Mila 18 - Leon Uris [201]
“Simon!” Andrei dared whisper. “Simon!”
“Andrei!”
“Chris!”
“He is unconscious,” Simon said. “He passes out and comes to, passes out and comes to.”
“Wolf!”
Andrei was answered by a feeble groan. Andrei kicked against Wolf’s shoulder. “Wolf!”
The return was an incoherent babbling.
“Must be night. They’re using searchlights.”
“That’s the way I figured it,” Simon said.
Andrei looked through the boards again, squinting to see through the glare. There was still a concentration of SS at Mila 19. He groped around for his weapon and toyed with the idea of breaking out of the entombment and firing at the searchlights. No, he’d be shot off the roof in seconds.
“I guess we’re no worse off than those poor bastards in the bunker,” Andrei said. “At least they’re not looking for us.”
“Nothing to do but wait,” Simon said.
“Yeah ...”
And then quiet once more as they heard the steps of men patrolling the roof over them, complaining about their bad fortune of nighttime duty.
Nothing to do but wait. Andrei slumped back, hoping for a misty dream to take him where there were plates piled with food.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“I know your name, Miss Rak. Like so many, I am an admirer of the work of your late father, so my name is unimportant. You can just snap your fingers and say, ‘Hey you,’ and I’ll know you are addressing me.”
“You do dance, Lieutenant?”
“As a matter of fact, I am an excellent dancer, but frankly, I do it only as an accommodation.”
Gaby! Gaby! I am afraid! Gaby! I am so afraid!
Whistles!
Andrei forced his eyelids apart. I must be dead, he told himself. I am nowhere. In the sky. In hell. I am dead. There was no movement in his body. No feeling. No pain.
But then the cold sent a chill through him and his stomach knotted with hunger.
Like hell I’m dead! He tried to move his arms. Numb. Neck and shoulders without feeling from the pressure of the beams. First my fingers ... just my fingers first. He drew them up like claws, back, forth, back, forth; then he shook his wrists. His fingers scratched against his leg and sides, over and over to make some feeling return. His body tingled as he tore at it harder and harder. He pinched himself again and again and slapped his face. Inch by inch circulation flowed.
“Simon!” he croaked.
“Andrei!”
“The others?”
“Out cold. Neither of them has spoken for two hours. I've been counting seconds. It must be day again.”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you see down on the street?”
His head felt like a lead ball. He pushed it to the crack. The searchlights were gone. It was misty out. Germans were still all over the street.
“They’re still down there.”
“I think they’ve left the roof. I heard them ordered down. No sounds for over fifteen minutes.”
“Think it may be a trick?”
“We’ve got to take a chance,” Simon said. “We can’t hold out here another day.”
Andrei rolled over on his back. Sharp needles of pain greeted his effort to raise his arms over his head. He fished around for the key tile and wiggled it. He tugged desperately. It slid away, letting in a show of light, nearly blinding him. Andrei pulled the other five tiles loose. He drew himself up on all fours, his knees resting on a pair of beams, and shoved the upper part of his body through the hole.
“Clear! Simon, it’s clear!”
He pulled himself outside to the roof and crouched against the chimney, reaching in until he found Wolf’s head. Straining with every sinew, he slid Wolf over the rafters until his body appeared beneath the opening. Next Chris was pushed by Simon until Andrei could hook onto him.
Simon jammed past the two unconscious, prostrate bodies. Simon and Andrei looked at each other. Their faces were swollen and misshapen by bug bites, their clothing ripped to shreds. Blood and bruises were everywhere, and layers of filth hid their features. They stared like strangers.
“Do you look like hell,” Andrei said.
“You’re no lily of the valley, Androfski.” Simon looked at his watch and held it against his ear. “Thirty hours we’ve been in there.”
Andrei looked