Where Eagles Dare

by Alistair MacLean

  The moon went behind a cloud.

  Slowly, stiffly, Schaffer lowered his gun. Schaffer, once again, wiped sweat from his forehead. He had the feeling that he wasn’t through with brow-mopping for the night.

  Smith reached the window, clambered over the sill, gave the rope two tugs as a signal for Schaffer to start climbing and passed into the room. It was almost totally dark inside, he’d just time to make out the iron bedstead which had been dragged to the window as anchorage for the rope when a pair of arms wound tightly round his neck and someone started murmuring incoherently in his ear.

  ‘Easy on, easy on,’ Smith protested. He was still breathing heavily and needed all the air he could get, but summoned enough energy to bend and kiss her. ‘Unprofessional conduct, what’s more. But I won’t report it this time.’

  She was still clinging to him, silent now, when Lieutenant Schaffer made his appearance, dragging himself wearily over the sill and collapsing on the iron bedstead. He was breathing very heavily indeed and had about him the air of one who has suffered much.

  ‘Have they no elevators in this dump?’ he demanded. It took him two breaths to get the words out.

  ‘Out of training,’ Smith said unsympathetically. He crossed to the door and switched on the light, hurriedly switched it off again. ‘Damn. Get the rope in then pull the curtains.’

  ‘This is the way they treated them in the Roman galleys,’ Schaffer said bitterly. But he had the rope inside and the curtains closed in ten seconds. As Smith was manoeuvering the bed back into its original position, Schaffer was stuffing the nylon into their canvas bag, a bag, which, in addition to snowsuits and Schmeissers, contained some hand grenades and a stock of plastic explosives. He had just finished tying the neck of the bag when a key scraped in the lock.

  Smith motioned Mary to stay where she was as he moved quickly to take up position behind the door: Schaffer, for all his alleged exhaustion, had dropped flat to the floor behind the bed with all the speed and silence of a cat. The door opened and a young Oberleutnant strode into the room, stopping short as he saw Mary, her hand to her mouth. His face registered astonishment, an astonishment almost immediately replaced by an anticipatory half-smile as he stepped forward beyond the opened door. Smith’s arm came down and the young officer’s eyes turned up in his head.

  Smith studied the plans of the castle given him by Mary while Schaffer trussed up the Oberleutnant with the nylon, gagged him with tape and shoved him, jack-knifed, into the bottom of the cupboard. For good measure he pulled the top of the bed against the door.

  ‘Ready when you are, boss.’

  ‘That’s now. I have my bearings. First left, down the stairs, third left. The gold drawing-room. Where Colonel Kramer holds court. Complete with minstrels’ gallery.’

  ‘What’s a minstrels’ gallery?’ Schaffer enquired.

  ‘A gallery for minstrels. Then the next right-hander takes us to the east wing. Down again, second left. Telephone exchange.’

  ‘Why there?’ Schaffer asked. ‘We’ve already cut the lines.’

  ‘Not the ones between here and the barracks, we haven’t. Want them to whistle up a regiment of Alpenkorps?’ He turned to Mary. ‘Helicopter still here?’

  ‘It was when I arrived.’

  ‘The helicopter?’ Schaffer showed his puzzlement. ‘What gives with the whirlybird, then?’

  ‘This gives with the whirlybird. They could use it either to whip Carnaby out of here – they might just be nervous if they think we’re on the loose – or they might use it to block our getaway.’

  ‘If we get away.’

  ‘There’s that. How are you on immobilizing helicopters, Lieutenant Schaffer? Your report states that you were an up-and-coming racing driver and a very competent mechanic before they scraped the bottom of the barrel and dragged you in.’

  ‘I volunteered,’ Schaffer said with dignity. ‘About the competence, I dunno. But give me a four-pound hammer and I’ll sure as little fishes immobilize anything from a bull-dozer to a bicycle.’

  ‘And without the four-pounder? This is not a boilermakers’ convention.’

  ‘I have been known to use finesse.’

  Smith said to Mary: ‘How can we get a sight of this machine?’

  ‘Just five paces that way.’ She pointed to the door. ‘Every passage window in the Schloss Adler opens on to the courtyard.’

  Smith opened the door, glanced up and down the passage and crossed to an opposite window. Schaffer was by his side.

  The comings and goings of the moon made no difference to the state of illumination in the Schloss Adler courtyard. Two big overhead arc lamps burned by the heavily-barred entrance gates. A third burned at the opposite end of the courtyard, over the main doorway leading into the castle itself. At a height of about ten feet, four waterproof storm lamps were fastened to the east and west walls of the courtyard. Lights burned from a dozen windows on the east and northern sides. And the brightest light of all came from an arc-lamp that had been rigged above the helicopter and under the temporary protection of a stretched tarpaulin. A figure in green overalls and a high-peaked cap was working on the helicopter’s engine. Smith touched Schaffer’s arm and they moved back into the room where Mary was waiting, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Seems a straightforward operation,’ Schaffer said. ‘Fixing it so that the chopper doesn’t fly again, I mean. I cross to the main gates, overpower the four men on guard, strangle the four Doberman pinschers, knock off two or three other characters – armed characters – who appear to be patrolling the place all the time, overpower about twenty soldiers who appear to be drinking beer in some sort of canteen across the way, dispose of the guy who’s working on the engine and then immobilize the chopper. I mean, just immobilizing the chopper itself wouldn’t be anything, really, would it?’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ Smith said soothingly.

  ‘I’ll bet you think of something,’ Schaffer said moodily. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘Time’s a-wasting. We won’t be needing those any more.’

  Smith folded the plan, handed it to Mary, then frowned as she put it in her bag. ‘You know better than that. The Lilliput: it should be on your person, not in the bag. Here.’ He handed her the Mauser he’d taken from Colonel Weissner. ‘This in your bag. Hide the Lilliput on you.’

  ‘When I get to my room I will,’ she said primly.

  ‘All those leering Yankee lieutenants around,’ Schaffer said sadly. ‘Thank heavens I’m a changed man.’

  ‘His mind is set on higher things,’ Smith explained. He glanced at his watch. ‘Give us thirty minutes.’

  They slipped cautiously through the doorway then strode briskly and confidently along the passage, making no attempt to conceal their presence. The bag with the Schmeissers, rope, grenades and explosives Smith swung carelessly from one hand. They passed a bespectacled soldier carrying a sheaf of papers and a girl carrying a laden tray, neither of whom paid any attention to them. They turned right at the end of the passage, reached a circular flight of stairs and went down three floors until they came to the level of the courtyard. A short broad passage, with two doors on either side, took them to the main door leading out to the courtyard.

  Smith opened the door and looked out. The scene was very much as Schaffer had feelingly described it, with far too many armed guards and police dogs around for anyone’s peace of mind. The overalled mechanic was still at work on the helicopter’s engine. Smith quietly closed the door and turned his attention to the nearest right-hand door in the passage. It was locked. He said to Schaffer: ‘Keep an eye open at the end of the passage there.’

  Schaffer went. As soon as he was in position, Smith brought out skeleton keys. The third key fitted and the door gave under his hand. He signalled Schaffer to return.

  With the door closed and locked behind them, they looked around the room, a room faintly but for their purposes adequately lit by the backwash of light shining through the unshutte
red window from the courtyard. It was, quite apparently, the fire-fighting HQ of the castle. The walls were hung with drums of rolled hoses, asbestos suits, helmets and fire-axes: wheeled handpumps, CO2 cylinders and a variety of smaller cylinders for fighting oil and electrical fires took up much of the floor space.

  ‘Ideal,’ Smith murmured.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ Schaffer agreed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘If we leave anyone in here,’ Smith explained, ‘he’s unlikely to be discovered unless there’s an actual outbreak of fire. Agreed? So.’ He took Schaffer by the arm and led him to the window. ‘The lad working on the chopper there. About your size, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Schaffer said. ‘And if you’ve got in mind what I think you have in mind, then I don’t want to know, either.’

  Smith drew the shutters, crossed to the door and switched on the overhead light.

  ‘You got any better ideas?’

  ‘Give me time,’ he complained.

  ‘I can’t give you what we haven’t got. Take your jacket off and keep your Luger lined up on that door. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Smith left, closing but not locking the door behind him. He passed through the outer doorway, walked a few paces across the courtyard, halted at the base of a set of steps leading up to the helicopter and looked up at the man working above him, a tall rangy man with a thin intelligent face and a lugubrious expression on it. If he’d been working bare-handed with metal tools in that freezing temperature, Smith thought, he’d have had a lugubrious expression on his face, too.

  ‘You the pilot?’ Smith asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t think so, would you?’ the over-alled man said bitterly. He laid down a spanner and blew on his hands. ‘Back in Tempelhof I have two mechanics for this machine, one a farm-hand from Swabia, the other a blacksmith’s assistant from the Harz. If I want to keep alive I do my own mechanics. What do you want?’

  ‘Not me. Reichsmarschall Rosemeyer. The phone.’

  ‘The Reichsmarschall?’ The pilot was puzzled. ‘I was speaking to him less than fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘A call just came through from the Chancellory in Berlin. It seems urgent.’ Smith let a slight note of impatience creep into his voice. ‘You better hurry. Through the main door there, then the first on the right.’

  Smith stood aside as the pilot clambered down, looked casually around him. A guard with a leashed Doberman was no more than twenty feet away, but paying no attention to them: with his pinched bluish face sunk deep in his upturned collar, his hands thrust down into his great-coat pockets and his frozen breath hanging heavily in the air, he was too busy concentrating on his own miseries to have time to spare for ridiculous suspicions. Smith turned to follow the pilot through the main door, unobtrusively unholstering his Luger and gripping it by the barrel.

  Smith hadn’t intended chopping down the pilot with his gun butt but was left with no option. As soon as the pilot had passed through the side door and seen Schaffer’s Luger pointing at his chest from a distance of four feet his shoulders lifted – the preliminary, Smith knew, not to violence or resistance but to a shout for help. Schaffer caught him as he pitched forward and lowered him to the floor.

  Quickly they unzipped the overall from the unconscious man, bound and gagged him and left him lying in a corner. The overall was hardly a perfect fit for Schaffer, but, then, overalls are rarely a perfect fit for anybody. Schaffer switched the pilot’s hat for his own, pulled the peak low over his eyes and left.

  Smith switched off the light, unshuttered the window, raised the lower sash and stood, Luger in hand, just far enough back from the window so as not to be seen from outside. Schaffer was already climbing the steps up to the helicopter. The guard was now only feet from the base of the ladder. He’d his hands out of his pockets now and was flailing his arms across his shoulders in an attempt to keep warm.

  Thirty seconds later Schaffer climbed down the ladder again, carrying some piece of equipment in his left hand. He reached the ground, lifted the piece of equipment for a closer inspection, shook his head in disgust, lifted his right hand in a vague half-greeting to the uncaring German guard and headed for the main door again. By the time he reached the fire-fighting room, Smith had the window shuttered again and the light on.

  ‘That was quick,’ Smith said approvingly.

  ‘Fear lent him wings, as the saying goes,’ Schaffer said sourly. ‘I’m always quick when I’m nervous. Did you see the size of the teeth in that great slavering monster out there?’ He held up the piece of equipment for inspection, dropped it to the floor and brought his heel down on it. ‘Distributor cap. I’ll bet they haven’t another in Bavaria. Not for that engine. And now, I suppose, you want me to go and impersonate the telephone operator.’

  ‘No. We don’t want to exhaust all your Thespian stamina.’

  ‘My what?’ Schaffer asked suspiciously. ‘That sounds kinda like a nasty crack to me.’

  ‘Your acting resources. The only other impersonation you’ll be called to make tonight is that of Lieutenant Schaffer, OSS, the innocent American abroad.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ Schaffer said bitterly. He draped the overalls he’d just removed over the unconscious pilot. ‘A cold night. Anyway, the telephone exchange.’

  ‘Soon. But I’d like to check first how far they’ve got with old Carnaby-Jones. Let’s take a look.’

  Two floors higher up and midway along the central passage Smith stopped outside a doorway. At a nod from him, Schaffer reached for a light switch. Except for a faint glow of light at either end, the passage was now completely dark. Smith laid a gentle hand on the door-knob and quietly eased the door open. Fifteen inches, no more. Both men swiftly slid through the narrow gap, Smith quickly and softly closing the door to again.

  The room, if so enormous a chamber could be called a room, must have been at least seventy feet long by thirty wide. The farther end of the room was brightly and warmly lit by three large chandeliers: comparatively, the end of the room where Smith and Schaffer stood was shrouded in near darkness.

  They stood, not on the floor, but on a platform some dozen feet above the floor. It was a massive and grotesquely carved oaken minstrels’ gallery which completely spanned the thirty-foot width of that end and ran perhaps a quarter of the way down both the longer sides of the room. There were rows of wooden benches, an organ on one side of the door through which they had just passed, a battery of organ pipes on the other. Whoever had built that place had obviously liked the organ and choir-singing: or maybe he just thought he did. From the centre of the front of the gallery, opposite the rear door, a flight of steps with intricately scrolled wooden banisters led down to what was very obviously the gold drawing-room.

  It was aptly named, Smith thought. Everything in it was gold or golden or gilt. The enormous wall-to-wall carpet was deep gold in colour, the thickness of the pile would have turned a polar bear green with envy. The heavy baroque furniture, all twisted snakes and gargoyles’ heads, was gilt, the huge couches and chairs covered in a dusty gold lamé. The chandeliers were gilded and, above the enormous white and gilt-plated fireplace, in which a crackling pine log fire burned, hung an almost equally enormous white and gilt-plated mirror. The great heavy curtains could have been made from beaten gold. The ceiling-high oak panelling was a mistake, it continued to look obstinately like oak panelling, maybe the original covering gold paint had worn off. All in all, Smith reflected, it was a room only a mad Bavarian monarch could have conceived of, far less lived in.

  Three men were seated comfortably round the great fire, to all appearances having an amicable discussion over after-dinner coffee and brandy, which was being served to them from – almost inevitably – a golden trolley by Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie, like the panelling, was a disappointment: instead of a gold lamé dress she wore a long white silk sheath gown which, admittedly, went very well with her blonde colouring and snow-tan. She looked as if she were abo
ut to leave for the opera.

  The man with his back to him Smith had never seen before but, because he immediately recognized who the other men were, knew who this man must be: Colonel Paul Kramer, Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service, regarded by MI6 as having the most brilliant and formidable brain in German Intelligence. The man to watch, Smith knew, the man to fear. It was said of Kramer that he never made the same mistake twice – and that no one could remember when he’d last made a mistake for the first time.

  As Smith watched, Colonel Kramer stirred, poured some more brandy from a Napoleon bottle by his side and looked first at the man on his left, a tall, ageing, but still good-looking man in the uniform of a Reichsmarschall of the Wehrmacht – at that moment, wearing a very glum expression on his face – and then at the man seated opposite, an iron-grey-haired and very distinguished looking character in the uniform of a lieutenant-general of the US Army. Without a comptometer to hand, it was difficult to say which of the two generals was wearing the more decorations.

  Kramer sipped his brandy and said wearily: ‘You make things very difficult for me, General Carnaby. Very, very difficult indeed.’