Where Eagles Dare Part 8

'Chances?' Holland's eyes were remote, unseeing. 'What do you mean, chances? He doesn't have any.'

Almost precisely the same thought was in Smith's mind as he lit a cigarette and looked at the girl beside him, careful not to let his thoughts show in his face. Not until that first sight he'd just had of the castle had the full realisation of the apparent impossibility of their task struck him. Had he known what the precise physical situation had been, he doubted very much whether he would have come. Deep in the furthest recesses of his mind, he knew, although he would not admit it to himself, that there really was no room for the element of doubt. He wouldn't have come. But he had come. He was here and he had better do something about it.

He said to Mary: 'Have you had a squint at the old Schloss yet?'

'It's a fantastic place. How on earth do we ever get General Carnaby out of there?'

'Easy. We'll take a walk up there tonight, get inside and take him away.'

Mary stared at him in disbelief and waited for him to amplify his statement. He didn't. Finally, she said: "That's all?'

That's all.'

The simplicity of true genius. You must have spent a lot of -time working that one out.' When he still didn't reply, she went on, elaborately sarcastic: 'In the first place, of course, there'll be no trouble about getting in. You just go up to the main door and knock.'

'More or less. Then the door---or window--opens, I smile at you, say thank you and pa.s.s inside.'

'You what?'

'I smile and say thank you. Even in wartime, there's no reason why the little courtesies--'

'Please!' She was thoroughly exasperated now. 'If you can't talk sense--'

'You are going to open the door for me,' Smith explained patiently.

'Are you feeling all right?'

"The staff shortage in Germany is acute. The Schloss Adler is no exception. You're just the type they're looking for. Young, intelligent, good-looking, you can cook, polish, sew on Colonel Kramer's b.u.t.tons--u'

'Who's Colonel Kramer?' Her tone as much as her face showed the bewilderment in her mind.

'Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service.'

Mary said with conviction: 'You must be mad.'

'If I wasn't I wouldn't be doing this job.' He glanced at his watch. I've been gone too long and I fear that I'm surrounded by the odd suspicious mind. We move off at five. Exactly five. Down in the village there's a Gasthaus on the east side of the main street called "Zum Wilden Hirsch." "The Wild Deer." Remember it, "Zum Wilden Hirsch." We don't want you wandering into the wrong pub. Behind it there's a shed used as a beer cellar. It's always kept locked but there will be a key in the door tonight. I'll meet you there at exactly eight o'clock.'

He turned to go, but she caught him by the arm.

'How do you know all this?' she asked tensely. 'About the Gasthaus and the bottle store and the key being there and about Colonel Kramer and--'

'Ah, ah!' Smith shook his head admonishingly and touched her lips with his forefinger.

'Handbook for spies, golden rule number one.' She drew away from him and stared down at the snow-covered ground, her voice low and bitter. 'Never ever ever tell anyone anything unless you have to.' She paused and looked up. 'Not even me?'

'Especially not you, poppet.' He patted her lightly on the cheek. 'Don't be late.'

He walked away down the slope leaving her looking after him with an expressionless face.

Lieutenant Schaffer, lay stretched out and almost buried in the deep snow, half-hidden behind the bole of a pine, with a telescope to his eye. He twisted as he heard the soft crunch of snow behind him and saw Smith approaching on his hands and knees.

'Couldn't you knock or something?' Schaffer asked irritably.

'Sorry. Something you wanted to show me, so the boys say.' 'Yeah.' Schaffer handed Smith the telescope. Take a gander at this lot. Thought it might interest you.'

Smith took the telescope and fingered the very precise adjustment until he achieved maximum definition. 'Lower down,' Schaffer said. 'At the foot of the rock.' Smith traversed the telescope down the sides of the Schloss Adler and the sheer walls of the volcanic plug until the fine cross-hairs came to rest on the snow-covered slopes at the foot. Moving across the slope he could see two soldiers with slung machine-carbines and, not on leashes, four dogs.

'My, my,' Smith murmured thoughtfully. 'I see what you mean.'

'Those are Dobermann pinchers, boss.'

'Well, they aren't toy poodles and that's a fact,' Smith agreed. He moved the telescope a little way up the walls of the volcanic plug, held it there.

'And floodlights?' he added softly.

He lowered the telescope again, past the patrolling soldiers and dogs, till it came to rest on a high wire fence that appeared to go all the way around the base of the volcanic plug.

And a d.i.n.ky little fence.'

'Fences,' Schaffer said pontifically, "are made to be cut or climbed.'

'You try cutting or climbing this one, laddie, and you'll be cooked to a turn in nothing flat. A standard design, using a standard current of 2,300 volt, single-phase, 60 cycle A.C. All the best electric chairs have it.'

Schaffer shook his head. 'Amazing the lengths some folks will go to protect their privacy.'

'Fences, floods and Dobermans,' Smith said. 'I don't think that combination will stop us, do you, Lieutenant?'

'Of course not. Stop us? Of course not!' He paused for some moments, then burst out: 'How in G.o.d's name do you propose--'

'We'll decide when the time comes,' Smith said easily.

'You mean you'll decide,' Schaffer said complainingly. 'Play it pretty close to the cuff, don't you?'

That's because I'm too young to die.'

'Why me, for G.o.d's sake?' Schaffer demanded after a long pause. 'Why pick me for this job? This isn't my line of country, Major."

'G.o.d knows,' Smith said frankly. 'Come to that, why me?"

Schaffer was in the middle of giving him a long and pointedly disbelieving look when he suddenly stiffened and c.o.c.ked his head up to the sky in the direction of the unmistakably rackety whirr of a helicopter engine. Both men picked it up at once. It was coming from the north, over the Blau See, and heading directly towards them. It was a big military version and, even at that distance, the swastika markings were clearly distinguishable. Schaffer started to move backwards towards the line of pines.

'Exit Schaffer,' he announced hurriedly. 'The bloodhounds are out for us.'

'I don't think so,' Smith said. "Stay where you are and pull your smock over your head."

Quickly they pulled their white smocks over their heads until only their eyes, and Smith's telescope, partly buried in the snow, could be seen. From thirty yards in any direction, including straight up, they must have been quite invisible.

The helicopter swept up the valley still maintaining a course directly towards the spot where the two men lay hidden. When it was only a few hundred yards away even Smith began to feel uneasy and wondered if by some evil mischance the enemy knew er suspected their presence. They were bound to have heard the engines of the Lancaster, muted though they had been, during the night. Had some suspicious and intelligent character--and there would be no lack of those in the Schloss Adler--come up with the right answer to the question of the presence of this errant bomber in one of the most unlikely places in all Germany? Could picked members of the Alpenkorps be combing the pine woods even at that moment--and he, Smith, had been so confident that he hadn't even bothered to post a guard. Then, abruptly, when the helicopter was almost directly overhead, it side-slipped sharply to its left, sank down over the castle courtyard, hovered for a few moments and slowly descended. Smith surrept.i.tiously mopped his forehead and applied his eye to the telescope. ,