Faulhaber turned toward the wireless operator. “What did they say, exactly?”

Kipnis dug the toe of his boot into the ground. “Something in Russian,” he answered. Then added, “But I know they’ll come!”

From far off there came the sound of explosions. Then gunfire. A faint glow appeared in the sky. All this occurred not in the east, where the Soviet forces were poised, but behind the brigaders, to the west. Zam, the lookout, appeared in the windowframe.

“The Balut,” he announced, “is on fire!”

In the dying flames from the tank, the underground fighters looked at each other. The pitch on their faces had almost worn through.

Then Kleiderman shouted, “The train!”

“It’s a roundup!”

Mister Pipe then said something awful. “Is it possible that we have been tricked?”

“Tricked?” asked Bloomgarden. “By who?”

Pipe pulled his head into his shoulders. It was a shrug. “Without us, the Ghetto is defenseless.”

“True!” cried the cannibal woman. “We have to return!”

Einhorn tried to sound cheery. “Don’t worry! The Red Army is coming! Our orders are to keep the bridge open. That way we’ll help the Balut, too!”

A shot rang out much nearer by. Chaffer sat down. He sighed.

Zam screamed from the building, at the same time firing his Soviet gun. “Counterattack!”

The Jews looked down at the buttonholer. There was a round hole in his throat. Through this he sighed.

More shots from the embankment. The presser, by the field gun, clutched at his shoulder. “Shot me, ha-ha!” Then, moving slowly, smoking, snorting, the second tank returned.

In the original plans for Operation Szypper, the Edmund Trilling Brigade had been expected to hold out for a quarter of an hour. And that was to be with the assistance of a landing party and a constant barrage. Yet not only had the fighters secured the King Ladislaus Bridge upon their first assault, but they now beat back the sudden counterattack. This is how it was done.

First, the brigade members snatched up as many arms as they could from the Blond Ones and made their way back to the three-story building. From this fortress, shooting out the top-floor windows, they were able to drive the foot soldiers back. The pity is the tank rolled up and fired a shell into the house. It exploded on the ground floor, killing Miss Bibelnieks and Chaffer, her patient. A second shell burst in the identical spot. Luckily, you can’t kill the same people twice.

Lipiczany and the presser, who had remained at the embankment, at last managed to turn their artillery cannon. The shot they sent off exploded to the side of the tank, but with enough force to snap one of its treads. The dreadful machine spun in a circle. Then the top sprang open and the Warriors within jumped out. Kleiderman, turning a toothpick end over end in his mouth, shot each one: either in the heart or the head. Thus, by themselves, with no commandos and no supporting fire, the brave Jews kept control of the vital bridge. Remember them! Children of their Nation, in the words of “The Marseillaise.”