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 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.”
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.
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
“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 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.
“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.”
“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.
“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.
CHAPTER 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.”
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.”
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“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.”
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 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.”
“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.
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.”
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.