It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of
all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps.
They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher
gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they
walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an
hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist
watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn,
if all went well, would change the face of the world.
VI
1
The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the
Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons.
Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in
gray--big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of
Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert,
shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets.
Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against
the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the
Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a
thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and
bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal,
the deep _approaching_ voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes
that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of
even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield.
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