“Why didn’t somebody tell us?” he said. She understood him. He meant, that this could be done.

Einhorn tapped his wristwatch crystal. Like their food, their cannon, all of their bullets—this had been parachuted into the graveyard by air. It read, by a match, ten minutes past ten. The two rubberized boats would set off from the eastern shore at exactly eleven thirty. The crossing would take eighteen minutes. The brigade had to begin their attack at precisely a quarter to twelve. Three minutes later the boats would land and the artillery barrage would begin. There could be no slipup. At midnight, when the watch was changed, the dead sentries would be discovered. But by then the whole combined might of the progressivist forces would be rolling over the open bridge; the Warriors, instead of dealing with an escape from the Ghetto, would have other things to do. Operation Szypper in a nutshell.

Lipiczany led the way down the pitch-black boulevard, following the same tram lines he had ridden over in December, 1941. The brigade, dodging from wall to wall, crouching, came after. The problem was, how to reach the near side of the bridge without firing a shot? The streets were patrolled. Poles ran by, caught by the curfew. More than once the fighters had to scatter into doorways, while a troop of Death’s-Headers marched past. All at once Hersh Einhorn dropped down; he was on his hands and knees. “Quick! Do what I’m doing.” The boy was smearing mud from the un-paved roadway onto his hands and wrists, his face, his throat, his neck. Nachman Kipnis did the same thing. He even rubbed it into his hair. It took the others a few minutes to finish. Then they stood up and, like Negroes, flashed their teeth and rolled their eyes. When they moved off, again in single file, not even an owl, with its wonderful eyesight, could see them.

By the time they reached Alexsandrowska it was nearly eleven o’clock. The boulevard was too wide to dash over, even singly. And a group of soldiers stood on the opposite side: you could tell by their cigarettes.

“Go back,” whispered Doctor Zam.

“No time,” said Einhorn.

“I’m thinking,” said Chaffer. “But I can’t think of a thing.”

Then Pipe stepped off the sidewalk and threw up a hand. Like a normal person, he said, “Taxi!”

The others shrank back, aghast. “He’s gone mad!” said Kipnis.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the presser. “Two sausages, please. On a soft roll! Might as well ask for that!”

“Get him!” Hersh Einhorn commanded.

But before anyone could move, Pipe—it was so dark you could not see his pullover’s diamond design—took another step into the thoroughfare and said, “Taxi!” once again.

And lo, with its headlamps dimmed, and a band of green and white squares along its side, a taxi rolled up to the curb. This was a Packard, an American car, with room for the entire brigade. Faulhaber opened the back door and crept inside. Bloomgarden climbed into the front. The driver was a Pole, with an open shirt and a cap. “What’s this?” he said, looking at his passengers’ blackened faces. “A Purim party?” Then, with a gun butt, Einhorn cracked the back of his head.