Mac wingate 5, p.11
Mac Wingate 5, page 11
They had come for Aaron Stern, but had been caught up instead in the death of an entire people.
“You’re right,” he told Aldini softly, pleased that the corporal trusted him enough to speak this honestly. Indeed, Aldini had put into words just what Wingate himself had been feeling. Aldini had said it for all of them, for each man on his team.
This is what it was all about. This was why they were in the ghetto now—to fight back. Aaron Stern called the Jews his people. Well, damn it, they were Wingate’s people and Aldini’s people, too.
“Guess we’d better go join the others, Corporal,” Wingate said. “It wouldn’t hurt any to fieldstrip our weapons. Just in case we have to use them tonight.”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
“The trucks are here,” Martens said, turning to look down the ladder at Wingate and the others. “They just turned onto the street.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Wingate.
He moved swiftly up the ladder as Martens disappeared ahead of him through the open manhole.
As soon as he pulled himself out onto the street, he reached back and gave a hand up to Regnais, then Aldini. By that time the four milk trucks were pulling up beside them. The plan was simple. Wingate and his men would take positions in the shadows flanking the trucks, while Berensen and his men would unload the trucks and hand the weapons down to others waiting in the sewer.
Wingate ducked toward a dark doorway near the second truck as Aldini found an alley further down, close to the last truck. Regnais darted to the other side of the street, while Martens found a spot in a storefront opposite Aldini.
By that time Berensen and his men had swarmed out of the sewer and with the aid of the truck drivers were unloading the weapons. They were packed in long crates, which were so heavy that the men carrying them were staggering under their weight.
Wingate glanced quickly around him. The neighborhood had been chosen with care, it appeared. It was not a residential area, but one that contained primarily factories and warehouses. The streetlamps were out due to the blackout, and so far, he had not seen a single passerby. At this hour, of course, that was not a surprise.
The sound of splintering wood came sharply to him. Wingate glanced around and saw that the men carrying one of the crates had lost their grip. The crate had crashed to the pavement, and in the dim light Wingate could see the dull gleam of the fresh weapons that had spilled out of the shattered crate. Berensen was there at once, directing the men to carry the weapons individually to the open manhole.
Then Wingate felt suddenly sick. Crates of weapons! Where the hell would the partisans get weapons in such mint condition? That wasn’t the way they were dropped, not from Allied planes!
“Aldini!” he cried. “Martens! Regnais! It’s a trap!”
Running toward Berensen, he ordered him and his men to get back down into the sewer. Wingate saw the truck drivers suddenly break off and begin to run down the street, away from their trucks. The men carrying the crates dropped them unceremoniously and darted with Wingate toward the open manhole.
The night exploded into light. From windows above them on both sides of the street, powerful floodlights winked on. Night was transformed into day—and a withering machine gun fire began to rake the street. Four men struggling with a crate from the last truck were caught in the fire. All four were flung to the ground, the crate crashing to the pavement. One of them was still alive, and Wingate glimpsed him crawling behind the box for cover.
Almost to the open manhole by this time, Wingate turned and flung a grenade up at one of the floodlights. The blast took out the light; but there were at least four others, and the whine of heavy caliber slugs ricocheting off the pavement became nearly deafening. He saw Berensen disappearing into the open manhole just as Regnais approached from the other side.
Holding up to let Regnais climb down into the manhole, he spun about and directed fire from his Sten at the window from which the nearest machine gun was firing. In a moment he silenced it. Martens darted past him, heading for the manhole. Wingate turned to follow him just as something struck his right foot and knocked it brutally out from under him.
Wingate lay there on the street. His entire foot was numb. Martens was already halfway down the manhole. He paused and reached out to help Wingate.
“Get down there!” Wingate cried. “That’s an order!”
Martens vanished. Wingate pulled himself swiftly toward the manhole. Shadows were darting from the buildings toward the abandoned trucks. The machine gun fire eased. The shadows became uniformed members of the Gestapo, their black swastikas standing out boldly on their armbands. They were rounding up those Jews who had been wounded or who had found themselves too far from the sewer to make a break for it and were now standing with their hands over their heads. A few of the Jews, however, tried to flee into the darkness and were instantly gunned down.
Wingate grabbed the edge of the manhole and pulled himself toward it. Swinging his numbed foot down into the clammy dampness, he felt it strike a rung of the ladder.
“Hurry up, Captain!” cried Regnais from below.
As Wingate lowered himself, he glanced back at the street and caught sight of Aldini. Obviously wounded badly, the man was on his hands and knees, less than twenty yards away, crawling toward him. A German was approaching Aldini from behind. Wingate boosted himself back out of the manhole and swung his Sten up. A quick, short burst cut the German down.
“Hurry up, Aldini!” Wingate called.
Aldini struggled to his feet and, limping grotesquely, started to dash the remaining distance to the open manhole. A sudden fusillade whined about Wingate’s head as two Gestapo men, poised just behind the nearest truck, opened up on him. The slugs struck so close, some of them ricocheted past Wingate and whined down into the sewer.
He aimed at the two Germans and tugged on his trigger. The Sten jammed. He slammed at it with his fist, then tried another burst. The trigger was frozen. Aldini had almost reached him by this time. As Wingate reached out for the man, Aldini collapsed heavily to the pavement.
“I can’t make it. Captain,” he cried. “Save yourself!”
Wingate started to boost himself out of the manhole to go for Aldini; but as he did so, a fresh burst of machine gun fire tore the useless Sten from his hands. He looked down and saw his fist bleeding and flexed his fingers. They were intact. Wingate waited a second longer, but Aldini did not stir. The man’s head was down, his body still. He was unconscious, if not dead. Reluctantly, Wingate pushed himself back into the manhole.
At once strong hands grabbed both his legs and yanked him down into the swirling waters. He saw the dim, concerned faces of Regnais and Martens.
“Goddamn it!” cried Wingate, furious. “They’ve got Aldini!”
“And they’ll have us if you don’t hurry, Captain!” pleaded Regnais. “Berensen and the others are leaving us behind!”
Wingate found he could stand on the foot that had been hit. “Give me your Sten,” he said to Regnais.
With a fatalistic shrug, Regnais handed Wingate his weapon. Wingate pushed himself back through the hip-deep waters until he was under the open manhole. It was suddenly darkened. A pair of shiny boots started down the ladder. Wingate waited until there were two Gestapo agents on it, then pulled the Sten’s trigger.
As the two men plunged past him into the water, Wingate clambered back up the ladder and was in time to catch the Gestapo swarming over the street. He squeezed the trigger and kept the slugs pouring into the startled Germans in a steady, merciless stream. Only when he had expended his clip did he clamber swiftly back down the ladder and hurry after Regnais and Martens.
He should have felt a little better; but he didn’t.
Chapter Nine
As Wingate limped into Berensen’s bunker, he saw Gimolka’s man, Boris, waiting for them, Kurt Barack beside him. The moment he saw the look on Boris’s face, Wingate realized that the entire operation had been doomed from the start.
“What the hell happened?” Wingate demanded, pulling up in front of Boris.
Boris shrugged miserably. “I try to warn you. But when I get here, you are already gone. It is too late.”
Berensen spoke then. “Out with it, Boris! How did the Germans know about this?”
Boris shrugged elaborately, his pinched face assuming so mournful an expression it was almost comical. “An informer. There is no other explanation. When we come to garage, a driver warn us. It is a trap! The Gestapo! They are waiting! So we flee. After some time, I go back. I see the Gestapo loading the milk trucks. When they drive off, I know what they plan to do; so here Barack and I come to warn you.”
“Yes, Boris speaks the truth,” said Barack. “As soon as Boris told me what happened, I knew it would be a trap; so I left my own bunker to come here.”
Boris looked miserably around at the crowd of faces peering at him and shrugged with elaborate sorrow, his face becoming even more downcast. “But it is too late,” he said, shaking his head. “Already, you have gone.”
“Yes,” said Berensen, coldly. “You were too late.” It was obvious from his tone that he did not entirely trust either Boris or Kurt Barack.
“But now you are back,” said Barack, attempting a smile. “The Gestapo did not get you.”
“And we did not get our weapons,” said Berensen.
“Not all of us are back,” Wingate reminded Barack coldly. “We lost quite a few men, and it looks like the Gestapo has taken Corporal Aldini alive.”
“Ah! That is bad, Captain,” said Barack. “Very bad. He was not wearing a uniform, was he? They will go over him very thoroughly, I am afraid. Will your corporal be able to stand up to Gestapo torture, do you think?”
“As well as any of you,” Regnais snapped angrily, taking a threatening step toward Barack.
“I did not mean to imply ...” Barack began hastily, backing away.
“Easy, Regnais,” Wingate cut in. “What happened is not Barack’s fault.”
At that moment, Lisa entered. It was obvious she knew from the tension that the mission to pick up the weapons had been a disaster.
“You did not get the weapons, Lazar?” she asked, hurrying over to them.
“Worse than that. The Gestapo was waiting for us.”
“It was a trap?”
“Yes.”
“How many men were lost?”
“Too many.”
Then she looked at Wingate, frowning down at his left hand. “You have been wounded.”
Wingate glanced down at his hand. A filthy scum covered it entirely, and just behind the knuckles, running parallel to them, he saw a thin, nasty-looking furrow. The wound had scabbed over already. He flexed his fingers and felt a slight pain and a tightening, but that was all. “It looks worse than it is,” he said.
“Perhaps,” said Berensen, “but you had better get it cleaned, Captain. Remember where you were with that open wound. It doesn’t look very clean to me.”
Wingate glanced down again at his hand. That was true. Warsaw sewage was not the best antiseptic in the world.
“There’s running water at my place,” Lisa told him. “And soap, good strong soap. Fortunately, the wound is an open one; but it will still need a thorough scrubbing with hot water.”
Wingate looked back at Berensen. “Tomorrow,” he told him, “we are going to get Aldini back. Do you know where the Gestapo might have taken him?”
“To their headquarters in Szucha Alley.”
“Will you help us?”
Berensen’s eyebrows shot up. He was astonished at Wingate’s audacity.
“Of course, Captain,” he said, shrugging. “But you must understand. We have priorities of our own—now that the weapons you promised us have failed to materialize.”
“I understand that,” Wingate said shortly.
“Tomorrow, Captain. We will talk tomorrow. Get that wound looked at now, and get some sleep.” He looked around at the others. “I think that is good advice for all of us.”
The bedraggled remnants of the force that had left this bunker earlier with such high hopes nodded wearily. They were still wet up to their crotches, and the awesome stench of the sewer clung to them, filling the bunker with a close, sickening foulness.
Wingate turned to Lisa.
She took him by the arm and led him from the bunker. It was only later, when they started up the stairs to her hidden apartment that she noticed his limp. Glancing down at his foot, she smiled.
Wingate looked down also. His boot heel had been shot off. He would have smiled also if he wasn’t suddenly so very, very tired.
Wingate awoke with Lisa’s fingers over his mouth. Alert at once, he reached up and quickly, but gently, removed her hand. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Someone on the stairs.”
Wingate swung off the bed, reaching for his Sten as he did so. Through the narrow window that opened into the bedroom, the first light of dawn was filtering. He saw that Lisa was dressed only in her slip—and her huge Walther P-38. Already to the door, she rested the side of her head against it and listened.
Then came a soft, insistent rapping on the door.
Lisa glanced back at Wingate, hesitated, then asked, “Who is it?”
“Felix!”
Lisa pulled open the door. Felix darted in. “How did you know where I was?” Lisa demanded, swiftly closing the door behind the young courier.
Felix smiled proudly. “I am no longer with Barack. I have joined Berensen’s unit.”
Lisa’s eyebrows shot up. “So? Lazar told you of this apartment? Why?”
“The Germans.”
“Go on.”
“The Germans and Letts—Ukrainians too—have surrounded the ghetto. They have been there most of the night. Lazar says it is time to mobilize the units.”
Lisa glanced swiftly at Wingate, her eyes suddenly alight; whether it was with fear or eagerness, Wingate could not tell. “Today,” she said. “They will attack today.”
Wingate stood up, remembering what Gimolka had already told them. This then was the beginning of General Stroop’s “special action” to clear out the ghetto.
Lisa turned back to Felix. “Go back to Lazar. Tell him I will join my unit as soon as I am dressed.”
Felix hurried out. Lisa closed the door. As the sound of Felix’s light, rapid footsteps faded, Lisa walked swiftly toward Wingate. She dropped her Walther onto the bed beside him and with both hands pressed Wingate gently but firmly back down.
“That cannon of yours might go off,” Wingate said, letting his own weapon drop back to the floor.
“Be gentle, and it won’t,” she told him, whispering softly into his ear. “But not too gentle. I have a feeling this will be the last time we ...”
His kiss stopped her from saying any more.
He understood how she felt. He felt the same way. An icy hand had closed about his heart as soon as Felix spoke. And he knew the terror he felt was at the thought of losing her. But now they were together ... and the goddamn Germans would have to wait ...
Wingate and his men were poised on a rooftop overlooking the Mila-Zamenhofa intersection. Further down on the same roof, Lisa was crouched with her unit. There were two other women with her, five boys ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, and at least that number of full-grown men. Every member of the unit was lugging grenades and those bottle bombs Wingate had seen Stern fashioning a few days before.
“I hear firing,” Regnais said.
Wingate nodded. He had heard it too. Isolated bursts of fire, a grenade exploding. Then silence. He glanced at his watch. A few minutes before six on a bright April morning. The burgeoning brightness in the sky overhead reminded him, once again, that spring was in full flood. A new season was coming. But here, Death, not spring, was on its way.
“Here come the bastards,” said Martens, pulling back the cocking lever on his Sten.
Regnais took out four grenades and placed them neatly on the edge of the roof before him.
Wingate watched the approaching Germans with an amazement tempered by a fine fury as they goose-stepped arrogantly down Zamenhofa toward the intersection. The SS were in perfect formation, their black belts and swastikas gleaming smartly in the bright morning sun. Just behind them came a single tank and a trailer loaded with ammunition.
Once they reached the intersection, they halted. Wingate was astonished. A conference, for Christ’s sake. Regnais looked incredulously at Wingate. Martens chuckled and moved closer to the edge of the roof. The German officer below them was consulting a map, his junior officers crowding close upon him. Wingate could see the morning breeze lifting the map’s outer edge. One of the junior officers reached out to hold it steady for him.
The Germans obviously suspected nothing, and in that instant Wingate realized just how much contempt the Germans felt for the Jews. And why not? Until last January, with scarcely an outcry from this ghetto’s inhabitants, they had systematically marched off to the gas chambers of Treblinka at least three hundred thousand Jewish men, women, and children. So why should the Germans suspect anything now? That earlier rebellion in January could only be regarded by them as a fluke. The Germans were incapable of imagining that a Jew could fight—or would.
The German officer looked up from the map and pointed down Mila Street. The other officers nodded, saluted smartly, and stepped back, preparing to rejoin the waiting ranks.
That was when the first grenade detonated on the pavement just behind them. A split second later, a bottle bomb exploded amid the officers. One of them, his pants legs and back aflame, flung himself to the ground and began rolling frantically on the ground as a ragged fusillade of rifle and small arms fire opened up from the surrounding buildings.
The battle was on!
Wingate and Martens poured fire down upon the dissolving ranks of SS troops while Regnais heaved his grenades. Within seconds the Germans were racing for cover in doorways and into alleys; but no matter where they fled, they found themselves under fire. The intersection was already littered with German bodies.
