"Where Eagles Dare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Маклин Алистер)

6

The seconds crawled by and became minutes, and the minutes in turn piled up with agonising slowness until almost quarter of an hour had passed. Brilliant moonshine and a contrastingly almost total darkness had alternated a score of times as the low, tattered, black clouds scudded across the valley, and the cold deepened until it reached down into the bones of the two watchers in the shadows. And still they waited. They waited because they had to: they couldn't reach the Schloss Adler without company and company was a long time in coming.

And they waited in silence, each man alone with his own thoughts. What was in Schaffer's mind Smith couldn't guess. Probably he was blissfully envisaging himself as the instigator of a series of uncontrollable stampedes in a selection of the better known hostelries in the West End of London. Smith's own thoughts were much more pragmatic and concerned solely with the immediate future. He was becoming concerned, and seriously concerned, about the intense cold and how it would affect their chances of making the trip up to the castle intact. Stamp their feet and flail their arms as they might, that numbing cold tightened its grip on them with every minute that passed. What they were about to do needed both physical strength and quick reactions in full measure, and that glacial cold was swiftly draining them of both. Briefly and bleakly he wondered what odds any reasonable bookmaker would have given against their chances of reaching the castle but dismissed the thought still-born. When no other option offered there was no point in figuring the percentages, and, besides, they were due to find out immediately: the long-awaited company was at hand.

Two Alpenkorps command cars, the leading one with wailing siren and flashing headlamps, swept up the village street just as the moon broke through the cloud-wrack once again, flooding the valley with light. Smith and Schaffer looked up at the moon, then at each other and then, wordlessly, moved back and pressed more deeply into the shadows on the west side of the lower station. The two metallic clicks seemed unnaturally loud as they eased forward the safety catches of their Schmeisser machine-pistols.

Engines stopped and headlamps faded and died almost on the same instant as the two cars pulled up beneath the steps. Men hurried out and lined up briefly before advancing single file up the station steps. A dozen altogether, Smith counted, an officer, eight guards and Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. All eight guards had their guns at the ready, which seemed a rather superfluous precaution as the three prisoners had their hands manacled behind their backs. Ergo, the guns weren't there to guard the prisoners but against any rescue attempt by Smith and Schaffer. He and Schaffer, Smith thought wryly, must be acquiring quite a reputation for themselves. But, nonetheless, a reassuring spectacle: if the Germans had known the true reason for his, Smith's, presence in Bavaria, they would also have known that they could have taken the three prisoners up with only a pea-shooter for protection and still have remained free from molestation.

The last of the twelve men passed inside the lower station. Smith touched Schaffer's arm. They slung their Schmeissers, scrambled quickly but quietly on to the ice-covered and steeply-sloping roof of the station and silently and with no little difficulty crawled forwards and upwards to the front edge of the roof under which the cable-car would appear as it moved out at the beginning of its long haul towards the castle. They were, Smith knew, terribly exposed: snow-suits or not, a casual passer-by in the street below had only to glance upwards and their detection was certain. Fortunately, there appeared to be no casual passers-by: the free entertainment provided by the burning station was drawing a full house. And then, as the cable began to move, the moon disappeared behind clouds.

They waited, tensely, till the leading edge of the cable-car appeared, swung their legs over the lip of the roof, waited till the suspension bracket passed beneath them, reached down for the cable, allowed themselves to be pulled off the roof, fell across the cable and lowered themselves gently until their feet touched the roof of the cable-car.

Mary walked softly along the dimly-lit, stone-flagged passage, counting off doors as she went. Outside the fifth she stopped, put her ear to it, stooped, glanced through the keyhole, knocked quietly and waited for a response. There was none. She knocked again, more loudly, with the same result. She turned the handle and found the door locked. From her small handbag she produced a set of skeleton keys. When the door yielded, she slipped quickly inside, closed the door and switched on the light.

The room was a considerable improvement on the one she had been given, although furnished with the same regulation iron bedstead. It was close-carpeted, boasted a couple of armchairs, and had a small chair with an Oberleutnant's uniform on it, a large wardrobe and a chest of drawers with a bolstered belt, gun and binoculars resting on its glass top.

Mary locked the door, withdrew the key, crossed the room, lifted the lower sash window and looked down. She was, she saw, directly above the roof of the cable-car header station, a very steeply downward sloping roof the upper edge of which was built into the castle wall itself. She withdrew her head, removed from her handbag a ball of string with a heavy bolt attached to one end, laid it on the bed, picked up the binoculars and took up station by the window. Shivering in the bitter night wind, she adjusted the focus of the field-glasses, then traversed down the line of the aerial cables. And then she had it, dimly seen but unmistakable, the squat black outline of the cable-car, now half-way between the bottom and middle pylons, swaying madly, frighteningly, across the sky in the high and gusting wind.

Smith and Schaffer lay stretched out on the roof, clutching desperately to the suspension bracket, the only anchorage available. The roof was solidly coated with white-sheeted ice, they could find no purchase anywhere for their feet, and their bodies slid uncontrollably in all directions with the violent buffeting of the car beneath them. The sheer physical strain on hands and arms and shoulders was even worse than Smith had feared: and the worst was yet to come.

Schaffer twisted his head and peered downwards. It was a dizzy, vertiginous and frankly terrifying spectacle. The entire valley below seemed to be swinging through a forty-five degree arc. One second he was looking at the line of pines that bordered the western slope of the valley, then the floor of the valley rushed by beneath them and seconds later he was staring at the line of pines that swept up the eastern side of the valley. He twisted his head upwards, but that was no improvement, the lights of the Schloss Adler careened wildly through the same dizzy arc: it was like being on a combination of a roller-coaster, big dipper and runaway Ferris wheel with the notable exception, Schaffer thought bleakly, that the coaster, dipper and Ferris wheel were provided with safety belts and other securing devices designed to prevent the occupant from parting company with his machine. The wind howled its high and lonely threnody through the cables and the suspension bracket. Schaffer looked away, screwed his eyes shut, lowered his head between his outstretched arms and moaned.

“Still think the horse the world's worst form of transport?” Smith asked. His lips were close to Schaffer's ear.

“Give me my boots and saddle,” Schaffer said, then, even more despairingly, “Oh, no! Not again!”

Once more, without any warning, the moon had broken through, flooding the two men in its pale cold light. Gauging the time when the strain on their arms was least, they pulled the snow hoods far over their heads and tried to flatten themselves even more closely on to the roof.

In the Schloss Adler two people were watching the wild upward progress of the cable-car, now brilliantly illuminated by the moon. Through Mary's field-glasses two clearly distinguishable shapes of men could be seen stretched out on the cable-car roof. For half a minute she kept the glasses trained on them, then slowly turned away, her eyes wide, almost staring, her face empty of expression. Fifty feet above her head a sentry with slung gun patrolling the battlements stopped and gazed down at the cable-car crawling up the valley. But he didn't gaze for long. Although booted, gauntleted and muffled to the ears, he shook with the cold. It was no night for idle spectating. He looked away indifferently and resumed his brisk sentry-go.

Indifference was a quality that was conspicuously lacking on top of the cable-car. The cable-car was on the last lap now, the section between the last pylon and the castle header station. Soon the moment of truth. A minute from then, Smith thought, and they could both well be lying broken and lifeless on the rocks two hundred feet below.

He twisted his head upwards. The cold moon still sailed across a clear gap in the sky but was closing rapidly towards another bank of cloud. The castle battlements, with the header station at the base, seemed almost vertically above his head. So steeply was the car rising on this last section that the volcanic plug itself was now less than fourteen yards away. His gaze followed the volcanic plug downwards till it readied its base: down there, on the slopes below, patrolling guards and their Doberman pinchers were barely the size of beetles.

“Suits her, doesn't it?” Schaffer said suddenly. Harsh edges of strain buried in his voice and his face was tight and desperate. “A lovely name.”

“What are you talking about?” Smith demanded.

“Heidi.”

“Oh, my God!” Smith stared up at the rapidly closing header station. “Her name is Ethel.”

“You didn't have to tell me.” Schaffer tried to sound aggrieved but it didn't quite come off. He followed Smith's upward gaze and, after a long pause, said very slowly: “Jesus! Look at the slope of that goddamned roof!”

“I've been looking.” Smith eased his knife from its sheath and made a quick grab at the suspension bracket as a particularly violent swing almost broke his grip with his other hand. “Get your knife ready. And for God's sake don't lose it.”

The moon slid behind a black patch of cloud and the valley was flooded with darkness. Slowly, carefully, as the cable-car approached the header station and the swaying motion dampened down, Smith and Schaffer eased their way to the after end of the car, rose gingerly but swiftly to their feet and grabbed the cable with their free hands while their feet tried to find what precarious hold they could on the treacherously ice-sheathed roof.

The front of the car passed under the lip of the header station roof. A moment later the suspension bracket followed and Smith lunged forward and upwards, flinging himself bodily on to the roof. His right arm struck downwards and the knife blade pierced the coating of ice and imbedded itself firmly in the wood beneath. Less than a second later Schaffer had landed beside him, the downward arcing knife making contact at exactly the same instant as himself.

The blade broke off at the hilt. Schaffer opened his hand, dropped the haft and clawed desperately at the ice. The dragging nails ripped through the encrusting ice, quite failing to hold him. He reached his left hand to his mouth, tore off the gauntlet and dug both hands in with all the strength that was in him. He slowed, but not enough. His scrabbling toes failed to find any more purchase and he knew he was sliding out over the edge—and that when he went the first thing to halt his fall would be the rock-pile two hundred and fifty feet beneath at the base of the volcanic plug.

Smith had been badly winded by his fall. Several seconds elapsed before he realised that Schaffer wasn't where he should have been—lying on the roof beside him. He twisted round, saw the white blur of Schaffer's strained and desperate face, had a vague impression of Schaffer's eight finger-nails scoring their way through the ice as his body, already, up to mid-thigh, slid inexorably over the edge and brought his left hand flashing down with a speed and power that, even in those circumstances, made Schaffer grunt in pain as the vice-like grip clamped over his right wrist.

For some seconds they lay like that, spreadeagled and motionless on the sloping rope, the lives of both dependent on the slim imbedded blade of Smith's knife, then Schaffer, urged by Smith's quivering left arm, began to inch his way slowly upwards. Thirty seconds later and he was level with Smith.

“This is a knife I have, not an ice-axe,” Smith said hoarsely. “Won't take much more of this. Have you another knife?”

Schaffer shook his head. Momentarily, speech was beyond him.

“Piton?”

The same shake of the head.

“Your torch?”

Schaffer nodded, reached under the cumbersome snow-smock with his left hand and eventually managed to wriggle his torch free.

“Unscrew the bottom,” Smith said. “Throw it away—and the battery.” Schaffer brought his left hand across,to where his right was pinioned by Smith, removed base and battery, flattened the now empty cylinder base a little, reversed his grip and gouged the torch into the ice, downwards and towards himself. He moved his right hand and Smith released his grip. Schaffer remained where he was. Smith smiled and said: “Try holding me.”

Schaffer caught Smith's left wrist. Tentatively, his hand still hooked in readiness, Smith removed his hand from the haft of the knife. Schaffer's imbedded torch held firm. Cautiously at first, then with increasing confidence as the sharp blade cut through the protective sheathing of ice, Smith carved out a secure handhold in the wooden roof of the station, passed his knife to Schaffer, wriggled out of his snow-smock, undid a few turns of the knotted rope round his waist and secured the free end to Schaffers' belt. He said: “With the knife and torch, think you can make it?”

“Can I make it?” Schaffer tested both knife and torch and smiled, a pretty strained effort, but his first for some time.

“After what I've been through—well, ever seen a monkey go up a coconut palm tree?”

Fifty feet above their heads, Mary withdrew from the window and laid the binoculars on the chest of drawers. Her hands shook and the metal of the binoculars rattled like castanets against the glass top. She returned to the window and began to pay out the weighted string.

Smith came up the last few feet of the sloping roof at the end of the rope, caught Schaffer's hand, stood upright on the flat inner section of the roof and at once began to unwind the rest of the knotted rope from his waist. Schaffer, although the temperature was far below freezing, wiped his brow like a man in a heat-wave.

“Brother!” He mopped his brow some more. “If I can ever do you a favour, like lending you a car-fare—”

Smith grinned, clapped his shoulder, reached up into the gloom, caught the weighted end of the suspended string and quickly bent the nylon on to it. He gave two gentle tugs and the rope began to move upwards as Mary hauled it in through the window. Smith waited until two more gentle return tugs indicated that the rope was securely fastened and began to climb.

He was half-way up to the window when the moon broke through. In his Alpenkorps uniform he was perfectly silhouetted against the gleaming white of the castle walls. He hung there motionless, not daring to move, not so much as even daring to glance upwards or downwards lest the movement attract some hostile attention.

Twenty-five feet below him Schaffer peered cautiously over the edge of the header station roof. The guards and dogs were still patrolling the area round the roof of the volcanic plug. They had only to give one casual upwards glance and Smith's discovery was inevitable. Then some hair-prickling sixth sense made Schaffer look sharply upwards and he became very still indeed. The sentry, another circuit of the battlements completed, was standing with hands splayed out on the parapet, gazing out over the valley, perhaps watching the now dying flames from the burnt-out station: he had to lower his eyes only a fraction and that was that. Slowly, with his right hand, Schaffer brought up the Luger with the long perforated silencer screwed to its muzzle and laid it, in the best police fashion, across his left wrist. He had no doubt he could kill his man with one shot, the only question was when best to do it, how to weigh the balance of possibilities. If he waited until the man sighted them, he might give a warning shout or thrust himself back into cover before Schaffer could kill him. If he shot the sentry before he sighted them, then there would be no question of either escape or warning. But there was the possibility that the man might pitch forward over the battlements, crash off the roof of the header station and fall into the valley below, close by the patrolling men and dogs. A possibility only, Schaffer decided, not a probability: the slamming effect of the Luger shell would almost certainly knock him backwards off his feet. Schaffer had never before gunned down an unsuspecting man, but he coldly prepared to do so now. He lined up the luminous sight on the man's breast-bone and began to squeeze the trigger.

The moon went behind a cloud.

Slowly, stiffly, Schaffer lowered his gun. Schaffer, once again, wiped sweat from his forehead. He had the feeling that he wasn't through with brow-mopping for the night.

Smith reached the window, clambered over the sill, gave the rope two tugs as a signal for Schaffer to start climbing and passed into the room. It was almost totally dark inside, he'd just time to make out the iron bedstead which had been dragged to the window as anchorage for the rope when a pair of arms wound tightly round his neck and someone started murmuring incoherently in his ear.

“Easy on, easy on,” Smith protested. He was still breathing heavily and needed all the air he could get, but summoned enough energy to bend and kiss her. “Unprofessional conduct, what's more. But I won't report it this time.”

She was still clinging to him, silent now, when Lieutenant Schaffer made his appearance, dragging himself wearily over the sill and collapsing on the iron bedstead. He was breathing very heavily indeed and had about him the air of one who has suffered much.

“Have they no elevators in this dump?” he demanded. It took him two breaths to get the words out.

“Out of training,” Smith said unsympathetically. He crossed to the door and switched on the light, hurriedly switched it off again. “Damn. Get the rope in then pull the curtains.”

“This is the way they treated them in the Roman galleys,” Schaffer said bitterly. But he had the rope inside and the curtains closed in ten seconds. As Smith was manoeuvring the bed back into its original position, Schaffer was stuffing the nylon into their canvas bag, a bag, which, in addition to snowsuits and Schmeissers, contained some hand grenades and a stock of plastic explosives. He had just finished tying the neck of the bag when a key scraped in the lock.

Smith motioned Mary to stay where she was as he moved quickly to take up position behind the door: Schaffer, for all his alleged exhaustion, had dropped flat to the floor behind the bed with all the speed and silence of a cat. The door opened and a young Oberleutnant strode into the room, stopping short as he saw Mary, her hand to her mouth. His face registered astonishment, an astonishment almost immediately replaced by an anticipatory half-smile as he stepped forward beyond the opened door. Smith's arm came down and the young officer's eyes turned up in his head.

Smith studied the plans of the castle given him by Mary while Schaffer trussed up the Oberleutnant with the nylon, gagged him with tape and shoved him, jack-knifed, into the bottom of the cupboard. For good measure he pulled the top of the bed against the door.

“Ready when you are, boss.”

“That's now. I have my bearings. First left, down the stairs, third left. The gold drawing-room. Where Colonel Kramer holds court. Complete with minstrels' gallery.”

“What's a minstrels' gallery?” Schaffer enquired.

“A gallery for minstrels. Then the next right-hander takes us to the east wing. Down again, second left. Telephone exchange.”

“Why there?” Schaffer asked. “We've already cut the lines.”

“Not the ones between here and the barracks, we haven't. Want them to whistle up a regiment of Alpenkorps?” He turned to Mary. “Helicopter still here?”

“It was when I arrived.”

“The helicopter?” Schaffer showed his puzzlement. “What gives with the whirlybird, then?”

“This gives with the whirlybird. They could use it either to whip Carnaby out of here—they might just be nervous if they think we're on the loose—or they might use it to block our getaway.”

“If we get away.”

“There's that. How are you on immobilising helicopters, Lieutenant Schaffer? Your report states that you were an up-and-coming racing driver and a very competent mechanic before they scraped the bottom of the barrel and dragged you in.”

“I volunteered,” Schaffer said with dignity. “About the competence, I dunno. But give me a four-pound hammer and I'll sure as little fishes immobilise anything from a bulldozer to a bicycle.”

“And without the four-pounder? This is not a boiler-makers' convention.”

“I have been known to use finesse.”

Smith said to Mary: “How can we get a sight of this machine?”

“Just five paces that way.” She pointed to the door. “Every passage window in the Schloss Adler opens on to the courtyard.”

Smith opened the door, glanced up and down the passage and crossed to an opposite window. Schaffer was by his side.

The comings and goings of the moon made no difference to the state of illumination in the Schloss Adler courtyard. Two big overhead arc lamps burned by the heavily-barred entrance gates. A third burned at the opposite end of the courtyard, over the main doorway leading into the castle itself. At a height of about ten feet, four waterproof storm lamps were fastened to the east and west walls of the courtyard. Lights burned from a dozen windows on the east and northern sides. And the brightest light of all came from an arc-lamp that had been rigged above the helicopter and under the temporary protection of a stretched tarpaulin. A figure in green overalls and a high-peaked cap was working on the helicopter's engine. Smith touched Schaffer's arm and they moved back into the room where Mary was waiting, closing the door behind them.

“Seems a straightforward operation,” Schaffer said. “Fixing it so that the chopper doesn't fly again, I mean. I cross to the main gates, overpower the four men on guard, strangle the four Doberman pinchers, knock off two or three other characters—armed characters—who appear to be patrolling the place all the time, overpower about twenty soldiers who appear to be drinking beer in some sort of canteen across the way, dispose of the guy who's working on the engine and then immobilise the chopper. I mean, just immobilising the chopper itself wouldn't be anything, really, would it?”

“We'll think of something,” Smith said soothingly.

“I'll bet you think of something,” Schaffer said moodily. “That's what I'm afraid of.”

“Time's a-wasting. We won't be needing those any more.”

Smith folded the plan, handed it to Mary, then frowned as she put it in her bag. “You know better than that. The Lilliput: it should be on your person, not in the bag. Here.” He handed her the Mauser he'd taken from Colonel Weissner. “This in your bag. Hide the Lilliput on you.”

“When I get to my room I will,” she said primly.

“All those leering Yankee lieutenants around,” Schaffer said sadly. “Thank heavens I'm a changed man.”

“His mind is set on higher things,” Smith explained. He glanced at his watch. “Give us thirty minutes.”

They slipped cautiously through the doorway then strode briskly and confidently along the passage, making no attempt to conceal their presence. The bag with the Schmeissers, rope, grenades and explosives Smith swung carelessly from one hand. They passed a bespectacled soldier carrying a sheaf of papers and a girl carrying a laden tray, neither of whom paid any attention to them. They turned right at the end of the passage, reached a circular flight of stairs and went down three floors until they came to the level of the courtyard. A short broad passage, with two doors on either side, took them to the main door leading out to the courtyard.

Smith opened the door and looked out. The scene was very much as Schaffer had feelingly described it, with far too many armed guards and police dogs around for anyone's peace of mind. The overalled mechanic was still at work on the helicopter's engine. Smith quietly closed the door and turned his attention to the nearest right-hand door in the passage. It was locked. He said to Schaffer: “Keep an eye open at the end of the passage there.”

Schaffer went. As soon as he was in position, Smith brought out skeleton keys. The third key fitted and the door, gave under his hand. He signalled Schaffer to return.

With the door closed and locked behind them, they looked around the room, a room faintly but for their purposes adequately lit by the backwash of light shining through the un-suited window from the courtyard. It was, quite apparently, the fire-fighting H.Q. of the castle. The walls were hung with drums of rolled hoses, asbestos suits, helmets and fire-axes: wheeled handpumps, CO, cylinders and a variety of smaller cylinders for fighting oil and electrical fires took up much of the floor space.

“Ideal,” Smith murmured.

“Couldn't be better,” Schaffer agreed. “What are you talking about?”

“If we leave anyone in here,” Smith explained, “he's unlikely to be discovered unless there's an actual outbreak of fire. Agreed? So.” He took Schaffer by the arm and led him to the window. “The lad working on the chopper there. About your size, wouldn't you say?”

“I wouldn't know,” Schaffer said. “And if you've got in mind what I think you have in mind, then I don't want to know, either.”

Smith drew the shutters, crossed to the door and switched on the overhead light.

“You got any better ideas?”

“Give me time,” he complained.

“I can't give you what we haven't got. Take your jacket off and keep your Luger lined up on that door. I'll be back in a minute.”

Smith left, closing but not locking the door behind him. He passed through the outer doorway, walked a few paces across the courtyard, halted at the base of a set of steps leading up to the helicopter and looked up at the man working above him, a tall rangy man with a thin intelligent face and a lugubrious expression on it. If he'd been working bare-handed with metal tools in that freezing temperature, Smith thought, he'd have had a lugubrious expression on his face, too.

“You the pilot?” Smith asked.

“You wouldn't think so, would you?” the overalled man said bitterly. He laid down a spanner and blew on his hands. “Back in Tempelhof I have two mechanics for this machine, one a farm-hand from Swabia, the other a blacksmith's assistant from the Harz. If I want to keep alive I do my own mechanics. What do you want?”

“Not me. Reichsmarschall Rosemeyer. The phone.”

“The Reichsmarschall?” The pilot was puzzled. “I was speaking to him less than fifteen minutes ago.”

“A call just came through from the Chancellory in Berlin. It seems urgent.” Smith let a slight note of impatience creep into his voice. “You better hurry. Through the main door there, then the first on the right.”

Smith stood aside as the pilot clambered down, looked casually around him. A guard with a leashed Doberman was no more than twenty feet away, but paying no attention to them: with his pinched bluish face sunk deep in his upturned collar, his hands thrust down into his great-coat pockets and his frozen breath hanging heavily in the air, he was too busy concentrating on his own miseries to have time to spare for ridiculous suspicions. Smith turned to follow the pilot through the main door, unobtrusively unholstering his Luger and gripping it by the barrel.

Smith hadn't intended chopping down the pilot with his gun butt but was left with no option. As soon as the pilot had passed through the side door and seen Schaffer's Luger pointing at his chest from a distance of four feet his shoulders lifted—the preliminary, Smith knew, not to violence or resistance but to a shout for help. Schaffer caught him as he pitched forward and lowered him to the floor.

Quickly they unzipped the overall from the unconscious man, bound and gagged him and left him lying in a corner. The overall was hardly a perfect fit for Schaffer, but, then, overalls are rarely a perfect fit for anybody. Schaffer switched the pilot's hat for his own, pulled the peak low over his eyes and left.

Smith switched off the light, unshuttered the window, raised the lower sash and stood, Luger in hand, just far enough back from the window so as not to be seen from outside. Schaffer was already climbing the steps up to the helicopter. The guard was now only feet from the base of the ladder. He'd his hands out of his pockets now and was flailing his arms across his shoulders in an attempt to keep warm.

Thirty seconds later Schaffer climbed down the ladder again, carrying some pieces of equipment in his left hand. He reached the ground, lifted the piece of equipment for a closer inspection, shook his head in disgust, lifted his right hand in a vague half-greeting to the uncaring German guard and headed for the main door again. By the time he reached the fire-fighting room, Smith had the window shuttered again and the light on.

“That was quick,” Smith said approvingly.

“Fear lent him wings, as the saying goes,” Schaffer said sourly. “I'm always quick when I'm nervous. Did you see the size of the teeth in that great slavering monster out there?” He held up the piece of equipment for inspection, dropped it to the floor and brought his heel down on it. “Distributor cap. I'll bet they haven't another in Bavaria. Not for that engine. And now, I suppose, you want me to go and impersonate the telephone operator.”

“No. We don't want to exhaust all your Thespian stamina.”

“My what?” Schaffer asked suspiciously. “That sounds kinda like a nasty crack to me.”

“Your acting resources. The only other impersonation you'll be called to make tonight is that of Lieutenant Schaffer, OSS, the innocent American abroad.”

“That shouldn't be too difficult,” Schaffer said bitterly. He draped the overalls he'd just removed over the unconscious pilot. “A cold night. Anyway, the telephone exchange.”

“Soon. But I'd like to check first how far they've got with old Carnaby-Jones. Let's take a look.”

Two floors higher up and midway along the central passage Smith stopped outside a doorway. At a nod from him, Schaffer reached for a light switch. Except for a faint glow of light at either end, the passage was now completely dark. Smith laid a gentle hand on the door-knob and quietly eased the door open. Fifteen inches, no more. Both men swiftly slid through the narrow gap, Smith quickly and softly closing the door to again.

The room, if so enormous a chamber could be called a room, must have been at least seventy feet long by thirty wide. The farther end of the room was brightly and warmly lit by three large chandeliers: comparatively, the end of the room where Smith and Schaffer stood was shrouded in near darkness.

They stood, not on the floor, but on a platform some dozen feet above the floor. It was a massive and grotesquely carved oaken minstrels' gallery which completely spanned the thirty-foot width of that end and ran perhaps a quarter of the way down both the longer sides of the room. There were rows of wooden benches, an organ on one side of the door through which they had just passed, a battery of organ pipes on the other. Whoever had built that place had obviously liked the organ and choir-singing: or maybe he just thought he did. From the centre of the front of the gallery, opposite the rear door, a flight of steps with intricately scrolled wooden banisters led down to what was very obviously the gold drawing-room.

It was aptly named, Smith thought. Everything in it was gold or golden or gilt. The enormous wall-to-wall carpet was deep gold in colour, the thickness of the pile would have turned a polar bear green with envy. The heavy baroque furniture, all twisted snakes and gargoyles' heads, was gilt, the huge couches and chairs covered in a dusty gold lame. The chandeliers were gilded and, above the enormous white and gilt-plated fireplace, in which a crackling pine log fire burned, hung an almost equally enormous white and gilt-plated mirror. The great heavy curtains could have been made from beaten gold. The ceiling-high oak panelling, was a mistake, it continued to look obstinately like oak panelling, maybe the original covering gold paint had worn off. All in all, Smith reflected, it was a room only a mad Bavarian monarch could have conceived of, far less lived in.

Three men were seated comfortably round the great fire, to all appearances having an amicable discussion over after-dinner coffee and brandy, which was being served to them from—almost inevitably—a golden trolley by Anne-Marie.

Anne-Marie, like the panelling was a disappointment: instead of a gold lame dress she wore a long white silk sheath gown which, admittedly, went very well with her blonde colouring and snow-tan. She looked as if she were about to leave for the opera.

The man with his back to him Smith had never seen before but, because he immediately recognised who the other men were, knew who this man must be: Colonel Paul Kramer, Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service, regarded by M.I.6 as having the most brilliant and formidable brain in German Intelligence. The man to watch, Smith knew, the man to fear. It was said of Kramer that he never made the same mistake twice—and that no one could remember when he'd last made a mistake for the first time.

As Smith watched, Colonel Kramer stirred, poured some more brandy from a Napoleon bottle by his side and looked first at the man on his left, a tall, ageing, but still good-looking man in the uniform of a Reichsmarschall of the Wehrmacht—at that moment, wearing a very glum expression on his face—then at the man seated opposite, an iron-grey-haired and very distinguished looking character in the uniform of a lieutenant general of the U.S. Army. Without a comptometer to hand, it was difficult to say which of the two generals was wearing the more decorations.

Kramer sipped his brandy and said wearily: “You make things very difficult for me, General Carnaby. Very, very difficult indeed.”

“The difficulties are of your own making, my dear Kramer,” Cartwright Jones said easily. “Yours and General Rosemeyer's here ... There is no difficulty.” He turned to Anne-Marie and smiled. “If I might have some more of that excellent brandy, my dear. My word, we've nothing like this in SHAEF. Marooned in your Alpine redoubt or not, you people know how to look after yourselves.”

In the gloom at the back of the minstrels' gallery, Schaffer nudged Smith with his elbow.

“What gives with old Carnaby-Jones knocking back the Napoleon, then?” he asked in a low indignant murmur. “Why isn't he being turned on a spit or having the French fits coming out. of scopolamine?”

“Sssh!” Smith's nudge carried a great deal more weight and authority than Schaffer's had done.

Jones smiled his thanks as Anne-Marie poured him some more brandy, sipped from the glass, sighed in satisfaction and continued: “Or have you forgotten, General Rosemeyer, that Germany is also a signatory to The Hague conventions?”

“I haven't forgotten,” Rosemeyer said uncomfortably. “And if I had my way ... General, my hands are tied. I have my orders from Berlin.”

“And you can tell Berlin all they're entitled to know,” Jones said easily. “I am General—Lieutenant General—George Carnaby, United States Army.”

“And Chief Co-ordinator of Planning for the Second Front,” Rosemeyer added morosely.

“The Second Front?” Jones asked with interest. “What's that?”

Rosemeyer said heavily and with earnest gravity: “General, I've done all I can. You must believe me. For thirty-six hours now, I've held off Berlin. I've persuaded—I've tried to persuade the High Command that the mere fact of your capture will compel the Allies to alter all their invasion plans. But this, it seems, is not enough. For the last time, may I request—”

“General George Carnaby,” Jones said calmly. “United States Army.”

“I expected nothing else,” Rosemeyer admitted tiredly. “How could I expect anything else from a senior army officer? I'm afraid the matter is now in Colonel Kramer's hands.”

Jones sipped some more brandy and eyed Kramer thoughtfully. “The Colonel doesn't seem very happy about it either.”

“I'm not,” Kramer said. “But the matter is out of my hands, too. I also have my orders. Anne-Marie will attend to the rest of it.”

“This charming young lady?” Jones was politely incredulous. “A maestro of the thumb-screw?”

“Of the hypodermic syringe,” Kramer said shortly. “She used to be a trained nurse.” A bell rang and Kramer picked up a phone by his side. “Yes? Ah! They have, of course, been searched? Very good. Now.” He looked across at Jones. “Well, well, well. Some interesting company coming up, General.”

“Very interesting indeed. Parachutists. A rescue team—for you. I'm sure you'll be delighted to meet one another.”

“I really can't imagine what you're talking about,” Jones said idly.

“The rescue team we've seen before,” Smith murmured to Schaffer. “And no doubt we'll be renewing old acquaintances before long. Come on.”

“What? Now?” Schaffer jerked an urgent thumb in the direction of Jones. “Just when they're going to get to work on him?”

“Out of your social depth, Lieutenant,” Smith whispered. “They're civilised. First, they finish the brandy. Then the works.”

“It's like I said,” Schaffer said mournfully. “I'm from Montana.”

The two men left as quietly as they had come and as quietly closed the door behind them. Against the loom of light at either end of the corridor, they could see that the passage-way was clear. Smith switched on the light. They walked briskly along the passage, dropped down a flight of stairs, turned left and halted outside a doorway which bore above it the legend

TELEFON ZENTRALE.

“Telephone exchange,” Schaffer said.

Smith shook his head in admiration, put his ear to the door, dropped to one knee, peered through the keyhole and, while still in that position, softly tried the handle. Whatever slight sound he made was masked by the muffled sound of a voice speaking over a telephone. The door was locked. Smith slowly released the handle, straightened and shook his head.

“Suspicious bunch of devils,” Schaffer said sourly. “The skeletons?”

“The operator would hear us. Next door.”

Next door wasn't locked. The door gave before Smith's pressure on the handle. The room beyond was in total darkness and appeared to be empty.

“Moment, bitte!” a cold voice said behind them.

Quickly, but not too quickly, Smith and Schaffer turned round. A few feet away stood a soldier, levelled carbine in his hand, his eyes moving in active suspicion from the two men to the kit-bag in Smith's hands. Smith glared at the man, raised an imperative forefinger to his lips.

“Dummkopf” Smith's voice was a low furious whisper through clenched teeth. “Silenz! Englander!”

He turned away impatiently and peered tensely through the partly-opened doorway. Again he held up an imperious hand that commanded silence. After a few more seconds he straightened, lips compressed, looked significantly at Schaffer and moved slightly to one side. Schaffer took his position and started peering in turn. Curiosity, Smith could see, was replacing suspicion in the soldier's face. Schaffer straightened and said softly: “What in God's name do we do?”

“I don't know,” Smith said in a worried whisper. “Colonel Kramer told me he wanted them alive. But—”

“What is it?” the soldier demanded in a voice as low as their own. With the mention of Colonel Kramer the last of his suspicions had gone. “Who is it?”

“You still here,” Smith said irritably. “All right, go on. Have a look. But be quick!”

The soldier, his face and eyes now alight with intense curiosity and what might have been dreams of rapid promotion, moved forward on tiptoe as Schaffer courteously stepped to one side to let him see. A pair of Lugers grinding simultaneously into both temples effectively put an end to any idea of rapid military advancement that he might briefly have entertained. He was propelled, stumbling, into the room and, by the time he'd picked himself up and turned round, the door was closed, the light on and both pistols lined at his head.

“Those are silencers you see on our guns,” Smith said quietly. “No heroics, no shooting. Dying for the Fatherland is one thing, dying uselessly for no reason at all is another and very stupid thing. Don't you agree?”

The soldier looked at them, calculated his chances, accepted the fact that he had none and nodded. Schaffer produced a length of rope and said: “You may be over-eager, son, but you're no fool. Lie down with your hands behind your back.”

The room, Smith saw, was small and lined with metal shelves and filing cabinets. Some sort of storage room for office records. The chances of anyone coming along weren't high and it was, anyway, a chance they had to take. He waited till Schaffer had bound and gagged the prisoner, put his Luger away, helped Schaffer to bind the man to two of the metal poles supporting the shelves, turned to the window, slid up the lower sash and peered out.

The valley to the north stretched out before him, the lights of the village and the smouldering embers of the railway station visible through very gently falling snow. Smith looked to his right. The lighted window of the telephone exchange was only a few feet away. From the window a heavy lead-sheathed cable attached to a wire almost equally as heavy stretched down the castle wall into the darkness.

“That the one?” Schaffer was by his side now.

“That's the one. Let's have the rope.”

Smith eased his legs into a double bowline, wriggled over the window-sill and cautiously lowered himself to the full extent of his arms while Schaffer, standing by the window with the rope belayed round one of the stanchions of the shelving, took the strain. Smith released his grip on the sill and was lowered jerkily by Schaffer till he was about ten or twelve feet down. Then, using a free hand and both feet to fend himself off from the wall he began to swing himself in a pendulum arc across the face of the castle, an assist from Schaffer up above adding momentum to his swing. On the fifth swing the fingers of his left hand hooked round the lead cable and wire. As Schaffer eased off tension on the rope Smith got both hands round the cable and quickly climbed up the few feet to the window above. He was almost certain that the lead cable he had in his hands was the telephone outlet, but only almost: he had no desire to slice the blade of his knife through high-powered electricity supply lines.

He hitched a wary eye over the window-sill, saw that the telephone operator, his back almost directly to him, was talking animatedly on the phone, lifted himself another six inches, observed a cable of what appeared to be exactly similar dimensions to the one he was holding running along the skirting-board to some point behind the exchange and then not reappearing again. He lowered himself a couple of feet, grasped cable and wire firmly with his left hand, inserted the point of his knife between cable and wire a few inches below that and started sawing. A dozen powerful saw-cuts and he was through.

He replaced the knife in its sheath, hoisted himself up again and had another look through the window. The operator was still animated, but this time not with his voice but with a hand which he was using furiously to crank a handle at the side of the exchange. After a few seconds of this profitless exercise he gave up and just sat there staring at the switchboard and shaking his head in bafflement. Smith made a signal to Schaffer, released his grip on the cable and swung back across the castle wall.

Mary glanced at her watch for the tenth time in less than as many minutes, stubbed out the half-cigarette she'd been nervously smoking, rose from her chair, opened her hand-bag, checked that the safety catch of the Mauser inside was in the off position, closed the bag and crossed the room. She had just turned the handle and begun to open the door when knuckles rapped on the outside. She hesitated, glanced at the bag in her hand and looked round almost wildly to see where she could dispose of it. But it was too late to dispose of anything. The door opened and a cheerfully smiling von Brauchitsch stood framed in the doorway.

“Ah, Fraulein!” He glanced at the bag and smiled again. “Lucky me! Just in time to escort you wherever you're going.”

“To escort me—” She broke off and smiled. “My business is of no consequence. It can wait. You wanted to see me, Captain?”

“Naturally.”

“What about?”

“What about, she says! About nothing, that's what. Unless you call yourself nothing. Just to see you. Is that a crime? The prettiest girl we've seen—” He smiled again, this man who was always smiling, and took her arm. “Come, a little Bavarian hospitality. Coffee. We have an armoury that's been converted into the finest Kaffeestube—”

“But—but my duties?” Mary said uncertainly. “I must see the Colonel's secretary—”

“That one! Let her wait!” There was a marked lack of cordiality in von Brauchitsch's voice. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

“We have?” It was impossible to resist the infectious smile, not to reply in kind. “Such as?”

“Dusseldorf.”

“Dusseldorf?”

“Of course! That's my home town, too.”

“Your home town, too!” She smiled again and gave his arm the briefest of squeezes. “How small a world. That will be nice.”

She wondered vaguely, as she walked along, how one could smile and smile and, inside, feel as chilled as the tomb.