“Never landed at night before,” Dick Donnelly said, “except on flat desert land.”
“It’s tricky, all right,” Scotti said, “when there are hills and trees below. And there’s no moon to see by tonight. That’s good from one angle because we can’t be seen easily either. But you can’t tell where you’re coming down. Maybe some of us will spend the night caught in some treetops.”
Tony Avella shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all in the game,” he said. “We’ll make out all right.”
The others nodded without speaking, and there was silence in the plane. Five minutes passed this way before the co-pilot stepped back to say quietly, “This is it.”
The men stood up at once, and the fuselage door was thrown open. Tony Avella and Dick Donnelly heaved out the two parachutes carrying the radio equipment, and Tony followed immediately, as if he could not be parted from them for more than a few seconds.
“Go ahead, Dick,” Scotti said, and the sergeant leaped without a word. Then the lieutenant helped Slade and Vince Salamone throw out the four parachutes bearing the containers of dynamite and demolition equipment.
“Right after it, Slade,” Scotti said. “Each man finds his own stuff. Vince will find you and help you with it.”
Little Slade closed his eyes and his face was pale. It still seemed almost to kill him to make a parachute leap but he never said a word about it. He was hardly out the door when the huge bulk of Salamone went after him.
Now only Max Burckhardt and Scotti were left. Together they tossed out the three remaining supply parachutes.
“See you later, Max,” the lieutenant said. “Everybody will head east toward me, you know. But we may not get together until daylight.”