“We’re really just a diversionary action, a feint,” Scotti said, his voice raised slightly so that all the men in the plane could hear him above the muffled hum of the plane’s engines.

“So we’re not gettin’ into the real thing even yet?” Tony Avella demanded.

“It’s the real thing, all right,” the lieutenant replied, “if it’s tough fighting you want. We’ll have plenty on our hands if plans work out right, because we’ll draw off a sizable force for our main group to pinch off.”

The men all leaned forward eagerly.

“You see, the Germans have holed up in the Wadizam Pass, and that’s on the main road to Tunis and Bizerte,” the lieutenant continued. “We’ve got to break their hold there and that’s no easy job. The planes have been giving them a pasting from that French field we took last week, but they’ve got plenty of cover and have stood up under it well. A frontal attack is almost suicide because our men would have to march between hills covered with German guns.”

“This begins to sound like something,” Dick Donnelly commented, and several others nodded, waiting for Scotti to continue. It was one of the things they liked most about their lieutenant—his willingness to tell them as much as he could about any action they were going into. Lots of men had to fight almost in the dark, but Scotti felt his men could fight better if they knew why they were fighting and what they were up against.

“Two Ranger companies have been walking all night over mountains with almost no trail,” Scotti said. “They’ve probably been running, instead of walking, as a matter of fact, because they had fourteen miles to cover, over rough terrain, in complete darkness. Think that over while you’re sitting here nice and comfortable in your private airplane!”

“Where are the Rangers going?” Max Burckhardt asked.

“They’re cutting over the hills, to come down on those entrenched Germans from above,” Scotti continued. “The Germans won’t expect it for a minute. In the first place, the hill is considered almost impassable. Also, their observation planes have not noted any move of a body of troops in that direction. That’s because the troops waited for darkness, were rushed to the bottom of the hill by truck after dark, and will climb all night. It’s an almost impossible feat, and the Germans don’t think we’re very good soldiers yet. They think you’ve got to have plenty of battle experience to do a job like that. So they’re sure we won’t pull such a trick.”

“Well—I know those Ranger-Commando boys are good,” Dick Donnelly said. “But can they really do it, if it’s so near to impossible?”

“They’ll do it,” the lieutenant replied with a smile. “They had the whole job put up to them on a volunteer basis, and the toughness of it wasn’t played down, either. And they were told that we fellows would be sticking our necks out, because our very lives depended on their making that march on time. They said they’d make it, and they said it as if they meant it. They know the score—and they won’t miss.”

Jerry Scotti looked around at the faces and saw smiles, a few nods, and some relief. These men knew, too, that the Rangers would get to the top of their hill on time, even though many of them would be carrying guns and mortars.

“Okay—now here’s where we come in,” Scotti said. “Just after dawn we fly past the Wadizam Pass, to the north of it, circling around as if we were trying to sneak in just when we had enough light to see but before the Germans would see us. Of course, they will see us and we know it. But they haven’t got much of an opinion of us as soldiers or tacticians yet; so they’ll think we’re fools enough to believe we can get away with it.”

“I get it,” Tony Avella said. “They’ve been saying the Americans were stupid. Well, we’re going to take advantage of their thinking that.”

“Sure, that’s it,” Scotti said. “And we’ll be quite a parachute force dropping behind their lines on the opposite hill from the ones the Rangers will be coming over. Twenty planes dropping paratroopers back there can cause a lot of damage, and they know it. There’re a couple of important bridges, a dam, and some telegraph lines we can cut.”

“Is that what we’re going to do?” Dick asked.

“No, it’s not,” the lieutenant answered.

“I didn’t think so,” the sergeant said. “We’ll want to be using that dam and those bridges and lines pretty soon ourselves.”

“Right,” Scotti agreed, and went on. “But the Germans will have to send back quite a good-sized force to round us up. First, they’ll want to do the job fast, before we could do much damage, so they’ll send a big force. Next, they know we’ll have good cover in the hills, and they’ll be coming up the slope to get us. To do that the attacking force has to be about four times as strong as the defenders. And in this case, we’re the defenders, holding the hilltop.”

“We can mow ’em down,” Max Burckhardt grinned.

“Sure, we can,” Scotti said, “for a while. And then they’d overcome us with greatly superior numbers and a few fairly heavy guns they’d trundle up there in a hurry. But they won’t get that chance. If we can draw off 1500 to 2000 men from the main force at the entrance of the pass, they’ll be weakened by more than a third. Then the Rangers swoop down on them from their side—flanking them so their biggest guns are not in position to return fire. It will be a complete surprise to them, and at the crucial moment the main force will attack at the front.”

“Sounds fine—if it works,” Tony muttered.

They all agreed, but no one said what would happen if it did not work. They all knew that if the attack failed, the paratroop force would be cut off completely, surrounded and mopped up.

“So, even if we’re a diversion,” Jerry Scotti smiled, “I think we’ll get in some pretty good fighting. Tony, I’ll want that radio set up in a big hurry.”

“Right you are, sir,” the young man replied. “I’ll have it going in ten minutes after it lands, if you’ll detail a couple of men to help me get it out of the ’chute containers and put together in a good spot.”

“Sure,” the lieutenant replied. “MacWinn and Rivera—you help Tony with the radio first. There won’t be any shooting for a while, anyway; so you won’t miss any of it.”

Suddenly, after all the talk, there was complete silence in the plane. The men were all looking into space, or at the floor, thinking, picturing what might come in the dangerous action ahead of them. The plane purred on steadily. This was always the most difficult time, Lieutenant Scotti knew. That was why he so often passed the time telling his men about the coming action. The ride in the plane just before they jumped and began to fight—that was when hearts beat a little faster, when men’s throats felt a little dry.

“It’s just about getting light over to the east,” he said quietly, and the men looked up. The co-pilot stepped through the door from the cockpit at that moment, and spoke to the lieutenant.

“About three minutes,” he said. “All set?”

“All set,” Scotti replied with a smile, and got to his feet. Before he could utter his command, the men were on their feet attaching their long ripcords to the cable that ran the length of the fuselage over their heads.

“Got ’em trained, haven’t you?” the co-pilot commented. “Don’t have to give them any orders.”

“Not this gang,” Scotti replied. “They know what to do better than I do.”

The men all smiled at that, pleased with themselves. They weren’t tense any more. The time for real action was here at last, and they were ready for it.

The side door was opened, and the men braced themselves against the blast of air that swept against them.

“Remember—low jump, men,” Scotti said. “Okay—go ahead, Dick.”

Clutching the Reising sub-machine gun across his chest, Donnelly leaped into space with a shout. But to the customary “Geronimo!” he added the word, “Scotti!” But the lieutenant did not hear, for the blast that caught Dick swept him thirty feet from the plane by the time the second word was out of his mouth. And Scotti was already giving his curt order to the second man to jump.

In rapid-fire order they went, piling out of the plane only two seconds apart. When the last man had jumped, Scotti and the co-pilot grabbed up two large containers with parachutes attached and tossed them, with the lieutenant following them immediately.

Dick Donnelly was swinging slowly and gently at the ends of his shroud lines. He looked below at the rocky and uneven ground covered with little clumps of short, scrubby trees. He reached up over his right shoulder and tugged at the lines a bit so that his body shifted to the left slightly. He was picking his spot for a landing.

Then he stole a glance upward and behind him, smiling with pleasure as he saw the sky filled with scores of white parachutes.

“Looks like a snowstorm,” he muttered to himself. “They sure did pile plenty of us out in a hurry over a small area.”

The planes had already swung westward as they climbed away from the first ineffective bursts of antiaircraft shells from German batteries to the south. There was no German airfield in the Wadizam Pass—it was too narrow and rocky—but they would be radioing for fighters to the field at the rear, over the hill.

“The transports will get away, though,” Dick mused. “They’re just about out of ack-ack range now, and the fighters will be too late.”

He looked down at the ground again, which suddenly seemed to be coming up at him more rapidly. When the parachute first stopped his descent, it seemed almost as if he were floating in the air, settling downward, ever so slowly. But as he neared the earth, he had a better estimate of the speed at which he was traveling. With a last glance upward at the many white ’chutes interspersed with a few colored ones bearing machine guns, mortars, radio, and ammunition, he slipped his ’chute lines once more and got ready for the rolling fall.

“Going to miss that big boulder all right,” he told himself. Then his feet touched the earth and jolted him as he tumbled sideways and slightly forward, yanking vigorously against the shroud lines on one side.

But he did not have to worry about the escape from his parachute, for it caught against the boulder he had missed, and collapsed. Quickly he jumped to his feet, slipped out of the harness, ditched his emergency ’chute, and looked up toward the crest.