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 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.”
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
“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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _The German Read the Report and Gave an Order_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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.
“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 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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.
“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.”
“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.
“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.
CHAPTER 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.
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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.”
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.”