Now, more than three decades later, we can stop and ask, was this right or wong? At the time, however, no one gave it a thought. The antitank gun went into the trunk, along with the radio. The fighters slunk down on the seats and piled over each other on the carpeted floor. Bloomgarden took the wheel and at once drove off, in the direction of the Central Square. Yes! All right! It was murder, then! And thievery, too! The driver was in the rain gutter, so that anyone seeing him would think it was a drunken Pole.

The Central Square was dark, empty. The Packard swung into it, off Alexsandrowska, and circled counterclockwise. Then it began to lose speed on the far side of the monument to Rumkowsky. It went slower and slower and finally, in front of the Hotel Europa, came to a stop. “What is it?” Faulhaber asked. “What’s happened?” No explanation. Everyone was peering through the right-hand windows. Lipiczany and Einhorn stuck their heads completely out. Even Nachman Kipnis, in his frosted glasses, was trying to see.

“Butter-crumb tarts,” Bloomgarden said.

“With the tops crisp and burnt.”

Inside the auto it was perfectly still. Across the square, however, came a dull, soft, clanking sound. It kept repeating. The brigaders swung around. At first, in the blacked-out square, there was nothing to see. Then, from behind the invisible bulk of the Donati Station, a series of twinkling lights appeared.

“A train!” said the cannibal woman.

And the others, seeing the sparks fly up from beneath the iron wheels, like from whetstones, also murmured, “A train.”

“To the river!” said Commander Einhorn.

Faulhaber leaned forward, as if toward a real taxi driver. “Don’t spare the horses,” he said, in English. He wanted to lighten the mood.

* * *

At sixteen minutes after eleven the strike force of Operation Szypper drew near the Dolna River. This was a neighborhood of apartment houses, shabby ones mostly, in which—according to reports from the Mosk chimney top—Poles continued to live. The taxi moved down a street that ran parallel to, and a block from, the river. There seemed no way to get to the waterfront proper. Each side street they passed was blocked with coils of wire. Behind the wire there were undoubtedly troopers with guns. Einhorn signaled with his hand.

“Stop there. At that house.”

The big car pulled up before a wide three-story building, with an iron fence in the front. The gate in the fence was secured by a metal chain. The presser cut through this with his shears. Keeping low, the resistance fighters moved from the taxi to the courtyard. The presser went back for the equipment in the trunk. From there he heard—it was too dark to see—a Death’s-Header patrol. Einhorn heard them, too. He ran up the steps of the building and threw himself against the large wooden doors. Locked. Bolted. Kleiderman gave it a try. The entrance held.

“Whoops!” It was the presser. He scooped up Lipiczany and hoisted him onto his shoulders. “Jump!” he cried.