The impact of the horizontal suspension arm drove the thought from his mind and all the breath from his body; had it not been for the buffering effect of his outstretched arms, Smith was sure, some of his ribs must have gone. As it was, he was almost completely winded but he forced himself to ignore the pain and his heaving lungs’ demand for oxygen, swung his feet up till they rested on the lower cross-girder, hooked his hands round the upper girder and made his way quickly across to the other side. At least, his hands and his feet moved quickly, but the steel was so thickly coated in clear smooth ice that his scrabbling feet could find almost no purchase whatsoever on the lower girder. He had reached no farther than the middle when the ascending car began to pass under its suspension arm. For the first time that night Smith blessed the brightness of the moon. He took two more slipping, sliding steps and launched himself towards the ice-coated cable that glittered so brightly in the pale moonlight.
His left hand caught the cable, his right arm hooked over it and the cable itself caught him high up on the chest. He had made no mistake about the location of his hand and arm, but his sliding take-off had caused his body to fall short and the cable slid up under his chin with a jerk that threatened to decapitate him. His legs swung out far beneath him, swung back and touched the roof as he lowered himself to the full extent of his left arm. He released his grip on the cable, dropped on all fours and reached out blindly but successfully for one of the arms of the suspension bracket. For long seconds he knelt there, retching uncontrollably as he was flooded by the nausea and pain from his throat and still winded lungs: then, by and by, the worst of it passed and he lay face down on the roof as the cable-car began to increase its pendulum swing with the increasing distance from the central pylon. He would not have believed that a man could be so totally exhausted and yet still have sufficient residual strength and sufficient self-preservation instinct to hang on to that treacherous and precarious hand-hold on that ice-coated roof.
Long seconds passed and some little measure of strength began to return to his limbs and body. Wearily, he hauled himself up into a sitting position, twisted round and gazed back down the valley.
The cable-car he had so recently abandoned was now hardly more than fifty yards from the lowermost pylon. Thomas and Christiansen sat huddled in the middle, the latter wrapping a makeshift bandage round his injured hand. Both fore and aft doors were still open as they were when the abortive attack on Smith had been made. That neither of the two men had ventured near the extremities of the car to try to close either of the doors was proof enough of the respect, if not fear, in which Smith was now held.
From the roof of the cable-car came a brilliant flash of light, magnesium-blinding in its white intensity: simultaneously there came the sound of two sharp explosions, so close together as to be indistinguishable in time. The two rear supports of the suspension bracket broke and the car, suspended now by only the two front supports, tilted violently, the front going up, the rear down.
Inside, the angle of the floor of the car changed in an instant from the horizontal to at least thirty degrees. Christiansen was flung back towards the still open rear door. He grabbed despairingly at the side – but he grabbed with his wounded hand. Soundlessly, he vanished through the open doorway and as soundlessly fell to the depths of the valley below.
Thomas, with two sound hands and faster reactions, had succeeded in saving himself – for the moment. He glanced up and saw where the roof was beginning to buckle and break as the forward two suspension arm support brackets, now subjected to a wrenching lateral pressure they had never been designed to withstand, began to tear their retaining bolts free. Thomas struggled up the steeply inclined floor till he stood in the front doorway: because of the tilt of the car, now almost 45° as the front supports worked loose, the leading edge of the roof was almost touching the cable. Thomas reached up, grabbed the cable with both hands, and had just cleared his legs from the doorway when the two front supports tore free from the roof in a rending screech of metal. The cable-car fell away, slowly turning end over end.
Despite the cable’s violent buffeting caused by the sudden release of the weight of the car, Thomas had managed to hang on. He twisted round and saw the suspension arm of the lowest pylon only feet away. The sudden numbing of all physical and mental faculties was accurately and shockingly reflected in the frozen fear of his face, the lips drawn back in a snarling rictus of terror. The knuckles of the hands gleamed like burnished ivory. And then, suddenly, there were no hands there, just the suspension arm and the empty wire and a long fading scream in the night.
As his cable-car approached the header station, Smith edged well forward to clear the lip of the roof. From where he crouched it was impossible to see the east wing of the Schloss Adler but if the columns of dense smoke now drifting across the valley were anything to go by, the fire seemed to have an unshakable hold. Clouds were again moving across the moon and this could be both a good thing and a bad thing: a good thing in that it would afford them cover and help obscure those dense clouds of smoke, a bad thing in that it was bound to high-light the flames from the burning castle. It could only be a matter of time, Smith reflected, before the attention of someone in the village or the barracks beyond was caught by the fire or the smoke. Or, he thought grimly, by the increasing number of muffled explosions coming from the castle itself. He wondered what might be the cause of them: Schaffer hadn’t had the time to lay all those distractions.
The roof of the cable-car cleared the level of the floor of the header station and Smith sagged in relief as he saw the figure standing by the controls of the winch. Schaffer. A rather battered and bent Schaffer, it was true, an unsteady Schaffer, a Schaffer with one side of his face masked in blood, a Schaffer who from his peering and screwed-up expression had obviously some difficulty in focusing his gaze. But undoubtedly Schaffer and as nearly a going concern as made no odds. Smith felt energy flow back into him, he hadn’t realized just how heavily he had come to depend on the American: with Schaffer by his side it was going to take a great deal to stop them now.
Smith glanced up as the roof of the header station came into view. Mary and Carnaby-Jones were still there, pressed back against the castle wall. He lifted a hand in greeting, but they gave no sign in return. Ghosts returning from the dead, Smith thought wryly, weren’t usually greeted by a wave of the hand.
Schaffer, for all the trouble he was having with his eyes and his still obviously dazed condition, seemed to handle the winch controls immaculately. It may have been – and probably was – the veriest fluke, but he put the gear lever in neutral and applied the brake to bring the cable-car to rest exactly half-way in under the lip of the roof. First Mary and then Jones came sliding down the nylon rope on to the roof of the car, Jones with his eyes screwed tightly shut. Neither of them spoke a word, not even when Schaffer had brought them up inside and they had slid down on to the floor of the station.
‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Smith flung open the rear door of the cable car. ‘Inside, all of you!’ He retrieved Schaffer’s Luger from the floor, then whirled round as he heard the furious barking of dogs followed by the sound of heavy sledges battering against the iron door leading from the station. The first of the two defences must have been carried away: now the second was under siege.
Mary and a stumbling Schaffer were already inside the cable-car. Jones, however, had made no move to go. He stood there, Smith’s Schmeisser in his hand, listening to the furious hammering on the door. His face seemed unconcerned. He said, apologetically: ‘I’m not very good at heights, I’m afraid. But this is different.’
‘Get inside!’ Smith almost hissed the words.
‘No.’ Jones shook his head. ‘You hear. They’ll be through any minute. I’ll stay.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Smith shouted in exasperation.
‘I’m twenty years older than any of you.’
‘Well, there’s that.’ Smith nodded consideringly, held out his right hand, said, ‘Mr Jones. Good l
uck,’ brought across his left hand and half-dragged, half-carried the dazed Jones into the cable-car. Smith moved quickly across to the controls, engaged gear all the way, released the handbrake and ran after the moving car.
As they moved out from below the roof of the station, the sound of the assault on the inner door seemed to double in its intensity. In the Schloss Adler, Smith reflected, there would be neither pneumatic chisels nor oxy-acetylene equipment for there could be no conceivable call for either, but, even so, it didn’t seem to matter: with all the best will in the world a couple of iron hasps couldn’t for long withstand an attack of that nature. Thoughtfully, Smith closed the rear door. Schaffer was seated, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Mary was kneeling on the floor, Jones’s head in her lap, looking down at the handsome silvery-haired head. He couldn’t see her expression but was dolefully certain that she was even then preparing a homily about the shortcomings of bullies who went around clobbering elderly and defenceless American actors. Almost two minutes passed in complete silence before Carnaby-Jones stirred, and, when he did, Mary herself stirred and looked up at Smith. To his astonishment, she had a half-smile on her face.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve counted ten. In the circumstances, it was the only argument to use.’ She paused and the smile faded. ‘I thought you were gone then.’
‘You weren’t the only one. After this I retire. I’ve used up a lifetime’s luck in the past fifteen minutes. You’re not looking so bright yourself.’
‘I’m not feeling so bright.’ Her face was pale and strained as she braced herself against the wild lurching of the cable-car. ‘If you want to know, I’m seasick. I don’t go much on this form of travel.’
Smith tapped the roof. ‘You want to try travelling steerage on one of those,’ he said feelingly. ‘You’d never complain about first-class travel again. Ah! Pylon number two coming up. Almost half-way.’
‘Only half-way.’ A pause. ‘What happens if they break through that door up there?’
‘Reverse the gear lever and up we go.’
‘Like it or not?’
‘Like it or not.’
Carnaby-Jones struggled slowly to a sitting position, gazed uncomprehendingly around him until he realized where he was, rubbed his jaw tenderly and said to Smith: ‘That was a dirty trick.’
‘It was all of that,’ Smith acknowledged. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not.’ Jones smiled shakily. ‘Somehow, I don’t really think I’m cut out to be a hero.’
‘Neither am I, brother, neither am I,’ Schaffer said mournfully. He lifted his head from his hands and looked slowly around. His eyes were still glassy and only partially focusing but a little colour was returning to his right cheek, the one that wasn’t masked in blood. ‘Our three friends. What became of our three friends?’
‘Dead.’
‘Dead?’ Schaffer groaned and shook his head. ‘Tell me about it sometime. But not now.’
‘He doesn’t know what he’s missing,’ Smith said unsympathetically. ‘The drama of it all escapes him, which is perhaps just as well. Is the door up above there still standing or are the hinges or padlocks going? Is someone rushing towards the winch controls – Is there –’
‘Stop it!’ Mary’s voice was sharp, high-pitched and carried overtones of hysteria. ‘Stop talking like that!’
‘Sorry,’ Smith said contritely. He reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘Just whistling in the dark, that’s all. Here comes the last pylon. Another minute or so and we’re home and dry.’
‘Home and dry,’ Schaffer said bitterly. ‘Wait till I have that Savoy Grill menu in my hand. Then I’ll be home and dry.’
‘Some people are always thinking of their stomachs,’ Smith observed. At that moment he was thinking of his own and it didn’t feel any too good. No stomach does when it feels as if it has a solid lead ball, a chilled lead ball lodged in it with an icy hand squeezing from the outside. His heart was thumping slowly, heavily, painfully in his chest and he was having difficulty in speaking for all the saliva seemed to have evaporated from his mouth. He became suddenly aware that he was unconsciously leaning backward, bracing himself for the moment when the cable-car jerked to a stand-still then started climbing back up to the Schloss Adler again. I’ll count to ten, he said to himself, then if we get that far without being checked, I’ll count to nine, and then – And then he caught sight of Mary’s face, a dead-white, scared and almost haggard face that made her look fifteen years older than she was, and felt suddenly ashamed of himself. He sat on the bench, and squeezed her shoulder. ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said confidently. All of a sudden he found it easy to speak again. ‘Uncle John has just said so, hasn’t he? You wait and see.’
She looked up at him, trying to smile. ‘Is Uncle John always right?’
‘Always,’ Smith said firmly.
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, realizing 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 awestruck. ‘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 Mar
y 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.
The castle burned more fiercely than ever, a fire obviously totally out of control. Suddenly, there was the sharp crack of an explosion and the ascending cable-car burst into flames. The car, half-way up to the first pylon, swung in great arcs across the valley, its flames fanned by the wind, and climbed steadily upwards into the sky until its flame was lost in the greater flame of the Schloss Adler.
Where Eagles Dare Page 22
