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DICK DONNELLY OF THE PARATROOPS
Story by
GREGORY DUNCAN
Illustrated by Francis Kirn
Whitman Publishing Company
Racine, Wisconsin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1944, by
Whitman Publishing Company
Printed in U. S. A.
All names, characters, places, and events in this
story are entirely fictitious
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Token Resistance 11
II. A Man With Two Names 20
III. Wadizam Pass 37
IV. Encircled! 50
V. Break-Through! 69
VI. Special Mission 86
VII. Not So Happy Landings 106
VIII. Two Visitors to Town 120
IX. Uncle Tomaso 132
X. The Old Bell Tower 150
XI. Fruitless Search 168
XII. A Visit to the Dam 181
XIII. The Fourth Night 193
XIV. Interrupted Performance 207
XV. No Calm Before the Storm 222
XVI. Zero Hour 235
XVII. Aftermath 245
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield 10
“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said 23
“I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.” 33
Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder 45
The German Read the Report and Gave an Order 57
Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord 71
Dick and Max Walked Happily up the Hill 81
Major Marker and the Men Went Over Their Plan 93
Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task 109
Slade Set Scotti’s Broken Leg 123
The Two Men Walked Toward the Villa 135
The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities 145
“By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!” 157
Dick Tied the Rope Securely Around the Box 171
Dick Scanned the Report of German Troop Movements 183
“If I Could Only Get a German Officer’s Uniform!” 197
“I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said 209
Scotti Looked After the Others 225
Dick Stopped Behind a Tree and Waited 241
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DICK DONNELLY
_of_
THE PARATROOPS
CHAPTER 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 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.”
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.”
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.
“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.
“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.
“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.”
“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!”
“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.”
CHAPTER 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?”
“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.”
“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.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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?”
“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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
“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 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 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.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.”_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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.”
“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.
“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!”
CHAPTER 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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 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.”
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 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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.
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—”
“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 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?”
CHAPTER 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?”
“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.”