‘It’s my nerves,’ Schaffer explained coldly. ‘You haven’t been through what Lieutenant Schaffer’s just been through. How are things up there?’
‘Carraciola and friends are face down on the roof, freezing to death in the snow and Mary has the Schmeisser on them. Jones is still up there. Won’t even put his head outside. Says he’s no head for heights. I’ve given up arguing with him. How are things your end?’
‘Quiet. If anyone is having any passing thoughts about the cable-car, there are no signs of it. Both doors to the courtyard are locked. They’re iron and even if someone does start having suspicious thoughts, they should hold them for a while. And, boss, the way I came in is strictly for the birds. And I mean strictly. What you need is wings. Your hand the way it is you could never make it. Mary and the old boy couldn’t try it. Carraciola and the rest – well, who cares about Carraciola and the rest.’
‘What winch controls are there?’ Smith asked.
‘Well, now.’ Schaffer approached the winch. ‘A small lever marked “Normal” and “Notfall” –’
‘Are there batteries down there?’ Smith interrupted.
‘Yeah. Any amount.’
‘Put the lever to “Notfall” – “Emergency.” They could cut off the main power from inside the castle.’
‘OK, it’s done. Then there are Start and Stop buttons, a big mechanical handbrake and a gear lever affair marked “Forwards” and “Backwards”. With a neutral position.’
‘Start the motor,’ Smith ordered. Schaffer pressed the ‘Start’ button and a generator whined into life, building up to its maximum revolutions after perhaps ten seconds. ‘Now release the brake and select forward gear. If it works, stop the car and try the other gear.’
Schaffer released the brake and engaged gear, sliding the gear handle progressively over successive stops. The car moved forward, gently at first, but gathering speed until it was clear of the header station roof. After a few more feet Schaffer stopped the car, engaged reverse gear and brought the car back up into its original position. He looked up at Smith. ‘Smooth, huh?’
‘Lower it down till it’s half-way past the edge of the roof. We’ll slide down the rope on to the top of the cable-car then you can bring us up inside.’
‘Must be all the fish you eat,’ Schaffer said admiringly. He set the car in motion.
‘I’m sending Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen down first,’ Smith said. ‘I wouldn’t care for any of us to be on the top of the same cable-car as that lot. Think you can hold them till we get down?’
‘You don’t improve morale by being insulting to subordinate officers,’ Schaffer said coldly.
‘I didn’t know you’d any left. While you’re doing that I’ll have another go at persuading Juliet up there to come and join us.’ He prodded Carraciola with a far from gentle toe. ‘You first. Down that rope and on to the top of the cable-car.’
Carraciola straightened until he was kneeling, glanced down the slope of the roof to the depths of the valley beyond.
‘You’re not getting me on that lot. Not ever.’ He shook his head in finality, then stared up at Smith, his black eyes implacable in their hate. ‘Go on, shoot me. Kill me now.’
‘I’ll kill you if you ever try to escape,’ Smith said. ‘Don’t you know that, Carraciola?’
‘Sure I know it. But you won’t kill me in cold blood, just standing here. You’re a man of principle, aren’t you, Major? Ethics, that’s the word. The kind of noble sucker who risks his life to free an enemy soldier who might burn to death. Why don’t you shoot, Major?’
‘Because I don’t have to.’ With his left hand Smith grabbed Carraciola’s hair and jerked his head back till Carraciola, gasping with the pain of it, was staring skywards, while he reversed the grip on his Luger and raised it high. Nausea and pain flooded through him as the ends of the broken fingerbone grated together, but none of this showed in his face. ‘I just knock you out, tie a rope round your waist and lower you down over the edge, maybe eight or ten feet. Schaffer eases out the car till it touches you, then he climbs in the back door, goes to the front door and hauls you inside. You can see my right hand’s not too good, maybe I won’t be able to tie a secure enough knot round you, maybe I won’t be able to hold you, maybe Schaffer might let you go when he’s hauling you inside. I don’t much care, Carraciola.’
‘You double-dealing bastard!’ Tears of pain filled Carraciola’s eyes and his voice was low and venomous. ‘I swear to God I’ll live to make you wish you’d never met me.’
‘Too late.’ Smith thrust him away contemptuously and Carraciola had to grab wildly at the rope to prevent himself from sliding over the break of the roof. ‘I’ve been wishing that ever since I found out who and what you really are. Vermin soil my hands. Move now or I damn well will shoot you. Why the hell should I bother taking you back to England?’
Carraciola believed him. He slid down the rope until first his feet then his hands found the security of the supporting bracket of the cable-car. Smith gestured with his gun towards Thomas. Thomas went without a word. Ten seconds later Christiansen followed him. Smith watched the cable-car begin to move up inside the station, then looked upwards to the window from which the rope dangled.
‘Mr Jones?’
‘I’m still here.’ Carnaby-Jones’s voice had a quaver to it and he didn’t as much as venture to risk a glance over the window-sill.
‘Not for much longer, I hope,’ Smith said seriously. ‘They’ll be coming for you, Mr Jones. They’ll be coming any moment now. I hate to say this, but I must. It is my duty to warn you what will happen to you, an enemy spy. You’ll be tortured, Mr Jones – not simply everyday tortures like pulling out your teeth and toe-nails, but unspeakable tortures I can’t mention with Miss Ellison here – and then you’ll finish in the gas chambers. If you’re still alive.’
Mary clutched his arm. ‘Would they – would they really do that?’
‘Good God, no!’ Smith stared at her in genuine surprise.
‘What on earth would they want to do that for?’ He raised his voice again: ‘You’ll die in a screaming agony, Mr Jones, an agony beyond your wildest nightmares. And you’ll take a long time dying. Hours. Maybe days. And screaming. Screaming all the time.’
‘What in God’s name am I to do?’ The desperate voice from above was no longer quavering, it vibrated like a broken bed-spring. ‘What can I do?’
‘You can slide down that rope,’ Smith said brutally. ‘Fifteen feet. Fifteen little feet, Mr Jones. My God, you could do that in a pole vault.’
‘I can’t.’ The voice was a wail. ‘I simply can’t.’
‘Yes, you can,’ Smith urged. ‘Grab the rope now, close your eyes, out over the sill and down. Keep your eyes closed. We can catch you.’
‘I can’t! I can’t!’
‘Oh God!’ Smith said despairingly. ‘Oh, my God! It’s too late now.’
‘It’s too – what in heaven’s name do you mean?’
‘The lights are going on along the passage,’ Smith said, his voice low and tense. ‘And that window. And the next. They’re coming for you, Mr Jones, they’re coming now. Oh God, when they strip you off and strap you down on the torture table –’
Two seconds later Carnaby-Jones was over the sill and sliding down the nylon rope. His eyes were screwed tightly shut. Mary said, admiringly: ‘You really are the most fearful liar ever.’
‘Schaffer keeps telling me the same thing,’ Smith admitted. ‘You can’t all be wrong.’
The cable-car, with the three men clinging grimly to the suspension bracket, climbed slowly up into the header station and jerked to a halt. One by one the three men, under the persuasion of Schaffer’s gently waving Luger, lowered themselves the full length of their arms and dropped the last two or three feet to the floor. The last of them, Thomas, seemed to land awkwardly, exclaimed in muffled pain and fell heavily sideways. As he fell, his hands shot out and grabbed Schaffer by the ankles. Schaffer, immediately off-ba
lance, flung up his arms in an attempt to maintain equilibrium and, before he could even begin to bring his arms down again, was winded by a diving rugby tackle by Christiansen. He toppled backwards, his back smashing into a generator with an impact that drove from his lungs what little breath had been left in them. A second later and Christiansen had his gun, driving the muzzle cruelly into a throat gasping for air.
Carraciola was already at the lower iron door, shaking it fiercely. His eye caught sight of the big padlock in its hasp. He swung round, ran back towards Schaffer, knocked aside the gun in Christiansen’s hand and grabbed Schaffer by the throat.
‘That padlock. Where’s the key to that bloody padlock?’ The human voice can’t exactly emulate the hiss of a snake, but Carraciola’s came pretty close to it then. ‘That door has been locked from the inside. You’re the only person who could have done it. Where is that key?’
Schaffer struggled to a sitting position, feebly pushing aside Carraciola’s hand. ‘I can’t breathe!’ The moaning, gasping breathing lent credence to the words. ‘I can’t breathe. I – I’m going to be sick.’
‘Where is that damned key?’ Carraciola demanded.
‘Oh God, I feel ill!’ Schaffer hoisted himself slowly to a kneeling position, his head bent, retching sounds coming from his throat. He shook his head from side to side, as if to clear away the muzziness, then slowly raised it, his eyes unfocused. He mumbled: ‘What do you want? What did you say?’
‘The key!’ If the need for silence hadn’t been paramount, Carraciola’s voice would have been a frustrated scream of rage. Half-a-dozen times, in brutal and rapid succession, he struck Schaffer across the face with the palm and back of his hand. ‘Where is that key?’
‘Easy on, easy on!’ Thomas caught Carraciola’s hand. ‘Don’t be such a damned fool. You want him to talk, don’t you?’
‘The key. Yes, the key.’ Schaffer hoisted himself wearily to his feet and stood there swaying, eyes half-closed, face ashen, blood trickling from both corners of his mouth. ‘The batteries there, I think I hid them behind the batteries. I don’t know, I can’t think. No, wait.’ The words came in short, anguished gasps. ‘I didn’t. I meant to, but I didn’t.’ He fumbled in his pockets, eventually located the key and brought it out, offering it vaguely in Carraciola’s direction. Carraciola, the beginnings of a smile on his face, reached out for the key but, before he could reach it Schaffer abruptly straightened and with a convulsive jerk of his arm sent the key spinning through the open end of the station to land in the valley hundreds of feet below. Carraciola stared after the vanished key in total incredulity then, his suffused and enraged face mute evidence of his complete loss of self-control, stooped, picked up Schaffer’s fallen Schmeisser and swung it viciously across the American’s head and face. Schaffer fell like a tree.
‘Well,’ Thomas said acidly. ‘Now that we’ve got that out of our systems, we can shoot the lock away.’
‘You can commit suicide with ricochets – that door’s iron, man.’ Carraciola had indeed got it out of his system for he was back on balance again. He paused, then smiled slowly. ‘What the hell are we all thinking of? Let’s play it clever. If we did get through that door the first thing we’d probably collect would be a chestful of machine-gun bullets. Remember, the only people who know who we really are have bloody great doses of Nembutal inside them and are liable to remain unconscious for a long time. To the rest of the garrison we’re unknowns – and to the few who saw us arrive, we’re prisoners. In both cases we’re automatically enemies.’
‘So?’ Thomas was impatient.
‘So, as I say, we play it clever. We go down in this cable-car and play it clever again. We phone old Weissner. We ask him to phone the Schloss Adler, tell him where Smith is and, in case Smith does manage to get down to the village on the other cable-car after us, we ask him to have a reception committee waiting for him at the lower station. Then we go to the barracks – they’re bound to have a radio there – and get in touch with you know who. Flaws?’
‘Nary a flaw.’ Christiansen grinned. ‘And then we all live happily ever afterwards. Come on, what are we waiting for?’
‘Into the cable-car, you two.’ Carraciola waited until they had boarded, walked across the floor until he was directly under the smashed skylight and called: ‘Boss!’ Schaffer’s silenced Luger was in his hand.
On the roof above Smith stiffened, handed the trembling Carnaby-Jones – his eyes were still screwed shut – over to the care of Mary, took two steps towards the skylight and stopped. It was Wyatt-Turner who had said of Smith that he had a built-in radar set against danger and Carraciola’s voice had just started it up into instantaneous operation and had it working with a clarity and precision that would have turned Decca green with envy.
‘Schaffer?’ Smith called softly. ‘Lieutenant Schaffer? Are you there?’
‘Right here, boss.’ Mid-west accent, Schaffer to the life. Smith’s radar-scope went into high and had it been geared to warning bells he’d have been deafened for life. He dropped to hands and knees and crawled soundlessly forward. He could see the floor of the station now. The first thing that came into his vision was a bank of batteries, then an outflung hand, then, gradually the rest of the spread-eagled form of Schaffer. Another few inches forward and he sensed as much as saw a long finger pointing in his direction and flung himself to one side. The wind from the Luger’s shell riffled his hair. Down below someone cursed in anger and frustration.
‘That’s the last chance you’ll ever have, Carraciola,’ Smith said. From where he lay he could just see Schaffer’s face – or the bloody mask that covered his face. It was impossible to tell whether he was alive or dead. He looked dead.
‘Wrong again. Merely the postponement of a pleasure. We’re leaving now, Smith. I’m going to start the motor. Want Schaffer to get his – Christiansen has the Schmeisser on him. Don’t try anything.’
‘You make for that control panel,’ Smith said, ‘and your first step into my line of vision will be your last. I’ll cut you down, Carraciola. Schaffer’s dead. I can see he’s dead.’
‘He’s damn all of the kind dead. He’s just been clobbered by a gun butt.’
‘I’ll cut you down,’ Smith said monotonously.
‘Goddamn it, I tell you he’s not dead!’ Carraciola was exasperated now.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ Smith said quietly. ‘If I don’t, the first guards through that door surely will. You can see what we’ve done to their precious Schloss Adler – it’s well alight. Can’t you guess the orders that have gone out – shoot on sight. Any stranger, shoot on sight – and shoot to kill. You’re a stranger, Carraciola.’
‘For God’s sake, will you listen to me?’ There was desperation in the voice now. ‘I can prove it. He is alive. What can you see from up there?’
The signal strengths of Smith’s danger radar set began to fade. He said: ‘I can see Schaffer’s head.’
‘Watch it, then.’ There was a thud and a silenced Luger bounced to a stop a few inches from Schaffer’s head. A moment later Carraciola himself came into Smith’s field of vision. He looked up at Smith and at the Schmeisser muzzle staring down at him and said: ‘You won’t be needing that.’ He stooped over Schaffer, pinched his nose with one hand and clamped his other hand over the mouth. Within seconds the unconscious man, fighting for the air that would not come, began to move his head and to raise feeble hands in the direction of his face. Carraciola took his hands away, looked up at Smith and said: ‘Don’t forget, Christiansen has still that Schmeisser on him.’
Carraciola walked confidently across to the control panel, made the generator switch, released the mechanical handbrake and engaged gear, pushing the lever all the way across. The cable-car leapt forward with a violent jerk. Carraciola ran for it, jumped inside, turned and slammed the door of the cable-car.
On the roof above, Smith laid down his useless Schmeisser and pushed himself wearily to his feet. His face was bleak and bitter.
>
‘Well, that’s it, then,’ Mary said. Her voice was unnaturally calm. ‘Finish. All finish. Operation Overlord – and us. If that matters.’
‘It matters to me.’ Smith took out his silenced automatic and held it in his good left hand. ‘Keep an eye on Junior here.’
TEN
‘No!’ For perhaps two dazed, incredulous seconds that were the longest seconds she had ever known, Mary had quite failed to gather Smith’s intention: when shocked understanding did come, her voice rose to a scream. ‘No! No! For God’s sake, no!’
Smith ignored the heart-broken voice, the desperate clutching hand and walked to the end of the flat section of the roof. At the lower edge of the steeply sloping roof section the leading edge of the cable-car had just come into view: a cable-car with, inside it, three men who were exchanging delighted grins and thumping one another joyously on the back.
Smith ran down the ice-coated pitch of the roof, reached the edge and jumped. The cable-car was already seven or eight feet beyond him and almost as far below. Had the cable-car not been going away from him he must surely have broken both legs. As it was, he landed with a jarring teeth-rattling crash, a crash that caused the cable-car to shudder and sway and his legs to buckle and slide from beneath him on the ice-coated roof. His injured right hand failed to find a purchase on the suspension bracket and in his blindly despairing grab with his left hand he was forced to drop his Luger. It slid to the edge of the roof and fell away into the darkness of the valley below. Smith wrapped both arms round the suspension bracket and fought to draw some whooping gasps of air into his starving lungs: he had been completely winded by the fall.
In their own way, the three men inside the cable-car were as nearly stunned as Smith himself. The smiles had frozen on their faces and Christiansen’s arm was still poised in mid-air where it had been arrested by the sound and the shock of Smith’s landing on the cable-car roof. Carraciola, predictably, was the first to recover and react. He snatched the Schmeisser from Christiansen and pointed it upwards.
Where Eagles Dare Page 20
