Upfall

"This is Biali" said Sobel with a touch of pride. "A Jewish town reclaimed."

The three Israelis in the Kubelwagen looked at Sobel curiously, but before they could question him further they were challenged by a voice in the night, speaking Polish.

"It's alright Chaimowitz!" cried Sobel, climbing out of the cramped Kubelwagen. "It‘s me—and these are the soldiers from Sobibor, back to help us!"

Chaimowitz had sensibly called his challenge from a ditch near the road rather than standing on it. Now he emerged from his hiding place with another man, each simply armed with a Mauser rifle. The two sentries met Sobel, and approached the German-made Kubelwagen to verify that the so-called Macher was telling the truth.

Chaimowitz, who had shared a reeking the cattle car with Jezek, recognized Shapira and Feldhandler from the rescue the week before and smiled in relief. He waived the column through and went back to his ditch.

Despite the late hour dozens of people came to meet the column as it rolled into Biali. They poured out of houses and communal buildings to greet the returning soldiers, partly out of curiousity but also eager for food or other loot from the outside world. Some in the crowd were the wives and parents of Fliegel's men, hoping to find a husband or son alive and unscathed. Half of these would be disappointed, for the Bears had suffered heavily.

As families greeted their loved ones, attended the wounded hero or mourned a loss, Yatom saw in the milky light cast by the half moon the tall frame of De Jong, hurrying from the building he now used as a makeshift headquarters. Yatom, Shapira and Feldhandler dismounted and met the De Jong in the center of the street, Sobel hurrying behind. De Jong offered Yatom his hand, and the Israeli took it gratefully, genuinely happy to see the hardy Dutchman again, and thankful that there would not be a long round of hugging.

De Jong greeted Sobel formally. "Albrecht arrived thirty minutes ago" said De Jong, gesturing toward the hill to the northeast from which Sobel's fellow sentry descended. "What took you so long?"

"We never scouted the roads to the east, so it was difficnlt to navigate in the dark" grumbled Sobel. "It's something we should have done."

The Israelis noted the strained talk between the two men, but were more interested in the terrain. Looking at the hills and ridges surrounding the town, the Yatom now recognized how roundabout their road journey had been. The sentry hill was only about two kilometers distant as the crow flies, but there was no road access from that direction, where ridgelines blocked and protected the town in its valley. There were only limited vehicular approaches from east and west, making the place both hard to notice, and defensible. De Jong had chosen the refuge well.

De Jong ignored Sobel and turned back toward Yatom. "We worried for you and the boys. It seems not everybody made it back."

"No" answered Yatom. "We lost a man too. Lieutenant ltzak Belete. He's in the back of that truck"

"And the other death camp...?"

"Destroyed" said Yatom simply. "But it was a difficult journey back. The Germans are hard at work trying to find us. You will probably have to defend this place."

"You will help, of course?"

"For as long as we are here we will do what we can."

De Jong looked at Yatom dubiously, grateful that the commando had returned, but puzzled about where he intended to go. The Dutchman accepted that, for whatever reasons, the commandos had parachuted into German occupied Poland. But he knew well enough that they could not just parachute out. Yatom and his men were, after all, in the middle of Nazi occupied Eastern Europe. The commandos couldn't exactly catch a plane or a train back to the Palestinian Mandate.

"How long will that be?" asked the Dutchman deferentially.

"Weiss nicht” said Yatom curtly, his tone suggesting the subject was closed.

"You and your men must be tired and hungry" said De Jong. "We don‘t have much food, and obviously, they hoped that you brought some." De Jong gestured at the crowd still buzzing around the trucks looking for a handout.

"What?" interrupted Sobel. "You're going to deny these men food?"

"No Sobel" answered De Jong. "I was just stating the truth. Of course they can eat and rest."

"We have our own rations" said Yatom, which was barely true anymore. The Israelis had run out of Ioof the day before— irritating the already dyspeptic Mofaz—and were existing on captured German potatoes, Samsonov's cabbages and energy bars. "We also have plenty of weapons and ammunition for you."