Where Eagles Dare

“It would be a shame to waste good beer,” Smith agreed. He waited until the last man was out, locked the door behind him and rejoined them as they walked out of the main station entrance under the Bahnhof sign. They were now no longer carrying rucksacks or wearing snow-smocks. All were dressed in the uniforms of soldiers of a Jäger battalion, Smith as a major, Schaffer as a lieutenant and the other four as sergeants. Their uniforms were no longer as immaculately crease-free as they might have been nor for that matter, as Sergeant Harrod had observed, did they fit as well as they might have done. But in a village street or crowded bar, at night-time, they should pass muster. Or so Smith devoutly hoped.

It was a typical main street in a typical high alpine village. The buildings lining either side of the street, solid, rugged, four-square buildings, looked as if they had been defying the bitter Bavarian winters for a long long time and intended going on doing so for as long again. Nearly all the houses were of the wooden chalet type, with great sweeping eaves and balconies running the full width of the front of the houses. A few were of comparatively modern construction, with shingled walls, large double-glazed windows and fancy wrought-iron grille-work, but most were very old and low, planked with rough adze-cut wood, and having the interlocking wall-beams projecting at the corners.

There were no street lamps but neither was there any attempt at a blackout. Elongated rectangles of light from uncurtained windows patterned the snow-packed streets. Beyond the far or southern end of the street, intermittently seen through the sweeping curtains of snow, a duster of bright lights seemed to hang suspended in the sky. Instinctively, almost, Smith stopped to gaze at this distant constellation and his men stopped with him. The lights of the Schloss Adler, the castle of the eagle, seemed impossibly remote, as unattainable as the mountains of the moon. Wordlessly, the men looked at them in long silence, then at one another, then, by mutual and still silent consent, moved on their way again, their boots crunching crisply in the beaten snow, their frozen breaths wisping away in the chill night wind.

The main street—the only street—was deserted, quite empty of life. Inevitably so, on so bitter a night. But if the street was deserted, the village was anything but: the sounds of laughter and singing and the babel of voices filled the night air and the nose-to-tail row of parked German trucks along one side of the street showed clearly enough just who was responsible for the singing and the laughter. For the training troops in the military barracks on the Blau See there was only one centre of entertainment for twenty miles around and this village was it: the Gasthauser and Weinstuben were jammed to the doors with soldiers of the Alpenkorps, probably the most highly trained combat troops in Europe.

Schaffer said plaintively: “I don't really feel like a drink, boss.”

“Nonsense,” Smith said encouragingly. “You're just shy at the thought of meeting strangers.” He stopped in front of a Gasthaus with the legend “Drei Konige” above the door. “Here's a likely looking place, now. Hang on a minute.”

He climbed the steps, opened the door and looked inside. Down in the street the other five looked at one another, the same mingled apprehension and expectancy mirrored in every eye. Austrian Schrammel music, hauntingly and nostalgically evocative of a kindlier and happier age, flooded through the open doorway. The expressions on the faces of the men below didn't change. There was a time and a place for Schrammel music and this wasn't it.

Smith shook his head, closed the door and rejoined his men.

“Packed,” he said. “Not even standing room.” He nodded across the street to another hostelry, the “Eichhof,” a small, squat, beetle-browed building with adze-cut corner beams and an air of advanced dilapidation. “Let's see what this has to offer.”

But the “Eichhof” had nothing to offer. Regretfully but firmly Smith closed its front door and turned away.

“Jammed,” he announced. “Besides, a low-class dump unsuitable for officers and N.C.O.s of the Wehrmacht. But this next place looks more promising, don't you think?”

From the pointed silence it was apparent that the other five didn't think anything of the kind, and, in fact, apart from the factor of size, the third Weinstube looked remarkably like the ones Smith had just passed up. “Zum Wilden Hirsch”, it was called, and above the sign was a snow-shrouded wooden carving of a wild deer.