“Why did that leg have to break?” he demanded. “I ought to be there with my men and here I sit—”

But he stopped and gained control of himself again. Dick Donnelly could carry this thing through if anyone could. He had shown amazing cleverness so far in this matter, even when things got the most dangerous.

Dick was not feeling as confident, however. He felt pretty tired, and this test ahead of him was almost too much for him to carry. It was even worse, almost, to know that your commanding officer expected so much of you, to know that the men under you would do just about anything you said.

They all carried heavy loads—the entire batch of dynamite, lengths of wire, detonator boxes. But they made their way around the hill all right, and came down toward the dam from above, as they had before. Dick went ahead and looked up and down the main road, motioned to the others, and they sprinted across, dropping into the ditch on the other side. Then they slipped down the steep slope toward the power house below the dam. The grass grew high here, and they were able to pile up the dynamite and other equipment not far from the big pipe-line. Then Max and Dick climbed up to the road again.

“All right, now, Max,” Dick said. “I’ll cut around below the power house and cross to the other side of the dam. Give me about three minutes’ head start. After that, wait for the next car that comes along. Just after it passes walk down this little drive toward the dam wall. The sentries are likely to think you got out of the car they heard. But don’t give them a chance to think much. Bawl them out, raise the devil, call the guards down below at the power house and get them to come up to you. Then you’ll have them all together when I open fire. I’ll be back in the woods on the other side of the lake. I’ll be able to see, by the lights near that little building on the dam wall, when you have them all around you. I’ll give a good burst on the gun and then light out as fast as I can. You send them after me.”

“Okay, Dick,” Max said. “I’ll do my best. And I’ll follow behind them too, to keep them looking for you. I’ll give Slade and Vince a full half-hour, longer if possible.”

Dick went quickly down the hill, alongside the road. He ducked into the ditch when a row of big trucks raced by, toward Maletta. Finally he left the roadside and cut down into the valley, about a quarter of a mile below the power house. He made his way across the trickling brook which was almost dry now that the water gates were shut. Then he headed up toward the dam again on the other side.

Vince and Slade were hiding by their supplies in the tall grass. They saw three sentries around the power house, five more pacing the dam wall. They would be able to see when Max walked out there, acting like a Nazi.

The wait seemed interminable. Then they heard a car go by on the road above them, and there was Max, striding vigorously out on to the dam wall. The nearest sentry snapped to attention and saluted, muttering a command back to the others as he did so. They all came to attention, and Max started bellowing orders.

Vince and Slade could not understand him, but they smiled at each other over the rough sound of Max’s voice. And it was obvious that the sentries were pretty scared. One of them jumped to the door of the little building and out came two more guards, hurriedly buttoning their jackets. At this sight, Max seemed to fly into a rage, and he slapped both the men hard across their faces. Then he called to the men farther along on the dam and they raced forward, snapped to attention in front of Max, and saluted.

Vince shot a glance at the sentries around the power house. They were staring up toward the wall, and whispering to each other. At that moment, Max looked down at them and bellowed an order that sounded so severe it almost made Slade quake in his boots. The three power-house sentries ran forward, climbed the steel ladder that led up to the dam and stood at attention before Max.

“He’s got ’em all lined up,” Vince whispered. “Every one of ’em. It’s going to work.”

“Right,” Slade said, “and I’ve got our hatch in the pipe-line picked out.”

Then they heard Dick’s automatic firing from across the lake. The sentries on the dam were already so scared that they almost jumped off when they heard the sound. After all, one man in the power house had been shot that afternoon for neglect and carelessness, and by the very Gestapo officer, they thought, who now stood before them.

Max rasped out another order, and the sentries started running across the dam wall to the other side of the lake, with Max on their heels. In a flash Slade and Vince were out of the tall grass, running forward toward the pipe-lines, each with a heavy load. Slade took a wrench from his pocket and started work on the hatch opening in the pipe while Vince ran back for another load of material. By the time he returned, Slade had the door open and was boosting himself inside.

Vince handed up one big bundle to Slade, who disappeared with it inside the pipe. Then Vince kept his eyes sweeping over the surrounding land, looking for any sign that someone might approach. Inside the big pipe, Slade was struggling up the sloping steel shaft toward the dam wall. He slipped, he fell, but he picked himself up again and pushed forward. It took him five minutes to reach the end of the pipe, where the water-gate of the dam stopped him. Here he set down his load, turned, and slid down the pipe to the opening, dousing his flashlight before he got there.

Vince was ready for him with the next bundle. This was even heavier, and it took Slade almost ten minutes to get it in position. When he slid down again, one hand was cut and his knees were badly skinned, but he grabbed the coil of wire which Vince handed him and started up again.

Meanwhile, after firing his shots over the lake, Dick had run full speed toward the west, back toward the dam. He had to get past the dam wall before the sentries came racing from it. He heard their pounding feet close at hand just as he slid into a clump of low bushes just below the dam wall. He could hear Max roaring out his orders and he knew that the supposed colonel was ordering the sentries to go to the right, up along the lake, in search of the man who had fired the shots. They all obeyed without question, and then Dick slipped away from the bushes, went down the hill alongside the stream, crossed over, and cut back up to the spot beside the power house at which he had left Vince and Slade.

He smiled as he saw that the hatch door was open in the pipe-line, with Vince standing guard beside it. He whistled a signal and stepped forward out of the tall grass.

“He’s hooking up the wire now,” Vince whispered to him. “Ought to be down in a minute.”

And then Slade, appearing at the opening, leaped to the ground. He had the coil of wire over his arm and was letting it out as he moved away from the dynamite charge at the base of the dam gates. He nodded briefly to Dick, then closed the hatch door, but not so tight that it would cut through the wire. He stepped back toward the tall grass swiftly, still paying out his wire.

Dick and Vince followed him, helping him up the steep slope toward the road. He was heading for a culvert which passed under the road about fifty feet west of the little driveway to the dam wall. He did not even pause as he ducked low and started crawling through the culvert. Dick went up on the road, scurried across and got at the other end of the opening. He could barely see Slade’s flashlight as he made his way through the small tunnel.

After he was through, Vince came across and joined them, and then they made their way up the hill on the other side of the road, into the thick trees.

“Here,” Slade said, panting, “this will be the place. Vince, go get the detonator.”

“I’ll go with you,” Dick said. “I want to get my own stuff, too.”

While Slade sat down to rest, Dick and Vince went back across the road, into the tall grass where they had first put their heavy bundles. There were two detonators, a box of fuses, a length of wire, and one big box of dynamite. They picked them up and hurried back to join Slade. When they reached him again, they were all exhausted, but happy. There was still no sign of Max or his sentries, who were busy, apparently, chasing through the woods on the other side of the dam and lake.

They sat and waited, secure in the knowledge that now the dam would really be blown up. The charge was laid, the fuses set, the wire hooked up. At the proper moment Slade would just have to push down a plunger, and the dam would be ruined, flood waters would roar down into the valley below, engulfing the German forces and their mighty armored equipment.

Meanwhile, in the country around the town of Maletta, there were many strange sights. Since dark, Italian families had been starting out for short strolls, strolls that led down side streets and then up paths into the wooded hills. They took different streets, different roads, and they walked slowly, casually, whistling or humming songs as they walked. Some carried bundles, and some even took their babies out, when they should have been in their cribs asleep.

But only a few of the Germans seemed to notice. Most of them were too busy to see anything like Italians taking a stroll. An aide did mention to the Gestapo colonel that there seemed to be an unusual number of Italians out on the streets that evening, but the colonel was in no mood to listen. He had just discovered one of his newest uniforms to be missing and he was berating an orderly with its loss. Moreover, he had still not located that illegal radio, and his commanding officer had ordered him to appear before him the next day with a full explanation.

Far into the night the imperceptible exodus of Italians from the town went on, and nobody said a word. Tomorrow the Germans expected the big smashing attack from the Americans who were now only ten miles below Maletta.

Another wanderer on those hills was Dick Donnelly. He carried a coil of wire over his shoulder, a box of dynamite in one hand, and a detonator in the other. Vince had begged to be allowed to go with him, but Dick would not listen.

“This is my own private venture,” he said, “this blowing up of the road. I’ll endanger my own life in it, but nobody else’s. The dam is the important thing. You stay here with Slade and Max until it is all over, then head back for the cave fast.”

Max had reappeared just before Dick left. After three-quarters of an hour hunting some fugitive in the woods, he led his sentries back to the dam. And he was fuming. He let forth a stream of abuse that would have made the real Colonel Klage envious. He blamed everything that had gone wrong in the war on those sentries, threatened to have them up for punishment the next day.

He gave a final order for them all to stay on the dam wall the rest of the night, and to keep their eyes constantly on the other side of the lake. Then he stalked away. The sentries were lined up like wooden Indians, facing the other direction. They couldn’t have seen as far as the main road anyway, to see that Max just ducked across it into the woods above, but they didn’t even dare try to see.

Max was proud and happy. “I ran the legs off those guys,” he said. “And it did me good to hit a couple of them, too. They like to go around doing that kind of thing to people who can’t hit back. I wonder how they liked a taste of their own medicine.”

Dick told Max what a fine job he had done, but the big soldier just said, “I guess I’ll go in for acting after I get out of the Army. It’s fun.”