Where Eagles Dare

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 but dimly seen, but there was no mistaking the intensity of the great fire blazing half-way up the mountain-side. Occasionally, great gouts of red flame and what looked like gigantic fireworks could be seen soaring high above the main body of the fire.

“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.

Schaffer had the headlights switched on main beam, illuminating the runway, and the post-bus engine running as the black squat shape of the Mosquito, air-brakes fully extended, lined up for its approach to the runway, and had the bus itself moving, accelerating quickly through the gears, as the Mosquito sank down over the top of the bus and settled down beautifully without the slightest suspicion of a bounce. Within a minute Schaffer brought the bus to a skidding halt only yards from the now stationary plane. Half a minute later, with all five of them safely inside the plane, Carpenter had the Mosquito turned through 180° and was standing hard on the brakes as he brought the engines up to maximum revolutions. And then they were on their way, gathering speed so rapidly that they were air-borne two hundred yards before the end of the runway. For the first mile of their climb Carpenter kept the plane heading almost directly towards the blazing castle that now redly illuminated the entire valley, then the funeral pyre of the Schloss Adler vanished for the last time as the Mosquito banked and headed for the north-west and home.

Wing Commander Carpenter took the Mosquito up to five thousand feet and kept it there. The time for dodging around among the bushes was past for, on the outward journey, Carpenter had been concerned only that no German station pick him up long enough to form even a rough guess as to where he was going. But now he didn't care if every radar station in the country knew where he was going: he was going home to England, mission accomplished, and there wasn't a warplane in Europe that could catch him. Wing Commander Carpenter pulled luxuriously at his evil-smelling briar. He was well content.

His five newly-acquired passengers were, perhaps, a fraction less content. They lacked Carpenter's well-upholstered pilot's seat. The interior of the Mosquito made no concessions whatsoever to passenger comfort. It was bleak, icy, cramped—it didn't require much space to carry a 4,000 lb. bomb load, the Mosquito's maximum—and totally devoid of seating in any form. The three men and the two girls squatted uncomfortably on thin palliasses, the expressions on their faces pretty accurately reflecting their acute discomfort. Colonel Wyatt-Turner, still holding across his knees the Sten gun he'd had at the ready in case any trouble had developed on the ground or the flashing lights of the truck had been a German ruse, was sitting sideways in the co-pilot's seat so that he could see and talk to the pilot and the passengers at the same time. He had accepted without question or apparent interest Smith's brief explanation of the two girls' presence as being necessary to escape Gestapo vengeance. Colonel Wyatt-Turner had other and weightier matters on his mind.