“Where are the Rangers going?” Max Burckhardt asked.
“They’re cutting over the hills, to come down on those entrenched Germans from above,” Scotti continued. “The Germans won’t expect it for a minute. In the first place, the hill is considered almost impassable. Also, their observation planes have not noted any move of a body of troops in that direction. That’s because the troops waited for darkness, were rushed to the bottom of the hill by truck after dark, and will climb all night. It’s an almost impossible feat, and the Germans don’t think we’re very good soldiers yet. They think you’ve got to have plenty of battle experience to do a job like that. So they’re sure we won’t pull such a trick.”
“Well—I know those Ranger-Commando boys are good,” Dick Donnelly said. “But can they really do it, if it’s so near to impossible?”
“They’ll do it,” the lieutenant replied with a smile. “They had the whole job put up to them on a volunteer basis, and the toughness of it wasn’t played down, either. And they were told that we fellows would be sticking our necks out, because our very lives depended on their making that march on time. They said they’d make it, and they said it as if they meant it. They know the score—and they won’t miss.”
Jerry Scotti looked around at the faces and saw smiles, a few nods, and some relief. These men knew, too, that the Rangers would get to the top of their hill on time, even though many of them would be carrying guns and mortars.
“Okay—now here’s where we come in,” Scotti said. “Just after dawn we fly past the Wadizam Pass, to the north of it, circling around as if we were trying to sneak in just when we had enough light to see but before the Germans would see us. Of course, they will see us and we know it. But they haven’t got much of an opinion of us as soldiers or tacticians yet; so they’ll think we’re fools enough to believe we can get away with it.”
“I get it,” Tony Avella said. “They’ve been saying the Americans were stupid. Well, we’re going to take advantage of their thinking that.”
“Sure, that’s it,” Scotti said. “And we’ll be quite a parachute force dropping behind their lines on the opposite hill from the ones the Rangers will be coming over. Twenty planes dropping paratroopers back there can cause a lot of damage, and they know it. There’re a couple of important bridges, a dam, and some telegraph lines we can cut.”
“Is that what we’re going to do?” Dick asked.
“No, it’s not,” the lieutenant answered.