“Comrades! Comrades!” the poor presser groaned, gazing at the sky. With a stiff arm he held the light upward. Insects poured out of it, over his chin, his broken nose. “Comrades! Where are you?”

“Shhh!” a voice hissed from nearby. Hersh Einhorn’s. “Listen!”

Somebody else, James Faulhaber, declared, “They’re here!”

There was a buzz, a humming sound, like a beetle. It came closer. It was practically over their heads.

Suddenly everything became brighter than daytime. The clouds lit up, like shades for enormous lamps. At the same time there was a thumping, a crashing, a roar. The Men of Valor had let loose an antiaircraft barrage. Illuminated bullets went into the air. The ground was shaking. In the midsts of these blasts, the presser did not budge. Minute after minute his signal light steadily shone. Then the cannons stopped shooting. The members of the Edmund Trilling Brigade strained to hear. Nothing. No sound at all.

“Woe!” cried Faulhaber.

Two or three shouted together: “They’ve shot him down!”

A last shell, a low one, exploded. The whole Jewish graveyard, with its hills, its ditches, and even a tombstone, showed up in the light.

Hersh Einhorn pointed upward, into the sizzling sparks. “Wait! What’s that?”

The brigade members peered overhead. The glow in the clouds lasted for another half second. But in that time they all saw something. It looked as if a circular patch on the sky had come loose, or as if someone had cut a section out of the dark bowl above them and with a finger pushed it down. Then the inky object was gone.

Everybody exclaimed at once.

“Where is it?”

“Gone! Disappeared!”

“Where’s the light? Shine it here! Here!”

The big presser aimed his torch in every direction. He spun around. Nothing to be seen.

“Silence, Comrades!” commanded young Einhorn. “Hold the light up. Be still.”

No person moved. Or breathed even. A moment went by. Then, into the fuzzy beam, two boots dipped down. After that, two legs appeared; and then, ever so slowly, the body of a man. The revolutionaries stood rooted, gaping. It was as if they were at the bottom of an ocean, watching a deep-sea diver descend. The light from the torch struck a chest, a head, and above the head something dark, black, cloudy: this umbrella collapsed and the night diver rolled into a ball on the ground.

The Ghettoites ran to where the parachutist had landed. They formed a circle around him. Up the daredevil sprang, and with vigor saluted. “Code name: Taradash. Red Army Commando. Regiment of the Fourth Guards.”

Awkwardness. Silence. Everyone stared at the jumper, who remained blinking and smiling in the light of the presser’s lamp. What a strange-looking fellow this was! Wisps of beard, like an adolescent’s, were stuck on his cheeks and his chin. His nose was a long one and his eyes, like those of a dissipated person, were dark underneath and on the lids. Smiling, he kept on smiling, while behind him, attached to his narrow shoulders, the black silk canopy billowed and swelled. There was a red star on the front of his crashproof helmet.