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MacLean, Alistair - Where Eagles Dare

Mar 2003 sort of proofed by (xyz) from uc html

WHERE EAGLES DARE

ALISTAIR MACLEAN, the son of a Scots Minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy; two and a half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. He is now the author of twenty-two best-selling novels, of which Goodbye California is the most recent; sixteen of them have now sold more than a million copies throughout the world.

Many of his novels have also been filmed - Bear Island, Where Eagles -Dare and Force 10 from Navarone are among the most famous - and there are plans to film many more books including Goodbye California.

Available in Fontana by the same author

H.M.S. Ulysses The Guns of Navarone South by Java Head The Last Frontier Night Without End Fear is the Key The Golden Rendezvous Ice Station Zebra When Eight Bells Toll The Dark Crusader The Satan Bug Breakheart Pass Caravan to Vaccares Circus Force 10 from Navarone The Golden Gate Bear Island Puppet on a Chain Seawitch The Way to Dusty Death

ALISTAIR MacLEAN

Where Eagles Dare

FONTANA/Collins

First published in 1967 by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd First issued in Fontana Books 1969 Twenty-ninth Impression April 1980

й 1967 Cymbeline Productions Ltd.

Made and printed in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, Glasgow

To Geoff and Gina

CONDITIONS OF SALE

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

The vibrating clangour from the four great piston engines set teeth on edge and made an intolerable assault on cringing eardrums. The decibel-level, Smith calculated, must have been about that found in a boiler factory, and one, moreover, that was working on overtime rates, while the shaking cold in that cramped, instrument-crowded flight-deck was positively Siberian. On balance, he reflected, he would have gone for the лSiberian boiler factory any time because, whatever its drawbacks, it wasn't liable to fall out of the sky or crash into a mountain-side which, in his present circumstances, seemed a likely enough, if not imminent contingency for all that the pilot of their Lancaster bomber appeared to care to the contrary. Smith looked away from the darkly opaque world beyond the windscreens where the wipers fought a useless battle with the driving snow and looked again at the man in the left-hand captain's seat.

Wing Commander Cecil Carpenter was as completely at home in his environment as the most contented oyster in his shell in Whitstable Bay. Any comparison with a Siberian boiler factory he would have regarded as the ravings of an unhinged mind. Quite dearly, he found the shuddering vibration as soothing as the ministrations of the gentlest of masseurs, the roar of the-engines positively soporific and the ambient temperature just right for a man of his leisured literary tastes. Before him, at a comfortable reading distance, a book rested on a hinged contraption which he had swung out from the cabin's side. From what little Smith could occasionally see of the lurid cover, depicting a blood-stained knife plunged into the back of a girl who didn't seem to have any clothes on, the Wing Commander held the more serious contemporary novelists in a fine contempt. He turned a page.

'Magnificent,' he said admiringly. He puffed deeply on an ancient briar that smelt like a fumigating plant. 'By heavens, this feller can write. Banned, of course, young Tremayne this to the fresh-faced youngster in the co-pilot's seat -- 'so I can't let you have it till you grow up.' He broke off, fanned the smoke-laden air to improve the visibility, and peered accusingly at his co-pilot. 'Flying Officer Tremayne, you have that look of pained apprehension on your face again.'

'Yes, sir. That's to say, no, sir.'

'Part of the malaise of our time,' Carpenter said sorrowfully. "The young lack so many things, like appreciation of a fine pipe tobacco or faith in their commanding officers.' He sighed heavily, carefully marked the place in his book, folded the rest away and straightened in his seat. 'You'd think a man would be entitled to some peace and quiet on his own flight-deck.'

He slid open his side screen. An icy gust of snow-laden wind blew into the flight-deck, carrying with it the suddenly deepened roar from the engines. Carpenter grimaced and thrust his head outside, shielding his eyes with a gauntleted right hand. Five seconds later he shook his head dispiritedly, screwed his eyes shut as he winced in what appeared to be considerable pain, withdrew his head, closed the screen, brushed the snow away from his flaming red hair and magnificent handlebar moustache, and twisted round to look at Smith.

'It is no small thing, Major, to be lost in a blizzard in the night skies over war-torn Europe.'

'Not again, sir,' Tremayne said protestingly.

"No man is infallible, my son.'