A new standing order: all Fighters were to scour for food and water during the night in bunkers which the Germans had discovered during the day.
In his favor was his continued night control of the ghetto, plus the fact that the Germans gave up using tanks and armored cars. And Andrei Androfski, his workhorse, his nonpareil warrior. The sight of Andrei nearby never failed to calm him.
Simon worked throughout each night, having developed a remarkable facility to sleep in short snatches. Rodel came to Mila 18, to the first floor, where Simon stayed during the night to escape the heat of the bunker.
Rodel reported that all his Fighters were moved and deployed in the central area.
“Good. Get some sleep,” Simon said. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something else. I hear rumors that Samson Ben Horin is taking the Revisionists out of the ghetto.”
“That’s right,” Simon answered. “I’m going to see him now.”
“Take me with you.”
“Why? You and Ben Horin haven’t passed a civil word to each other for five years.”
“They’ve no right to leave!” Rodel roared.
This was what Simon had expected of the hotheaded Communist. No matter how many times a man must come to a decision, there is no immunity to the shock of a new decision. This was the most difficult he had faced the entire week.
“The Revisionists are not obligated to our command,” Simon answered softly.
“But they do have a duty.”
“What is their duty, Rodel? Glorious death? They’ve fought well. We’ve all done what we set out to do. We can no longer protect civilians—you know that.”
“But each day we can hold out, our monument grows higher. With the Revisionists here we can buy time. A day ... two ...”
Simon did not know how to answer. “I’ve thought about this moment long and hard. There is a line which we cross when it is no longer our duty to die but to live. Each man has his line set in a different place. I cannot command what a man must choose for himself.”
“All right then, but you don’t have to help them by approval. Simon, think! You’re setting a dangerous precedent. Others may decide to go.”
“Yes ... I know ...”
The rendezvous with Samson Ben Horin was held at Nalewki 37 in a lantern-lit room. It would be daylight in two hours. Samson’s neatly trimmed beard was in straggly disarray, and his hollow features made his weariness more pronounced. “Did you bring me a map of the sewers?” Simon spread it on the table. “Do you still plan to try it before dawn?”
“Yes. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to reach the Vistula. They’ll have a barge waiting for us.”
“I don’t want to interfere, but you’re taking your people right under the heart of Warsaw by staying in the main line. It’s dangerous. I seriously suggest that you consider using smaller cross lines ... here ... here ... here ...” he said, pointing. “This way you come out a few miles north in Zoliborz.”
“We can’t change plans now. They’ll be waiting for us.”
“Delay it for a day. Recontact your people on the outside and set up a safer route.”
Samson hemmed and hawed, then sprang from his seat. He had thought of a safer route, but it would cost him twenty-four hours. “It’s a greater risk to stay,” he said. “We don’t think we can hold for another day.”
Simon showed no reaction to the shock he felt. “Do you have a compass?”
“Yes.”
He penciled in the route. “It’s almost perfectly straight. Watch for barbed wire here. Tides won’t be too bad. Hold hands, keep conversation down. Be careful with lights.”
Samson Ben Horin studied the map for several moments, then folded it and put it in his breast pocket. Simon arose. “I’ve got to get back to my bunker,” he said. “We have a meeting scheduled in ten minutes. Our German friends are bringing up another battalion of artillery.”
“Thanks for everything, Simon. Listen, I want you to know. What I mean to say is ... this is a group decision to leave.”
“No explanation is necessary.”
“It’s not as if we are running away.”
“No one has accused you of that.”
“Simon, when the ghetto was started we had five hundred people in Warsaw. There are fifty-two of us left I want you to know that I personally voted to remain. But ... as their leader, I am obliged to take them out to the forests.”
“I figured it was that way.”
“Eleven of my people have decided to remain with you. We have also voted to leave you half our guns and eighty per cent of our ammunition. You’ll find it all in our bunker.”
He extended his hand. Simon shook it. Samson Ben Horin, a rebel among rebels, headed quickly for his bunker.
In ten minutes the forty-one remaining Revisionists were in the main sewer line under Gensia Street. They passed near Wolf’s Franciskanska bunker, under the Brushmaker’s compound, and they were beneath the wall. Every ten yards Samson flicked on his flashlight for a two-second bearing. A chain, hand to hand, moved silently.
The light found the barbed-wire trap.
Five men with wire cutters bit their pliers into the barrier and worked it apart slowly.
Samson peered at his watch. It was going too slowly. It would be light in fifty minutes. “Hurry,” he whispered.
“It’s very thick.”
“Hurry!”
They grunted as their rusty instruments tried to break the wire. Samson flashed his light again. They were only a third of the way through. He pushed past the wire-cutting team and with his hands squeezed the accordions flat. The barbs tore his flesh in a dozen places, but he batted at the wire until there was a partial clearance. They slugged through. The wire ripped their flesh and their clothing and they were bloodied and in pain.
Overhead, a Polish Blue policeman patrolling the area was drawn to the manhole by foreign sounds. He knelt and lay his ear against the manhole, then darted off to the Citadel gate only a block away, where the Wehrmacht had a camp.
“There are people in the Kanal. I’m sure of it. I could hear them grunting.”
The last of the Revisionists passed the entanglement. Their bloody legs were washed with sewage. The manhole cover behind them clunked open. A blasting light probed in. German voices! The Revisionists flattened against the slimy side of the bricks, just out of reach of the beams.
“See? Some of the wires have been cut!”
“Get a ladder!”
Samson was dizzy. Simon’s warning about going through an arterial flashed through his mind. Trapped in a black fetid coffin. Oh God! He could feel the tremors of fear running up and down the line. Stay? Fight when they come into the sewer after us? Run back to the ghetto? Bolt for the river?
“Let’s go, we can’t stay here!” He pushed on down Franciskanska Street, slushing as fast as his feet could hold in the slime and muck. Samson wanted to flash his light to study the map and find a small connecting Kanal, but there was no time to stop. Two mains converged. Freta Street. Large intersection. We are halfway there. The sewage ran swiftly.
Behind them they could hear the Germans lowering a ladder and they could see a crisscross of lights searching for them.
“We have to change our course,” Samson said.
“No.”
“Yes, I say. Up Freta Street.”
“No. We won’t make the river.”
“Come on. Up Freta Street!”
“Samson!” someone shrieked at the end of the line.
“Samson! Poison gas!”
Samson turned on his flashlight and saw the billows of smoke rolling at them.