“Probably can’t locate a thing at night,” he muttered to himself, “but think of the time I can save if I find even one of them. Dick was right behind me. Wonder if he made out okay.”

Dick Donnelly did not have the luck of Tony. At that moment he was hanging head down in a tree. One leg was over a heavy branch, and his ’chute shroud lines were caught far above. His face and hands were badly scratched by the branches as he had plunged into them, but he was not worried about such minor trifles. He was struggling to pull himself up to a sitting position on the branch. Every time he tried, his shroud lines seemed to tug him in the other direction. Finally, however, he succeeded in getting the other leg over the branch. Then he snaked his pocket knife from his trousers and reached back to cut the shroud lines which held him.

When he had cut through four of them, he felt the pull lessen and found he could pull himself up on the branch. For a few moments he sat there, waiting for his head to stop swimming as the blood receded from it. Finally, he cut the rest of his parachute lines and was free.

“Can’t leave that ’chute up there,” he said. “It might be spotted from below in the morning, and certainly a German plane would see it before long.”

Tug as he might, however, he could not get it free. Making up his mind that he’d have to free it by the first light of dawn, he felt for the tree trunk, found it, and began to let himself down. His eyes were more accustomed to the darkness now, and he could vaguely see the branches as he stepped down from one to the other. Then the ground loomed up about ten feet below, and he let himself drop. He rolled over once, then brought himself up to a sitting position.

“Now what?” he asked himself. “Just sit here, I guess. If I leave this tree I may get lost and not find it again to get that parachute.”

So he edged his way back a couple of feet until his back rested against the trunk of the tree in which he had fallen. He moved a rock beneath one leg, and then relaxed completely, his head back against the tree. Far off he heard the roaring thud of bombs dropped by American bombers, and he smiled.

“Wish I could locate Tony,” he said to himself. “We went out so close together he can’t be far away. Hm—that reminds me—Tony asked if sometime when we were out alone at night I wouldn’t sing Celeste AÏda for him. Well, I’d do it if he were here now. But it’s been so long since I’ve sung. Haven’t even thought much about singing.”

Hardly realizing what he was doing he began to hum aloud the slow, ascending first notes of the famous tenor aria from the Verdi opera. By the time he reached the third phrase, he was singing the words, and it felt good. It still sounded all right. He kept on, letting his voice out more and more, pulling himself to his feet finally so that he could sing in full voice. Only when he had come to the end, did he realize that he had perhaps done a foolish thing, singing so loudly there in the hills behind the enemy lines.

Then he heard a soft clapping of hands and the word “Bravo!” He jumped and looked into the darkness from which the sound came. “Bravo, Ricardo Donnelli!” the voice said again, and Dick knew who it was as he made out the advancing figure.

“Tony!” he cried. “You startled me!”

“Sorry,” the radioman said, as he came close. “But that’s nothing to what you would have done to any German soldier within half a mile!”

“I know—I didn’t realize,” Dick said. “I got to humming when I remembered you wanted me to sing it for you sometime when we were alone in the hills at night. And then, first thing I knew, I was really singing it.”

“I was kidding,” Tony said. “In the first place I’m quite sure there isn’t a German within half a mile. And if there were, he’d just think it was an Italian out singing in the night. You didn’t sound at all like the German idea of an American soldier. You sounded swell, incidentally. I could close my eyes and see the whole scene on the stage at the Met.”

“Well, we’re a long way from there,” Dick said. “And I’m a long way from doing any singing again.”

“Gee, I was just thinking,” Tony said. “In Maletta, they used to have a pretty fair little opera company. Maybe it’s not going now, though the Italians have kept up their opera performances under the worst conditions. That’s about the last thing they’ll give up. Wouldn’t this Maletta Opera group love to have you as a guest star for a performance or two!”

“Yes, and the Germans would applaud vigorously, too, I’ll bet,” Dick laughed. “How’d you make out in your landing, by the way?”

“Neat!” Tony replied. “Right in a clearing. I went crawling around looking for my radio but couldn’t find anything. Then I heard you singing and came this way.”

“I wound up head down in this tree here,” Dick said. “Had to cut myself out of my ’chute. Couldn’t get it out of the tree, though. I’ll have to do it when it first gets light. No use waving a signal flag like that at the Germans to let them know we’re here.”

“Well, we can’t do anything until it does get light,” Tony said. “So let’s sit down.”

They sat on the ground and leaned against the trunk of the tree. Then they talked for a while, as the sound of bombing and antiaircraft fire northwest of Maletta died out. Finally they both fell into a light sleep.

It was still dark when Dick woke up, but not as black as it had been when they landed the night before. Somewhere to the east, the first rays of the sun were climbing the hills, and a hazy grayness was the first notice of their advance. Dick realized that his neck was so stiff he could hardly turn it, and then he knew that one foot was asleep.

“Dick—awake?” It was Tony’s voice beside him.

“Sure—just woke up,” Dick replied. “But I don’t know if I can move. My neck feels as if it would snap in two if I tried to turn it.”

“Same here,” Tony said. “But I think it’s going to begin getting light before long. We might be able to get something done.”

“I know it,” Dick agreed. “The Germans might have planes going over pretty early and I don’t want them to spot any ’chutes.”

With an effort he got to his feet, wagging his head from side to side while he grimaced with the pain. Then he stamped his sleeping foot on the hard earth while it tingled to life. He turned and looked at Tony Avella, who was going through the same thing.

“Do I look as groggy as you do, Tony?” he laughed.

“If you look as groggy as I feel,” Tony answered, “you’re pretty bad. I can’t see without a fuzziness over everything.”

But in a few minutes they were awake. Together they scrambled up the big tree and got Dick’s parachute untangled from the branches. Wrapping it up in a bundle with the harness, Dick slung it over his shoulder.

“Don’t want to leave any evidence like this around,” he said, following Tony off through the trees to help him find his things.

Tony’s ’chute was only about fifty yards from the tree in which Dick had landed. They stowed the two parachutes together and then walked south searching for the two radio ’chutes. They found the first one almost at once. It was caught on an overhanging rock over a sheer drop of about thirty feet to a stone ledge below.

“Glad I didn’t land there,” Tony commented, as he crawled up the rock to the ’chute. There he tugged the shroud lines so that the container, which was hanging free in the air, swung over close to Dick, who caught it and cut it loose. Then Tony retrieved the colored ’chute and they continued the search for the other one.

It took them ten minutes to find it, and by that time dawn had really come. The birds in the trees were chirping and flitting about but no other sound came to them. When they had gathered everything together, they set out to find the others of their party.

“Must be about three-quarters of a mile,” Dick said. “No matter how fast they went out of the ship they’d be spread over that much territory. We can start whistling pretty soon.”

After a hundred steps through the trees, heading northward parallel with the ridge of the hill above them, they began alternately to give poor imitations of bird calls. But the birds themselves were singing so vigorously, as if they did not realize a war was going on, that the two Americans began to wonder if their calls would be heard. In a few minutes, however, they heard a call like their own.

“That’s no bird,” Tony said. “Only Vince Salamone could make a sound like that.”

They hurried down to the left, from which the whistle had come, lugging their heavy containers with them. They saw Vince Salamone and “Boom-Boom” Slade sitting on their equipment under a tree. Vince was working so hard at whistling that he could not hear the replies which Dick and Tony were giving him. And Slade was pursing up his lips repeatedly without a single sound coming out. The demolition expert could not whistle a note!

Dick called out when they were close, and the two men jumped to their feet. Happy to learn that neither one had been hurt in his landing, Dick checked over the equipment to be sure it was all there.

“Right—three containers and five ’chutes!” he said. “Let’s go.”

Dick led the way as they went forward to the north again. It was hard walking, for the hill was steeper, and ahead Dick could make out an outcropping of rock that rose straight up for about twenty-five feet. He began to whistle once more, looking for either Max Burckhardt or Jerry Scotti. After a few minutes he heard an answering whistle and stopped.

“Where’s that coming from?” Dick asked, puzzled. The whistle seemed to be ahead of them, but just where was not certain. So they walked forward more steps, whistled again, and heard a reply. Then they heard a voice.

“Dick! Dick! I’m up here!”

They all looked up. There, leaning over a rocky ledge far above them, was Max Burckhardt.

“Max! How did you get up there?” Dick called back, not too loudly.

“How do you think?” Max demanded angrily. “I landed here, of course!”

“On that little ledge?” Tony asked. “How big is it?”

“About eight feet square,” Max replied. “And there’s not a way to get off it. Sheer rock up above and straight drop below. Not a foothold anywhere. I feel silly as the devil perched up here with no way to get down.”

“You may feel silly,” Dick answered, “but you’re really lucky as the devil. You might have been knocked senseless against this cliff by your ’chute.”

“Don’t I know it!” Max called back.

“Where’s your ’chute?” Dick asked.

“Here!” Max replied. “I sort of sensed I was on the edge of something and I pulled it in fast. It was trying to pull me right off. Toss me up a good rope. There’s a rock up here I can fasten it on.”

Dick quickly opened one of the supply containers and found a good length of rope. It took half a dozen tries to get one end of it up to Max, but soon he had it looped over the rock. He tossed one end down again.

“With both ends down there,” he explained, “we can get it free from this jutting rock and take it along with us. Hold it taut for me and it won’t come loose.”

Max tossed his ’chute over to them, and then Dick and Vince Salamone bore down on the ends of the rope. Soon Max slid over the edge and came hand-over-hand down to the ground.

“Boy, am I glad to see you guys!” he exclaimed. “I was beginning to feel that I’d be up there for the duration.”

Gathering everything together again, they went in search of the other supply containers and within another ten minutes had found them intact.

“Now to find Jerry,” Dick said. “He can’t be far.”

“I know it,” Max said. “I’ve been wondering. I would have thought he might come back a bit looking for me, and I certainly think he would have looked around for the last supply ’chutes. He was jumping right after them.”

They stopped and whistled. There was no answer. Then they moved forward a short distance and whistled again. Still no reply came to them. Dick climbed up the hill a little farther and called out to the others. He had found the entrance to a cave. It was well sheltered and not very obvious, and inside it was like a large square room. But they found no Lieutenant Scotti inside, nor any sign that a human had been in the place for a long time.

“This will make a swell base,” Dick said, “as soon as we find Jerry. Let’s stow all our stuff here and fan out to look for him.”

Quickly they put their supplies and equipment well back in the dry cave and then started out in different directions from the cave entrance. It was Dick who first heard the groan, coming from behind a huge, jagged boulder. He raced around it quickly, whistling the signal frantically as he went.

There at the bottom of the boulder lay Lieutenant Scotti. His face was covered with blood, and his right leg was twisted under him in a way that told Dick immediately that it was broken.