“Oh—like the gang which came back from the dam in the Wadizam Pass action?” the general laughed. “They did the impossible.”

“Yes, I’m thinking of some of those same men,” Major Marker replied. “Who shall give them their instructions?”

“I’ll do it myself,” the general said. “Can you have them here tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes, sir,” the Major replied. “Tomorrow afternoon—six picked men.”

And so it was that six men set off with Major Marker for the general’s headquarters. At first they did not know that was where they were going, but the Major told them after they were speeding along the road in the big command car. Then they were more mystified than ever. The Major would say nothing but, “Something special. Very interesting job. Wish I could go too.”

Next to him sat Lieutenant Jerry Scotti, who was to be in command on this mysterious mission. There was Dick Donnelly, second in command, and Corporal Tony Avella for the radio work. Taking up enough room for almost two men in the rear seat was Private Vincent Salamone, the home-run king of baseball in peacetime, the toughest paratrooper of them all in war. As the Major later remarked to the general, “Everybody in Italy knows the name of Vince Salamone. He’s an idol over here just the way he is at home. He’ll win over the Italians in a minute!”

All those four men spoke Italian well, like natives. They knew Italy and the Italian people thoroughly. Major Marker felt sure that with four out of six speaking Italian so well, this qualification of the general’s had been met with complete satisfaction. The fifth man was Private Max Burckhardt. He spoke German, and he was a veteran of the Wadizam dam suicide detachment. The sixth man, since he had to be a demolition expert, was George “Boom-Boom” Slade, who now sat silently beside Vince Salamone, looking most insignificant beside the bulk of the famous ball player.

Major Marker looked over his six selections and smiled. They were all good tough fighters, with plenty of seasoning. And they got along well together. They were good personal friends. The Major knew that Lieutenant Scotti was “Jerry” to the rest of them except when other officers were around. And he knew that the whole crowd would follow Dick Donnelly to the ends of the earth.

The general was impressed too, but not so much as the six men who suddenly found themselves in his presence. Inside of ten minutes, however, they were at their ease. They sat in a plain room with a desk, a big table, about ten chairs, and some large maps on the wall. The general sat at ease, with his collar open, smoking a cigarette. First, he made the men feel at ease when he talked with them about the Wadizam Pass affair and other actions in which they had taken part. He seemed familiar with all details, much to their surprise.

When he saw that they were comfortable and no longer awed, the general plunged into his plan at once.

“The town of Maletta,” he said, pointing to the map, “is really our bottleneck. We’ve still got twenty miles to go to reach it. We can make that twenty miles all right, but taking the town then is a tougher job. It’s at the head of a valley up which we’ll be fighting to reach it. There are German gun emplacements all along the hills on both sides of the valley. If we follow conventional tactics we can make it—but in about two months. We’ll have to clean out all the hills on both sides as we move forward. Oh—we can do it, but at a great cost of time and of men. We’ll take that time and use those men if we have to. But I don’t think we’ll have to.”

He paused and looked around at the faces of the men who hung on every word he said. Then he turned to the map again.

“As you can see, we can’t by-pass the valley and Maletta itself,” he explained. “The country on either side of the valley is rugged and slow going, with bad roads and paths. We can get infantry around there—with machine guns and mortars, but that’s about all. And even doing it from both sides, that wouldn’t be enough to take Maletta, with the heavy guns the Germans have there.”

Lieutenant Scotti nodded his head without realizing it, seeing exactly what the general’s problem was.

“Likewise a regular parachute action would be sure to fail,” the high officer went on. “Even in great force you’d lack the necessary heavy guns. But six specially equipped paratroopers—they can do a real job for us!”

He smiled at the men and they smiled back. They did not need to say they were eager to take on this job. It showed plainly in their eyes and in their smiles.

“The main job you are to do will come exactly one week from the time you arrive outside Maletta,” the general pointed out. “But you must get there in advance and meanwhile do many valuable small jobs for us. You can get detailed information for us on the movement of German troops in and around Maletta—and trucks, tanks, guns, supplies. You see, we’ll start our push up the valley at once and we expect the Germans to pour their men into Maletta as a result. Right now they’re not sure we plan on taking the road right straight ahead. As soon as they’re sure, they’ll put just about all they’ve got into the head of the valley.”

The general turned with a pointer and showed them the lines of railroads and roads.

“You can see that Maletta is an important hub, even though it is ordinarily a town of only about ten thousand people. By the way—do any of you men know Maletta?”

Tony Avella raised his hand. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I know Maletta pretty well. I’ve got an uncle who lives there—at least he did live there. I haven’t heard about him for some time, and he was no great lover of Mussolini.”

“Good for him!” said the general. “I hope he’s still there. If he is, he may be able to help us greatly. And he certainly can be the go-between in your relations with the Italian townspeople. There aren’t ten thousand people there now, by any means, by the way. Most of the civilians have been evacuated. The Germans have made the town into a fortress. And there were no real factories there to keep any sizable part of the population in the town to run them. According to our information there are no more than fifteen hundred Italians left in and around Maletta.”

The general came back to the immediate plan for the six men on the special mission.

“We’ll want reports, by radio, on troops and supplies into Maletta,” he said. “Where you can set up your short-wave radio will be your problem. And how to keep it from being found out by the German detectors is also your problem, I’m afraid, and a tough one. But you’ll do it, I’m sure.”

Tony shook his head wonderingly. He was glad the general had such confidence in them, but he knew how hard it was to keep a radio station from being located almost immediately when there were detectors listening at all times for underground or enemy stations. Still, they could try! If the general needed it—well, they’d just have to give him what he wanted!

“Finally, you are to be in sufficiently close touch with the townspeople to warn them when you blow up the dam,” the general said. “And that’s a dangerous job, for there are still some ardent fascists among them, without a doubt, men who are working with the Germans. Not many, I’m sure, but a few. If Corporal Avella’s uncle is still there, he’ll be able to let you know whom to avoid. But everybody else must be warned—not too soon, but in time, to get to the hills when the dam goes, for the waters will rush down and wipe out Maletta!”

“Oh boy!” Dick Donnelly cried, without thinking. The general grinned at him.

“You seem to like dams, Sergeant Donnelly,” he said.

“I like the idea of really blowing one up,” Dick replied, “and washing away a few thousand Germans, with their tanks, trucks, guns, and ammunition!”

“Could I ask a question, sir?” Scotti inquired.

“Of course, Lieutenant Scotti,” the general answered. “I want you all to ask as many questions about this as you please.”

“What about the flood waters when they reach our own troops?” Scotti asked.

“I’ll show you,” the general replied. “Our men coming up the valley will be here when the dam is blown up.” He pointed to a spot on the map about ten miles below the town. “As you see, the valley broadens here. The waters will be pretty low by this time, and they’ll channel chiefly into these two river beds, leaving a ridge of high ground up the center between them.”

“But how can we attack the town, then?” Jerry asked.

“We won’t attack it from the front, up the valley,” the general replied. “The flood will have silenced the big guns in the town itself, and for some distance behind it. We’ll have infantry pouring over the sides of the hills on both sides at that moment. You’ll recall I said we could filter plenty of men up the other sides of these hills, but no heavy guns. Well, with the German guns out of commission, they won’t be handicapped. They’ll be fighting German foot soldiers on an equal basis, only the Germans will be racing like fury to get into the hills away from the flood waters, and they won’t be organized.”

“I see, sir,” Lieutenant Scotti replied. “I knew there was an answer, of course, but wanted to be sure what it was.”

“Naturally,” the general replied. “You can see it’s something like the Wadizam Pass action. First comes our advance part way up the valley, drawing heavy German troop and supply movement into Maletta. Meanwhile other forces filter north along the other sides of the ridges, traveling chiefly at night to avoid detection. You men are in Maletta, reporting to us. You warn the Italians, blow up the dam and run for the hills, planning to meet our own men who’ll be coming over them at that time.”

Then the general asked for questions, and he answered them for half an hour until the six men felt that they knew every detail of the plan, every action that was expected of them.

“One last thing,” the general said. “In getting into the town you may find that uniforms are attention-getters. But if you’re back of the enemy lines without uniforms you’re really spies and can be treated as such by the enemy. In uniform, if captured, you will be prisoners of war. But that problem will have to be left up to you and Lieutenant Scotti, your commanding officer. You do whatever you think is necessary and advisable, but you must be fully aware of the consequences. I have no right to ask you to be spies, to take such a risk. This whole venture is completely volunteer, anyway. Not a man of you needs to undertake it.”

But every man did want to undertake the job. They were delighted when the general said they would leave the following night. Then, after hearty handshakes and good wishes from the general, the six men left with Major Marker. They jabbered excitedly all the way back to their base, but stopped entirely as soon as they were with their friends in camp. These men all knew that the six were going to do something special, but they could not get the slightest hint of what it was to be. And they were the envy of the whole base. Only “Boom-Boom” Slade seemed unexcited, unperturbed. He was interested chiefly in how much dynamite they’d be able to have, and he spent every spare moment alone studying the plans and photographs of the big dam which had been given him.

“The spillway,” he murmured to himself happily. “That looks good for the charge. It ought to be a pretty sight when it goes out!”

The next day was a busy one for most of them. Tony Avella was going over his radio equipment, the very finest short-wave set in the Army. It was put up in special containers for being dropped by parachute, but Tony took them out and practiced setting everything up in a hurry several times. Sergeant Slade was going over his equipment, dynamite, detonator, wires, fuses. Lieutenant Scotti was checking supplies with Dick Donnelly. They took plenty of canned rations, lengths of rope, blinker lights for emergency signaling, extra first-aid kits, blanket beds, waterproof tarpaulins. They tried to think in advance of every condition under which they might have to work, fight, and live.

“We don’t want to load ourselves down,” Scotti said, “but we want to have everything possible that we’ll really be likely to need. One extra supply parachute won’t make much difference. We’ll set up headquarters in the hills to the east of the town—that’s the wildest country thereabouts, and the safest. We might as well make ourselves comfortable for a week’s stay, and conduct our forays into the town from the camp base in the hills.”

“We might be able to move right into the town,” Dick suggested, “if the underground is really helpful and trustworthy.”

“Maybe so,” the lieutenant agreed. “But that will depend on whether the Germans suspect we’re anywhere around. I imagine as soon as Tony gets his radio going, even though our messages will be in code in Italian, they’ll suspect something and search the town thoroughly.”

“How can we possibly set up the radio so they won’t find us?” Dick asked.

“I don’t know,” Jerry replied with a smile. “That’s a really tough assignment. Of course, we plan to go on the air only twice a day and then only for about three or four minutes. Maybe we can move it to a different place each time.”

“But we couldn’t move it far enough to keep away from them,” Dick said. “They’ll search the whole area when they get a fix on that short-wave sending set. And we can’t have it near our base in the hills, or they’ll be right up there after us.”

“Yes—it would be best to have it somewhere in the town itself,” Scotti said, “though right now I don’t see how it’s possible. Then the Germans would just think it was an illegal Italian station. They wouldn’t necessarily suspect that Americans were there.”

“I guess we can’t figure that one out until we get there,” Dick concluded.

“No, that will have to wait,” the lieutenant agreed. “And how we’ll manage to blow up that dam I don’t know. It must be pretty well guarded.”

“Boom-Boom Slade can figure out something, I’ll bet,” Dick said. “That guy can manage to blow up anything if you really want it blown up!”

At nine o’clock that evening everything was ready. The six men reported to Major Marker, who took them at once to the big car. Without lights they drove over the roads of southern Italy for an hour, eventually reaching a small airfield. They had no idea where they might be, as they had gone through no towns.

On the field, a big transport waited in the darkness, its two engines idling. First, the equipment was placed in the plane, and then the men climbed aboard. Before the door closed, Scotti and Dick Donnelly waved a last farewell to Major Marker, who seemed no more than a shadow on the ground below.

“Happy landings!” came his voice over the sound of the motors, and then they closed the door. Scotti nodded to the pilot in the cockpit and the plane picked up speed. In a minute more its wheels had left the ground and they were in the air, on their way to the most dangerous undertaking any of them had ever faced.