Tony Avella was nearing the end of his long vigil in the top of the bell tower. He was feeling restless, cramped, and uneasy. He kept telling himself that this radio job was just as important as any of the rest of it, but it did not make him feel any better about having to spend almost a whole week in that cramped space, hot in the day, cold at night, with a stone floor beneath him. Most of the time he had nothing whatever to do, and he had covered the floor with scratches playing tick-tack-toe with himself.

But now the end was approaching. It had been some time since he’d heard about the latest plans, but he knew that the dam was scheduled to go up at exactly five-thirty A.M. And he thought that Dick was going to try to get around to the northwest road to blow it up at the same time.

“At any rate, I’ve got box seats for the whole affair,” he told himself. “I’ll be able to see both explosions from here. But I can’t wait around very long after that.”

Although there was still a half-hour to wait, he sat down beside his radio and felt for the cranks of the generator. He put on the earphones and took them off, adjusted the microphone before his mouth and then moved it a half inch further away. Then it was time to look at his watch again, the watch that he felt sure must be running down.

“Wonder where Dick is now,” he said to himself.

Dick was almost as nervous as Tony. He sat behind a huge boulder above the northwest road where it was cut into the side of the hill. He had laid his charge just where Slade showed him, and hooked up the fuses and wire. Now he sat waiting beside the plunger box for five-thirty to come.

“I hope everything’s still okay at the dam,” he muttered to himself.

Except for nervousness again, everything was all right there. Max and Slade and Vince sat on the side of the hill, looking at their watches, laughing about the sentries who still stood on the dam wall, looking at their watches again.

“Scotti must be kind of lonesome,” Vince said.

Lieutenant Scotti was very lonesome. The night had been particularly long for him, with nothing whatever to do, without any way of knowing how the affair at the dam had gone. He looked at his watch.

“Pretty soon I’ll hear it,” he said to himself. “Then I’ll know the answer. And Tony will flash word to headquarters at once.”

At that moment Tony was beginning to turn the crank on the generator. He got it going at a steady pace and kept it going easily. Then he turned a switch, looked at his watch. Any minute now—

He jumped, when it finally did come, after all those hours of waiting. A great roar to the east. He saw a flash, saw black smoke against the sky that was beginning to be gray, felt the earth tremble a little, and then heard the booming roar go echoing through the hills.

But—was that an echo? No, it was another roar, though not so loud, from the west. Looking quickly, he saw a cloud of smoke and dust rising from the northwest road.

“Julius Caesar to Mark Antony!” he cried into the microphone. And he got the answer back right away, “Mark Antony to Julius Caesar. Come in.”

He did not bother with code. He was not going to say anything that the Germans wouldn’t know in two minutes anyway.

“Dam blown up at five-thirty on the dot,” he said swiftly. “Northwest road ditto one minute later. Repeat.”

The man at the other end repeated the news once, and Tony was on his feet. He tossed the headphones and microphone to the floor, threw the rope out the opening and let himself over the ledge. Sliding down it like a streak of lightning, his feet hit the roof of the wing, and he ran in a crouch to the rear. He leaped to the ground and stumbled—into Tomaso’s arms.

“Uncle Tomaso,” he cried. “Why aren’t you in the hills?”

“I couldn’t go and leave you here, Tony,” the old man said. “I had to make sure that you were safe.”

“Come with me, fast,” Tony said. “We have to hurry to get across the road before the water is too deep.”

They took off through the trees, not bothering to hide themselves too carefully. They could hear the shouts from men in front of the villa, the firing of a few guns, the sound of motorcar engines roaring to life. Everyone would be too busy to notice them.

“Dick’s got even further to go than we have,” Tony said, as he trotted beside the old man, who could not move very quickly. “I wonder if he can make it.”

Dick had known that it would not be easy for him to get back to the cave after blowing up the road. It had been a great thrill for him to see the hillside go sliding down across the highway, obliterating it completely for a stretch of a quarter of a mile. But he had lost his own footing and gone rolling down the hill too. Before he caught himself, he was almost at the road, and there, just in front of him, was a German motorcycle messenger pulling up to a screaming stop in front of the mass of rocks that blocked his way.

Dick did not hesitate for an instant. He snatched his automatic from his pocket, fired, and watched the man topple to the ground.

“I’m afraid I’m a little too excited to be a good shot,” he told himself critically. “I believe I just winged him in the shoulder.”

But that was enough for Dick’s purpose. He pulled up the man’s motorcycle, turned it around, started it, and headed straight down the main highway for Maletta. He roared down the main street at forty miles an hour, swerving in and out among the cars, the trucks, the running soldiers with half their clothes on. The sight of such panic made him laugh with pleasure, and everything was in such a turmoil that he was able to race right through the heart of town without being noticed except as a nuisance that got in someone’s way.

“They don’t even know, half of them, what’s happened yet,” he told himself as he sped out again on the northeast road. “But they’ll know mighty soon,” he added, “for there comes the water.”

His motorcycle wheels were already running in water an inch deep. Then it was six inches, eight inches, ten inches. Ahead he saw it boiling down at him like a solid wall, and he leaped from the motorcycle and cut into the fields. The mud and water slowed him down but he raced ahead as fast as he could. Another fifty feet, another thirty! The water was around his knees. Twenty feet—ten feet to go to high ground—and the water was around his waist. And then he made it. He grabbed the trunk of a sapling and pulled himself up the slope. Then he sat down, panting heavily. But in another minute his feet were in the steadily rising water, and he pulled himself up again.

“Anyway,” he told himself, “I know the dam really went out. It’s not just cracked and leaking.”

Breathing a little more easily, he got up and started up the hill toward the cave. Halfway up he heard the firing of guns. The sound came from the cave without a doubt. He ran forward, circling around to come at the cave from above if possible. He figured that he must be just a little above the cave entrance when he heard another burst of fire and heard a bullet zing through the branches overhead. He dropped to the ground and edged his way down the slope on his belly, keeping behind trees as much as possible. He knew there was a big tree growing out of a split rock just above the cave entrance. If only he could get to that—

“Scotti must be alone in there,” he said. “And—yes, I can see them—they’re German soldiers who have come racing up the hill to get away from the flood waters. They probably would have run smack into the cave by accident if Scotti hadn’t fired to keep them off. I’ve got to get down to him.”