the affirmative.

“How’s the leg, Chris?”

“Going up like a balloon.”

“Painful?”

“Let me suffer in peace.”

A bug bit Wolf under the eye. “How long did you stay here, Andrei?”

“Once for six hours.”

“Holy Mother.”

“Of course I didn’t have such nice company. Don’t lie on the sub-floor. It’s rotted. Pieces may fall down on the street. And reach up and rub your partner’s feet so his blood will circulate.”

Andrei tucked the Schmeisser firmly into the apex of the joist and beam and saw a slit of light at the extreme end of the eaves. By the most difficult of straining and contortion, he could lift his head and put his eye to it.

“By God. Some boards are split. I can see the pavement.” He worked the blade of a pocketknife back and forth between the boards, separating them a half inch. “I can see Mila 19.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s swarming with Germans. They must be looking for the bunker.”

Wolf and Simon felt Chris writhe as spears of pain lashed up and down his leg. Chris’s leg twitched against Wolf’s face. Simon handed Chris a handkerchief. “Bite on this,” he said.

Luminous eyes peered at the four strangers who had invaded their home. A scraping of claws.

“Rats!”

“Get out of here, you bastards!”

“Oh God, I hate rats,” Wolf moaned.

“You’ll find them quite friendly in a few hours,” Andrei said. “It’s the bats at night that get you.”

Wolf’s skin crawled as he felt the animal dash over his chest and brush up against his face. “Oh God damn it,” he cried, “I hate rats.”

They became silent. The sound of guttural orders bounced off the deserted houses in the street below and echoed up to them. They had found a Jew on Mila Street and were torturing him for the location of the Mila 19 bunker.

Cries of agony below settled them down to adjust to their own discomfort. And then the automatic silence when one breathes only with controlled quiet, for there was movement on the roof above them.

“No Jews down this way, Sergeant!”

“You can never tell where the vermin hide. Post a guard here and one at the opposite end of the roofs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Andrei calculated that the guards were at that point where the roof began its pitch, some fifteen yards away. From their speech, they were Ukrainians.

The beams cut into their bodies, but no one dared change his position. The slightest sound now could give them away.

They muted themselves into a deeper stillness at the sound of noises in the attic under them. A smashing of glass. The sound of hatchets and sledge hammers bursting the walls and doors. The building was undergoing a dismantling for secret hiding places.

Each of them touched his weapon at the same instant for a comfort which did not really exist.

Curses penetrated their tomb from the frustrated, grunting hunters.

Screaming whistles in the street. Another Jew had been located, cringing in a courtyard sewer.

More men were on the roof above them.

Chris’s body convulsed in pain. His eyes rolled back in his head. He clamped his teeth into the cloth in his mouth. Simon was trying to decide whether or not to knock Chris unconscious with the pistol barrel, but at that moment Chris straightened out and was still.

Chris saw his father kneeling at the altar next to the library in their villa outside Rome. So funny to see his father praying. Poppa was a hypocrite! He drank, he gambled, he was a libertine ... he was a Fascist. But Poppa prayed. Poppa told him to learn to pray. I’ve wanted to pray but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t without damning myself.

Oh Mary, Mother of God! Help me! I’m going to scream! My leg! Jesus! Jesus! Help me!

“Have your men smash holes in the roof. Jews hide in the roofs!”

They could feel the vibration of the sledge hammers as they splintered the tiles. The ancient beams rattled under the pounding and shot needles of fear through their bodies. Wolf wept softly to himself. Each new blow brought the enemy closer and closer to the edge of the roof.

All Chris could see was his father’s chapel.

Andrei had no thoughts but of that moment when the hammer would burst through and reveal him. He would fire the gun into their rotten faces.