Mila 18 - Leon Uris [258]
At the intersection they were in for trouble. It was a main cross street which ran parallel to the ruins of the Brushmaker’s and was filled with patrols and movement. It would be hell to get across the street without being seen.
Andrei crept along a few feet, signaled Chris to follow, crept another few feet, signaled Chris again.
They inched along for fifty yards. It took two hours.
Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump!
They lay flat as a company of soldiers passed. The hoots seemed to be only inches away from them.
A hundred feet north, the Germans had discovered a bunker of civilians. A little emaciated boy and two girls no more than six years old crawled out of a pile of bricks, holding their hands over their heads. They stood trembling under the guns and bayonets of the German soldiers, who were amused with their find. An officer ordered the children to hold their hands higher so he could properly photograph his “prisoners.”
Dogs were moved into the area along with sound detectors.
Freeze or go? Andrei did not like his present position. His only cover was out toward Nalewki Street. The Germans were fanning out and would be behind him. He nudged Chris and pointed to a shell hole a few yards away.
Andrei slid up to it cautiously. It was perfect. The bottom was covered with fallen timber, mud, and muck. He plunged down six feet headfirst and Chris made his move in a leap and dive atop him. They squirmed under the charred timbers to cover their bodies. And they lay.
An hour passed. The sounds of activity overhead never faded.
Grrrrrrr! Grrrrrrrr!
They heard a dog’s claws padding around, sniffing. Andrei opened an eye just a slit.
A dog crouched on the rim of the shell hole. He could see fangs. The animal sniffed and growled.
“What do you see, Schnitzel?” a soldier said.
“Jews down there, Schnitzel boy? I see nothing.”
The animal poked his nose through the boards and sniffed. Chris felt the dog’s wet nose against his face. The animal’s jaws opened and the teeth pressed close to Chris’s throat.
“Schnitzel! Up here, boy!”
“Up here I say!”
The dog backed slowly off the buried bodies. The soldier hooked his leash again and knelt and squinted into the shell hole. He called another soldier.
“Schnitzel smells Jews down there. Do you see anything?”
“No ... Wait. Is that a hand?”
“Where?”
“In the mud there.”
“Ah yes ... I see it now.”
“It looks like they are dead.”
“Well, let’s make certain. Stand back. I throw a grenade.”
... the grenade slowly rolled down the hole.
Andrei lifted his head, snatched the grenade in a lightning motion, and threw it back up.
Blam!
The dog yelped.
“Jews!”
“Move your ass, Chris! Move your ass!”
Chapter Twenty
THE GERMANS WERE IN Mila 18, directly over the bunker, smashing around to find the entrance.
In the dark catacomb the hidden could hear guttural orders being snapped, the clumping of boots, the crashing of axes. Simon Eden slipped from the cot to the floor. The cot creaked too much. It could send up a sound. He propped his back against the dirt wall, and his bleary black-ringed eyes went upward in his head. Alex sat against the wall opposite him, bent double with tension, exhaustion, and grief for his wife. The stunted, lily-pale boy Moses Brandel, who had spent most of his life in silence, was silent again.
For five hours the enemy prowled in Mila 18. In this endless agony the hidden tried to make their breathing soundless and their hearts stop, for surely the detectors would catch a sound of life. Alex raised his head long enough to look at his watch. It was three more hours till darkness.
Oh Lord ... what then? Even when darkness comes they would be locked in this, their tomb, their final coffin. Four hundred lungs gasped for the meager ration of air.
Four hundred of the damned—numbed, sweaty, half naked, half dead.
The sixty Fighters who remained still had enough anger in their hearts to spoil