German soldiers, hundreds of trucks, tanks, guns, and many supplies.
The German Army will be trapped and defeated. When the flood waters
recede you will have your town again, and there will be no more Germans
here. Won’t it be worth it?”
The old man thought a moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “It will be worth
it. Of course. If the town were to be wiped off the map forever, it
would be all right if it meant we got rid of the Germans. But what
about the people here?”
“Your own people must be warned in time so they can get to the hills,”
Dick replied. “But not too long in advance must they know, lest some
word leak out. Tonight you can tell those closest to you, those who can
surely be trusted completely. Then, on the night before the wrecking of
the dam, these can pass the word to all others. They must filter out
into the hills, trying their best to cause no wonderment among the
Germans.”
“I understand,” the old man said. “We shall do as you wish. But you
said there were two other things to do.”
“Yes, to help us blow up the dam,” Dick said. He explained that Slade
must be able to get into the pipe-line from the dam and for that the
power plant must be damaged so the water-gates would be shut off for a
few days.
“You said that your people had damaged the power plant before,” Dick
went on. “Can they do it again, tomorrow?”
The old man thought for a few minutes. “Yes,” he said, “I believe they
can. You see, there are now only a few Italians allowed to work there.
Those are on the day shift. Only Germans are there at night. But one of
our men there has been experimenting. He told me that he had discovered
that a wrench set on a certain ledge near the big dynamo would
gradually move, from the vibration, and fall into the mechanism in
about fifteen minutes. His idea was to place some tools on that spot
just before he left work. Then, if none of the night men saw them
within fifteen minutes, they would topple into the dynamo. And they
would surely damage it badly. You see, they could not blame it on the
Italians, because no Italians would be around at the time it happened.
He wanted to find some way to wreck the machinery without having a few
hostages shot as a result. That’s what happened the last time.”
“It sounds perfect,” Dick said. “Will he try it tomorrow?”
“When he knows who asks it,” Tomaso replied, “he will do it. He is now
the tenor in our little opera company and he will do anything for
Ricardo Donnelli. And after doing that he will sing even better in the
performance tomorrow night.”
Dick smiled.
“What are they performing tomorrow night?” he asked.
“_Pagliacci_,” Tomaso replied. “Nowadays we can give only short
performances.”
“Now for the second request,” Dick said. “We must find some way to get
our men to the pipe-line at the dam, which is well guarded. It may be
guarded even more completely after the sabotage tomorrow. So—you know
that this man, Max Burckhardt, speaks German. If he could appear at the
dam in the uniform of a high German officer, he might be able in some
way to order the sentries to allow our other men with dynamite to get
in.”
Tomaso looked puzzled for a moment, and then he understood. “You would
like me to take a uniform for this man, so that he could wear it?” he
asked.
“Yes, if you wouldn’t endanger yourself in doing it,” Dick said.
“Oh, even if there were danger,” Tomaso said, “that would not bother me
if it helped you. But there will not be any danger at all. I clean all
the rooms. I am even alone in them sometimes. And they pay no attention
to me, just an old man puttering around. They think I am not quite
bright, anyway. I have made them think that my mind is almost gone,
that I am a little imbecilic.”
He chuckled, and the others smiled. How could the Germans ever hope to
win against people like that?
“I know what uniform I shall take,” Tomaso said, with a broad smile.
“It should fit this man quite well, too. I shall take the uniform of
the new Gestapo colonel who has set up headquarters here to search for
that illegal radio everyone is talking about. He has many beautiful
uniforms. He is a very vain man. And he is a very high official. Even
the regular generals here are afraid of him—of the Gestapo!”
“Perfect!” Dick cried. “That couldn’t be better!”
“Tomorrow night I shall have it for you,” Tomaso said. “And I shall
also be able to tell you then about the sabotage at the power plant.
But come before eight o’clock. I do not want to miss any of the opera.”
With a good-bye, Tomaso went back to his rooms, and the three Americans
struck off for the northwestern road, which Dick was eager to look
over. They kept to the side of the hill above the town so they would
not be seen. In half an hour they came to the road where it cut into
the hill above the gorge. They were able to get close to it, as the
trees covered their approach.
“This road has been cut out of the hillside,” Slade said. “It would be
very easy to blow up. All you’d need would be a fair-sized charge
behind some big rocks up here, and the side of the hill would just
slide down on to the road. Of course, a good engineers’ company could
have it clear again in about four hours, with the proper
equipment—bulldozers and such.”
“The Germans won’t have any such equipment by that time,” Dick said.
“It will all be under water. And a few hours is really all we need
anyway. If they can’t escape up this road, they’ll be caught by the
flood waters from the dam. The only way anyone could get away would be
on foot into the hills. And that’s just what we want.”
“Then you’re going to try to blow up this road?” Max asked.
“Yes, as my own private venture in this operation,” Dick replied,
“provided everything else works out all right. If I’m needed at the
dam, then I’ll forget this, but if our plans there look good, I’ll come
over here with the leftover dynamite.”
They spent another half-hour on the hillside, looking over the land.
Slade finally pointed out to Dick the best spot for placing his
dynamite charge, and where he should stand with his detonator. Then the
three men headed back behind the town and up to their cave on the
opposite hill. It had been a busy night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
INTERRUPTED PERFORMANCE
They spent a good part of the next day sleeping, although they still
had plenty of time to talk over their plans. They found it more
difficult than ever to sit in front of the cave doing nothing when they
knew so many things must be going on elsewhere. They wondered if the
local tenor would succeed with his scheme of wrecking the dynamo. They
asked each other a dozen times if old Tomaso would really be able to
steal that Gestapo colonel’s uniform. Max even spent some time
practising his German, trying to get a note of authority and command
into it.
“If I can just try to be as tough and nasty and mean as possible,” he
said, “then I may begin to sound a little bit like a Gestapo colonel.”
“Well, you’ll be talking to German soldiers,” Scotti put in, “and you
ought to find it easy to act nasty to them.”
The lieutenant was much better now, and he could talk almost normally.
There was a throbbing pain in his head regularly, and his broken leg
was uncomfortable, but the thing that bothered him most was his
inability to take any active part in the proceedings.
“You don’t let me do anything, Dick,” he protested. “It’s you who
figured out every plan so far, as well as carrying them through. I
needn’t have come along on this trip at all.”
But Dick was relieved to be able to have the advice and counsel of his
lieutenant in his complicated plans. Each one of them was a long
gamble, and he knew it. He wanted the benefit of every bit of advice he
could get. And it was Lieutenant Scotti who figured out the method Max
was later to use in diverting the attention of the guards at the dam so
that Slade could get in to place his dynamite.
That action was planned for that night—the fifth night of their stay
behind the enemy lines. At dawn of the sixth night the dam was
scheduled to be blown up, and they wanted to get their dynamite in
place twenty-four hours ahead of time. Slade had figured that he could
place the dynamite, run a wire down the pipe so that it extended about
one inch from a hatch opening. Then, on the last night, he could hook
up another length of wire to that, lead it away to his detonator, and
set it off.
But they did not know that the Germans had decided there were Americans
in the neighborhood. The decoding experts had not been able to decipher
completely the radio messages which Tony had sent, but they had gotten
enough of a hint to know that they were reports on German troop and
supply movements through Maletta. And they felt sure that military men
were making those reports.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dick Donnelly went off to town alone shortly after dark that evening.
He was going to find out about the sabotage at the power plant and pick
up the German uniform from Tomaso—that was all. Then he planned to
return to the cave, where Max would put on the uniform, and they would
all set out for the dam together.
There was nothing to worry him unduly as he circled over the fields and
came up toward the villa on the north hill. He saw many trucks and cars
on the road, but this was nothing new during the last few days. Just as
he left the little dead-end side street and walked up the hill to meet
Tomaso at the clump of trees, a car roared to a stop at the end of the
street and German soldiers poured out of it, heading straight up the
hill.
Dick ran forward quickly to the trees, and there he found Tomaso,
nervous and agitated.
“It’s terrible,” the old man said. “You’ll be caught!”
“What’s terrible?” Dick asked. “What has happened?”
“I just learned—overheard the officers talking,” Tomaso said. “They
feel sure Americans are hiding somewhere in Maletta. They’ve surrounded
the town and are going to search it thoroughly. They’ve got a ring
around the town now, and it will close in more and more tightly as
soldiers go through every house, every building.”
“Oh—those soldiers who went up the hill over there—” Dick muttered.
“They’re part of the ring around the town.”
“Yes, I heard them say men must circle up behind the villa, and then
walk down so closely that not a person could slip through the ring.
They’ll be here any minute. We cannot stay here.”
“No, come on down toward the villa,” Dick said. “We can talk as we go.
You have the uniform there?”
“Yes, shall I try to put it back now so we won’t be caught with it?”
“No, I’ll take it,” Dick said. “I may be able to get away with it yet.
What about the power plant?”
“The plan succeeded,” Tomaso said. “The dynamo is wrecked, the
water-gates shut, and specialists have been summoned from the north.
But I hear they cannot arrive with new parts for at least three days.”
“Good,” Dick said.
“Not good,” Tomaso said. “Of what use is all this if now you are to be
caught?”
They were approaching the wing of the villa now, and hid in its shadow.
“I may not be caught,” Dick said. “And even if I am, the others will
carry through somehow. Has the guard been increased at the dam?”
“No, because they believe the damage was caused by a German workman,”
Tomaso said. “No Italians were there. So the German was judged careless
and the Gestapo colonel had him brought down here at once. He ordered
him shot. So the guard is not increased. Only a corporal is in charge
at night. There are nine sentries under him.”
They stopped and listened. Up above on the hill they heard the tramp of
men’s feet, the calling of orders in German.
“Come on,” Dick said. “We might as well make them take as long as
possible to find me. Where can we go?”
“I—I was going to the opera,” Tomaso said. “I don’t know now if I
should go.”
“Of course,” Dick said. “You must not be found with me if I am caught.
But wait—where is the opera house?”
“In the next block—to the right,” Tomaso replied.
“Can we get there without crossing in front of the villa?” Dick asked.
“Yes, around in back,” the old man said, grabbing his arm, “but we must
hurry.”
He led Dick behind the rear wing to the western side, cut behind a
small house not far from the villa, brushed aside a dog who started to
bark at the next house, and then stopped at a narrow street. Between
two houses Dick could see what must be the opera house, a large
building with numerous lights in it, and people already going in the
front doors.
Dick hid the German uniform under his loose peasant’s coat and spoke
quietly to Tomaso.
“Take me to the stage door,” he said. “Tell your tenor friend, the man
who wrecked the power plant so cleverly, who I am. Then leave me. I
have an idea.”
They walked quickly across the street and along the side of the opera
house to a side door near the rear. A man leaned against the doorjamb
and looked up at them curiously.
“Arturo, quick,” the old man said. “Ask no questions. Find Enrico at
once. Bring him here.”
The man’s eyes opened wide, then he darted inside. He reappeared in a
few seconds with a young man who limped slightly. The young man had
begun to apply make-up to his face. He beckoned them inside.
“Enrico, this is the American,” Tomaso said. “This is Ricardo Donnelli.”
The young man looked at Dick in admiration but said nothing.
“The Germans have surrounded the town, and are searching for him,”
Tomaso said. “Help him. Do what he asks.”
“Anything,” Enrico said. “You go now, Tomaso.”
The old man stopped at the door long enough to say, “Not a word of
this,” to the doorkeeper, who nodded his head in vigorous assent. Then
he disappeared.
Dick spoke quickly in Italian to the young singer.
“I’ve got only one chance to escape detection,” he said. “Let me play
your role tonight. In the clown costume of _Pagliacci_ they’ll never
recognize me. They’ll just think I’m the regular tenor.”
“Not if you sing as you used to,” Enrico smiled. “You must be sure to
sing very badly. Then you will sound like me.”
“Perhaps the audience will know the difference,” Dick said, “but I’ll
have to take a chance on that. Even if they do, maybe they will say
nothing.”
“They will say nothing,” Enrico assured him. “They will know you are
the American for whom the Germans search, and they will want to help
you.”
“What about those among you who work with the Germans?” Dick asked.
“There are still some quislings, I believe.”
“Yes, but they dare not come to public gatherings like this,” Enrico
said. “They are afraid of the rest of the townspeople.”
“All right then?” Dick asked.
“All right,” Enrico replied. “Come to my dressing room now. The others
in the company must be told. They can be trusted, all of them. I shall
tell them while you get into costume and make-up. Then I shall join the
orchestra in the pit and play a drum inconspicuously.”
In a few minutes Dick was putting the clown costume over his clothes.
The floppy suit was so roomy that he was able to tie the Gestapo
uniform around his waist beneath it. Then he smeared over his face the
heavy dead-white make-up of the clown. When it dried, he put on his
wig, and then the round red spots which covered the clown’s face. He
looked at himself in the cracked mirror.
“A mother couldn’t recognize her own son in this get-up,” he laughed.
“I may be able to get away with this.”
He heard a tap on his door and called “Come in,” in Italian. A man in
the costume of Tonio, with the fake hump on his back, entered the room
and smiled.
“We all know,” he said. “We shall help, no matter what happens. You are
safe. And we shall never forget the great honor of having sung with—”
then he decided he should never even mention the name, lest the Gestapo
hear—“with the world’s greatest tenor.”
“Thanks,” Dick said, with a smile. “I hope I won’t get any of you into
trouble.”
While Tonio sang the prologue, Dick wondered what the men at the cave
would be thinking. They expected him back there by this time. And what
about Tony, still maintaining his lonely vigil in that old bell tower?
He would have seen the Germans encircling the town, going through every
house. It would be some little time before the searching parties would
reach the opera house. It would be best if they came in while the
performance was going on, and while Dick was on the stage.
Then someone called him, and he stood in the wings waiting for his cue.
He looked about. The sets were old and dirty, as Tomaso had said. The
stage was not very large. And the orchestra in the pit was about half
as large as it used to be, Dick knew. But the men played as if they
loved it, and the singers sang with fire and sincerity, even if their
voices did not have the best quality in the world. He felt a thrill—a
thrill he had not known for a long time—go through him as he heard the
music and got himself ready to step on a stage once more and sing.
When he finally was there, singing, he knew that his voice was rusty,
not up to its best by any means. But perhaps it was just as well. If he
were in good voice, the Germans might make inquiries about him.
At the end of the first act there was a burst of applause that shook
the old opera house, even though it was less than half filled. Between
the acts, after taking his many bows, Dick was nervous. The audience
obviously knew that he was not Enrico, the regular tenor. It was a big
crowd to be in on something that was supposed to be so secret, but it
was a chance he had had to take in view of developments. He kept
listening for the approach of the searching German troops, hoping they
would not come until the performance started again.
Finally there came the bell for the second act, and Dick as Canio went
on the stage for his great aria, _Vesti la giubba_. It was in the midst
of that sobbing, heartbroken song of the clown that Dick saw the
Germans. They came in the front entrance of the opera house, about
fifteen of them, led by the elegant but worried Gestapo colonel, who
did not yet know, Dick concluded, that one of his uniforms had been
stolen. Then Dick saw more soldiers in the wings, on both sides of the
stage. But he kept on singing, as if nothing had happened. The Germans
just stood and listened and, when he finished the aria, joined in the
applause.
Dick bowed, and bowed again as the applause continued. But then the
other singers started to go on with the performance. At that the
colonel, with some of his men, strode down the hall holding up his hand
for silence.
The singers stopped, and the orchestra drifted quickly into silence.
The colonel then mounted the steps leading to the stage, strutting like
a peacock. An aide followed him. When he was sure he had the attention
of everyone, he uttered a few words in German to the aide, who
thereupon spoke in Italian to the assemblage.
“His excellency begs your forgiveness for interrupting this beautiful
performance,” the man said in a toneless voice, “but he is compelled to
do so because of spies in our fair city.”
The aide paused while the colonel spoke more words to him in German.
Then he continued to tell the audience that American spies were known
to be somewhere in the town and a thorough, house-to-house search had
to be made for them. The colonel was sure, the aide said, that only a
few of the Italian population would think of harboring such criminals,
and that most of them would aid in running down their common enemy. He
then asked if anyone knew of the whereabouts of any American spy.
No one raised a hand. The colonel then said it would be necessary for
his men to go through the entire theater carefully looking for the
Americans. As soon as the search was ended, the performance could
continue. At that, German soldiers moved down the aisles, asking
everyone for papers, for some means of identification if they had lost
their papers. Others went through the orchestra pit, the dressing
rooms, the basement, and the catwalk above the stage where sets were
pulled up out of sight.
The colonel waited on the stage while all this was going on. Dick and
the others stood on the stage not far from him, waiting until
everything was over. No one thought of asking the singers for
identification papers. No one paid any attention to them except the
colonel, who rather self-consciously smiled at them a couple of times.
In half an hour the search was ended, and the colonel looked a little
worried as he told his aide to say that anyone knowing of the presence
of an American should report it to headquarters at once.
As the Germans moved toward the exits, Dick motioned to the orchestra
leader, who raised his baton, and took up where he had left off. In a
few minutes there were no more soldiers, and the ring closing in on the
American spies had passed beyond them. Dick sang the rest of his role
with a happiness and a fervor such as he had never felt. His singing
inspired the other performers and the orchestra to new heights of
beauty.
Shortly before the end he had an idea.
He knew all these people in the opera house could be trusted now. So he
would take this opportunity to tell them of the impending destruction
of the dam. Following the music of the orchestra but making up new
words as he went along, he thanked them all for their help, assured
them they would soon be liberated by the American Army. He told them
when the dam would be blown up, told them to leave the town before that
time, filtering out into the hills as unobtrusively as possible.
At the end of the passage in which he told them these things, one of
the other singers sang his part and also invented words for the music.
He said that the Americans could count on full cooperation of the
people of Maletta, who would return from the hills to welcome the
conquering American Army.
Soon the opera ended, and the applause was deafening. After many bows,
Dick left the stage and hurried to his dressing room. There he found
Enrico, and soon Tomaso came. He hardly listened to their praise of his
voice, of his cleverness in using the opera to tell the townspeople of
the plans ahead. But, when he had removed the make-up and costume, he
shook Enrico by the hand heartily.
“You have been a tremendous help,” he said, “in more ways than one.
First the dam, then this. The whole American Army will thank you,
Enrico, believe me!”
Then he and Tomaso were gone. They left the side door of the opera
house, cut back of the villa, and then Dick went up on the roof and
into the tower with Tony. There he told the whole story to the young
radioman, who had been fearful that something must have gone wrong.
“Why couldn’t I have heard you?” he asked. “I’m missing everything
imprisoned up in this tower—most of the war, and now your singing!”
“Well, I’m going to sit down for a few minutes,” Dick said. “We can’t
carry through our plan to go to the dam tonight. It’s too late for me
to get back to the cave, get Max into his uniform, carry the dynamite
to the dam and place it. It will just have to be done tomorrow night.
So I’ll stay here until our one o’clock broadcast to headquarters and
help you with it.”
“No you won’t,” Tony said. “You’ve had one narrow escape tonight. After
this broadcast, they’ll have their mobile units out trying to find us.
They may throw another dragnet around the city, because that Colonel
Klage will be just about crazy. I’ll handle this one alone. You get on
back to the cave and let those boys up there stop biting their nails
for fear something’s gone wrong. I don’t care if you are my sergeant
and I’m only a corporal. You get out of here—right now!”
Dick grinned and shook his head. “All right, all right,” he said. “I
guess you’re right at that. You know what to tell them in your report.
Good luck! I’ll see you sometime tomorrow night.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NO CALM BEFORE THE STORM
The men at the cave were doing far more than biting their nails. They
were pacing up and down, those who could, and Scotti was just about to
send Vince and Max off to town to see what had happened.
When Dick walked in, he had so many questions hurled at him at once
that he could say nothing at all. Finally he got everyone calmed down,
and they sat down on the floor of the cave near Scotti while he told
the whole story of the exciting evening. As he got into it, he was not
interrupted once, for they all listened with open mouths at the almost
incredible story he had to relate.