Read Online Underground by Antanas Sileika - Free Book Online Page A

we do ours,” said Ungurys.
    Lakstingala tended to be talkative, but Ungurys had a slightly determined air, as if his missions were more important to him than they were to others. It was a form of seriousness that made him curt at times. Lukas liked him well enough, but not as much as his sister, who had been by once and come to look for Lukas to share a cup of tea with him. They didn’t really know each other well, and she had sat in the bunker with Lukas while Vincentas asked her questions about her spiritual life.
    Lukas and Elena had twice shared glances as Vincentas spoke, and in the first sliver of time a trace of understanding formed between them. She sensed that the older brother indulged the younger one in the same way that she took care of her own brother. They looked at one another again and this time they sensed something else, which made it impossible to look a third time.
    Ungurys and Lakstingala took a long time, and it was shortly before dawn when they finished. Vincentas and Lukas were very cold, and they trotted up and down the road to warm themselves.
    â€œNow we withdraw to a vantage point and watch,” said Lakstingala.
    â€œFlint didn’t say anything about that,” Lukas said.
    â€œNot to you he didn’t. He only tells you what you need to know.”
    Using pine boughs, they erased their footprints and moved more deeply into the forest, up a slight rise and behind a thicket of bushes, which camouflaged them but permitted them a view of the road below.
    Lakstingala and Ungurys lit cigarettes and smoked them, then buried the butts in the snow. They each carried a light machine gun, which they unslung from their shoulders and rested on their laps. Lakstingala instructed Vincentas and Lukas to ready their rifles, and they waited.
    It was very cold, and they had been up all night, which made the cold bite even more. Ungurys gave Vincentas a dirty look every time he coughed, and so he tried to do it into his gloves whenever the need arose, muffling the sound.
    An hour after dawn they heard a Studebaker coming out of the village, its exhaust a funnel of steam in the morning sunlight. The car drove past the first proclamation and then stopped and backed up.
    Three slayers, the driver and a Cheka officer got out. The slayers cut the proclamation off the post with a knife. They did the same at the second telegraph post. When they came to the third, the officer and his driver stayed in the car and only the three slayers got out. Two of them, looking not much older than boys, stepped forward to remove the barbed wire and the poster. The third, considerably older, stood back to watch them work.
    The explosion was so great that it blew the one man apart, toppled the pole onto the second and made the third throw his hands to his face, which had had bits of barbed wire driven into it. One of the side windows of the car was blown out as well and from inside it the partisans could hear the officer shouting at the driver. After a few moments the car circled and drove back into town.
    The wounded man was disoriented, blinded, turning around and around as if expecting help to come from the car. He moaned and shouted incoherently. Ungurys snorted.
    â€œThe fool’s expecting help. The other two will be shaking in fear and looking through the back window all the way home. They won’t return until they have thirty men with them.”
    â€œAll right,” said Lakstingala. “Let’s go home.”
    â€œWhat about the poor man on the road?” asked Vincentas. Lukas looked at the man too. He was howling, his hands over his eyes and blood running down his cheeks.
    â€œWhat about him?” asked Lakstingala.
    â€œAren’t you going to take him prisoner?”
    â€œWe don’t take prisoners. We have no place to put them.”
    â€œYou can’t just leave him like that,” said Vincentas.
    â€œYou’re right,” said Ungurys. “Put him out of his