Once There Was A War Part 9

Then sleep can come without warning and like a drug. Gradually your whole body seems to be packed in cotton. All the main nerve trunks are deadened, and out of the battered cortex curious dreamlike thoughts emerge. It is at this time that many men see visions. The eyes fasten on a cloud and the tired brain makes a face of it, or an angel or a demon. And out of the hammered brain strange memories are jolted loose, scenes and words and people forgotten, but stored in the back of the brain. These may not be important things, but they come back with startling clarity into the awareness that is turning away from reality. And these memories are almost visions.

And then it is over. You can't hear, but there is a rus.h.i.+ng sound in your ears. And you want sleep more than anything, but when you do sleep you are dream-ridden, your mind is uneasy and crowded with figures. The anesthesia your body has given you to protect you is beginning to wear off, and, as with most anesthesia, it is a little painful.

And when you wake up and think back to the things that happened they are already becoming dreamlike. Then it is not unusual that you are frightened and ill. You try to remember what it was like, and you can't quite manage it. The outlines in your memory are vague. The next day the memory slips farther, until very little is left at all. A woman is said to feel the same way when she tries to remember what childbirth was like. And fever leaves this same kind of vagueness on the mind. Perhaps all experience which is beyond bearing is that way. The system provides the s.h.i.+eld and then removes the memory, so that a woman can have another child and a man can go into combat again.

It slips away so fast. Unless you made notes on the spot you could not remember how you felt or the way things looked. Men in prolonged battle are not normal men. And when afterward they seem to be reticent-perhaps they don't remember very well.

THE PLYWOOD NAVY.

November 15, 1943-The orders were simple. The naval task force was to destroy or drive German s.h.i.+pping out of the sea in the whole area north of Rome. German convoys were moving out of various ports, possibly evacuating heavy equipment from Italy to the south of France. The task force was ordered to break up this traffic.

It is not permitted to say what units comprised the force but a part of it at least was a group of torpedo boats, some British MTBs and some American PTs. The British were not quite so fast as the Americans but they were more heavily armed.

The afternoon before the attack was spent in putting the boats ready. The gunners had their guns apart, oiling and scrubbing the salt spray from the working parts. The guns on the little boats must be worked on all the time. Even the cartridge cases turn green from the constant splas.h.i.+ng with salt water. The American PTs are wet devils. Any speed of any kind of sea bring green water over the bow. The men dress in rubber clothes and rubber hoods and even then they do not stay dry.

In the afternoon the torpedoes were inspected and the fuel tanks filled to the limit. The sea was very blue and very calm. During the whole first two weeks of the attack against Italy the sea was calm as a lake, and that particular sea can be very bad.

The British officers and men were bearded with fine great brushes which projected forward from constant brus.h.i.+ng outward with the hands. This gives a pugnacious look to a man's face. A few American faces were bearded too, but the tradition is not set with our men.

From the little island harbor, the coast of Italy was visible in the afternoon-the steep hills terraced for vines and lemon trees and the mountains rising to bare rocky ridges behind. Vesuvius was smoking in the background, a high feather of smoke.

On the quay, surrendered Italian carabinieri stood looking at the "Plywood Navy," which is what the crews call the torpedo boats.

As the sun went down the work was finished and dinner was started in the tiny galleys of the Plywood Navy. The force was to sail at dark. Long before dark the moon was up. It would set after two in the morning and it was planned to be on the ground and ready for attack as soon as the moon had set. This was a deadly swarm that prepared to go. In its combined torpedo tubes it carried the force to sink a navy. The little s.h.i.+ps can dodge in close and, when the going is rough, they can scatter and run like quail. And they can turn and twist so fast and travel at such speed that they are impossible to catch and very hard to hit.

Just at dusk the motors burst into roars one at a time and then settled down to their throbbing beat. These motors can be quieted so that they make very little noise, but in ordinary running they sound like airplanes.

The moonlit night came, and the little boats moved out from their berths, and once clear of the breakwater they formed in three lines and settled down to traveling speed. In the moonlight their white wakes shone, and each boat ran over the wake of the boat ahead, and the beat of their motors was deep. On the decks the men had already put on their rubber pants and their rubber coats and the peaked rubber hoods. In the turrets the men sat at their machine guns and waited.

On 412 the master and his First stood on the little bridge. The spray came over the bow in long, swis.h.i.+ng spurts as the PT put her nose down into the easy swells and the light wind picked up the splash. Their faces were dripping. Now and then the First stepped the three steps down to the tiny chart room where a hooded light glimmered on the chart. (One line deleted by censor.) The First checked the course and put his head through and climbed back to the bridge. A call came from aft-"Aircraft at nine o'clock!"

The men at the turrets and at the after gun swung their weapons sharp to the left and elevated the muzzles, and the gunners peered uneasily into the milky moonlit sky. Unless they come out of the moon, and they never do, they are very hard to see. But above the engines of the boat could be heard the hum of aircraft engines. "Ours or theirs?" the First asked.

"Ours have orders not to come close. It must be theirs," the master said. Then off to the port side in the milky sky there was the dark shape of a plane and not flying very high. The gunners stirred and followed the shape with the muzzles. It was too far off to fire. The master picked up his megaphone and called, "He'll come in from the side if he's coming. Watch for him." The drone of the plane disappeared.

"Maybe he didn't see us," the First said.

"With our wake? Sure he saw us. Maybe he was one of ours."

He must have cut his motors. Suddenly he is overhead and his bomb lands and explodes just after he has pa.s.sed over. The roar of the explosion and the battering of the machine guns come at once. A wall of spray comes over the side from the explosion, and the boat seems to leap out of the sea.

The lines of the tracers reach for the disappearing plane and the lines seem to curve the way the stream from a hose does when you move the hose. Then the guns are silent. The master calls, "Watch out for him. He may be back. Watch for him from the same side." The gunners obediently swing their guns about.

This time he didn't cut his motors. Maybe he needed alt.i.tude. You could hear him coming. The guns started on him before he was overhead and the curving lines of tracers followed him over and each line was a little bit behind him. And then one line jumped ahead. A little blue light showed on him then. For a moment he seemed to hover and then he fell, end over end, but slowly, and the blue light on him got larger and larger as he came down. The rest of the guns were after him as he came down. He landed about five hundred yards away and the moment he struck the water he broke into a great yellow flame, and then a second later he exploded with a dull boom and the fire was sucked down under the sea and he was gone.

"He must have been crazy," the captain said, "to come in like that. Who got him?" No one answered. The captain called to the port turret, "Did you get him, Ernest?"

"Yes, sir," said Ernest. "I think so."

"Good shooting," said the captain.

November 19, 1943-Torpedo boat 412 slipped southward. The moon seemed to hang in the sky and to have given up the idea of ever setting. Actually it was time in the mind that was slowed down. The m.u.f.fles were still on the engines but the boat picked up a little speed, not the great roaring rush of the wide-open PT but a steady drumming that threw out a curving V of wake and boiled the water a little under the fantail. The captain said, "Keep your eyes peeled for the others. We don't want our own people to smack us." He went down into the little chart room again and studied his charts. Then he poked his head up and spoke to his First. "A port isn't far off now," he said. "Let's get there. We might catch a convoy." On top of his words there came a distant drumming of engines.

The First cut his motors still further to listen, and the speed of the 412 dropped. "I guess those are ours," he said.

The captain c.o.c.ked his head a little. "Something wrong." he said. "Doesn't sound right." And he c.o.c.ked his head on the other side, like a listening spaniel. "Ever heard an E-boat?" he asked.

"No, I haven't. You know d.a.m.n well I haven't."

"Neither have I," said the captain, "but those don't sound like PTs or MTBs to me." He peered over the rail. The signalman had his blinker ready to make a recognition signal. The captain said quickly, "Kill the motor." Through the milky light the E-boats came. They seemed to grow up out of the night, the misty shapes of them high-powered and unmistakable. The 412 drifted easily in the water.

The captain said hoa.r.s.ely to the signalman. "Don't signal, for G.o.d's sake!" He was silent for a moment and there seemed to be E-boats all around. "Listen," the captain said. 'We've maybe got to make a crash run. I don't know when." (Ten lines deleted by censor.) The E-boats moved slowly past. They must have seen the 412 lying uneasily in the moonlight. Perhaps it didn't occur to them that a hostile craft would lie so still so near to their guns. The breathing of the crew was almost audible. The E-boats were nearly past when one of them, just on the chance, blinked. (One line deleted by censor.) The gunners brought down their barrels. The engines of the 412 roared and the boat leaped in the water. She stood up on her own crest and tore away. (One line deleted by censor.) Her wake in the last of the moonlight was creamy behind her. She whipped over the water like a gull. But the E-boats did not fire on her. They continued placidly on their way.

Five minutes of the run, and the First throttled down and the 412 settled back into the water and leveled out and the sound of her motors died away. "G.o.d Almighty," the captain said. And he whistled to himself. "That was close." (Three lines deleted by censor.) "Let's lie here and get our breath. That was too close."

The moon lay close to the water at last. In a few minutes it would be dark, deliciously dark, safe and dark. Then men stirred about nervously on the silent boat.

And then across the moon a dark shape moved and then another. "Good G.o.d," the captain said, "there's a convoy. That's what the E-boats were for." A large dark hull moved across the moon. "We've got to get to them," the captain said excitedly.

"They'll get us sure," said the first.

"No they won't." (Three lines deleted by censor.) He called his orders softly. The torpedo men moved to their places. The 412 turned silently and slipped toward the pa.s.sing convoy. There seemed to be s.h.i.+ps of all sizes, and the 412 could see them against the sinking moon and they could not see the 412. "That big one," the captain said. "She must be at least five thousand tons." He issued his orders and took the wheels himself. Then he swung the boat and called softly, "Fire!" There was a sharp explosive whisk of sound and a splash, and the torpedo was away. He swung again and fired another. And his mouth moved as though he were counting.

Then without warning the sea and the sky tore to pieces in a vomit of light and a moment later the 412 nearly jumped out of the water. "Run," the captain shouted. "Run!" And the 412 leaped up on its fantail again and pushed its bow into the air.

The explosion was gone almost the moment it had started. There wasn't much of any fire. It just subsided and the water closed over it.

"Ammunition," the captain shouted. "Ammunition or high-test gasoline."

But the rest of the fleet was not silent. The tracers reached out for the sea, and the rockets, even the flak rockets. The crossfire reached to sea and combed the sea and searched the sea. (One line deleted by censor.) Some time later the captain touched his First's arm and the First pulled down the boat again. In the distance, as the moon went down, the E-boats were probably beating the ocean looking for the 412 or the submarine or whatever had hit their s.h.i.+p. But the 412 had got away. (One line deleted by censor.) The pitch blackness lay on the water after the moon had gone. Ocean and land and boat were blotted out.

"Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here," said the captain. "Let's get on back."

A DESTROYER.

November 24, 1943-A destroyer is a lovely s.h.i.+p, probably the nicest fighting s.h.i.+p of all. Battles.h.i.+ps are a little like steel cities or great factories of destruction. Aircraft carriers are floating flying fields. Even cruisers are big pieces of machinery, but a destroyer is all boat. In the beautiful clean lines of her, in her speed and roughness, in her curious gallantry, she is completely a s.h.i.+p, in the old sense.

For one thing, a destroyer is small enough so that her captain knows his whole crew personally, knows all about each one as a person, his first name and his children and the trouble he has been in and is capable of getting into. There is an ease on a destroyer that is good and a good relations.h.i.+p among the men. Then if she has a good captain you have something really worth serving on.

The battles.h.i.+ps are held back for a killing blow, and such a blow sometimes happens only once in a war. The cruisers go in second, but the destroyers work all the time. They are probably the busiest s.h.i.+ps of a fleet. In a major engagement, they do the scouting and make the first contact. They convoy, they run to every fight. Wherever there is a mess the destroyers run first. They are not lordly like the battles.h.i.+ps, nor episcopal like the cruisers. Most of all they are s.h.i.+ps and the men who work them are seamen. In rough weather they are rough, honestly and violently rough.

A destroyerman is never bored in wartime, for a destroyer is a seaman's s.h.i.+p. She can get under way at the drop of a hat. The water under fantail boils like a Niagara. She will go rippling along at thirty-five knots with the spray sheeting over her and she will turn and fight and run, drop depth charges, bombard, and ram. She is expendable and dangerous. And because she is all these things, a destroyer's crew is pa.s.sionately possessive. Every man knows his s.h.i.+p, every inch of it, not just his own station. The Destroyer X X is just such a s.h.i.+p. She has done many thousands of miles since the war started. She has been bombed and torpedoes have gone under her bow. She has convoyed and fought. Her captain is a young, dark-haired man and his executive officers looks like a blond undergraduate. The s.h.i.+p is immaculate. The engines are polished and painted and s.h.i.+ned. is just such a s.h.i.+p. She has done many thousands of miles since the war started. She has been bombed and torpedoes have gone under her bow. She has convoyed and fought. Her captain is a young, dark-haired man and his executive officers looks like a blond undergraduate. The s.h.i.+p is immaculate. The engines are polished and painted and s.h.i.+ned.

She is a fairly new s.h.i.+p, the X X, commissioned fifteen months ago. She bombarded at Casablanca and Gela and Salerno and she has captured islands. Her officers naturally would like to go to larger s.h.i.+ps because there is more rank to be had on them, but no destroyerman would rather sail on anything else.

The destroyer X X is a personal s.h.i.+p and a personality. She is worked quietly. No one ever raises his voice. The captain is soft-spoken and so is everyone else. Orders are given in the same low tone as requests for salt in the wardroom. The discipline is exact and punctilious but it seems to be almost mutually enforced, not from above. The captain will say, "So many men have sh.o.r.e leave. The first man who comes back drunk removes sh.o.r.e liberty for everyone." It is very simple. The crew would discipline anyone who jeopardized the liberty of the whole s.h.i.+p. So they come back in good shape and on time. The is a personal s.h.i.+p and a personality. She is worked quietly. No one ever raises his voice. The captain is soft-spoken and so is everyone else. Orders are given in the same low tone as requests for salt in the wardroom. The discipline is exact and punctilious but it seems to be almost mutually enforced, not from above. The captain will say, "So many men have sh.o.r.e leave. The first man who comes back drunk removes sh.o.r.e liberty for everyone." It is very simple. The crew would discipline anyone who jeopardized the liberty of the whole s.h.i.+p. So they come back in good shape and on time. The X X has very few brig cases. has very few brig cases.

When the AT is in a combat area she never relaxes. The men sleep in their clothes. The irritating blatting sound which means "action stations" is designed to break through sleep. It sounds like the braying of some metallic mule, and the reaction to it is instant. There is a scurrying of feet in the pa.s.sageways and the clatter of feet on the ladders and in a few seconds the X X is bristling with manned and waiting guns, AAs that peer at the sky and the five-inch guns which can fire at the sky too. is bristling with manned and waiting guns, AAs that peer at the sky and the five-inch guns which can fire at the sky too.

The crouched and helmeted men can get to their stations in less than a minute. There is no hurry or fuss. They have done it hundreds of times. And then a soft-spoken word from the bridge into a telephone will turn the X X into a fire-breathing dragon. She can throw tons of steel in a very short time. into a fire-breathing dragon. She can throw tons of steel in a very short time.

One of the strangest things is to see her big guns when they go on automatic control. They are aimed and fired from the bridge. The turret and the guns have been heavy dead metal and suddenly they become alive. The turret whips around but it is the guns themselves that seem to live. They balance and quiver almost as though they were sniffing the air. They tremble like the antennae of an insect, listening or smelling the target. Suddenly they set and instantly there is a belch of sound and the sh.e.l.ls float away. The tracers seem to float interminably before they hit. And before the sh.e.l.ls have struck, the guns are trembling and reaching again. They are like rattlesnakes poising to strike, and they really do seem to be alive. It is a frightening thing to see.

A RAGGED CREW.

December 1, 1943-When the plans were being made to capture a German radar station on an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. forty American paratroopers were a.s.signed to do the job, forty men and three officers. They came to the naval station from somewhere in Africa. They didn't say where. They came in the night sometime, and in the morning they were bedded down in a Nissen hut, a hard and ragged crew. Their uniforms were not the new and delightful affairs of the posters. The jackets, with all the pockets, and the coa.r.s.e canvas trousers had been washed so often and dried in the hot sun that they had turned nearly white, and they were ragged at the edges.

The officers, two lieutenants and a captain, were dressed in no way different from their men, and they had been months without their insignia of rank. The captain had two strips of adhesive tape stuck on his shoulders, to show that he was a captain at all, and one of his lieutenants had sewed a piece of yellow cloth on his shoulders for his rank. They had been ten months in the desert, and there was no place to buy the pretty little bars to wear on their shoulders. They had not jumped from a plane since they had finished their training in the United States, but the rigid, hard training of their bodies had gone right on in the desert.

There had been no luxuries for these men, either. Sometimes the cigarettes ran out, and they just didn't have any. They had often lived on field rations for weeks at a time, and they had long forgotten what it was like to sleep in a bed, even a cot. They had all looked somewhat alike, and perhaps this is the characteristic look of the paratrooper. The eyes were very wide set, and mostly they were either gray or blue. The hair was cropped, almost shaved, giving their heads a curious egg look. Their ears seemed to stick straight out from their heads, perhaps because all their hair was cut off. Their skins were burned almost black by the desert sun, which made their eyes and their teeth seem very light, and their lips were ragged and rough from months of the sun.

The strangest thing about them was their quietness and their almost shy good manners. Their voices were so soft that you could barely hear them, and they were extremely courteous. The officers gave their orders almost under their breaths, and there was none of the stiffness of ordinary military discipline. It was almost as though they all thought alike so that few orders were necessary at all. When something was to be done, the moving or loading of their own supplies, for instance, they worked like parts of a machine, and no one seemed to move quickly, but there was no waste movement and the work was done with incredible speed. They did not waste time saluting. A man saluted his officer only when he spoke to him or was spoken to.

These paratroopers had as little equipment as you can imagine. There were some rifles, some tommy guns, and the officers had the new carbines. In addition, each man had a knife and four hand grenades, painted yellow, but they had had their grenades so long that the yellow paint was just about worn off. The rifles had been polished and cleaned so long and so often that the black coating was worn off in places and the bright metal shone through. The little American flags they wore on their shoulders were pale from sunburn and from the was.h.i.+ng of their clothes. There was no excess equipment of any kind. They had what they wore, and they could carry. And for some reason they gave the impression of great efficiency.

In the morning their officers came into the conference to be instructed in the nature of the action. They filed in shyly and took their places at the long, rough table. The naval men distributed maps and the action was described in detail, part of it on a large blackboard that was set up against a wall.

The island was Ventotene, and there was a radar station on it which searched the whole ocean north and south of Naples. The radar was German, but it was thought that there were very few Germans. There were two or three hundred carabinieri there, however, and it was not known whether they would fight or not. Also, there were a number of political prisoners on the island who were to be released, and the island was to be held by these same paratroopers until a body of troops could be put ash.o.r.e.

The three officers regarded the blackboard with their wide-set eyes, and now and then they glanced quietly at one another. When the discussion was finished the naval captain said, "Do you understand? Are there any questions?"

The captain of paratroopers studied the board with the map of the island, and he asked softly, "Any artillery?"

"Yes, there are some coastal guns, but if they use them we'll get them with naval guns."

"Oh! Yes, I see. Well, I hope the Italians don't do anything bad. I mean I hope they don't shoot at us." His voice was very shy.

A naval officer said jokingly, "Don't your men want to fight?"

"It isn't that," the captain said. "We've been a long time in the desert. My men are pretty trigger happy. They might be very rough if anybody shoots at them."

The meeting broke up and the Navy invited the paratroopers to lunch in the Navy mess.

"If you'll excuse us," the captain said, "I think we'll get back to the men. They'll want to know what we're going to do. I'll just take this map along and explain it to them." He paused apologetically and added, "You see, they'll want to know." The three officers got up from the table and went out. Their men were in the Nissen hut. The ragged captain and his lieutenants walked across the street, blinding in the white sunlight, and they went inside the Nissen hut and closed the door. They stayed a long time in there, explaining the action to the forty men.

VENTOTENE.

December 3, 1943-The units of the naval task force made their rendezvous at sea and at dusk and made up their formation and set off at a calculated speed to be at the island of Ventotene at moonset. Their mission was to capture the island and to take the German radar which was there. The moon was very large and it was not desirable that the people on the island should know what force was coming against them, consequently the attack was not to be attempted until the darkness came. The force spread out in its traveling formation and moved slowly over the calm sea.

On a destroyer of the force, the paratroopers who were to make the a.s.sault sat on the deck and watched the moon. They seemed a little uneasy. After being trained to drop in from the sky their first action was to be a seagoing one. Perhaps their sense of fitness was outraged.

All along the Italian coast the air force was raiding. The naval force could see the flares parachuting down and the burst of explosives and the lines of tracers off to the right. But the coast was kept too busy for anyone to bother with the little naval force heading northward.

The timing was exact. The moon turned very red before it set, and just as it set the high hump of the island showed against its face. And the moment it had set the darkness was thick so that you could not see the man standing at your shoulder. There were no lights on the island at all. This island has been blacked out for three years. When the naval force had taken its positions a small boat equipped with a loudspeaker crept in toward the beach. From five hundred yards off sh.o.r.e it beamed its loudspeaker on the darkened town and a terrible voice called its proclamation.

"Italians," it said, "you must now surrender. We have come in force. Your German ally has deserted you. You have fifteen minutes to surrender. Display three white lights for surrender. At the end of fifteen minutes we will open fire. This will be repeated once more." The announcement was made once more-"... three white rights for surrender." And then the night was silent.

On the bridge of a destroyer the officers peered at the darkness in the direction of the island. At the s.h.i.+p's rails the men looked off into the darkness. The executive officer kept looking at his wrist watch and the night was so dark that the illuminated dial could be seen six feet away. Gun control had the firing data ready. The guns of the whole force were trained on the island. And the minutes went slowly. No one wanted to fire on the town, to turn the concentrated destruction of high explosive on the dark island. But the minutes dragged interminably on, ten-eleven-twelve. The green, glowing hands moved on the face of the wrist watch. The captain spoke a word into his phone, and there was a rustle and the door of the plotting room opened for a moment and then closed.

And then, as the minute hand crawled over fourteen minutes, three white rockets went up from the island. They flowed upward and curved lazily over and fell back. And then, not content, three more went up. The captain sighed with relief and spoke again into his phone. And the whole s.h.i.+p seemed to relax.

In the wardroom the commodore of the task force sat at the head of the table. He was dressed in khaki, his s.h.i.+rt open at the throat and his sleeves rolled up. He wore a helmet, and a tommy gun lay on the table in front of him. "I'll go in and take the surrender," he said, and he called the names of five men to go with him. "The paratroopers are to come in as soon as you can get them in the landing boat," he said to the executive officer. "Lower the whaleboat."

The deck was very dark. You had to feel your way along. The boat davits were swung out as they always are in action, and now a crew was lowering the whaleboat. They held it at deck level for the men to get in-a c.o.xswain and an engineer were already in the boat. Five officers, armed with sub-machine guns, clambered over the rail and settled themselves. Each man had a drum of bullets on his gun and each wore a pouch which carried another drum. The boat lowered away, and just as it touched the water the engineer started the engine. The boat cast off and turned toward the sh.o.r.e. It was pretty much of a job of guess work because you could not see the sh.o.r.e. The commodore said, "We've got to get in and disarm them before they change their minds. Can't tell what they'll do if we give them time." And he said to his men, "Don't take any chances. Open fire if anyone shows the slightest sign of resisting."

The boat slipped toward the dark sh.o.r.e, her motors m.u.f.fled and quiet.

December 6, 1943-There are times when the element of luck is so sharply involved in an action that sense of dread sets in afterward. And such was the invasion of the island of Ventotene by five men in a whale-boat. They knew that there was a German radar crew on the island, but they did not know that it numbered eighty-seven men, all heavily armed, and moreover heavily armed with machine guns. They did not know that this crew had ammunition and food stored to last six weeks. All the men in the whaleboat did know was that the Italians had put up three white flares in the night as a token of surrender.

The main harbor of Ventotene is a narrow inlet that ends against a cliff like an amphitheater, and on this semicircular cliff the town stands high above the water. To the left of this inlet there is a pier and a little breakwater, unconnected with the land and designed to keep the swells from breaking on the pier, and finally to the left of the pier there is another inlet very like the true harbor, which, however, is no harbor at all.

The whaleboat with the five men in it approached the dark island and when it was close to the sh.o.r.e the commander shone a flashlight quickly and it showed a deep inlet. Naturally, he thought this was a harbor, and the little boat coasted easily into it. Then the light flashed on again and ranged about, only to discover that this was not the true harbor at all but the false inlet.

The whaleboat put about and headed out again and soon it came to what looked like a sand bar stuck out of the water. And again the light flashed out, and it was seen that it was a breakwater. Again the boat proceeded, but approximately ten minutes had been consumed in being slightly lost. The third try was successful and the little boat found the entrance of the true harbor and nosed into it. And just as the whaleboat put its head into the little harbor an explosion came from behind the breakwater, and there was the sound of running feet, and then from the top of the cliff there came another big explosion, and then progressively back on the hill more and more blasts.

There was nothing to do then but to go ahead. The whaleboat plunged into the pier and the five men leaped out. Behind the breakwater lay a German E-boat and beside her stood a German soldier. He had just thrown a potato-masher grenade at the E-boat to destroy and sink her. One of the American officers ran at him, and with one motion the German ripped out his Luger pistol and tossed it in the water and then put both of his hands over his head. The lancing light of a powerful flashlight circled him. The officer who had taken him rushed him to the whaleboat and put him under guard of the boat's engineer.

Now a crowd of Italians came swarming down from the hill, crying, "Surrender, surrender!" And as they came they dropped their rifles on the ground, in an unholy heap. The commodore pointed to a place on the quay. "Stack them there," he said. "Get everything you have and stack it right there."

Now the landing was crisscrossed with lights. The five Americans stood side by side with their guns ready, while the Italian carabinieri brought their guns and put them in a pile. Everyone seemed to be confused and glad and frightened. The people wanted to crowd close to see the Americans and at the same time the ugly pig snouts of the tommy guns warned them back. It is not rea.s.suring to be one of five men who are ostensibly holding a line against two hundred and fifty men, even if those men seem to have surrendered.

Every one of the Italians was talking. No one was listening. And no one wanted to listen. And then breaking through their ranks came a remarkable figure, a tall gray-haired old man dressed in pink pajamas. He stalked through the chattering, shouting ranks of the carabinieri and he said, "I speak English." Immediately the shouting stopped and the ring of faces showed intensely in the flashlight beams. "I have been a political prisoner here for three years," the old man said. For some reason he did not seem funny in his pink pajamas. He had a great dignity, even enough to offset his costume.

The commodore asked, "What were those explosions?"

"The Germans," the old man said. "There are eighty-seven of them. They were set up with machine guns to fire on you when you entered the harbor, but when you landed troops in the false harbor and when you landed more troops on the breakwater they thought they might be surrounded, so they retreated. They are dynamiting as they go."

"When we landed troops?" the commodore began, and then he shut himself off. "Oh, yes. I see," he said. "Yes, when we landed troops." One of the officers s.h.i.+vered and grinned at the commodore.

"I wish those paratroopers would come in about now," he said.

"I wouldn't mind it either," the commodore replied. And he went on to the old man in the pajamas, "Where will the Germans go?"

"They'll go to their radar station to destroy it. Then they have some entrenchments on the hill. I think they will try to hold them there." And at that moment there came a very large explosion and a fire started back on the hill, a fire large enough so that it illuminated the little dock and the entrance to the bay. "That will be the radar station now," the old man said. "They are very thorough. Too bad the troops you landed didn't get there first."

"Yes," said the commodore, "isn't it?"

More Italians came down the hill then and deposited their arms. They seemed to be very glad to let them go. Apparently they had never loved their guns very much.

On the dock the five Americans stood uneasily and the safety catches were off their guns, and their eyes moved restlessly among the Italians. The firelight from the burning buildings high on the hill made deep shadows in back of the dock houses.