The four men followed the same route Dick and Tony had taken the night before. Vince and Max would have gone at a trot, despite their heavy loads, if Dick had not held them back.
“I never saw two fellows so anxious to walk into an enemy-held town unarmed, and likely to be picked up and shot as spies!” the sergeant laughed.
“I just want to do something, that’s all,” Vince insisted.
“Sure, the general’s depending on us, isn’t he,” Max added, “for the success of this whole operation?”
“Okay, okay,” Dick said. “But the one way to make it a success is to take it easy except when fast action is called for. The main thing to remember tonight is—be quiet!”
They crossed the field and came to the road from the northeast. While Dick clambered up the ditch and looked up and down the highway, the rest of them crouched behind the wall with their loads. The lights of a car flickered a bit away from town, so Dick scurried back and joined the others behind the wall. In a few minutes four big trucks roared past them into the town. Dick jumped up, ran to the road again and motioned the others on.
Just as they were climbing over the wall on the other side, they heard again the sounds of motors and ducked down. This time half a dozen trucks came past and Dick whispered to Max, “Guess the general has started his attack. The reinforcements are beginning to come in.”
In another fifteen minutes the four men stood on the hill behind the villa, near the clump of trees where Dick and Tony had talked with Tomaso the night before. Tony pointed out to Vince and Max the outline of the bell tower which rose high over the villa, and showed them the servants’ wing at the rear of it, where they would put their ladders on the roof.
And then they saw the old man making his way up the hill toward them. They waited in silence until he came under the trees, and then Tony spoke.
“Hello, Uncle Tomaso,” he said gently. “We’re here.”