He came out of a hut, the one beside the kitchen where the bread was made. He looked past me, then through me, as if determined not to attract attention to me or to himself. He tried to walk by me, but I held in my palm the flattened orchid he had given me and opened my hand to show him. He reached out and I saw that fresh blood was on his hands, and he was wide-eyed — as if in shock. I knew it. It had begun. I could not know how it would end.
I did not have to be told. I followed him.
I went into a hut, the one where we ate. There were, perhaps, thirty men inside and I recognized Feldhendler and a few who had been in the camp as workers all the time I had been there, and all the Russians. The speaker was Pechersky. He was on a table and spoke with the intensity of a fighter. I caught the end of what he said: ‘Our day has come … Most of the Germans are dead … Let us die with honour. Remember, if any of us survives, he must tell the world what has happened here.’
There was no applause. I looked at the faces, grim, haggard, but determination lit them. On many hands there was blood, and I saw guns in the hands of a few, and knives or axes, which were stained and wet.
Samuel whispered to me, ‘The first was Wolf. He was killed in the tailors’ shop. Then it was Beckmann in his office and with each stab on him there was shouted in his ear the name of a relative of Chaim who had died here. Chaim killed him. Unterscharführer Ryba we killed in the garage. Stay with me, trust me.’
We went out into the dusk. I think it was five o’clock. The whistle went. Prisoners lined up, were in their formation and ranks. The roll was called. I could see the fences and the gates. I didn’t know how it could be done. The women were in a group apart from the men but I kept my eyes always on Samuel. He stood in the rank behind Pechersky. In a moment of silence there was a shout. Very clear. We all heard it. A guard cried: ‘Ein Deutsch kaput’. The shooting started.
Some ran for the gate.
Some stayed in the ranks.
Some ran for the wire.
Insufficient Germans had been killed. Frenzel organized Germans and Ukrainians at the main gate.
Samuel ran to me, took my arm. There was shooting at the gate, incessant, and the screams of those hit. Samuel took me to the wire. It was laced with pine branches and easy to climb. We were between two towers. We reached the top of the wire, were together, and the barbs caught in my clothing, ripped it. He jumped down, crouched and called me. Men came down from the wire all around us. I think the few who had guns were shooting at the Ukrainians in the towers. I looked back. I remember my shock at what I saw. Many had stayed behind, like statues in their ranks.
Did they believe, those who stayed, that the Germans would look kindly on them? Did it take more courage to run at the wire than to remain in the lines for roll-call? I think half stayed, and half ran.
I came down from the wire, fell. Samuel broke the impact. Then I was beside him.
In front of us was open ground, and beyond it the forest. He held me. He gripped my arm, and I couldn’t have broken away. Others came off the wire, tumbled, regained their feet, ran.
The explosions deafened us. If Samuel had shouted in my ear I wouldn’t have heard his words. The machine-guns traversed the top of the wire, and some screamed, some cried out and some swung from the barbs. Samuel and I were the only ones who stayed at the base of the wire. The ground lifted, flew. The noise of the mines detonating was awesome, terrifying, but many still ran, driven like cattle in headlong flight, and I saw legs taken off and thrown clear, stomachs slashed open, the head of a man sliced off cleanly. That was what awaited us.
He pulled me up. He loosed my arm and took my hand. He pointed to his feet, then to mine. There was chaos around us, terror. The machine-guns were constant, the mine explosions frequent, scattering shrapnel. It was hell, at the base of the wire. He stood but was bent at the waist. Without warning, he jerked me forward. How desperate must you be to run into a minefield? So desperate. There was no turning back.
I saw some, a few, reach the trees. I saw some, many, felled in the minefield. I copied Samuel, was on the toes of those boots I had ‘borrowed’.
It was the first time in so many months that I had seen the trees of the forest, their darkened depth, and I sucked breath into my lungs. I knew what I had to do … Samuel ran. He wove, skipped and danced — and I saw then that Pechersky was ahead of him. I understood that his feet landed always where others had gone before, had detonated the mines. We went past those who were down, who had lost limbs, who held their intestines in their hands, whose faces had been taken off by the shrapnel. Where the open ground was cratered, he put his feet. I followed, dragged forward, and my boots went on to the loosened ground where his treadmarks were. He had waited, as had the other Russians, for those in panic to clear a path. We took advantage of others’ death and mutilation. We went through the minefield.
More were cut down between the minefield and the tree line.
Samuel, now, did not swerve. He ran straight, fast, bent low. I tripped once, fell, was on my knees. He did not stop or hesitate. With all of his strength he pulled me up. He held my hand so tightly.
We hit the trees.
We had fought them. The gunfire, their death camp, their world, their evil was behind us. We ran till it was muffled and distant. Rain dripped from the trees. We ran till the breath would not go down into our lungs, till we staggered. There were so many in the forest, blundering and crying. I could go no further. I said it to myself, again and again, that we had fought them. They were behind us, with their guns, fences, the Himmelstrasse and the chambers for gassing with carbon-monoxide fumes.
And I was trembling and gasping. ‘What do we do now, Samuel? What should we do?’ It would have wheezed from my throat,
‘We have to find Pechersky. We depend on him. Pechersky will save us.’
He said it with faith. He trusted. I believed him.
‘I really have to speak, Mr Lawson.’
‘If you have something to say, say it.’
The target had walked back from the summit of a side-street, had crossed the square and gone close to a slatted wooden shed that served as a shop, had come back to the agent and had seemed to whisper something in his ear, then had slapped the agent’s shoulder. The target’s arm had stayed loose across the agent’s shoulder as they had gone right and out of sight. Adrian came by them in the car and cruised to get locked into the tracking position behind the target’s vehicle.
What Lawson could recognize, what seemed a priority factor to him, was the increasing exhaustion of his team, Adrian and Dennis at the top of the pecking order for rest, but no opportunity had yet shown up for handing the beacon harness to the agent.
‘It’s the body language, Mr Lawson.’ Shrinks had paused.
Lawson said, ‘If you have something to communicate, spill it. Don’t wait for my prompt. God Almighty …’