Highlander - Donna Lettow [78]
He tore off more pieces. “Avram, here!” MacLeod called out. “Take these.” Avram appeared out of the smoke rapidly filling the malina where the remnants of his unit had sought an hour’s rest and refuge. He took the cloths from MacLeod and began to pass them out to the others holed up in the bunker.
There were eleven of them in all in the tiny room that had been dug beneath a dry goods shop on Ostrowska Street. MacLeod and Avram; Landau, from Avram’s unit, whose arm had been broken not an hour before by a wall that collapsed from a German shell; Rubenstein, another ZOB fighter from the unit; Miriam, who had been forced to seek refuge with their unit after a German squadron had blocked off access to her own while she was couriering messages from Gutman; and six noncombatants—Singer the shop owner, his wife and son, a nephew, a neighbor woman, and a small, silent boy the nephew had found wandering in the streets.
Miriam had known of the malina beneath Singer’s shop, and, when Avram realized they would need a safe place nearby to try to set Landau’s arm and to rest for an hour or two until nightfall, she’d led them there. Singer and his family had welcomed the fighters happily, offered them part of the little food they had remaining. In return, they begged for news from the outside. How went the battle?
The Germans’ most powerful weapon in the war for the Ghetto had not been their tanks or their automatic rifles or the almost constant shelling by the cannons they’d placed just outside the Wall. The most fearsome weapon in the German arsenal had turned out to be the flamethrower. Nearly two-thirds of the Ghetto was in flames or had already collapsed into smoldering ruin. Thousands had been flushed from hiding and captured or shot by the Germans as they tried to surrender. Thousands more had perished in their hidden underground bunkers, overcome by smoke and heat as the buildings above them were systematically burned to their foundations.
Somehow, Singer’s block had been spared thus far. It wasn’t until Avram had set Landau’s arm with an improvised splint, the other fighters had gratefully accepted a little water and some stale bread from Mrs. Singer, and MacLeod had signaled they’d best be moving on that they heard the rushing, the roaring of the beast above them. Thick smoke began pouring through the ventilator shafts. The shop was ablaze.
Rubenstein stumbled in from the narrow tunnel that led topside, choking on the dense air. Avram quickly tied a cloth around the man’s nose and mouth. Rubenstein shouted to be heard above the roar of the conflagration above. “Tunnel’s clear so far. No fire,” but he shook his head at Avram’s look of relief. “There’s a squad at the end of the street. Six or seven. They’ll pick us off as soon as we show our heads.” Avram looked at MacLeod, anguished, out of ideas.
MacLeod looked at the Singers, who looked to him with the last bit of hope they had in their hearts. The eyes of the poor little boy too traumatized to tell anyone his name, yet who’d somehow managed to hang on this long, seemed to bore right through him. MacLeod faced a decision he’d hoped he’d never have to make. Would it be more merciful for these innocent souls to die a quick death at the end of a Nazi rifle or a slower one here in the shelter they’d dug for their protection?
Suddenly, Miriam pushed forward. “I have an idea,” she shouted. She pulled the cloth mask from her face and dipped it in a cup with a little water still at the bottom. As quickly as she could, she used it to wash the soot and grime from her face, then pulled the scarf from her hair, shaking her hair out so it was full and loose. Then she handed her pistol to Mr. Singer.
MacLeod