Where Eagles Dare

Smith smiled enigmatically, ignored him completely, and scopolamine will do, as you're all aware, is to reveal the truth about our friend here, which is that he is not Lieutenant General George Carnaby, Chief Co-ordinator of Planning for the Second Front, but a certain Cartwright Jones, an American actor being paid precisely twenty-five thousand dollars to impersonate General Carnaby.' He looked over to Jones and bowed. 'My congratulations, Mr. Jones. A very creditable performance. Pity you'll have to spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp.'

Kramer and Rosemeyer were on their feet, the others leaning far forward on the couch, an almost exactly identical expression of disbelief showing in every face. If Cartwright Jones had been earth's first visitor from outer space he couldn't possibly have been the object of more incredulous, consternation.

'Well, well, well,' Smith said with interest. 'Surprise, surprise, surprise.' He tapped Kramer on the arm and gestured in the direction of Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. 'Odd, wouldn't you say, Kramer? They seem just as astonished as you are?'

'Is this true?' Rosemeyer demanded hoarsely of Jones. 'What he says? Do you deny -- '

In a voice that was no more than a whisper, Jones said: 'How -- how in God's name -- who are you, sir?'

'A stranger in the night.' Smith waved a hand. 'Dropped in in the passing, you might say. Maybe the Allies will let you have that twenty-five thousand after the war. I wouldn't bank on it though. If international kw allows you to shoot a captured enemy soldier dressed as a civilian, maybe the opposite holds good too.' Smith stretched and politely patted a yawn to extinction. 'And now, Anne-Marie, if I could -- with your permission, my dear Kramer -- have a glass of that excellent Napoleon. Clinging to

The girl hesitated, looked at Kramer and Rosemeyer, found neither encouragement nor discouragement, shrugged, poured a glass and handed it to Smith, who sniffed the bouquet approvingly, drank a little and bowed again to Jones.

'My congratulations, sir. You are a connoisseur.' He sipped again, turned to Kramer and said sadly: 'To think you have been wasting such excellent liquor on enemies of the Third Reich.'

'Don't listen to him, Colonel Kramer, don't listen to him!' Carraciola shouted wildly. 'It's a bluff! He's just trying -- '

Smith lined up his gun on Carraciola's chest and said softly: 'Keep quiet or I'll make you quiet, you damned traitor. You'll have your chance -- and we'll see who's bluffing.' He lowered his gun to his knees and went on tiredly: 'Colonel Kramer, I don't fancy talking and having to keep a gun on this unlovely trio all the time. Have you a guard you can trust? A man who won't talk afterwards, I mean?'

He sat back in his chair, sipped his brandy and ignored the malevolent stares from his four erstwhile colleagues. Kramer looked at him for a very long moment, then nodded thoughtfully and reached for a phone.

The armoury -- now converted into a Kafeestube -- of the Schloss Adler was very much in keeping with the remainder of the castle, something out of a medieval dream or nightmare, according to how individual tastes and inclinations lay. It was a large, darkly-panelled, stone-flagged room with enormous adze-cut smoke-blackened beams and walls behung with ancient and rusty suits of armour, ancient and rusty weapons of all kinds and scores of armorial bearings, some of which could have -been genuine. Three-sided half-booths lined the walls and half-a-dozen slab-topped monastery refectory tables, flanked by massive oak benches, paralleled the shorter axis of the room. The oil lamps, suspended by iron chains from the ceiling, were turned low, lending the atmosphere in the armoury an- air of intimacy or brooding menace, according to one's original mood on entering. There was no doubt in Mary's mind as to its effect upon her. Her gaze followed half-a-dozen heavily armed and jack-booted men who were just leaving the armoury, then came back reluctantly to the man sitting close beside her in the corner booth.

'Well, what did I tell you?' von Brauchitsch said expansively. 'Coffee to match the surroundings!'

'Forget them. Concentrate on von Brauchitsch.'

'But you spoke to them. What did they want?'

'They say there are spies in the castle!' Von Brauchitsch threw his head back, laughed, and spread his hands palms up. 'Imagine! Spies in the Schloss Adler! The Gestapo H.Q.! They must have flown in on their broom-sticks. The military commandant is an old woman. He has spies in about once a week. Now what was I saying about Dusseldorf?' He broke off, glancing at her empty coffee cup. 'My apologies, my dear Fraulein. Come, more coffee.'

'No, really. I must go.'

Von Brauchitsch laughed again and put his hand on hers.

'Go where? There is nowhere to go inside the Schloss Adler. Nonsense, nonsense.' He turned in his seat and called: 'Fraulein! Two more coffees. And with Schnapps, this time.'