“Dick—awake?” It was Tony’s voice beside him.
“Sure—just woke up,” Dick replied. “But I don’t know if I can move. My neck feels as if it would snap in two if I tried to turn it.”
“Same here,” Tony said. “But I think it’s going to begin getting light before long. We might be able to get something done.”
“I know it,” Dick agreed. “The Germans might have planes going over pretty early and I don’t want them to spot any ’chutes.”
With an effort he got to his feet, wagging his head from side to side while he grimaced with the pain. Then he stamped his sleeping foot on the hard earth while it tingled to life. He turned and looked at Tony Avella, who was going through the same thing.
“Do I look as groggy as you do, Tony?” he laughed.
“If you look as groggy as I feel,” Tony answered, “you’re pretty bad. I can’t see without a fuzziness over everything.”
But in a few minutes they were awake. Together they scrambled up the big tree and got Dick’s parachute untangled from the branches. Wrapping it up in a bundle with the harness, Dick slung it over his shoulder.
“Don’t want to leave any evidence like this around,” he said, following Tony off through the trees to help him find his things.
Tony’s ’chute was only about fifty yards from the tree in which Dick had landed. They stowed the two parachutes together and then walked south searching for the two radio ’chutes. They found the first one almost at once. It was caught on an overhanging rock over a sheer drop of about thirty feet to a stone ledge below.