Mila 18 - Leon Uris [163]
“Summary,” Andrei said. “It is our educated guess this train is not traveling more than seventy or eighty kilometers beyond Warsaw.”
Tolek rubbed his jaw, drew a mental picture of Warsaw’s environs. “There is no labor camp or combination of them inside this radius which can continue to take six thousand new people every day.”
“Exactly.”
“As you know,” Simon continued, “my runner system was almost shattered on Black Friday. I lost almost all my people on the Aryan side.”
Andrei handed Wolf and Tolek packets of money. “There’s a guard playing at the Tlomatskie Gate. Go out in fifteen-minute intervals at six o’clock and meet at Gabriela’s flat. She will have a railroad maintenance engineer there. He will place you in observation positions along the rail line.”
When they had gone Simon Eden asked Andrei about new arms. It was the same story. No arms. No money. No help from Roman or the Home Army. Evasions. Frustration. They had only five hundred soldiers left after Black Friday.
Andrei looked at his watch and said it was time for him to leave too.
“Must you go to Lublin?” Simon asked.
“Yes.”
“If there was a way to command you not to go ...”
“No, Simon.”
“Are you certain you can get into this camp?”
“I don’t know for certain. Ana tracked down my old company sergeant. A good soldier, that Styka. I have faith in him. He has been working on it for two weeks, Ana brought the message that he can get me in.”
“Andrei, if we lose you ...”
“What’s to lose, Simon?”
Simon flopped his big hands to his sides. “What’s to lose? I’ve been in a fog for over two years. I try to tell myself all this is untrue. It is not happening. I’m numb, but we survive on instinct.”
Andrei slapped his back.
“Well,” Simon said, “wishing you luck inside Majdanek is rather ludicrous these days. Does Gabriela know?”
“No. I promised her not to keep secrets, but I cannot bring myself to talk about this trip to Lublin. But the minute I come through the door tonight, she will no longer be fooled.”
“I envy you, Andrei, having that kind of love. Andrei, for God’s sake, get back here safely. I can’t keep going without you.”
“See you around, Simon.”
Chapter Seven
ANDREI RUBBED HIS EYES wearily and brought them to focus beyond the unwashed window. The train poked past a hamlet of thatched shanties surrounded by the rye fields of the flat Lublin Uplands. It was a long, slow trip. Late afternoon before he would reach Lublin. Good old Styka. He had come through.
Simon’s words ran through his mind: “I’ve been in a fog ... I’m numb, but we survive on instinct.” On those nights before a dangerous assignment Gabriela, too, was instinctive. She had held him all night with her eyes wide open and without a word.
Andrei allowed himself the reward of a sigh and an inner rebellion of his nerves over another close call. There had been an unexpected siding of the train and an inspection. Life and death hinged on an exchange of glances with one of the Polish police, who returned later for his bribe.
Freedom and capture had hung by a thread so many times, he could not count them any more. Every day fate or luck or a proper instinctive move was the difference between life and death. Each night at Mila 19 the Bathyrans related a series of stories of the day’s close brushes and miraculous escapes.
Andrei took a canteen from his knapsack and sipped a swallow of water and bit off a small hunk of the staling bread. It was painful to put food into his stomach, which, shrunken by the lack of food, rebelled at the sudden stretching.
The train passed a hamlet. The tracks split a large field in half where men and oxen strained against plow leashes and women bent double in stoop labor. Burly leathered men and wrinkled women