Mila 18 - Leon Uris [210]
“I am positive there is a bunker under Mila 18, and if it is what we think, it will be a large one.”
“It would be a perfect location for a command post,” Simon said. “Particularly since the Germans have located and wrecked Mila 19, they’d never suspect we’d be in another location so close.”
“But,” Andrei said realistically, “how the hell do you find the entrance? Moritz Katz is the shrewdest smuggler in the ghetto.”
“Can we get a message to him?” Alex suggested.
“No one has seen him for weeks, since his gang was caught at the Gensia Gate and taken to the Umschlagplatz.”
They mused and pondered. The idea of a large, ready-made command post was terribly appealing.
“Well. What’s to lose if we cut a hole through the children’s room and make another on a direct line across the Kanal? If we’re lucky we might hit the bunker.”
“You know how tricky sound is in the sewers. The children may have been hearing an echo coming from a hundred meters away.”
“What the hell?” Andrei said. “Let’s cut through and look around. Nothing to lose.”
Simon shrugged a dubious okay. No one had a better suggestion.
“I think I’d better go in alone,” Andrei said. “If Moritz is still down there he will panic if he sees an army coming after him.”
Later that day Andrei entered the shambled Orphans and Self-Help building at Mila 19. He went to the converted water closet where the false lavatory once covered the secret entrance to their underground rooms. The lavatory was smashed, but the pipe leading to the cellar was still intact.
Andrei tucked a flashlight and short-handled pick and sledge hammer into his belt, strapped the Schmeisser “Gaby” on his back, and slid down the pipe. He flicked on the light. The beam probed over mounds of wreckage. The retaining walls and overhead crossbeams had been knocked loose, caving in the main tunnel in many places. Andrei inched forward, digging away the blockage with his hands.
He came to the room which had belonged to the children. It was a shambles. The layers of bunks had been wrecked with axes and the books torn to shreds and the few toys smashed. Andrei moved along a ten-foot wall which lay against the Kanal pipe. Seepings oozed through.
He could hear the flow of sewage. He calculated in order to line up Mila 18.
Any decision would most likely be wrong. “Well, I’ve got to start someplace.”
He fixed the flashlight on a single spot, sank his pick into the dirt wall, and hacked away until it crumpled to the outer shell of the pipe.
Andrei smoothed a place big enough for him to carve out a manhole and bashed at the concrete with a sledge until it cracked under the beating. Once through the outer layer, he jarred loose enough bricks from the inner lining of the pipe so that he could fit through.
He wiped the sweat from his eyes and refixed the tools in his belt, cursing that he was on a wild-goose chase, then knelt at the hole and looked into the Kanal with his light. It was not too bad. The tide on the Vistula River was low, as he had calculated, so the sewage was only waist-high.
Andrei squeezed through the hole into the sewer. His feet skidded in the slime. He pulled the strap of his weapon several notches tighter so it would ride higher on his back and not get wet. In both directions dim streaks filtered through the manholes, sending an eerie bluish light glistening on the bricks.
He waded to the middle and looked behind him so he would remain in a line with the children’s room. On the opposite side of the sewer he thrust his ear against the brick, hoping for sound. There was none.
His flashlight moved first in one direction for several yards, then another.
Andrei splashed down a dozen yards. A cluster of bricks were not laid in the same pattern as the rest, as though they had been knocked loose and replaced. Could it be! He felt with his fingers. The bricks were definitely not cemented in. There was room for a man to fit through if they were removed. Was there a bunker on the other side? Were the children hearing smugglers coming in and out