“This is the peace plan! We’ll hold an international conference! The Great Ones will come! All the big fellows! And the Pope! The whole idea came to me in a dream!”

Nisel laid the muzzle of his automatic rifle on the window-sill. He pressed his cheek along the stock of the gun. “Now,” he said.

“Don’t!” Einhorn slapped the weapon aside. “He knows about the operation. This isn’t madness. It’s a deliberate diversion.”

“So they won’t see the boats,” Faulhaber added.

Zam: “The brave man!”

One of the flares, sizzling, fell into the water. The first raft ducked under the bridge, almost directly beneath the feet of the Elder. “Peace! Peace, gentlemen! Men will love each other! They will dance! And sing!”

The second flare, even before it struck the water, went out. The third one slipped sideways, like a leaf falling, giving out light. But both boats were safely under the bridge. Above them the Elder had actually started a dance, a jig. He sang a Yiddish song. “Bai nakht verft der alter fisher, hoopla! Zem netz ber de glanzende fish.”

Suddenly his whole body stopped, as if something had frozen him there. He scowled. The light passed off his hair, off his spectacle lenses. Then he pointed his cane, as if it were a gun, through the slats of the bridge. It was the commando, the daring airman, he aimed at. “That one! I know him! His father was the Warsaw Elder! He wants to take over! To kill me! It’s Czerniakow! The son!”

The tragedy that followed took only a minute, only as long as it takes to lace up your shoes. One of the boats turned about and began desperately rowing toward the far-off eastern shore. In the other, Taradash—or perhaps it really was the young Czerniakow—placed a foot on the side of his craft and raised his arm toward Trumpelman. His pistol went off at the same time the Warriors fired their guns. Many bullets hit him, in many places, and he fell into the river and sank right down. The boat itself lost its air. It lay on the water like the pad of a lily. But the Men of Valor did not stop their fire. Off swam Jews in every direction. Some were able to take only one or two strokes, or three or four; and some swam meter after meter. Whether soon or late, each one vanished beneath the surface of the water. It was as if a big fish were gobbling them down.

Nor did the other raft escape. The two tanks onshore swung their powerful guns about. The first volley traveled too far and struck out of sight. But the very next shot landed right on the target. A big tree of water, with a white trunk, with white branches, sprang out of the Dolna. The rubber boat, with all twenty Jews, vaporized.

Then the shooting stopped. You could just get a glimpse of the river, which was smooth, not boiling; and you could see, drooping over the edge of the bridge, the black cape of the Elder. Then the last flare flickered out. It is true that the brigade members were weeping. But not because I. C. Trumpelman had at last, as they say, departed this earth.