in his knapsack for the handheld detonating machine and set about stripping the firing-cord wires.
Katya held the blasting-cap boxes one in each hand, very aware of keeping them cozy and still. Her palms began to sweat, and she wondered how sensitive these temperamental caps were to nerves.
They waited for another five minutes. No one moved, except Josef, who glanced up and down from his watch to the strolling, then disappearing, German guards and their flashlights. Katya knew there was another five-man demolition team waiting a mile south down the track. The plan was simple for each squad: two in the team set the charge; one stays on the detonator; two slither out and try to bag a prisoner for Plokhoi to interrogate.
This was the Battle of the Rails, fought throughout the occupied territories, designed to disrupt the flow of German trains to the front. The Russian road system was so primitive the Nazis had no choice but to rely on the railroads to supply their men and weapons. The partisans knew this and carried the fight to the enemy here. But tonight, Katya hoped, there would be no fight, just a quick strike.
The Germans had lax security at this point in the Borisovka line. At other spots - bridges, bends in the line, downhill runs, all places where the partisans were most likely to hit - the Germans maintained garrisons and watchtowers, and even this was a partisan victory because every enemy soldier safeguarding the railways against the guerillas was one more German soldier not battling on the front. Plokhoi may be a madman, he may even be as bad as his
Katya held the two cap boxes apart as though they might react even to each other. How could Daniel carry them around like they were candy bars? She looked at her partner kneeling beside her. He was reed-thin and chewing a blade of grass. He nodded to himself, some song or pulse playing in his head. She had seen her horses do this at the starting line years ago in the
She sensed the starting moment come, and it did. Josef lifted his face from his watch and whispered, ‘Go.’
Daniel moved first, lugging the long links of cord. Katya stumbled out of the bushes; her heart leaped into her mouth, she started to use her hands to catch herself but couldn’t because of the caps. She struck a knee to the ground and expected to explode. She didn’t, and heard Josef cluck his tongue in disgust.
Daniel lit out for the rails, she followed in his wake. The moonlight out on the flat, cleared ground was milky, just enough of a silver wash to discern shapes at close range and no more. To their right, about fifty meters past them, a two-man patrol had already gone by, playing their beams on the rail ties. Skinny Daniel skittered bent at the waist, the loops of the cord dragged the ground and Katya was afraid of the noise they made scurrying to the rails. She ran awkwardly, too, with both hands before her, still wary of offending the blasting caps. But the guards continued to move off on their rounds and the two reached the tracks. They collapsed on their bellies beside the rails, catching their breaths, trying not to betray themselves from the exertion of the run.
Daniel mopped his brow. Even in the measly light Katya saw the beads of sweat glisten around his eyes. She sat the twin cap boxes in the dirt, relieved to let them loose. Daniel dug into his jacket pocket for the slippery lump of C-3. He handed it over to Katya.
Her hands smeared with the oiled stuff again.
‘Push it against the track,’ Daniel breathed to her. ‘Make it stick.’
She worked the explosive clay against the closest rail, molding it to the smooth warm contours. Daniel busied himself with the blasting caps, easing them from the containers. When he had them both out, he waited seconds while Katya finished forming the C-3 to the rail, then pushed both caps into the putty, leaving the tips and wires exposed.
With his knife he cut a short piece from the end of the firing cord, then stripped away the waxy sheath to expose bare wires at both ends. He twisted the wires to connect one cap, then the other, they were now hooked in sequence. Katya guessed the second cap was a backup in case the first one didn’t blow. She watched him strip the end of the hundred-meter cord and wire it to one of the caps, astonished at the speed with which the partisan could do this minute work. His long fingers were precise as a musician’s, playing over the little wires on this dark and dangerous ground.
Daniel connected the caps in under a minute, working on his stomach with precious little light. Katya kept her ears open, and heard nothing but the pitter of Daniel’s knife and his elbows in the dirt. The last thing Daniel did was remove the crimps from the blasting-cap wires. The caps were now live.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he whispered when he was done. He lifted the circles of cord over his shoulder again and got to his feet, still backing away from the rails, unraveling the first loop onto the ground. Katya had no work to do, her hands were free. She wanted to run for the shelter of the bushes and her comrades, but she stayed beside Daniel while he laid loop after loop on the ground.
Katya watched for the guards to turn and come back their way. She listened for any unwelcome sound, her skin prickled with every crunch of her boots and the complaints of the unspooling wire. Daniel, a lean young man, began to huff with the effort of carrying the wire. Katya was hyper-alert and scared. She looked everywhere into the night, except where she was walking. She tripped over the wire under her feet.
She did not catch herself, that would make more noise, but folded into a ball and rolled to her side on the earth. Daniel made an angry grunt.
They were halfway between the rails and cover. Daniel froze in place. Katya lay still, petrified that her stumble had betrayed them to the strolling guards.
Daniel looked up and down the tracks and saw no reaction from the sweeping flashlights. He shook his head at Katya, then resumed his careful backward gait. She rose from the ground, humiliated at her clumsiness, knowing she would hear it from Daniel if they survived that she was an even bigger oaf than Ivan. What if she had done that while carrying the blasting caps? A cold tingle bristled over her shoulders.
The load across Daniel’s back lightened with every unleashed coil. He quickened his pace and Katya stayed to the side, letting him play out the last lengths of wire. When they reached the bushes, he had only a few loops left. Big Ivan slipped out of the shadows to take the remaining cord.
‘What was that?’ he growled at Daniel.
‘Our ballerina here.’
Katya slid into the bushes behind exhausted Daniel. Josef and Filip were gone into position to do their part of the mission and nab a prisoner.
Relieved not to have to bear an angry stare from Josef or a bemused grin from old Filip over her tumble, she hunkered behind a thick bush and peered out to the tracks.
Ivan bared his wrist and raised his watch to a sliver of moonlight so he could read the time. He lifted the
