Dick Donnelly of the Paratroops
Page 4
CHAPTER FOUR
ENCIRCLED!
“Here’s a map of this region,” Lieutenant Scotti said, unfolding apaper which Dick Donnelly looked at eagerly. “You can see the hillwe’re on. Here’s the pass in the valley below, and over there is thehill over which the Rangers will attack on the flanks. They’re probablywaiting under cover there now.”
“Yes, I see,” Dick replied.
“Well, back here is the dam,” the lieutenant said. “We’ve got to make apass at it, as if we were going to blow it up. Also, we’ve got to sendout parties as if to cut this telegraph line over here, and another asif 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 observationplanes—which ought to be coming along in about five minutes—to see usheading in those directions. They’ll report back, and the commander inthe 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 taketwenty men and head for the dam. That’s the most dangerous of the threemissions. As you can see, the telegraph line is not in an exposedposition, and it’s not so important as the other points. If the Germansget any force around there in time, it won’t amount to much and our mencan get back here fast without being cut off. The bridge is harder, andthe Germans will want to save that. But their force can really come atit 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 firstplace, 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 andencircle you without any trouble.”
“Sure—you can see that from the map,” Dick said. “That’s what they’d doright away. But if we had a walkie-talkie with us, you could let usknow in time, and we could sneak back out of the trap and get backhere.”
“But we can’t do that,” the lieutenant said. “You’ll have awalkie-talkie all right, and we’ll keep in touch with you. But you andyour men have got to keep the German detail pinned down there as longas 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 holdthem long enough so they can’t be rushed back to help stem the Rangerattack. We’ll give the signal for the Rangers to pour over that otherhill when we know we’ve got the greatest number of German soldiers tiedup battling us.”
“I see,” Dick replied grimly. “We get ourselves surrounded. We hold theattacking force there. Our chance of getting out is either to hold outuntil relief comes to us, after the main battle of the Pass is over, orto 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 givingthis toughest assignment to one of his best friends, but he had to puta 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 carefullyevery detail around the dam. Suddenly he put his finger on a doubleline leading away from one side of the reservoir and asked, “What’sthis?”
“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 damhere, supplying water to the cities to the east. That aqueduct led fromthe reservoir across the little valley there and then followed the lineof the hills eastward.”
“Is the aqueduct still standing?” Dick asked.
“Part of it, anyway,” the lieutenant replied. “Let me speak to thecaptain to see if he knows any more details.”
Scotti and Donnelly moved to the little switchboard under the lee of arock and the lieutenant spoke to the commanding officer on the crest ofthe hill. When he had finished, he turned to the sergeant.
“He says that our observation photos show it to be intact,” Scottisaid. “And they were taken only a couple of days ago. A couple of thesupporting pillars are crumbling a bit at the bottom; so we’ve no ideahow strong it is. But it’s all there, at least across the valley afterit leaves the reservoir.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” Dick said.
“I believe I know what you’re thinking of,” Scotti smiled. “Of courseyou’ll be approaching the reservoir from the other side, where themodern 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,” thelieutenant said.
“Okay—twenty of ’em?”
“Right. Hop to it.”
Scotti turned away as Dick Donnelly headed for the group of men fromhis own plane. He went from one to the other asking each one first ifhe wanted to volunteer for a good tough job. When each one eagerlysaid, “Yes,” Dick next asked how well the volunteer could swim. Hequestioned each one earnestly as to just exactly how well he couldhandle himself in the water. Then he picked the men who were sure theycould swim well. Max Burckhardt was among them, pointing out that hehad been swimming instructor at a boys’ camp for several years when hewas younger.
“Will I get the most fighting going with you or staying here?” Maxasked.
“With me,” Dick replied. “Even though it will be plenty hot here. We’llprobably 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 andplenty of ammunition. And chuck a few extra cans of rations in yourshirt front.”
In five more minutes Dick Donnelly had his twenty men lined up. Hereported 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, wemay 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 busiedhimself with other tasks so that he would not watch Sergeant Donnellyleading his men up over the ridge and down the other side to skirt thecliff-like northern end of the hill. Scotti checked on the groupsheading for the telegraph lines and the bridge, and they set offshortly 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 theledge and had marched on over the crest when they saw the first Germanplane. It was a little hedge-hopper, flying low and coming from theeast. Dick knew that the Germans in the Pass had radioed headquartersabout the parachute raid and the observation planes were coming overfor a look.
The slope down which they were walking was rocky and bare, so there wasno place to hide if they had wanted to. They watched as the lightGerman plane circled overhead and then passed on over the ridge.
“That pilot is radioing right now to the Germans in the pass,” Dicksaid to Max, who walked behind him. “He’s telling them a raiding partyof twenty men has set off toward the dam.”
“And by this time he sees our main camp on the ledge,” Max said, “andhe’s telling them about that. He won’t get any very accurate figure ofhow many men there are there, though. The rocks and ledges will hidesome of them.”
“Yes, and in a few minutes he’ll see the bunch heading for the bridgeand the gang going to the telegraph line,” Dick went on. “There won’tbe any doubt about it. There’s no place else for rai
ding 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 theobservation plane. He smiled.
“Tell dem to keep track of dese men,” he ordered. “Ve send men to vipedem off der map at vunce. Dey must _not_ blow up der dam and bridge!”
The order went out to a subordinate, and men piled from their barracksinto waiting trucks. Truck after truck roared up the road through thePass, heading north. If the commander of the Rangers, in hiding on thewest hill above the German camp, had been able to see, he would havebeen pleased at the number of trucks that scurried away, crammed fullof German soldiers.
It was only a few minutes later that Captain Marker, leader of theparachute troops, saw the first of the trucks on the road below, whereit 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. “Theymust be sending almost half the force off on this job. They don’texpect a thing from the flanks. Just think what a tiny bunch ofparachute troops have been able to do, Lieutenant!”
Scotti agreed, but he smiled to himself at the irony of hearing acommander express happiness when his own troops were to be so greatlyoutnumbered.
“He’s not thinking of himself or his troops for a minute,” Scotti toldhimself. “He’s just thinking of the success of this operation to takethe 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 willcome up after us. Well, we can hold off almost any force in thisposition for quite a few hours.”
Dick Donnelly and his twenty men had been making fast time toward thedam, down the slope of the crest they had crossed, and up the nextparallel ridge. Dick looked frequently at his map to check position andglanced almost unconcernedly at the observation plane which returnedoccasionally to keep them under scrutiny.
“They’ve probably got a small force guarding the dam,” Dick told hismen, “and we might as well get rid of them before the detachment fromthe main camp arrives to take care of us.”
He noted with satisfaction that the slopes surrounding the reservoir upahead were covered with trees whereas the surrounding countryside wasrather barren.
“Moisture from the reservoir,” he told himself. “Makes a regular oasishere in the hills, and those trees will give us good cover.”
As they entered the thicket of trees, Dick stopped his men, whogathered 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 nearthe 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, sothe guard there probably hasn’t seen us, but they’re likely to haveradio 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 straightin at them. And Bert, you take these three and circle down around tothe left and come up on them from that side. But don’t go as far as theroad leading from the Pass up to the dam. The Jerries will be rushing afew truckloads of reinforcements up the road to get us, and we’ve allgot to stay on this side.”
“I get it, Sarge,” Bert said.
“Okay—me too,” added Lefty. These two corporals were men who were calmin an emergency and possessed plenty of initiative, as Dick well knew.
“This shouldn’t take more than about five minutes,” he went on. “And wehaven’t got much more time than that. The minute it’s over, all therest of us will switch up beyond the reservoir here where Lefty’s groupis 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 theright moment.”
The ten men who remained with their sergeant watched the other groupstrot silently off through the trees in different directions.
“We’ll give them about three minutes,” Dick said, “to circle around toposition. Then we’ll go in straight for the dam. But keep behind thetrees 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 forimmediate action. Dick noticed with satisfaction that they all seemedcompletely relaxed and at ease, even though a light of excitement andanticipation gleamed in their eyes.
“Okay—here we go,” he said casually, and started forward smartly. Themen fanned out around him, moving upward through the trees. Dick ledthem up a slight shoulder of land which brought them to a level withthe 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 nearend there was a rough wooden shack on top of the wall, and near itstood four German soldiers, anxiously scanning the surrounding trees.
“They must be mighty uncomfortable,” Dick said, “knowing we’re comingfor them. Well, let’s not keep them in suspense. Open fire.”
The silence of the hills was shattered by the chattering roar of tenmachine guns. Two of the Germans toppled from the wall to the rockyvalley below. One darted into the shack, and one fell on top of thewall, wounded. He tried to drag himself to the shack but collapsedbefore he could make it. Then from the shack itself came an answeringburst of machine-gun fire.
Dick heard bullets whistling through the air and the little snip-clicksounds as they nicked branches and leaves. There was a short silenceand then another burst from the shack, which was not answered by theAmericans. 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’vegot 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 theshack, followed by another burst from the woods to the right.
“That’ll be Lefty and his bunch,” Dick smiled. “And I guess the Nazisdon’t like it.”
It was obvious they did not like it, nor the third burst from belowthem on the left. Bert’s group had joined the fray. The Germans hadAmericans on three sides and a large reservoir behind them. It did nottake them long to make up their minds what to do. A white cloth tied tothe 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 gaveup easy.”
Dick led his group forward to the edge of the woods and called fromthere, “All right, come out with your hands up—on to the wall of thedam.”
The door of the shack opened and three German soldiers marched out,throwing their guns to the ground and raising their hands as they didso. They stepped over the body of their companion who had tried toreach 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 calledto the German again.
“Okay, then pick up that machine pistol of yours and fire a few burstsinto 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 knowwhat I mean.”
The first soldier, a corporal, picked up the machine pistol and startedto aim it into the shack, but did not pull the trigger. As hehesitated, Max commanded him again to fire into the shack or get aburst of fire from the Americans.
The German soldier looked at the gun in his hands, then at the shackand then at the Americans. Suddenly he fell to the ground, hidingbehind his dead comrade and pouring a fusilade at the Americans. At thesame moment, two more guns were thrust through the shack window andjoined 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, whenthey saw two dark objects lobbed through the air from the woods on theright. Then there was a roar, a blinding flash followed at once byanother, a cloud of black smoke—and silence, as the booming soundechoed among the hills.
As the smoke cleared away, Dick saw that the two grenades tossed byLefty and his men had done a thorough job. The shack was a pile oflumber, 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 wereno more—and neither were their companions alive. Dick and his menadvanced on the run, arriving at the dam as Bert’s group rushed up fromthe left. Lefty’s men stayed where they were, waiting for the others tojoin them.
A quick inspection showed that the enemy detail at the dam had beenwiped out. And then they heard the sound of motors. First they lookedinto 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 woodsbelow them. They needed no further warning to make them duck and scurryoff 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. Getpositions just over the crest.”
The men darted forward, scrambling up over the little hill that camedown to the water’s edge. Dropping down on the other side, they foundcover quickly and faced back in the direction from which the enemy mustbe coming. They saw that their little hill was a point of landprojecting into the waters of the reservoir. It was a good spot Dickhad chosen—hard to get at from the direction of the dam itself and notmuch easier from above, for the hill curved around like a natural fortand the land above was somewhat bare of trees because of the rockysoil. The Germans would have to expose themselves badly if they camefrom that direction.
Dick looked behind him at the reservoir to see if the lay of the landwere the way he had figured it from the map, and he smiled withsatisfaction. Opposite the point of land on which they had taken uppositions was another point, and only about twenty-five feet of waterseparated the two. Beyond the two points, the artificial lake openedout broadly.
“They won’t come at us from the other side,” Dick figured. “The land istoo 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 wasit?”
“Me, Sarge,” said Private Latham, a wiry little fellow who knew morejokes 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 thatthe bullet had gone through the palm of the hand. Quickly he got outhis first-aid kit, dumped some sulfa powder into the wound, bound it upwith a bandage.
“Not my gun hand, anyway,” Latham said. “I can still shoot.”
At that moment they heard the first attack from the Germans. TheAmericans in position answered with a short burst of fire, knowing thatit would pin the approaching Germans down to rocks and protecting trees.
“Got to work fast now, boys,” Dick said, as he finished putting awayhis first-aid kit. “For about five minutes they’ll try coming at usdirectly. 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’lltry crossfire from those two positions, and when that doesn’t work,they’ll begin tossing grenades and maybe get a few light mortars intoaction. That’s when we’ll really get it, and if possible we’ll want toget away before then.”
“Get away?” Max Burckhardt exclaimed. “How do you figure?”
“Wait and see,” Dick grinned, knowing that Max and the others hadquickly figured out that they were pretty well trapped, and that theyhadn’t the ghost of a chance to get away alive. “But first I’ve got tofind out what’s going on back in the Pass. If they want us to hold thiscrowd here as long as possible, we’ll just have to do it.”
The corporal with a walkie-talkie pack on his back had already pulledup 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 bythe sound of another exchange of bursts between the Germans and theAmericans. Dick crept to the ridge beside his men and looked at thewoods below. The Germans were really pinned down effectively about ahundred feet away, and the little hill gave complete protection to theAmericans. He slid back down beside the radioman.
“He says Nellie went to town about fifteen minutes ago,” the radiomansaid.
“Swell!” Dick exclaimed. “That means the Rangers attacked and thebattle 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,’” theradioman concluded, and Dick knew that he and his group were free tomake their getaway if they could. The battle back at the Pass hadprogressed far enough so that he did not need to try holding the forceat the dam any longer.