Where Eagles Dare

Schaffer twisted round till he was sitting on the passage-way, his legs dangling through the open doorway, just in time to see the headlamps of the,pursuing car sweep into sight round the corner. It was now less than a hundred yards from the bridge, and accelerating. For a brief, almost panic-stricken,

The two loud, flat detonations, each fractionally preceded by the brilliant white flash characteristic of the plastic explosive, came within one second of each other. Baulks of timber and railway sleepers were hurled forty feet into the air, spinning lazily around in a curious kind of slow motion, many of them falling back again on to the now tottering support structure with an impact sufficient to carry away the central trestle. One moment, a bridge: the next, an empty ravine with, on the far side of it, the wildly swinging headlamp beams as the driver flung his car from side to side in a nothing-to-be-lost attempt to prevent the car from sliding over the edge of the ravine. It seemed certain that he must fail until the moment when the car, sliding broadside on along the road, struck a large rock, rolled over twice and came to a halt less than six feet from the edge of the ravine.

Schaffer shook his head in wonder, rose, closed the rear door, sat in the back seat, lit a cigarette, tossed the spent match through the smashed rear window and observed: 'You're a lucky lot to have me around.'

'All this and modesty, too,' Heidi said admiringly.

'A rare combination,' Schaffer acknowledged. 'You'll find lots of other pleasant surprises in store for you as we grow old together. How far to this airfield now?'

'Five miles. Perhaps eight minutes. But this is the only road in. With the bridge gone, there's no hurry now.'

'That's as maybe. Schaffer is anxious to be gone. Tell me, honey, were all those beer bottles empty?'

'The ones we threw away were.'

'I just simply don't deserve you,' Schaffer said reverently.

'We're thinking along the same lines at last,' Heidi said acidly.

Three minutes later they were out of the forest, running along through open farm-land, and five minutes after that, acting on Heidi's directions, Schaffer swung the bus through a narrow gateway on the left hand side of the road. The headlamps successively illuminated two small hangars, a narrow, cleared runway stretching into the distance and, finally, a bullet-riddled Mosquito bomber with a crumpled undercarriage.

'Ain't that a beautiful sight, now?' Schaffer nodded at the damaged plane. 'Carnaby-Jones's transport?'

Smith nodded. 'It began with a Mosquito and it will end -- we hope -- in a Mosquito. This is Oberhausen airfield. H.Q. of the Bavarian Mountain Rescue pilots.'

Three cheers for the Bavarian Mountain Rescue pilots.' Schaffer stopped the bus facing up the length of the runway, switched off the lights and turned off the engine. They sat silently in the darkness, waiting.

Colonel Wyatt-Turner glanced through the side-screen and breathed with relief as, for the first time that knight, the ground fell away sharply beneath the Mosquito. He said sarcastically: 'Losing your nerve, Wing Commander?'

'I lost that September 3rd, 1939,' Carpenter said cheerfully. 'Got to climb. Can't expect to see any recognition signals down among the bushes there.'

'You're sure we're on the right course?'

'No question. That's the Weissspitze there. Three minutes' flying time.' Carpenter paused and went on thoughtfully. 'Looks uncommon like Guy Fawkes night up there, don't you think.'

The Wing Commander was hardly exaggerating. In the far distance the silhouette of the Weissspitze was

'Explosives or boxes of ammunition going up, I'd say,' Carpenter said pensively. That's the Schloss Adler, of course. Were any of your boys carrying matches?'

"They must have been.' Wyatt-Turner stared impassively at the distant blaze. 'It's quite a sight.'

'It's all of that,' Carpenter agreed. He touched Wyatt-Turner's arm and pointed forwards and down. 'But there's a sight that's finer far, the most beautiful sight I've ever seen.'

Wyatt-Turner followed the pointing finger. Less than two miles away, about five hundred feet "below, a pair of headlamps were flashing regularly on and off, once every two seconds. With a conscious effort of will he looked away and glanced briefly at Carpenter, but almost at once was back on the flashing headlamps. He stared at them hypnotically and shook his head in slow and total disbelief.