“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!”