Highlander - Donna Lettow [91]
“The sewers,” she repeated. “I got under the Wall through the sewers once. It’s really disgusting and deep in parts, but I’ve done it.”
MacLeod looked to Avram with renewed hope, only to see him shake his head. “We’ve tried. Even if you managed to find the tunnels under the Wall, you come out of one of those manholes on the Aryan side, they’ve got you. There’re informants on every corner, just waiting for some Jew to stick his head up. We’ve probably lost a hundred couriers in the sewers. Not an option.”
A thought came to MacLeod. “Who says we’d have to come up on the Aryan side? How far beyond the city do the sewers go?”
“No one knows. We’ve never been able to map them. You don’t know what it’s like down there, MacLeod. It’s a labyrinth. You could wander for days and come up to find you’re back in the Ghetto again. Or in front of Gestapo headquarters. If you don’t drown in shit higher than your head, first. I said no.”
MacLeod disagreed. “I like those odds better than what we’ve got up here. Look, I saw a compass back at Mendik’s. If we could keep to one heading, say north, we might eventually have to reach the end of the tunnel, right?”
Avram was unconvinced. “Maybe. If they don’t all starve to death first.”
“If we don’t do something, they’re going to starve anyway. So, when we reach the end of the tunnel, if we’re not out of Warsaw, we’re at least beyond the active patrols.”
Avram finally saw. “Right…” He began to piece it together. “And from there, you could get to the forest. You can hide ten people in the forest for a couple of days, no problem. We’ve done it before. They’re so intent on the Ghetto right now, they probably won’t even be looking out there.”
“And a couple of days is probably all I’d need to arrange some transport out of the Reich. I’ve still got some connections.”
Avram looked happier than he had since the Germans had entered the Ghetto three weeks earlier. “MacLeod, you are a genius!”
MacLeod shook his head, humble. “Don’t start passing out the Nobel prizes yet. We’ve got a long way to go.” He quickened the pace. “Let’s get back to the others.”
Rivka looked up at MacLeod with undisguised awe as they hurried down the alley. “I always knew you’d save us, Duncan.”
MacLeod looked helplessly at Avram, who shrugged and laughed in relief. “No pressure, MacLeod. No pressure at all.”
They stopped at Mendik’s malina only long enough to collect Rubenstein, Landau, and the Singer family, and to gather what they would need to attempt to escape the Ghetto. The compass, the lantern and oil, a dimming flashlight, all the food and water they could find, which sadly only amounted to a day’s worth of crumbs when split among a dozen people. They hurried to make ready before dawn, when the Nazi patrols would return in force.
In the predawn silence they slipped from the bunker beneath the ruins of the Bundist library in two groups. MacLeod led Landau, Moshe Singer, and his wife and son through the alleyways. Singer’s son, Jacob, no longer a child but not quite yet a man, shouldered the responsibility of caring for Zara, while his father and Landau covered MacLeod with their pistols as he took the point on their trek to Muranowska Square. At the last minute, Rivka, who had been assigned to Tzaddik’s party, declared she couldn’t leave Zara’s side, and traveled with MacLeod instead.
They passed through the streets like ghosts, unseen, unheard, and finally rendezvoused with Tzaddik’s party at the edge of the square, in the shadowed doorway of a long-closed bank. Muranowska Square marked the northernmost boundary of the Ghetto. Rubenstein and Singer’s nephew, Tosia Gross, were in the square, Rubenstein already down the manhole into the sewers to make sure it was unguarded. Tosia stood at the mouth of the hole, exposed, unprotected, waiting for Rubenstein’s signal. He looked around nervously, not comforted by the fact Tzaddik’s rifle covered him from the shadowed doorway.
Suddenly, Tosia dropped to his knees by the manhole, listening intently. Then he waved frantically to Avram and