Joint Fighters shrank their area. Two bunkers holding half the force formed the extreme boundaries. At one end was Mila 18 and at the other end Wolf Brandel in the Franciskanska bunker.
Between these two bunkers the balance of the Joint Fighters had an interlacing network of a dozen smaller bunkers and two hundred people.
Ana’s company pulled back into Franciskanska. Tolek Alterman was sent out of Mila 18 to take over Rodel’s command of the small bunkers on the northern fringe.
Tonight Andrei pulled them in tighter again.
A month was coming to an end. It was a miracle, but over half the Joint Fighters were alive and armed. They had captured enough to sustain the rebellion into a second month!
“Filthy whores,” Andrei grunted, realizing the Germans had a permanent hold in Muranowski Place. His mind ventured the thought of a hit-and-run attack on them tomorrow night. He was very weary. He slid out of his hiding place and crept over the rubble piles down Nalewki Street through a puzzle of broken walls. He prowled with the deftness of a large cat playing with shadows and sped in his search to find one of Mila 18’s six entrances out of sight of the enemy.
The entrance from Muranowski Place was out of the question. The drainage pipe on Nalewki 39 was too close to German activity to try. He went for the third entrance in what had been a courtyard in the rear of a house on Kupiecka Street, which had a tunnel connecting to an air-raid shelter. Andrei peered out from the wreckage at the shelter. It looked clear, then he narrowed his eyes.
Something out there ...
Andrei’s eyes could penetrate the darkness with the sharpness of the large cat he was when he moved in the night. He saw the outlines of German helmets. They were in an emplacement of some kind past the courtyard and they were facing Mila Street with their backs to him.
Andrei calculated the odds. If he ran for the air-raid shelter and its tunnel entrance, there was every chance he would make it without being sighted. But any risk involving German discovery of Mila 18 had to be avoided.
His choice was to move on to the fourth entrance on Zamenhof Street or the sewers. Neither choice appealed. Zamenhof Street would be filled with the enemy, and the sewers were dangerous. He decided to have a closer look at the German emplacement.
Andrei slithered on his belly over the courtyard and crept up behind the enemy. Andrei observed what seemed to be a squad of six men fixed in an emplacement which looked over part of Mila Street from behind a barricade of fallen bricks.
He studied the area around them. On their left, a fallen building. On their right, a partially standing building. Andrei calculated that if he could reach the half-ruined structure he could get over the top of them, but any movement beyond his present position would be detected.
He felt about for a brick and threw it to the left. It skittered over the rubble.
“What was that!”
The Germans turned a machine gun on it.
Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat!
Andrei sprinted in the opposite direction. He made a flying belly flop in the ruined structure and began to climb up while the Germans continued to be occupied with the decoy.
“Stop your fire. It is only falling rubble,” someone ordered.
“Yes. Don’t be so nervous.”
The Germans laughed jumpily.
Andrei was above them now. He inched up so he could count helmets. Four ... five, six. Bastards! Whores! They had set up a machine gun to cover part of Mila Street as a permanent emplacement. Filthy whores! Andrei squinted. Regular army. Wehrmacht. Good, they were less willing to die bravely than the SS. It was a stupid position. What audacity to put up this gun without flanking cover, he thought. Well ... I shall have to give them a lesson on how to be soldiers. Too bad they shall not be around afterward to benefit. Look at the fools, all clustered up as if they were at a Hitler rally. How lovely.
Andrei unhooked the hand grenade from his belt placed the handle in his teeth, and with his free hands slipped his clip of ammunition into the machine pistol. Now, Gaby, don’t you be a naughty girl and jam on me.
He calculated his moves. I’ll have to hit them very fast. Unfortunately my grenade will ruin their machine gun. I must throw at the fat one and go for the three on the right with my machine pistol. Remember, Andrei ... first I go for their pistols and the privates with the rifles. Then I yank off their ammunition belts, then their water. One, two, three, four; pistols, rifles, ammo, water. He looked back over his shoulder to the air-raid shelter. A twenty-five-yard dash back. Won’t have more than a half minute to do the job. Okay ... ready ...
He pulled the pin from the grenade, steadied the machine pistol, and counted ... one ... two ... three ... and lobbed the pineapple down on the fat soldier on the left.
Startled shrieks! A flash! Men held ripped faces!
Andrei counted ... one ... two ... three ... four ... while the bits of the grenade spent their wrath, and he leaped.
Straight down, fifteen feet, into the writhing Germans. Gaby spit a blue flame at the three soldiers on the right side of the machine gun, and they were still. The gun jammed before he could turn it on the other three.
One lay groaning under the gun, and a second leaped wounded into Mila Street, screaming, “Jews! Jews! Help! Help!”
The last soldier was knocked against the wall. He crawled to his feet. Andrei pulled the trigger of his weapon. It was jammed. He hit it with his fist, but it was stuck tight. The soldier jerked his pistol out of his holster. Andrei flung his weapon at the helmetless redheaded enemy, and the barrel cracked against his skull and caused him to fire wild. Andrei’s fist smashed the German’s mouth and shattered his jaw. A kick in the groin, and he sank to his knees, and Andrei brought the flat of his hand on the German’s neck and it broke with a loud pop.
He was dead.
The wounded soldier crawled for a pistol. Andrei’s boot smashed into his jaw and he too was still. Half a minute gone. Hurry! Pistols, rifles, ammo, water ... Where’s that goddamned rifle? Can’t find it.
The sounds of boots converging from both ends of Mila Street. Andrei tried to turn the machine gun on them, but the grenade had wrecked it.
He leaped out of the wrecked emplacement and scampered into the air-raid shelter and into the secret entrance to Mila 18.
“Where in the hell have you been?” Simon Eden greeted him with relief and anger.
Andrei shrugged, “It’s slow moving up there.”
Then Simon saw the guns and belts and water canteens draped over Andrei. “What happened?”
“Nothing much. Just routine.” Andrei treated himself to a couple of swallows of water, took enough ammunition to fill three clips, and turned the rest over to Simon, grumbling that he wished he could find some oil to lubricate the Schmeisser.
After seeing Deborah to tell her Rachael was all right, he saw Alex to report that Wolf was fine, then went upstairs with Simon to a small closetlike room which they felt was safe during the night hours, and there they rehashed their diminishing position. Over three hundred Fighters remained, but the circle of bunkers was shrinking. There was enough food and water to hold out for another five or six days. Ammo? One sharp encounter and they would be depleted. What to do when the ammo was gone? Dig deeper and hide? Suicide? No thought of surrender. Attempt escape or fight bare-handed.
“Maybe Moritz Katz will come in with ammunition,” Simon said, hoping beyond hope.
Andrei yawned. “Moritz will do it if anyone can.”
“If he brings in a couple hundred rounds, I want you to make a raid on the Przebieg Gate. There’s a field kitchen and some loose arms supplying the troops in Muranowski Place.”
Andrei stretched out on the floor. “Przebieg Gate ... good idea. Holy Mother, I’ve got to get some sleep. Tomorrow you have to clip my beard. I’m a mess. Wake me up at daybreak.”