Mila 18 - Leon Uris [244]
Ten o’clock in the morning.
“What’s holding them up?” Wolf wondered.
“Confusion. They’re making their plans outside this time,” Andrei said. “Germans can’t improvise too well. They must fix their plans.”
Wolf patted the handle of the plunger. “We’ll unfix them.”
“A waste. They’ll never come in through the main gate.”
“We’ll see.”
At eleven o’clock runners reached them with the word that the Germans had concentrated a large force in the Krasinski Gardens. Eden had anticipated properly. The Germans were out to snip off the northeastern corner of the ghetto containing the Brushmaker’s complex.
By eleven-fifteen runners reported movements outside the wall along Bonifraterska Street and opposite Muranowska Street. A ring of soldiers on the entire sector.
“Hello, Jerusalem. This is Haifa. Troop concentration to cut off Brushmaker’s. They’ll be entering at any moment.”
“This is Jerusalem. I have two companies ready to move at their backs if you need them.”
“Hold them.”
The Germans entered the ghetto in three places: the two Swientojerska gates opposite the gardens and at the Przebieg Gate touching Muranowski Place.
They strung out quickly on Nalewki Street from the gardens for two full blocks to Muranowski Place. The Brushmaker’s compound was completely cut off. Its eastern boundary was the ghetto wall along Bonifraterska Street.
“They’ve a positive talent for walking into traps,” Andrei said. The Revisionists were also on top and behind the Germans. Andrei dispatched a runner to Ben Horin to hold fire.
Now deployed, the Germans moved toward the main gate. A company down Gensia Street, a company up Walowa set to converge.
Opposite the main gate, the Germans took cover near the buildings. A loudspeaker unit was set up.
“Juden ’raus! Jews come out!”
Five minutes passed. There was no movement from inside the factory. Fixed bayonets, battle ready, the Germans edged for the main gate.
“See?” Andrei snorted. “I told you they wouldn’t march in.”
“Wait”
With caution a squad poked inside the gate. A courtyard of forty meters of open space awaited them before they could reach the main building. They edged into the courtyard unmolested, but squarely in the sights of the barricaded fighters inside.
A second squad of Germans followed into the courtyard. They fired blindly into the main building. Glass shattered, brick chipped away, bullets echoed. No fire was returned. They fired again and again. No return.
A third squad entered and set up a machine gun pointing at the main building, and the other two deployed to give cover to the main German force.
“I’ll be goddamned!” Andrei said as he watched a German battalion mass to march in.
The protection squads gave an all-clear signal.
Clump! Clump Clump! Clump!
Trawniki SS unsheathed their daggers and marched at the gate. The first line passed over the kasha bowl ... the second ... the third.
Andrei licked his lips and looked at the ignition plunger. Wolf’s hands toyed with it.
“Now ... now,” Andrei said.
“Just a few, few more,” Wolf said. “Just ... a ... few ...” His hand thrust the plunger down.
Warsaw bounced from the impact.
Blood and sinew and muscle and shrieks soared skyward. Nuts and bolts erupted like an angry volcano. Disintegrated bits of a hundred Germans floated back to earth. The near living, the half living whimpered with shock, and the neatly deployed living were terrified.
The three German squads in the courtyard were met with a barrage from the factory, but the land mine had already thrown them into disarray.
From the rooftops Samson Ben Horin’s Revisionists—Chayal, Jabotinski, and Trumpeldor—poured a murderous fire at the backs of the Germans stretched out along Nalewki Street.
It was a rout!
Fighters from Andrei’s and Wolf’s commands tore