pavement and bring Curda along to identify him. The traitor lowers his head and mumbles: “Opalka.” Pannwitz is delighted. He’s struck lucky. He presumes that the two men in the ambulance are the two assassins, whose names Curda gave up during the interrogation: Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis. He has no idea that Gabcik is just beneath his feet.
When the shooting stopped, Gabcik realized his friend was dead. None of them would ever let the Gestapo take them alive. Now he waits alongside Valcik and his two other comrades—Jan Hruby of Operation Bioscope and Jaroslav Svarc of Operation Tin, the latter having just been sent by London to assassinate Emanuel Moravec, the collaborationist minister—for the Germans either to burst into the crypt or to leave without having flushed them out.
Above them the search goes on, but still they haven’t found anything. The church looks like it’s been hit by an earthquake, and the trapdoor to the crypt is concealed beneath a carpet that nobody thinks to lift. When you don’t know what you’re looking for, you are far less likely to find it. And of course the Germans’ nerves have been sorely tested. Everybody thinks that there is probably nothing more to do here: the mission is over and Pannwitz is about to suggest to Frank that they pack up and go home when one of his men finds something and brings it to him. It’s a piece of clothing—I don’t even know if it’s a jacket, a sweater, a shirt, or a pair of socks—that he discovered in a corner of the church. The policeman’s instinct is immediately on alert. I don’t know how he decides that this item of clothing does not belong to one of the three men they’ve just killed in the gallery, but in any case he orders the search to be continued.
It is after seven o’clock when they find the trapdoor.
Gabcik, Valcik, and their two comrades are trapped like rats. Their hiding place is now their prison, and everything points toward it becoming their tomb. But until then they’re going to make it a bunker. The trapdoor opens. As soon as the legs of an SS stormtrooper appear, they each release a short burst of gunfire. This is like their signature—a demonstration of the cool blood that flows through their veins. There’s screaming and the legs disappear. Their situation is hopeless, but at the same time quite safe, in a way, at least in the short term—safer than the situation in the gallery had been. Kubis and his two comrades had the benefit of a position overlooking the nave, which allowed them to dominate their attackers. Here, it’s the opposite, because the enemy is coming from above, but the entrance is so narrow that the SS have to come down one by one—and that gives the defenders plenty of time to shoot them one after another. It’s the same principle as at Thermopylae, if you like, except that Leonidas’s task has already been accomplished by Kubis. So, protected by thick stone walls, Gabcik, Valcik, Hruby, and Svarc do at least have time—to think, if nothing else. How can they get out of there? Above them, they hear: “Give yourselves up. Nothing bad will happen to you.” The only way out of the crypt is this trapdoor. There is also a kind of horizontal vent in the wall, about ten feet above the floor: they’ve got a ladder, so they could reach it, but it’s too narrow for a man to pass through, and besides, it would only take them out to Resslova Street, which is crawling with hundreds of SS stormtroopers. “You will be treated as prisoners of war.” There are also a few steps leading to an old, boarded-up door, but even if they did manage to break it down, it only leads to the nave—and that, too, is swarming with Germans. “They told me to tell you that you have to give up. So I’ve told you. They said that nothing bad will happen to you, that you’ll be treated as prisoners of war.” The parachutists recognize the voice of Father Petrek, the priest who welcomed them and hid them in his church. One of them replies: “We are Czechs! We will never give ourselves up, you hear? Never! Never!” This is almost certainly not Gabcik, who would have specified: “Czechs and Slovaks.” In my opinion it’s Valcik. But another voice repeats “Never!” and follows it with a burst of gunfire. That seems to me more Gabcik’s style. (Although the truth is that I don’t have a clue.)
Anyway, the endgame has reached a stalemate. Nobody can enter the crypt, and nobody can leave it. Outside, loudspeakers repeat the same words in a loop: “Give yourselves up and come out with your hands in the air. If you do not give yourselves up, we will blow up the whole church and you will be buried in the rubble.” Each announcement is met by a salvo of bullets from the crypt. Even if the Resistance is often deprived of its ability to speak, it can still express itself with a marvelous eloquence. Outside, the ranks of SS are asked to volunteer to go into the crypt. Nobody blinks. The commander repeats his request, more threateningly. A few soldiers step forward, pale-faced. Those who didn’t move are automatically volunteered. Another man is selected to descend through the trapdoor. He gets the same treatment: bullets in the legs—a bloodcurdling scream; another crippled superman. If the parachutists have plenty of ammunition, this could go on for a long time.
The truth is that I don’t want to finish this story. I would like to suspend this moment for eternity, when the four men decide not to surrender to their fate but to dig a tunnel. Beneath the sort of fanlight/vent thing, with God knows what tools, they notice that the wall—which is below ground level—is made of bricks that crumble and come loose easily. Perhaps there is a way after all… perhaps, if we can dig through the stone… Behind the fragile brick wall, they find soft earth, and this makes them redouble their efforts. How far until they reach a pipe, or a sewer, or some kind of path leading to the river? Sixty feet? Thirty feet? Less? There are seven hundred SS outside, fingers on triggers, paralyzed or overexcited by nerves, by their fear of these four men, by the prospect of having to dislodge these enemies who are entrenched, resolute, and not at all intimidated, these enemies who know how to fight. They don’t even know how many of them there are! (As if there might be a whole battalion down there! The crypt is less than fifty feet long.) Outside, Pannwitz barks orders and men run in all directions. Inside, they dig with the energy of the damned. Perhaps they are just struggling for the sake of struggling, and nothing more. Perhaps nobody actually believes in this insane, delirious, Hollywood-style escape plan. But I believe in it. The four men dig away. Do they take turns while they listen to the fire engines’ sirens in the street? Or perhaps there weren’t any sirens. I’ll have another look at the testimony of the fireman who took part in that terrible day. Gabcik puts everything into digging the tunnel. He’s sweating now, having been so cold for days. I’m sure the tunnel was his idea: he’s a natural optimist. And I’m also sure that he’s digging now: he can’t stand being inactive. He wouldn’t just sit there and wait for death, not without doing something, not without trying something. Kubis will not die in vain—let nobody say that Kubis died in vain. Had they already begun digging the tunnel during the assault on the nave, taking advantage of the noise to cover the sound of their pickax? I don’t know that either. How is it possible to know so much and yet so little about people, a story, historical events that you’ve lived with for years? But, deep down, I know they’re going to make it. I can feel it. They’re going to get out of this trap. They are going to escape from Pannwitz’s clutches. Frank will be mad as hell and there’ll be films made about them.
Where is that bloody fireman’s testimony?
Today is May 27, 2008. When the firemen arrive, about 8:00 a.m., they see the SS everywhere and a corpse on the pavement. No one has thought to move Opalka’s body. The firemen listen as they are told what they have to do. It was Pannwitz’s brilliant idea: to smoke them out, and—if that doesn’t work—to drown them. None of the firemen want this job. Among their ranks, one hisses: “If you want that done, don’t look at us.” The head fireman chokes with anger: “Who said that?” But who would have become a fireman to end up lumbered with such a job? So a volunteer is chosen to smash off the iron bars that protect the vent. They fall after a few blows and Frank applauds. And thus a new battle begins around this horizontal orifice, barely three feet long and ten inches high; this black hole that, for the Germans, seems to open onto the unknown and the prospect of death; this shaft of light for the men in the crypt, which also signifies death. This small opening is now the one square on the chessboard coveted by all the pieces remaining in the game. Occupy this square, and you have a crucial positional advantage in an endgame where white—because, in this particular game, it’s black who moved first and who holds the initiative—will stage a heroic, against-all-odds defense.
May 28, 2008. The firemen manage to slide their firehose through the vent. The hose is connected to a fire hydrant, and the pumps are activated. Water pours through the opening.
May 29, 2008. The water begins to rise. Gabcik, Valcik, and their two comrades have wet feet. As soon as a shadow approaches the vent, they shoot. But the water keeps rising.
May 30, 2008. The water is rising, but very slowly. Frank is getting impatient. The Germans toss tear-gas grenades into the crypt to smoke out its occupants, but it doesn’t work, because the grenades fall in the water. Why didn’t they try this before? It’s a mystery. I don’t think you should rule out the possibility that they are acting, as is often the case, in a rushed and disorderly way. Pannwitz seems to me the kind of man who thinks things through carefully, but I suppose he may not be in charge of all the military operations. And perhaps he, too, gives in to panic? Gabcik and his friends have wet feet, but at this rate they will die of old age before they’re drowned.
June 1, 2008. Frank is extremely nervous. The more time passes, the more he fears that the parachutists will find a way of escaping. The water could even help them if they manage to find a leak, because, obviously, the crypt is not exactly watertight. Inside, they’re getting organized. One is in charge of gathering up the grenades and throwing them back outside. Another keeps digging unrelentingly in the tunnel. A third uses a ladder to push the
