The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dick Donnelly of the Paratroops, by Marshall McClintock, Illustrated by Francis Kirn

DICK DONNELLY

of the

PARATROOPS

Story by

GREGORY DUNCAN

Illustrated by

FRANCIS KIRN

WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY

RACINE, WISCONSIN

Copyright, 1944, by

WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY

Printed in U. S. A.

All names, characters, places, and events in this

story are entirely fictitious

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield

DICK DONNELLY
of
THE PARATROOPS

CHAPTER ONE

TOKEN RESISTANCE

The big transport plane flew out of a cloud just as the sun appeared over the flat horizon of the desert to the east. The rolling hills over which the clouds hung low smoothed out as they met and merged with the flat wasteland. A row of trees, the only ones in sight, lined one edge of a rectangle even flatter and smoother than the land near by. A long, low building near the trees, with two small airplanes in front of it, identified the rectangle as an airfield.

Before the transport reached the field, another slid out of the cloud. Suddenly swift fighter planes darted past them, swept low over the airfield with machine guns splattering their bullets over the hard earth, the two small planes, and the low hangar. They circled swiftly, just as a third transport appeared from the clouds, and roared past the field, on the far side of the line of trees. Long streaks of white smoke poured from them, falling lazily and billowing into man-made clouds as dense as those in which the planes had recently been flying. In five minutes the smoke screen was a wall twenty feet thick and a hundred feet high.

Meanwhile, the first transport had circled the field, dropping lower. Suddenly a figure plunged from the side of its fuselage, hurtled toward the ground, and then checked its descent with a jerk as a white parachute billowed out above. Another figure had dropped from the plane before the first ’chute opened, and now it too floated gently to earth behind the smoke screen. In rapid succession, eighteen men leaped from the plane, which sped back toward the hills as another came in to discharge its cargo of soldiers.

As the first man landed, he rolled over the hard earth, tugging at the lines of his parachute to spill the air from it. In a moment it had collapsed and the man had slipped from his harness. Dropping his emergency ’chute, he unfolded the stock of his sub-machine gun and ran forward, crouching, toward the smoke screen, on the other side of which lay the airfield building.

“Jerry!” a voice called from behind him, and he turned.

“Okay, Dick?” the first man called back.

“Yes, sir,” replied the second, running up. “And here come the rest.”

In less than three minutes the eighteen men from the first plane had gathered near their leader, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti.

“We won’t wait for the heavies,” he said. “I think this is a setup. Come on.”

He turned and ran into the cloud of smoke, followed by the others, who held their guns ready. As they broke out of the cloud on the other side, they dropped to the ground. The hangar was not more than a hundred feet away. There was still no sign of activity in or around it. Not a man had been seen since the planes first came over.

“No cover here at all,” muttered the second man, Sergeant Dick Donnelly.

“No opposition, either,” laughed the Lieutenant. “Can’t see a soul.”

“Think they’ve skipped out?” Donnelly asked his companion.

“No—no place to skip to, except by plane,” Scotti replied. “They must be in the hangar, just waiting. The Major said we might not meet any defense at all. Most of these Frenchmen are mighty happy to have us invading North Africa.”

“Sure, but some of ’em are putting up a fight,” the sergeant said. “They’re good soldiers and if their officers tell them to fight back, they fight back.”

“Get back a bit into the protection of the smoke,” Scotti said, and his men pushed themselves back ten feet. “Now let’s give them a burst and see what happens.”

The silence, broken only by the steady drone of airplane motors in the skies overhead, was shattered by the stuttering explosions of sub-machine guns. The bullets thudded into the thick, hard clay walls of the hangar.

Suddenly three rifles and a pistol were thrust through the windows at the rear of the hangar and they fired repeatedly—into the air! Then a white flag was thrust from the middle window on a long pole, so quickly that it must have been ready for the purpose.

“We surrendair!” called a voice from the hangar. “Les Américains—zey have conquered us!”

“All right,” shouted Lieutenant Scotti, advancing from the smoke screen about ten feet. “Toss all guns out the window.”

“Oui, oui, at once!” came back the voice.

Half a dozen rifles, three automatics, and two light machine guns were thrust from the windows and clattered to the ground. By this time two other groups of American soldiers had appeared, one to the right and one to the left of Scotti’s group.

“It’s all over,” he called to them. “Hold your fire! They’ve surrendered.”

“My golly!” cried a voice from the group on the left. “What did we come along for—just to take a ride?”

But Lieutenant Scotti had turned his attention back to the hangar.

“Now come out that side door,” he called. “One at a time, with your hands up.”

In a moment the side door of the hangar was opened and out stepped a smiling French officer, his hands in the air. His blue uniform was as trim as his tiny mustache, and he walked erect, with dignity and military precision. Just as the other French soldiers came out behind him, three men appeared from the smoke, which now was lifting somewhat, behind Scotti’s group. Dick Donnelly turned from his officer’s side and called to them.

“Take it easy, boys.” he said with a grin. “The heavy machine guns won’t be needed—unless you want a little target practice later just to keep in trim.”

The men, who had quickly assembled a machine gun dropped by parachute from one of the planes, rushed it forward with all possible speed, stopped in their tracks, dropped their heavy burdens, and looked disappointed.

“Aren’t we ever gonna get any fightin’?” grumbled the first man.

“Wasn’t that little business at Casablanca enough for you?” asked Donnelly.

“Sure, but that was three weeks ago!” was the reply.

By this time the French soldiers were lined up alongside the hangar, their hands in the air. There were two other officers, four enlisted men and four men whose overalls showed that they were mechanics.

“We have resisted,” cried the first officer happily. “Did you not see? We fired our guns in resistance against your attack as we have been commanded. But your superior numbairs overcame us. Yes?”

Lieutenant Jerry Scotti grinned and walked forward.

“Sure, I understand,” he said. “You put up a whale of a fight! Lucky nobody was hurt. You can put your hands down now.”

Scotti turned to his sergeant.

“Sergeant Donnelly, you may send up the flares signaling capitulation of the French airfield after a brief but fierce fight. The other planes can come in now.”

As Dick Donnelly, with a few of his men, hurried off to carry out the Lieutenant’s order, Jerry Scotti extended his hand to the French officer, who grabbed it and shook it heartily, mumbling happy phrases all the time in such an outpouring of words and exclamations that Scotti, whose French was limited, could understand nothing of what was said. But he did know that the man was delighted—so delighted, in fact, that a mere handshake would not suffice to demonstrate his enthusiasm. He flung his arms around Lieutenant Scotti, who looked a little embarrassed, especially at the grins of his own men who stood in a circle around him.

“I feel as if I ought to say something important,” he muttered, “like ‘Lafayette, we are here’ or something.”

The other groups of soldiers had gone forward to the hangar, searched the inside of the building, looked over the two obsolete French fighter planes standing in front, and watched Donnelly set off his signal flares. In a few minutes they were looking at half a dozen more transport planes as they circled and came in for a landing on the hard runway of the field. Their wheels had hardly stopped rolling when men in khaki uniforms piled from them, formed lines and were marched to the edge of the field by their commanding officers.

A half hour after the first plane had appeared from the cloud over the hills, there were two hundred American soldiers at the French airfield. In the hangar, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti saluted Captain Murphy, who came in with the air-borne troops, and made his report.

“Good work,” the Captain said, as he sat at the desk and began to look over the papers on it. “The transports will take you and the other parachute troops back to your base at once. They have to get off the field within ten minutes because the fighter squadron will be coming in. We’ve leap-frogged quite a jump this time. Oh yes—see that the French prisoners are taken back to your base, too. And you can tell them they’ll probably be fighting alongside us against the Germans within a few weeks.”

“They’ll like that, sir,” Scotti said. “I’ve talked with a couple of them. I’ve never had anyone so happy to see me as they were. Still, they had to put up that token resistance.”

“Yes, wonderful spirit,” Captain Murphy agreed. “You can inform Captain Rideau, the commanding officer, that his actions when we attacked the field will be relayed to the French authorities who will organize French forces in North Africa to battle the common enemy.”

Within two hours, Lieutenant Scotti, Sergeant Dick Donnelly, and all the paratroopers from their plane as well as the others, were back at the little town which had been their base for the past week. The Frenchmen, technically under military arrest, had the freedom of the town.

At dinner that evening Private First Class Max Burckhardt complained loudly to Sergeant Dick Donnelly.

“What a washout!” he grumbled. “Nothing but a nice plane ride, an easy parachute jump, a little standing around in the hot sun, and then a ride back again. Do they call this a war?”

“Keep your shirt on, Max,” Sergeant Dick Donnelly replied with a smile. “The French want us to come. Just you wait until we make contact with the Germans!”

“Ah—yes!” boomed the burly private. “That’s what I’m waiting for—for a chance at some of those Nazis.”

“It won’t be long now,” mused the sergeant. “It won’t be long.”

CHAPTER TWO

A MAN WITH TWO NAMES

As the days rolled by, the good-natured complaints grew in number and intensity. The men wanted to fight and they were not fighting.

“When I volunteered for the paratroops,” young Tony, the radioman, said one day, “I did it because I like action. I like excitement. I like thrills. Danger—it doesn’t mean much to me. Some day I’m gonna get killed, that’s all. I’m sort of a fatalist, I guess. When my number’s up it’s up, and sitting around worryin’ about it won’t change it. Meanwhile, have a good time, get a kick out of things, and do your darnedest in anything you’ve got to do.”

“I know what you mean,” Dick Donnelly said. “And I feel a little bit the same way—but I don’t believe in not ducking when a shell’s coming over.”

“Oh—I don’t invite death to come see me,” Tony said. “But, as I was sayin’, I thought the parachute troops would be wonderful. And important, too. Droppin’ behind enemy lines, messin’ up their communications, blowin’ up a few bridges, takin’ an airfield—and all this with the enemy all around you! It’s good tough stuff, and that’s what I like. But what happened?”

“Well, what did happen?” Dick smiled.

“I get into the parachute troops after my basic,” Tony said. “And then, first, they teach me how to fall down. As if I haven’t fallen down plenty of times when I was a kid. And from places just as high as they made me jump off of, too. When you’re a kid duckin’ away from the gang from the next block, you know how to climb and dodge—and fall. Then the practice jumps from the tower! What do they need a tower for? Why not just get us up in a plane and toss us out? We’ll learn how to use a ’chute fast enough that way, don’t you worry.”

“But, Tony, you’ve got to remember,” Dick said, “that not everybody is as agile as you are. And they don’t have the same attitude as you. They feel a little funny at first, jumping out of an airplane. And they’re likely to get mixed up and forget which side the ripcord is on. Some people tighten up and get panicky. They’ve got to learn things slowly, get used to them.”

“What’s so hard about it?” Tony demanded. “You jump, and you don’t even have to worry about the ripcord. It’s hooked inside the plane.”

“Well, they’ve got to teach you how to land right,” Dick countered. “Otherwise you might break a leg or get dragged half a mile by your ’chute.”

“Anybody knows he ought to roll when he falls,” Tony said. “And you can see you have to spill the air out of your ’chute and slip out of the harness. It’s easy.”

“For you, yes,” Dick said. “You could scramble up the side of a sheer wall twenty feet high, like a cat. You’d have made a wonderful bantam halfback if you’d ever played football, Tony, the way you can duck and dodge and twist and go underneath or over anything that’s between you and where you want to go. Anyway—so paratroops training was easy for you. Then what?”

“One thing I did like,” the young corporal said, “and that was the conditioning. They decided paratroopers had to be tough and they put us through everything to make us tough. I like that. I like to be hard as nails and in perfect condition all the time. It makes me feel swell. And I liked the chance to learn radio. I’d fooled around a lot with it as a kid. The Army really taught me things about it.”

“And you learned what they taught, too,” the sergeant said. “That’s why you’re a corporal so early in the game, and so young.”

“I don’t care about that,” Tony said. “I want to get fighting. I don’t like this sittin’ around. I thought this North African invasion would really be the works. When we shipped out from home, I knew it was something big. But what have we done?”

“Tough fight when we landed back of Casablanca,” Donnelly said. “That was a good scrap.”

“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said

“Sure, it started off fine,” Tony agreed. “But then we just sat for three weeks. Sure, we moved forward from one base to another as the ground troops went forward. But no fighting. No parachuting. Nothing. Then today we thought it had come at last. But it was nothing. Just a practice jump.”

“When we reach Tunisia,” Dick said, “we’ll run into some real fighting. By the way, Tony, I suppose you’ve thought some about how you’ll feel fighting Italians. Will you be so anxious to fight them?”

“Well, I’m an American,” Tony said. “I was born in America. I’m fighting for America. But my folks—they were Italian. And their friends, lots of ’em come from Italy. And I’ve got cousins and uncles and aunts there, even visited them once for almost a year when I was about sixteen. But it’s not them I’m fighting. They don’t want this war at all. They’re fightin’ just because somebody is makin’ ’em do it. That’s why they’ve been so lousy during this war. Some people think I must get upset when Italians always run away in battle. No—I like it. It doesn’t mean they’re cowards or bad soldiers. It just means they don’t want to fight this war.”

“Well—I don’t want to fight, really,” Dick said. “And neither do most Americans. What about that?”

“You don’t like to go to war,” Tony said. “Neither do I. But we know what we’re fightin’ for. We know our country’s worth fightin’ for. But what about these Italians—most of ’em? They haven’t got anything to fight for—against us. They love their country, but not their government. And they know they’ll get shot or starved to death, or their kids will get punished some way, if they don’t fight when the government tells them to. So they fight—but without any heart in it.”

“But you may be killing some of them,” Dick said. “Maybe even some of your relatives.”

“That’ll be too bad,” Tony said. “I don’t want to kill anybody, really. But if you’ve got to shoot a few guys, or even a few million, because some louse who wants to ruin the world has sold them a bill of goods or made ’em go out and try to kill you—then that’s just the only way to do what we’ve got to do. When I shoot at the enemy I’m not shootin’ at any one person. I’m just shootin’ at an idea I hate, an idea that will ruin the whole world if it isn’t stopped. If the other guys are supportin’ that idea with guns, then I’ve got to shoot ’em, that’s all. And it doesn’t make any difference if they’re Italians or not. It doesn’t make any difference if they’re Americans. If any Americans try to make our country like Germany, then I’ll shoot them too.”

Max Burckhardt had wandered up and joined them as they sat under the shade of a palm tree.

“Tony’s right,” the big private said. “But I’m itchin’ especially to get at some Germans, even if my folks were German. I won’t be shootin’ Germans—I’ll just be shootin’ the men who are tryin’ to force on me their way of living, a way I don’t like at all. Since the German Nazis did this more than anybody else, they’re the ones I want to get at more than anyone else.”

There was a moment’s pause.

Dick Donnelly sighed. “Well, you’ll have your chances soon,” he said. “Both of you. You’ll be fightin’ Germans and Italians before long.”

“Say—by the way,” Max said, “I found out what Lieutenant Scotti’s first name is.”

“Why, it’s Jerry, of course,” Dick said. “We’ve known that right along. I always call him Jerry, except when a lot of officers are around, and then I’ve got to use sir.”

“Well, Jerry’s just his nickname,” Max said.

“Don’t tell me it’s for Gerald,” Tony said. “It just wouldn’t fit that guy.”

“No—remember his last name,” Max said. “His folks—or at least his father—was Italian back a couple of generations. The name is Scotti. And his first name is Geronimo!”

“Geronimo!”

Both Dick and Tony cried out at once, and sat up, looking with disbelief at Max Burckhardt.

“You’re kidding!” Dick said, shaking his head. “Why, that’s what we yell when we jump—to overcome the sudden change in pressure against our ear drums. And just because the lieutenant’s a paratrooper somebody’s called him Geronimo as a gag.”

“No, it’s really official,” Max insisted. “I was over at headquarters gabbin’ with Joe Silcek while he pecked away at his typewriter. I saw it on an official list.”

“An official list?” Donnelly said, concern wrinkling his forehead.

“Sure—what’s wrong?” Max asked. “I wasn’t lookin’ at anything I shouldn’t. It was right there—everybody’s name on it in our company.”

“Oh, everybody’s,” Dick said, and was silent.

“What’s the matter, Sarge?” Tony Avella laughed. “You act as if you’d been caught travelin’ under a phony name and Max had found you out.”

“Me?” Donnelly tried to laugh it off. “What an idea! You couldn’t travel under a phony name in the Army.”

“Say, I’ve always wondered about that name of yours, anyway,” Max said. “Didn’t want to say anything until I knew you better. But you really look as Italian as Tony here, and I know you speak Italian like a native. How come the Irish name?”

“Well—it is an Irish name!” Dick said. “You see—my mother was Italian.”

“Oh, and your father was Irish?” Max asked.

But the sergeant just grinned. “I might as well come out with it,” he said. “No—my father was Italian, too.”

“Then—where did that name Dick Donnelly come from?”

“It really was Irish in the beginning,” the sergeant smiled. He looked out over the rolling hills and watched the heat waves rising from the flat lands. It was pleasant here under the tree, talking to his friends. The war seemed miles away, and yet the war had brought him friends like this, brought him a whole new life. And now that old life was going to come out. If they all hadn’t been so restless between battles, his old life could have stayed buried. It wasn’t that Donnelly was ashamed of it, but just that he wasn’t sure the others would understand.

He was silent, as he thought about it, and the others waited, knowing he was going to tell them something interesting about himself. Their relationship was not the ordinary one of sergeant and lesser ranks. In the parachute troops, men were often thrown closely together when they worked frequently from the same plane, always in the same group. Commissioned officers were more informal and friendlier with the men under them, too. Lieutenant Scotti and Dick Donnelly, for example, were very close friends. They kept to the formalities only in military matters, but in private they called each other “Jerry” and “Dick.”

Dick Donnelly liked Max Burckhardt and Tony Avella. He had been with them at training camp and ever since. They would be going through a lot more together. So it was natural that he should tell them about his other name, his other life.

“Donnelly’s an Irish name, all right,” he said. “And that was my family’s name originally. You see, there were quite a few Irish settled in Italy a few hundred years ago and they just switched their names to the nearest Italian equivalent. My Italian name is Donnelli, of course.”

“Why did you switch to Donnelly when you came in the Army?” Max asked.

“I didn’t switch then,” Dick replied. “You see, my folks were crazy about it when they first came to America. They made up their minds to become as American as George Washington. So they changed the name back to its old original, Donnelly, because it sounded more like most names in America.”

As Dick talked, Tony Avella was looking at him closely, with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Dick Donnelly,” he murmured to himself. “Richard Donnelly!” And then a light dawned in his eyes and he smiled. “I get it now! I thought your face looked a little familiar. Of course, I’ve seen pictures of you. I’ve seen you—and heard you, too!”

“What is all this?” Max Burckhardt demanded.

“Am I right?” Tony asked, smiling at his sergeant.

“Yes, you’re right, Tony,” Dick answered.

“Say, let me in on the secret,” Max blurted out.

“Sure, Max,” Tony said. “Just translate Richard Donnelly into Italian. Ricardo Donnelli.”

“Sure—sure—Ricardo Donnelli,” Max said impatiently. “That’s obvious, but what does—”

He stopped, and looked at Dick Donnelly in awe. “My golly, are you really—” he mumbled. “Are you the Ricardo Donnelli?”

“I guess I am,” Dick grinned. “I haven’t run into any others.”

“The famous Metropolitan opera star!” Tony cried. “And we’ve never heard you sing a note!”

“Well, I didn’t think many people in the Army would be very interested in the kind of stuff I sing,” Dick said.

“Say—I’ve stood back there with aching feet at the Met so often,” Tony said. “I’ve waited in line for those standing-room tickets just to hear you sing. And now I’ve been your pal for months and you’ve never even warbled!”

“No, I haven’t really felt like it,” the sergeant said. “I started getting upset about this war long before we were in it. My folks hated fascism since Mussolini first started spouting in Italy. I wanted to join the Loyalists in Spain but I was just getting started in my singing career then, and felt I couldn’t do it, after working so hard for the chance I finally got at the Met. I’ve been seeing it coming for a long time, and when I finally got a chance to fight I joined up and forgot everything else. I’m no Ricardo Donnelli any more. I’m Dick Donnelly, paratrooper in the United States Army!”

“You studied in Italy, didn’t you?” Max asked.

“Sure, everybody does if he gets a chance,” Dick said.

“Why is that?” Max asked. “America’s got plenty of good singing teachers, plenty of good music.”

“Sure, but not the way it is in Italy,” Dick explained. “You see, in Italy there are little opera companies all over the place. Every town has its own opera and its own orchestra. They’re not like the Met, of course, but there are dozens of them which give a newcomer, an unknown, a chance to sing. And that’s what counts—plenty of singing in public, on an actual stage, in a real performance. I sang in half a dozen small companies in my two years in Italy. And somebody noticed me and gave me a chance at La Scala in Milan, and there somebody from the Metropolitan heard me and signed me up. Of course, when I had come to Italy to study and sing, it was natural for me to go back to my old Italian name, Ricardo Donnelli. So I’ve stayed Ricardo Donnelli as far as singing is concerned.”

“Why didn’t you ever let on who you really were?” Tony asked.

“Well—several reasons,” Dick said. “As I told you, I’m not concerned with singing now, but fighting. I’m Dick Donnelly. And then if they knew who I was, I’d always be asked to be singing here and there, at shows and camps and such. Then like as not I’d find myself transferred to some morale-building branch of the service just going around building soldiers’ morale by singing operatic arias. And I’d get no fighting done at all. I got into this war to fight. I want to stamp out all the rotten government I saw in Italy when I was there—and its even worse versions in Germany and Japan—and everywhere.”

“I see,” Tony Avella replied. “I feel pretty much the same way, not thinking about anything but this job we’ve got to do. So I won’t go spouting around that you’re Ricardo Donnelli, the great singer. But if we’re ever alone out in the hills at night, will you sing Celeste Aïda some time?”

“I sure will, Tony,” Dick answered with a warm smile. “If I can still sing.”

“I’ll keep my trap shut, too,” Max said. “If you want to be just Sergeant Dick Donnelly, then you can be it. You see, I had an uncle and aunt in Germany that I loved a lot. They didn’t like Hitler and they said so. They were that kind. And they’re dead now—died in stinking concentration camps. So I’m not thinking much about anything, either, until I get even for them. It’s going to take a lot of dead Nazis to make up for Uncle Max and Aunt Elsa.”

“For a bunch of guys who say they want to fight so much,” Dick laughed, “we seem to be taking it pretty easy, sitting here in the shade on a nice afternoon.”

“I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.”

“The whole outfit’s goin’ nuts,” Tony said. “All anxious to get into the thick of it. It seems as if our gang is just about the blood-thirstiest in the Army. That’s why they all joined up with the parachute troops—thought they’d get first crack at the enemy if they dropped behind their lines.”

“We’ve got quite a cross-section in our own plane,” Dick said. “We’ve all got special reasons, the three of us here, for wanting to fight and fight hard. I suppose most of the rest of them have too. There’s Monteau, the Frenchman. He doesn’t say much, but from the look in his eye I’d hate to be a German meeting up with him. And there’s Steve Masjek. He’s a Czech, and you know what those boys think of the Germans. Barney Olson’s got relatives in Norway. And there’s a bunch of just plain Americans with no special ties to the old world who are pretty anxious to fight, and fight some more.”

“But when? When?” cried Max. “I thought I was itchin’ to get at those Nazis, but I guess we’ve got one gent in our outfit that’s more anxious than I am. Did you hear about Vince Salamone?”

“No, what about the home-run king?” Tony asked. “And say—that makes me think, we’ve got a fair representation of boys whose families came from Italy—the lieutenant, Scotti, and Salamone the baseball player, and myself—and now you, Maestro Donnelli.”

“Sure—the Army knows we’re going to invade Italy,” Dick said. “We’re going to come in handy. But what about Vince?”

“He got picked up trying to hitchhike to the front,” Max said. “Just flatly stated that he didn’t want to be a paratrooper any more ’cause he hadn’t had a real chance to fight yet and he had to have it. Other boys were fightin’ up front, he said, and he aimed to help ’em out instead of sittin’ around here waiting for an airplane ride.”

“What did they do with him?” Dick asked.

“Oh, the Major acted sore, of course,” Max said, “because he had to. But he really liked the guy’s spirit. And everybody likes Vince anyway, not just because he’s the best ball player in the world, but one of the nicest guys, too. He got three days in the guardhouse and no furlough for a month, that’s all.”

“Well, he won’t miss anything,” Tony said. “It’s no duller in the guardhouse than here, and there aren’t any furloughs these days, anyway.”

“He’s going to miss something,” a voice said from behind the group chatting in the shade of the tree. They all sat up and turned around to see Lieutenant Scotti. Quickly they jumped to their feet and saluted. Scotti saluted in return and then ambled up to them amiably.

“Yes, Salamone is going to miss a little action,” the lieutenant said, “and you guys who’ve been itching to get into action so badly have at last got a chance to do a little fighting. And—this is for you especially, Private Burckhardt—we’ll encounter a few Germans!”

CHAPTER THREE

WADIZAM PASS

“We’re really just a diversionary action, a feint,” Scotti said, his voice raised slightly so that all the men in the plane could hear him above the muffled hum of the plane’s engines.

“So we’re not gettin’ into the real thing even yet?” Tony Avella demanded.

“It’s the real thing, all right,” the lieutenant replied, “if it’s tough fighting you want. We’ll have plenty on our hands if plans work out right, because we’ll draw off a sizable force for our main group to pinch off.”

The men all leaned forward eagerly.

“You see, the Germans have holed up in the Wadizam Pass, and that’s on the main road to Tunis and Bizerte,” the lieutenant continued. “We’ve got to break their hold there and that’s no easy job. The planes have been giving them a pasting from that French field we took last week, but they’ve got plenty of cover and have stood up under it well. A frontal attack is almost suicide because our men would have to march between hills covered with German guns.”

“This begins to sound like something,” Dick Donnelly commented, and several others nodded, waiting for Scotti to continue. It was one of the things they liked most about their lieutenant—his willingness to tell them as much as he could about any action they were going into. Lots of men had to fight almost in the dark, but Scotti felt his men could fight better if they knew why they were fighting and what they were up against.

“Two Ranger companies have been walking all night over mountains with almost no trail,” Scotti said. “They’ve probably been running, instead of walking, as a matter of fact, because they had fourteen miles to cover, over rough terrain, in complete darkness. Think that over while you’re sitting here nice and comfortable in your private airplane!”

“Where are the Rangers going?” Max Burckhardt asked.

“They’re cutting over the hills, to come down on those entrenched Germans from above,” Scotti continued. “The Germans won’t expect it for a minute. In the first place, the hill is considered almost impassable. Also, their observation planes have not noted any move of a body of troops in that direction. That’s because the troops waited for darkness, were rushed to the bottom of the hill by truck after dark, and will climb all night. It’s an almost impossible feat, and the Germans don’t think we’re very good soldiers yet. They think you’ve got to have plenty of battle experience to do a job like that. So they’re sure we won’t pull such a trick.”

“Well—I know those Ranger-Commando boys are good,” Dick Donnelly said. “But can they really do it, if it’s so near to impossible?”

“They’ll do it,” the lieutenant replied with a smile. “They had the whole job put up to them on a volunteer basis, and the toughness of it wasn’t played down, either. And they were told that we fellows would be sticking our necks out, because our very lives depended on their making that march on time. They said they’d make it, and they said it as if they meant it. They know the score—and they won’t miss.”

Jerry Scotti looked around at the faces and saw smiles, a few nods, and some relief. These men knew, too, that the Rangers would get to the top of their hill on time, even though many of them would be carrying guns and mortars.

“Okay—now here’s where we come in,” Scotti said. “Just after dawn we fly past the Wadizam Pass, to the north of it, circling around as if we were trying to sneak in just when we had enough light to see but before the Germans would see us. Of course, they will see us and we know it. But they haven’t got much of an opinion of us as soldiers or tacticians yet; so they’ll think we’re fools enough to believe we can get away with it.”

“I get it,” Tony Avella said. “They’ve been saying the Americans were stupid. Well, we’re going to take advantage of their thinking that.”

“Sure, that’s it,” Scotti said. “And we’ll be quite a parachute force dropping behind their lines on the opposite hill from the ones the Rangers will be coming over. Twenty planes dropping paratroopers back there can cause a lot of damage, and they know it. There’re a couple of important bridges, a dam, and some telegraph lines we can cut.”

“Is that what we’re going to do?” Dick asked.

“No, it’s not,” the lieutenant answered.

“I didn’t think so,” the sergeant said. “We’ll want to be using that dam and those bridges and lines pretty soon ourselves.”

“Right,” Scotti agreed, and went on. “But the Germans will have to send back quite a good-sized force to round us up. First, they’ll want to do the job fast, before we could do much damage, so they’ll send a big force. Next, they know we’ll have good cover in the hills, and they’ll be coming up the slope to get us. To do that the attacking force has to be about four times as strong as the defenders. And in this case, we’re the defenders, holding the hilltop.”

“We can mow ’em down,” Max Burckhardt grinned.

“Sure, we can,” Scotti said, “for a while. And then they’d overcome us with greatly superior numbers and a few fairly heavy guns they’d trundle up there in a hurry. But they won’t get that chance. If we can draw off 1500 to 2000 men from the main force at the entrance of the pass, they’ll be weakened by more than a third. Then the Rangers swoop down on them from their side—flanking them so their biggest guns are not in position to return fire. It will be a complete surprise to them, and at the crucial moment the main force will attack at the front.”

“Sounds fine—if it works,” Tony muttered.

They all agreed, but no one said what would happen if it did not work. They all knew that if the attack failed, the paratroop force would be cut off completely, surrounded and mopped up.

“So, even if we’re a diversion,” Jerry Scotti smiled, “I think we’ll get in some pretty good fighting. Tony, I’ll want that radio set up in a big hurry.”

“Right you are, sir,” the young man replied. “I’ll have it going in ten minutes after it lands, if you’ll detail a couple of men to help me get it out of the ’chute containers and put together in a good spot.”

“Sure,” the lieutenant replied. “MacWinn and Rivera—you help Tony with the radio first. There won’t be any shooting for a while, anyway; so you won’t miss any of it.”

Suddenly, after all the talk, there was complete silence in the plane. The men were all looking into space, or at the floor, thinking, picturing what might come in the dangerous action ahead of them. The plane purred on steadily. This was always the most difficult time, Lieutenant Scotti knew. That was why he so often passed the time telling his men about the coming action. The ride in the plane just before they jumped and began to fight—that was when hearts beat a little faster, when men’s throats felt a little dry.

“It’s just about getting light over to the east,” he said quietly, and the men looked up. The co-pilot stepped through the door from the cockpit at that moment, and spoke to the lieutenant.

“About three minutes,” he said. “All set?”

“All set,” Scotti replied with a smile, and got to his feet. Before he could utter his command, the men were on their feet attaching their long ripcords to the cable that ran the length of the fuselage over their heads.

“Got ’em trained, haven’t you?” the co-pilot commented. “Don’t have to give them any orders.”

“Not this gang,” Scotti replied. “They know what to do better than I do.”

The men all smiled at that, pleased with themselves. They weren’t tense any more. The time for real action was here at last, and they were ready for it.

The side door was opened, and the men braced themselves against the blast of air that swept against them.

“Remember—low jump, men,” Scotti said. “Okay—go ahead, Dick.”

Clutching the Reising sub-machine gun across his chest, Donnelly leaped into space with a shout. But to the customary “Geronimo!” he added the word, “Scotti!” But the lieutenant did not hear, for the blast that caught Dick swept him thirty feet from the plane by the time the second word was out of his mouth. And Scotti was already giving his curt order to the second man to jump.

In rapid-fire order they went, piling out of the plane only two seconds apart. When the last man had jumped, Scotti and the co-pilot grabbed up two large containers with parachutes attached and tossed them, with the lieutenant following them immediately.

Dick Donnelly was swinging slowly and gently at the ends of his shroud lines. He looked below at the rocky and uneven ground covered with little clumps of short, scrubby trees. He reached up over his right shoulder and tugged at the lines a bit so that his body shifted to the left slightly. He was picking his spot for a landing.

Then he stole a glance upward and behind him, smiling with pleasure as he saw the sky filled with scores of white parachutes.

“Looks like a snowstorm,” he muttered to himself. “They sure did pile plenty of us out in a hurry over a small area.”

The planes had already swung westward as they climbed away from the first ineffective bursts of antiaircraft shells from German batteries to the south. There was no German airfield in the Wadizam Pass—it was too narrow and rocky—but they would be radioing for fighters to the field at the rear, over the hill.

“The transports will get away, though,” Dick mused. “They’re just about out of ack-ack range now, and the fighters will be too late.”

He looked down at the ground again, which suddenly seemed to be coming up at him more rapidly. When the parachute first stopped his descent, it seemed almost as if he were floating in the air, settling downward, ever so slowly. But as he neared the earth, he had a better estimate of the speed at which he was traveling. With a last glance upward at the many white ’chutes interspersed with a few colored ones bearing machine guns, mortars, radio, and ammunition, he slipped his ’chute lines once more and got ready for the rolling fall.

“Going to miss that big boulder all right,” he told himself. Then his feet touched the earth and jolted him as he tumbled sideways and slightly forward, yanking vigorously against the shroud lines on one side.

But he did not have to worry about the escape from his parachute, for it caught against the boulder he had missed, and collapsed. Quickly he jumped to his feet, slipped out of the harness, ditched his emergency ’chute, and looked up toward the crest.

Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder

“Yes, there’s the ledge,” he said to himself, and ran forward, the loose gravel and rocks rolling down the steep hill behind him as they were kicked loose.

The ledge toward which he was running was a broad and sweeping shelf in the side of the hill, only about a hundred feet from the crest. It extended all along the ridge and was perhaps fifty feet deep at most points. On the northern end it narrowed to nothing where the hill dropped sharply down in a precipice to a small valley below. At the southern end the ledge just merged gradually into the hill itself. It was here that it would have to be defended. No enemy troops could hope to attack from the north, up the cliff.

In less than two minutes, Dick Donnelly had reached the ledge and was giving it a quick glance which took in all details, when more men streamed up the hill to join him. They all looked it over just as Dick had done, noting at once the big boulders that could give good cover, the depressions out of which good foxholes might be dug, the occasional overhanging rocks which made half-caves. Then their glance swept down the hill, seeing which way the Germans must come when they did come.

Tony Avella, with MacWinn and Rivera, struggled up the incline with their big boxes. With only a short glance, Tony motioned his men to follow him up beyond the broad ledge, nearer the crest of the hill. There, Dick saw him motion toward a big boulder which lay near a clump of the low, rugged trees. They dumped their boxes, and Tony started to open them at once.

Dick turned to direct men who arrived with heavy machine guns. The first carried the gun itself, the second its tripod mount, the third the water-cooling apparatus for it. Not far behind them climbed four men with boxes of ammunition for the gun.

“There—between those two big rocks at the edge,” Dick said, pointing. “You can get a straight sweep down there.”

With a grunt the men moved to the spot designated by the sergeant and began to set up the weapon with swift movements that wasted not a second or a bit of energy. Then Lieutenant Scotti stood at Dick’s side.

“Okay, Dick,” he said. “Nice spot, isn’t it?”

“Perfect,” Dick said. “We could hold off an army here for days, provided they didn’t come at us from over the crest behind our backs.”

“Not much chance,” the lieutenant replied. “No roads or trails on that side of the ridge at all. It would take them a day and a half to get around there, and it ought to be all over by this afternoon. They’ll not even get a chance to think of it. But you forget about planes.”

“Yes, you’re right,” the sergeant agreed. “Not a good spot for planes. They can get at us pretty easily. But our own—”

“They’re going to be pretty busy,” the lieutenant said. “They’ll be disrupting roads and supply lines behind the Pass and helping out the Ranger attack and then the frontal attack. They’ll help us if they can, if the Jerry planes come after us.”

Within ten minutes after the parachute landing, the entire force was disposed, with machine guns emplaced, and mortars in position behind them. Men were digging foxholes out of the rocky soil, selecting spots beside boulders for the maximum protection. Lieutenant Scotti had reported everything to Captain Marker, in command of the operation, who had set up headquarters almost at the crest of the hill. It was an exposed position, but it offered a perfect observation point.

“I’ll be able to see the Ranger attack when it comes,” the Captain pointed out, gesturing toward the hill on the opposite side of the valley. “They’ll be streaming over there as soon as we give the word. Is the radio set up?”

“Yes, sir,” Scotti replied. “Corporal Avella is ready to go at any time. We’re to use the call letters indicating that we’re communicating with our main base, but the Rangers will be picking it up on their walkie-talkies on the opposite hill.”

“That’s right, Scotti,” the Captain answered. “And now you’d better get those details headed out for the dam and other spots they’ll be expecting us to go after. The enemy will probably have observation planes over here in a few minutes and we’ve got to carry out what will look to them like an immediate threat to their dam and communication lines. Then they’ll hustle a sizable force here.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied, saluting as he turned and went down the hill.

He found Sergeant Dick Donnelly directing the placing of boxes of ammunition for the machine guns.

“Sergeant Donnelly,” he called.

“Yes, sir,” Donnelly replied, stepping to his side.

“I’ve got a job for you, Dick,” Scotti said quietly. “And not an easy one.”

“That sounds good, Jerry,” Dick replied. “What is it?”

CHAPTER FOUR

ENCIRCLED!

“Here’s a map of this region,” Lieutenant Scotti said, unfolding a paper which Dick Donnelly looked at eagerly. “You can see the hill we’re on. Here’s the pass in the valley below, and over there is the hill over which the Rangers will attack on the flanks. They’re probably waiting under cover there now.”

“Yes, I see,” Dick replied.

“Well, back here is the dam,” the lieutenant said. “We’ve got to make a pass at it, as if we were going to blow it up. Also, we’ve got to send out parties as if to cut this telegraph line over here, and another as if to blow up that bridge on the road out of the pass. As you know, we’ll not do any of those things, but we want the German observation planes—which ought to be coming along in about five minutes—to see us heading in those directions. They’ll report back, and the commander in the Pass will rush up at least a third of his force to stop us.”

“I get the idea,” Dick said. “And which one do you want me to go after?”

“I thought that’s what you’d say,” Scotti smiled. “I want you to take twenty men and head for the dam. That’s the most dangerous of the three missions. As you can see, the telegraph line is not in an exposed position, and it’s not so important as the other points. If the Germans get any force around there in time, it won’t amount to much and our men can get back here fast without being cut off. The bridge is harder, and the Germans will want to save that. But their force can really come at it from only one direction and our men can just back up the hill here, fighting them off as they do it.”

“Yes, I can see that,” the sergeant said.

“But the dam’s a different matter,” Scotti went on. “In the first place, they’ve probably got a squad or two on guard there, with radio. So you’ll have to make a feint at a real attack to make our bluff work. But most important, the Germans can come on you from both sides and encircle you without any trouble.”

“Sure—you can see that from the map,” Dick said. “That’s what they’d do right away. But if we had a walkie-talkie with us, you could let us know in time, and we could sneak back out of the trap and get back here.”

“But we can’t do that,” the lieutenant said. “You’ll have a walkie-talkie all right, and we’ll keep in touch with you. But you and your men have got to keep the German detail pinned down there as long as possible. You’ve got to get yourself surrounded and hold them there, while we’re holding the main force on this ledge. You’ve got to hold them long enough so they can’t be rushed back to help stem the Ranger attack. We’ll give the signal for the Rangers to pour over that other hill when we know we’ve got the greatest number of German soldiers tied up battling us.”

“I see,” Dick replied grimly. “We get ourselves surrounded. We hold the attacking force there. Our chance of getting out is either to hold out until relief comes to us, after the main battle of the Pass is over, or to break through the encirclement ourselves and make our way back here.”

“That’s the idea, Dick,” Scotti said. He didn’t like the idea of giving this toughest assignment to one of his best friends, but he had to put a good man in command of the dam detail, and Dick Donnelly was the best.

“Let me study that map a minute,” Dick said.

Scotti handed him the paper and watched the sergeant note carefully every detail around the dam. Suddenly he put his finger on a double line leading away from one side of the reservoir and asked, “What’s this?”

“That’s an ancient Roman aqueduct,” the lieutenant replied. “You see, back in the days when Rome ran this part of the world, they had a dam here, supplying water to the cities to the east. That aqueduct led from the reservoir across the little valley there and then followed the line of the hills eastward.”

“Is the aqueduct still standing?” Dick asked.

“Part of it, anyway,” the lieutenant replied. “Let me speak to the captain to see if he knows any more details.”

Scotti and Donnelly moved to the little switchboard under the lee of a rock and the lieutenant spoke to the commanding officer on the crest of the hill. When he had finished, he turned to the sergeant.

“He says that our observation photos show it to be intact,” Scotti said. “And they were taken only a couple of days ago. A couple of the supporting pillars are crumbling a bit at the bottom; so we’ve no idea how strong it is. But it’s all there, at least across the valley after it leaves the reservoir.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Dick said.

“I believe I know what you’re thinking of,” Scotti smiled. “Of course you’ll be approaching the reservoir from the other side, where the modern dam is.”

“Sure, I won’t be anywhere near the old Roman aqueduct,” Dick grinned. “—maybe. May I pick my own men?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t take Tony Avella away from his radio,” the lieutenant said.

“Okay—twenty of ’em?”

“Right. Hop to it.”

Scotti turned away as Dick Donnelly headed for the group of men from his own plane. He went from one to the other asking each one first if he wanted to volunteer for a good tough job. When each one eagerly said, “Yes,” Dick next asked how well the volunteer could swim. He questioned each one earnestly as to just exactly how well he could handle himself in the water. Then he picked the men who were sure they could swim well. Max Burckhardt was among them, pointing out that he had been swimming instructor at a boys’ camp for several years when he was younger.

“Will I get the most fighting going with you or staying here?” Max asked.

“With me,” Dick replied. “Even though it will be plenty hot here. We’ll probably be outnumbered about forty to one.”

“Then count me in,” Max said, “and I’ll get my forty!”

“We travel light,” Dick said. “Each man with a sub-machine gun and plenty of ammunition. And chuck a few extra cans of rations in your shirt front.”

In five more minutes Dick Donnelly had his twenty men lined up. He reported briefly to Lieutenant Scotti.

“We’re on our way, sir,” he said.

“Got your walkie-talkie?” Scotti asked.

“Yes, and a good man with it,” Dick said. “But if things get tough, we may not bring it back with us.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Scotti said. “Just bring yourselves back.”

“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!”