Where Eagles Dare

“I have to concede a point, boss, it's perhaps as well we didn't go straight back to the village. Cunning old devil, isn't he?”

“And what does that make me?” Smith murmured.

“Okay, okay. I'll concede that point, too.”

Five minutes passed. Comparatively little of the falling snow penetrated the thickly-matted branches of the pines and the two men could clearly see the occasional flicker of torches as the line of men nearest them moved away to the south, their lights probing behind tree-trunks and under windfalls as they searched for the two escaped prisoners. Colonel Weissner paced up and down, slowly, beside his command car, his head bowed as if immersed in thought. From time to time he consulted his watch. As Smith watched, he moved out to the unbroken fencing and remained there, peering down towards the surface of the Blau See.

By and by Smith and Schaffer could hear the distant sound of muffled voices and within a minute the sergeant moved into the beam of the command car headlamps, approached Colonel Weissner and saluted.

“Not even a footprint, Herr Colonel.”

Weissner straightened and turned.

“There wouldn't be,” he said sombrely. “I've just seen a hat floating in the water. A squalid end for such brave men, Sergeant. A squalid end.”

5

The cable-car moved slowly out of the lower station at the beginning of its long climb up to the castle. An impossible climb, Mary thought, a dangerous and impossible climb. Peering through the front windows she could just distinguish the outline of the first pylon through the thinly-driving snow. The second and third pylons were invisible, but the intermittently shining cluster of lights suspended impossibly high in the sky showed clearly enough where they had to go. People have made it before, she thought dully, we'll probably make it, too. The way she felt then, with the bottom gone from her world, she didn't particularly care whether she made it or not.

The cable-car was a twelve-passenger vehicle, painted bright red outside, well-lit inside. There were no seats, only grab-rails along the two sides. That the grab-rails were very necessary became immediately and alarmingly obvious. The wind was now very strong and the car began to sway alarmingly only seconds after clearing the shelter of the lower station.

Apart from two soldiers and an apparent civilian, the only other passengers consisted of von Brauchitsch, Mary and Heidi, the last now with a heavy woollen coat and cossack fur hat over her ordinary clothes. Von Brauchitsch, holding on to the grab-rail with one hand, had his free arm round

Mary's shoulders. He gave them a reassuring squeeze and smiled down at her.

“Scared?” he asked.

“No.” And she wasn't, she hadn't enough emotion left to be scared, but even with no hope left she was supposed to be a professional. “No, I'm not scared. I'm terrified. I feel seasick already. Does—does this cable ever break.”

“Never.” Von Brauchitsch was reassurance itself. “Just hang on to me and you'll be all right.”

“That's what he used to say to me,” Heidi said coldly.

“Fraulein,” von Brauchitsch explained patiently, “I am gifted beyond the average, but I haven't yet managed to grow a third arm. Guests first.”

With a cupped cigarette in his hand, Schaffer leaned against the base of an unmistakable telephone pole and gazed thoughtfully into the middle distance. There was reason both for the hooded cigarette and the thoughtful expression. Less than a hundred yards away from where he stood at the edge of the pines bordering the road running alongside the shore of the Blau See he could see guards, clearly illuminated by over-head lights, moving briskly to and fro in the vicinity of the barrack gates. Dimly seen behind them were the outline of the barracks themselves.

Schaffer shifted his stance and gazed upwards. The snow was almost gone now, the moon was threatening to break through, and he had no difficulty at all in distinguishing the form of Smith, his legs straddled across the lowest crossbar.

Smith was busily employed with a knife, a specially designed commando knife which, among other advanced features, had a built-in wire cutter. Carefully, methodically, he brought the wire-cutter to bear. With eight consecutive snips eight consecutive telephone wires fell to the ground. Smith closed and pocketed his knife, disentangled his legs from the cross-bar, wrapped his arms round the pole and slid down to the ground. He grinned at Schaffer.

“Every little helps,” he said.

“Should hold them for a while,” Schaffer agreed. Once more they gathered up their guns and moved off to the east, vanishing into the pine woods which bordered the rear of the barracks.