Dick Donnelly of the Paratroops
Marshall McClintock
DICK DONNELLY OF THE PARATROOPS
Story by
GREGORY DUNCAN
Illustrated by Francis Kirn
Whitman Publishing CompanyRacine, Wisconsin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1944, byWhitman Publishing Company
Printed in U. S. A.
All names, characters, places, and events in thisstory are entirely fictitious
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. Token Resistance 11 II. A Man With Two Names 20 III. Wadizam Pass 37 IV. Encircled! 50 V. Break-Through! 69 VI. Special Mission 86 VII. Not So Happy Landings 106 VIII. Two Visitors to Town 120 IX. Uncle Tomaso 132 X. The Old Bell Tower 150 XI. Fruitless Search 168 XII. A Visit to the Dam 181 XIII. The Fourth Night 193 XIV. Interrupted Performance 207 XV. No Calm Before the Storm 222 XVI. Zero Hour 235 XVII. Aftermath 245
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield 10 “I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said 23 “I Want to Stamp Out the Rotten Government.” 33 Dick Just Missed the Big Boulder 45 The German Read the Report and Gave an Order 57 Dick Handed Max a Ball of Cord 71 Dick and Max Walked Happily up the Hill 81 Major Marker and the Men Went Over Their Plan 93 Jumping in the Darkness Was No Lighthearted Task 109 Slade Set Scotti’s Broken Leg 123 The Two Men Walked Toward the Villa 135 The Old Man Told of the Underground’s Activities 145 “By Golly, I Think We Can Get Away With It!” 157 Dick Tied the Rope Securely Around the Box 171 Dick Scanned the Report of German Troop Movements 183 “If I Could Only Get a German Officer’s Uniform!” 197 “I Didn’t Need to Come Along,” the Lieutenant Said 209 Scotti Looked After the Others 225 Dick Stopped Behind a Tree and Waited 241
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Planes Swept Low Over the Airfield_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DICK DONNELLY _of_ THE PARATROOPS
CHAPTER ONE
TOKEN RESISTANCE
The big transport plane flew out of a cloud just as the sun appearedover the flat horizon of the desert to the east. The rolling hills overwhich the clouds hung low smoothed out as they met and merged with theflat wasteland. A row of trees, the only ones in sight, lined one edgeof a rectangle even flatter and smoother than the land near by. A long,low building near the trees, with two small airplanes in front of it,identified the rectangle as an airfield.
Before the transport reached the field, another slid out of the cloud.Suddenly swift fighter planes darted past them, swept low over theairfield with machine guns splattering their bullets over the hardearth, the two small planes, and the low hangar. They circled swiftly,just as a third transport appeared from the clouds, and roared past thefield, on the far side of the line of trees. Long streaks of whitesmoke poured from them, falling lazily and billowing into man-madeclouds as dense as those in which the planes had recently been flying.In five minutes the smoke screen was a wall twenty feet thick and ahundred feet high.
Meanwhile, the first transport had circled the field, dropping lower.Suddenly a figure plunged from the side of its fuselage, hurtled towardthe ground, and then checked its descent with a jerk as a whiteparachute billowed out above. Another figure had dropped from the planebefore the first ’chute opened, and now it too floated gently to earthbehind the smoke screen. In rapid succession, eighteen men leaped fromthe plane, which sped back toward the hills as another came in todischarge its cargo of soldiers.
As the first man landed, he rolled over the hard earth, tugging at thelines of his parachute to spill the air from it. In a moment it hadcollapsed and the man had slipped from his harness. Dropping hisemergency ’chute, he unfolded the stock of his sub-machine gun and ranforward, crouching, toward the smoke screen, on the other side of whichlay the airfield building.
“Jerry!” a voice called from behind him, and he turned.
“Okay, Dick?” the first man called back.
“Yes, sir,” replied the second, running up. “And here come the rest.”
In less than three minutes the eighteen men from the first plane hadgathered near their leader, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti.
“We won’t wait for the heavies,” he said. “I think this is a setup.Come on.”
He turned and ran into the cloud of smoke, followed by the others, whoheld their guns ready. As they broke out of the cloud on the otherside, they dropped to the ground. The hangar was not more than ahundred feet away. There was still no sign of activity in or around it.Not a man had been seen since the planes first came over.
“No cover here at all,” muttered the second man, Sergeant Dick Donnelly.
“No opposition, either,” laughed the Lieutenant. “Can’t see a soul.”
“Think they’ve skipped out?” Donnelly asked his companion.
“No—no place to skip to, except by plane,” Scotti replied. “They mustbe in the hangar, just waiting. The Major said we might not meet anydefense at all. Most of these Frenchmen are mighty happy to have usinvading North Africa.”
“Sure, but some of ’em are putting up a fight,” the sergeant said.“They’re good soldiers and if their officers tell them to fight back,they fight back.”
“Get back a bit into the protection of the smoke,” Scotti said, and hismen pushed themselves back ten feet. “Now let’s give them a burst andsee what happens.”
The silence, broken only by the steady drone of airplane motors in theskies overhead, was shattered by the stuttering explosions ofsub-machine guns. The bullets thudded into the thick, hard clay wallsof the hangar.
Suddenly three rifles and a pistol were thrust through the windows atthe rear of the hangar and they fired repeatedly—_into the air_! Then awhite flag was thrust from the middle window on a long pole, so quicklythat it must have been ready for the purpose.
“We surrendair!” called a voice from the hangar. “Les Américains—zeyhave conquered us!”
“All right,” shouted Lieutenant Scotti, advancing from the smoke screenabout ten feet. “Toss all guns out the window.”
“Oui, oui, at once!” came back the voice.
Half a dozen rifles, three automatics, and two light machine guns werethrust from the windows and clattered to the ground. By this time twoother groups of American soldiers had appeared, one to the right andone to the left of Scotti’s group.
“It’s all over,” he called to them. “Hold your fire! They’vesurrendered.”
“My golly!” cried a voice from the group on the left. “What did we comealong for—just to take a ride?”
But Lieutenant Scotti had turned his attention back to the hangar.
“Now come out that side door,” he called. “One at a time, with yourhands up.”
In a moment the side door of the hangar was opened and out stepped asmiling French officer, his hands in the air. His blue uniform was astrim as his tiny mustache, and he walked erect, with dignity andmilitary precision. Just as the other French soldiers came out behindhim, three men appeared from the smoke, which now was lifting somewhat,behind Scotti’s group. Dick Donnelly turned from his officer’s side andcalled to them.
“Take it easy, boys.” he said with a grin. “The heavy machine gunswon’t be needed—unless you want a little target practice later just tokeep in trim.”
The men, who had quickly assembled a machine gun dropped by parachutefrom one of the planes, rushed it forward with all possible speed,stopped in their tracks, dropped their heavy burdens, and lookeddisappointed.
“Aren’t we _ever_ gonna get any fightin’?” grumbled the first man.
“Wasn’t that little business at Casablanca enough for you?” askedDonnelly.
“Sure, but that was three weeks ago!” was the reply.
By this time the French soldiers were lined up alongside the hangar,their hands in the air. There were two other officers, four enlistedmen and four men whose overalls showed that they were mechanics.
“We have resisted,” cried the first officer happily. “Did you not see?We fired our guns in resistance against your attack as we have beencommanded. But your superior numbairs overcame us. Yes?”
Lieutenant Jerry Scotti grinned and walked forward.
“Sure, I understand,” he said. “You put up a whale of a fight! Luckynobody was hurt. You can put your hands down now.”
Scotti turned to his sergeant.
“Sergeant Donnelly, you may send up the flares signaling capitulationof the French airfield after a brief but fierce fight. The other planescan come in now.”
As Dick Donnelly, with a few of his men, hurried off to carry out theLieutenant’s order, Jerry Scotti extended his hand to the Frenchofficer, who grabbed it and shook it heartily, mumbling happy phrasesall the time in such an outpouring of words and exclamations thatScotti, whose French was limited, could understand nothing of what wassaid. But he did know that the man was delighted—so delighted, in fact,that a mere handshake would not suffice to demonstrate his enthusiasm.He flung his arms around Lieutenant Scotti, who looked a littleembarrassed, especially at the grins of his own men who stood in acircle around him.
“I feel as if I ought to say something important,” he muttered, “like‘Lafayette, we are here’ or something.”
The other groups of soldiers had gone forward to the hangar, searchedthe inside of the building, looked over the two obsolete French fighterplanes standing in front, and watched Donnelly set off his signalflares. In a few minutes they were looking at half a dozen moretransport planes as they circled and came in for a landing on the hardrunway of the field. Their wheels had hardly stopped rolling when menin khaki uniforms piled from them, formed lines and were marched to theedge of the field by their commanding officers.
A half hour after the first plane had appeared from the cloud over thehills, there were two hundred American soldiers at the French airfield.In the hangar, Lieutenant Jerry Scotti saluted Captain Murphy, who camein with the air-borne troops, and made his report.
“Good work,” the Captain said, as he sat at the desk and began to lookover the papers on it. “The transports will take you and the otherparachute troops back to your base at once. They have to get off thefield within ten minutes because the fighter squadron will be comingin. We’ve leap-frogged quite a jump this time. Oh yes—see that theFrench prisoners are taken back to your base, too. And you can tellthem they’ll probably be fighting alongside us against the Germanswithin a few weeks.”
“They’ll like that, sir,” Scotti said. “I’ve talked with a couple ofthem. I’ve never had anyone so happy to see me as they were. Still,they had to put up that token resistance.”
“Yes, wonderful spirit,” Captain Murphy agreed. “You can inform CaptainRideau, the commanding officer, that his actions when we attacked thefield will be relayed to the French authorities who will organizeFrench forces in North Africa to battle the common enemy.”
Within two hours, Lieutenant Scotti, Sergeant Dick Donnelly, and allthe paratroopers from their plane as well as the others, were back atthe little town which had been their base for the past week. TheFrenchmen, technically under military arrest, had the freedom of thetown.
At dinner that evening Private First Class Max Burckhardt complainedloudly to Sergeant Dick Donnelly.
“What a washout!” he grumbled. “Nothing but a nice plane ride, an easyparachute jump, a little standing around in the hot sun, and then aride back again. Do they call this a war?”
“Keep your shirt on, Max,” Sergeant Dick Donnelly replied with a smile.“The French _want_ us to come. Just you wait until we make contact withthe Germans!”
“Ah—yes!” boomed the burly private. “That’s what I’m waiting for—for achance at some of those Nazis.”
“It won’t be long now,” mused the sergeant. “It won’t be long.”
