“The Jerries are probably bringing up some mortars from the trucks below,” Dick muttered to Max and the others. “We’d just better hope that they don’t get the range too fast, before we get out, too. Here—get these cords attached.”
He pulled from his pocket two balls of stout cord and handed one to Max, the other to Bert.
Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord
“Tie one end to the triggers of the fixed Tommy guns,” he said. “Then reel off a good length, about seventy-five feet, and cut it. Get lengths of cord on each Tommy gun. Keep up our own fire with the Reisings. Give ’em a burst once in a while so they’ll know we’re still here.”
The men carried out the order quickly, as Dick kept glancing back at the men in the water. All were on their way across now, and the first man was reaching the stretch where he might be seen by any Germans on the dam wall.
“I don’t think they’ve got any men there, though,” Dick told himself. “Don’t see why they should. They know the dam isn’t blown up yet, which was their main worry, and they know they’ve got us trapped back here. Of course, they may be ordered back to the pass to help the main force attacked by our Rangers. But the frontal attack should be started on the Pass by this time, and it might be all over before they could get there.”
He was pleased to see the first man duck under the water and swim the last ten feet without being seen. And he smiled to see him come up in the shelter of a rock on the opposite point of land.