Where Eagles Dare

Both men unhooked their safety belts and awkwardly changed over. Carpenter fastidiously adjusted the right-hand seat's back rest until it was exactly right for him, manoeuvred his parachute to its position of maximum comfort, fastened his seat-belt, unhooked and adjusted on his head a combined earphones and microphone set and made a switch.

“Sergeant Johnson?” Carpenter never bothered with the regulation call-up formalities. “Are you awake?”

Back in the navigator's tiny and extremely uncomfortable recess, Sergeant Johnson was very much awake. He had been awake for hours. He was bent over a glowing greenish radar screen, his eyes leaving it only to make rapid reference to the charts, an Ordnance map, a picture and a duplicate compass, altimeter and air-speed indicator. He reached for the switch by his side.

“I'm awake, sir.”

“If you fly us into the side of the Weissspitze,” Carpenter said threateningly, “I'll have you reduced to aircraftman. Aircraftman second class, Johnson.”

“I wouldn't like that. I make it nine minutes, sir.”

“For once we're agreed on something. So do I.” Carpenter switched off, slid open the starboard screen and peered out. Although there was just the faintest wash of moonlight in the night sky, visibility might as well have been zero. It was a greyly opaque world, a blind world, with nothing to be seen but the thinly driving snow. He withdrew his head, brushed away the snow from his huge moustache, closed the screen, looked regretfully at his pipe and carefully put it away in his pocket.

For Tremayne, the stowage of the pipe was the final proof that the Wing Commander was clearing the decks for action. He said unhappily: “A bit dicey, isn't it, sir? Locating the Weissspitze in this lot, I mean?”

“Dicey?” Carpenter sounded almost jovial. “Dicey? I don't see why? It's as big as a mountain. In fact, it is a mountain. We can't miss it, my dear boy.”

“That's what I mean.” He paused, a pause with more meaning in it. “And this plateau on the Weissspitze that we have to drop them on. Only three hundred yards wide, sir. Mountain above it, cliff below it. And those adiabatic mountain winds, or whatever you call them, blowing in any old unpredictable direction. A fraction to the south and we'll hit the mountain, a fraction to the north and they'll fall down that whacking great cliff and like as not all break their necks. Three hundred yards!”

“What do you want?” Carpenter demanded expansively. “Heathrow Airport? Three hundred yards? All the room in the world, my boy. We land this old crate on runways a tenth of that width.”

“Yes, sir. I've always found runway landing lights a great help, sir. At seven thousand feet up the side of the Weissspitze—”

He broke off as a buzzer rang. Carpenter made a switch.

“Johnson?”

“Yes, sir.” Johnson was huddled more closely than ever over his radar screen where the revolving scanner-line had picked up a white spot immediately to the right of centre of the screen. “I have it, sir. Right where it should be.” He looked away from the screen and made a quick check on the compass. “Course oh-nine-three, sir.”

“Good lad.” Carpenter smiled at Tremayne, made a tiny course alteration and began to whistle softly to himself. “Have a look out your window, laddie. My moustache is beginning to get all waterlogged.”

Tremayne opened his window, strained his head as far as possible, but still there was only this grey and featureless opacity. He withdrew his head, silently shook it.

“No matter. It must be there somewhere,” Carpenter said reasonably. He spoke into the intercom. “Sergeant? Five minutes. Hook up.”

“Hook up!” The sergeant air-gunner repeated the order to the seven men standing in line along the starboard side of the fuselage. “Five minutes.”

Silently they clipped their parachute snap catches on to the overhead wire, the sergeant air-gunner carefully checking each catch. Nearest the door and first man to jump was Sergeant Harrod. Behind him stood Lieutenant Schaffer whose experiences with the OSS had made him by far the most experienced parachutist of the group and whose unenviable task it was to keep an eye on Harrod. He was followed by Carraciola, then Smith—as leader he preferred to be in the middle of the group—then Christiansen, Thomas and Torrance-Smythe. Behind Torrance-Smythe two young aircraftmen stood ready to slide packaged equipment and parachutes along the wire and heave them out as swiftly as possible after the last man had jumped. The sergeant air-gunner took up position by the door. The tension was back in the air again.