Mila 18 - Leon Uris

He calculated his moves. I’ll have to hit them very fast. Unfortunately my grenade will ruin their machine gun. I must throw at the fat one and go for the three on the right with my machine pistol. Remember, Andrei ... first I go for their pistols and the privates with the rifles. Then I yank off their ammunition belts, then their water. One, two, three, four; pistols, rifles, ammo, water. He looked back over his shoulder to the air-raid shelter. A twenty-five-yard dash back. Won’t have more than a half minute to do the job. Okay ... ready ...

He pulled the pin from the grenade, steadied the machine pistol, and counted ... one ... two ... three ... and lobbed the pineapple down on the fat soldier on the left.

Startled shrieks! A flash! Men held ripped faces!

Andrei counted ... one ... two ... three ... four ... while the bits of the grenade spent their wrath, and he leaped.

Straight down, fifteen feet, into the writhing Germans. Gaby spit a blue flame at the three soldiers on the right side of the machine gun, and they were still. The gun jammed before he could turn it on the other three.

One lay groaning under the gun, and a second leaped wounded into Mila Street, screaming, “Jews! Jews! Help! Help!”

The last soldier was knocked against the wall. He crawled to his feet. Andrei pulled the trigger of his weapon. It was jammed. He hit it with his fist, but it was stuck tight. The soldier jerked his pistol out of his holster. Andrei flung his weapon at the helmetless redheaded enemy, and the barrel cracked against his skull and caused him to fire wild. Andrei’s fist smashed the German’s mouth and shattered his jaw. A kick in the groin, and he sank to his knees, and Andrei brought the flat of his hand on the German’s neck and it broke with a loud pop.

He was dead.

The wounded soldier crawled for a pistol. Andrei’s boot smashed into his jaw and he too was still. Half a minute gone. Hurry! Pistols, rifles, ammo, water ... Where’s that goddamned rifle? Can’t find it.

The sounds of boots converging from both ends of Mila Street. Andrei tried to turn the machine gun on them, but the grenade had wrecked it.

He leaped out of the wrecked emplacement and scampered into the air-raid shelter and into the secret entrance to Mila 18.

“Where in the hell have you been?” Simon Eden greeted him with relief and anger.

Andrei shrugged, “It’s slow moving up there.”

Then Simon saw the guns and belts and water canteens draped over Andrei. “What happened?”

“Nothing much. Just routine.” Andrei treated himself to a couple of swallows of water, took enough ammunition to fill three clips, and turned the rest over to Simon, grumbling that he wished he could find some oil to lubricate the Schmeisser.

After seeing Deborah to tell her Rachael was all right, he saw Alex to report that Wolf was fine, then went upstairs with Simon to a small closetlike room which they felt was safe during the night hours, and there they rehashed their diminishing position. Over three hundred Fighters remained, but the circle of bunkers was shrinking. There was enough food and water to hold out for another five or six days. Ammo? One sharp encounter and they would be depleted. What to do when the ammo was gone? Dig deeper and hide? Suicide? No thought of surrender. Attempt escape or fight bare-handed.

“Maybe Moritz Katz will come in with ammunition,” Simon said, hoping beyond hope.

Andrei yawned. “Moritz will do it if anyone can.”

“If he brings in a couple hundred rounds, I want you to make a raid on the Przebieg Gate. There’s a field kitchen and some loose arms supplying the troops in Muranowski Place.”

Andrei stretched out on the floor. “Przebieg Gate ... good idea. Holy Mother, I’ve got to get some sleep. Tomorrow you have to clip my beard. I’m a mess. Wake me up at daybreak.”

It seemed to Andrei that he had no more than closed his eyes when he felt a sharp slap across the soles of his boots. He and his machine pistol awoke at the same instant. Simon was over him. His finger slid off the trigger. “What ... hell ... Simon ... it isn’t daybreak yet.”

Then he rubbed the thick cakes of sleep out of his eyes and saw Alexander Brandel next to Simon. Andrei propped up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“Moritz and two of the smugglers got captured very close to the Kupiecka entrance to the bunker. They were taken away alive.”

Andrei was fully awake in a second. “We’d better start moving the Fighters to some of Tolek’s bunkers.”

“Can’t,” Simon answered. “Mila Street is crawling with Germans. Movement is impossible. We’ve been lying frozen all night. I’m afraid hysteria is going to break out down there any minute.”

“De Monti,” Andrei said.

“That’s right,” Alex answered. “We’ve got to get Chris moved immediately.”

“Have you heard anything from the Aryan side? Any word from Gabriela?”

“No, but we can’t wait. The Germans are all but breathing on Mila 18. I want you to take Chris over to Wolf’s bunker. We’ll try to reach the Aryan side to set up an emergency hiding place for him.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost five o’clock.”

“It’s going to be a tricky business getting him over there in daylight.”

“I think we’re out of extra chances, Andrei.”

Andrei nodded.

“Get him over there and get back here.”

Andrei was already on his feet.

Chris and Deborah stood in the tunnel exit through the Auschwitz room which led to Nalewki Street. Farther down the tunnel Andrei probed about to make certain there were no Germans near the entrance. Chris tucked his pistol into his belt and flicked the flashlight a couple of times and knelt and tightened the rags wrapped around his feet which would assure greater silence in their movements. And then there was nothing left to check and he was forced to search for Deborah’s face in the half darkness.

“It’s so terribly, terribly strange”—his voice trembled—“how you wait for a moment and dread it. You dread it every living moment of the day and night. Now it is here. Somehow I’m almost glad—it’s almost better to bear the agony than live with the tension.”

“I’ve always known,” Deborah said, her fingers feeling for his face and tracing the contours of his lips and chin. “I’ve known you’d be able to do it, Chris.”

“Oh God, Deborah ... help me ... help me ...”

“I’ve always known you’d be able to make the right decision. Chris ... you must ...”

Then all she could hear were deep futile sighs. “My anger against them is nearly as great as my love for you. All day and all night I’ve memorized the places where the journals are buried. I’ll be tormented until I can unearth them and hold them up for the world to see. I’ll never rest, Deborah ... it’s like a brand seared on my soul.”

They felt a closeness of each other and were softly holding each other.

“Thanks for everything,” Chris said.

“Thanks for ... life,” she whispered.

They could hear the shuffle of Andrei’s rag-covered boots coming toward them and they seized each other desperately. Andrei cleared his throat.

Deborah gasped and spun out of Chris’s arms and bit her hand hard. Chris grabbed her from behind and she sagged and writhed to keep from breaking down.

“We have to go,” Andrei said sternly.

Chris still held her. “Go,” she cried, “please go!”

“Christ!” Chris wailed.

“We have to go,” Andrei repeated. He took Chris’s arms from Deborah and she plunged out of the tunnel into the Auschwitz room of the bunker. Chris started after her, but Andrei grabbed him and his hold was like a vise.

“Steady, Chris.”

Chris collapsed and buried his head in Andrei’s chest “Steady ... steady,” Andrei said as he dragged the grieving man up toward the entrance.