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. “Butcanthey 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, theywillsee 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 mainforce 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 didnotwork. 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 waswhy 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 thesouth. 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’vegot 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?”

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 holdingthe 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 mustnotblow up der dam and bridge!”

The order went out to a subordinate, and men piled from their barracks into waiting trucks. Truck after truck roared up the road through the Pass, heading north. If the commander of the Rangers, in hiding on the west hill above the German camp, had been able to see, he would have been pleased at the number of trucks that scurried away, crammed full of German soldiers.

It was only a few minutes later that Captain Marker, leader of the parachute troops, saw the first of the trucks on the road below, where it rounded a bend in the narrow valley. He counted them off eagerly, his smile broadening as the numbers increased.

The German Read the Report and Gave an Order

“It’s working!” he exclaimed to Scotti, who stood beside him. “They must be sending almost half the force off on this job. They don’t expect a thing from the flanks. Just think what a tiny bunch of parachute troops have been able to do, Lieutenant!”

Scotti agreed, but he smiled to himself at the irony of hearing a commander express happiness when his own troops were to be so greatly outnumbered.

“He’s not thinking of himself or his troops for a minute,” Scotti told himself. “He’s just thinking of the success of this operation to take the Wadizam Pass, no matter what it may cost. That’s a good soldier, all right.”

He watched as many of the trucks sped on out of sight.

“They’re going on to get the boys heading for the dam and the bridge,” he said. “And they’re sending plenty off on that job! The rest will come up after us. Well, we can hold off almost any force in this position for quite a few hours.”

Dick Donnelly and his twenty men had been making fast time toward the dam, down the slope of the crest they had crossed, and up the next parallel ridge. Dick looked frequently at his map to check position and glanced almost unconcernedly at the observation plane which returned occasionally to keep them under scrutiny.

“They’ve probably got a small force guarding the dam,” Dick told his men, “and we might as well get rid of them before the detachment from the main camp arrives to take care of us.”

He noted with satisfaction that the slopes surrounding the reservoir up ahead were covered with trees whereas the surrounding countryside was rather barren.

“Moisture from the reservoir,” he told himself. “Makes a regular oasis here in the hills, and those trees will give us good cover.”

As they entered the thicket of trees, Dick stopped his men, who gathered around him. He held the map so that all could see.

“Here’s where we are now,” he said, putting his finger on a point near the reservoir. “The dam is up ahead on the left a few hundred yards. We’ve been covered by this shoulder of the hill as we approached, so the guard there probably hasn’t seen us, but they’re likely to have radio and know we’re coming. They’ll all be centered at the dam itself, I’m sure. Lefty, you take these five men and head up the hill farther, then cut down to catch them on the flank just after we’ve gone straight in at them. And Bert, you take these three and circle down around to the left and come up on them from that side. But don’t go as far as the road leading from the Pass upto the dam. The Jerries will be rushing a few truckloads of reinforcements up the road to get us, and we’ve all got to stay on this side.”

“I get it, Sarge,” Bert said.

“Okay—me too,” added Lefty. These two corporals were men who were calm in an emergency and possessed plenty of initiative, as Dick well knew.

“This shouldn’t take more than about five minutes,” he went on. “And we haven’t got much more time than that. The minute it’s over, all the rest of us will switch up beyond the reservoir here where Lefty’s group is going down, but we must stick close to the shore. We’ll have cover, because the trees come right down to the edge. Okay—get going, boys. Wait for my first fire to draw them toward us. Then come in at the right moment.”

The ten men who remained with their sergeant watched the other groups trot silently off through the trees in different directions.

“We’ll give them about three minutes,” Dick said, “to circle around to position. Then we’ll go in straight for the dam. But keep behind the trees and rocks. No use losing any men on a little action like this.”

Dick looked at his watch as the others stood around him without a word. They held their sub-machine guns lightly in their arms, ready for immediate action. Dick noticed with satisfaction that they all seemed completely relaxed and at ease, even though a light of excitement and anticipation gleamed in their eyes.

“Okay—here we go,” he said casually, and started forward smartly. The men fanned out around him, moving upward through the trees. Dick led them up a slight shoulder of land which brought them to a level with the dam. And then they saw it.

It lay only about seventy-five yards ahead, a long wall of concrete, with water trickling slowly over a spillway at the far end. At the near end there was a rough wooden shack on top of the wall, and near it stood four German soldiers, anxiously scanning the surrounding trees.

“They must be mighty uncomfortable,” Dick said, “knowing we’re coming for them. Well, let’s not keep them in suspense. Open fire.”

The silence of the hills was shattered by the chattering roar of ten machine guns. Two of the Germans toppled from the wall to the rocky valley below. One darted into the shack, and one fell on top of the wall, wounded. He tried to drag himself to the shack but collapsed before he could make it. Then from the shack itself came an answering burst of machine-gun fire.

Dick heard bullets whistling through the air and the little snip-click sounds as they nicked branches and leaves. There was a short silence and then another burst from the shack, which was not answered by the Americans. They were busy making their way forward from tree to tree, getting within fifty yards of the shack.

“What about a couple of grenades, Dick?” Max Burckhardt asked. “I’ve got half a dozen in a bag here. Thought they might come in handy.”

“Maybe—” Dick said. “But not yet. Let ’em have it!”

Once more the American machine guns poured their hail of lead into the shack, followed by another burst from the woods to the right.

“That’ll be Lefty and his bunch,” Dick smiled. “And I guess the Nazis don’t like it.”

It was obvious they did not like it, nor the third burst from below them on the left. Bert’s group had joined the fray. The Germans had Americans on three sides and a large reservoir behind them. It did not take them long to make up their minds what to do. A white cloth tied to the end of a rifle was thrust through the little window of the shack.

“I guess they didn’t have many guys there,” Max said. “They sure gave up easy.”

Dick led his group forward to the edge of the woods and called from there, “All right, come out with your hands up—on to the wall of the dam.”

The door of the shack opened and three German soldiers marched out, throwing their guns to the ground and raising their hands as they did so. They stepped over the body of their companion who had tried to reach the shack but failed.

“Is that all?” Dick demanded, with a shout.

“Ya, ya—all, all!” one of the Germans called back.

“Funny—but I don’t believe him,” Dick muttered to Max. Then he called to the German again.

“Okay, then pick up that machine pistol of yours and fire a few bursts into the shack!”

The German looked bewildered and called back that he did not understand.

“You tell him, Max,” Dick said. “Then he can’t pretend he doesn’t know what I mean.”

Max called out the order in German, and the soldiers on the wall almost jumped to hear their own language spoken to them so perfectly.

The first soldier, a corporal, picked up the machine pistol and started to aim it into the shack, but did not pull the trigger. As he hesitated, Max commanded him again to fire into the shack or get a burst of fire from the Americans.

The German soldier looked at the gun in his hands, then at the shack and then at the Americans. Suddenly he fell to the ground, hiding behind his dead comrade and pouring a fusilade at the Americans. At the same moment, two more guns were thrust through the shack window and joined the attack. Dick and his men were quick to get behind trees, despite their surprise. Dick heard a cry of pain from one of his men, but did not take time at that moment to look.

He and his men were answering the rapid crossfire of the Germans, when they saw two dark objects lobbed through the air from the woods on the right. Then there was a roar, a blinding flash followed at once by another, a cloud of black smoke—and silence, as the booming sound echoed among the hills.

As the smoke cleared away, Dick saw that the two grenades tossed by Lefty and his men had done a thorough job. The shack was a pile of lumber, and some of it had toppled to the ground below the dam wall. The Germans who had hidden in the shack during the fake surrender were no more—and neither were their companions alive. Dick and his men advanced on the run, arriving at the dam as Bert’s group rushed up from the left. Lefty’s men stayed where they were, waiting for the others to join them.

A quick inspection showed that the enemy detail at the dam had been wiped out. And then they heard the sound of motors. First they looked into the sky, but saw no planes.

“Trucks!” Dick said. “On the road below. Come on!”

Even before they moved, they heard the report of rifles from the woods below them. They needed no further warning to make them duck and scurry off the dam into the trees at the right. Skirting close to the shore, they soon ran into Lefty and his group.

“Come on,” Dick said. “Over that hump of rock ahead of us. Get positions just over the crest.”

The men darted forward, scrambling up over the little hill that came down to the water’s edge. Dropping down on the other side, they found cover quickly and faced back in the direction from which the enemy must be coming. They saw that their little hill was a point of land projecting into the waters of the reservoir. It was a good spot Dick had chosen—hard to get at from the direction of the dam itself and not much easier from above, for the hill curved around like a natural fort and the land above was somewhat bare of trees because of the rocky soil. The Germans would have to expose themselves badly if they came from that direction.

Dick looked behind him at the reservoir to see if the lay of the land were the way he had figured it from the map, and he smiled with satisfaction. Opposite the point of land on which they had taken up positions was another point, and only about twenty-five feet of water separated the two. Beyond the two points, the artificial lake opened out broadly.

“They won’t come at us from the other side,” Dick figured. “The land is too steep to come up that way, and anyway, they’d come directly at us, figuring that they had us encircled with the water behind us.”

Then he remembered the cry of pain from one of his men and turned back.

“Say—somebody got a slug back there in the woods,” he said. “Who was it?”

“Me, Sarge,” said Private Latham, a wiry little fellow who knew more jokes than anyone in the group and so was a favorite among the men. “But it just nicked me in the left hand. Doesn’t hurt now.”

“Let me see,” Dick said, stepping to Latham’s side. He saw at once that the bullet had gone through the palm of the hand. Quickly he got out his first-aid kit, dumped some sulfa powder into the wound, bound it up with a bandage.

“Not my gun hand, anyway,” Latham said. “I can still shoot.”

At that moment they heard the first attack from the Germans. The Americans in position answered with a short burst of fire, knowing that it would pin the approaching Germans down to rocks and protecting trees.

“Got to work fast now, boys,” Dick said, as he finished putting away his first-aid kit. “For about five minutes they’ll try coming at us directly. Then they’ll send out a bunch to come down on us from above. But we can stop them before they get to that bare stretch. Then they’ll try crossfire from those two positions, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll begin tossing grenades and maybe get a few light mortars into action. That’s when we’ll really get it, and if possible we’ll want to get away before then.”

“Get away?” Max Burckhardt exclaimed. “How do you figure?”

“Wait and see,” Dick grinned, knowing that Max and the others had quickly figured out that they were pretty well trapped, and that they hadn’t the ghost of a chance to get away alive. “But first I’ve got to find out what’s going on back in the Pass. If they want us to hold this crowd here as long as possible, we’ll just have to do it.”

The corporal with a walkie-talkie pack on his back had already pulled up his aerial and turned on his radio.

“See if you can get Tony,” Dick said, and the radioman nodded.

“Got ’im,” he said in a moment, but his words were almost drowned by the sound of another exchange of bursts between the Germans and the Americans. Dick crept to the ridge beside his men and looked at the woods below. The Germans were really pinned down effectively about a hundred feet away, and the little hill gave complete protection to the Americans. He slid back down beside the radioman.

“He says Nellie went to town about fifteen minutes ago,” the radioman said.

“Swell!” Dick exclaimed. “That means the Rangers attacked and the battle is on. What else?”

“Nice tea-party at the Smith’s,” the radioman went on.

“Good fight at the ledge where we landed,” Dick translated.

“Tony winds up with the order ‘Show me the way to go home,’” the radioman concluded, and Dick knew that he and his group were free to make their getaway if they could. The battle back at the Pass had progressed far enough so that he did not need to try holding the force at the dam any longer.

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