Where Eagles Dare

'Drop those guns.' Von Brauchitsch's voice was quiet and cold and compelling. No one had heard or seen the stealthy opening of the door. He stood just inside, about four feet from Mary and he had a small-calibre automatic in his right hand. Smith whirled round, his Luger lining up on the doorway, hesitated a fatal fraction of a second because Mary was almost directly in line with von Brauchitsch. Von Brauchitsch, his earlier gallantry of the evening abruptly yielding to a coldly professional assessment of the situation, had no such inhibitions. There was a sharp flat crack, the bullet passed through Mary's sleeve just above the elbow and Smith exclaimed in pain as he clutched his bleeding hand and heard his flying Luger strike against some unidentified furniture. Mary tried to turn round but von Brauchitsch was too quick and too strong. He jumped forward, hooked his arm round her and caught her wrist with the gun and thrust his own over her shoulder. She tried to struggle free. Von Brauchitsch squeezed her wrist, she cried out in pain, her hand opened and her gun fell to the floor. Von Brauchitsch seemed to notice none of this, his unwinking right eye, the only vulnerable part of him that could be seen behind Mary's gun, was levelled along the barrel of his automatic.

Schaffer dropped his gun.

'You shouldn't have tried it,' von Brauchitsch said to Smith. 'An extremely silly thing to do... In your circumstances, I'd have done exactly the same silly thing.' He looked at Kramer. 'Sorry for the delay, Herr Colonel. But I thought the young lady was very anxious and restive. And she knows precious little about her native Dusseldorf. And she doesn't know enough not to let people hold her hand when she's telling lies -- as she does most of the time.' He released the girl and half turned her round, smiling down at her. 'A delightful hand, my dear -- but what a fascinating variation of pulse rates.'

'I don't know what you're talking about and I 'don't care.' Kramer gave vent to a long luxurious sigh and drooped with relief. 'Well done, my boy, well done. My God! Another minute -- ' He heaved himself to his feet, crossed over to Schaffer, prudently keeping clear of von Brauchitsch's line of fire, searched him for hidden weapons, found none, did the same to Smith with the same results, handed him a white handkerchief to stem the flow of blood, looked at Mary and hesitated. 'Well, I don't see how she very well can be, but... I wonder. Anne-Marie?'

'Anne-Marie!' There was protest and aversion in Kramer's face. 'Must you -- '

'I know how to deal with cheap little spies like her!' She turned to Mary and said: 'I'm afraid they don't like watching how I get results. In there!'

She caught Mary by the hair, pulled her to the side door, opened it and pushed her violently inside. The sound of her body crashing to the floor and another gasp of pain came together. Anne-Marie closed the door behind them.

For the next ten seconds or so there could be clearly heard the sound of blows and muffled cries of pain. Von Brauchitsch waved Smith and Schaffer back with his gun, advanced, hitched a seat on the edge of one of the big arm-chairs, winced as he listened to the sound of the struggle and said to Kramer dryly: 'I somehow think the young lady would have preferred me to search her. There's a limit to the value of false modesty.'

'I'm afraid Anne-Marie sometimes lets her enthusiasm carry her away,' Kramer conceded. His mouth was wrinkled in distaste.

'Sometimes?' Von Brauchitsch winced again as more sounds filtered through the door, the crash of a body against a wall, a shriek of pain, low sobbing moans, then silence. 'Always. When the other girl is as young and beautiful as herself.'

'It's over now,' Kramer sighed. 'It's all over now.' He looked at Smith and Schaffer. 'We'll fix that hand first, then -- well, one thing about the Schloss Adler, there are no shortage of dungeons.' He broke off, the fractional widening of his eyes matching a similar slumping of his shoulders, and he said carefully to von Brauchitsch: 'You are far too good a man to lose, Captain. It would seem that we were wasting our sympathy on the wrong person. There's a gun four feet from you pointing at the middle of your back.'

'It's every parent's duty,' Schaffer said pontifically, 'to encourage his daughter to take up Judo.' He took the gun from von Brauchitsch's unresisting hand, retrieved his own Schmeisser, walked across to the main door and locked it. 'Far too many folk coming in here without knocking.' On his way back he looked through the opened door of the room, whistled, grinned and said to Mary: 'It's a good job I have my thoughts set on someone else. I wouldn't like to be married to you if you lost your temper. That's a regular sickbay dispensary in there. Fix the Major's hand as best you can. I'll watch them.' He hoisted his Schmeisser and smiled almost blissfully: 'Oh, brother, how I'll watch them.'