Where Eagles Dare

Twenty seconds passed. Smith rose to his feet, walked to the front of the cable-car and peered down. Though the moon was obscured he could just dimly discern the shape of the lower station. He turned to look at the others. They were all looking at him.

“Not much more than a hundred feet to go,” Smith said. “I'm going to open that door in a minute. Well, a few seconds. By that time we won't be much more than fifteen feet above the ground. Twenty, at the most. If the car stops, we jump. There's two or three feet of snow down there. Should cushion our fall enough to give an even chance of not breaking anything.”

Schaffer parted his lips to make some suitable remark, thought better of it and returned head to hands in weary silence. Smith opened the leading door, did his best to ignore the icy blast of wind that gusted in through the opening, and looked vertically downwards, realising that he had been over-optimistic in his assessment of the distance between cable-car and ground. The distance was at least fifty feet, a distance sufficient to arouse in even the most optimistic mind dismaying thoughts of fractured femurs and tibias. And then he dismissed the thought, for an even more dismaying factor had now to be taken into consideration: in the far distance could be heard the sound of sirens, in the far distance could be seen the wavering beams of approaching headlamps. Schaffer lifted his head. The muzziness had now left him, even if his sore head had not.

“Enter, left, reinforcements,” he announced. “This wasn't on the schedule, boss. Radio gone, telephone gone, helicopter gone—”

“Just old-fashioned.” Smith pointed towards the rear window. “They're using smoke signals.”

“Jeez!” Schaffer stared out the rear windows, his voice awe struck. “For stone, it sure burns good!”

Schaffer was in no way exaggerating. For stone, it burnt magnificently. The Schloss Adler was well and truly alight, a conflagration in which smoke had suddenly become an inconsiderable and, indeed, a very minor element. It was wreathed in flames, almost lost to sight in flames, towering flames that now reached up almost to the top of the great round tower to the north-east. Perched on its volcanic plug half-way up the mountain-side against the dimly seen backdrop of the unseen heights of the Weissspitze, the blazing castle, its effulgence now beginning to light up the entire valley and quite drowning out the pale light of a moon again showing through, was an incredibly fantastic sight from some equally incredible and fantastic fairy tale.

“One trusts that they are well insured,” Schaffer said. He was on his feet now, peering down towards the lower station. “How far, boss? And how far down?”

“Thirty feet. Maybe twenty-five. And fifteen feet down.” The lights of the leading cars were passing the still smouldering embers of the station. “We have it made, Lieutenant Schaffer.”

“We have it made.” Schaffer cursed and staggered as the car jerked to a violent and abrupt stop. “Almost, that is.”

“All out!” Smith shouted. “All out!”

“There speaks the eternal shop steward,” Schaffer said. “Stand back, I've got two good hands.” He brushed by Smith, clutched the door jamb with his left hand, pulled Mary towards him, transferred his grip from waist to wrist and dropped her out through the leading door, lowering her as far as the stretch of his left arm would permit. When he let her go, she had less than three feet to fall. Within three seconds he had done the same with Carnaby-Jones. The cable-car jerked and started to move back up the valley. Schaffer practically bundled Smith out of the car, wincing in pain as he momentarily took all of Smith's two hundred pound weight, then slid out of the doorway himself, hung momentarily from the doorway at the full stretch of his arms, then dropped six feet into the soft yielding snow. He staggered, but maintained balance.

Smith was beside him. He had fished out a plastic explosive from the bag on his back and torn off the friction fuse. He handed the package to Schaffer and said: “You have a good right arm.”

“I have a good right arm. Horses, no. Baseball, yes.” Schaffer took aim and lobbed the explosive neatly through the doorway of the disappearing cable-car. “Like that?”

“Like that. Come on.” Smith, turned and, catching Mary by the arm while Schaffer hustled Carnaby-Jones along, ran down the side of the lower station and into the shelter of the nearest house bare seconds before a command car, followed by several trucks crammed with soldiers, slid to a skidding halt below the lower station. Soldiers piled out of the trucks, following an officer, clearly identifiable as Colonel Weissner, up the steps into the lower station.