“Tony’s tired,” Dick told himself. “He’s probably taking an extra turn around his post with the rope, in case his arms give out at the crucial moment.”

Then the box started upward again at a pace which seemed painfully slow to Dick, standing alone on the roof below. Almost inch by inch it scratched toward the opening. Then it was there! Tony was pulling it inside, Dick saw, but then there was a sudden loud clanking noise.

Instinctively, Dick crouched against the wall. The big box must have slipped a bit as Tony tried to haul it inside. But he caught it, dragged it in. That noise—it had been loud. Surely it would bring someone to look around!

The rope slid down the wall quickly, and Dick snatched at it the moment it was within reach. Hand over hand he pulled himself up the wall, bracing his feet against the stone and walking up. Halfway up he was panting, and the rope began to cut into his hands. But he did not let himself slow down. If only he could get up there fast enough—

He felt a hand grasp his arm and knew that Tony was leaning out to help him inside. With another pull he was able to throw one hand over the stone ledge. Then, with a terrific heave, he slid his body through the opening, tumbling onto the stone floor inside and banging his head against a huge wooden beam.

Tony was already pulling the rope in as fast as he could, and Dick sat where he had fallen, trying to get his breath back, not daring to move yet for fear he might fall into the stair well. Then Tony was on the floor beside him, whispering.

“Good going, Dick!” he said. “Sorry I made such a clatter. I almost went out the opening with that last container. Keep to this side. The stair well is there on your right, up against that wall. Everything else is safe. There are big beams in the center where the bells used to be. That’s where I tied the rope.”

“And where I banged my head,” Dick added. “Wait—what’s that?”

They froze in their tracks and listened. Below they heard voices, one commanding, the other replying—in German. Tony moved silently to an opening at the front of the tower, and Dick followed him. Looking down, they could see a lighted space in front of the villa, with light coming from two windows and the open door.

A German officer stood there, giving orders to two sentries. They were walking to the sides of the villa, throwing their strong flashlight beams into every dark corner and shadow.

“They heard it,” Dick whispered. “They’re looking around to see what’s what.”

“What about the others?” Tony asked.

“Safely away,” Dick said. “And Tomaso’s in his room.”

They watched as the sentries circled around to the wing at the rear of the villa, then returned and made a report to the officer. They threw their flashlight beams upward toward the roof, over the old bell tower and across the street. But there was nothing to be found. In a moment the officer went back inside and the sentries took up their regular posts at the front of the villa. The lights went out, and Dick and Tony turned to each other and smiled.

“Now to work,” Tony said. “I’ll get that radio set up.”

Tony worked in the dark. It was not for nothing that he had so carefully practiced assembling this radio. He wanted to be able to do it by feeling alone, without relying on any light. Dick helped by holding the few tools in his hands and giving them to Tony when he asked for them. When Tony finished with the screwdriver he returned it to Dick’s hands, so no time would be wasted feeling around for it.

It took almost an hour for Tony to complete his work. During that time he worked without pause, muttering to himself the names of the different parts he handled, giving himself instructions. Dick sat patiently and said nothing, knowing Tony’s complete concentration on his job. Finally, the young radioman turned to Dick and said, “There! It’s done. If it will only work now.”

“Want the light for a few minutes to check it?” Dick asked. “I think it might be safe.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s okay,” Tony replied. “After that noise, those sentries may be more on the alert than usual.”

Dick edged his way up to the generator and felt for the cranks. “Tell me when to start turning,” he said.

“Okay,” Tony said “Give me some power now.”

Dick turned the cranks and got them going at a regular speed.

“That’s about right,” Tony said. Dick heard him snap a switch and speak in a clear voice into the little microphone.

“Julius Caesar to Mark Antony,” he said. “Julius Caesar to Mark Antony.”

Over and over he repeated the words, and after the tenth repetition, he got his answer through his earphones.

“Mark Antony to Julius Caesar,” the voice said. “Come in, Julius Caesar.”

“Got it, Dick,” Tony whispered exultantly. “Now give me the message—in Italian and in code. I’ll repeat.”

Dick had memorized most of the short code which had been devised in Italian for these special reports, so that he would not have to use a light to refer to a code book. Later, he knew, when he came to give detailed information as to troops and equipment, he would have to refer to his code book to get things absolutely straight. But now he just wanted headquarters to know that the paratroop party was established in Maletta.

He spoke softly to Tony the words which would tell the American general that the party had landed safely except for Scotti’s accident, that they had contacted Tony’s uncle, that the radio was now set up in the town itself. The next report, to come at eight o’clock the next evening, would give detailed information about German troop movements into Maletta, some of which had already started.

And that was all. It was essential to keep on the air the shortest possible time, so that the German locator stations would have only a minute or two in which to get a fix on the illegal transmitter.

Dick and Tony sat back. There was nothing more for them to do for a long time, and they knew it.

“But I’ll bet there’s a lot going on in certain places,” Dick said to Tony. “Back at headquarters, for instance, the radio orderly has rushed that message to the code room and it will be taken at once to the general. I’ll bet he left word to be awakened at any time a message came through from us.”

“And they’re plenty busy at a couple of German listening posts, too,” Tony said. “Maybe we’ll see some of the fun.”

Tony was right. In four German monitor stations their message had been heard. In each one a line had been drawn on a detailed map showing the direction from which the radio report had come. The message itself, in Italian, was obviously code, and was rushed to decoding experts.

There were telephone calls from the four monitor stations to Gestapo headquarters in a city to the northwest of Maletta. There the four lines of the four different stations were drawn on a map, and the spot at which those lines crossed was in the town of Maletta.

Before dawn two big black cars roared out of the city, toward Maletta itself. That town, now the crucial point of resistance to the American Army’s northward drive, would not have an illegal radio station for long, the Gestapo officers felt sure. It was important—so important that Colonel Klage himself led the locating party to wipe out that new station which was obviously trying to get vital information to the Americans.

At that time, Dick and Tony were asleep in the bell tower, after having eaten a light meal from their ration tins. But the first light of dawn woke them. Even if it had not, the roar of the two speeding cars stopping in front of the villa would have done so. They peered cautiously down out of the opening at the front of the tower.

Germans poured from the two big black cars, and one banged noisily on the door of the villa after showing his credentials to the sentries there. A man in a colonel’s uniform was looking over the villa and then at the houses across the street. Dick could not see his face, but he knew that the man was looking quite bewildered. He was standing at the exact spot shown on the map to be the location of the illegal transmitter—and yet it was German Army headquarters!

Two or three officers poured out of the front door of the villa, some of them still pulling on jackets. Dick and Tony saw that some were in their slippers, and they did not look at all smart. Instead they were perturbed, even though officers of rank a good deal higher than the colonel who faced them. A colonel in the Gestapo could still make an army general tremble.

Dick wished that he might have heard the conversation that was going on below: the angry statement of the colonel that an illegal transmitter had operated from that spot and the vigorous protestations of the others that such a thing was impossible. The colonel took a map from an aide and pointed out the exact spot of the radio station, proving that it was in German army headquarters in Maletta.

The army men pointed to houses across the street, and down the road to the right. They were saying, Dick knew, that the transmitter must be there, somewhere else in the neighborhood.

Then the search began. The Gestapo men went first to the small house directly across the street from the villa. They were there half an hour, and Dick and Tony knew how thoroughly they were tearing that home to pieces looking for the hidden radio.

“I hate to put these Italians through such an ordeal,” Dick whispered, “but we can’t help it.”

“In a while they will know the reason for it all,” Tony said, “and then they will not mind what they are going through now.”

Dick and Tony felt that they had box seats at a good show that day. All morning and well into the afternoon the search went on. Houses and stores and buildings within several blocks were searched thoroughly, and finally the villa itself was gone over inch by inch, despite the protestations of the German army men that the Gestapo officer was insulting them by searching in their own headquarters for an illegal Italian radio. But the Gestapo colonel did not care how many people he insulted. He knew what would happen to him if he returned to his own headquarters without having found and destroyed that transmitter. And he knew how silly it would sound to his superior officer when he said that his locators had placed the radio in German army headquarters in Maletta.

He himself began to doubt the accuracy of his listening posts. But for four of them to go wrong at the same time—that was impossible! There was something radically wrong somewhere and the colonel didn’t like it one bit. His anger was apparent even to Tony and Dick as they watched him get into his big black car, slam the door, and pull away with tires screaming as the cars careened around the corner.

“The colonel is a bit miffed,” Tony said, with a happy smile.

“He’ll be more than miffed in a few days,” Dick said. “Before the week is out that guy’s going to be in a real predicament.”