Uninterested in one shot, one kill precision, the marksman fired several rounds toward each man until he was certain he’d registered solid hits. When Shapira looked down the track with his binoculars all the Germans were still as stones.
Mueller had decided to go out the door last—he was the commander afier all and the train was his ship. He was just about to follow his men when he saw them come under fire. They were shot dead, one after the other, by a distant and deadly marksmen. Mueller’s bowels emptied into his pants. He slammed the door shut and fell to the floor of the railcar sitting in his own filth.
Shapira reported to Yatom. Feldhandler, monitoring the com net, counted up the German dead, then broke in and explained that the Israelis had likely wiped out the guard unit. Yatom ignored Feldhandler, told Shapira to continue the assault, and ordered team Alef to move with him on the train.
Feldhandler, feeling immensely relieved, rose up from his ditch for the first time in hours. Ahead of him the two Germans he shot at the start of the engagement still lay where they had fallen. The man with the machine pistol appeared to be dead. The second policemen had pulled himself up to a sitting position against the train. He was pale and barely conscious, blood soaked the ground around him.
Feldhandler approached the man like he was a wounded but dangerous animal, stopping when he was five meters away—then shot him the German in the head. He continued on to the locomotive and climbed up to the cabin, rifle at the ready. The two Polish engineers were on the floor. Seeing him they cried ”Polski, Polskil” assuming Feldhandler was a Russian soldier. Feldhandler motioned for them to remain on the floor, jumped back onto the railbed. Yatom saw Feldhandler shoot the wounded German as he led his team across the open field, while Mofaz and team Bet remained in the treeline with Perchansky.
“Feldhandler, stop!” yelled Yatom as he approached the train.
Feldhandler stood still and squinted at the sayeret leader, thinking Yatom was going to upbraid him for shooting the German.
“Stop” repeated Yatom. “Don’t move around the train. Shapira’s on the other side. I don’t want any friendly fire incidents.”
Feldhandler paused. The other Israelis looked over at the prostrate Germans. Yatom told Ido to assess the Germans, but not treat them.
“They’re dead commander” said the medic.
Yatom raised Shapira on the radio and told him that he was coming around the front of the train. Shapira reported that they were just a few meters away, outside the passenger car.
“Are there any Germans inside the car?” asked Yatom.
“Don’t know” answered Shapira.
Yatom walked toward the the front of the train followed by Feldhandler and the rest of Alef. On the way, Feldhandler explained to Yatom about the engineers in the locomotive. Coming around the engine Yatom’s saw Shapira’s team, which the lieutenant had deployed outside the second-class rail car, as if in a hostage situation.
Yatom cautiously moved up to the door of the railcar, pressed along its side, followed by Nir and Rafi. Around them lay the sprawled bodies of dead German policemen.
Yatom waived Feldhandler over. “Your German is better than mine” said Yatom. “Tell anybody still in there to come out immediately.”
Inside the car Mueller tried to calm himself. Whoever was outside the train spoke good German. Mueller’s pistol was still strapped to his side. He considered suicide. His fate at the hands of bandits, or Russian soldiers or whoever this might be, would surely be cruel. Or, he could fight it out honorably, once they came in for him. The man outside the car yelled again for him to come out. Mueller smelled his own shit and tried to think clearly.
Yatom climbed up the first two steps to the car, followed by Nir. Nir slipped off his heavy radio and handed it to Rafi to lighten his load. Feldhandler called out a third time. When there was no response Yatom went in.
Mueller was on the floor just past the door. As Yatom stepped through he almost tripped on the German. Nir, following, turned the other way to cover the rest of the car. Mueller pointed his pistol at Yatom. Too close to fire his Tavor, Yatom kicked the pistol aside with his right leg, and then slammed the butt of the Tavor into the German’s head. Mueller dropped the pistol and Yatom delivered another head blow, this time a kick with his left leg, as if he were driving a soccer ball. Nir shuffled past Yatom into the car, followed by Shapira. Yatom delivered a third blow with his foot to the German.
Mueller collapsed unconscious. Yatom shoved Mueller with his foot to make sure German was out, and then picked up the pistol. “Clear right!” yelled Nir. “Clear left!” echoed Shapira.
Yatom looked over at Shapira with disbelief; then down at the prostrate figure of Mueller, resplendent in his Nazi Polizei uniform.
“I’m having a hard time believing this.”
“It’s not easy” agreed Shapira. Mueller lay flat on his back, blood and spittle dripping from his mouth. They both gave a typical Israeli shrug. Yatom still held Mueller’s pistol in his right hand.
“Can I see that?” asked Shapira. Yatom passed him the the pistol.
Shapira examined the Walther P-38. He pulled out the magazine and cleared the chamber, then removed a round from the magazine and examined it, noting the Nazi factory markings by the primer. Shapira.
“Do you mind?” he asked Yatom, as he slipped the weapon into the cargo pocket of his pants. “Be my guest.”
In the boxcar near the end of the train Jezek wedged his fingers into a small opening between two planks on the floor and tore at the wood. His hands were full of splinters and slick with blood. He’d sweated much precious fluid in the awful heat of the car, and felt faint.
In over a day he’d had nothing to eat or drink, and yet he labored on, driven by adrenaline and desperation. Outside the car he heard the hammer of machineguns. Was he struggling to escape into his own firing squad?
Tovi, the shoemaker’s son working near Jezek was eighteen years old but looked two or three years younger. The boy, familiar with his father’s tools and had wrinkled out a plank from the bottom of the boxcar was hard at work on another. Jezek and a different youth were tugging at an adjacent plank, which was slowly yielding. Jezek grunted and felt the wood crack. Jezek and the other boy pried away the second plank. An opening perhaps fifteen centimeters wide appeared in the floor leading to the rail-bed. Jezek caught a whiff of fresh air scented with pine and rusted iron.
Tovi stuck a foot through the opening, then another and began to squeeze his body through the broken floor, while Jezek and the other youth tried to pry up a third panel. Tovi’s father saw his son disappearing and called on him to stop. Tovi ignored the old man and contorted his thin frame through the fissure.
“Ich bin raus! “he yelled back up to the car as he hit the railbed.
Jezek called for a man standing nearby to help him, and together with the second youth they ripped out the third panel from the floor. The gap was just big enough Jezek to fit through. He looked across to car to for wife and daughter. Through the mass of wretched people he caught the eye of Ilse.
“I’ll come back!” he called. Ilse seemed to reach for him, but he thrust his legs into the hole and dropped through to the ground. Jezek knew he was placing himself in great danger, yet felt a surge of wonderful relief to be out of the stinking railcar. He breathed in the air, and adjusted his eyes—though he was in the shade of the great train it was still much brighter beneath the car than within it.