Mila 18 - Leon Uris [257]
It seemed to Andrei that he had no more than closed his eyes when he felt a sharp slap across the soles of his boots. He and his machine pistol awoke at the same instant. Simon was over him. His finger slid off the trigger. “What ... hell ... Simon ... it isn’t daybreak yet.”
Then he rubbed the thick cakes of sleep out of his eyes and saw Alexander Brandel next to Simon. Andrei propped up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“Moritz and two of the smugglers got captured very close to the Kupiecka entrance to the bunker. They were taken away alive.”
Andrei was fully awake in a second. “We’d better start moving the Fighters to some of Tolek’s bunkers.”
“Can’t,” Simon answered. “Mila Street is crawling with Germans. Movement is impossible. We’ve been lying frozen all night. I’m afraid hysteria is going to break out down there any minute.”
“De Monti,” Andrei said.
“That’s right,” Alex answered. “We’ve got to get Chris moved immediately.”
“Have you heard anything from the Aryan side? Any word from Gabriela?”
“No, but we can’t wait. The Germans are all but breathing on Mila 18. I want you to take Chris over to Wolf’s bunker. We’ll try to reach the Aryan side to set up an emergency hiding place for him.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost five o’clock.”
“It’s going to be a tricky business getting him over there in daylight.”
“I think we’re out of extra chances, Andrei.”
Andrei nodded.
“Get him over there and get back here.”
Andrei was already on his feet.
Chris and Deborah stood in the tunnel exit through the Auschwitz room which led to Nalewki Street. Farther down the tunnel Andrei probed about to make certain there were no Germans near the entrance. Chris tucked his pistol into his belt and flicked the flashlight a couple of times and knelt and tightened the rags wrapped around his feet which would assure greater silence in their movements. And then there was nothing left to check and he was forced to search for Deborah’s face in the half darkness.
“It’s so terribly, terribly strange”—his voice trembled—“how you wait for a moment and dread it. You dread it every living moment of the day and night. Now it is here. Somehow I’m almost glad—it’s almost better to bear the agony than live with the tension.”
“I’ve always known,” Deborah said, her fingers feeling for his face and tracing the contours of his lips and chin. “I’ve known you’d be able to do it, Chris.”
“Oh God, Deborah ... help me ... help me ...”
“I’ve always known you’d be able to make the right decision. Chris ... you must ...”
Then all she could hear were deep futile sighs. “My anger against them is nearly as great as my love for you. All day and all night I’ve memorized the places where the journals are buried. I’ll be tormented until I can unearth them and hold them up for the world to see. I’ll never rest, Deborah ... it’s like a brand seared on my soul.”
They felt a closeness of each other and were softly holding each other.
“Thanks for everything,” Chris said.
“Thanks for ... life,” she whispered.
They could hear the shuffle of Andrei’s rag-covered boots coming toward them and they seized each other desperately. Andrei cleared his throat.
Deborah gasped and spun out of Chris’s arms and bit her hand hard. Chris grabbed her from behind and she sagged and writhed to keep from breaking down.
“We have to go,” Andrei said sternly.
Chris still held her. “Go,” she cried, “please go!”
“Christ!” Chris wailed.
“We have to go,” Andrei repeated. He took Chris’s arms from Deborah and she plunged out of the tunnel into the Auschwitz room of the bunker. Chris started after her, but Andrei grabbed him and his hold was like a vise.
“Steady, Chris.”
Chris collapsed and buried his head in Andrei’s chest “Steady ... steady,” Andrei said as he dragged the grieving man up toward the entrance.
It was turning light outside. They poked their heads out of the drainage pipe in the Nalewki 39 courtyard and sprinted to cover. Around them, fires continued to sizzle. They could hear a rumble of trucks assembling in Muranowski Place.
Andrei gestured that they had