asked with a laugh.
“I surely do,” Dick said. “And if we get time, we might take a little
walk up that northwest road to look it over.”
“Tonight?” Tony asked.
“No, not tonight,” was the reply. “Before anything else is done we’ve
got to get your radio set. We’re not far from that hill now, are we?”
“No, it’s just ahead,” Tony said. “We’ll head a bit to the left here.”
They changed their direction, crawled over another wall, skirted around
another house where a barking dog was too curious about them. Then they
found themselves on a narrow street with a few small houses on both
sides. In one of them a lamp was burning, but the others were dark. It
was silent on the street, but Dick and Tony heard the sound of trucks
and cars from the center of town ahead of them.
They came to a corner where another street crossed the one they were
on. Tony touched Dick’s arm, and they took a right turn. There were a
few more houses, then they stopped. The road began to ascend a hill,
and then it ended, becoming nothing but a wide path. Tony stopped Dick.
“See, there to the left,” he pointed out. “The villa.”
Dick looked and saw a huge dark mass. At the front of it there were
many lights, and he could see cars standing before the door.
“It seems to be a busy place,” he said.
“Yes, it does,” Tony agreed. “The Germans must be using it for
something.”
“Think we’d better try to get there?” Dick wondered.
“Around to the rear, yes,” Tony said. “There was a servants’ wing at
the back on this side, almost cut into the hill. Come on, let’s go.”
They walked toward the villa along the steep slope of the hill, and
Dick saw that they were approaching it from the rear on the east side.
They would not be seen by anyone at the front of the building.
They walked slowly now. Dick saw the shape of the building more clearly
as they came near it. It was a huge place, built a short way up the
hill so that it overlooked the rest of the town spread out below it. He
made out what looked like a tall tower rising from the center of it.
And then he saw what Tony must have meant as the servants’ wing. It was
built right up against the steep hill.
“You could almost come down the hill onto the roof of that wing,” he
whispered to Tony.
“That’s exactly what you _can_ do,” Tony said. “I’ve run and jumped
onto it when I was over here visiting. I spent most of my time up in
Carlini where most of my relatives lived, but I spent a month with
Uncle Tomaso here in Maletta.”
“That’s surely lucky for us,” Dick said. “It would be tough without
your knowledge of the town.”
“If Uncle Tomaso is still around,” Tony said, “he’d be in this
servants’ wing. But of course, if the Germans have taken it over there
may be soldiers quartered in there.”
“I see a light from the room at the end,” Dick said. “Maybe we can look
in the window.”
Carefully they walked toward the lighted window at the end of the wing,
trying not to dislodge the rocks beneath their feet. When they were ten
feet away, they went down on all fours and crawled forward. They
reached the rough stone wall and edged toward the window.
With one quick motion upward, Dick took one glance through the window,
then ducked down again.
“What? What did you see?” Tony asked.
“No German soldiers,” Dick said. “Just one old man.”
Tony’s heart leaped at these words. “Just one old man in my Uncle
Tomaso’s old room. That must be my uncle—it’s just _got_ to be!”
“Take a quick look, Tony,” Dick said. “Go ahead.”
He moved back a bit so that Tony could get near the window. He took a
quick glance around to see that no one was approaching. Then he watched
Tony’s face to see if he could tell by the expression who it was he saw.
Tony moved his head up and looked in the window. He started to bring it
down again, but then left it there, looking steadily inside the room.
Dick heard his breath come fast. The light from the room fell faintly
on his face, and Dick, studying it closely, saw the mouth twitch, the
eyes fill with tears. And then Tony spoke, almost in a whisper.
“Uncle Tomaso,” he breathed. “My own Uncle Tomaso!”
Then he crouched down beside Dick again. The sergeant said nothing, and
Tony could not speak for a few seconds.
“Yes, Dick, it’s my uncle,” Tony said. “And—he looks so old, sitting
there just staring at the floor. He looks sad and broken and old. I
almost didn’t recognize him.”
“Nobody else in the room?” Dick asked.
“No, he’s alone,” Tony said. “I’ll try tapping on the window.”
Tony stood up, looked all around, then tapped lightly against the
window pane. Dick stood behind him, looking in over Tony’s shoulder.
The old man hardly seemed to hear anything at first. He lifted his head
slowly as if he might be dreaming. Then suddenly he jumped, startled,
and Dick saw fear leap into his eyes. He stared at the door, and went
to open it. Then Tony tapped more insistently. Obviously the old man
could not be sure where the sound was coming from.
Finally he turned and stared at the window. Tony pressed his face close
against the glass so that his uncle might see him, might recognize him.
He hated to see that look of fear in Tomaso’s face, and he wanted to
reassure him quickly.
But the old man looked more terrified than ever. For a few seconds he
just stared at the window, not moving, and then as if impelled against
his will, he moved toward the window. He moved his arms forward and
opened it. Then he spoke, in a small voice, in Italian.
“What—what do you want?”
“Uncle Tomaso!” Tony whispered urgently. “It’s me—Tony! Tony Avella!
Your nephew from America!”
The old man’s eyes widened with unbelief, but he leaned forward,
thrusting his face close to Tony’s.
“It can’t be!” he muttered. “No, I’m dreaming! It can’t be! The
Americans have not come yet!”
“But I’ve come, Uncle Tomaso,” Tony insisted. “I’ve come with my
friends ahead of the rest of the Americans. Yes, I’m really Tony. Look!
Look closely.”
The old man did look closely. He stretched one hand through the window
and touched Tony’s face. Then he began to smile, and his eyes began to
shine.
“Tony, my little Tony!” he cried.
“Quiet, Uncle,” Tony warned. “Don’t bring the Germans here!”
“The Germans!” And Tony’s uncle cursed. “The Germans! Soon they will
taste some of their own medicine. Are the Americans really so close,
Tony, that you could come to me here?”
“Yes, Uncle, and they will be here in another week,” Tony said. “But
you can help us. Where can we talk?”
“I’ll come outside with you,” the old man said. “Yes, through the
window. I can still crawl through the window.”
“Will the Germans come and look in your room?” Tony asked. “Are they
likely to miss you?”
“No, they never look for the old man,” Tomaso said. “They never even
think about the harmless old man, except when they want their rooms
cleaned or their boots polished.”
Suddenly the old man laughed. “Harmless old man, they think! If they
knew what I’ve done!”
He no longer seemed to be the broken and tired soul that he was before.
He stuck one leg out the open window and climbed through with an
agility that surprised Dick. Tony helped him to the ground, and then
closed the window almost shut behind him. Then the uncle looked
questioningly at Dick.
“Uncle, this is my friend, my commander,” Tony explained. “He is really
Italian, too, but I call him Dick Donnelly. Uncle—I’ll tell you right
away who he really is. Ricardo Donnelli!”
“You—you are really Ricardo Donnelli?” the old man exclaimed. “Here in
our little town of Maletta?”
Dick smiled and nodded. “But I’m really just a soldier in the American
Army now,” he said. “We should get away from the villa before we talk.
Can we go back up the hill?”
“Yes, back up the hill,” the old man said, starting off at once. “It is
steep but we can go up there and talk safely. Not far. We cannot be
seen up here from the villa.”
Dick and Tony followed him up the slope to a little clump of trees.
“This used to be a pleasant place to sit on a sunny afternoon,” the old
man said. “See—there is a long flat rock to sit upon. Now, I do not
come here often, because all I can see are the hated Germans!”
Then he began to pour out a stream of questions to Tony—about his
mother and father, how long he had been in the Army, when he had come
to Italy, how far away the American troops were. Then suddenly he
stopped.
“You said I could help the Americans,” he said. “Tell me what I can do.
I shall do anything you ask. And there are many others here who will
help. We have not been idle.”
“I imagine not,” Dick said. “In America we don’t hear much about the
underground activities in Italy, but we know you have been fighting in
every way possible.”
“Especially now that there is some hope,” Tomaso said. “For so long,
for so many many years, we were held under the thumb of that bellowing
jackass, Mussolini, with his cruel blackshirt terrorists. And the world
did not seem to care. But now—now we know we will be free men again,
and we fight once more.”
“What can you do, Uncle?” Tony asked.
“Oh, there are a few things an old man can do,” Tomaso smiled. “When
that big Gestapo chief came here on inspection, it was I who got word
to the others who he was. Perhaps you have not heard about the bomb
that blew up his car as it drove away—killing him. No? Well, we did
that.”
Tony and Dick looked at the old man in admiration. Then he went on.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The power plant at the dam has been damaged half a dozen times. Of
course, they could always fix it again, but it delayed them for several
days, sometimes a week. And they’ve had to post a guard at the switches
in the railroad yards because of what we did there. Little things—all
little things we did—but they have helped, I know.”
“Now you can help us do big things,” Dick said, “you and your friends
in town. But there must be enemies, too—do you know them?”
“Oh, yes, I know them,” the old man said grimly. “We have a list of
them. Many have run away, to the north, afraid of the advancing
Americans and afraid of their own townspeople, too. But there are a few
left. There is Garone the banker and Balardi who was Mayor under
Mussolini. He is still here. And they have a few sniveling underlings.
But there are not many. Some there are who fear for their own necks.
They will not actively fight the enemy, but they would never betray us,
either.”
“We’ll put ourselves in your good hands,” Dick said. “You can be our
guide and helper here in Maletta.”
“Is the town still the same?” Tony asked.
“No, of course not,” Tomaso replied sadly. “Many have fled. Many others
have been evacuated to the factories in the north. And all our young
men—they were in the army, of course. Some are dead, others are
prisoners of the Germans. We don’t hear much. But here in Maletta we
try to keep on laughing and smiling. Why, we still have the opera once
a week.”
He glanced apologetically at Dick. “I know that Ricardo Donnelli would
find our opera company a poor one. Our costumes are shabby now, our
sets falling to pieces. The good young voices are not here, but the
performances still give us great joy—almost the only joy we still have
in our lives.”
“Then it is a fine opera company,” Dick said. “If it gives the people
pleasure, it is doing all that anything can do.”
“Now tell me what I am to do,” Tomaso said, in businesslike fashion.
“First, we must find a place for my radio,” Tony said. “Uncle, I am a
radioman for America’s Army. We have, in the hills where we landed, a
complete broadcasting set. I must use it to send messages in code to
our Army, messages telling about movements of German troops and
supplies through Maletta.”
“That is not easy,” Tomaso said, with a puzzled frown on his face. “The
Germans do not like radios, even for receiving.”
“They have a way, Uncle,” Tony explained, “of listening to a radio and
telling exactly where it is.”
“I know, I know,” the old man said. “The underground had a secret,
illegal station in Florence—there are many others, but I know about
this one. The Germans listened and found out exactly which block it was
hidden in. Then they just went through all the houses and found it.
There is another in a truck that moves from place to place, and they
cannot find it. But the Germans have no detectors here in Maletta. I
know that.”
“They don’t need to be right here,” Tony said. “They might be in other
towns, several miles away. They can pick up stations from a long
distance. We cannot move about with our station. We cannot use it from
the hills, for then the Germans would find our hiding place. Is there
no place in the town itself where we can hide it? We need to use it
only for a few minutes once or twice each day. But the hiding place
must be absolutely safe—something the Germans just cannot locate.”
The old man was thinking hard. He had offered to help. He could not
fail to help in the very first thing they asked, no matter how
difficult a task it was. But the town of Maletta—it had been gone over
with a fine-tooth comb by the Germans many times. After each sabotage
job, they went through every house, into wine cellars, into attics.
After the Gestapo officer was killed they even tapped walls looking for
hidden rooms.
He looked over the town as Dick and Tony waited for him to speak. The
old man knew this town in which he had lived all his life, knew it as
no one else did. There below him was the sprawling villa. Over to the
right the railroad station. The three great church steeples loomed
against the night sky just like the old bell tower over the villa.
Suddenly he gasped, and slapped his knee. Then he leaned back and
laughed, almost soundlessly, but still with great good feeling. Dick
and Tony looked at him in amazement. Dick wondered if something had
cracked in the old man who had gone through so much. Maybe he was not
completely dependable.
“Uncle Tomaso!” Tony was saying urgently. “What is it? What is it
you’re laughing about?”
“I’m laughing at what a good joke we shall play on the Germans!” the
old man laughed. “I know where you can set up your radio!”
CHAPTER TEN
THE OLD BELL TOWER
“Right under our noses all this time,” Tony’s uncle said. “That’s where
we’ll put your radio sending station, Tony my boy. And it will be right
under—or rather, over—the Germans’ noses, too!”
“Where?” the word came from both Tony and Dick at the same time.
“The old bell tower on the villa!” the old man declared, serious again.
“But that’s been in ruins for years!” Tony objected.
“Exactly!” the old man agreed. “That’s why it’s so safe.”
Dick was not sure he understood the old man.
“You mean that tall tower rising over the center of the villa?” he
asked. “Is that the bell tower? I can just make it out.”
“Yes, that’s it!” Tomaso replied. “As Tony says, it has been in ruins
for years—but it’s still standing! That’s the point—it is still
standing there. Part of the stone top has crumbled away, where the
bells used to be hundreds of years ago. That happened in another war
long, long ago. The bells were taken from the tower and melted down.
Later lightning struck the tower and knocked part of the top away.
Finally, the stone stairway inside crumbled and fell. That was two
hundred years ago, I’m told, and the caretaker of the villa in those
days was killed by the falling stones inside the house.”
“But the Nazis have taken over the villa!” Tony objected. “We can’t put
our radio up in the very headquarters of the Germans!”
“Why not?” Dick asked. He began to see why the old man laughed when he
had this idea. “That’s just about the last place they’d look—in their
own headquarters.”
“But the radio locating devices will place it there!” Tony pointed out.
“Of course,” Dick agreed. “But if the Germans can’t find the radio—then
they’ll know something’s wrong. They’ll search in all the buildings and
houses near by and will find nothing. If the stone stairs into the
tower have long been down, how can they get up there to look?”
“And if that’s so, how can we get up there ourselves—with heavy radio
equipment?” Tony demanded.
“Oh, we ought to be able to get up there some way,” Dick said. “But the
Germans won’t think of it because—first, they just won’t believe anyone
would dare set up an illegal radio on top of their headquarters and,
second, because to them there is no way to get there.”
“That’s right,” Tomaso said. “When they first came to take over the
villa, they looked everywhere. They wanted to be sure of the building
they were moving into. They looked into every nook and cranny. They
searched every room, looked up chimneys, investigated the big wine
cellars, tried to find hidden passages and rooms. They asked a lot
about the tower then. They know the stone stairs fell down two hundred
years ago. They tried every possible way to get up—but they always
tried from the _inside_! Finally they concluded no one could possibly
get there. They never thought of the outside—and that’s how you’ll get
there, Tony.”
“But how?” the young radioman asked.
“I remember how agile you always were,” Tomaso said. “I recall how you
used to run down this hill and leap on the roof of the servants’ wing.
I know you could scale any wall, any tree!”
“That’s right,” Dick agreed. “Tony can get wherever he wants to go. He
can crawl like a cat!”
“But not with a hundred or more pounds of radio under my arm,” Tony
objected. “You’ve a wonderful idea, I’ll admit. Probably couldn’t be a
better place under the circumstances. Still, how can I get there and
get the radio stuff there?”
“From the roof of the servants’ wing,” Tomaso said, “we can raise a
ladder. The longest ladder we have is about fifteen feet long. That
would still leave you fifteen feet from the opening at the top where
the bells were.”
“We can make an extension for the ladder,” Dick said. “We can do that
tomorrow in the woods, bring it down with us tomorrow night.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” the old man said. “But it may not be very strong.
Still, Tony is not heavy. If he also had a rope with a hook on the end,
something that he could toss up to catch over the edge of the opening,
then he could surely pull himself up.”
“We could do that all right,” Tony agreed. He was becoming more excited
at the prospect of placing his radio over German headquarters.
“Then you could pull up the radio equipment with a rope,” Dick said.
“And one of us could climb up to help you. After all, you’ve got to
have some one with you when you broadcast, to crank the generator
handles and give you enough power.”
“How do we know the tower is strong enough?” Tony asked.
“It is strong enough,” the old man said. “It has stood all these years.
A bolt of lightning did no more than knock a few rocks off the top.”
“Won’t we make a good deal of noise getting up there?” Dick asked.
“That is a chance we must take,” Tomaso said. “But there are no Germans
below the servants’ wing. Then, too, the roof is very thick. I think
they will not hear. We set our ladder up against the rear wall of the
tower, so we cannot be seen from the front. We work after midnight when
almost all are asleep, except the sleepy sentries and guards. They do
not watch the villa closely—no, it is the railroad yards, the bridges,
and the dam which they guard well.”
Dick decided to go ahead with the old man’s plan. They made
arrangements to meet him the following night, shortly after midnight,
behind the wing of the villa.
“There will be two more men with us then, Uncle Tomaso,” Dick said. “So
don’t be startled when you see four figures on the hill here.”
The man gave them his blessing, and the two Americans left, circling
around the way they had come. It was close to midnight when they
reached the cave in the hills where they found Vince Salamone and Max
Burckhardt covering them with sub-machine guns as they approached.
Slade was inside with Lieutenant Scotti.
“He’s come to,” Max said to Dick, “but he doesn’t do much more than
mumble yet. It first happened about half an hour ago.”
Dick and Tony hurried inside, where they found Slade bending over the
still prostrate figure of their lieutenant. Dick bent down beside him,
and looked at Slade with questioning eyes.
“Don’t know,” the man shrugged. “He seems to see me, but there may be a
little paralysis somewhere. He can’t talk so that I can understand him,
but his eyes seem clear. It’s encouraging, anyway.”
The light of a pocket flash gave Dick a chance to look into Scotti’s
face. The man’s eyes opened slowly and he peered up. Dick flashed the
light strongly on his own face so that Scotti could see him clearly.
“Jerry,” he said. “Jerry, it’s Dick.”
Scotti’s eyes looked straight and clear at his. Then his mouth opened a
little and some sounds came out, but they meant nothing to Dick. Yet
the look in the eyes showed Dick that the lieutenant recognized him,
knew who he was. He felt sure that the wounded man could understand and
hear everything, even if he could not speak.
“Jerry,” he said, “you banged your head on a rock when you landed.
You’ve been unconscious a long time. But everything is all right. The
rest of us are together. We’re in a good cave in the side of the hill.
Everything is safe. Tony and I have been to Maletta. Tony’s uncle is
there, glad to help us. We’ll set up the radio tomorrow night in town.”
Dick saw the eyelids flicker up and down. It seemed to him that meant
the lieutenant understood what had been said to him. Maybe he was just
hoping that was the case, but somehow, Dick felt more as if the
lieutenant were with them again.
“That’s all for now,” he said quietly. “You must rest more. For some
reason you can’t talk yet. Probably some pressure from the bang on the
head. If you rest you’ll be better tomorrow.”
Once more the eyes flickered up and down as if the man were nodding his
head. Dick turned out the light and went outside, followed by Boom-Boom
Slade. There he told the others what he had said to the lieutenant.
“Somehow I think he got what I said,” he explained. “Could that be
possible, Slade?”
“From what I know, it could be,” Slade replied. “And it may well be
that he’ll regain the ability to talk within a couple of days. I fed
him a little something after he came to, and gave him some water, and
he seemed to like that. From the look in his eyes he isn’t suffering
any great pain.”
“In a week there’ll be American Army doctors here,” Tony said. “They
can fix him up.”
“You sound very certain about that,” Max said. “You and Dick must have
made out all right in town. How about it?”
Dick and Tony told the others about finding Uncle Tomaso and then about
the plans for placing the radio in the old bell tower. At first they
were incredulous, and then they all laughed just the way Uncle Tomaso
had laughed.
“If that really works,” Vince exclaimed, “it’ll be the best joke the
Germans ever had played on them. They think they’re so smart! But it’s
just the sort of thing they’d never dream of doing—or of anybody else
doing. By golly, I think we can really get away with it!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!”_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
They talked for a long time. Slade wanted to know if they had looked at
the dam, of course.
“No, not this trip,” Dick replied. “But I did learn from Uncle Tomaso
that it’s pretty heavily guarded. There’s a power station there, too.
The underground has disrupted it a few times, so a sizable guard is
around, I guess. It won’t be easy to get a big load of dynamite planted
in the right spot there. But—one problem at a time, I say. The radio is
the first job, and we’ll take care of that tomorrow night.”
They finally went to sleep, and they slept late into the morning. Then
they ate and sat around. Dick looked in at Lieutenant Scotti regularly,
and he seemed better all the time. But his inability to speak seemed to
bother him a great deal.
“Don’t try to talk yet,” Dick said. “It’s too much for you.”
This time, Scotti nodded his head slightly to show that he understood.
So Dick proceeded to tell him about the plans for placing the radio in
the bell tower. When he finished he asked, “Did you understand it all?
Do you think it’s okay?”
Again there was a slight nod of the head, and there seemed to be a
smile in Scotti’s eyes.
“I believe he thinks it’s really a funny situation, too,” Dick said to
himself. “He’d like to laugh if he could, poor guy.”