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.dt Dick Donnelly of the Paratroops, by Gregory Duncan - A Project Gutenberg eBook
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DICK DONNELLY
of the
PARATROOPS
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Story by
GREGORY DUNCAN
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Illustrated by
FRANCIS KIRN
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WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
RACINE, WISCONSIN
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Copyright, 1944, by
WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
Printed in U. S. A.
All names, characters, places, and events in this
story are entirely fictitious
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CONTENTS
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CHAPTER || PAGE
I. | #Token Resistance:chap01# | 11
II. | #A Man With Two Names:chap02# | 20
III. | #Wadizam Pass:chap03# | 37
IV. | #Encircled!:chap04# | 50
V. | #Break-Through!:chap05# | 69
VI. | #Special Mission:chap06# | 86
VII. | #Not So Happy Landings:chap07# | 106
VIII. | #Two Visitors to Town:chap08# | 120
IX. | #Uncle Tomaso:chap09# | 132
X. | #The Old Bell Tower:chap10# | 150
XI. | #Fruitless Search:chap11# | 168
XII. | #A Visit to the Dam:chap12# | 181
XIII. | #The Fourth Night:chap13# | 193
XIV. | #Interrupted Performance:chap14# | 207
XV. | #No Calm Before the Storm:chap15# | 222
XVI. | #Zero Hour:chap16# | 235
XVII. | #Aftermath:chap17# | 245
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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#Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield:fig02# | 10
#“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said:fig03# | 23
#“I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.”:fig04# | 33
#Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder:fig05# | 45
#The German Read the Report and Gave an Order:fig06# | 57
#Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord:fig07# | 71
#Dick and Max Walked Happily up the Hill:fig08# | 81
#Major Marker and the Men Went Over Their Plan:fig09# | 93
#Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task:fig10# | 109
#Slade Set Scotti’s Broken Leg:fig11# | 123
#The Two Men Walked Toward the Villa:fig12# | 135
#The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities:fig13# | 145
#“By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!”:fig14# | 157
#Dick Tied the Rope Securely Around the Box:fig15# | 171
#Dick Scanned the Report of German Troop Movements:fig16# | 183
#“If I Could Only Get a German Officer’s Uniform!”:fig17# | 197
#“I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said:fig18# | 209
#Scotti Looked After the Others:fig19# | 225
#Dick Stopped Behind a Tree and Waited:fig20# | 241
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//[Illustration: Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield]
.pm illust 02 donnelly_frontis.jpg 459 "Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield"
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DICK DONNELLY|of|THE PARATROOPS
.pm chap 01 ONE "TOKEN RESISTANCE"
The big transport plane flew out of a cloud just
as the sun appeared over the flat horizon of the
desert to the east. The rolling hills over which the
clouds hung low smoothed out as they met and
merged with the flat wasteland. A row of trees, the
only ones in sight, lined one edge of a rectangle
even flatter and smoother than the land near by. A
long, low building near the trees, with two small
airplanes in front of it, identified the rectangle as
an airfield.
Before the transport reached the field, another
slid out of the cloud. Suddenly swift fighter planes
darted past them, swept low over the airfield with
machine guns splattering their bullets over the
hard earth, the two small planes, and the low hangar.
They circled swiftly, just as a third transport
appeared from the clouds, and roared past the field,
on the far side of the line of trees. Long streaks of
white smoke poured from them, falling lazily and
// 007.png
.pn +1
billowing into man-made clouds as dense as those
in which the planes had recently been flying. In
five minutes the smoke screen was a wall twenty feet
thick and a hundred feet high.
Meanwhile, the first transport had circled the
field, dropping lower. Suddenly a figure plunged
from the side of its fuselage, hurtled toward the
ground, and then checked its descent with a jerk as
a white parachute billowed out above. Another figure
had dropped from the plane before the first
’chute opened, and now it too floated gently to
earth behind the smoke screen. In rapid succession,
eighteen men leaped from the plane, which sped back
toward the hills as another came in to discharge its
cargo of soldiers.
As the first man landed, he rolled over the hard
earth, tugging at the lines of his parachute to spill
the air from it. In a moment it had collapsed and
the man had slipped from his harness. Dropping
his emergency ’chute, he unfolded the stock of his
sub-machine gun and ran forward, crouching,
toward the smoke screen, on the other side of which
lay the airfield building.
“Jerry!” a voice called from behind him, and he
turned.
“Okay, Dick?” the first man called back.
“Yes, sir,” replied the second, running up. “And
here come the rest.”
// 008.png
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In less than three minutes the eighteen men from
the first plane had gathered near their leader, Lieutenant
Jerry Scotti.
“We won’t wait for the heavies,” he said. “I think
this is a setup. Come on.”
He turned and ran into the cloud of smoke, followed
by the others, who held their guns ready. As
they broke out of the cloud on the other side, they
dropped to the ground. The hangar was not more
than a hundred feet away. There was still no sign
of activity in or around it. Not a man had been
seen since the planes first came over.
“No cover here at all,” muttered the second man,
Sergeant Dick Donnelly.
“No opposition, either,” laughed the Lieutenant.
“Can’t see a soul.”
“Think they’ve skipped out?” Donnelly asked his
companion.
“No—no place to skip to, except by plane,” Scotti
replied. “They must be in the hangar, just waiting.
The Major said we might not meet any defense at
all. Most of these Frenchmen are mighty happy to
have us invading North Africa.”
“Sure, but some of ’em are putting up a fight,”
the sergeant said. “They’re good soldiers and if their
officers tell them to fight back, they fight back.”
“Get back a bit into the protection of the smoke,”
Scotti said, and his men pushed themselves back ten
feet. “Now let’s give them a burst and see what happens.”
// 009.png
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The silence, broken only by the steady drone of
airplane motors in the skies overhead, was shattered
by the stuttering explosions of sub-machine guns.
The bullets thudded into the thick, hard clay walls
of the hangar.
Suddenly three rifles and a pistol were thrust
through the windows at the rear of the hangar and
they fired repeatedly—into the air! Then a white
flag was thrust from the middle window on a long
pole, so quickly that it must have been ready for the
purpose.
“We surrendair!” called a voice from the hangar.
“Les Américains—zey have conquered us!”
“All right,” shouted Lieutenant Scotti, advancing
from the smoke screen about ten feet. “Toss all guns
out the window.”
“Oui, oui, at once!” came back the voice.
Half a dozen rifles, three automatics, and two light
machine guns were thrust from the windows and
clattered to the ground. By this time two other
groups of American soldiers had appeared, one to
the right and one to the left of Scotti’s group.
“It’s all over,” he called to them. “Hold your fire!
They’ve surrendered.”
“My golly!” cried a voice from the group on the
left. “What did we come along for—just to take
a ride?”
But Lieutenant Scotti had turned his attention
back to the hangar.
// 010.png
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“Now come out that side door,” he called. “One
at a time, with your hands up.”
In a moment the side door of the hangar was
opened and out stepped a smiling French officer, his
hands in the air. His blue uniform was as trim
as his tiny mustache, and he walked erect, with
dignity and military precision. Just as the other
French soldiers came out behind him, three men
appeared from the smoke, which now was lifting
somewhat, behind Scotti’s group. Dick Donnelly
turned from his officer’s side and called to them.
“Take it easy, boys.” he said with a grin. “The
heavy machine guns won’t be needed—unless you
want a little target practice later just to keep in
trim.”
The men, who had quickly assembled a machine
gun dropped by parachute from one of the planes,
rushed it forward with all possible speed, stopped
in their tracks, dropped their heavy burdens, and
looked disappointed.
“Aren’t we ever gonna get any fightin’?” grumbled
the first man.
“Wasn’t that little business at Casablanca enough
for you?” asked Donnelly.
“Sure, but that was three weeks ago!” was the
reply.
By this time the French soldiers were lined up
alongside the hangar, their hands in the air. There
were two other officers, four enlisted men and four
men whose overalls showed that they were mechanics.
// 011.png
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“We have resisted,” cried the first officer happily.
“Did you not see? We fired our guns in resistance
against your attack as we have been commanded.
But your superior numbairs overcame us. Yes?”
Lieutenant Jerry Scotti grinned and walked forward.
“Sure, I understand,” he said. “You put up a
whale of a fight! Lucky nobody was hurt. You can
put your hands down now.”
Scotti turned to his sergeant.
“Sergeant Donnelly, you may send up the flares
signaling capitulation of the French airfield after
a brief but fierce fight. The other planes can come
in now.”
As Dick Donnelly, with a few of his men, hurried
off to carry out the Lieutenant’s order, Jerry Scotti
extended his hand to the French officer, who
grabbed it and shook it heartily, mumbling happy
phrases all the time in such an outpouring of words
and exclamations that Scotti, whose French was limited,
could understand nothing of what was said.
But he did know that the man was delighted—so
delighted, in fact, that a mere handshake would not
suffice to demonstrate his enthusiasm. He flung his
arms around Lieutenant Scotti, who looked a little
embarrassed, especially at the grins of his own men
who stood in a circle around him.
// 012.png
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“I feel as if I ought to say something important,”
he muttered, “like ‘Lafayette, we are here’ or something.”
The other groups of soldiers had gone forward to
the hangar, searched the inside of the building,
looked over the two obsolete French fighter planes
standing in front, and watched Donnelly set off his
signal flares. In a few minutes they were looking
at half a dozen more transport planes as they circled
and came in for a landing on the hard runway of
the field. Their wheels had hardly stopped rolling
when men in khaki uniforms piled from them,
formed lines and were marched to the edge of the
field by their commanding officers.
A half hour after the first plane had appeared
from the cloud over the hills, there were two hundred
American soldiers at the French airfield. In
the hangar, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti saluted Captain
Murphy, who came in with the air-borne troops,
and made his report.
“Good work,” the Captain said, as he sat at the
desk and began to look over the papers on it. “The
transports will take you and the other parachute
troops back to your base at once. They have to get
off the field within ten minutes because the fighter
squadron will be coming in. We’ve leap-frogged
quite a jump this time. Oh yes—see that the French
prisoners are taken back to your base, too. And you
can tell them they’ll probably be fighting alongside
us against the Germans within a few weeks.”
// 013.png
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“They’ll like that, sir,” Scotti said. “I’ve talked
with a couple of them. I’ve never had anyone so
happy to see me as they were. Still, they had to put
up that token resistance.”
“Yes, wonderful spirit,” Captain Murphy agreed.
“You can inform Captain Rideau, the commanding
officer, that his actions when we attacked the field
will be relayed to the French authorities who will
organize French forces in North Africa to battle
the common enemy.”
Within two hours, Lieutenant Scotti, Sergeant
Dick Donnelly, and all the paratroopers from their
plane as well as the others, were back at the little
town which had been their base for the past week.
The Frenchmen, technically under military arrest,
had the freedom of the town.
At dinner that evening Private First Class Max
Burckhardt complained loudly to Sergeant Dick
Donnelly.
“What a washout!” he grumbled. “Nothing but a
nice plane ride, an easy parachute jump, a little
standing around in the hot sun, and then a ride back
again. Do they call this a war?”
“Keep your shirt on, Max,” Sergeant Dick Donnelly
replied with a smile. “The French want us to
come. Just you wait until we make contact with
the Germans!”
// 014.png
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“Ah—yes!” boomed the burly private. “That’s
what I’m waiting for—for a chance at some of those
Nazis.”
“It won’t be long now,” mused the sergeant. “It
won’t be long.”
// 015.png
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.pm chap 02 TWO "A MAN WITH TWO NAMES"
As the days rolled by, the good-natured complaints
grew in number and intensity. The men
wanted to fight and they were not fighting.
“When I volunteered for the paratroops,” young
Tony, the radioman, said one day, “I did it because
I like action. I like excitement. I like thrills. Danger—it
doesn’t mean much to me. Some day I’m
gonna get killed, that’s all. I’m sort of a fatalist, I
guess. When my number’s up it’s up, and sitting
around worryin’ about it won’t change it. Meanwhile,
have a good time, get a kick out of things,
and do your darnedest in anything you’ve got to do.”
“I know what you mean,” Dick Donnelly said.
“And I feel a little bit the same way—but I don’t
believe in not ducking when a shell’s coming over.”
“Oh—I don’t invite death to come see me,” Tony
said. “But, as I was sayin’, I thought the parachute
troops would be wonderful. And important, too.
Droppin’ behind enemy lines, messin’ up their communications,
blowin’ up a few bridges, takin’ an
airfield—and all this with the enemy all around
you! It’s good tough stuff, and that’s what I like.
But what happened?”
// 016.png
.pn +1
“Well, what did happen?” Dick smiled.
“I get into the parachute troops after my basic,”
Tony said. “And then, first, they teach me how to
fall down. As if I haven’t fallen down plenty of
times when I was a kid. And from places just as high
as they made me jump off of, too. When you’re a
kid duckin’ away from the gang from the next
block, you know how to climb and dodge—and fall.
Then the practice jumps from the tower! What do
they need a tower for? Why not just get us up in a
plane and toss us out? We’ll learn how to use a
’chute fast enough that way, don’t you worry.”
“But, Tony, you’ve got to remember,” Dick said,
“that not everybody is as agile as you are. And they
don’t have the same attitude as you. They feel a
little funny at first, jumping out of an airplane. And
they’re likely to get mixed up and forget which side
the ripcord is on. Some people tighten up and get
panicky. They’ve got to learn things slowly, get
used to them.”
“What’s so hard about it?” Tony demanded. “You
jump, and you don’t even have to worry about the
ripcord. It’s hooked inside the plane.”
“Well, they’ve got to teach you how to land
right,” Dick countered. “Otherwise you might
break a leg or get dragged half a mile by your
’chute.”
“Anybody knows he ought to roll when he falls,”
Tony said. “And you can see you have to spill the
air out of your ’chute and slip out of the harness.
It’s easy.”
// 017.png
.pn +1
“For you, yes,” Dick said. “You could scramble
up the side of a sheer wall twenty feet high, like a
cat. You’d have made a wonderful bantam halfback
if you’d ever played football, Tony, the way you
can duck and dodge and twist and go underneath or
over anything that’s between you and where you
want to go. Anyway—so paratroops training was
easy for you. Then what?”
“One thing I did like,” the young corporal said,
“and that was the conditioning. They decided paratroopers
had to be tough and they put us through
everything to make us tough. I like that. I like to
be hard as nails and in perfect condition all the
time. It makes me feel swell. And I liked the chance
to learn radio. I’d fooled around a lot with it as a
kid. The Army really taught me things about it.”
“And you learned what they taught, too,” the
sergeant said. “That’s why you’re a corporal so early
in the game, and so young.”
“I don’t care about that,” Tony said. “I want to
get fighting. I don’t like this sittin’ around. I
thought this North African invasion would really
be the works. When we shipped out from home, I
knew it was something big. But what have we
done?”
“Tough fight when we landed back of Casablanca,”
Donnelly said. “That was a good scrap.”
// 018.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: “I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said]
.pm illust 03 donnelly_p23.jpg 466 "“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said"
// 019.png
.pn +1
“Sure, it started off fine,” Tony agreed. “But then
we just sat for three weeks. Sure, we moved forward
from one base to another as the ground troops
went forward. But no fighting. No parachuting.
Nothing. Then today we thought it had come at
last. But it was nothing. Just a practice jump.”
“When we reach Tunisia,” Dick said, “we’ll run
into some real fighting. By the way, Tony, I suppose
you’ve thought some about how you’ll feel
fighting Italians. Will you be so anxious to fight
them?”
“Well, I’m an American,” Tony said. “I was born
in America. I’m fighting for America. But my folks—they
were Italian. And their friends, lots of ’em
come from Italy. And I’ve got cousins and uncles
and aunts there, even visited them once for almost a
year when I was about sixteen. But it’s not them I’m
fighting. They don’t want this war at all. They’re
fightin’ just because somebody is makin’ ’em do it.
That’s why they’ve been so lousy during this war.
Some people think I must get upset when Italians
always run away in battle. No—I like it. It doesn’t
mean they’re cowards or bad soldiers. It just means
they don’t want to fight this war.”
“Well—I don’t want to fight, really,” Dick said.
“And neither do most Americans. What about
that?”
// 020.png
.pn +1
“You don’t like to go to war,” Tony said. “Neither
do I. But we know what we’re fightin’ for. We
know our country’s worth fightin’ for. But what
about these Italians—most of ’em? They haven’t got
anything to fight for—against us. They love their
country, but not their government. And they know
they’ll get shot or starved to death, or their kids will
get punished some way, if they don’t fight when the
government tells them to. So they fight—but without
any heart in it.”
“But you may be killing some of them,” Dick
said. “Maybe even some of your relatives.”
“That’ll be too bad,” Tony said. “I don’t want to
kill anybody, really. But if you’ve got to shoot a few
guys, or even a few million, because some louse who
wants to ruin the world has sold them a bill of goods
or made ’em go out and try to kill you—then that’s
just the only way to do what we’ve got to do. When
I shoot at the enemy I’m not shootin’ at any one
person. I’m just shootin’ at an idea I hate, an idea
that will ruin the whole world if it isn’t stopped.
If the other guys are supportin’ that idea with guns,
then I’ve got to shoot ’em, that’s all. And it doesn’t
make any difference if they’re Italians or not. It
doesn’t make any difference if they’re Americans.
If any Americans try to make our country like Germany,
then I’ll shoot them too.”
Max Burckhardt had wandered up and joined
them as they sat under the shade of a palm tree.
// 021.png
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“Tony’s right,” the big private said. “But I’m
itchin’ especially to get at some Germans, even if my
folks were German. I won’t be shootin’ Germans—I’ll
just be shootin’ the men who are tryin’ to force
on me their way of living, a way I don’t like at all.
Since the German Nazis did this more than anybody
else, they’re the ones I want to get at more than anyone
else.”
There was a moment’s pause.
Dick Donnelly sighed. “Well, you’ll have your
chances soon,” he said. “Both of you. You’ll be
fightin’ Germans and Italians before long.”
“Say—by the way,” Max said, “I found out what
Lieutenant Scotti’s first name is.”
“Why, it’s Jerry, of course,” Dick said. “We’ve
known that right along. I always call him Jerry,
except when a lot of officers are around, and then
I’ve got to use sir.”
“Well, Jerry’s just his nickname,” Max said.
“Don’t tell me it’s for Gerald,” Tony said. “It
just wouldn’t fit that guy.”
“No—remember his last name,” Max said. “His
folks—or at least his father—was Italian back a
couple of generations. The name is Scotti. And his
first name is Geronimo!”
“Geronimo!”
Both Dick and Tony cried out at once, and sat
up, looking with disbelief at Max Burckhardt.
“You’re kidding!” Dick said, shaking his head.
“Why, that’s what we yell when we jump—to overcome
the sudden change in pressure against our ear
drums. And just because the lieutenant’s a paratrooper
somebody’s called him Geronimo as a gag.”
// 022.png
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“No, it’s really official,” Max insisted. “I was over
at headquarters gabbin’ with Joe Silcek while he
pecked away at his typewriter. I saw it on an official
list.”
“An official list?” Donnelly said, concern wrinkling
his forehead.
“Sure—what’s wrong?” Max asked. “I wasn’t
lookin’ at anything I shouldn’t. It was right there—everybody’s
name on it in our company.”
“Oh, everybody’s,” Dick said, and was silent.
“What’s the matter, Sarge?” Tony Avella laughed.
“You act as if you’d been caught travelin’ under a
phony name and Max had found you out.”
“Me?” Donnelly tried to laugh it off. “What an
idea! You couldn’t travel under a phony name in
the Army.”
“Say, I’ve always wondered about that name of
yours, anyway,” Max said. “Didn’t want to say anything
until I knew you better. But you really look
as Italian as Tony here, and I know you speak
Italian like a native. How come the Irish name?”
“Well—it is an Irish name!” Dick said. “You see—my
mother was Italian.”
“Oh, and your father was Irish?” Max asked.
But the sergeant just grinned. “I might as well
come out with it,” he said. “No—my father was
Italian, too.”
// 023.png
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“Then—where did that name Dick Donnelly
come from?”
“It really was Irish in the beginning,” the sergeant
smiled. He looked out over the rolling hills
and watched the heat waves rising from the flat
lands. It was pleasant here under the tree, talking
to his friends. The war seemed miles away, and yet
the war had brought him friends like this, brought
him a whole new life. And now that old life was
going to come out. If they all hadn’t been so restless
between battles, his old life could have stayed
buried. It wasn’t that Donnelly was ashamed of it,
but just that he wasn’t sure the others would understand.
He was silent, as he thought about it, and the
others waited, knowing he was going to tell them
something interesting about himself. Their relationship
was not the ordinary one of sergeant and
lesser ranks. In the parachute troops, men were
often thrown closely together when they worked
frequently from the same plane, always in the same
group. Commissioned officers were more informal
and friendlier with the men under them, too. Lieutenant
Scotti and Dick Donnelly, for example, were
very close friends. They kept to the formalities
only in military matters, but in private they called
each other “Jerry” and “Dick.”
// 024.png
.pn +1
Dick Donnelly liked Max Burckhardt and Tony
Avella. He had been with them at training camp
and ever since. They would be going through a lot
more together. So it was natural that he should tell
them about his other name, his other life.
“Donnelly’s an Irish name, all right,” he said.
“And that was my family’s name originally. You
see, there were quite a few Irish settled in Italy a
few hundred years ago and they just switched their
names to the nearest Italian equivalent. My Italian
name is Donnelli, of course.”
“Why did you switch to Donnelly when you came
in the Army?” Max asked.
“I didn’t switch then,” Dick replied. “You see,
my folks were crazy about it when they first came
to America. They made up their minds to become
as American as George Washington. So they
changed the name back to its old original, Donnelly,
because it sounded more like most names in America.”
As Dick talked, Tony Avella was looking at him
closely, with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Dick Donnelly,” he murmured to himself.
“Richard Donnelly!” And then a light dawned in
his eyes and he smiled. “I get it now! I thought
your face looked a little familiar. Of course, I’ve
seen pictures of you. I’ve seen you—and heard you,
too!”
“What is all this?” Max Burckhardt demanded.
“Am I right?” Tony asked, smiling at his sergeant.
“Yes, you’re right, Tony,” Dick answered.
// 025.png
.pn +1
“Say, let me in on the secret,” Max blurted out.
“Sure, Max,” Tony said. “Just translate Richard
Donnelly into Italian. Ricardo Donnelli.”
“Sure—sure—Ricardo Donnelli,” Max said impatiently.
“That’s obvious, but what does—”
He stopped, and looked at Dick Donnelly in awe.
“My golly, are you really—” he mumbled. “Are you
the Ricardo Donnelli?”
“I guess I am,” Dick grinned. “I haven’t run into
any others.”
“The famous Metropolitan opera star!” Tony
cried. “And we’ve never heard you sing a note!”
“Well, I didn’t think many people in the Army
would be very interested in the kind of stuff I
sing,” Dick said.
“Say—I’ve stood back there with aching feet at
the Met so often,” Tony said. “I’ve waited in line
for those standing-room tickets just to hear you sing.
And now I’ve been your pal for months and you’ve
never even warbled!”
“No, I haven’t really felt like it,” the sergeant
said. “I started getting upset about this war long
before we were in it. My folks hated fascism since
Mussolini first started spouting in Italy. I wanted
to join the Loyalists in Spain but I was just getting
started in my singing career then, and felt I
couldn’t do it, after working so hard for the chance
I finally got at the Met. I’ve been seeing it coming
for a long time, and when I finally got a chance to
// 026.png
.pn +1
fight I joined up and forgot everything else. I’m
no Ricardo Donnelli any more. I’m Dick Donnelly,
paratrooper in the United States Army!”
“You studied in Italy, didn’t you?” Max asked.
“Sure, everybody does if he gets a chance,” Dick
said.
“Why is that?” Max asked. “America’s got plenty
of good singing teachers, plenty of good music.”
“Sure, but not the way it is in Italy,” Dick explained.
“You see, in Italy there are little opera
companies all over the place. Every town has its
own opera and its own orchestra. They’re not like
the Met, of course, but there are dozens of them
which give a newcomer, an unknown, a chance to
sing. And that’s what counts—plenty of singing in
public, on an actual stage, in a real performance.
I sang in half a dozen small companies in my two
years in Italy. And somebody noticed me and gave
me a chance at La Scala in Milan, and there somebody
from the Metropolitan heard me and signed
me up. Of course, when I had come to Italy to study
and sing, it was natural for me to go back to my
old Italian name, Ricardo Donnelli. So I’ve stayed
Ricardo Donnelli as far as singing is concerned.”
“Why didn’t you ever let on who you really
were?” Tony asked.
“Well—several reasons,” Dick said. “As I told
you, I’m not concerned with singing now, but fighting.
I’m Dick Donnelly. And then if they knew
// 027.png
.pn +1
who I was, I’d always be asked to be singing here and
there, at shows and camps and such. Then like as
not I’d find myself transferred to some morale-building
branch of the service just going around
building soldiers’ morale by singing operatic arias.
And I’d get no fighting done at all. I got into this
war to fight. I want to stamp out all the rotten government
I saw in Italy when I was there—and its
even worse versions in Germany and Japan—and
everywhere.”
“I see,” Tony Avella replied. “I feel pretty much
the same way, not thinking about anything but this
job we’ve got to do. So I won’t go spouting around
that you’re Ricardo Donnelli, the great singer. But
if we’re ever alone out in the hills at night, will you
sing Celeste Aïda some time?”
“I sure will, Tony,” Dick answered with a warm
smile. “If I can still sing.”
“I’ll keep my trap shut, too,” Max said. “If you
want to be just Sergeant Dick Donnelly, then you
can be it. You see, I had an uncle and aunt in Germany
that I loved a lot. They didn’t like Hitler and
they said so. They were that kind. And they’re dead
now—died in stinking concentration camps. So I’m
not thinking much about anything, either, until I
get even for them. It’s going to take a lot of dead
Nazis to make up for Uncle Max and Aunt Elsa.”
“For a bunch of guys who say they want to fight
so much,” Dick laughed, “we seem to be taking it
pretty easy, sitting here in the shade on a nice
afternoon.”
// 028.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: “I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.”]
.pm illust 04 donnelly_p33.jpg 460 "“I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.”"
// 029.png
.pn +1
“The whole outfit’s goin’ nuts,” Tony said. “All
anxious to get into the thick of it. It seems as if our
gang is just about the blood-thirstiest in the Army.
That’s why they all joined up with the parachute
troops—thought they’d get first crack at the enemy
if they dropped behind their lines.”
“We’ve got quite a cross-section in our own
plane,” Dick said. “We’ve all got special reasons,
the three of us here, for wanting to fight and fight
hard. I suppose most of the rest of them have too.
There’s Monteau, the Frenchman. He doesn’t say
much, but from the look in his eye I’d hate to be a
German meeting up with him. And there’s Steve
Masjek. He’s a Czech, and you know what those
boys think of the Germans. Barney Olson’s got relatives
in Norway. And there’s a bunch of just plain
Americans with no special ties to the old world who
are pretty anxious to fight, and fight some more.”
“But when? When?” cried Max. “I thought I was
itchin’ to get at those Nazis, but I guess we’ve got one
gent in our outfit that’s more anxious than I am.
Did you hear about Vince Salamone?”
“No, what about the home-run king?” Tony
asked. “And say—that makes me think, we’ve got a
fair representation of boys whose families came from
Italy—the lieutenant, Scotti, and Salamone the baseball
player, and myself—and now you, Maestro
Donnelli.”
// 030.png
.pn +1
“Sure—the Army knows we’re going to invade
Italy,” Dick said. “We’re going to come in handy.
But what about Vince?”
“He got picked up trying to hitchhike to the
front,” Max said. “Just flatly stated that he didn’t
want to be a paratrooper any more ’cause he hadn’t
had a real chance to fight yet and he had to have it.
Other boys were fightin’ up front, he said, and he
aimed to help ’em out instead of sittin’ around here
waiting for an airplane ride.”
“What did they do with him?” Dick asked.
“Oh, the Major acted sore, of course,” Max said,
“because he had to. But he really liked the guy’s
spirit. And everybody likes Vince anyway, not just
because he’s the best ball player in the world, but
one of the nicest guys, too. He got three days in the
guardhouse and no furlough for a month, that’s all.”
“Well, he won’t miss anything,” Tony said. “It’s
no duller in the guardhouse than here, and there
aren’t any furloughs these days, anyway.”
“He’s going to miss something,” a voice said from
behind the group chatting in the shade of the tree.
They all sat up and turned around to see Lieutenant
Scotti. Quickly they jumped to their feet and saluted.
Scotti saluted in return and then ambled up
to them amiably.
// 031.png
.pn +1
“Yes, Salamone is going to miss a little action,”
the lieutenant said, “and you guys who’ve been itching
to get into action so badly have at last got a
chance to do a little fighting. And—this is for you
especially, Private Burckhardt—we’ll encounter a
few Germans!”
// 032.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 03 THREE "WADIZAM PASS"
“We’re really just a diversionary action, a feint,”
Scotti said, his voice raised slightly so that all the
men in the plane could hear him above the muffled
hum of the plane’s engines.
“So we’re not gettin’ into the real thing even
yet?” Tony Avella demanded.
“It’s the real thing, all right,” the lieutenant replied,
“if it’s tough fighting you want. We’ll have
plenty on our hands if plans work out right, because
we’ll draw off a sizable force for our main
group to pinch off.”
The men all leaned forward eagerly.
“You see, the Germans have holed up in the
Wadizam Pass, and that’s on the main road to Tunis
and Bizerte,” the lieutenant continued. “We’ve got
to break their hold there and that’s no easy job. The
planes have been giving them a pasting from that
French field we took last week, but they’ve got
plenty of cover and have stood up under it well. A
frontal attack is almost suicide because our men
would have to march between hills covered with
German guns.”
// 033.png
.pn +1
“This begins to sound like something,” Dick
Donnelly commented, and several others nodded,
waiting for Scotti to continue. It was one of the
things they liked most about their lieutenant—his
willingness to tell them as much as he could about
any action they were going into. Lots of men had to
fight almost in the dark, but Scotti felt his men
could fight better if they knew why they were fighting
and what they were up against.
“Two Ranger companies have been walking all
night over mountains with almost no trail,” Scotti
said. “They’ve probably been running, instead of
walking, as a matter of fact, because they had fourteen
miles to cover, over rough terrain, in complete
darkness. Think that over while you’re sitting here
nice and comfortable in your private airplane!”
“Where are the Rangers going?” Max Burckhardt
asked.
“They’re cutting over the hills, to come down on
those entrenched Germans from above,” Scotti continued.
“The Germans won’t expect it for a minute.
In the first place, the hill is considered almost impassable.
Also, their observation planes have not
noted any move of a body of troops in that direction.
That’s because the troops waited for darkness,
were rushed to the bottom of the hill by truck after
dark, and will climb all night. It’s an almost impossible
feat, and the Germans don’t think we’re
very good soldiers yet. They think you’ve got to
have plenty of battle experience to do a job like
that. So they’re sure we won’t pull such a trick.”
// 034.png
.pn +1
“Well—I know those Ranger-Commando boys
are good,” Dick Donnelly said. “But can they really
do it, if it’s so near to impossible?”
“They’ll do it,” the lieutenant replied with a
smile. “They had the whole job put up to them on
a volunteer basis, and the toughness of it wasn’t
played down, either. And they were told that we
fellows would be sticking our necks out, because
our very lives depended on their making that
march on time. They said they’d make it, and they
said it as if they meant it. They know the score—and
they won’t miss.”
Jerry Scotti looked around at the faces and saw
smiles, a few nods, and some relief. These men
knew, too, that the Rangers would get to the top
of their hill on time, even though many of them
would be carrying guns and mortars.
“Okay—now here’s where we come in,” Scotti
said. “Just after dawn we fly past the Wadizam Pass,
to the north of it, circling around as if we were
trying to sneak in just when we had enough light to
see but before the Germans would see us. Of course,
they will see us and we know it. But they haven’t
got much of an opinion of us as soldiers or tacticians
yet; so they’ll think we’re fools enough to believe we
can get away with it.”
“I get it,” Tony Avella said. “They’ve been saying
the Americans were stupid. Well, we’re going
to take advantage of their thinking that.”
// 035.png
.pn +1
“Sure, that’s it,” Scotti said. “And we’ll be quite
a parachute force dropping behind their lines on
the opposite hill from the ones the Rangers will be
coming over. Twenty planes dropping paratroopers
back there can cause a lot of damage, and they
know it. There’re a couple of important bridges, a
dam, and some telegraph lines we can cut.”
“Is that what we’re going to do?” Dick asked.
“No, it’s not,” the lieutenant answered.
“I didn’t think so,” the sergeant said. “We’ll want
to be using that dam and those bridges and lines
pretty soon ourselves.”
“Right,” Scotti agreed, and went on. “But the
Germans will have to send back quite a good-sized
force to round us up. First, they’ll want to do the
job fast, before we could do much damage, so they’ll
send a big force. Next, they know we’ll have good
cover in the hills, and they’ll be coming up the slope
to get us. To do that the attacking force has to be
about four times as strong as the defenders. And in
this case, we’re the defenders, holding the hilltop.”
“We can mow ’em down,” Max Burckhardt
grinned.
“Sure, we can,” Scotti said, “for a while. And
then they’d overcome us with greatly superior numbers
and a few fairly heavy guns they’d trundle up
there in a hurry. But they won’t get that chance.
If we can draw off 1500 to 2000 men from the main
// 036.png
.pn +1
force at the entrance of the pass, they’ll be weakened
by more than a third. Then the Rangers swoop
down on them from their side—flanking them so
their biggest guns are not in position to return fire.
It will be a complete surprise to them, and at the
crucial moment the main force will attack at the
front.”
“Sounds fine—if it works,” Tony muttered.
They all agreed, but no one said what would happen
if it did not work. They all knew that if the
attack failed, the paratroop force would be cut off
completely, surrounded and mopped up.
“So, even if we’re a diversion,” Jerry Scotti smiled,
“I think we’ll get in some pretty good fighting.
Tony, I’ll want that radio set up in a big hurry.”
“Right you are, sir,” the young man replied. “I’ll
have it going in ten minutes after it lands, if you’ll
detail a couple of men to help me get it out of the
’chute containers and put together in a good spot.”
“Sure,” the lieutenant replied. “MacWinn and
Rivera—you help Tony with the radio first. There
won’t be any shooting for a while, anyway; so you
won’t miss any of it.”
Suddenly, after all the talk, there was complete
silence in the plane. The men were all looking into
space, or at the floor, thinking, picturing what might
come in the dangerous action ahead of them. The
plane purred on steadily. This was always the most
difficult time, Lieutenant Scotti knew. That was
// 037.png
.pn +1
why he so often passed the time telling his men
about the coming action. The ride in the plane just
before they jumped and began to fight—that was
when hearts beat a little faster, when men’s throats
felt a little dry.
“It’s just about getting light over to the east,” he
said quietly, and the men looked up. The co-pilot
stepped through the door from the cockpit at that
moment, and spoke to the lieutenant.
“About three minutes,” he said. “All set?”
“All set,” Scotti replied with a smile, and got to
his feet. Before he could utter his command, the
men were on their feet attaching their long ripcords
to the cable that ran the length of the fuselage over
their heads.
“Got ’em trained, haven’t you?” the co-pilot commented.
“Don’t have to give them any orders.”
“Not this gang,” Scotti replied. “They know what
to do better than I do.”
The men all smiled at that, pleased with themselves.
They weren’t tense any more. The time for
real action was here at last, and they were ready
for it.
The side door was opened, and the men braced
themselves against the blast of air that swept against
them.
“Remember—low jump, men,” Scotti said. “Okay—go
ahead, Dick.”
// 038.png
.pn +1
Clutching the Reising sub-machine gun across his
chest, Donnelly leaped into space with a shout. But
to the customary “Geronimo!” he added the word,
“Scotti!” But the lieutenant did not hear, for the
blast that caught Dick swept him thirty feet from
the plane by the time the second word was out of
his mouth. And Scotti was already giving his curt
order to the second man to jump.
In rapid-fire order they went, piling out of the
plane only two seconds apart. When the last man
had jumped, Scotti and the co-pilot grabbed up two
large containers with parachutes attached and tossed
them, with the lieutenant following them immediately.
Dick Donnelly was swinging slowly and gently at
the ends of his shroud lines. He looked below at
the rocky and uneven ground covered with little
clumps of short, scrubby trees. He reached up over
his right shoulder and tugged at the lines a bit so
that his body shifted to the left slightly. He was
picking his spot for a landing.
Then he stole a glance upward and behind him,
smiling with pleasure as he saw the sky filled with
scores of white parachutes.
“Looks like a snowstorm,” he muttered to himself.
“They sure did pile plenty of us out in a hurry
over a small area.”
The planes had already swung westward as they
climbed away from the first ineffective bursts of
antiaircraft shells from German batteries to the
// 039.png
.pn +1
south. There was no German airfield in the Wadizam
Pass—it was too narrow and rocky—but they
would be radioing for fighters to the field at the
rear, over the hill.
“The transports will get away, though,” Dick
mused. “They’re just about out of ack-ack range
now, and the fighters will be too late.”
He looked down at the ground again, which suddenly
seemed to be coming up at him more rapidly.
When the parachute first stopped his descent, it
seemed almost as if he were floating in the air, settling
downward, ever so slowly. But as he neared
the earth, he had a better estimate of the speed at
which he was traveling. With a last glance upward
at the many white ’chutes interspersed with a few
colored ones bearing machine guns, mortars, radio,
and ammunition, he slipped his ’chute lines once
more and got ready for the rolling fall.
“Going to miss that big boulder all right,” he told
himself. Then his feet touched the earth and jolted
him as he tumbled sideways and slightly forward,
yanking vigorously against the shroud lines on one
side.
But he did not have to worry about the escape
from his parachute, for it caught against the boulder
he had missed, and collapsed. Quickly he jumped to
his feet, slipped out of the harness, ditched his emergency
’chute, and looked up toward the crest.
// 040.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder]
.pm illust 05 donnelly_p45.jpg 464 "Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder"
// 041.png
.pn +1
“Yes, there’s the ledge,” he said to himself, and
ran forward, the loose gravel and rocks rolling down
the steep hill behind him as they were kicked loose.
The ledge toward which he was running was a
broad and sweeping shelf in the side of the hill, only
about a hundred feet from the crest. It extended
all along the ridge and was perhaps fifty feet deep at
most points. On the northern end it narrowed to
nothing where the hill dropped sharply down in
a precipice to a small valley below. At the southern
end the ledge just merged gradually into the hill itself.
It was here that it would have to be defended.
No enemy troops could hope to attack from the
north, up the cliff.
In less than two minutes, Dick Donnelly had
reached the ledge and was giving it a quick glance
which took in all details, when more men streamed
up the hill to join him. They all looked it over just
as Dick had done, noting at once the big boulders
that could give good cover, the depressions out of
which good foxholes might be dug, the occasional
overhanging rocks which made half-caves. Then
their glance swept down the hill, seeing which way
the Germans must come when they did come.
Tony Avella, with MacWinn and Rivera, struggled
up the incline with their big boxes. With only
a short glance, Tony motioned his men to follow
him up beyond the broad ledge, nearer the crest
of the hill. There, Dick saw him motion toward a
big boulder which lay near a clump of the low,
rugged trees. They dumped their boxes, and Tony
started to open them at once.
// 042.png
.pn +1
Dick turned to direct men who arrived with heavy
machine guns. The first carried the gun itself, the
second its tripod mount, the third the water-cooling
apparatus for it. Not far behind them climbed four
men with boxes of ammunition for the gun.
“There—between those two big rocks at the
edge,” Dick said, pointing. “You can get a straight
sweep down there.”
With a grunt the men moved to the spot designated
by the sergeant and began to set up the weapon
with swift movements that wasted not a second
or a bit of energy. Then Lieutenant Scotti stood
at Dick’s side.
“Okay, Dick,” he said. “Nice spot, isn’t it?”
“Perfect,” Dick said. “We could hold off an army
here for days, provided they didn’t come at us from
over the crest behind our backs.”
“Not much chance,” the lieutenant replied. “No
roads or trails on that side of the ridge at all. It
would take them a day and a half to get around
there, and it ought to be all over by this afternoon.
They’ll not even get a chance to think of it. But you
forget about planes.”
“Yes, you’re right,” the sergeant agreed. “Not a
good spot for planes. They can get at us pretty
easily. But our own—”
// 043.png
.pn +1
“They’re going to be pretty busy,” the lieutenant
said. “They’ll be disrupting roads and supply lines
behind the Pass and helping out the Ranger attack
and then the frontal attack. They’ll help us if they
can, if the Jerry planes come after us.”
Within ten minutes after the parachute landing,
the entire force was disposed, with machine guns
emplaced, and mortars in position behind them.
Men were digging foxholes out of the rocky soil,
selecting spots beside boulders for the maximum
protection. Lieutenant Scotti had reported everything
to Captain Marker, in command of the operation,
who had set up headquarters almost at the
crest of the hill. It was an exposed position, but it
offered a perfect observation point.
“I’ll be able to see the Ranger attack when it
comes,” the Captain pointed out, gesturing toward
the hill on the opposite side of the valley. “They’ll
be streaming over there as soon as we give the word.
Is the radio set up?”
“Yes, sir,” Scotti replied. “Corporal Avella is
ready to go at any time. We’re to use the call letters
indicating that we’re communicating with our main
base, but the Rangers will be picking it up on their
walkie-talkies on the opposite hill.”
“That’s right, Scotti,” the Captain answered.
“And now you’d better get those details headed out
for the dam and other spots they’ll be expecting us
to go after. The enemy will probably have observation
planes over here in a few minutes and we’ve
// 044.png
.pn +1
got to carry out what will look to them like an immediate
threat to their dam and communication
lines. Then they’ll hustle a sizable force here.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied, saluting as he
turned and went down the hill.
He found Sergeant Dick Donnelly directing the
placing of boxes of ammunition for the machine
guns.
“Sergeant Donnelly,” he called.
“Yes, sir,” Donnelly replied, stepping to his side.
“I’ve got a job for you, Dick,” Scotti said quietly.
“And not an easy one.”
“That sounds good, Jerry,” Dick replied. “What
is it?”
// 045.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 04 FOUR "ENCIRCLED!"
“Here’s a map of this region,” Lieutenant Scotti
said, unfolding a paper which Dick Donnelly looked
at eagerly. “You can see the hill we’re on. Here’s
the pass in the valley below, and over there is the
hill over which the Rangers will attack on the
flanks. They’re probably waiting under cover there
now.”
“Yes, I see,” Dick replied.
“Well, back here is the dam,” the lieutenant said.
“We’ve got to make a pass at it, as if we were going
to blow it up. Also, we’ve got to send out parties as
if to cut this telegraph line over here, and another
as if to blow up that bridge on the road out of the
pass. As you know, we’ll not do any of those things,
but we want the German observation planes—which
ought to be coming along in about five minutes—to
see us heading in those directions. They’ll report
back, and the commander in the Pass will rush up at
least a third of his force to stop us.”
“I get the idea,” Dick said. “And which one do
you want me to go after?”
// 046.png
.pn +1
“I thought that’s what you’d say,” Scotti smiled.
“I want you to take twenty men and head for the
dam. That’s the most dangerous of the three missions.
As you can see, the telegraph line is not in an
exposed position, and it’s not so important as the
other points. If the Germans get any force around
there in time, it won’t amount to much and our men
can get back here fast without being cut off. The
bridge is harder, and the Germans will want to save
that. But their force can really come at it from only
one direction and our men can just back up the
hill here, fighting them off as they do it.”
“Yes, I can see that,” the sergeant said.
“But the dam’s a different matter,” Scotti went
on. “In the first place, they’ve probably got a squad
or two on guard there, with radio. So you’ll have
to make a feint at a real attack to make our bluff
work. But most important, the Germans can come
on you from both sides and encircle you without any
trouble.”
“Sure—you can see that from the map,” Dick said.
“That’s what they’d do right away. But if we had
a walkie-talkie with us, you could let us know in
time, and we could sneak back out of the trap and
get back here.”
“But we can’t do that,” the lieutenant said.
“You’ll have a walkie-talkie all right, and we’ll keep
in touch with you. But you and your men have got
to keep the German detail pinned down there as
long as possible. You’ve got to get yourself surrounded
and hold them there, while we’re holding
// 047.png
.pn +1
the main force on this ledge. You’ve got to hold
them long enough so they can’t be rushed back to
help stem the Ranger attack. We’ll give the signal
for the Rangers to pour over that other hill when
we know we’ve got the greatest number of German
soldiers tied up battling us.”
“I see,” Dick replied grimly. “We get ourselves
surrounded. We hold the attacking force there. Our
chance of getting out is either to hold out until
relief comes to us, after the main battle of the Pass
is over, or to break through the encirclement ourselves
and make our way back here.”
“That’s the idea, Dick,” Scotti said. He didn’t
like the idea of giving this toughest assignment to
one of his best friends, but he had to put a good man
in command of the dam detail, and Dick Donnelly
was the best.
“Let me study that map a minute,” Dick said.
Scotti handed him the paper and watched the
sergeant note carefully every detail around the dam.
Suddenly he put his finger on a double line leading
away from one side of the reservoir and asked,
“What’s this?”
“That’s an ancient Roman aqueduct,” the lieutenant
replied. “You see, back in the days when
Rome ran this part of the world, they had a dam
here, supplying water to the cities to the east. That
aqueduct led from the reservoir across the little
valley there and then followed the line of the hills
eastward.”
// 048.png
.pn +1
“Is the aqueduct still standing?” Dick asked.
“Part of it, anyway,” the lieutenant replied. “Let
me speak to the captain to see if he knows any more
details.”
Scotti and Donnelly moved to the little switchboard
under the lee of a rock and the lieutenant
spoke to the commanding officer on the crest of the
hill. When he had finished, he turned to the sergeant.
“He says that our observation photos show it to
be intact,” Scotti said. “And they were taken only
a couple of days ago. A couple of the supporting
pillars are crumbling a bit at the bottom; so we’ve
no idea how strong it is. But it’s all there, at least
across the valley after it leaves the reservoir.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” Dick said.
“I believe I know what you’re thinking of,” Scotti
smiled. “Of course you’ll be approaching the reservoir
from the other side, where the modern dam is.”
“Sure, I won’t be anywhere near the old Roman
aqueduct,” Dick grinned. “—maybe. May I pick
my own men?”
“Sure, as long as you don’t take Tony Avella
away from his radio,” the lieutenant said.
“Okay—twenty of ’em?”
“Right. Hop to it.”
// 049.png
.pn +1
Scotti turned away as Dick Donnelly headed for
the group of men from his own plane. He went
from one to the other asking each one first if he
wanted to volunteer for a good tough job. When
each one eagerly said, “Yes,” Dick next asked how
well the volunteer could swim. He questioned each
one earnestly as to just exactly how well he could
handle himself in the water. Then he picked the
men who were sure they could swim well. Max
Burckhardt was among them, pointing out that he
had been swimming instructor at a boys’ camp for
several years when he was younger.
“Will I get the most fighting going with you or
staying here?” Max asked.
“With me,” Dick replied. “Even though it will be
plenty hot here. We’ll probably be outnumbered
about forty to one.”
“Then count me in,” Max said, “and I’ll get my
forty!”
“We travel light,” Dick said. “Each man with a
sub-machine gun and plenty of ammunition. And
chuck a few extra cans of rations in your shirt
front.”
In five more minutes Dick Donnelly had his twenty
men lined up. He reported briefly to Lieutenant
Scotti.
“We’re on our way, sir,” he said.
“Got your walkie-talkie?” Scotti asked.
“Yes, and a good man with it,” Dick said. “But
if things get tough, we may not bring it back with
us.”
// 050.png
.pn +1
“Don’t worry about that,” Scotti said. “Just bring
yourselves back.”
“We’ll see you late this afternoon,” Dick smiled.
“Right—and good luck,” the lieutenant smiled.
Then he turned and busied himself with other tasks
so that he would not watch Sergeant Donnelly leading
his men up over the ridge and down the other
side to skirt the cliff-like northern end of the hill.
Scotti checked on the groups heading for the telegraph
lines and the bridge, and they set off shortly
after Donnelly.
“Remember—let the observation planes see you,”
he called.
Dick and his men had taken a last look down at
the American camp on the ledge and had marched
on over the crest when they saw the first German
plane. It was a little hedge-hopper, flying low and
coming from the east. Dick knew that the Germans
in the Pass had radioed headquarters about the
parachute raid and the observation planes were
coming over for a look.
The slope down which they were walking was
rocky and bare, so there was no place to hide if they
had wanted to. They watched as the light German
plane circled overhead and then passed on over the
ridge.
“That pilot is radioing right now to the Germans
in the pass,” Dick said to Max, who walked behind
him. “He’s telling them a raiding party of twenty
men has set off toward the dam.”
// 051.png
.pn +1
“And by this time he sees our main camp on the
ledge,” Max said, “and he’s telling them about that.
He won’t get any very accurate figure of how many
men there are there, though. The rocks and ledges
will hide some of them.”
“Yes, and in a few minutes he’ll see the bunch
heading for the bridge and the gang going to the
telegraph line,” Dick went on. “There won’t be any
doubt about it. There’s no place else for raiding
parties to go.”
Dick’s guess was right, for back in German headquarters
at the Pass, the commanding officer was
scanning the radio reports sent in by the observation
plane. He smiled.
“Tell dem to keep track of dese men,” he ordered.
“Ve send men to vipe dem off der map at vunce.
Dey must not blow up der dam and bridge!”
The order went out to a subordinate, and men
piled from their barracks into waiting trucks. Truck
after truck roared up the road through the Pass,
heading north. If the commander of the Rangers,
in hiding on the west hill above the German camp,
had been able to see, he would have been pleased
at the number of trucks that scurried away, crammed
full of German soldiers.
It was only a few minutes later that Captain
Marker, leader of the parachute troops, saw the first
of the trucks on the road below, where it rounded
a bend in the narrow valley. He counted them off
eagerly, his smile broadening as the numbers increased.
// 052.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: The German Read the Report and Gave an Order]
.pm illust 06 donnelly_p57.jpg 465 "The German Read the Report and Gave an Order"
// 053.png
.pn +1
“It’s working!” he exclaimed to Scotti, who stood
beside him. “They must be sending almost half the
force off on this job. They don’t expect a thing from
the flanks. Just think what a tiny bunch of parachute
troops have been able to do, Lieutenant!”
Scotti agreed, but he smiled to himself at the
irony of hearing a commander express happiness
when his own troops were to be so greatly outnumbered.
“He’s not thinking of himself or his troops for a
minute,” Scotti told himself. “He’s just thinking of
the success of this operation to take the Wadizam
Pass, no matter what it may cost. That’s a good soldier,
all right.”
He watched as many of the trucks sped on out of
sight.
“They’re going on to get the boys heading for
the dam and the bridge,” he said. “And they’re sending
plenty off on that job! The rest will come up
after us. Well, we can hold off almost any force in
this position for quite a few hours.”
Dick Donnelly and his twenty men had been making
fast time toward the dam, down the slope of the
crest they had crossed, and up the next parallel
ridge. Dick looked frequently at his map to check
position and glanced almost unconcernedly at the
observation plane which returned occasionally to
keep them under scrutiny.
// 054.png
.pn +1
“They’ve probably got a small force guarding the
dam,” Dick told his men, “and we might as well get
rid of them before the detachment from the main
camp arrives to take care of us.”
He noted with satisfaction that the slopes surrounding
the reservoir up ahead were covered with
trees whereas the surrounding countryside was
rather barren.
“Moisture from the reservoir,” he told himself.
“Makes a regular oasis here in the hills, and those
trees will give us good cover.”
As they entered the thicket of trees, Dick stopped
his men, who gathered around him. He held the
map so that all could see.
“Here’s where we are now,” he said, putting his
finger on a point near the reservoir. “The dam is up
ahead on the left a few hundred yards. We’ve been
covered by this shoulder of the hill as we approached,
so the guard there probably hasn’t seen us,
but they’re likely to have radio and know we’re coming.
They’ll all be centered at the dam itself, I’m
sure. Lefty, you take these five men and head up the
hill farther, then cut down to catch them on the
flank just after we’ve gone straight in at them. And
Bert, you take these three and circle down around
to the left and come up on them from that side. But
don’t go as far as the road leading from the Pass up
// 055.png
.pn +1
to the dam. The Jerries will be rushing a few truckloads
of reinforcements up the road to get us, and
we’ve all got to stay on this side.”
“I get it, Sarge,” Bert said.
“Okay—me too,” added Lefty. These two corporals
were men who were calm in an emergency
and possessed plenty of initiative, as Dick well knew.
“This shouldn’t take more than about five minutes,”
he went on. “And we haven’t got much more
time than that. The minute it’s over, all the rest of
us will switch up beyond the reservoir here where
Lefty’s group is going down, but we must stick close
to the shore. We’ll have cover, because the trees
come right down to the edge. Okay—get going, boys.
Wait for my first fire to draw them toward us. Then
come in at the right moment.”
The ten men who remained with their sergeant
watched the other groups trot silently off through
the trees in different directions.
“We’ll give them about three minutes,” Dick said,
“to circle around to position. Then we’ll go in
straight for the dam. But keep behind the trees and
rocks. No use losing any men on a little action like
this.”
Dick looked at his watch as the others stood
around him without a word. They held their sub-machine
guns lightly in their arms, ready for immediate
action. Dick noticed with satisfaction that
they all seemed completely relaxed and at ease, even
though a light of excitement and anticipation
gleamed in their eyes.
// 056.png
.pn +1
“Okay—here we go,” he said casually, and started
forward smartly. The men fanned out around him,
moving upward through the trees. Dick led them
up a slight shoulder of land which brought them to
a level with the dam. And then they saw it.
It lay only about seventy-five yards ahead, a long
wall of concrete, with water trickling slowly over a
spillway at the far end. At the near end there was a
rough wooden shack on top of the wall, and near it
stood four German soldiers, anxiously scanning the
surrounding trees.
“They must be mighty uncomfortable,” Dick
said, “knowing we’re coming for them. Well, let’s
not keep them in suspense. Open fire.”
The silence of the hills was shattered by the chattering
roar of ten machine guns. Two of the Germans
toppled from the wall to the rocky valley below.
One darted into the shack, and one fell on top
of the wall, wounded. He tried to drag himself to
the shack but collapsed before he could make it.
Then from the shack itself came an answering burst
of machine-gun fire.
Dick heard bullets whistling through the air and
the little snip-click sounds as they nicked branches
and leaves. There was a short silence and then another
burst from the shack, which was not answered
by the Americans. They were busy making their
way forward from tree to tree, getting within fifty
yards of the shack.
// 057.png
.pn +1
“What about a couple of grenades, Dick?” Max
Burckhardt asked. “I’ve got half a dozen in a bag
here. Thought they might come in handy.”
“Maybe—” Dick said. “But not yet. Let ’em have
it!”
Once more the American machine guns poured
their hail of lead into the shack, followed by another
burst from the woods to the right.
“That’ll be Lefty and his bunch,” Dick smiled.
“And I guess the Nazis don’t like it.”
It was obvious they did not like it, nor the third
burst from below them on the left. Bert’s group had
joined the fray. The Germans had Americans on
three sides and a large reservoir behind them. It
did not take them long to make up their minds
what to do. A white cloth tied to the end of a rifle
was thrust through the little window of the shack.
“I guess they didn’t have many guys there,” Max
said. “They sure gave up easy.”
Dick led his group forward to the edge of the
woods and called from there, “All right, come out
with your hands up—on to the wall of the dam.”
The door of the shack opened and three German
soldiers marched out, throwing their guns to the
ground and raising their hands as they did so. They
stepped over the body of their companion who had
tried to reach the shack but failed.
// 058.png
.pn +1
“Is that all?” Dick demanded, with a shout.
“Ya, ya—all, all!” one of the Germans called
back.
“Funny—but I don’t believe him,” Dick muttered
to Max. Then he called to the German again.
“Okay, then pick up that machine pistol of yours
and fire a few bursts into the shack!”
The German looked bewildered and called back
that he did not understand.
“You tell him, Max,” Dick said. “Then he can’t
pretend he doesn’t know what I mean.”
Max called out the order in German, and the soldiers
on the wall almost jumped to hear their own
language spoken to them so perfectly.
The first soldier, a corporal, picked up the machine
pistol and started to aim it into the shack,
but did not pull the trigger. As he hesitated, Max
commanded him again to fire into the shack or get
a burst of fire from the Americans.
The German soldier looked at the gun in his
hands, then at the shack and then at the Americans.
Suddenly he fell to the ground, hiding behind his
dead comrade and pouring a fusilade at the Americans.
At the same moment, two more guns were
thrust through the shack window and joined the
attack. Dick and his men were quick to get behind
trees, despite their surprise. Dick heard a cry of
pain from one of his men, but did not take time at
that moment to look.
// 059.png
.pn +1
He and his men were answering the rapid crossfire
of the Germans, when they saw two dark objects
lobbed through the air from the woods on the right.
Then there was a roar, a blinding flash followed at
once by another, a cloud of black smoke—and silence,
as the booming sound echoed among the
hills.
As the smoke cleared away, Dick saw that the two
grenades tossed by Lefty and his men had done a
thorough job. The shack was a pile of lumber, and
some of it had toppled to the ground below the dam
wall. The Germans who had hidden in the shack
during the fake surrender were no more—and neither
were their companions alive. Dick and his men
advanced on the run, arriving at the dam as Bert’s
group rushed up from the left. Lefty’s men stayed
where they were, waiting for the others to join them.
A quick inspection showed that the enemy detail
at the dam had been wiped out. And then they
heard the sound of motors. First they looked into
the sky, but saw no planes.
“Trucks!” Dick said. “On the road below. Come
on!”
Even before they moved, they heard the report
of rifles from the woods below them. They needed
no further warning to make them duck and scurry
off the dam into the trees at the right. Skirting
close to the shore, they soon ran into Lefty and his
group.
// 060.png
.pn +1
“Come on,” Dick said. “Over that hump of rock
ahead of us. Get positions just over the crest.”
The men darted forward, scrambling up over the
little hill that came down to the water’s edge. Dropping
down on the other side, they found cover quickly
and faced back in the direction from which the
enemy must be coming. They saw that their little
hill was a point of land projecting into the waters
of the reservoir. It was a good spot Dick had chosen—hard
to get at from the direction of the dam itself
and not much easier from above, for the hill curved
around like a natural fort and the land above was
somewhat bare of trees because of the rocky soil.
The Germans would have to expose themselves
badly if they came from that direction.
Dick looked behind him at the reservoir to see
if the lay of the land were the way he had figured
it from the map, and he smiled with satisfaction.
Opposite the point of land on which they had taken
up positions was another point, and only about
twenty-five feet of water separated the two. Beyond
the two points, the artificial lake opened out broadly.
“They won’t come at us from the other side,”
Dick figured. “The land is too steep to come up that
way, and anyway, they’d come directly at us, figuring
that they had us encircled with the water behind
us.”
Then he remembered the cry of pain from one of
his men and turned back.
// 061.png
.pn +1
“Say—somebody got a slug back there in the
woods,” he said. “Who was it?”
“Me, Sarge,” said Private Latham, a wiry little
fellow who knew more jokes than anyone in the
group and so was a favorite among the men. “But
it just nicked me in the left hand. Doesn’t hurt
now.”
“Let me see,” Dick said, stepping to Latham’s
side. He saw at once that the bullet had gone
through the palm of the hand. Quickly he got out
his first-aid kit, dumped some sulfa powder into the
wound, bound it up with a bandage.
“Not my gun hand, anyway,” Latham said. “I can
still shoot.”
At that moment they heard the first attack from
the Germans. The Americans in position answered
with a short burst of fire, knowing that it would pin
the approaching Germans down to rocks and protecting
trees.
“Got to work fast now, boys,” Dick said, as he finished
putting away his first-aid kit. “For about five
minutes they’ll try coming at us directly. Then
they’ll send out a bunch to come down on us from
above. But we can stop them before they get to that
bare stretch. Then they’ll try crossfire from those
two positions, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll
begin tossing grenades and maybe get a few light
mortars into action. That’s when we’ll really get it,
and if possible we’ll want to get away before then.”
// 062.png
.pn +1
“Get away?” Max Burckhardt exclaimed. “How
do you figure?”
“Wait and see,” Dick grinned, knowing that Max
and the others had quickly figured out that they
were pretty well trapped, and that they hadn’t the
ghost of a chance to get away alive. “But first I’ve
got to find out what’s going on back in the Pass. If
they want us to hold this crowd here as long as possible,
we’ll just have to do it.”
The corporal with a walkie-talkie pack on his
back had already pulled up his aerial and turned
on his radio.
“See if you can get Tony,” Dick said, and the
radioman nodded.
“Got ’im,” he said in a moment, but his words
were almost drowned by the sound of another exchange
of bursts between the Germans and the
Americans. Dick crept to the ridge beside his men
and looked at the woods below. The Germans were
really pinned down effectively about a hundred feet
away, and the little hill gave complete protection
to the Americans. He slid back down beside the
radioman.
“He says Nellie went to town about fifteen minutes
ago,” the radioman said.
“Swell!” Dick exclaimed. “That means the Rangers
attacked and the battle is on. What else?”
“Nice tea-party at the Smith’s,” the radioman
went on.
// 063.png
.pn +1
“Good fight at the ledge where we landed,” Dick
translated.
“Tony winds up with the order ‘Show me the
way to go home,’” the radioman concluded, and
Dick knew that he and his group were free to make
their getaway if they could. The battle back at the
Pass had progressed far enough so that he did not
need to try holding the force at the dam any longer.
// 064.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 05 FIVE "BREAK-THROUGH!"
Lieutenant Scotti smiled. A well-placed light
mortar shell had just landed in a cluster of three
German trucks on the road below. And that had
happened shortly after word had come of the Ranger
attack on the remainder of the German force in the
Wadizam Pass itself. Everything was going not only
according to plan, but even more swiftly and efficiently.
The enemy had fallen into the trap completely,
splitting his forces so that the Ranger attack
could sweep him off his feet.
“I wonder how Dick Donnelly’s making out,” he
thought to himself. “He’s in the tough spot and may
never get back. Oh, well—”
But at that moment Dick Donnelly was helping
four of his best men to fix their sub-machine guns
securely between the rocks aiming down the little
hill toward the Germans. Two more were fixed so
that they aimed up the slope over the bare patch of
ground. And these six guns were the Thompson
guns with round drums holding fifty cartridges, instead
of the lighter Reisings which the rest of the
men carried.
// 065.png
.pn +1
The rest of the men continued the fire as the guns
were fixed securely in place. A party of Germans had
been sent up around to the right, but they were held
to the trees far up beyond the bare stretch. A half
dozen who had started a rush across the rocky patch
had been cut down before they went ten steps, and
the others did not want to share that fate.
“Lefty, Bert, and Max,” Dick said, “stay with me
at these guns. The others of you shove off into the
water. Swim for that other point. If there are any
Germans on the dam wall itself, they may be able
to see you for about the last ten feet, so make it
under water if you can. Drop all equipment, guns,
radio and everything except for a few cans of rations.
Move—now, fast!”
The men needed no more explanation of Dick’s
plan. They headed down toward the water as Dick
and the three others crouched behind the rocks at
the crest of the little hill, keeping up the steady
fire. But the Germans were holding their fire more
and more, and the lulls between bursts became longer
and longer.
Dick glanced around and saw four men already
striking out into the still waters of the reservoir.
“The Jerries are probably bringing up some mortars
from the trucks below,” Dick muttered to Max
and the others. “We’d just better hope that they
don’t get the range too fast, before we get out, too.
Here—get these cords attached.”
He pulled from his pocket two balls of stout cord
and handed one to Max, the other to Bert.
// 066.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord]
.pm illust 07 donnelly_p71.jpg 459 "Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord"
// 067.png
.pn +1
“Tie one end to the triggers of the fixed Tommy
guns,” he said. “Then reel off a good length, about
seventy-five feet, and cut it. Get lengths of cord on
each Tommy gun. Keep up our own fire with the
Reisings. Give ’em a burst once in a while so they’ll
know we’re still here.”
The men carried out the order quickly, as Dick
kept glancing back at the men in the water. All were
on their way across now, and the first man was
reaching the stretch where he might be seen by any
Germans on the dam wall.
“I don’t think they’ve got any men there, though,”
Dick told himself. “Don’t see why they should. They
know the dam isn’t blown up yet, which was their
main worry, and they know they’ve got us trapped
back here. Of course, they may be ordered back to
the pass to help the main force attacked by our
Rangers. But the frontal attack should be started
on the Pass by this time, and it might be all over
before they could get there.”
He was pleased to see the first man duck under
the water and swim the last ten feet without being
seen. And he smiled to see him come up in the
shelter of a rock on the opposite point of land.
“Good going,” he said to himself. “He couldn’t
have been seen even if the Jerries were looking that
way.”
// 068.png
.pn +1
But his smile vanished as a roaring blast shook
the earth beneath him. Instinctively he hugged the
earth, and felt gravel, rocks, and dirt rain down on
him from above.
“First mortar shell,” he spoke to the others.
“Landed just on the other side of the crest. Come
on, give ’em a good burst. Get those cords in your
hands and let’s go.”
Before the burst of fire from the Americans ended
there was another roar—this time behind them.
Dick whirled to see the radio, which had been left
on the shore, rise into the air and spread into a
hundred pieces along with rocks and earth. Crouching
low, he ran down the slope to the shore, with
Max and Lefty and Bert immediately behind him.
At the shore line he turned, grabbed two of the
cords which were hooked to the Tommy guns
wedged in the rocks. He gave them a gentle pull,
and the others did the same with their cords. The
gun chattered from the ledge above them, and they
knew the Germans would not try to rush the crest.
They’d wait for the mortars to do the trick. As the
four Americans slid into the water, still holding
their cords, they saw a shell dig a mighty hole in the
rocky earth just behind the crest, where they had
been not one minute before.
“There go two of the Tommy guns!” Dick said.
By this time they were up to their chests in the
water.
// 069.png
.pn +1
“One last burst before we swim,” he commanded
tersely. He pulled on his two cords. One was limp—attached
to one of the guns that had been blown
up by the last mortar shell. But the other tugged
the trigger, and he heard the stuttering fire it gave
forth, along with the other guns that were still functioning.
“Swim for it—and fast!” Dick shouted to his companions.
They heard another roar behind them, then another
in quick order, then a third. By this time
they were swimming swiftly toward the other point,
and it was not far away.
“Don’t bother to go under,” Dick muttered between
strokes. “We don’t care if they do see us now.”
His clothes felt heavy, like lead weights holding
him back. In trunks he could have made the distance
in a minute; now each forward push was
short. But suddenly he felt his feet strike the bottom,
and he pushed forward rapidly up the point
of land.
There were no more bursts of shells behind them
as they ran for the woods. But just as they plunged
into the thick tangle of trees, the chatter of machine
guns blazed behind them and the zing of shells filled
the air. Bert fell to the ground and Max went down
beside him. With a quick motion he rolled Bert and
himself behind a boulder. There Dick crept up to
them.
// 070.png
.pn +1
“Go ahead!” Bert said. “They got me in the leg.
They’ll be swarming over that stretch of water in
a minute.”
“Oh, no, they won’t!” Dick said. “Remember—we’re
all picked swimmers. And we dropped our
guns. They’ll come after us only if they can keep
their guns, and I don’t think they can manage it
with ’em.”
Machine-gun bullets still spattered around them
intermittently, and they could hear the angry, bellowed
orders of a German officer across the water
behind them.
“He’s telling ’em to cross over,” Max said.
“He’s telling ’em we’ve got no guns and to go ahead
after us!”
“Well, I’ve got the answer for that,” Dick grinned.
He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a waterproof
pouch. Ripping it open he extracted a service
automatic, dry as a bone. Heading around the rock
as he hugged the ground, he wriggled forward about
ten feet in the underbrush. There, peering through
the branches of a bush, he saw the Germans on the
opposite point. Standing on the crest was the officer,
still bellowing orders to his men, who moved
slowly forward toward the water. They didn’t like
the idea of making that crossing.
Dick steadied his right arm on the ground, aimed
the automatic carefully, and squeezed the trigger.
The German officer’s angry words were cut short.
He looked startled and dismayed, as if someone had
// 071.png
.pn +1
played an unfair trick on him. His hand went to his
chest, he looked around him for a second, and then
toppled forward from the ridge, rolling to the shore
below. The German soldiers looked at his body a
moment, then turned and scrambled back up the
little hill as if death itself were chasing them. In
two seconds they were all on the other side of the
hill. Dick grinned and ran back behind the rock
where Bert and Max waited for him. A tentative
machine-gun burst followed him, but he was safe
behind the rock.
“I don’t think they’ll come across now,” he said.
“I got the officer, the one who was telling them we
had no guns. At least they won’t be coming for a
little while, until another officer makes them do it.
Come on! Up you go, Bert!”
Max and Dick lifted Bert and carried him rapidly
forward through the trees. Fifty feet further along
they found the rest of their men, and Dick counted
them quickly. Yes—they were all there.
“Jimmy,” he said to one of the men, “you take
over with Max to carry Bert here. The others will
spell you once in a while. I’ve got to go ahead to
find that old aqueduct. Follow me!”
He led the way briskly through the trees, and the
men, still dripping from their swim, followed him
without a word. They climbed the sloping hill for
a quarter of a mile, then cut down sharply toward
the shore of the reservoir again. They could see
the placid water through the trees ahead when Dick
stopped them.
// 072.png
.pn +1
“Wait here while I have one quick look,” he said.
“Put Bert down, and give him first aid—but fast.
Then two others take him when we’re ready to go
again.”
The sergeant moved forward to the water’s edge
swiftly. In a moment he stood on a huge pile of
old rocks which stretched like a wall along one edge
of the man-made lake for a distance of about sixty
feet. Here was the old dam from the days of the
Romans, and stretching away from the wall was the
arching aqueduct, spanning a narrow but deep
chasm.
“Still standing, all right,” he said to himself. “But
not too strong. Those pillars look pretty crumbly,
but we’ll have to chance it. Spread out—then there
won’t be much weight at one time.”
He hurried back to his men in the shelter of the
trees.
“How you feeling, Bert?” he asked.
“Okay, Sarge,” the big soldier replied, but Dick
could see the pain behind his smile. “Sorry to cause
so much trouble this way. Don’t let me hold you
up.”
“Rot! You’re not holding anybody up,” Dick said.
“Let’s get going. Spread out about ten feet apart
going over the old aqueduct up ahead. It may not
be too strong, but we’ve got to chance it. If it’s
stood all these centuries it can stand another half
hour for us.”
// 073.png
.pn +1
Dick motioned Max to lead the way, and he
stayed behind. Max stepped from the trees, on to
the old stone wall and then to the aqueduct. He
marched across it at a steady swift pace, and another
man started off behind him after he had gone about
ten paces. Dick watched carefully. There were three
men on the ancient structure—now four. Max was
only about ten feet from the other end.
“He’s across!” Dick exclaimed, as Max turned at
the other end and waved both arms with a smile.
“Okay, let Bert and his two carriers go next.”
The wounded man and his companions stepped
on the aqueduct. Their pace was slower than that of
the others, and everyone watched without a word as
they made their way slowly forward. It seemed to
Dick that he must be holding his breath.
There was almost a cheer from the men as the
wounded soldier and his two carriers made the other
side of the gully. Then the remaining men, with
Dick at the end, followed quickly, without any concern
about the old aqueduct.
On the other side, Dick explained briefly the
course they would have to follow to get back to
their own men. It was a roundabout circle over
two ridges of hills, and across one stream that had
to be forded. But they felt sure they would meet no
enemy forces on the way, as their path covered wild
country off the main routes.
// 074.png
.pn +1
The going was slow because the men all felt a letdown
after their forced marches of the day. Now
they felt safe, sure that they had eluded any pursuing
force that might come after them.
“As a matter of fact,” Max said to Lefty, “I don’t
think anybody’s following us. Those boys at the dam
must’ve got word of the battle down in the Pass.
They’re probably heading back down there now.
I hope they’re too late.”
“This was a pretty good shindig, wasn’t it?” Lefty
commented. “First time we’ve really had something
of what we wanted. We really did a paratrooper’s
job today.”
“Yes—pretty good, pretty good,” Max replied,
with a sigh. “But I didn’t get my forty Nazis. I
figure I only got about eleven myself.”
“No—you got to look at it this way, Max,” Lefty
said. “What we did up here made it possible for our
boys down in the Pass to wipe out a few thousand.
So really you got a lot more than forty.”
Max smiled. “I like the way you put it,” he said.
“But I want to do it personally.”
They had a quick meal before climbing another
hill, digging food out of their ration cans. When
they went on again, Max was walking beside Dick
Donnelly.
“Pretty smart operation, Dick,” Max said. “You
really handled it swell all the way through.”
// 075.png
.pn +1
“Thanks, Max,” the sergeant replied. “But I was
lucky that we were able to get away so soon and
didn’t have to pin those German forces down for
another hour or so. We couldn’t have got out if
we had had to do that.”
“No, but you were prepared for every break we
did get, and you took full advantage of it,” Max
said. “That’s what counts. Why they don’t make you
a general is more than I can see.”
Dick laughed. “Wait till I get us back to our
forces safely before you congratulate me,” he said.
“I hope I’m taking you in the right direction.”
But Max had no doubts. Dick obviously knew
where he was going. And even though the group of
men went more and more slowly as the afternoon
wore on, it was from nothing but weariness. They
knew they would get back to their headquarters
under Dick’s guidance.
But it was late—almost sunset, when they saw
ahead of them the crest of the hill on the other side
of which was the ledge where they had landed that
morning.
The last pull up that hill was a tough one, and
the men grunted as their feet slipped on the rocks.
When they were halfway up, they were spotted by
an American at the crest, who gave a whoop of
pleasure at what he saw. In a moment, others were
scurrying over the crest of the hill and running
down the slope toward the weary soldiers of Dick
Donnelly’s gang. Among the first to reach them was
Lieutenant Scotti.
// 076.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick and Max Walked Happily up the Hill]
.pm illust 08 donnelly_p81.jpg 459 "Dick and Max Walked Happily up the Hill"
// 077.png
.pn +1
“Dick, my boy!” he shouted. “What a sight for
sore eyes! You made it back! And from the looks
of you, by swimming, too!”
Dick smiled back weakly. “Yes, sir, we took to the
water,” he said wearily. Suddenly he felt as if he
could not move another step. As long as the responsibility
for the detachment had been on his shoulders,
he kept his spirits up, encouraged the men to
keep going. But now he could relax, and he did.
He just wanted to sit down where he was and go
to sleep.
Without a word, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti slipped
one of Dick’s arms over his shoulder and helped him
the rest of the way up the hill. Other men had taken
Bert in their arms and still others helped the weary
Donnelly gang over these last steps.
Over the crest of the hill, they went down to the
ledge, where they were surrounded at once by their
friends. Dick went with Scotti to report to Captain
Marker, who beamed at him.
“To be perfectly honest, Sergeant Donnelly, I
didn’t expect to see you and your men again,” he
said. “Yours was almost a suicide mission. Did you
bring all your men back with you?”
“Yes, sir,” Dick said. “Private O’Leary got a slug
in his right leg and Latham one through the left
hand. No other casualties, unless you count sore
feet. We had to abandon all of our equipment,
though.”
// 078.png
.pn +1
“Of course, of course,” the Captain said. “You’ve
done a fine job, Donnelly, a particularly fine job.
And I know you’ll be glad to learn that the battle
of Wadizam Pass is over. A complete victory! About
fourteen hundred Germans dead, two thousand captured.
Some few got away into the hills.”
“That’s wonderful, sir,” Dick replied. “How did
it go here?”
“Lieutenant Scotti will give you the details, I
know,” the Captain said. “Now there are trucks
waiting on the road below to take us back to the
Pass. You men need some rest.”
On the way down to the trucks, Jerry Scotti told
Dick about the action at the ledge. The Germans
had tried over and over again to advance straight up
the hill, and many had been cut down. When they
unlimbered the mortars, they did a lot of damage,
with the Americans losing twenty men in the entire
action.
“It would have been worse,” Scotti said, “if the
Rangers and regular troops hadn’t cleaned up the
Pass itself so quickly. They sent a bunch up here,
and they took the Germans from behind. It was all
over in half an hour then.”
That night Dick Donnelly slept the sleep of the
good and the just—for eleven hours, along with
the rest of his men. And the next day they moved
back to the parachute troops base.
// 079.png
.pn +1
“Well, that’s that,” Tony Avella said, as they sat
under the shade of a tree. “Best action so far. I
guess everybody’s happy but Vince Salamone, who
sat this one out in the guardhouse.”
“Yeah, the home-run king is fit to be tied,” Max
said. “But I bet he’ll be a good boy from now on.
He doesn’t want to miss another little tussle like
this. Wonder what we’ll get next?”
Although the men themselves quickly dropped
the subject of the Wadizam Pass battle, concentrating
their thoughts on the future, it was not so lightly
passed over in headquarters in a city behind the
lines where a three-star general went over reports of
that action with others of his staff.
“That Wadizam Pass action was brilliant,” he
said. “General Ackerly planned and executed it
without a flaw. And I thought it would take us
another two weeks to get past that bottleneck.”
“Yes, and he had some good men under him,”
said one of his aides. “That paratroop company
really pulled the Germans away with their feint.
That’s why the Rangers cleaned up everything so
quickly. When the frontal attack came, there was
almost nothing left to do.”
“Captain Marker should get a promotion for
that,” the three-star general commented. “But what
I like best is that suicide squad they sent out to the
dam never really expecting to see them again. And
// 080.png
.pn +1
they all came back! I’m glad Captain Marker gave
us such a complete report on that action. I have
an idea we’re going to be able to use a crowd like
that for some special tasks when we get to Italy.”
// 081.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 06 SIX "SPECIAL MISSION"
Dick Donnelly and his friends were not thinking
of Italy. They were thinking of more immediate objectives—Bizerte,
Tunis, and the driving of Rommel’s
Germans into the Mediterranean. During
the course of that action they were kept a little
busier than in their first few weeks. There were no
complaints of inaction such as had filled the air
previously.
Max Burckhardt missed one battle when he was
in the hospital with a touch of fever. Lefty Larkin
was killed in another battle, and a few other casualties
cut down their numbers somewhat. Bert
O’Leary had been sent back to a main hospital for
his leg to heal, but young Latham’s hand wound
had kept him out of only two actions. Vince Salamone,
after his release from the guardhouse, had
become the greatest battler of them all, making up
for lost time with a vengeance.
It was in the invasion of Sicily that the group first
met George “Boom-Boom” Slade. He was not a
paratrooper, really, but he found himself joining
more and more paratroop actions. Slade was a master
sergeant and a demolition expert. He knew
// 082.png
.pn +1
dynamite and nitroglycerin as well as most soldiers
knew their Garand rifles. He knew the construction
of bridges, dams, radio towers, so thoroughly that
he could place a small blast in exactly the spot that
would crack the dam, or demolish the bridge, or
topple the tower. Naturally, his constant work with
explosives had given him the nickname of “Boom-Boom”
and he didn’t mind it.
“Funny,” he said one day, “but I’ve gotten so I
love blowing up things. You work with something
long enough and you get to like it, I guess.”
He did not look like a man who would love explosives.
He was short and rather slight in build,
with mouse-colored hair and a colorless face. The
glasses he wore made him look like a rather timid
student. He was quiet and mild, a gentle person
who liked to feed stray cats and dandle babies on
his knee.
But when he set to work at his profession, he
changed. Dick Donnelly had been amazed the first
time Slade went along with them in Sicily. They
were to hold one bridge and blow up two others
behind the German lines. Lieutenant Scotti had
stayed with the force at the bridge they were to
hold for the advancing Americans, while Dick went
off with Slade and a few others to blow up the
bridges on two side roads.
// 083.png
.pn +1
Dick could not believe that this mild little man
could possibly be a demolition expert. In the first
place, he hated jumping from a plane in a parachute,
but never mentioned the fact. Dick knew it
by the agonized expression on Slade’s face. Then
once on the ground, he acted as if he didn’t know
where to turn, and just followed Dick around like
an obedient, if slightly frightened, dog. But when
they reached the first bridge, Slade changed. He
stood off and eyed the structure, almost forgetting
those around him. Dick had meanwhile placed his
men to hold off any German patrols that might
chance that way, but he kept his eyes on Slade. In
less than two minutes, the little man had decided
exactly where the charge of dynamite should be
placed, and set at that job with a swiftness and precision
that was wonderful to watch. In five minutes
more they all withdrew some distance and the bridge
was blown up. One end rose in the air about six feet
as the other end cracked, and the entire center span
fell into the bed of the stream below.
Slade went back for a quick look at his work and
seemed pleased. “Good,” he muttered to himself.
“Our engineers can get another span across there for
our own men in half an hour.”
That had been the idea—to blow up the bridge
so that it could not be used by retreating Germans
but could be used by advancing Americans after
only a short delay. The Germans would be too hard-pressed
by the Americans to take the half-hour necessary
for the repair. Foot-troops would be able to
ford or swim the stream, but trucks and heavy guns
would be caught—and captured!
// 084.png
.pn +1
After the first bridge demolition, Slade, once more
the meek subordinate, had turned to Dick, and had
trotted along behind as Donnelly headed for the
second bridge, two miles away. There had been a
short fight there—with four German soldiers left to
guard the bridge. Slade wasn’t much good in fighting,
Dick saw. Not that he was afraid—he was just
ineffectual. The other men with Dick were among
the best, and the Germans had been disposed of
quickly. Slade did an even faster job on the second
bridge, and then the whole party had cut back
through the woods to join Lieutenant Scotti and the
main force of paratroopers at the bridge which had
been held open. Scotti had been amazed to see them
return so quickly, thought something must have gone
wrong. When Dick Donnelly told him about the
blowing up of the two bridges, the lieutenant had
looked at the quiet little Slade with admiration.
“I never knew a man whose nickname fitted him
less,” he said. “He doesn’t look like a man called
‘Boom-Boom’!”
“Except when he’s about to blow up a bridge,”
Dick replied.
There had been a good battle when the retreating
Germans tried to take the bridge back from the
paratroopers. But Scotti’s forces had been augmented
by other parachute companies which had
// 085.png
.pn +1
been on other missions, and they succeeded in holding
off the Germans until the advancing Americans
on the other side had caught up with them. And
then the Germans, caught between the two fires,
had been annihilated.
Max Burckhardt insisted that this Sicilian action
had been the best of all they had taken part in. He
had seen more men in the hated Nazi uniform go
down under a withering fire, and he had talked to
some of the prisoners afterward. They always seemed
a little surprised to find a man speaking perfect
German, with a family in Germany, fighting against
them this way, and Max enjoyed watching their bewilderment,
and enjoyed seeing the first doubts
creep into their minds about whether or not their
Fuehrer really would lead them to victory in this
war against the democracies.
After the tough fighting in Sicily, Captain Marker’s
company of paratroopers—but the Captain was
a Major by this time—had been given a three weeks’
rest in Algiers. They enjoyed it immensely until
they learned that they had missed the landing at
Salerno because of their furloughs. But later they
were based on the Italian mainland, not far behind
the advancing American and British troops fighting
their way up the peninsula. When the advance
slowed down, became bogged in mud and then
stopped by the Germans who entrenched themselves
in the hills and fought for every inch of territory,
the three-star general went into a huddle
with his staff.
// 086.png
.pn +1
“We’ve got to pull an ace out of our sleeves,” he
said. “We won’t get going until we’ve taken Maletta,
and we’re still twenty miles away from it. Yes—we’ve
got to pull a fast one.”
“Like the Wadizam Pass action?” an aide suggested.
“Well—not quite,” the general said, “but it gives
me an idea.”
He studied the map of the region around the
town of Maletta. It was a small town. More than
a village, it was still not a city of any great size or
importance, until this moment. There was a junction
of two railroads there—and also of the two
main roads leading north. Other roads which cut
across the many hills were steep and almost impassable
for heavily motorized and mechanized forces.
The Americans knew they would have to drive
straight up the Maletta valley to that town and take
it. Then they could really move ahead. Until then
they were stuck. And cracking Maletta looked like
an almost impossible job because of the peculiarities
of the land around it.
“Maybe a variation of the Wadizam technique
would work,” the general said. “Let’s go over the
possibilities.”
// 087.png
.pn +1
For hours the men planned, checked, threw out
one plan and devised another. Three days later they
called Major Marker to them and went over the
plan with him.
“Just about six men, that’s all,” the general said.
“It sounds like a tiny force to send on this job, but
a larger one would be spotted and rounded up.
They’d trip over their own feet. But six men—yes,
they might be able to do it if they were really good
men. After your other successes, Major, we concluded
you might have the men under your command.”
“Yes, I’ve got the men,” the Major said with a
smile. “I’d like to go along myself.”
“Can’t spare you for this job,” the general said.
“We need you too much elsewhere.”
“What do you need especially?” the Major asked.
“What special qualifications must the men have?”
“Well, most of them should speak Italian—and
well, too,” the general said. “You might have someone
who speaks German along, too, because it’s Germans
we’re fighting. The Italians will work with
the underground, of course, and they’ve got to be
able to make the underground accept and trust
them. Then, among them, you must choose a really
good radio man and a demolition expert.”
“I’ll do it, sir,” the Major replied. “I can pick
my men without any trouble. And they’re men
who’ll do the job if it can conceivably be done—and
maybe they can do it even if it’s impossible!”
// 088.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Major Marker and the Men Went Over Their Plan]
.pm illust 09 donnelly_p93.jpg 466 "Major Marker and the Men Went Over Their Plan"
// 089.png
.pn +1
“Oh—like the gang which came back from the
dam in the Wadizam Pass action?” the general
laughed. “They did the impossible.”
“Yes, I’m thinking of some of those same men,”
Major Marker replied. “Who shall give them their
instructions?”
“I’ll do it myself,” the general said. “Can you
have them here tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes, sir,” the Major replied. “Tomorrow afternoon—six
picked men.”
And so it was that six men set off with Major
Marker for the general’s headquarters. At first they
did not know that was where they were going, but
the Major told them after they were speeding along
the road in the big command car. Then they were
more mystified than ever. The Major would say
nothing but, “Something special. Very interesting
job. Wish I could go too.”
Next to him sat Lieutenant Jerry Scotti, who was
to be in command on this mysterious mission. There
was Dick Donnelly, second in command, and Corporal
Tony Avella for the radio work. Taking up
enough room for almost two men in the rear seat
was Private Vincent Salamone, the home-run king
of baseball in peacetime, the toughest paratrooper
of them all in war. As the Major later remarked to
the general, “Everybody in Italy knows the name of
Vince Salamone. He’s an idol over here just the way
he is at home. He’ll win over the Italians in a
minute!”
// 090.png
.pn +1
All those four men spoke Italian well, like natives.
They knew Italy and the Italian people thoroughly.
Major Marker felt sure that with four out
of six speaking Italian so well, this qualification of
the general’s had been met with complete satisfaction.
The fifth man was Private Max Burckhardt.
He spoke German, and he was a veteran of the
Wadizam dam suicide detachment. The sixth man,
since he had to be a demolition expert, was George
“Boom-Boom” Slade, who now sat silently beside
Vince Salamone, looking most insignificant beside
the bulk of the famous ball player.
Major Marker looked over his six selections and
smiled. They were all good tough fighters, with
plenty of seasoning. And they got along well together.
They were good personal friends. The Major
knew that Lieutenant Scotti was “Jerry” to the rest
of them except when other officers were around.
And he knew that the whole crowd would follow
Dick Donnelly to the ends of the earth.
The general was impressed too, but not so much
as the six men who suddenly found themselves in
his presence. Inside of ten minutes, however, they
were at their ease. They sat in a plain room with a
desk, a big table, about ten chairs, and some large
maps on the wall. The general sat at ease, with his
collar open, smoking a cigarette. First, he made the
men feel at ease when he talked with them about the
Wadizam Pass affair and other actions in which they
// 091.png
.pn +1
had taken part. He seemed familiar with all details,
much to their surprise.
When he saw that they were comfortable and no
longer awed, the general plunged into his plan at
once.
“The town of Maletta,” he said, pointing to the
map, “is really our bottleneck. We’ve still got twenty
miles to go to reach it. We can make that twenty
miles all right, but taking the town then is a tougher
job. It’s at the head of a valley up which we’ll be
fighting to reach it. There are German gun emplacements
all along the hills on both sides of the
valley. If we follow conventional tactics we can
make it—but in about two months. We’ll have to
clean out all the hills on both sides as we move forward.
Oh—we can do it, but at a great cost of time
and of men. We’ll take that time and use those men
if we have to. But I don’t think we’ll have to.”
He paused and looked around at the faces of the
men who hung on every word he said. Then he
turned to the map again.
“As you can see, we can’t by-pass the valley and
Maletta itself,” he explained. “The country on
either side of the valley is rugged and slow going,
with bad roads and paths. We can get infantry
around there—with machine guns and mortars, but
that’s about all. And even doing it from both sides,
that wouldn’t be enough to take Maletta, with the
heavy guns the Germans have there.”
// 092.png
.pn +1
Lieutenant Scotti nodded his head without realizing
it, seeing exactly what the general’s problem
was.
“Likewise a regular parachute action would be
sure to fail,” the high officer went on. “Even in great
force you’d lack the necessary heavy guns. But six
specially equipped paratroopers—they can do a real
job for us!”
He smiled at the men and they smiled back. They
did not need to say they were eager to take on this
job. It showed plainly in their eyes and in their
smiles.
“The main job you are to do will come exactly
one week from the time you arrive outside Maletta,”
the general pointed out. “But you must get there
in advance and meanwhile do many valuable small
jobs for us. You can get detailed information for us
on the movement of German troops in and around
Maletta—and trucks, tanks, guns, supplies. You see,
we’ll start our push up the valley at once and we
expect the Germans to pour their men into Maletta
as a result. Right now they’re not sure we plan on
taking the road right straight ahead. As soon as
they’re sure, they’ll put just about all they’ve got
into the head of the valley.”
The general turned with a pointer and showed
them the lines of railroads and roads.
// 093.png
.pn +1
“You can see that Maletta is an important hub,
even though it is ordinarily a town of only about
ten thousand people. By the way—do any of you
men know Maletta?”
Tony Avella raised his hand. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“I know Maletta pretty well. I’ve got an uncle who
lives there—at least he did live there. I haven’t
heard about him for some time, and he was no great
lover of Mussolini.”
“Good for him!” said the general. “I hope he’s
still there. If he is, he may be able to help us greatly.
And he certainly can be the go-between in your relations
with the Italian townspeople. There aren’t
ten thousand people there now, by any means, by
the way. Most of the civilians have been evacuated.
The Germans have made the town into a fortress.
And there were no real factories there to keep any
sizable part of the population in the town to run
them. According to our information there are no
more than fifteen hundred Italians left in and
around Maletta.”
The general came back to the immediate plan for
the six men on the special mission.
“We’ll want reports, by radio, on troops and supplies
into Maletta,” he said. “Where you can set up
your short-wave radio will be your problem. And
how to keep it from being found out by the German
detectors is also your problem, I’m afraid, and a
tough one. But you’ll do it, I’m sure.”
// 094.png
.pn +1
Tony shook his head wonderingly. He was glad
the general had such confidence in them, but he
knew how hard it was to keep a radio station from
being located almost immediately when there were
detectors listening at all times for underground or
enemy stations. Still, they could try! If the general
needed it—well, they’d just have to give him what
he wanted!
“Finally, you are to be in sufficiently close touch
with the townspeople to warn them when you blow
up the dam,” the general said. “And that’s a dangerous
job, for there are still some ardent fascists among
them, without a doubt, men who are working with
the Germans. Not many, I’m sure, but a few. If
Corporal Avella’s uncle is still there, he’ll be able
to let you know whom to avoid. But everybody
else must be warned—not too soon, but in time, to
get to the hills when the dam goes, for the waters
will rush down and wipe out Maletta!”
“Oh boy!” Dick Donnelly cried, without thinking.
The general grinned at him.
“You seem to like dams, Sergeant Donnelly,” he
said.
“I like the idea of really blowing one up,” Dick
replied, “and washing away a few thousand Germans,
with their tanks, trucks, guns, and ammunition!”
“Could I ask a question, sir?” Scotti inquired.
“Of course, Lieutenant Scotti,” the general answered.
“I want you all to ask as many questions
about this as you please.”
// 095.png
.pn +1
“What about the flood waters when they reach
our own troops?” Scotti asked.
“I’ll show you,” the general replied. “Our men
coming up the valley will be here when the dam is
blown up.” He pointed to a spot on the map about
ten miles below the town. “As you see, the valley
broadens here. The waters will be pretty low by
this time, and they’ll channel chiefly into these two
river beds, leaving a ridge of high ground up the
center between them.”
“But how can we attack the town, then?” Jerry
asked.
“We won’t attack it from the front, up the valley,”
the general replied. “The flood will have silenced
the big guns in the town itself, and for some
distance behind it. We’ll have infantry pouring over
the sides of the hills on both sides at that moment.
You’ll recall I said we could filter plenty of men up
the other sides of these hills, but no heavy guns.
Well, with the German guns out of commission,
they won’t be handicapped. They’ll be fighting German
foot soldiers on an equal basis, only the Germans
will be racing like fury to get into the hills
away from the flood waters, and they won’t be organized.”
“I see, sir,” Lieutenant Scotti replied. “I knew
there was an answer, of course, but wanted to be
sure what it was.”
// 096.png
.pn +1
“Naturally,” the general replied. “You can see
it’s something like the Wadizam Pass action. First
comes our advance part way up the valley, drawing
heavy German troop and supply movement into
Maletta. Meanwhile other forces filter north along
the other sides of the ridges, traveling chiefly at
night to avoid detection. You men are in Maletta,
reporting to us. You warn the Italians, blow up the
dam and run for the hills, planning to meet our
own men who’ll be coming over them at that time.”
Then the general asked for questions, and he
answered them for half an hour until the six men
felt that they knew every detail of the plan, every
action that was expected of them.
“One last thing,” the general said. “In getting
into the town you may find that uniforms are attention-getters.
But if you’re back of the enemy
lines without uniforms you’re really spies and can
be treated as such by the enemy. In uniform, if
captured, you will be prisoners of war. But that
problem will have to be left up to you and Lieutenant
Scotti, your commanding officer. You do whatever
you think is necessary and advisable, but you
must be fully aware of the consequences. I have no
right to ask you to be spies, to take such a risk. This
whole venture is completely volunteer, anyway. Not
a man of you needs to undertake it.”
But every man did want to undertake the job.
They were delighted when the general said they
would leave the following night. Then, after hearty
// 097.png
.pn +1
handshakes and good wishes from the general, the
six men left with Major Marker. They jabbered
excitedly all the way back to their base, but stopped
entirely as soon as they were with their friends in
camp. These men all knew that the six were going to
do something special, but they could not get the
slightest hint of what it was to be. And they were the
envy of the whole base. Only “Boom-Boom” Slade
seemed unexcited, unperturbed. He was interested
chiefly in how much dynamite they’d be able to have,
and he spent every spare moment alone studying the
plans and photographs of the big dam which had
been given him.
“The spillway,” he murmured to himself happily.
“That looks good for the charge. It ought to be a
pretty sight when it goes out!”
The next day was a busy one for most of them.
Tony Avella was going over his radio equipment,
the very finest short-wave set in the Army. It was
put up in special containers for being dropped by
parachute, but Tony took them out and practiced
setting everything up in a hurry several times. Sergeant
Slade was going over his equipment, dynamite,
detonator, wires, fuses. Lieutenant Scotti was
checking supplies with Dick Donnelly. They took
plenty of canned rations, lengths of rope, blinker
lights for emergency signaling, extra first-aid kits,
blanket beds, waterproof tarpaulins. They tried to
think in advance of every condition under which
they might have to work, fight, and live.
// 098.png
.pn +1
“We don’t want to load ourselves down,” Scotti
said, “but we want to have everything possible that
we’ll really be likely to need. One extra supply parachute
won’t make much difference. We’ll set up
headquarters in the hills to the east of the town—that’s
the wildest country thereabouts, and the safest.
We might as well make ourselves comfortable
for a week’s stay, and conduct our forays into the
town from the camp base in the hills.”
“We might be able to move right into the town,”
Dick suggested, “if the underground is really helpful
and trustworthy.”
“Maybe so,” the lieutenant agreed. “But that will
depend on whether the Germans suspect we’re anywhere
around. I imagine as soon as Tony gets his
radio going, even though our messages will be in
code in Italian, they’ll suspect something and search
the town thoroughly.”
“How can we possibly set up the radio so they
won’t find us?” Dick asked.
“I don’t know,” Jerry replied with a smile.
“That’s a really tough assignment. Of course, we
plan to go on the air only twice a day and then
only for about three or four minutes. Maybe we can
move it to a different place each time.”
“But we couldn’t move it far enough to keep
away from them,” Dick said. “They’ll search the
whole area when they get a fix on that short-wave
sending set. And we can’t have it near our base in
the hills, or they’ll be right up there after us.”
// 099.png
.pn +1
“Yes—it would be best to have it somewhere in
the town itself,” Scotti said, “though right now I
don’t see how it’s possible. Then the Germans would
just think it was an illegal Italian station. They
wouldn’t necessarily suspect that Americans were
there.”
“I guess we can’t figure that one out until we get
there,” Dick concluded.
“No, that will have to wait,” the lieutenant
agreed. “And how we’ll manage to blow up that
dam I don’t know. It must be pretty well guarded.”
“Boom-Boom Slade can figure out something, I’ll
bet,” Dick said. “That guy can manage to blow up
anything if you really want it blown up!”
At nine o’clock that evening everything was ready.
The six men reported to Major Marker, who took
them at once to the big car. Without lights they
drove over the roads of southern Italy for an hour,
eventually reaching a small airfield. They had no
idea where they might be, as they had gone through
no towns.
On the field, a big transport waited in the darkness,
its two engines idling. First, the equipment
was placed in the plane, and then the men climbed
aboard. Before the door closed, Scotti and Dick
Donnelly waved a last farewell to Major Marker,
who seemed no more than a shadow on the ground
below.
// 100.png
.pn +1
“Happy landings!” came his voice over the sound
of the motors, and then they closed the door. Scotti
nodded to the pilot in the cockpit and the plane
picked up speed. In a minute more its wheels had
left the ground and they were in the air, on their
way to the most dangerous undertaking any of them
had ever faced.
// 101.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 07 SEVEN "NOT SO HAPPY LANDINGS"
It was a short trip. Their base was not far behind
the front lines below Maletta, and the field to which
they had gone was only a few miles further south
and—they guessed—some distance to the east.
“The Air Forces are sending up some bombers
for a little diversion,” Scotti said to the men around
him. “They’ll pull the German fighter strength and
ack-ack fire to the railroad bridges northwest of the
town. And they’ll fill the air with plenty of sound
for the German sound detectors, so that they’re
likely to miss the sound of our plane. We’ll fly low
so that the plane can’t easily be seen above the hills
beyond us.”
“Never landed at night before,” Dick Donnelly
said, “except on flat desert land.”
“It’s tricky, all right,” Scotti said, “when there
are hills and trees below. And there’s no moon to
see by tonight. That’s good from one angle because
we can’t be seen easily either. But you can’t tell
where you’re coming down. Maybe some of us will
spend the night caught in some treetops.”
Tony Avella shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all in
the game,” he said. “We’ll make out all right.”
// 102.png
.pn +1
The others nodded without speaking, and there
was silence in the plane. Five minutes passed this
way before the co-pilot stepped back to say quietly,
“This is it.”
The men stood up at once, and the fuselage door
was thrown open. Tony Avella and Dick Donnelly
heaved out the two parachutes carrying the radio
equipment, and Tony followed immediately, as if
he could not be parted from them for more than a
few seconds.
“Go ahead, Dick,” Scotti said, and the sergeant
leaped without a word. Then the lieutenant helped
Slade and Vince Salamone throw out the four parachutes
bearing the containers of dynamite and demolition
equipment.
“Right after it, Slade,” Scotti said. “Each man
finds his own stuff. Vince will find you and help you
with it.”
Little Slade closed his eyes and his face was pale.
It still seemed almost to kill him to make a parachute
leap but he never said a word about it. He
was hardly out the door when the huge bulk of
Salamone went after him.
Now only Max Burckhardt and Scotti were left.
Together they tossed out the three remaining supply
parachutes.
“See you later, Max,” the lieutenant said. “Everybody
will head east toward me, you know. But we
may not get together until daylight.”
// 103.png
.pn +1
With a grin, Max jumped. Scotti turned and
waved to the plane’s co-pilot, then stepped into
space shouting “Geronimo!” It always seemed a
little strange to him to call out his own first name
when he jumped. But he didn’t smile about it tonight.
Jumping in the darkness was no light-hearted
task, and the week ahead of them was filled with
responsibilities such as he had never shouldered
before.
“Most of the others are down by now,” he said
to himself. “Hope they’re not in trouble.”
He tried to look below, but there was nothing
but blackness, just a little blacker than the sky
around him. In the skies to the northwest he saw
the bursts of antiaircraft fire from the German batteries,
trying to find the American bombers that
were coming over the railroad tracks. Searchlights
stabbed the sky, cutting sharp white lines in the
blackness, and Scotti was glad, despite his wish for
a little light, that they were not searching for him.
Tony Avella was on the ground already. He, who
seemed worried the least about landing on a wooded
hillside at night, had no trouble at all. He came
down in a little clearing, hit the ground with a hard
jolt because he was not expecting it quite so soon,
and rolled down the slope about ten feet. His ’chute
had collapsed of its own accord and he slipped out
of the harness quickly. Then he set about trying in
the darkness to find his two containers of radio
material.
// 104.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task]
.pm illust 10 donnelly_p109.jpg 458 "Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task"
// 105.png
.pn +1
“Probably can’t locate a thing at night,” he muttered
to himself, “but think of the time I can save
if I find even one of them. Dick was right behind
me. Wonder if he made out okay.”
Dick Donnelly did not have the luck of Tony. At
that moment he was hanging head down in a tree.
One leg was over a heavy branch, and his ’chute
shroud lines were caught far above. His face and
hands were badly scratched by the branches as he
had plunged into them, but he was not worried
about such minor trifles. He was struggling to pull
himself up to a sitting position on the branch. Every
time he tried, his shroud lines seemed to tug him
in the other direction. Finally, however, he succeeded
in getting the other leg over the branch.
Then he snaked his pocket knife from his trousers
and reached back to cut the shroud lines which
held him.
When he had cut through four of them, he felt
the pull lessen and found he could pull himself up
on the branch. For a few moments he sat there,
waiting for his head to stop swimming as the blood
receded from it. Finally, he cut the rest of his
parachute lines and was free.
“Can’t leave that ’chute up there,” he said. “It
might be spotted from below in the morning, and
certainly a German plane would see it before long.”
// 106.png
.pn +1
Tug as he might, however, he could not get it
free. Making up his mind that he’d have to free it
by the first light of dawn, he felt for the tree trunk,
found it, and began to let himself down. His eyes
were more accustomed to the darkness now, and he
could vaguely see the branches as he stepped down
from one to the other. Then the ground loomed up
about ten feet below, and he let himself drop. He
rolled over once, then brought himself up to a sitting
position.
“Now what?” he asked himself. “Just sit here, I
guess. If I leave this tree I may get lost and not
find it again to get that parachute.”
So he edged his way back a couple of feet until his
back rested against the trunk of the tree in which
he had fallen. He moved a rock beneath one leg,
and then relaxed completely, his head back against
the tree. Far off he heard the roaring thud of bombs
dropped by American bombers, and he smiled.
“Wish I could locate Tony,” he said to himself.
“We went out so close together he can’t be far away.
Hm—that reminds me—Tony asked if sometime
when we were out alone at night I wouldn’t sing
Celeste Aïda for him. Well, I’d do it if he were here
now. But it’s been so long since I’ve sung. Haven’t
even thought much about singing.”
Hardly realizing what he was doing he began to
hum aloud the slow, ascending first notes of the
famous tenor aria from the Verdi opera. By the
time he reached the third phrase, he was singing the
// 107.png
.pn +1
words, and it felt good. It still sounded all right.
He kept on, letting his voice out more and more,
pulling himself to his feet finally so that he could
sing in full voice. Only when he had come to the
end, did he realize that he had perhaps done a foolish
thing, singing so loudly there in the hills behind
the enemy lines.
Then he heard a soft clapping of hands and the
word “Bravo!” He jumped and looked into the
darkness from which the sound came. “Bravo, Ricardo
Donnelli!” the voice said again, and Dick
knew who it was as he made out the advancing
figure.
“Tony!” he cried. “You startled me!”
“Sorry,” the radioman said, as he came close. “But
that’s nothing to what you would have done to any
German soldier within half a mile!”
“I know—I didn’t realize,” Dick said. “I got to
humming when I remembered you wanted me to
sing it for you sometime when we were alone in
the hills at night. And then, first thing I knew, I was
really singing it.”
“I was kidding,” Tony said. “In the first place
I’m quite sure there isn’t a German within half a
mile. And if there were, he’d just think it was an
Italian out singing in the night. You didn’t sound at
all like the German idea of an American soldier.
You sounded swell, incidentally. I could close my
eyes and see the whole scene on the stage at the
Met.”
// 108.png
.pn +1
“Well, we’re a long way from there,” Dick said.
“And I’m a long way from doing any singing again.”
“Gee, I was just thinking,” Tony said. “In Maletta,
they used to have a pretty fair little opera
company. Maybe it’s not going now, though the
Italians have kept up their opera performances under
the worst conditions. That’s about the last thing
they’ll give up. Wouldn’t this Maletta Opera group
love to have you as a guest star for a performance
or two!”
“Yes, and the Germans would applaud vigorously,
too, I’ll bet,” Dick laughed. “How’d you make
out in your landing, by the way?”
“Neat!” Tony replied. “Right in a clearing. I
went crawling around looking for my radio but
couldn’t find anything. Then I heard you singing
and came this way.”
“I wound up head down in this tree here,” Dick
said. “Had to cut myself out of my ’chute. Couldn’t
get it out of the tree, though. I’ll have to do it when
it first gets light. No use waving a signal flag like
that at the Germans to let them know we’re here.”
“Well, we can’t do anything until it does get
light,” Tony said. “So let’s sit down.”
They sat on the ground and leaned against the
trunk of the tree. Then they talked for a while, as
the sound of bombing and antiaircraft fire northwest
of Maletta died out. Finally they both fell into
a light sleep.
// 109.png
.pn +1
It was still dark when Dick woke up, but not as
black as it had been when they landed the night
before. Somewhere to the east, the first rays of the
sun were climbing the hills, and a hazy grayness was
the first notice of their advance. Dick realized that
his neck was so stiff he could hardly turn it, and then
he knew that one foot was asleep.
“Dick—awake?” It was Tony’s voice beside him.
“Sure—just woke up,” Dick replied. “But I don’t
know if I can move. My neck feels as if it would
snap in two if I tried to turn it.”
“Same here,” Tony said. “But I think it’s going
to begin getting light before long. We might be able
to get something done.”
“I know it,” Dick agreed. “The Germans might
have planes going over pretty early and I don’t want
them to spot any ’chutes.”
With an effort he got to his feet, wagging his head
from side to side while he grimaced with the pain.
Then he stamped his sleeping foot on the hard earth
while it tingled to life. He turned and looked at
Tony Avella, who was going through the same thing.
“Do I look as groggy as you do, Tony?” he
laughed.
“If you look as groggy as I feel,” Tony answered,
“you’re pretty bad. I can’t see without a fuzziness
over everything.”
// 110.png
.pn +1
But in a few minutes they were awake. Together
they scrambled up the big tree and got Dick’s parachute
untangled from the branches. Wrapping it
up in a bundle with the harness, Dick slung it over
his shoulder.
“Don’t want to leave any evidence like this
around,” he said, following Tony off through the
trees to help him find his things.
Tony’s ’chute was only about fifty yards from the
tree in which Dick had landed. They stowed the two
parachutes together and then walked south searching
for the two radio ’chutes. They found the first
one almost at once. It was caught on an overhanging
rock over a sheer drop of about thirty feet to a stone
ledge below.
“Glad I didn’t land there,” Tony commented, as
he crawled up the rock to the ’chute. There he
tugged the shroud lines so that the container, which
was hanging free in the air, swung over close to
Dick, who caught it and cut it loose. Then Tony
retrieved the colored ’chute and they continued the
search for the other one.
It took them ten minutes to find it, and by that
time dawn had really come. The birds in the trees
were chirping and flitting about but no other sound
came to them. When they had gathered everything
together, they set out to find the others of their party.
“Must be about three-quarters of a mile,” Dick
said. “No matter how fast they went out of the ship
they’d be spread over that much territory. We can
start whistling pretty soon.”
// 111.png
.pn +1
After a hundred steps through the trees, heading
northward parallel with the ridge of the hill above
them, they began alternately to give poor imitations
of bird calls. But the birds themselves were singing
so vigorously, as if they did not realize a war was
going on, that the two Americans began to wonder
if their calls would be heard. In a few minutes, however,
they heard a call like their own.
“That’s no bird,” Tony said. “Only Vince Salamone
could make a sound like that.”
They hurried down to the left, from which the
whistle had come, lugging their heavy containers
with them. They saw Vince Salamone and “Boom-Boom”
Slade sitting on their equipment under a
tree. Vince was working so hard at whistling that
he could not hear the replies which Dick and Tony
were giving him. And Slade was pursing up his lips
repeatedly without a single sound coming out. The
demolition expert could not whistle a note!
Dick called out when they were close, and the
two men jumped to their feet. Happy to learn that
neither one had been hurt in his landing, Dick
checked over the equipment to be sure it was all
there.
“Right—three containers and five ’chutes!” he
said. “Let’s go.”
// 112.png
.pn +1
Dick led the way as they went forward to the
north again. It was hard walking, for the hill was
steeper, and ahead Dick could make out an outcropping
of rock that rose straight up for about twenty-five
feet. He began to whistle once more, looking
for either Max Burckhardt or Jerry Scotti. After a
few minutes he heard an answering whistle and
stopped.
“Where’s that coming from?” Dick asked, puzzled.
The whistle seemed to be ahead of them, but just
where was not certain. So they walked forward
more steps, whistled again, and heard a reply. Then
they heard a voice.
“Dick! Dick! I’m up here!”
They all looked up. There, leaning over a rocky
ledge far above them, was Max Burckhardt.
“Max! How did you get up there?” Dick called
back, not too loudly.
“How do you think?” Max demanded angrily.
“I landed here, of course!”
“On that little ledge?” Tony asked. “How big
is it?”
“About eight feet square,” Max replied. “And
there’s not a way to get off it. Sheer rock up above
and straight drop below. Not a foothold anywhere.
I feel silly as the devil perched up here with no way
to get down.”
“You may feel silly,” Dick answered, “but you’re
really lucky as the devil. You might have been
knocked senseless against this cliff by your ’chute.”
“Don’t I know it!” Max called back.
// 113.png
.pn +1
“Where’s your ’chute?” Dick asked.
“Here!” Max replied. “I sort of sensed I was on
the edge of something and I pulled it in fast. It was
trying to pull me right off. Toss me up a good rope.
There’s a rock up here I can fasten it on.”
Dick quickly opened one of the supply containers
and found a good length of rope. It took half a
dozen tries to get one end of it up to Max, but soon
he had it looped over the rock. He tossed one end
down again.
“With both ends down there,” he explained, “we
can get it free from this jutting rock and take it
along with us. Hold it taut for me and it won’t
come loose.”
Max tossed his ’chute over to them, and then
Dick and Vince Salamone bore down on the ends of
the rope. Soon Max slid over the edge and came
hand-over-hand down to the ground.
“Boy, am I glad to see you guys!” he exclaimed.
“I was beginning to feel that I’d be up there for the
duration.”
Gathering everything together again, they went
in search of the other supply containers and within
another ten minutes had found them intact.
“Now to find Jerry,” Dick said. “He can’t be far.”
“I know it,” Max said. “I’ve been wondering. I
would have thought he might come back a bit looking
for me, and I certainly think he would have
looked around for the last supply ’chutes. He was
jumping right after them.”
// 114.png
.pn +1
They stopped and whistled. There was no answer.
Then they moved forward a short distance and
whistled again. Still no reply came to them. Dick
climbed up the hill a little farther and called out
to the others. He had found the entrance to a cave.
It was well sheltered and not very obvious, and
inside it was like a large square room. But they
found no Lieutenant Scotti inside, nor any sign that
a human had been in the place for a long time.
“This will make a swell base,” Dick said, “as soon
as we find Jerry. Let’s stow all our stuff here and
fan out to look for him.”
Quickly they put their supplies and equipment
well back in the dry cave and then started out in
different directions from the cave entrance. It was
Dick who first heard the groan, coming from behind
a huge, jagged boulder. He raced around it quickly,
whistling the signal frantically as he went.
There at the bottom of the boulder lay Lieutenant
Scotti. His face was covered with blood, and his
right leg was twisted under him in a way that told
Dick immediately that it was broken.
// 115.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 08 EIGHT "TWO VISITORS TO TOWN"
The others came running to the boulder in a moment.
Dick had felt the Lieutenant’s pulse and
found it still strong. The blood on his face was from
two deep gashes in his skull, obviously from the
jagged rock against which he had fallen.
Vince Salamone picked up the lieutenant in his
arms and carried him gently up the hill to the cave.
Tony and Max ran ahead to get out some of the
blanket beds from the supply containers, and finally
Scotti was resting inside the cave.
“Tony and Max,” Dick said, “see if you can find
water. There ought to be some little stream or
springs near by in hills like this.”
The two men snatched up canteens and went out
quickly. Meanwhile, Dick looked over Scotti’s
broken leg. Salamone looked on as if he wished he
could do something. Slade, who had said almost
nothing, came to Dick’s side.
“I happen to know a little bit about such things,”
he said, almost timidly. “Let me have a look.”
Deftly he ripped away the lieutenant’s trouser leg
and examined the break in the bone, just a little
above the knee.
// 116.png
.pn +1
“Seems to be pretty clean,” he said. “We’ll have
to get it set right away. Need some long straight
pieces of wood.”
“I’ll get ’em,” Vince said, happy that there was
something he could do to help. He pulled a hatchet
from the supply container, made sure his knife was
in his pocket, and went out of the cave.
In a moment Max and Tony both returned with
water and Slade bathed Scotti’s face and his wounds.
Opening a first-aid kit, he put a little sulfa powder
in the deep wounds and then dressed them.
“He’s completely unconscious as a result of these,”
he said to Dick. “Can’t tell if there’s any concussion
of the brain or not, of course. If there is, it’s bad,
and he may not come to. But if not he’ll come
around. We mustn’t try to force him back to consciousness,
though. Just make him comfortable and
let him rest.”
Dick nodded in agreement and the little demolition
expert, who now turned out to be also a first-aid
expert, went quickly over the rest of Scotti’s
body to see if there were any more wounds. He
found nothing but some torn flesh on one hand,
where he had probably tried to clutch at the rock
when he landed on it. Slade quickly cleaned and
dressed this wound, too, felt the lieutenant’s pulse,
and stepped back.
“Can’t do anything else except set the leg,” he
said.
// 117.png
.pn +1
Max and Tony had gone to help Vince find the
straight pieces of wood needed for this task. In a
few minutes they returned with straight sapling
trunks about an inch and a half in diameter, but
Slade said the wood was too pliable.
“That could never hold a broken leg in position,”
he said. “It would bend with the leg. You’ve got to
find old wood, hard and stiff.”
The three men went off into the woods again, and
soon Dick could hear the sound of a hatchet chopping
wood. He hoped that the sound did not carry
to the town below, or to any German garrison which
might be near by. The town was about two miles
away, and the main German gun emplacements on
the hills were a good way to the south of them, but
still Dick did not rest easy until the sound was
ended.
In ten minutes the three men returned with wood
that Slade declared perfect. It was straight and true,
with all tiny branches cleaned off smoothly, and
there was no give in it at all. Slade set the others
to tearing one of the parachutes into strips, and
these strips he tied around the two long pieces of
wood which were placed on either side of Scotti’s
broken leg.
In twenty minutes the job was done.
“Best I can do, anyway,” Slade said. “Maybe it
will set all right and maybe not. Nothing else to do,
though. The main thing I’m worried about is the
head injury.”
// 118.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Slade Set Scotti’s Broken Leg]
.pm illust 11 donnelly_p123.jpg 458 "Slade Set Scotti’s Broken Leg"
// 119.png
.pn +1
“Yes, I wish he weren’t unconscious,” Dick said.
“It seems terrible, somehow, to see him here but not
talk to him, hear him. And right now we need him
badly. He’s the one with the brains in this outfit.”
“It’s too bad, all right,” Tony said, “but you’ve
got a pretty good head on your shoulders, too, Dick.
We can carry on. And, anyway, maybe Scotti will
come around in a little while and he can direct operations
from here. He doesn’t have to move around.
We can do everything that needs to be done.”
The others agreed, but Dick felt a little lost without
Scotti’s help at this point. He set about getting
the cave organized, the containers unpacked, the
supplies in order. Tony Avella checked over all the
radio material and found everything in order.
Slade stacked his dynamite at the rear of the cave,
and Vince said, as he saw the great pile, “Are you
just going to blow up one dam with that, Boom-Boom?
It looks as if you had enough for two.”
“It takes a lot of dynamite to blow up a good
dam,” Slade said. “From the pictures and plans I
saw, this isn’t such a wonderful one. Structurally,
it would never be acceptable in the United States.
But, when possible, I always believe in bringing
along just twice as much material as I think I’m
going to need.”
“And who knows?” Tony laughed. “Maybe we
can find something else we can blow up with whatever’s
left over.”
// 120.png
.pn +1
“Not a bad idea,” Dick said. “Not a bad idea at
all.”
They all sat down at the mouth of the cave and
opened their cans of rations. Dick said he thought
it was all right to light a small fire for a short while
so they might have coffee. In five minutes there
were five cups being held over a little blaze, and
soon the coffee was made. The men all drank it with
relish and sighs of relief, and then the fire was put
out.
“Nobody’ll spot that little bit of smoke and get
suspicious,” Max said.
“We just shouldn’t do it too often,” Dick said.
“If they should notice it regularly, they’d come to
investigate.”
Every half hour, at least, Dick went to Scotti’s
side, felt his pulse, and looked eagerly for some signs
of consciousness. But the lieutenant remained in
the same state, breathing shallowly, but with a good
pulse beat.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, Dick felt sure
that whatever decisions were made that day would
have to come from him. Vince and Max had taken
short naps, but now they were awake and asking
him what the plan of action was. He called them
all around him to talk the matter over.
“We can’t do much of anything except at night,
of course,” Dick said. “And we haven’t got much
time to waste. First, we’ve got to get the radio set
up, somehow, somewhere. Any ideas, Tony?”
// 121.png
.pn +1
“Not up here,” Tony said. “That’s about all I can
say now, Dick. They’d spot us in no time with their
detectors, and we’d have a company of Germans all
over the side of this hill.”
“Where, then?” Dick asked.
“In the town itself,” Tony replied.
“That seems next to impossible, Tony,” Max
said. “Why, they’ll find it in a minute in town—even
if you should find some way to get all that
paraphernalia in without being caught.”
“I know it sounds out of the question,” Tony
agreed. “But there must be some place we can set
it up without being located. Now, if my uncle’s still
around—”
“How are you going to find that out?” Vince
asked.
“Go to town and ask,” Tony replied. “Isn’t that
right, Dick?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Dick replied. “I don’t know
about getting the radio into town, but we’ve got to
go down there, some of us, and find out what’s what.
That uncle of yours, Tony—we might as well assume
he’s not there. So many people have been
evacuated. What did he do there, anyway?”
“That’s one reason I think he might still be
there,” Tony said. “For quite a few years, he’s been
caretaker at the Villa Rolta. Right on the edge of
// 122.png
.pn +1
town, the villa is—a big place about a thousand
years old, backing up against the steep hill at the
northern end of town. Belonged to the Rolta family
ever since the twelfth century, though none of
them have been around for quite a while. It’s been
sort of a Museum for a long time now, and Uncle
Tomaso has been caretaker. He’s an old duck and I
don’t think he’d move. He’d stick there at the villa
no matter what happened.”
“Well, maybe so,” Dick said. “It would be lucky
if he were still around. We’ve got to find that out.
And we’ve got to make contact with somebody else
there if he isn’t around. That’s a ticklish job. The
first man we talk to might be a friend of the
Germans.”
“We’ll just listen first,” Tony said. “You can
tell, after a little while, by the way people talk.”
“But what kind of listening can a bunch of American
soldiers in uniform do?” Vince asked.
“That brings up another point,” Dick said. “You
all remember what the General said about that. If
we got out of uniform and were caught we’d be
treated as spies. And you know that means getting
shot—right away and without any questions asked.”
“Sure, but we can’t go in uniform,” Tony protested.
“I don’t think we can, either,” Dick said. “And I
know Scotti didn’t think so. That’s why he got hold
of six sets of clothing, clothing of ordinary Italian
small-town people such as they’d be wearing in Maletta
these days.”
// 123.png
.pn +1
“Do they fit?” demanded Vince Salamone, whose
difficulty in finding clothes large enough was always
bothering him.
Dick laughed. “Yes, Jerry did a good job on that,”
he said. “Of course, it was pretty easy to pick up the
right things fast in the towns we’ve recently taken
over in southern Italy. He even found a couple of
Italians as big as you, Vince.”
“Then we go in Italian clothes?” Tony asked.
“Only if you want to,” Dick replied. “I’m not
going to ask anybody to do it who doesn’t agree
perfectly with the idea. But I know that I’m going
to leave my uniform here in the cave when I visit
Maletta.”
“Same here,” Tony said. “I’ll be right at home.
Nobody’ll ever notice me. And if they ask, I’m just
little Antonio Avella, from the town of Carlini up
north, come down looking for my poor old uncle.”
“What kind of Italian peasant do you think I’ll
make?” Max asked. “I can’t speak the language.”
“You’re my deaf and dumb cousin!” Tony
laughed, and the others joined in. “I always knew
part of that was true, but now you’ll have to fill the
description completely.”
“Okay,” Max laughed. “I’ll be deaf and dumb
if it means I can help and at the same time keep
from getting myself shot as a spy.”
// 124.png
.pn +1
“Maybe we can pick up a German uniform for
you,” Dick said, “and then your German will come
in mighty handy. Come to think of it, I’m going to
keep on the lookout for a spare uniform.”
“Make me a high officer, if you get me a German
uniform,” Max said. “I’d like to be more than a
private for a while, especially if I’ve got to wear a
Nazi uniform. It would be fun to get in a Colonel’s
uniform and march up to a company of soldiers and
order them to jump in the lake and drown themselves.
They’d do it, too! They’re just that crazy
about obeying orders if the orders are barked by a
guy with enough gold braid on him.”
“But I don’t speak German or Italian, either
one,” Slade said. “What about me?”
“Boom-Boom, you stay right here,” Dick said. “In
the first place, you came along to blow up a dam.
You can also be mighty useful by nursing our lieutenant
back to life and health. Somebody’s got to
keep on tap here, anyway, all the time. You’re
elected.”
“All right,” Slade said. “But I must have a chance
to look over that dam once or twice before I go to
blow it up.”
“We’ll visit the dam, all right,” Dick said. “But
that will come later. Now here’s the schedule, and
for most of you guys it’s easy.”
They all looked at the young sergeant expectantly.
// 125.png
.pn +1
“If too many strange Italians from the north, including
a deaf and dumb one, land in this town all
of a sudden, some folks will be suspicious. So this
first night Tony and I go down to the town to look
for his uncle Tomaso or find out whatever we can.
Depending on what we learn—we’ll lay our plans
then.”
“And the rest of us just sit here?” Vince demanded.
“Yes, you just sit here,” Dick said. “Tony and I
will leave as soon as it grows dark. If we don’t come
back by two a.m. Vince and Max are to come looking
for us. Clear?”
They all nodded in agreement. Then Dick went
in for another look at Lieutenant Scotti, followed by
Slade.
“Isn’t there really anything we can do, Boom-Boom?”
he asked uneasily.
“Not a thing, sergeant,” Slade replied. “I’ll confess
I’m worried about the lieutenant, but there’s
nothing we can do. Anything we might try would
prove more dangerous than doing nothing at all
now.”
Dick shook his head and went back to get the
Italian peasant clothes. He tossed the sets of clothing
to each man according to his size, and then
stripped off his uniform and put on the trousers and
shirt which Scotti had bought from an Italian many
miles to the south.
// 126.png
.pn +1
“If the guy that owned these knew how they were
being used,” Tony said, as he got into his things,
“I’ll bet he’d be mighty happy. When this is over
I want to look him up and tell him that his clothes
helped in the big defeat of the Germans at Maletta.”
They ate a meal from their ration cans then, and
watched the sun sink over the ridge of hills to the
west. By seven o’clock it was completely dark, and
Dick Donnelly—once more using the name of Ricardo
Donnelli—and Tony Avella started down the
hill to visit the town of Maletta.
// 127.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 09 NINE "UNCLE TOMASO"
The two men did not talk for some time as they
walked slowly through the dark woods. As the trees
began to thin out near the bottom of the hill, Dick
thought more carefully about the details of their
plan. As they approached the town more closely,
it seemed almost impossible to carry such an undertaking
through successfully. Here they were walking
right into the heart of the enemy’s territory,
into one of his most important bases.
“We haven’t got any identification papers,” he
said casually to Tony.
“Neither have a great many Italian peasants,”
Tony replied, “especially if they come from the
farms. Either they haven’t been given such papers
at all, haven’t been checked up on, or they forget
to carry them. They’re like that, you know—not
like the Germans at all, who must always have
everything so well systematized. The Italian farmer
knows that he is Guiseppi Amato, and all his friends
know it. Why, he asks, should he bother to carry
around a paper saying that’s who he is?”
Dick laughed lightly. “And he’s right, too,” he
agreed. “Mussolini really couldn’t get very far with
his system and rigid discipline and such, cataloguing
everybody and everything.”
// 128.png
.pn +1
“Of course, the Germans are very contemptuous
of the Italians,” Tony said, “which is a compliment
to the Italians. They don’t realize that half of the
Italians’ apparent carelessness is really a subtle form
of opposition. They just forget their identification
papers, that’s all. And they tell that to the German
sentry or officer with the most innocent face, with a
sort of helpless shrug of the shoulders. It exasperates
the German, of course, but what can he do
about it? If only an occasional Italian acted that
way, the Germans could shoot him or throw him in
a concentration camp as punishment and as an example
to the others. But when half the people do
it—well!”
“Then if we’re asked for papers, we’ve just forgotten
them, or lost them some time ago,” Dick
concluded.
“Or we don’t even seem to know what they’re
talking about,” Tony said. “We’re dumb. We’re as
stupid as the Germans think we are. In that, we’re
safe.”
“But it’s a good idea to avoid any more contact
with the Germans than we are forced into,” Dick
said.
“I think so, too, Dick,” Tony said. “So I think
we ought not to go into Maletta on the main road.
They’re likely to have sentries posted on the main
// 129.png
.pn +1
roads into town, just to check on people coming and
going. We can cross the main road, go through the
fields, and cut around to one of the little side
streets.”
“Good,” Dick agreed. “The land is leveling out
below us a bit. Looks like a farm.”
“Yes, see the lights over there,” Tony pointed
out. “Farmhouse on our right. If we keep straight
ahead across the field now we ought to strike the
main road. We can cross it, then circle around to
the left toward town, under the shadow of the hill.”
“Will that bring us anywhere near the villa where
your uncle was caretaker?” Dick asked.
“Yes, right there,” Tony replied. “You see that
steep hill ahead? You can make out the dark outlines
of it against the sky. It’s at the foot of that—the
villa, backed right up against the hill, almost
built into it.”
They were walking across the farmer’s field now,
stepping between the rows of plants. Dick could not
make out what they were, but he was careful to
avoid stepping on them. Finally they came to a low
stone wall marking the end of the field. Beyond it
was a ditch and the road. They crouched low beside
the fence and listened. Far off a dog barked and
from somewhere else another answered him. To the
left they could see the lights of Maletta, though
there were not many, and no glow was cast in the
sky as it would have been in normal times.
// 130.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: The Two Men Walked Toward the Villa]
.pm illust 12 donnelly_p135.jpg 457 "The Two Men Walked Toward the Villa"
// 131.png
.pn +1
“Okay, let’s go across,” Dick said, vaulting over
the wall.
Tony followed him, and they clambered up the
side of the ditch onto the road. It was wide and
paved, obviously the main road to the northeast.
“There’s another road like this going northwest,”
Tony said. “Two valleys meet here at Maletta and
join into one up which our forces are coming. They
form the letter Y, with Maletta at the point where
the three arms meet. I imagine most of the German
troops and supplies come down to Maletta along the
left upper arm of the Y, from the northwest, though
some come along this road, which is the right branch
of the Y.”
“The dam is up to the east a bit, isn’t it?” Dick
said. “On the right arm of the Y.”
“That’s right,” Tony said. “This road skirts
around the edge of the dam and lake, then dips
down into the valley. It will be wiped out completely
by the flood waters when the dam is blown
up.”
They were across the road by this time, leaping
over another wall into another field.
“Then the waters will pour down through Maletta
and into the valley leading to the south, where our
main attack seems to be,” Dick figured out.
“Yep, and a good flood it will be,” Tony said.
“But that leaves the main supply road into Maletta
free,” Dick said. “The left arm of the Y, leading
to the northwest.”
// 132.png
.pn +1
“Yes, it does,” Tony replied. “But we’ll catch
plenty of German troops and supplies in Maletta
itself, and below it, where they are going to meet
our attack.”
“But they can escape up the northwest road,”
Dick said. “We ought to be able to do something
about that.”
“You want to make it a hundred per cent catastrophe,
don’t you?” Tony asked with a laugh.
“I surely do,” Dick said. “And if we get time, we
might take a little walk up that northwest road to
look it over.”
“Tonight?” Tony asked.
“No, not tonight,” was the reply. “Before anything
else is done we’ve got to get your radio set.
We’re not far from that hill now, are we?”
“No, it’s just ahead,” Tony said. “We’ll head a
bit to the left here.”
They changed their direction, crawled over another
wall, skirted around another house where a
barking dog was too curious about them. Then they
found themselves on a narrow street with a few
small houses on both sides. In one of them a lamp
was burning, but the others were dark. It was silent
on the street, but Dick and Tony heard the sound of
trucks and cars from the center of town ahead of
them.
// 133.png
.pn +1
They came to a corner where another street
crossed the one they were on. Tony touched Dick’s
arm, and they took a right turn. There were a few
more houses, then they stopped. The road began
to ascend a hill, and then it ended, becoming nothing
but a wide path. Tony stopped Dick.
“See, there to the left,” he pointed out. “The
villa.”
Dick looked and saw a huge dark mass. At the
front of it there were many lights, and he could see
cars standing before the door.
“It seems to be a busy place,” he said.
“Yes, it does,” Tony agreed. “The Germans must
be using it for something.”
“Think we’d better try to get there?” Dick wondered.
“Around to the rear, yes,” Tony said. “There was
a servants’ wing at the back on this side, almost cut
into the hill. Come on, let’s go.”
They walked toward the villa along the steep
slope of the hill, and Dick saw that they were approaching
it from the rear on the east side. They
would not be seen by anyone at the front of the
building.
They walked slowly now. Dick saw the shape of
the building more clearly as they came near it. It
was a huge place, built a short way up the hill so
that it overlooked the rest of the town spread out
below it. He made out what looked like a tall tower
rising from the center of it. And then he saw what
Tony must have meant as the servants’ wing. It was
built right up against the steep hill.
// 134.png
.pn +1
“You could almost come down the hill onto the
roof of that wing,” he whispered to Tony.
“That’s exactly what you can do,” Tony said.
“I’ve run and jumped onto it when I was over here
visiting. I spent most of my time up in Carlini
where most of my relatives lived, but I spent a
month with Uncle Tomaso here in Maletta.”
“That’s surely lucky for us,” Dick said. “It would
be tough without your knowledge of the town.”
“If Uncle Tomaso is still around,” Tony said,
“he’d be in this servants’ wing. But of course, if the
Germans have taken it over there may be soldiers
quartered in there.”
“I see a light from the room at the end,” Dick
said. “Maybe we can look in the window.”
Carefully they walked toward the lighted window
at the end of the wing, trying not to dislodge the
rocks beneath their feet. When they were ten feet
away, they went down on all fours and crawled forward.
They reached the rough stone wall and edged
toward the window.
With one quick motion upward, Dick took one
glance through the window, then ducked down
again.
“What? What did you see?” Tony asked.
“No German soldiers,” Dick said. “Just one old
man.”
// 135.png
.pn +1
Tony’s heart leaped at these words. “Just one old
man in my Uncle Tomaso’s old room. That must be
my uncle—it’s just got to be!”
“Take a quick look, Tony,” Dick said. “Go
ahead.”
He moved back a bit so that Tony could get near
the window. He took a quick glance around to see
that no one was approaching. Then he watched
Tony’s face to see if he could tell by the expression
who it was he saw.
Tony moved his head up and looked in the window.
He started to bring it down again, but then
left it there, looking steadily inside the room. Dick
heard his breath come fast. The light from the room
fell faintly on his face, and Dick, studying it closely,
saw the mouth twitch, the eyes fill with tears.
And then Tony spoke, almost in a whisper.
“Uncle Tomaso,” he breathed. “My own Uncle
Tomaso!”
Then he crouched down beside Dick again. The
sergeant said nothing, and Tony could not speak for
a few seconds.
“Yes, Dick, it’s my uncle,” Tony said. “And—he
looks so old, sitting there just staring at the floor.
He looks sad and broken and old. I almost didn’t
recognize him.”
“Nobody else in the room?” Dick asked.
“No, he’s alone,” Tony said. “I’ll try tapping on
the window.”
// 136.png
.pn +1
Tony stood up, looked all around, then tapped
lightly against the window pane. Dick stood behind
him, looking in over Tony’s shoulder.
The old man hardly seemed to hear anything at
first. He lifted his head slowly as if he might be
dreaming. Then suddenly he jumped, startled, and
Dick saw fear leap into his eyes. He stared at the
door, and went to open it. Then Tony tapped more
insistently. Obviously the old man could not be sure
where the sound was coming from.
Finally he turned and stared at the window. Tony
pressed his face close against the glass so that his
uncle might see him, might recognize him. He hated
to see that look of fear in Tomaso’s face, and he
wanted to reassure him quickly.
But the old man looked more terrified than ever.
For a few seconds he just stared at the window, not
moving, and then as if impelled against his will, he
moved toward the window. He moved his arms
forward and opened it. Then he spoke, in a small
voice, in Italian.
“What—what do you want?”
“Uncle Tomaso!” Tony whispered urgently. “It’s
me—Tony! Tony Avella! Your nephew from
America!”
The old man’s eyes widened with unbelief, but
he leaned forward, thrusting his face close to Tony’s.
“It can’t be!” he muttered. “No, I’m dreaming!
It can’t be! The Americans have not come yet!”
// 137.png
.pn +1
“But I’ve come, Uncle Tomaso,” Tony insisted.
“I’ve come with my friends ahead of the rest of the
Americans. Yes, I’m really Tony. Look! Look
closely.”
The old man did look closely. He stretched one
hand through the window and touched Tony’s face.
Then he began to smile, and his eyes began to shine.
“Tony, my little Tony!” he cried.
“Quiet, Uncle,” Tony warned. “Don’t bring the
Germans here!”
“The Germans!” And Tony’s uncle cursed. “The
Germans! Soon they will taste some of their own
medicine. Are the Americans really so close, Tony,
that you could come to me here?”
“Yes, Uncle, and they will be here in another
week,” Tony said. “But you can help us. Where can
we talk?”
“I’ll come outside with you,” the old man said.
“Yes, through the window. I can still crawl through
the window.”
“Will the Germans come and look in your room?”
Tony asked. “Are they likely to miss you?”
“No, they never look for the old man,” Tomaso
said. “They never even think about the harmless
old man, except when they want their rooms cleaned
or their boots polished.”
Suddenly the old man laughed. “Harmless old
man, they think! If they knew what I’ve done!”
// 138.png
.pn +1
He no longer seemed to be the broken and tired
soul that he was before. He stuck one leg out the
open window and climbed through with an agility
that surprised Dick. Tony helped him to the ground,
and then closed the window almost shut behind
him. Then the uncle looked questioningly at Dick.
“Uncle, this is my friend, my commander,” Tony
explained. “He is really Italian, too, but I call him
Dick Donnelly. Uncle—I’ll tell you right away who
he really is. Ricardo Donnelli!”
“You—you are really Ricardo Donnelli?” the old
man exclaimed. “Here in our little town of Maletta?”
Dick smiled and nodded. “But I’m really just a
soldier in the American Army now,” he said. “We
should get away from the villa before we talk. Can
we go back up the hill?”
“Yes, back up the hill,” the old man said, starting
off at once. “It is steep but we can go up there and
talk safely. Not far. We cannot be seen up here
from the villa.”
Dick and Tony followed him up the slope to a
little clump of trees.
“This used to be a pleasant place to sit on a
sunny afternoon,” the old man said. “See—there is
a long flat rock to sit upon. Now, I do not come here
often, because all I can see are the hated Germans!”
Then he began to pour out a stream of questions
to Tony—about his mother and father, how long
he had been in the Army, when he had come to
Italy, how far away the American troops were. Then
suddenly he stopped.
// 139.png
.pn +1
“You said I could help the Americans,” he said.
“Tell me what I can do. I shall do anything you
ask. And there are many others here who will help.
We have not been idle.”
“I imagine not,” Dick said. “In America we don’t
hear much about the underground activities in
Italy, but we know you have been fighting in every
way possible.”
“Especially now that there is some hope,” Tomaso
said. “For so long, for so many many years, we were
held under the thumb of that bellowing jackass,
Mussolini, with his cruel blackshirt terrorists. And
the world did not seem to care. But now—now we
know we will be free men again, and we fight once
more.”
“What can you do, Uncle?” Tony asked.
“Oh, there are a few things an old man can do,”
Tomaso smiled. “When that big Gestapo chief came
here on inspection, it was I who got word to the
others who he was. Perhaps you have not heard
about the bomb that blew up his car as it drove
away—killing him. No? Well, we did that.”
Tony and Dick looked at the old man in admiration.
Then he went on.
// 140.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities]
.pm illust 13 donnelly_p145.jpg 459 "The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities"
// 141.png
.pn +1
“The power plant at the dam has been damaged
half a dozen times. Of course, they could always fix
it again, but it delayed them for several days, sometimes
a week. And they’ve had to post a guard at
the switches in the railroad yards because of what
we did there. Little things—all little things we did—but
they have helped, I know.”
“Now you can help us do big things,” Dick said,
“you and your friends in town. But there must be
enemies, too—do you know them?”
“Oh, yes, I know them,” the old man said grimly.
“We have a list of them. Many have run away, to
the north, afraid of the advancing Americans and
afraid of their own townspeople, too. But there are
a few left. There is Garone the banker and Balardi
who was Mayor under Mussolini. He is still here.
And they have a few sniveling underlings. But
there are not many. Some there are who fear for
their own necks. They will not actively fight the
enemy, but they would never betray us, either.”
“We’ll put ourselves in your good hands,” Dick
said. “You can be our guide and helper here in
Maletta.”
“Is the town still the same?” Tony asked.
“No, of course not,” Tomaso replied sadly. “Many
have fled. Many others have been evacuated to the
factories in the north. And all our young men—they
were in the army, of course. Some are dead,
others are prisoners of the Germans. We don’t hear
much. But here in Maletta we try to keep on laughing
and smiling. Why, we still have the opera once
a week.”
// 142.png
.pn +1
He glanced apologetically at Dick. “I know that
Ricardo Donnelli would find our opera company a
poor one. Our costumes are shabby now, our sets
falling to pieces. The good young voices are not
here, but the performances still give us great joy—almost
the only joy we still have in our lives.”
“Then it is a fine opera company,” Dick said. “If
it gives the people pleasure, it is doing all that anything
can do.”
“Now tell me what I am to do,” Tomaso said, in
businesslike fashion.
“First, we must find a place for my radio,” Tony
said. “Uncle, I am a radioman for America’s Army.
We have, in the hills where we landed, a complete
broadcasting set. I must use it to send messages in
code to our Army, messages telling about movements
of German troops and supplies through
Maletta.”
“That is not easy,” Tomaso said, with a puzzled
frown on his face. “The Germans do not like radios,
even for receiving.”
“They have a way, Uncle,” Tony explained, “of
listening to a radio and telling exactly where it is.”
“I know, I know,” the old man said. “The underground
had a secret, illegal station in Florence—there
are many others, but I know about this one.
The Germans listened and found out exactly which
block it was hidden in. Then they just went through
all the houses and found it. There is another in a
// 143.png
.pn +1
truck that moves from place to place, and they cannot
find it. But the Germans have no detectors here
in Maletta. I know that.”
“They don’t need to be right here,” Tony said.
“They might be in other towns, several miles away.
They can pick up stations from a long distance. We
cannot move about with our station. We cannot use
it from the hills, for then the Germans would find
our hiding place. Is there no place in the town
itself where we can hide it? We need to use it only
for a few minutes once or twice each day. But the
hiding place must be absolutely safe—something
the Germans just cannot locate.”
The old man was thinking hard. He had offered
to help. He could not fail to help in the very first
thing they asked, no matter how difficult a task it
was. But the town of Maletta—it had been gone
over with a fine-tooth comb by the Germans many
times. After each sabotage job, they went through
every house, into wine cellars, into attics. After the
Gestapo officer was killed they even tapped walls
looking for hidden rooms.
He looked over the town as Dick and Tony waited
for him to speak. The old man knew this town in
which he had lived all his life, knew it as no one else
did. There below him was the sprawling villa. Over
to the right the railroad station. The three great
church steeples loomed against the night sky just
like the old bell tower over the villa.
// 144.png
.pn +1
Suddenly he gasped, and slapped his knee. Then
he leaned back and laughed, almost soundlessly, but
still with great good feeling. Dick and Tony looked
at him in amazement. Dick wondered if something
had cracked in the old man who had gone through
so much. Maybe he was not completely dependable.
“Uncle Tomaso!” Tony was saying urgently.
“What is it? What is it you’re laughing about?”
“I’m laughing at what a good joke we shall play
on the Germans!” the old man laughed. “I know
where you can set up your radio!”
// 145.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 10 TEN "THE OLD BELL TOWER"
“Right under our noses all this time,” Tony’s
uncle said. “That’s where we’ll put your radio sending
station, Tony my boy. And it will be right under—or
rather, over—the Germans’ noses, too!”
“Where?” the word came from both Tony and
Dick at the same time.
“The old bell tower on the villa!” the old man
declared, serious again.
“But that’s been in ruins for years!” Tony objected.
“Exactly!” the old man agreed. “That’s why it’s
so safe.”
Dick was not sure he understood the old man.
“You mean that tall tower rising over the center
of the villa?” he asked. “Is that the bell tower? I
can just make it out.”
“Yes, that’s it!” Tomaso replied. “As Tony says,
it has been in ruins for years—but it’s still standing!
That’s the point—it is still standing there. Part of
the stone top has crumbled away, where the bells
used to be hundreds of years ago. That happened in
another war long, long ago. The bells were taken
from the tower and melted down. Later lightning
// 146.png
.pn +1
struck the tower and knocked part of the top away.
Finally, the stone stairway inside crumbled and fell.
That was two hundred years ago, I’m told, and the
caretaker of the villa in those days was killed by the
falling stones inside the house.”
“But the Nazis have taken over the villa!” Tony
objected. “We can’t put our radio up in the very
headquarters of the Germans!”
“Why not?” Dick asked. He began to see why
the old man laughed when he had this idea. “That’s
just about the last place they’d look—in their own
headquarters.”
“But the radio locating devices will place it
there!” Tony pointed out.
“Of course,” Dick agreed. “But if the Germans
can’t find the radio—then they’ll know something’s
wrong. They’ll search in all the buildings and houses
near by and will find nothing. If the stone stairs
into the tower have long been down, how can they
get up there to look?”
“And if that’s so, how can we get up there ourselves—with
heavy radio equipment?” Tony demanded.
“Oh, we ought to be able to get up there some
way,” Dick said. “But the Germans won’t think of
it because—first, they just won’t believe anyone
would dare set up an illegal radio on top of their
headquarters and, second, because to them there is
no way to get there.”
// 147.png
.pn +1
“That’s right,” Tomaso said. “When they first
came to take over the villa, they looked everywhere.
They wanted to be sure of the building they were
moving into. They looked into every nook and
cranny. They searched every room, looked up chimneys,
investigated the big wine cellars, tried to find
hidden passages and rooms. They asked a lot about
the tower then. They know the stone stairs fell down
two hundred years ago. They tried every possible
way to get up—but they always tried from the inside!
Finally they concluded no one could possibly
get there. They never thought of the outside—and
that’s how you’ll get there, Tony.”
“But how?” the young radioman asked.
“I remember how agile you always were,” Tomaso
said. “I recall how you used to run down this
hill and leap on the roof of the servants’ wing. I
know you could scale any wall, any tree!”
“That’s right,” Dick agreed. “Tony can get wherever
he wants to go. He can crawl like a cat!”
“But not with a hundred or more pounds of radio
under my arm,” Tony objected. “You’ve a wonderful
idea, I’ll admit. Probably couldn’t be a better
place under the circumstances. Still, how can I get
there and get the radio stuff there?”
“From the roof of the servants’ wing,” Tomaso
said, “we can raise a ladder. The longest ladder we
have is about fifteen feet long. That would still leave
you fifteen feet from the opening at the top where
the bells were.”
// 148.png
.pn +1
“We can make an extension for the ladder,” Dick
said. “We can do that tomorrow in the woods, bring
it down with us tomorrow night.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” the old man said. “But it
may not be very strong. Still, Tony is not heavy. If
he also had a rope with a hook on the end, something
that he could toss up to catch over the edge of the
opening, then he could surely pull himself up.”
“We could do that all right,” Tony agreed. He
was becoming more excited at the prospect of placing
his radio over German headquarters.
“Then you could pull up the radio equipment
with a rope,” Dick said. “And one of us could climb
up to help you. After all, you’ve got to have some
one with you when you broadcast, to crank the generator
handles and give you enough power.”
“How do we know the tower is strong enough?”
Tony asked.
“It is strong enough,” the old man said. “It has
stood all these years. A bolt of lightning did no more
than knock a few rocks off the top.”
“Won’t we make a good deal of noise getting up
there?” Dick asked.
“That is a chance we must take,” Tomaso said.
“But there are no Germans below the servants’
wing. Then, too, the roof is very thick. I think they
will not hear. We set our ladder up against the rear
wall of the tower, so we cannot be seen from the
// 149.png
.pn +1
front. We work after midnight when almost all are
asleep, except the sleepy sentries and guards. They
do not watch the villa closely—no, it is the railroad
yards, the bridges, and the dam which they guard
well.”
Dick decided to go ahead with the old man’s plan.
They made arrangements to meet him the following
night, shortly after midnight, behind the wing of
the villa.
“There will be two more men with us then, Uncle
Tomaso,” Dick said. “So don’t be startled when you
see four figures on the hill here.”
The man gave them his blessing, and the two
Americans left, circling around the way they had
come. It was close to midnight when they reached
the cave in the hills where they found Vince Salamone
and Max Burckhardt covering them with sub-machine
guns as they approached. Slade was inside
with Lieutenant Scotti.
“He’s come to,” Max said to Dick, “but he doesn’t
do much more than mumble yet. It first happened
about half an hour ago.”
Dick and Tony hurried inside, where they found
Slade bending over the still prostrate figure of their
lieutenant. Dick bent down beside him, and looked
at Slade with questioning eyes.
“Don’t know,” the man shrugged. “He seems to
see me, but there may be a little paralysis somewhere.
He can’t talk so that I can understand him,
but his eyes seem clear. It’s encouraging, anyway.”
// 150.png
.pn +1
The light of a pocket flash gave Dick a chance to
look into Scotti’s face. The man’s eyes opened slowly
and he peered up. Dick flashed the light strongly
on his own face so that Scotti could see him clearly.
“Jerry,” he said. “Jerry, it’s Dick.”
Scotti’s eyes looked straight and clear at his. Then
his mouth opened a little and some sounds came out,
but they meant nothing to Dick. Yet the look in
the eyes showed Dick that the lieutenant recognized
him, knew who he was. He felt sure that the wounded
man could understand and hear everything, even
if he could not speak.
“Jerry,” he said, “you banged your head on a rock
when you landed. You’ve been unconscious a long
time. But everything is all right. The rest of us are
together. We’re in a good cave in the side of the hill.
Everything is safe. Tony and I have been to Maletta.
Tony’s uncle is there, glad to help us. We’ll set up
the radio tomorrow night in town.”
Dick saw the eyelids flicker up and down. It
seemed to him that meant the lieutenant understood
what had been said to him. Maybe he was
just hoping that was the case, but somehow, Dick
felt more as if the lieutenant were with them again.
“That’s all for now,” he said quietly. “You must
rest more. For some reason you can’t talk yet. Probably
some pressure from the bang on the head. If
you rest you’ll be better tomorrow.”
// 151.png
.pn +1
Once more the eyes flickered up and down as if
the man were nodding his head. Dick turned out
the light and went outside, followed by Boom-Boom
Slade. There he told the others what he had said to
the lieutenant.
“Somehow I think he got what I said,” he explained.
“Could that be possible, Slade?”
“From what I know, it could be,” Slade replied.
“And it may well be that he’ll regain the ability to
talk within a couple of days. I fed him a little
something after he came to, and gave him some
water, and he seemed to like that. From the look
in his eyes he isn’t suffering any great pain.”
“In a week there’ll be American Army doctors
here,” Tony said. “They can fix him up.”
“You sound very certain about that,” Max said.
“You and Dick must have made out all right in
town. How about it?”
Dick and Tony told the others about finding
Uncle Tomaso and then about the plans for placing
the radio in the old bell tower. At first they were
incredulous, and then they all laughed just the way
Uncle Tomaso had laughed.
“If that really works,” Vince exclaimed, “it’ll be
the best joke the Germans ever had played on them.
They think they’re so smart! But it’s just the sort
of thing they’d never dream of doing—or of anybody
else doing. By golly, I think we can really get
away with it!”
// 152.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: “By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!”]
.pm illust 14 donnelly_p157.jpg 461 "“By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!”"
// 153.png
.pn +1
They talked for a long time. Slade wanted to
know if they had looked at the dam, of course.
“No, not this trip,” Dick replied. “But I did learn
from Uncle Tomaso that it’s pretty heavily guarded.
There’s a power station there, too. The underground
has disrupted it a few times, so a sizable
guard is around, I guess. It won’t be easy to get a
big load of dynamite planted in the right spot there.
But—one problem at a time, I say. The radio is the
first job, and we’ll take care of that tomorrow night.”
They finally went to sleep, and they slept late into
the morning. Then they ate and sat around. Dick
looked in at Lieutenant Scotti regularly, and he
seemed better all the time. But his inability to
speak seemed to bother him a great deal.
“Don’t try to talk yet,” Dick said. “It’s too much
for you.”
This time, Scotti nodded his head slightly to show
that he understood. So Dick proceeded to tell him
about the plans for placing the radio in the bell
tower. When he finished he asked, “Did you understand
it all? Do you think it’s okay?”
Again there was a slight nod of the head, and there
seemed to be a smile in Scotti’s eyes.
“I believe he thinks it’s really a funny situation,
too,” Dick said to himself. “He’d like to laugh if he
could, poor guy.”
The day seemed endless for them all. They could
do nothing but sit and wait for darkness. For men
who loved action as these men did, it was difficult to
sit still while there was so much to be done.
// 154.png
.pn +1
Even after darkness came, there was a long wait
ahead of them, for they were not to meet Tomaso
until after midnight. Every fifteen minutes from
ten o’clock on, Vince or Max asked Dick if it weren’t
time to start yet. These two particularly were restless,
for they had done nothing at all since their
landing by parachute. Dick and Tony had at least
gone into the town and laid plans.
It was well after eleven before Dick agreed to go.
The radio equipment was packed and ready long
before that. Vince had built a fifteen-foot ladder
with an extra board at one end to enable it to fit over
another ladder. They took rope and a sort of metal
grappling hook which Max had hammered out of
the metal cover of one of the supply containers.
Dick led the way down the hill, after telling Lieutenant
Scotti that they were leaving, and getting a
nod in reply. Slade wished them luck and sat by the
entrance to the cave with a sub-machine gun across
his knees.
The four men followed the same route Dick and
Tony had taken the night before. Vince and Max
would have gone at a trot, despite their heavy loads,
if Dick had not held them back.
“I never saw two fellows so anxious to walk into
an enemy-held town unarmed, and likely to be
picked up and shot as spies!” the sergeant laughed.
// 155.png
.pn +1
“I just want to do something, that’s all,” Vince
insisted.
“Sure, the general’s depending on us, isn’t he,”
Max added, “for the success of this whole operation?”
“Okay, okay,” Dick said. “But the one way to
make it a success is to take it easy except when fast
action is called for. The main thing to remember
tonight is—be quiet!”
They crossed the field and came to the road from
the northeast. While Dick clambered up the ditch
and looked up and down the highway, the rest of
them crouched behind the wall with their loads. The
lights of a car flickered a bit away from town, so
Dick scurried back and joined the others behind the
wall. In a few minutes four big trucks roared past
them into the town. Dick jumped up, ran to the
road again and motioned the others on.
Just as they were climbing over the wall on the
other side, they heard again the sounds of motors
and ducked down. This time half a dozen trucks
came past and Dick whispered to Max, “Guess the
general has started his attack. The reinforcements
are beginning to come in.”
In another fifteen minutes the four men stood on
the hill behind the villa, near the clump of trees
where Dick and Tony had talked with Tomaso the
night before. Tony pointed out to Vince and Max
the outline of the bell tower which rose high over
// 156.png
.pn +1
the villa, and showed them the servants’ wing at the
rear of it, where they would put their ladders on the
roof.
And then they saw the old man making his way
up the hill toward them. They waited in silence
until he came under the trees, and then Tony
spoke.
“Hello, Uncle Tomaso,” he said gently. “We’re
here.”
“Yes, I see,” the old man said. “With your radio—and
a ladder, too.”
“We have everything,” Dick said. “And these are
two more American soldiers. You may have heard
of this big fellow—he’s Vince Salamone.”
The old man looked at the home-run king and his
eyes shone!
“Of course!” he cried. “Who in the world does
not know the world’s greatest baseball player? You
have won good-will for Italians everywhere, young
man. Just think of it—here is old Tomaso with these
two great men—Vincent Salamone and Ricardo
Donnelli! I am most fortunate to be able to help
you!”
“And this is Max Burckhardt,” Dick said. “His
family was German, so you can realize what a fighter
he is against our enemies. But he cannot speak
Italian. We will speak to him in English so he will
understand.”
// 157.png
.pn +1
The old man looked carefully at Max, who smiled
back at him, then nodded as if giving his approval.
“Come now,” he said. “We will go to work.”
“Is everything quiet?” Dick asked.
“Yes, but there has been much activity today,” the
old man said. “Many trucks and tanks and soldiers
have come into Maletta by both roads. We have
heard of a big attack by the American forces.”
“Yes, that is why we must have the radio,” Dick
said. “We want to report to our Army how many
trucks and tanks and soldiers come here. Can you
learn that for us each day?”
“My friends and I—we can learn,” Tomaso said.
“Tomorrow morning I will tell them, and each evening
I can give you the information. But I do not
tell even my friends where the radio is. They need
not know, and if the Germans should try to torture
the information out of them, they will not be able
to weaken.”
They were led to the end of the wing where the
old man pointed out a long ladder lying against the
rear wall where there were no windows. Vince
lifted it and placed it against the roof, which was
only a few feet above them where they stood on
the hill’s side.
Dick went up first and stepped carefully on the
roof. He was pleased to see that it was almost flat
so that it would be easy not only to walk on, but also
to set a ladder on. There was just a slight slope toward
the rear.
// 158.png
.pn +1
He turned and motioned for the next man to follow,
and Tony came up with one case of radio material.
Then came the old man himself, and Dick
and Tony helped him off the ladder. Next Max
handed up the home-made ladder that Vince had
put together that day, and Dick and Tony pulled it
up and laid it on the roof. Max himself came next,
with another box of radio material and the coil of
rope with its metal grappling hook.
And last of all came Vince, with the big box containing
the hand-cranked generator to supply power
for the radio transmitter. When they were all on the
roof, they waited for a minute, listening to see if
there were any unusual sounds about. They heard
the chugging of engines from the railroad yards to
the west, the noise of truck motors coming down
the road from the northwest, and that was all.
Dick and Tomaso walked along the roof side by
side, treading lightly, and the others followed, bringing
all equipment and both ladders. Finally they
stood in the deep shadow at the base of the old bell
tower. Looking up, it seemed to Dick as if it rose
an impossible distance into the sky. He felt sure
their ladders would never reach it.
Vince set to work fixing his home-made ladder
to the end of Tomaso’s ladder. It slid over the end
all right, but was rather loose, so he took from his
pocket a length of heavy cord and bound it round
and round the shafts where both ladders were joined.
// 159.png
.pn +1
The others waited silently, watching him work
quickly and surely. In two minutes the ladders were
as strong as one long one, and Max helped Vince lift
it so that they could lean it against the bell tower.
Dick stood back a little way to see how close it
came to the opening near the top of the tower. It
was almost ten feet short! He stepped forward and
whispered to Vince and Max:
“Lean it at a sharper angle. It’s short.”
He stepped back and saw that the new position
gained only about three feet. The top rung was still
about seven feet below the opening in the tower.
And Tony could never stand on the top rung, hugging
the wall. He’d have to stand on the third rung
from the top, so he’d have some support for his
hands and could lean his body in against the wall.
Of course, there was the rope and grappling hook,
but that was tricky business—uncertain and likely
to make a good deal of noise.
Vince was standing beside him. “Can’t make it
any steeper,” he said. “It would topple backward.”
“Then Tony will have to try that rope and grappling
hook,” Dick said. They stepped forward to the
others again.
“Tony, you’ll have to try that rope trick,” Dick
said. “But make it as quiet as possible, please. We’ll
steady the ladder for you down here, and we’ll even
try to catch you if you fall. But take it easy. It will
probably take you quite a few tries before you can
// 160.png
.pn +1
hook that thing on the edge. We don’t know if it’s
big enough to grab hold of that rock at the opening.
Maybe you can’t make it at all.”
“I’ll do my best,” Tony said, taking the rope and
the hook from Max, who had tied the metal piece to
the end of the rope. Tony slung the coil over his
shoulder and started up the ladder. Without a sound
he slicked up the wobbly steps as if he were sliding,
not climbing.
“Look at ’im go,” Max whispered. “He’s a wonder,
that guy.”
Dick just looked upward without a word. Then
he felt the old man’s hand clutch his arm. Still he
did not take his eyes away from Tony.
“Don’t worry, Tomaso,” he said. “Tony will be
all right.”
“Yes, Tony is a good boy,” the old man said, and
took his hand away.
Tony was near the top now. Dick could see the
black blob that was his figure against the wall of the
tower. He saw an arm swing outward and heard the
clink of metal against stone. It was not as loud a
noise as he had thought it would be, and he breathed
a little more easily. He watched the arm swing outward
again. There was another metallic sound, and
this time Dick saw the spark as metal hit stone. It
seemed to him, as clearly as he could make out, that
Tony had come close that time. But he was hoping
so hard that he felt he must be wishing it to catch
hold.
// 161.png
.pn +1
Again Tony swung the rope with the big hook
on the end. Each time he felt the ladder wobble,
each time he grabbed with one hand to steady himself,
each time he was sure he was falling. And then,
each time, too, he had to dodge that big metal hook
that hurtled down at him when it missed catching.
He had not only to dodge it, but to try to catch it
so it would not clatter against the wall and make too
much noise.
After half a dozen tries he stopped. His heart was
beating like a trip-hammer, and his breath was coming
short. He knew that the others below were
tense.
He pulled himself together and tried again. The
hook missed and came down again. He caught it,
almost lost his balance, grabbed hold, and threw
again. He was already ducking and reaching out for
the falling hook before he realized that this time it
was not falling. It had caught over the edge!
“Boy, I hate to give a tug on this rope,” he said to
himself. “I’m afraid if I do it will come right down
again.”
But he tugged a little bit. The hook did not come
down. He tugged harder. Still it did not come
down. Then with both hands he pulled. It was
secure.
// 162.png
.pn +1
As a final test, he lifted his feet from the ladder
rung and let the rope support his whole body. He
wanted to shout with joy at knowing that he had
succeeded, but he could only smile silently.
Below, Dick knew that Tony had made it. There
was no more slinging of that big hook. Then he
watched Tony’s figure creep up the side of the wall
above the ladder. Maybe the hook had been caught—but
what if it gave way now? Tony would topple
down in their midst, the ladders would fall, the
metal hook would clatter to the roof, and the sentries
would be shooting at them!
But it didn’t happen. Instead he saw Tony’s figure
disappear—and that could mean only one thing! He
had crawled in through the opening in the bell
tower. He had made it!
// 163.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 11 ELEVEN "FRUITLESS SEARCH"
The men on the roof said no word. They all knew,
even old Tomaso, that Tony had reached the opening
at the top of the bell tower. They stood close to
the wall, their eyes fixed upward. For almost five
minutes they did not hear a sound or see anything.
Dick knew that Tony was busy. First, he was feeling
his way about in the darkness up there. At some
point in the tower there was the yawning hole of
the ancient stone staircase which had crumbled so
long ago. Tony had to locate that danger spot and
make sure to keep away from it. Then he had to find
a strong beam or rock to which he might tie the
end of the rope for pulling up his supplies. Dick
wondered if any part of the old bell stanchions
might still be standing.
Suddenly a figure leaned from the opening at the
top of the tower, and then the rope came sliding
down the wall toward them. At a whispered word
Vince and Max removed the long ladder from the
side of the tower and placed it flat on the roof, out
of the way. Dick, meanwhile, grabbed the rope end
and tied it securely to the first container holding
radio material. Then he gave three short tugs on
the rope.
// 164.png
.pn +1
It started upward at once. Tony took it slowly so
that the container would not bump noisily against
the wall. Even with the greatest care, it made too
much noise as it scraped upward. Dick was worried
about it. He turned to Vince and Max.
“This might bring somebody out to see what’s
going on,” he whispered. “You’d better get going.
No use all of us taking a chance on getting caught.
Take the ladders back. Take them apart. Vince, you
take your ladder and the cord you used back to the
cave. Help Tomaso put his ladder back where it
belongs—not near this wing, anyway. The Germans
will be looking around for a radio transmitter tomorrow
and we want to leave no clues for them.”
“Okay, Dick,” Vince said, picking up the long
ladder.
“See that Tomaso gets back to his room,” Dick
said. “Then you and Max head for the cave. When
I get all the supplies up there, I’m going up with
Tony. As soon as he gets the radio working we’ll
get in touch with our forces, send our first message.
I’ll stick there with Tony until after dark
tomorrow evening. Then I’ll get back to the cave.
See you there. If Scotti’s all right, give him a report
on what we’ve done.”
While Dick was giving these instructions, the
first container had scraped up the tower wall to the
opening and Tony had pulled it inside. Now the
// 165.png
.pn +1
rope was let down to the roof once more, and Dick
quickly tied the end to the second container as Max
and Vince went to the rear of the roof with Tomaso.
Dick gave three jerks on the rope and the second
container started upward.
He looked back and saw the last of the three figures
disappear from the roof at the rear of the wing.
He listened carefully but could hear no sound other
than the scraping of the metal container as it
scratched its way up to Tony. Then, when Tony
pulled it inside, there was complete silence. There
was no indication that any of the Germans had
heard the sound and were coming to investigate.
In a few minutes the rope came snaking down
the tower wall for the last, and heaviest, container.
It took Dick some time to tie it securely, for it was
an odd shape. He wondered if Tony would have too
hard a time pulling it up. Tony was small, but he
was wiry and strong.
Just before he pulled his signal on the rope, he
heard a slight sound somewhere behind him. He
jerked around, startled, and then saw two shadows
making their way across the hill behind the villa.
“Just Max and Vince,” Dick sighed with relief to
himself. “If anything happens now, they’re in the
clear at least and can carry on.”
He pulled the rope and the big container started
upward. A foot at a time it went, scraping more
noisily than either of the other boxes. Halfway up
it stopped for a full minute.
// 166.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick Tied the Rope Securely Around the Box]
.pm illust 15 donnelly_p171.jpg 461 "Dick Tied the Rope Securely Around the Box"
// 167.png
.pn +1
“Tony’s tired,” Dick told himself. “He’s probably
taking an extra turn around his post with the rope,
in case his arms give out at the crucial moment.”
Then the box started upward again at a pace
which seemed painfully slow to Dick, standing alone
on the roof below. Almost inch by inch it scratched
toward the opening. Then it was there! Tony was
pulling it inside, Dick saw, but then there was a
sudden loud clanking noise.
Instinctively, Dick crouched against the wall. The
big box must have slipped a bit as Tony tried to
haul it inside. But he caught it, dragged it in. That
noise—it had been loud. Surely it would bring
someone to look around!
The rope slid down the wall quickly, and Dick
snatched at it the moment it was within reach. Hand
over hand he pulled himself up the wall, bracing his
feet against the stone and walking up. Halfway up
he was panting, and the rope began to cut into his
hands. But he did not let himself slow down. If
only he could get up there fast enough—
He felt a hand grasp his arm and knew that Tony
was leaning out to help him inside. With another
pull he was able to throw one hand over the stone
ledge. Then, with a terrific heave, he slid his body
through the opening, tumbling onto the stone floor
inside and banging his head against a huge wooden
beam.
// 168.png
.pn +1
Tony was already pulling the rope in as fast as he
could, and Dick sat where he had fallen, trying to
get his breath back, not daring to move yet for fear
he might fall into the stair well. Then Tony was on
the floor beside him, whispering.
“Good going, Dick!” he said. “Sorry I made such
a clatter. I almost went out the opening with that
last container. Keep to this side. The stair well is
there on your right, up against that wall. Everything
else is safe. There are big beams in the center
where the bells used to be. That’s where I tied the
rope.”
“And where I banged my head,” Dick added.
“Wait—what’s that?”
They froze in their tracks and listened. Below
they heard voices, one commanding, the other replying—in
German. Tony moved silently to an
opening at the front of the tower, and Dick followed
him. Looking down, they could see a lighted space
in front of the villa, with light coming from two windows
and the open door.
A German officer stood there, giving orders to two
sentries. They were walking to the sides of the villa,
throwing their strong flashlight beams into every
dark corner and shadow.
“They heard it,” Dick whispered. “They’re looking
around to see what’s what.”
“What about the others?” Tony asked.
“Safely away,” Dick said. “And Tomaso’s in his
room.”
// 169.png
.pn +1
They watched as the sentries circled around to
the wing at the rear of the villa, then returned and
made a report to the officer. They threw their flashlight
beams upward toward the roof, over the old
bell tower and across the street. But there was nothing
to be found. In a moment the officer went back
inside and the sentries took up their regular posts
at the front of the villa. The lights went out, and
Dick and Tony turned to each other and smiled.
“Now to work,” Tony said. “I’ll get that radio set
up.”
Tony worked in the dark. It was not for nothing
that he had so carefully practiced assembling this
radio. He wanted to be able to do it by feeling alone,
without relying on any light. Dick helped by holding
the few tools in his hands and giving them to
Tony when he asked for them. When Tony finished
with the screwdriver he returned it to Dick’s hands,
so no time would be wasted feeling around for it.
It took almost an hour for Tony to complete his
work. During that time he worked without pause,
muttering to himself the names of the different parts
he handled, giving himself instructions. Dick sat
patiently and said nothing, knowing Tony’s complete
concentration on his job. Finally, the young
radioman turned to Dick and said, “There! It’s
done. If it will only work now.”
“Want the light for a few minutes to check it?”
Dick asked. “I think it might be safe.”
// 170.png
.pn +1
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s okay,” Tony replied.
“After that noise, those sentries may be more on the
alert than usual.”
Dick edged his way up to the generator and felt
for the cranks. “Tell me when to start turning,” he
said.
“Okay,” Tony said “Give me some power now.”
Dick turned the cranks and got them going at a
regular speed.
“That’s about right,” Tony said. Dick heard him
snap a switch and speak in a clear voice into the
little microphone.
“Julius Caesar to Mark Antony,” he said. “Julius
Caesar to Mark Antony.”
Over and over he repeated the words, and after
the tenth repetition, he got his answer through his
earphones.
“Mark Antony to Julius Caesar,” the voice said.
“Come in, Julius Caesar.”
“Got it, Dick,” Tony whispered exultantly. “Now
give me the message—in Italian and in code. I’ll
repeat.”
Dick had memorized most of the short code which
had been devised in Italian for these special reports,
so that he would not have to use a light to refer to
a code book. Later, he knew, when he came to give
detailed information as to troops and equipment, he
would have to refer to his code book to get things
// 171.png
.pn +1
absolutely straight. But now he just wanted headquarters
to know that the paratroop party was established
in Maletta.
He spoke softly to Tony the words which would
tell the American general that the party had landed
safely except for Scotti’s accident, that they had
contacted Tony’s uncle, that the radio was now set
up in the town itself. The next report, to come at
eight o’clock the next evening, would give detailed
information about German troop movements into
Maletta, some of which had already started.
And that was all. It was essential to keep on the
air the shortest possible time, so that the German
locator stations would have only a minute or two
in which to get a fix on the illegal transmitter.
Dick and Tony sat back. There was nothing more
for them to do for a long time, and they knew it.
“But I’ll bet there’s a lot going on in certain
places,” Dick said to Tony. “Back at headquarters,
for instance, the radio orderly has rushed that message
to the code room and it will be taken at once
to the general. I’ll bet he left word to be awakened
at any time a message came through from us.”
“And they’re plenty busy at a couple of German
listening posts, too,” Tony said. “Maybe we’ll see
some of the fun.”
Tony was right. In four German monitor stations
their message had been heard. In each one a line
had been drawn on a detailed map showing the direction
from which the radio report had come. The
message itself, in Italian, was obviously code, and
was rushed to decoding experts.
// 172.png
.pn +1
There were telephone calls from the four monitor
stations to Gestapo headquarters in a city to the
northwest of Maletta. There the four lines of the
four different stations were drawn on a map, and the
spot at which those lines crossed was in the town
of Maletta.
Before dawn two big black cars roared out of the
city, toward Maletta itself. That town, now the
crucial point of resistance to the American Army’s
northward drive, would not have an illegal radio
station for long, the Gestapo officers felt sure. It
was important—so important that Colonel Klage
himself led the locating party to wipe out that new
station which was obviously trying to get vital information
to the Americans.
At that time, Dick and Tony were asleep in the
bell tower, after having eaten a light meal from their
ration tins. But the first light of dawn woke them.
Even if it had not, the roar of the two speeding
cars stopping in front of the villa would have done
so. They peered cautiously down out of the opening
at the front of the tower.
Germans poured from the two big black cars, and
one banged noisily on the door of the villa after
showing his credentials to the sentries there. A man
in a colonel’s uniform was looking over the villa and
// 173.png
.pn +1
then at the houses across the street. Dick could not
see his face, but he knew that the man was looking
quite bewildered. He was standing at the exact spot
shown on the map to be the location of the illegal
transmitter—and yet it was German Army headquarters!
Two or three officers poured out of the front door
of the villa, some of them still pulling on jackets.
Dick and Tony saw that some were in their slippers,
and they did not look at all smart. Instead they were
perturbed, even though officers of rank a good deal
higher than the colonel who faced them. A colonel
in the Gestapo could still make an army general
tremble.
Dick wished that he might have heard the conversation
that was going on below: the angry statement
of the colonel that an illegal transmitter had
operated from that spot and the vigorous protestations
of the others that such a thing was impossible.
The colonel took a map from an aide and pointed
out the exact spot of the radio station, proving that
it was in German army headquarters in Maletta.
The army men pointed to houses across the street,
and down the road to the right. They were saying,
Dick knew, that the transmitter must be there,
somewhere else in the neighborhood.
Then the search began. The Gestapo men went
first to the small house directly across the street
from the villa. They were there half an hour, and
// 174.png
.pn +1
Dick and Tony knew how thoroughly they were
tearing that home to pieces looking for the hidden
radio.
“I hate to put these Italians through such an
ordeal,” Dick whispered, “but we can’t help it.”
“In a while they will know the reason for it all,”
Tony said, “and then they will not mind what they
are going through now.”
Dick and Tony felt that they had box seats at a
good show that day. All morning and well into the
afternoon the search went on. Houses and stores
and buildings within several blocks were searched
thoroughly, and finally the villa itself was gone over
inch by inch, despite the protestations of the German
army men that the Gestapo officer was insulting
them by searching in their own headquarters for
an illegal Italian radio. But the Gestapo colonel did
not care how many people he insulted. He knew
what would happen to him if he returned to his own
headquarters without having found and destroyed
that transmitter. And he knew how silly it would
sound to his superior officer when he said that his
locators had placed the radio in German army headquarters
in Maletta.
He himself began to doubt the accuracy of his
listening posts. But for four of them to go wrong
at the same time—that was impossible! There was
something radically wrong somewhere and the colonel
didn’t like it one bit. His anger was apparent
// 175.png
.pn +1
even to Tony and Dick as they watched him get into
his big black car, slam the door, and pull away with
tires screaming as the cars careened around the
corner.
“The colonel is a bit miffed,” Tony said, with a
happy smile.
“He’ll be more than miffed in a few days,” Dick
said. “Before the week is out that guy’s going to be
in a real predicament.”
// 176.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 12 TWELVE "A VISIT TO THE DAM"
Although Dick and Tony had been entertained
by the vain search of the Germans for their radio,
they did not fail to note the increasing movement
of troops and equipment into Maletta. Trucks came
down both main roads into the town, and the Americans
could see them both for some distance from
their vantage point high in the bell tower. The road
to the northeast, leading past the dam, they had
already seen when they crossed it at night coming
down from their cave in the hills. Now they could
see where it climbed up to circle around the dam
itself.
In the other direction they saw the northwest
road, over which most of the supplies were now
coming. It passed through a narrow gorge just outside
of the little town, a pass made by the ridge
of hills on the western edge of Maletta valley, and
the single big hill at the head of the town, against
which the villa was built. The northwest road had
to climb this fairly steep hill to get through the
pass.
“When we get a chance,” Dick said to Tony, “I’d
like to have a look at that road up there. It looks as
if it might go through a narrow pass that could easily
be blown up. I’m not forgetting that Slade has
a good deal of extra dynamite, and I’d like to put
it to good use.”
// 177.png
.pn +1
“The dam comes first, though, doesn’t it?” Tony
asked.
“Yes, of course, the dam is the most important,”
Dick said, “but if we could cut off the German line
of escape up the northwest road, it would be mighty
good!”
Dick and Tony saw that most of the truckloads of
soldiers that came into town went right on through,
heading down the valley to the south to reinforce
the men there beating off the American frontal attack.
Tanks, both light and heavy, rumbled along
the roads, too, and huge 155-millimeter howitzers
were towed slowly by tractors.
They got a complete report on the German troop
movements shortly after dark that evening, when
old Tomaso crept forward to the bell tower on the
roof of the rear wing of the villa. Dick let down the
rope quickly, waited a moment, and then felt three
jerks. He pulled it up again and found a sheet of
paper tied to the end. He was unfolding the sheet
of paper when he saw the dark figure of the old
Italian creep back along the roof and disappear at
the end.
“This is just what we want,” Dick said to Tony.
“Your uncle has some good friends that really know
their stuff.”
// 178.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick Read the Report of German Troop Movements]
.pm illust 16 donnelly_p183.jpg 456 "Dick Read the Report of German Troop Movements"
// 179.png
.pn +1
“Well, he probably has the local policeman and
the grocer and a few others looking and listening,”
Tony said. “And I imagine Tomaso himself overhears
a good deal when he’s cleaning up in Army
headquarters below us.”
Dick got down on the floor of the tower and got out
his flashlight. Tony stood over him so as to prevent
as much as possible of the light from showing. Even
then, Dick covered the front of the flash with his
shirt so that only a faint glow came through on to
the paper. But it was enough to read by, and enough
to show him what code words he should use in making
his radio report.
“The fourteenth motorized division has come
through today,” Dick said to Tony. “In addition
there’s a panzer force of forty small and twenty
large tanks. Eighteen pieces of heavy artillery have
gone through and are being emplaced about three
miles south of the town.”
“The floods will get every one of those,” Tony
cried. “The Germans certainly do think we’re making
our big push right straight up the valley. They’re
pouring everything in here to stop it.”
“Okay now, Tony,” Dick said. “I’ve got all the
code words in my mind. Let’s give our report and,
incidentally, set the Gestapo on their ears again.”
// 180.png
.pn +1
They went to the radio and Dick began to crank
the generator. In a moment, Tony had made contact
with the American Army headquarters and repeated
clearly the code words that Dick spoke to
him. Then he repeated all again and shut off the
radio.
“I’ll be leaving you now, Tony,” Dick said, standing
up. “I’ve got lots of work to do tonight.”
“Wish I could help you,” Tony said.
“Same here, but somebody’s got to stay here with
the radio,” Dick replied. “We’ve got to have someone
to keep his eyes on the town, somebody who can
get a message from Tomaso in case anything important
turns up, and especially someone to let down
the rope when necessary. If we both left, we’d have
to leave the rope hanging here for us to get back
up again, and that’s out of the question.”
“Sure, I understand,” Tony said, as Dick climbed
to the ledge and tossed out the rope to the roof
below. “I’ll stick by my radio. What about the next
report?”
“Either Vince or I will come shortly before
dawn,” Dick said, “when Tomaso sends up his next
report. The schedule is each evening after dark,
each morning before dawn—unless something comes
up to prevent it.”
“In a pinch I can turn the generator and handle
the radio at the same time,” Tony said. “It’s not
easy but I can do it if I have to.”
“Maybe you will have to some time,” Dick said.
“But there’ll be somebody here with you as much as
// 181.png
.pn +1
possible. So long, Tony.”
“Good luck, Dick,” the radioman replied, and
Dick slipped down the rope to the roof. Then Tony
pulled the rope up again and settled down for the
night as he saw Dick’s shadowy figure making off
across the hill at the rear.
Dick’s first inquiry as he approached the cave in
the hills was about Lieutenant Scotti.
“He’s talking some,” Slade reported. “It’s not
easy, but he can move around a bit. I really think
he’s coming along okay. There may have been some
internal bleeding that caused some pressure against
the brain, but that’s stopping now. Anyway, he’s
anxious to see you. He knows about getting the
radio up in the bell tower and he’s delighted.”
With a nod to Vince and Max, Dick went on in
the cave and knelt down beside Scotti. The wounded
man smiled a little and his eyes shone.
“Dick,” he said, and that was all. Dick saw that
it was a great effort for him to speak.
“Wonderful to see you getting better, Jerry,” he
said, “but don’t try to talk too much. Let me do
most of the talking and you answer with nods as
much as you can.”
Dick then told his lieutenant about the safe installation
of the transmitter in the bell tower, about
getting the first message through to American headquarters,
then about the frantic search by the Germans
for the illegal radio. At this, Scotti started to
// 182.png
.pn +1
laugh but it hurt his head too much and he stopped.
But Dick saw that he thought it was a wonderful
joke on the so-smart Germans.
Dick went on to tell Jerry about the movement of
German troops and supplies through the town, the
detailed reports given them by Tomaso, and the
second radio report that had been sent in just a
short while before.
“You’re doing wonderful job,” Scotti said slowly
and with great effort. “Keep it up!”
“Sure,” Dick said. “We’ll carry on, and I feel better
now because I can tell you our plans, and you can
tell me if you think I’m doing right or not. Now
we’ve got to have a look at the dam. I’m taking
Slade and Vince with me to look it over so Slade can
decide where his dynamite charge must be placed,
and I can figure out how to handle the guard so he
can get in to do it. It won’t be easy. Max will stay
here with you until we get back. Tony’s in the bell
tower with the radio.”
Scotti nodded his approval of these plans and Dick
gave him a pat on the shoulder and moved away. At
the front of the cave he found the others and gave
them the latest news.
“Now we’re going to look at the dam,” he said,
and Slade sighed with relief.
“I was beginning to wonder,” he said, “when we
would get around to the main objective of this mission.”
// 183.png
.pn +1
Dick laughed. “Okay, Boom-Boom, tonight is
your night. Vince will come along with us. Max,
you stay here with Scotti until we get back.”
The three men started down the hill from the
cave. But this time they did not go as far as the
field below. Instead, they kept to the woods and
circled around to the east where the hill ended at
the right-hand branch of the Y which was the northeastern
branch of the Maletta valley. It took them
almost an hour to reach the dam, for they were not
always sure of their direction.
It was the glinting of a light on the water of the
artificial lake that finally told them it was near at
hand. They moved forward much closer to the edge
of the trees and looked down. From where they
stood, on the hill a little above the dam, they had
a perfect view of everything.
Directly below them about seventy-five feet was
the main northwest road which went part way up
the hill in order to circle around the dam and lake.
On the other side of the road there was a short drive
which led in toward the dam itself, which was a concrete
structure about three hundred yards long,
stretching to the opposite hill. On top of the dam
wall at this end was a concrete building and near it
stood several sentries.
“Probably the control house for the sluice gates,”
Slade said, “and headquarters for the guards. There’s
a similar structure at the other end of the wall, but
smaller.”
// 184.png
.pn +1
Below the dam itself, on a stretch of level ground,
stood the electric power station. It was a low building
made of brick, about fifty feet square.
“Not a big plant at all,” Slade told Dick, “but I
imagine in the present battle emergency it’s pretty
important as a source of electric power for the Germans.”
Dick and Vince nodded, watching Slade as he
looked over the objective with a practised eye. There
was a long black steel pipe, at least ten feet in diameter,
leading from the bottom of the dam to the
power house. That, Dick knew, was the sluice, or
pipe-line, which carried the water under pressure
into the power house for turning the turbines that
drove the generators.
“It won’t be easy,” Slade said. “Even figuring that
you can get me in there despite all those guards, it’s
going to be tough to place the charge so that it will
surely knock the dam completely out and not just
crack it.”
“Tell me the place you want to put your dynamite,”
Dick said, “and then it’s up to me to get you
there.”
He knew that was a broad statement, for he still
had no idea how he could get Slade and his dynamite
past the guards on the wall and around the
power house.
// 185.png
.pn +1
“There is one spot that would do the job, without
a doubt,” Slade said. But I’m afraid that would be
asking too much of you. Do you see that pipe-line
over there?”
“Yes, I see it,” Dick replied.
“Well, if I could get inside that and crawl up to
where it comes out of the dam itself, it would work,”
Slade said. “With the big pipe coming out of it,
that’s the weakest part of the whole structure. But
that pipe is filled with water under very high pressure.”
“Wow! That’s a tough assignment all right,” Dick
said. “But let’s see—what if the pipe didn’t have any
water in it?”
“You mean if the water-gate at the entrance to
the pipe were closed?” Slade asked. “If that were
done, I could get there all right. All those pipes
have a couple of hatch-like openings along them so
that workmen can get in to clean them out and so
on.”
“Then you wouldn’t have to go through the
power house itself?” Dick asked.
“No, I could get in the pipe, I’m sure, not far
from the spot where it enters the dam,” Slade answered.
“And I could place the dynamite right
under the weak spot of the dam. But the water-gate
would have to stay shut completely until after the
charge was exploded.”
“I see,” Dick said. “Let me think that one over a
bit. You go on getting the lay of the land completely
in your mind.”
// 186.png
.pn +1
Slade and Vince continued their observations
while Dick tried to figure out a way to get Slade and
his dynamite into the pipe-line. Suddenly he remembered
something that Tomaso had said to him
on the first night they talked together.
“Boom-Boom,” Dick called to Slade, “tell me
something. If for some reason the turbines or dynamos
were damaged badly and the plant had to shut
down for a few days, would they close the water-gate
leading from the dam through the pipe-line?”
“Of course they would,” Slade replied. “That’s
the first thing they’d do. And they wouldn’t open
it again until all repairs were made.”
“There’s our answer,” Dick exclaimed. “Old
Tomaso told me that the underground has several
times performed a little neat sabotage at this power
station, stopping it for several days until repairs
were made. If they did it before, they ought to be
able to do it again.”
“Swell,” Slade said. “Then I could really do the
job—provided we can get through all those guards,
place the ammunition, lead out my wires and hook
them up to a detonator.”
“All right, I’ll have to figure that out, too,” Dick
said. “But I can’t see how yet. We’ll just have to find
some way, but for the life of me I don’t see what it
can be. Anyway, we’ve solved part of our problem.
We’ll get our dam blown up right and proper, boys,
// 187.png
.pn +1
and don’t you ever forget it. But we can’t waste
very much time. Tonight is already the third night.
We have just three nights more in which to do
our work!”
// 188.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 13 THIRTEEN "THE FOURTH NIGHT"
Halfway back to the cave, Dick suddenly felt exhausted.
He realized that he had had very little
sleep and not a great deal to eat.
“Vince,” he said, “will you go down to the bell
tower and stay with Tony? He’ll be on the lookout
for someone before long and will let the rope down
to you. Tomaso will come with the latest reports
just before dawn, and you can crank the generator
for Tony while he gives his radio report to our headquarters.
Tony has the code book. Tell him to add,
in addition to Tomaso’s details on troop movements,
that we’ve figured how to blow up the dam.”
“Okay, Sarge,” Vince said. “But that’s putting
yourself out on a limb. Then you’ll really have to
figure out how to do it!”
“That’s the point,” Dick said. “If I’ve committed
myself to the general, then I’ll make myself come
through somehow. Okay, Vince, on your way. Duck
out before it gets light and come back to the cave.”
Vince walked down the hill toward the road and
the town, as Slade and Dick circled around the hill
toward their cave.
// 189.png
.pn +1
“How much dynamite will you have left over
after placing the charge in the dam?” Dick asked.
“About half of it,” Slade replied.
“Good. Then tomorrow you can teach me the
ropes on how to place a charge, attach fuses, wires
and detonators. You’ve got two sets of everything,
haven’t you?”
“Sure I have,” the demolition man replied. “What
else are you planning on blowing up?”
“Not sure yet,” Dick said. “I’ll tell you after I
take a little trip tonight. Right now I’m too tired
to do anything.”
When they returned to the cave, Dick found that
Scotti was sleeping soundly, so he did not report to
him then about their observations at the dam. Instead,
he stretched out and fell into a deep sleep
almost at once. Despite all the difficulties confronting
him, he could sleep. He knew he had to if he
were to be fit and able to solve all his problems.
The sun was high in the sky when he awoke. He
had not heard Vince return from town, nor the
others eating their breakfast. But he felt completely
refreshed and ready to tackle anything. After washing
his face and hands, he went in to Scotti and told
him all the news, including that brought by Vince
about the latest radio report to headquarters, which
had gone smoothly. Scotti was better, finding it
possible to talk more easily and without the great
effort of the day before. He was now propped up
against the wall of the cave, with nylon parachutes
behind him.
// 190.png
.pn +1
“You’d better get out in the sun a bit,” Dick
suggested.
“It would be good,” Scotti replied. So Dick called
Vince and Max, and the two big men carried their
lieutenant gently outside and placed him near the
entrance to the cave. Then he joined Dick in a bite
to eat and listened to their plans.
Dick told about the dam, and explained that he
had to find some way to draw the guards away before
Slade could get in with his dynamite.
“I’m sure Tomaso can get the sabotage work done
all right,” he said, “so that the water will be shut
off. But then the guard might even be increased at
the dam. If we could go in and do it at the last
minute, we might be able just to mow the guards
down with our guns. But we can’t take that chance.
We’ve got to be sure! That means we ought to get in
there and get our dynamite placed the night before
the explosion.”
Scotti thought the problem over but could not
come up with an answer. Slade did not even try to
figure it out. He was too busy going over in his
mind how he would crawl up that pipe and place
his dynamite charges. It was Max who finally made
a very timid suggestion.
“Dick,” he said, “this may sound like a fairy-tale
idea, but maybe it would work. Remember we were
kidding about wearing Italian peasants’ clothes when
// 191.png
.pn +1
we first got here and we said something about swiping
a German uniform for me? Well, if your Uncle
Tomaso could get a really good officer’s uniform,
I might be able to march right up and give those
guards a few orders and so get them out of the way
for a while.”
“That would be dangerous as the devil!” Dick replied.
“Of course it would,” Max said. “But this whole
operation is dangerous. If it doesn’t work it means
I get caught, that’s all. But if it does work, we’ll get
our dynamite in place. We can figure out exactly
what to do, all right.”
“Maybe so,” Dick said. “At least it’s an idea.
What do you think of it, Scotti?”
The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders as if to say
he did not know. Then he spoke.
“Depends on rank of officer in charge of guards at
dam,” he said haltingly. “Also on rank of uniform
Max would wear. He must be able to awe everyone
at dam completely so they do not question his word
at all.”
“Well, we can find out about that after the dam
is sabotaged,” Dick said. “Tomaso will be able to
tell us the details about the guard there the next
day. And he’ll be the one to get us the uniform. We
can tell him to try to get a good one.”
“Suggest you ask him to do that,” Scotti said.
“Then Max will have uniform if we can think of
no other solution.”
// 192.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: “If I Could Only Get a German’s Uniform!”]
//.pm illust 17 donnelly_p197.jpg 454 "“If I Could Only Get a German’s Uniform!”"
.pb
.de div#fig17 img {padding:5px; border:1px solid black;}
.il id=fig17 fn=donnelly_p197.jpg w=454px
.ca “If I Could Only Get a German’s Uniform!”
.pb
// 193.png
.pn +1
“Right, Scotti,” Dick answered. “I’ll do that when
I see Tomaso tonight. Meanwhile, we’ll all be thinking
of some other plan that might work.”
Dick noticed that Scotti was looking tired and in
some pain.
“You’d better get back inside now,” he said, “and
lie down for a real rest. You’ve got to take it easy.
But I feel a lot better being able to go over these
things with you.”
After Jerry was settled comfortably in the cave
again, Dick went outside with Boom-Boom Slade,
who proceeded to give him a lesson in demolition,
explaining just how to place the charge and attach
the detonator. Dick spent the afternoon going over
the lessons he had learned.
After dark, Dick, Max, and Slade set out for the
town, while Vince stayed behind with Lieutenant
Scotti. As they approached the villa, they saw that
there were many cars parked in front and there
seemed to be many lights inside the front rooms. In
the servants’ wing, however, there was nothing but
a faint glow from old Tomaso’s room.
“Seems to be plenty going on there,” Max said.
“Think it’s safe to go up to Tony so early?”
“Sure,” Dick said. “They’re too noisy and too
busy to look on their own rear roof. But you and
Slade stay back here in the trees and wait for me.
Tomaso will be coming back after a while, too, and
I must talk to him.”
// 194.png
.pn +1
Dick went forward alone, got on the low roof and
went forward quickly to the bell tower. Tony had
apparently been on the lookout, for the rope was
waiting for Dick when he got there. In another two
minutes he was inside the tower with Tony.
“They’ve been tearing this town to pieces today,”
Tony said. “Looking for our transmitter, of course.
They’ve even sent some details down into the
sewers around here. They haven’t even bothered
around the villa itself, though, except once when
that Gestapo colonel asked about this bell tower.
They took him inside and showed him the ruined
steps. I could hear their voices up here as they
looked up, with a flashlight shooting around. Of
course they couldn’t see anything, and the colonel
was convinced.”
“How long do you think he’ll stay convinced?”
Dick asked.
“I don’t know,” Tony replied. “It looks as if he’s
moved right in here permanently. I’ve kept my eyes
open, and they haven’t come in with a radio locator
on a truck. When they do that, we’ll have to watch
our step, maybe cut down our reports to once a day
and vary the times a little bit.”
“We’ll see,” Dick replied. “Now I want to write a
note to Tomaso before he comes, telling him to
meet us in the trees behind the villa in a little
while.”
// 195.png
.pn +1
He scribbled the note on a piece of paper and
tied it to the end of the rope just in time, as he saw
the figure of the old man creeping forward along
the roof. Looking down as he tossed the rope down,
Dick saw Tomaso take the note from the rope, then
attach his own paper to it and give three jerks.
After studying Tomaso’s details on the day’s
movements of German troops and equipment, Dick
and Tony made their report to American headquarters.
And at the last moment, Dick decided to
tell them the broadcast schedule would be changed
for safety’s sake. The next report would be at one
A.M. the following night.
“That’s a good idea,” Tony said, after they had
switched off the radio. “They’re bound to get mobile
locators here tomorrow anyway. And they’ll be listening
especially after dusk and just before dawn,
when we’ve broadcast before. If we go on the air
at one in the morning for only about two minutes,
they won’t have time to do much of anything.”
“Sorry you’ve got to stay here all the time, Tony,”
Dick said, as he prepared to leave. “But it’s the only
thing to do.”
He gave the radioman the latest news of the
dam, of Scotti, and their plans.
“They’re actually giving an opera here in town
tomorrow night,” Tony said. “Wish I could hear it.
I think it’s wonderful the way they won’t let anything
stop their opera!”
// 196.png
.pn +1
“Opera seems a million miles away from me right
now,” Dick said. “It’s hard to remember that I ever
sang in opera. Well—maybe I’ll sneak in for a look
tomorrow night if I haven’t anything else to do.”
He laughed, and then crawled over the ledge and
let himself down the rope to the roof below. Crouching
low, he made his way back to the end of the
wing, dropped off, and scurried up the hill to the
clump of trees. There he found old Tomaso waiting
with Max and Slade.
“Tomaso,” Dick said, “you are doing a wonderful
job. Your reports are perfect—just what we want.
They are of very great help to our Army.”
The old man beamed with pleasure. “It is my
friends, too. They know the information is for the
Americans, who will soon be here to free us.”
“Now I must ask two more big things of you and
your friends,” Dick said. “And for these I must tell
you of our plans. Two nights from now, just before
dawn, we plan to blow up the dam!”
“The dam!” Tomaso exclaimed. “Why—the
town will be washed away!”
“Yes, Tomaso,” Dick said. “But with the town
will go thousands of German soldiers, hundreds of
trucks, tanks, guns, and many supplies. The German
Army will be trapped and defeated. When the flood
waters recede you will have your town again, and
there will be no more Germans here. Won’t it be
worth it?”
// 197.png
.pn +1
The old man thought a moment. “Yes,” he finally
said. “It will be worth it. Of course. If the town
were to be wiped off the map forever, it would be
all right if it meant we got rid of the Germans. But
what about the people here?”
“Your own people must be warned in time so they
can get to the hills,” Dick replied. “But not too long
in advance must they know, lest some word leak
out. Tonight you can tell those closest to you, those
who can surely be trusted completely. Then, on the
night before the wrecking of the dam, these can pass
the word to all others. They must filter out into the
hills, trying their best to cause no wonderment
among the Germans.”
“I understand,” the old man said. “We shall do as
you wish. But you said there were two other things
to do.”
“Yes, to help us blow up the dam,” Dick said. He
explained that Slade must be able to get into the
pipe-line from the dam and for that the power plant
must be damaged so the water-gates would be shut
off for a few days.
“You said that your people had damaged the
power plant before,” Dick went on. “Can they do it
again, tomorrow?”
The old man thought for a few minutes. “Yes,”
he said, “I believe they can. You see, there are now
only a few Italians allowed to work there. Those are
on the day shift. Only Germans are there at night.
// 198.png
.pn +1
But one of our men there has been experimenting.
He told me that he had discovered that a wrench set
on a certain ledge near the big dynamo would gradually
move, from the vibration, and fall into the
mechanism in about fifteen minutes. His idea was
to place some tools on that spot just before he left
work. Then, if none of the night men saw them
within fifteen minutes, they would topple into the
dynamo. And they would surely damage it badly.
You see, they could not blame it on the Italians,
because no Italians would be around at the time it
happened. He wanted to find some way to wreck
the machinery without having a few hostages shot
as a result. That’s what happened the last time.”
“It sounds perfect,” Dick said. “Will he try it
tomorrow?”
“When he knows who asks it,” Tomaso replied,
“he will do it. He is now the tenor in our little
opera company and he will do anything for Ricardo
Donnelli. And after doing that he will sing even
better in the performance tomorrow night.”
Dick smiled.
“What are they performing tomorrow night?” he
asked.
“Pagliacci,” Tomaso replied. “Nowadays we can
give only short performances.”
“Now for the second request,” Dick said. “We
must find some way to get our men to the pipe-line
at the dam, which is well guarded. It may be
// 199.png
.pn +1
guarded even more completely after the sabotage
tomorrow. So—you know that this man, Max Burckhardt,
speaks German. If he could appear at the
dam in the uniform of a high German officer, he
might be able in some way to order the sentries to
allow our other men with dynamite to get in.”
Tomaso looked puzzled for a moment, and then
he understood. “You would like me to take a uniform
for this man, so that he could wear it?” he
asked.
“Yes, if you wouldn’t endanger yourself in doing
it,” Dick said.
“Oh, even if there were danger,” Tomaso said,
“that would not bother me if it helped you. But
there will not be any danger at all. I clean all the
rooms. I am even alone in them sometimes. And
they pay no attention to me, just an old man puttering
around. They think I am not quite bright, anyway.
I have made them think that my mind is almost
gone, that I am a little imbecilic.”
He chuckled, and the others smiled. How could
the Germans ever hope to win against people like
that?
“I know what uniform I shall take,” Tomaso said,
with a broad smile. “It should fit this man quite
well, too. I shall take the uniform of the new Gestapo
colonel who has set up headquarters here to
search for that illegal radio everyone is talking about.
He has many beautiful uniforms. He is a very vain
man. And he is a very high official. Even the regular
generals here are afraid of him—of the Gestapo!”
// 200.png
.pn +1
“Perfect!” Dick cried. “That couldn’t be better!”
“Tomorrow night I shall have it for you,” Tomaso
said. “And I shall also be able to tell you then
about the sabotage at the power plant. But come
before eight o’clock. I do not want to miss any of
the opera.”
With a good-bye, Tomaso went back to his rooms,
and the three Americans struck off for the northwestern
road, which Dick was eager to look over.
They kept to the side of the hill above the town so
they would not be seen. In half an hour they came
to the road where it cut into the hill above the gorge.
They were able to get close to it, as the trees covered
their approach.
“This road has been cut out of the hillside,” Slade
said. “It would be very easy to blow up. All you’d
need would be a fair-sized charge behind some big
rocks up here, and the side of the hill would just
slide down on to the road. Of course, a good engineers’
company could have it clear again in about
four hours, with the proper equipment—bulldozers
and such.”
“The Germans won’t have any such equipment
by that time,” Dick said. “It will all be under water.
And a few hours is really all we need anyway.
If they can’t escape up this road, they’ll be caught
by the flood waters from the dam. The only way
anyone could get away would be on foot into the
hills. And that’s just what we want.”
// 201.png
.pn +1
“Then you’re going to try to blow up this road?”
Max asked.
“Yes, as my own private venture in this operation,”
Dick replied, “provided everything else
works out all right. If I’m needed at the dam, then
I’ll forget this, but if our plans there look good,
I’ll come over here with the leftover dynamite.”
They spent another half-hour on the hillside,
looking over the land. Slade finally pointed out to
Dick the best spot for placing his dynamite charge,
and where he should stand with his detonator. Then
the three men headed back behind the town and up
to their cave on the opposite hill. It had been a
busy night.
// 202.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 14 FOURTEEN "INTERRUPTED PERFORMANCE"
They spent a good part of the next day sleeping,
although they still had plenty of time to talk over
their plans. They found it more difficult than ever
to sit in front of the cave doing nothing when they
knew so many things must be going on elsewhere.
They wondered if the local tenor would succeed
with his scheme of wrecking the dynamo. They
asked each other a dozen times if old Tomaso
would really be able to steal that Gestapo colonel’s
uniform. Max even spent some time practising his
German, trying to get a note of authority and command
into it.
“If I can just try to be as tough and nasty and
mean as possible,” he said, “then I may begin to
sound a little bit like a Gestapo colonel.”
“Well, you’ll be talking to German soldiers,”
Scotti put in, “and you ought to find it easy to act
nasty to them.”
The lieutenant was much better now, and he
could talk almost normally. There was a throbbing
pain in his head regularly, and his broken leg
was uncomfortable, but the thing that bothered him
most was his inability to take any active part in the
// 203.png
.pn +1
proceedings.
“You don’t let me do anything, Dick,” he protested.
“It’s you who figured out every plan so far,
as well as carrying them through. I needn’t have
come along on this trip at all.”
But Dick was relieved to be able to have the advice
and counsel of his lieutenant in his complicated
plans. Each one of them was a long gamble, and he
knew it. He wanted the benefit of every bit of advice
he could get. And it was Lieutenant Scotti who
figured out the method Max was later to use in diverting
the attention of the guards at the dam so
that Slade could get in to place his dynamite.
That action was planned for that night—the fifth
night of their stay behind the enemy lines. At dawn
of the sixth night the dam was scheduled to be
blown up, and they wanted to get their dynamite in
place twenty-four hours ahead of time. Slade had
figured that he could place the dynamite, run a wire
down the pipe so that it extended about one inch
from a hatch opening. Then, on the last night,
he could hook up another length of wire to that,
lead it away to his detonator, and set it off.
But they did not know that the Germans had
decided there were Americans in the neighborhood.
The decoding experts had not been able to decipher
completely the radio messages which Tony had sent,
but they had gotten enough of a hint to know that
they were reports on German troop and supply
movements through Maletta. And they felt sure that
military men were making those reports.
// 204.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: “I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said]
//.pm illust 18 donnelly_p209.jpg 455 "“I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said"
.pb
.de div#fig18 img {padding:5px; border:1px solid black;}
.il id=fig18 fn=donnelly_p209.jpg w=455px
.ca “I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said
.pb
// 205.png
.pn +1
Dick Donnelly went off to town alone shortly after
dark that evening. He was going to find out about
the sabotage at the power plant and pick up the
German uniform from Tomaso—that was all. Then
he planned to return to the cave, where Max would
put on the uniform, and they would all set out for
the dam together.
There was nothing to worry him unduly as he
circled over the fields and came up toward the villa
on the north hill. He saw many trucks and cars on
the road, but this was nothing new during the last
few days. Just as he left the little dead-end side
street and walked up the hill to meet Tomaso at
the clump of trees, a car roared to a stop at the end
of the street and German soldiers poured out of it,
heading straight up the hill.
Dick ran forward quickly to the trees, and there
he found Tomaso, nervous and agitated.
“It’s terrible,” the old man said. “You’ll be
caught!”
“What’s terrible?” Dick asked. “What has happened?”
“I just learned—overheard the officers talking,”
Tomaso said. “They feel sure Americans are hiding
somewhere in Maletta. They’ve surrounded the
town and are going to search it thoroughly. They’ve
got a ring around the town now, and it will close in
more and more tightly as soldiers go through every
house, every building.”
// 206.png
.pn +1
“Oh—those soldiers who went up the hill over
there—” Dick muttered. “They’re part of the ring
around the town.”
“Yes, I heard them say men must circle up behind
the villa, and then walk down so closely that not a
person could slip through the ring. They’ll be here
any minute. We cannot stay here.”
“No, come on down toward the villa,” Dick said.
“We can talk as we go. You have the uniform
there?”
“Yes, shall I try to put it back now so we won’t
be caught with it?”
“No, I’ll take it,” Dick said. “I may be able to get
away with it yet. What about the power plant?”
“The plan succeeded,” Tomaso said. “The dynamo
is wrecked, the water-gates shut, and specialists
have been summoned from the north. But I hear
they cannot arrive with new parts for at least three
days.”
“Good,” Dick said.
“Not good,” Tomaso said. “Of what use is all this
if now you are to be caught?”
They were approaching the wing of the villa now,
and hid in its shadow.
“I may not be caught,” Dick said. “And even if
I am, the others will carry through somehow. Has
the guard been increased at the dam?”
// 207.png
.pn +1
“No, because they believe the damage was caused
by a German workman,” Tomaso said. “No Italians
were there. So the German was judged careless and
the Gestapo colonel had him brought down here at
once. He ordered him shot. So the guard is not increased.
Only a corporal is in charge at night. There
are nine sentries under him.”
They stopped and listened. Up above on the hill
they heard the tramp of men’s feet, the calling of
orders in German.
“Come on,” Dick said. “We might as well make
them take as long as possible to find me. Where can
we go?”
“I—I was going to the opera,” Tomaso said. “I
don’t know now if I should go.”
“Of course,” Dick said. “You must not be found
with me if I am caught. But wait—where is the
opera house?”
“In the next block—to the right,” Tomaso replied.
“Can we get there without crossing in front of the
villa?” Dick asked.
“Yes, around in back,” the old man said, grabbing
his arm, “but we must hurry.”
He led Dick behind the rear wing to the western
side, cut behind a small house not far from the villa,
brushed aside a dog who started to bark at the next
house, and then stopped at a narrow street. Between
two houses Dick could see what must be the
opera house, a large building with numerous lights
in it, and people already going in the front doors.
// 208.png
.pn +1
Dick hid the German uniform under his loose
peasant’s coat and spoke quietly to Tomaso.
“Take me to the stage door,” he said. “Tell your
tenor friend, the man who wrecked the power plant
so cleverly, who I am. Then leave me. I have an
idea.”
They walked quickly across the street and along
the side of the opera house to a side door near the
rear. A man leaned against the doorjamb and looked
up at them curiously.
“Arturo, quick,” the old man said. “Ask no questions.
Find Enrico at once. Bring him here.”
The man’s eyes opened wide, then he darted inside.
He reappeared in a few seconds with a young
man who limped slightly. The young man had begun
to apply make-up to his face. He beckoned them
inside.
“Enrico, this is the American,” Tomaso said.
“This is Ricardo Donnelli.”
The young man looked at Dick in admiration but
said nothing.
“The Germans have surrounded the town, and
are searching for him,” Tomaso said. “Help him.
Do what he asks.”
“Anything,” Enrico said. “You go now, Tomaso.”
The old man stopped at the door long enough to
say, “Not a word of this,” to the doorkeeper, who
nodded his head in vigorous assent. Then he disappeared.
// 209.png
.pn +1
Dick spoke quickly in Italian to the young singer.
“I’ve got only one chance to escape detection,” he
said. “Let me play your role tonight. In the clown
costume of Pagliacci they’ll never recognize me.
They’ll just think I’m the regular tenor.”
“Not if you sing as you used to,” Enrico smiled.
“You must be sure to sing very badly. Then you
will sound like me.”
“Perhaps the audience will know the difference,”
Dick said, “but I’ll have to take a chance on that.
Even if they do, maybe they will say nothing.”
“They will say nothing,” Enrico assured him.
“They will know you are the American for whom
the Germans search, and they will want to help
you.”
“What about those among you who work with the
Germans?” Dick asked. “There are still some quislings,
I believe.”
“Yes, but they dare not come to public gatherings
like this,” Enrico said. “They are afraid of the rest
of the townspeople.”
“All right then?” Dick asked.
“All right,” Enrico replied. “Come to my dressing
room now. The others in the company must be
told. They can be trusted, all of them. I shall tell
them while you get into costume and make-up. Then
I shall join the orchestra in the pit and play a drum
inconspicuously.”
// 210.png
.pn +1
In a few minutes Dick was putting the clown costume
over his clothes. The floppy suit was so roomy
that he was able to tie the Gestapo uniform around
his waist beneath it. Then he smeared over his face
the heavy dead-white make-up of the clown. When
it dried, he put on his wig, and then the round red
spots which covered the clown’s face. He looked at
himself in the cracked mirror.
“A mother couldn’t recognize her own son in this
get-up,” he laughed. “I may be able to get away
with this.”
He heard a tap on his door and called “Come in,”
in Italian. A man in the costume of Tonio, with the
fake hump on his back, entered the room and
smiled.
“We all know,” he said. “We shall help, no matter
what happens. You are safe. And we shall never
forget the great honor of having sung with—” then
he decided he should never even mention the name,
lest the Gestapo hear—“with the world’s greatest
tenor.”
“Thanks,” Dick said, with a smile. “I hope I won’t
get any of you into trouble.”
While Tonio sang the prologue, Dick wondered
what the men at the cave would be thinking. They
expected him back there by this time. And what
about Tony, still maintaining his lonely vigil in that
old bell tower? He would have seen the Germans
// 211.png
.pn +1
encircling the town, going through every house. It
would be some little time before the searching parties
would reach the opera house. It would be best
if they came in while the performance was going on,
and while Dick was on the stage.
Then someone called him, and he stood in the
wings waiting for his cue. He looked about. The sets
were old and dirty, as Tomaso had said. The stage
was not very large. And the orchestra in the pit was
about half as large as it used to be, Dick knew. But
the men played as if they loved it, and the singers
sang with fire and sincerity, even if their voices did
not have the best quality in the world. He felt a
thrill—a thrill he had not known for a long time—go
through him as he heard the music and got himself
ready to step on a stage once more and sing.
When he finally was there, singing, he knew that
his voice was rusty, not up to its best by any means.
But perhaps it was just as well. If he were in good
voice, the Germans might make inquiries about him.
At the end of the first act there was a burst of
applause that shook the old opera house, even
though it was less than half filled. Between the acts,
after taking his many bows, Dick was nervous. The
audience obviously knew that he was not Enrico,
the regular tenor. It was a big crowd to be in on
something that was supposed to be so secret, but it
was a chance he had had to take in view of developments.
He kept listening for the approach of the
searching German troops, hoping they would not
come until the performance started again.
// 212.png
.pn +1
Finally there came the bell for the second act, and
Dick as Canio went on the stage for his great aria,
Vesti la giubba. It was in the midst of that sobbing,
heartbroken song of the clown that Dick saw the
Germans. They came in the front entrance of the
opera house, about fifteen of them, led by the elegant
but worried Gestapo colonel, who did not yet
know, Dick concluded, that one of his uniforms had
been stolen. Then Dick saw more soldiers in the
wings, on both sides of the stage. But he kept on
singing, as if nothing had happened. The Germans
just stood and listened and, when he finished the
aria, joined in the applause.
Dick bowed, and bowed again as the applause
continued. But then the other singers started to go
on with the performance. At that the colonel, with
some of his men, strode down the hall holding up
his hand for silence.
The singers stopped, and the orchestra drifted
quickly into silence. The colonel then mounted the
steps leading to the stage, strutting like a peacock.
An aide followed him. When he was sure he had the
attention of everyone, he uttered a few words in
German to the aide, who thereupon spoke in Italian
to the assemblage.
“His excellency begs your forgiveness for interrupting
this beautiful performance,” the man said
in a toneless voice, “but he is compelled to do so
because of spies in our fair city.”
// 213.png
.pn +1
The aide paused while the colonel spoke more
words to him in German. Then he continued to tell
the audience that American spies were known to be
somewhere in the town and a thorough, house-to-house
search had to be made for them. The colonel
was sure, the aide said, that only a few of the Italian
population would think of harboring such criminals,
and that most of them would aid in running
down their common enemy. He then asked if anyone
knew of the whereabouts of any American spy.
No one raised a hand. The colonel then said it
would be necessary for his men to go through the
entire theater carefully looking for the Americans.
As soon as the search was ended, the performance
could continue. At that, German soldiers moved
down the aisles, asking everyone for papers, for some
means of identification if they had lost their papers.
Others went through the orchestra pit, the dressing
rooms, the basement, and the catwalk above the
stage where sets were pulled up out of sight.
The colonel waited on the stage while all this was
going on. Dick and the others stood on the stage not
far from him, waiting until everything was over. No
one thought of asking the singers for identification
papers. No one paid any attention to them except
the colonel, who rather self-consciously smiled at
them a couple of times.
// 214.png
.pn +1
In half an hour the search was ended, and the
colonel looked a little worried as he told his aide
to say that anyone knowing of the presence of an
American should report it to headquarters at once.
As the Germans moved toward the exits, Dick
motioned to the orchestra leader, who raised his
baton, and took up where he had left off. In a few
minutes there were no more soldiers, and the ring
closing in on the American spies had passed beyond
them. Dick sang the rest of his role with a happiness
and a fervor such as he had never felt. His singing
inspired the other performers and the orchestra to
new heights of beauty.
Shortly before the end he had an idea.
He knew all these people in the opera house
could be trusted now. So he would take this opportunity
to tell them of the impending destruction of
the dam. Following the music of the orchestra but
making up new words as he went along, he thanked
them all for their help, assured them they would
soon be liberated by the American Army. He told
them when the dam would be blown up, told them
to leave the town before that time, filtering out into
the hills as unobtrusively as possible.
At the end of the passage in which he told them
these things, one of the other singers sang his part
and also invented words for the music. He said that
the Americans could count on full cooperation of
the people of Maletta, who would return from the
hills to welcome the conquering American Army.
// 215.png
.pn +1
Soon the opera ended, and the applause was deafening.
After many bows, Dick left the stage and hurried
to his dressing room. There he found Enrico,
and soon Tomaso came. He hardly listened to their
praise of his voice, of his cleverness in using the
opera to tell the townspeople of the plans ahead.
But, when he had removed the make-up and costume,
he shook Enrico by the hand heartily.
“You have been a tremendous help,” he said, “in
more ways than one. First the dam, then this. The
whole American Army will thank you, Enrico, believe
me!”
Then he and Tomaso were gone. They left the
side door of the opera house, cut back of the villa,
and then Dick went up on the roof and into the
tower with Tony. There he told the whole story to
the young radioman, who had been fearful that
something must have gone wrong.
“Why couldn’t I have heard you?” he asked. “I’m
missing everything imprisoned up in this tower—most
of the war, and now your singing!”
“Well, I’m going to sit down for a few minutes,”
Dick said. “We can’t carry through our plan to go
to the dam tonight. It’s too late for me to get back
to the cave, get Max into his uniform, carry the
dynamite to the dam and place it. It will just have
to be done tomorrow night. So I’ll stay here until
our one o’clock broadcast to headquarters and help
you with it.”
// 216.png
.pn +1
“No you won’t,” Tony said. “You’ve had one narrow
escape tonight. After this broadcast, they’ll have
their mobile units out trying to find us. They may
throw another dragnet around the city, because that
Colonel Klage will be just about crazy. I’ll handle
this one alone. You get on back to the cave and let
those boys up there stop biting their nails for fear
something’s gone wrong. I don’t care if you are my
sergeant and I’m only a corporal. You get out of
here—right now!”
Dick grinned and shook his head. “All right, all
right,” he said. “I guess you’re right at that. You
know what to tell them in your report. Good luck!
I’ll see you sometime tomorrow night.”
// 217.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 15 FIFTEEN "NO CALM BEFORE THE STORM"
The men at the cave were doing far more than
biting their nails. They were pacing up and down,
those who could, and Scotti was just about to send
Vince and Max off to town to see what had happened.
When Dick walked in, he had so many questions
hurled at him at once that he could say nothing at
all. Finally he got everyone calmed down, and they
sat down on the floor of the cave near Scotti while
he told the whole story of the exciting evening. As
he got into it, he was not interrupted once, for they
all listened with open mouths at the almost incredible
story he had to relate.
“And so,” he concluded, “I saw it was really too
late to get to the dam tonight. It would be dangerous.
We might not be finished before it began to
grow light, and that would be just too bad.”
“It shouldn’t take too long at the dam,” Slade said.
“I think I can rig everything in half an hour if Vince
can help me carry the stuff into the pipe.”
“I know, but we’ve got to allow for all emergencies,”
Dick said, “for delays like the one that happened
to me tonight.”
// 218.png
.pn +1
“Yes, Dick’s right,” Scotti agreed. “That dam operation
is one that can’t be rushed. If everything
goes well you can be through in half an hour, yes.
But what if there’s a slip-up? What if that other
colonel appears in the midst of things, for instance?
There are any number of things that might happen
to make you lie low for a few hours. And, anyway,
I was never too sure about getting everything in
there a full day before we were to set it off. We can
do it on the last night, all right. Now you boys all
get some sleep. You’ll be needing it.”
After a bite to eat from their tins they went to
sleep, but all of them dreamed of explosions, of
bridges being blown up, of dangerous parachute
jumps, or something involving action and danger.
The first light of dawn found them all awake, brewing
some coffee over a small fire.
And then there was the whole day to pass. They
did it by going over their plans endlessly, until they
themselves were almost tired of talking about them.
“This is a dull day, all right,” Vince complained.
“I guess it’s the calm before the storm.”
“There’ll be no calm before our storm,” Dick
said. “The storm starts a few minutes before dawn
tomorrow, and we’re going to have a mighty busy
night before that time comes.”
“And I guess we won’t be able to sit down and
have a siesta right after the storm, either,” Max
added.
// 219.png
.pn +1
As it began to grow dark, Max got into his beautiful
German uniform. The others admired him
greatly as he strutted about in front of the cave trying
hard to act like a Gestapo colonel.
“Say—I just thought of something,” he said. “As
a big shot I wouldn’t be traveling around without a
staff or a few orderlies.”
“It is a little unusual,” Scotti said. “But you’re
out to check up on things personally. You’re dropping
in on sentries without any warning. In our
Army, a private, or even a corporal, might wonder
about such a thing, but German soldiers aren’t
taught to wonder. They don’t bother to think, especially
in the presence of a high officer. And with the
plan we’ve got arranged they won’t have time to
think much.”
“All right,” Max said. “I just hope these guys
react the way we expect them to.”
“If they don’t, you all know what to do,” Scotti
said. “I don’t like the idea of gunfire at this crucial
moment, but if we have to—well, we have to.”
They set off about nine o’clock, leaving Scotti
alone in the cave. He was propped up near the entrance
with a sub-machine gun across his knees, two
others near at hand, and several boxes of ammunition
within reach. After the others had left, he
looked through the darkness after them for a long
time. Then he angrily brushed away the tears that
kept coming into his eyes, and reached out and
banged his broken leg.
// 220.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Scotti Looked After the Others]
.pm illust 19 donnelly_p225.jpg 457 "Scotti Looked After the Others"
// 221.png
.pn +1
“Why did that leg have to break?” he demanded.
“I ought to be there with my men and here I sit—”
But he stopped and gained control of himself
again. Dick Donnelly could carry this thing through
if anyone could. He had shown amazing cleverness
so far in this matter, even when things got the most
dangerous.
Dick was not feeling as confident, however. He
felt pretty tired, and this test ahead of him was almost
too much for him to carry. It was even worse,
almost, to know that your commanding officer expected
so much of you, to know that the men under
you would do just about anything you said.
They all carried heavy loads—the entire batch of
dynamite, lengths of wire, detonator boxes. But they
made their way around the hill all right, and came
down toward the dam from above, as they had before.
Dick went ahead and looked up and down the
main road, motioned to the others, and they sprinted
across, dropping into the ditch on the other side.
Then they slipped down the steep slope toward the
power house below the dam. The grass grew high
here, and they were able to pile up the dynamite
and other equipment not far from the big pipe-line.
Then Max and Dick climbed up to the road again.
“All right, now, Max,” Dick said. “I’ll cut around
below the power house and cross to the other side of
the dam. Give me about three minutes’ head start.
// 222.png
.pn +1
After that, wait for the next car that comes along.
Just after it passes walk down this little drive toward
the dam wall. The sentries are likely to think you
got out of the car they heard. But don’t give them
a chance to think much. Bawl them out, raise the
devil, call the guards down below at the power house
and get them to come up to you. Then you’ll have
them all together when I open fire. I’ll be back in
the woods on the other side of the lake. I’ll be able
to see, by the lights near that little building on the
dam wall, when you have them all around you. I’ll
give a good burst on the gun and then light out as
fast as I can. You send them after me.”
“Okay, Dick,” Max said. “I’ll do my best. And
I’ll follow behind them too, to keep them looking
for you. I’ll give Slade and Vince a full half-hour,
longer if possible.”
Dick went quickly down the hill, alongside the
road. He ducked into the ditch when a row of big
trucks raced by, toward Maletta. Finally he left the
roadside and cut down into the valley, about a quarter
of a mile below the power house. He made his
way across the trickling brook which was almost dry
now that the water gates were shut. Then he headed
up toward the dam again on the other side.
Vince and Slade were hiding by their supplies in
the tall grass. They saw three sentries around the
power house, five more pacing the dam wall. They
would be able to see when Max walked out there,
// 223.png
.pn +1
acting like a Nazi.
The wait seemed interminable. Then they heard
a car go by on the road above them, and there was
Max, striding vigorously out on to the dam wall.
The nearest sentry snapped to attention and saluted,
muttering a command back to the others as he did
so. They all came to attention, and Max started bellowing
orders.
Vince and Slade could not understand him, but
they smiled at each other over the rough sound of
Max’s voice. And it was obvious that the sentries
were pretty scared. One of them jumped to the door
of the little building and out came two more guards,
hurriedly buttoning their jackets. At this sight, Max
seemed to fly into a rage, and he slapped both the
men hard across their faces. Then he called to the
men farther along on the dam and they raced forward,
snapped to attention in front of Max, and
saluted.
Vince shot a glance at the sentries around the
power house. They were staring up toward the wall,
and whispering to each other. At that moment, Max
looked down at them and bellowed an order that
sounded so severe it almost made Slade quake in his
boots. The three power-house sentries ran forward,
climbed the steel ladder that led up to the dam and
stood at attention before Max.
“He’s got ’em all lined up,” Vince whispered.
“Every one of ’em. It’s going to work.”
// 224.png
.pn +1
“Right,” Slade said, “and I’ve got our hatch in
the pipe-line picked out.”
Then they heard Dick’s automatic firing from
across the lake. The sentries on the dam were already
so scared that they almost jumped off when
they heard the sound. After all, one man in the
power house had been shot that afternoon for neglect
and carelessness, and by the very Gestapo officer,
they thought, who now stood before them.
Max rasped out another order, and the sentries
started running across the dam wall to the other side
of the lake, with Max on their heels. In a flash Slade
and Vince were out of the tall grass, running forward
toward the pipe-lines, each with a heavy load.
Slade took a wrench from his pocket and started
work on the hatch opening in the pipe while Vince
ran back for another load of material. By the time
he returned, Slade had the door open and was boosting
himself inside.
Vince handed up one big bundle to Slade, who
disappeared with it inside the pipe. Then Vince
kept his eyes sweeping over the surrounding land,
looking for any sign that someone might approach.
Inside the big pipe, Slade was struggling up the sloping
steel shaft toward the dam wall. He slipped, he
fell, but he picked himself up again and pushed
forward. It took him five minutes to reach the
end of the pipe, where the water-gate of the dam
stopped him. Here he set down his load, turned, and
slid down the pipe to the opening, dousing his flashlight
before he got there.
// 225.png
.pn +1
Vince was ready for him with the next bundle.
This was even heavier, and it took Slade almost ten
minutes to get it in position. When he slid down
again, one hand was cut and his knees were badly
skinned, but he grabbed the coil of wire which Vince
handed him and started up again.
Meanwhile, after firing his shots over the lake,
Dick had run full speed toward the west, back toward
the dam. He had to get past the dam wall before
the sentries came racing from it. He heard their
pounding feet close at hand just as he slid into a
clump of low bushes just below the dam wall. He
could hear Max roaring out his orders and he knew
that the supposed colonel was ordering the sentries
to go to the right, up along the lake, in search of the
man who had fired the shots. They all obeyed without
question, and then Dick slipped away from the
bushes, went down the hill alongside the stream,
crossed over, and cut back up to the spot beside the
power house at which he had left Vince and Slade.
He smiled as he saw that the hatch door was open
in the pipe-line, with Vince standing guard beside
it. He whistled a signal and stepped forward out of
the tall grass.
“He’s hooking up the wire now,” Vince whispered
to him. “Ought to be down in a minute.”
// 226.png
.pn +1
And then Slade, appearing at the opening, leaped
to the ground. He had the coil of wire over his arm
and was letting it out as he moved away from the
dynamite charge at the base of the dam gates. He
nodded briefly to Dick, then closed the hatch door,
but not so tight that it would cut through the wire.
He stepped back toward the tall grass swiftly, still
paying out his wire.
Dick and Vince followed him, helping him up the
steep slope toward the road. He was heading for a
culvert which passed under the road about fifty feet
west of the little driveway to the dam wall. He did
not even pause as he ducked low and started crawling
through the culvert. Dick went up on the road,
scurried across and got at the other end of the opening.
He could barely see Slade’s flashlight as he
made his way through the small tunnel.
After he was through, Vince came across and
joined them, and then they made their way up the
hill on the other side of the road, into the thick
trees.
“Here,” Slade said, panting, “this will be the
place. Vince, go get the detonator.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dick said. “I want to get my
own stuff, too.”
While Slade sat down to rest, Dick and Vince went
back across the road, into the tall grass where they
had first put their heavy bundles. There were two
detonators, a box of fuses, a length of wire, and one
big box of dynamite. They picked them up and hurried
// 227.png
.pn +1
back to join Slade. When they reached him
again, they were all exhausted, but happy. There
was still no sign of Max or his sentries, who were
busy, apparently, chasing through the woods on the
other side of the dam and lake.
They sat and waited, secure in the knowledge
that now the dam would really be blown up. The
charge was laid, the fuses set, the wire hooked up.
At the proper moment Slade would just have to push
down a plunger, and the dam would be ruined, flood
waters would roar down into the valley below, engulfing
the German forces and their mighty armored
equipment.
Meanwhile, in the country around the town of
Maletta, there were many strange sights. Since dark,
Italian families had been starting out for short
strolls, strolls that led down side streets and then up
paths into the wooded hills. They took different
streets, different roads, and they walked slowly, casually,
whistling or humming songs as they walked.
Some carried bundles, and some even took their
babies out, when they should have been in their
cribs asleep.
But only a few of the Germans seemed to notice.
Most of them were too busy to see anything like
Italians taking a stroll. An aide did mention to the
Gestapo colonel that there seemed to be an unusual
number of Italians out on the streets that evening,
but the colonel was in no mood to listen. He had
// 228.png
.pn +1
just discovered one of his newest uniforms to be
missing and he was berating an orderly with its loss.
Moreover, he had still not located that illegal radio,
and his commanding officer had ordered him to
appear before him the next day with a full explanation.
Far into the night the imperceptible exodus of
Italians from the town went on, and nobody said a
word. Tomorrow the Germans expected the big
smashing attack from the Americans who were now
only ten miles below Maletta.
Another wanderer on those hills was Dick Donnelly.
He carried a coil of wire over his shoulder, a
box of dynamite in one hand, and a detonator in
the other. Vince had begged to be allowed to go
with him, but Dick would not listen.
“This is my own private venture,” he said, “this
blowing up of the road. I’ll endanger my own life
in it, but nobody else’s. The dam is the important
thing. You stay here with Slade and Max until it is
all over, then head back for the cave fast.”
Max had reappeared just before Dick left. After
three-quarters of an hour hunting some fugitive in
the woods, he led his sentries back to the dam. And
he was fuming. He let forth a stream of abuse that
would have made the real Colonel Klage envious.
He blamed everything that had gone wrong in the
war on those sentries, threatened to have them up
for punishment the next day.
// 229.png
.pn +1
He gave a final order for them all to stay on the
dam wall the rest of the night, and to keep their eyes
constantly on the other side of the lake. Then he
stalked away. The sentries were lined up like wooden
Indians, facing the other direction. They couldn’t
have seen as far as the main road anyway, to see
that Max just ducked across it into the woods above,
but they didn’t even dare try to see.
Max was proud and happy. “I ran the legs off
those guys,” he said. “And it did me good to hit a
couple of them, too. They like to go around doing
that kind of thing to people who can’t hit back. I
wonder how they liked a taste of their own medicine.”
Dick told Max what a fine job he had done, but
the big soldier just said, “I guess I’ll go in for acting
after I get out of the Army. It’s fun.”
// 230.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 16 SIXTEEN "ZERO HOUR"
Tony Avella was nearing the end of his long vigil
in the top of the bell tower. He was feeling restless,
cramped, and uneasy. He kept telling himself that
this radio job was just as important as any of the rest
of it, but it did not make him feel any better about
having to spend almost a whole week in that cramped
space, hot in the day, cold at night, with a stone
floor beneath him. Most of the time he had nothing
whatever to do, and he had covered the floor with
scratches playing tick-tack-toe with himself.
But now the end was approaching. It had been
some time since he’d heard about the latest plans,
but he knew that the dam was scheduled to go up
at exactly five-thirty A.M. And he thought that Dick
was going to try to get around to the northwest road
to blow it up at the same time.
“At any rate, I’ve got box seats for the whole affair,”
he told himself. “I’ll be able to see both explosions
from here. But I can’t wait around very
long after that.”
Although there was still a half-hour to wait, he sat
down beside his radio and felt for the cranks of the
generator. He put on the earphones and took them
// 231.png
.pn +1
off, adjusted the microphone before his mouth and
then moved it a half inch further away. Then it was
time to look at his watch again, the watch that he
felt sure must be running down.
“Wonder where Dick is now,” he said to himself.
Dick was almost as nervous as Tony. He sat behind
a huge boulder above the northwest road where
it was cut into the side of the hill. He had laid his
charge just where Slade showed him, and hooked up
the fuses and wire. Now he sat waiting beside the
plunger box for five-thirty to come.
“I hope everything’s still okay at the dam,” he
muttered to himself.
Except for nervousness again, everything was all
right there. Max and Slade and Vince sat on the
side of the hill, looking at their watches, laughing
about the sentries who still stood on the dam wall,
looking at their watches again.
“Scotti must be kind of lonesome,” Vince said.
Lieutenant Scotti was very lonesome. The night
had been particularly long for him, with nothing
whatever to do, without any way of knowing how
the affair at the dam had gone. He looked at his
watch.
“Pretty soon I’ll hear it,” he said to himself.
“Then I’ll know the answer. And Tony will flash
word to headquarters at once.”
// 232.png
.pn +1
At that moment Tony was beginning to turn the
crank on the generator. He got it going at a steady
pace and kept it going easily. Then he turned a
switch, looked at his watch. Any minute now—
He jumped, when it finally did come, after all
those hours of waiting. A great roar to the east. He
saw a flash, saw black smoke against the sky that was
beginning to be gray, felt the earth tremble a little,
and then heard the booming roar go echoing
through the hills.
But—was that an echo? No, it was another roar,
though not so loud, from the west. Looking quickly,
he saw a cloud of smoke and dust rising from the
northwest road.
“Julius Caesar to Mark Antony!” he cried into
the microphone. And he got the answer back right
away, “Mark Antony to Julius Caesar. Come in.”
He did not bother with code. He was not going
to say anything that the Germans wouldn’t know in
two minutes anyway.
“Dam blown up at five-thirty on the dot,” he said
swiftly. “Northwest road ditto one minute later.
Repeat.”
The man at the other end repeated the news once,
and Tony was on his feet. He tossed the headphones
and microphone to the floor, threw the rope out the
opening and let himself over the ledge. Sliding
down it like a streak of lightning, his feet hit the
roof of the wing, and he ran in a crouch to the rear.
He leaped to the ground and stumbled—into Tomaso’s
arms.
// 233.png
.pn +1
“Uncle Tomaso,” he cried. “Why aren’t you in
the hills?”
“I couldn’t go and leave you here, Tony,” the old
man said. “I had to make sure that you were safe.”
“Come with me, fast,” Tony said. “We have to
hurry to get across the road before the water is too
deep.”
They took off through the trees, not bothering to
hide themselves too carefully. They could hear the
shouts from men in front of the villa, the firing of a
few guns, the sound of motorcar engines roaring to
life. Everyone would be too busy to notice them.
“Dick’s got even further to go than we have,”
Tony said, as he trotted beside the old man, who
could not move very quickly. “I wonder if he can
make it.”
Dick had known that it would not be easy for him
to get back to the cave after blowing up the road. It
had been a great thrill for him to see the hillside go
sliding down across the highway, obliterating it completely
for a stretch of a quarter of a mile. But he
had lost his own footing and gone rolling down the
hill too. Before he caught himself, he was almost at
the road, and there, just in front of him, was a German
motorcycle messenger pulling up to a screaming
stop in front of the mass of rocks that blocked
his way.
Dick did not hesitate for an instant. He snatched
his automatic from his pocket, fired, and watched
the man topple to the ground.
// 234.png
.pn +1
“I’m afraid I’m a little too excited to be a good
shot,” he told himself critically. “I believe I just
winged him in the shoulder.”
But that was enough for Dick’s purpose. He
pulled up the man’s motorcycle, turned it around,
started it, and headed straight down the main highway
for Maletta. He roared down the main street at
forty miles an hour, swerving in and out among the
cars, the trucks, the running soldiers with half their
clothes on. The sight of such panic made him laugh
with pleasure, and everything was in such a turmoil
that he was able to race right through the heart of
town without being noticed except as a nuisance
that got in someone’s way.
“They don’t even know, half of them, what’s happened
yet,” he told himself as he sped out again on
the northeast road. “But they’ll know mighty soon,”
he added, “for there comes the water.”
His motorcycle wheels were already running in
water an inch deep. Then it was six inches, eight
inches, ten inches. Ahead he saw it boiling down
at him like a solid wall, and he leaped from the motorcycle
and cut into the fields. The mud and water
slowed him down but he raced ahead as fast as he
could. Another fifty feet, another thirty! The water
was around his knees. Twenty feet—ten feet to go to
high ground—and the water was around his waist.
And then he made it. He grabbed the trunk of a
// 235.png
.pn +1
sapling and pulled himself up the slope. Then he
sat down, panting heavily. But in another minute
his feet were in the steadily rising water, and he
pulled himself up again.
“Anyway,” he told himself, “I know the dam
really went out. It’s not just cracked and leaking.”
Breathing a little more easily, he got up and started
up the hill toward the cave. Halfway up he
heard the firing of guns. The sound came from the
cave without a doubt. He ran forward, circling
around to come at the cave from above if possible.
He figured that he must be just a little above the
cave entrance when he heard another burst of fire
and heard a bullet zing through the branches overhead.
He dropped to the ground and edged his way
down the slope on his belly, keeping behind trees as
much as possible. He knew there was a big tree
growing out of a split rock just above the cave entrance.
If only he could get to that—
“Scotti must be alone in there,” he said. “And—yes,
I can see them—they’re German soldiers who
have come racing up the hill to get away from the
flood waters. They probably would have run smack
into the cave by accident if Scotti hadn’t fired to
keep them off. I’ve got to get down to him.”
// 236.png
.pn +1
//[Illustration: Dick Stopped Behind a Tree and Waited]
.pm illust 20 donnelly_p241.jpg 460 "Dick Stopped Behind a Tree and Waited"
// 237.png
.pn +1
After each burst of fire from the German guns he
made his way forward another few feet, keeping always
behind tree trunks. Finally he reached the
great tree just above the cave entrance. Then he
waited again. There was another heavy exchange
of fire and a lull. With one leap, Dick flew down
from above, hit the ground and fell on Scotti’s gun
just as he was about to pull the trigger.
“Dick!” he cried. “I almost plugged you!”
“I didn’t give you a chance,” Dick said. He
crouched low as a hail of bullets spat against the
side of the hill all around the cave. He snatched up
one of the machine guns by Scotti’s side and returned
the fire.
“We can hold ’em off for a long time,” Dick said.
“We’ve got a lot of ammunition.”
“Until they think to circle up in back the way you
did,” Scotti said. “Dick, you’re a fool to have come
back here. I’m done for, anyway, but you can get
away. Our men must be right over the crest of the
hill. You can get up to them all right.”
“Nothing doing,” Dick said. “I’m sticking with
you.”
“That’s plain suicide!” Scotti fumed. “As your
superior officer I order you to leave.”
Dick just laughed as they both gave another burst
of fire toward the Germans who continued their forward
creeping toward the entrance of the cave.
“You’re not my superior officer, right now,” he
said to Scotti. “You’re completely incapacitated and
I’m acting commander of this outfit and you know
it. You told me so yourself. So I order Sergeant
Dick Donnelly to stay right here and keep shooting
German soldiers.”
// 238.png
.pn +1
There was no more fire from the enemy, however.
A long pause followed, and Dick and Scotti glanced
at each other wonderingly.
“You know what that means,” Scotti said.
“I’m afraid so,” Dick replied. “They’ve sent some
men up to come in from above, the way I did.”
“Help me to the back of the cave,” Scotti said.
“We can plug them as they try to come in. At least
we can get them before they get a bead on us. They
can’t see clear in to the back.”
“That’ll be all right for a while,” Dick said, pulling
Scotti backward. “Until they can use the bodies
of their own dead as a shield.”
They settled themselves against the rear of the
cave with their guns and ammunition beside them.
And at that moment four German soldiers were approaching
the big tree above the cave entrance.
Just as the first man was about to leap, there was
a burst of fire from behind him. He toppled forward,
and Dick and Scotti had the pleasure of seeing
a wounded German fall flat at the cave entrance,
without their having moved a muscle.
The other Germans above the cave turned, just in
time to meet another burst of fire from a gun in the
hands of Max Burckhardt. They fell without having
a chance to fire, and Max, followed by Vince and
Slade, rushed forward.
“Scotti!” they called. “Scotti!”
// 239.png
.pn +1
Dick ran to the cave entrance and called out to
the men above, “Look out! There still may be some
more in the woods below.”
But no shot came from there, and Max, Vince,
and Slade scrambled down the hill into the cave.
“What kept you so long?” Dick asked.
“Well, first we waited to see just what went on
at the dam,” Vince said. “It went out—every bit of
it—dam, power house, water, and all! It was beautiful
to watch. And then on the way back here we
ran into a few Germans. We didn’t have any guns
ourselves, but we sort of took them by surprise and
handled them with bare knuckles. That’s where
Max picked up the gun he used on the fellow that
was about to visit you. Only one of the Germans we
met had a gun and that’s it. The others were so
panicky because of the flood that they’d forgotten
them. But that little tussle delayed us a bit. Sorry.”
“Wonder where Tony is?” Dick mumbled. But
before anyone had time to answer they heard the
pounding of many feet. They grabbed up guns and
waited at the entrance tensely. Then Vince let out
a war whoop that rang through the woods.
“It’s our boys!” he shouted. “It’s our own Army!”
// 240.png
.pn +1
.pm chap 17 SEVENTEEN "AFTERMATH"
They were all in the town of Maletta again, two
months later. It looked cleaner and neater than
when they had first seen it, for the townspeople and
the U. S. Army engineers had done a first-rate job
of cleaning out the mud and trash left by the flood
waters.
Scotti was back in the United States, recuperating
from his wounds, but the rest of them were heading
back to the front lines again, quite a distance to the
north by this time. They took the last day of their
furlough for a visit in the town that had been so important
a part of their lives for one week.
But there were some differences. Dick Donnelly
wore a First Lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders. The
General had conferred the commissioned rank on
him on the field of action, right after the successful
conclusion of the battle for Maletta. And there was
the colored ribbon on his left breast which meant
the awarding of the Distinguished Service Medal.
Tony Avella was a Master Sergeant now. He and
his Uncle Tomaso had been caught on the opposite
hill, away from the cave, by the flood waters. But
that had meant nothing more than sitting and waiting
// 241.png
.pn +1
for the waters to recede. They had been hungry
and exhausted after their ordeal but that was all.
Even old Tomaso stood up well under it.
Vince Salamone and Max Burckhardt were both
corporals now and everyone in the group had some
sort of citation in recognition of his brilliant and
heroic work. Boom-Boom Slade, as meek and quiet
as always, seemed a little embarrassed at the decoration
on his breast.
They all went to call on old Tomaso first of all.
They found him in his same old room in the servants’
wing, but not the sad and broken man they
had first seen there. He had put on a little weight,
decent clothes now enhanced his dignified bearing.
With characteristic Italian emotion he gratefully
saluted the American flag which now flew above the
door of the ancient villa.
“Did they take down the radio from the tower?”
Tony asked him.
“No, it’s still there,” Tomaso said. “I think they
may just have forgotten about it. And I haven’t said
anything because when this war is over I want the
town to put that in a museum—as a memorial to the
battle of Maletta.”
“Well, it can stay there for all I care,” Tony said.
“I had my fill of that bell tower for the rest of my
life. I never want to see it again.”
// 242.png
.pn +1
Tomaso led them to a sidewalk restaurant where
they sat and drank coffee and talked together. They
recalled all their experiences again, reliving in memory
those hectic days. It was a good memory, and
the result had been a great success. Thousands of
German soldiers had been drowned, thousands more
killed by the Americans that poured across the two
ridges and so caught them in a vise. Hundreds
of trucks and tanks and guns had been lost by the
enemy and many of these were already repaired and
serving the American forces. The general told them
that their work had saved at least a month in the
Italian campaign, probably more.
While they sat, Enrico came along and said hello
to them all.
“Now,” he said to Dick, “I can take time to ask
you for your autograph.”
Dick felt foolish, but he signed a note for the
young Italian. Enrico thanked the young lieutenant
profusely, and then said very seriously,
“You know the opera company is singing Cavalleria
Rusticana tonight. I’m really not up to it. It
would be a great treat for me to sit in the audience.
How about it, Ricardo Donnelli, will you sing Turridu
tonight?”
“Bravo,” cried Tomaso with a wave of his hand
and his black eyes sparkling. “The great Donnelli
it is for tonight.”
“No, no,” Dick protested. “I’m not a singer these
days, I’m a soldier.”
// 243.png
.pn +1
“Forget it, big boy,” exclaimed Vince Salamone
with affection and not without humor, for he was a
good foot taller than Dick. “You’re going to be
Turridu tonight and capture the hearts of all the
girls in Maletta.”
“You bet you are,” agreed Tony. “He’s my favorite
opera hero, and I’d like to hear his role sung
proper-like.” Adding with a mock-serious bow to
Enrico, “No offense to you, my good fellow.”
And Max Burckhardt exclaimed in his good-natured
way, “No kiddin’, Lieutenant. I’d like to find
out first hand if all the hullabaloo I hear about those
vocal chords of yours is on the level.”
Boom-Boom Slade came out of his customary reticence
to add, “It would give me the keenest pleasure,
Lieutenant Donnelly, to hear a man sing whose
talents as a soldier I so deeply respect.”
So that evening they all went to see Ricardo Donnelli
in Cavalleria Rusticana. But the next morning
it was Lieutenant Dick Donnelly that reported to his
commanding officer at the front lines.
.if h
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.ca Endpaper illustration
.if-
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.pb
.pn +1
.nf c
.sp 4
WHITMAN
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.hr
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Transcriber's Notes
page 48 - changed "Lieutentant" to "Lieutenant"
page 152 - changed "where-ever" to "wherever" on rejoining sentence
Tony can get where-
ever he wants to go
page 191 - corrected inconsistent spelling - "pipeline" to "pipe-line"
("pipe-line" used more often)
page 220 - removed extra "to" from sentence
he told the whole story to to
page 247 - removed paragraph break after "then said very seriously,"
.nf-