Mila 18 - Leon Uris [197]
“God damn it, Andrei. Do you think I like this decision?”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Because ... because I believed with all my soul that we would gather an angry army of ten thousand soldiers. We can’t last more than two or three days. There will be no help from the Aryan side. Nothing ... nothing.”
He unfurled a large blueprint and flattened it on the table. “Look,” Simon continued, “a city engineer’s map of the sewer system under Warsaw. We move our companies into bunkers which can connect to the sewers. I have sent Rodel over the wall to buy trucks and get drivers. The Communists will set up escape routes and hiding places in the forests. We go under the wall a group at a time and move through the sewers, and we will come up five or six miles beyond the ghetto in prearranged locations.”
Andrei snatched the blueprint off the table and crumpled it.
“Do we destroy ourselves with a futile three-day gesture?” Simon screamed. “Or is it our duty—yes, our duty—to get a handful of survivors out? If we stay, we die—all of us. At least this other way a few may get through to tell the story.”
“He’s right, Andrei,” Chris said, stepping between them. “This story must be told.”
Andrei looked slowly to Wolf Brandel.
“I don’t know,” Wolf pleaded.
Andrei sat down slowly and contained his temper. “What story will they tell, Simon Eden? Will they unearth the Brandel journals and read about how five hundred thousand sheep walked silently, without protest, to their deaths and the high-sounding idealists who stood for honor crawled out on their hands and knees through crap-filled sewers to tell the world our heritage? What story, Simon? What story? Have you no shame? Have you no anger to avenge dead children? Simon! One week! Let us stand and fight like men for one week!”
“We cannot hold a week. It is impossible.”
“Betar! Masada! Jerusalem! We must show them Jews can still fight, Simon!”
“It is our duty to try to survive,” Simon said.
Andrei turned to Wolf. “Order the Bathyrans back to Mila 19. We will not be a partner to this final debasement of our people.”
“Don’t pull your people out of the command,” Simon pleaded.
“Do you hear me, Wolf? I have given you an order!”
Wolf looked again from one to the other in utter confusion.
Ring! Ring! Ring! screamed the alarm bell in long dashes. Ring! Ring! Ring!
Wolf stole a glance at the street “It’s swarming with SS.”
The four men quickly checked their weapons and bolted out to the ladder to the roof. Andrei was the last one through. He closed the trap door behind him and rubbed his arms in the sudden burst of January cold.
“Down through Mila 5,” Andrei said. “Be careful not to stir up those feathers and give our position away.”
They crouched low and stepped on the feathers as though they were walking on eggs. Chris’s foot hit a hidden ice slick and he crashed down, unable to contain a pain-racked scream.
“My knee!” he cried, torn with pain.
“What is it?”
“Trick basketball knee. Fine time to jump out.”
“Look over the side,” Andrei said. Wolf crawled off with Simon.
Chris grimaced as he tried to slip the loose cartilage back into place. It cracked as it found the slot Chris turned white-lipped.
“Can you move?”
“Wrap it up in something so it won’t jump out again,” he grunted.
Andrei whipped off his leather jacket then tore the sleeve from his shirt and with it deftly locked Chris’s kneecap into place.
At the edge of the roof Wolf and Simon peered down on a street swarming with Germans. The kettle was set up all the way from Nalewki to Zamenhof streets with the main force concentrating on the Orphans and Self-Help headquarters at Mila 19. They slipped back to Andrei.
“We’re boxed in,” Simon said.
“Can we make a break for your headquarters?”
“No,” Simon answered. “We’d have to cross an open courtyard at Mila 5. We’d never make it.”
“Can’t stay here,” Wolf said. “They’ll be all over the roof in minutes.”
“I have a hiding place up here,” Andrei said. “I think it will hold all four of us.”
Chris struggled to his feet. Simon and Wolf draped an arm