Where Eagles Dare

The helicopter swept up the valley still maintaining a course directly towards the spot where the two men lay hidden. When it was only a few hundred yards away even Smith began to feel uneasy and wondered if by some evil mischance the enemy knew er suspected their presence. They were bound to have heard the engines of the Lancaster, muted though they had been, during the night. Had some suspicious and intelligent character--and there would be no lack of those in the Schloss Adler--come up with the right answer to the question of the presence of this errant bomber in one of the most unlikely places in all Germany? Could picked members of the Alpenkorps be combing the pine woods even at that moment--and he, Smith, had been so confident that he hadn't even bothered to post a guard. Then, abruptly, when the helicopter was almost directly overhead, it side-slipped sharply to its left, sank down over the castle courtyard, hovered for a few moments and slowly descended. Smith surreptitiously mopped his forehead and applied his eye to the telescope. ,

The helicopter had landed. The rotor stopped, steps descended and a man climbed down to the courtyard floor. From his uniform, Smith decided, a very senior officer. Then he suddenly realised that it was a very very senior officer indeed. His face tightened as he pushed the telescope across to Schaffer. 'Take a good look,' he advised.

Schaffer took a good look, lowered the telescope as the man passed through a doorway. 'Pal of yours, boss?'

'My very first Reichsmarschall and me without my telescopic rifle,' Schaffer said regretfully. 1 wonder what his highness wants.'

'Same as us,' Smith said briefly.

'General Carnaby?'

'When you're going to ask the Allies' overall co-ordinator of planning a few questions about the Second Front you don't send just the corporal of the guard to interview him.'

'You don't think they might have come to take old Carnaby away?' Schaffer asked anxiously.

'Not a chance. The Gestapo never gives up its prisoners. In this country the Wehrmacht does what the Gestapo says.'

'Or else?'

'Or else. Off you go -- they've more coffee on the brew back there. Send someone to relieve me in an hour.'

Admiral Rolland's weather forecast for the area turned out to be perfectly correct. As the endless shivering hours dragged slowly by the weather steadily deteriorated. By noon the sun was gone and a keen wind sprung up from the east. By early afternoon snow had begun to fall from the darkened sky, slowly at first then with increasing severity as the east wind steadily increased in strength and became bitingly cold. It looked like being a bad night, Smith thought. But a bad night that reduced visibility to near-zero and kept people indoors was what they wanted : it would have been difficult for them to saunter up to the Schloss Adler bathed in the warm light of a harvest moon. Smith checked his watch.

Time to go.' He climbed stiffly to his feet and beat his arms to restore circulation. 'Call Thomas, will you.'

'Is that damned radio working yet?' he asked Smith. 'Not a hope. Six tries, six failures. Why?'

'I'll tell you why,' Thomas said bitterly. 'Pity we couldn't get the Admiral to change his mind about the paratroops. A full troop train just got in, that's all.'

'Well, that's fine,' Smith said equably. "The old hands will think we're new boys and the new boys will think we're old hands. Very convenient.'

Thomas looked thoughtfully at Smith.

'Very, very convenient.' He hesitated, then went on: 'How about loosening up a bit, Major?'

"What do you mean?'

'Come off it,' Carraciola said roughly. "You know damn well what he means. It's our lives. Why do we have to go down into that damned village? And how do you intend to get Carnaby out? If we're to commit suicide, tell us why. You owe us that.'

'I owe you nothing,' Smith said flatly. 'I'll tell you nothing. And if you know nothing you can't talk. You'll be told when the time comes.'

'You, Smith,' Torrance-Smythe said precisely, 'are a cold blooded devil.'

The village railway station was a small, two-track, end-of-the-line depot. Like all end-of-the-line depots it was characterised by rust, dilapidation, the barest functionalism of design and an odd pessimistically-expectant air of waiting for someone to come along and finish it off properly. At any time, its air of desolation was total. That night, completely deserted, with a high, gusting wind driving snow through pools of light cast by dim and swaying electric lamps, the ghostly impression of a place abandoned by man and by the world was almost overwhelming. It suited Smith's purpose perfectly.

He led his five snow-smock clad men quickly across the tracks and into the comparative shelter of the station buildings. They filed silently past the closed bookstall, the freight office, the booking office, flitted quickly into the shadows beyond and stopped.