A Yankee Flier in Italy

CHAPTER XIII NIGHT RAID

Arno did not put on his brakes until he had forced the guards at the gate back two paces. Allison leaned out over the door, his cap pulled down over his eyes. He bellowed loudly in German, blurring a string of words together and winding up with the password from the outside post. He was taking a chance that that was the password for the whole area.

The guards backed away, presented arms, and jerked into stiff positions of attention. Arno lost no time in shooting the car through the gates. They entered a shadowy courtyard where the light was dim. The Yank raid on Bolero Villa, just over the hill, had caused every post in the vicinity to be blacked out.

“We are under the window of the room,” Arno said in a low voice.

“There’s a guard down the wall a ways,” Allison said. “I’ll give you fellows a calling-down in German to make the guard think I’m really on the warpath, then we’ll march right in.”

“Perhaps I had better try the window while you are trying the door,” Tony said. “You might have trouble. There will be plenty of light inside.”

Allison raised his voice and began berating the boys in German. “Schwinehund!” he bellowed and followed that up with other choice words of abuse. He had a bright idea and added that he was going to find the man who had handled the blackout. He said he could see light from the back hallway all the way out to the road.

Instantly they heard the guard moving toward the back door.

“Now’s our chance,” Allison whispered. “I said we could see light from the back hallway. We’ll make them douse the lights.”

They headed toward the back door and stomped up the wide steps. The guard opened the door and they saw that the hallway was dark. Allison roared at the fellow and he came to a stiff salute, presenting arms.

“General Bolero,” Allison snapped. “We would speak to him.”

The boys did not understand, but they caught the general’s name and had an idea. The guard protested but Allison thrust several papers at him. He had taken the papers from the officer’s pocket but had no idea what they were. When the man started to use a pocket flashlight to read the papers, Allison smashed the light out of his hand, roaring at him about the blackout.

The soldier was thoroughly cowed. He turned and started down the hallway with the boys close behind him. Tony had found the window barred on the outside and had joined the others. He nudged Stan as they halted before a door. It was the very room Arno had said his father would be kept in.

The guard unlocked the door. As it opened, a flood of light shone over the men. The general’s window had been boarded up, so he was allowed a light. He was sitting at a little table writing. Stan did not wait to see any more. He knew the guard was wise the moment he saw the raiders in the bright light. Their shoes and trousers gave them away as well as their faces. Stan had moved along very close to the guard. His arm went out in a perfect commando attack and before the guard had time to shout he was silenced and heaved into the room.

In an instant Tony was across the room and in his father’s arms. Arno stood beside them gripping one of the general’s arms. The general looked over Tony’s shoulder at Stan and Allison.

“I am honored,” he said.

“Turn out the light,” Stan ordered.

The general shoved Tony aside and switched off the light. “You have taken greater chances than you should. I am hardly worth the effort.”

When he had ceased speaking they listened. Several men were moving down the hall, talking in angry voices.

“That is the commandant of this post. I know his voice. He has with him a number of his officers,” the general said in a low voice.

“They’ll wonder where the other guard is,” Stan said. “We better jerk the boards off that window and get out of here.”

“That cannot be done,” the general said. “They are planks, not boards, and they are spiked to the outside of the house.”

Allison had opened the door a crack. “They have turned on the light. There’s five of them, and they seem excited.”

“How far down the hallway?” Stan asked.

“At the door,” Allison answered.

The voice of one of the men lifted as he shouted an order. “He’s calling in a squad of armed men from the gate,” Allison said.

“It seems we are trapped,” Arno said grimly.

“Can we go out the front way?” Stan snapped, turning to Tony.

“Yes. There is a side door and a front door. But we can’t get back to our car because of the walls around the back plaza.”

“Our tommy-guns and grenades are in the car,” Allison said.

“We’ll have to chance it and move fast. Lead off.” Stan reached for the doorknob. Opening the door a little way he looked out. The five officers were standing in the doorway down the hall looking out into the night.

Stan stepped out, whipping his Colt from its holster as he went. “Down the hall!” he hissed. “Lead them, Tony. I’ll cover your retreat.”

The raiders and the general moved out and started down the hall. They had taken only a few steps, when one of the officers at the door turned around. He let out a startled shout. The others whirled. Stan covered them with his Colt. The distance was a full thirty feet, good shooting range for the forty-five.

“Get your hands up!” Stan snapped. The bore of his gun wavered over the stomachs of the officers and came to rest on a spot between the eyes of the colonel.

Amazement showed on the faces of the Germans, then hatred and fury.

“Fools!” the colonel grated. “You will all be shot as soon as the alarm is sounded.”

Stan was moving backward. He grinned at the colonel and made a good bluff. His free hand slid into the pocket of his coat. “Perhaps,” he said loudly. “But I have a grenade here, an American-made grenade. You know how much damage they do. I’m going to toss it right where you are standing just as soon as I get to the corner.”

He knew at once that he had scored a hit. The Germans knew that tossing a grenade in just that manner was the way Rangers and Commandos worked. Three of the men, those in the doorway, dived out into the night where they began shouting. The colonel and one other officer edged toward the door. Stan reached the corner and made a motion to jerk his hand out of his pocket. The two Germans dived for the door.

“Whirling, Stan raced down the hall. He was passing a door when a hand reached out and jerked him into a dark room or hall, he could not tell which. Allison’s voice hissed:

“Inside, we’re going up on the roof.” Stan heard the door slam and all was dark. “Tony knows how to go through a French window in this room out to a trellis. We climb the vines.”

“But the general, he’s pretty heavy,” Stan said.

“The boys are boosting him up right now.” Allison was dragging Stan across the room.

They went through the window and saw the stars above. Dark shapes loomed against the wall of the house where vines climbed up to the eaves. Stan and Allison started up the trellis. They could hear General Bolero puffing and grunting as Tony and Arno helped him climb upward.

Stan looked down and saw the top of the garden wall. “I’m going down after some grenades and a submachine gun,” he hissed. Before Allison could stop him he had swung over the wall and was dangling in space. The vines ended at the wall and Stan could not see what was below. He took a chance and cut loose.

Stan was lucky. He landed on top of a canvas-covered van. The padding dulled the thud of his landing. He sat up and listened. The yard below was filled with shouting and yelling. Boots pounded as men ran across the hard ground. Doors slammed and someone fired a pistol. Stan whistled but got no answer. Then he spotted his gang. They were crouching on the roof above. Stan whistled louder and saw a shape detach itself and slide down toward the edge of the roof. He was sure it was Allison. When the dark shape loomed directly above him he called up cautiously.

“There’s a canvas-covered van right here. Get the men and have them drop off on top of it.”

“Pretty far down, isn’t it, old man?” Allison called back.

“Not too far,” Stan answered. “We’ll get to our car and blast our way out of here.”

Allison moved back up the roof. In a minute he was back with the general and his sons.

“General Bolero coming down first,” Allison called softly.

Stan moved back but got ready to help the general. A bulky form swung down from the roof, then fell, landing with a thud beside Stan. Stan helped the general to a sitting position.

“Are you hurt?”

“Only slightly jarred,” the general assured him.

The others dropped off in a hurry. They crowded around Stan. “Now to get to our car,” Stan said.

They slid off the back of the van. It was parked a yard from the wall of the house. Other vans stood beside it as closely as they could be packed in. The raiders moved along the wall, halting behind the last van. The car they wanted to reach was only a few feet away, but it was surrounded by a squad of men. Flashlight beams stabbed into the car and men talked excitedly.

Inside the house there was a great uproar as the Germans searched for the missing men. Tony chuckled, then whispered:

“Little Don Sachetti and I used to get spanked for sneaking through that window and climbing the trellis.”

“We had better take over that car and our guns and grenades. This is the best chance we’ll ever have. Most of the Germans are in the house,” Stan said.

“Don Sachetti was executed yesterday. I think he would rest better if we tossed a few grenades through the windows of his home,” the general said. “By all means let us proceed with the capture of the car and matériel.”

“You drive, Arno,” Stan ordered. “Fan out, boys, and start shooting when they spot us.” He turned to the general. “Sorry, sir, that we do not have a gun for you.”

“I will soon have one,” the general answered grimly.

The boys spread out in the darkness along the side of the last van. They moved forward with automatic pistols ready. Stan picked his man, a burly officer with a flashlight. The Germans were so intent upon the arms they had found that they did not see their attackers until the boys were upon them. The burly officer was the one who sounded the alarm. He shouted loudly as he shot his light over the raiders. Instantly the boys opened up. With pistols flaming they charged. Stan saw the general leap ahead and tear a rifle from the hands of a falling German.

For a moment the action was furious, but the fire from the forty-fives was deadly and the Germans went down or leaped away. Stan located a sack of grenades that had been removed from the car. He took out a couple and tossed them over toward the big gate. The result was all that he had hoped it would be. A dozen armed guards had been standing at the gates under shaded lights, while the machine-gun crews outside were dragging their guns around to bring them to bear inside the yard. After the second grenade exploded with a roar Stan saw nothing at the gate at all except a pile of bricks where one of the entrance pillars had stood a moment before.

“Good going, but Tony has been hit,” Allison shouted. “Better get into the car!”

Arno had the engine roaring while Allison and the general were sweeping the yard with tommy-gun fire. Tony lay on the floor of the car, shoved down to keep him clear of flying lead. From the shadows all around them bullets were whining. Stan slid in beside Arno. He could not find a tommy-gun, but he had the sack of grenades on his lap. Leaning out through the window of the car he began lobbing them at the windows of the big house. He hoped some of those he tossed would be incendiary grenades. Arno drove parallel to the house for a short distance to give Stan a chance with his grenades.

The car swerved as they passed the door. Stan was able to plant a grenade into the open door and to add another before they straightened out for the charge at the gate. They hit the pile of loose bricks lying in the entrance and one tire exploded. The car wobbled and careened but shoved through the opening without turning over.

As they smashed through, Stan saw flames leaping out of the doorway. A gaping hole in the wall, revealed by the fire, showed where one grenade had done its work. They had charged ahead only a few hundred yards and were not clear of the driveway when they saw ahead of them a small tank and two trucks. Men on foot swarmed beside the vehicle. With a roar the whole driveway ahead burst into action. The careening car had been sighted. Arno twisted the wheel and they plunged through a hedge and down a steep bank where the car came to halt with its radiator smashed against the trunk of a tree.

“Get the tommy-guns and grenades,” Stan snapped. “Get Tony out!”

Tony was already out. “I have the wound plugged,” he said in a weak voice. “I’ll manage.”

“We’ll help you along,” Stan said. “You lead the way, Arno.”

“I know best how to get out of here. I was here more than Arno,” Tony said. “I’ll lead you.”

“Give him a hand, Arno,” Stan said. “They’re coming through the hedge up above.”

Allison and Stan opened up on a group of Germans breaking through the hedge above. Their gunfire drove the Germans back and allowed Arno and the general time to get Tony up the bank and into the woods.

Whirling, they ran up the bank and overtook the three who were waiting for them.

“Where to now?” Stan asked.

“We have to stay in the woods and keep moving. Near the top of the ridge we’ll find a small lake. There are a number of small huts up there. We can hide in one of them.” Arno spoke quickly.

“But they’ll search every foot of the woods and every hut,” Allison objected.

“They do a very good job of hunting down escaped men,” Stan agreed.

“We might fool them if we hide in the Sachetti villa. They would never think of looking for us there,” Tony said.

“An excellent idea, but how can we get in without being discovered?” the general asked.

“There’s an outside air shaft leading down into the cellars. It is covered with vines and there is a tree growing beside it,” Tony said. “I used to be able to slide down that shaft.”

“A good idea,” Stan said. He was beginning to realize that Tony would not be able to travel very far or very fast. “Let’s get going.”

“See, they are making a circle around the woods,” Tony said.

Lights were flashing above and below them. But the Germans did not seem to think it necessary to throw a line between the woods and the house. Arno and General Bolero helped Tony. Stan and Allison brought up the rear. They moved through the trees and across a garden thickly planted with shrubbery and grapevines.

Behind them the woods were filled with German soldiers. The searchers had fanned out into the valley below and upon the hills above the villa.

“Here is the shaft,” Tony said as they halted in the black darkness under a tree.

Stan could see nothing that looked like a shaft or like the roof of a wine cellar.

“We must be careful not to disturb the vines or the bushes.” Tony laughed softly. “Mr. Sachetti went to a great deal of trouble in hiding the cellar and the shaft. He said they ruined the beauty of his garden.” Tony was pushing aside bushes as he spoke. Finally he called very softly. “Come now.”

The raiders moved under the spreading branches of the tree and from there they crawled under a leafy vine. They found an open shaft with a high metal cone over it. Tony and Arno went down first. When the general tried it he had trouble squeezing down the shaft. Stan was the last to slip through. He lowered the guns and grenades to Allison before he descended. Sliding down he found himself in total darkness.

“Now we have to hide. The Germans will be coming down here often for wine.” Tony spoke eagerly. “We’ll hide behind the vats containing the new crop of grapes. The Germans will drink only the old wines. They are on this side.”

Feeling their way they located a row of huge barrels and crawled in behind them. Stan and Allison located themselves near the outside barrel.

“We can hear the doors open when anyone comes down here,” Tony said. “The hinges are rusty and will squeak loudly.”

“How about dressing your wound now, Tony?” General Bolero suggested. “I will tend to it myself.”