Where Eagles Dare

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

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. I1 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 Cam-by, United States Army.'

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

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.'