“But that's over Swiss territory!”
“Is it? On a clear night you can see the lights of Zurich. They say Wing Commander Carpenter has a room permanently reserved for him there in the Baur-au-Lac.”
“What?”
“He says if it's a choice between a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany and internment in Switzerland he knows which side of the frontier he's coming down on ... After that we fly down the Swiss side of Lake Constance, turn east at Lindau, climb to eight thousand to clear the mountains and it's only a hop, skip and jump to the Weissspitze.”
“I see,” Smith said weakly. “But—but don't the Swiss object?”
“Frequently, sir. Their complaints always seem to coincide with the nights we're around those parts. Wing Commander Carpenter claims it's some ill-intentioned Luftwaffe pilot trying to discredit him.”
“What else?” Smith asked, but the sergeant was already on his way to the flight-deck. The Lancaster lurched as it hit an infrequent air pocket, Smith grabbed a rail to steady himself and Lieutenant Morris Schaffer, of the American Office of Strategic Services and Smith's second-in-command, cursed fluently as the better part of a cup of scalding coffee emptied itself over his thigh.
“That's all I need,” he said bitterly. “I've no morale left. I wish to God we would crash-land in Switzerland. Think of all those lovely Wienerschnitzels and Apfelstrudels. After a couple of years living among you Limeys, Spam and powdered eggs and an ounce of margarine a day, that's what Mama Schaffer's little boy requires. Building up.”
“You'd also live a damn sight longer, friend,” Carraciola observed morosely. He transferred his gaze to Smith, gave him a long considering look. “The whole set-up stinks, Major.”
“I don't think I understand,” Smith said quietly.
“Suicidal, is what I mean. What a bunch. Just look at us.” He gestured to the three men sitting nearest to him on his left: Olaf Christiansen, a flaxen haired first cousin of Leif Ericsson, Lee Thomas, a short dark Welshman —both those men seemed slightly amused—and Torrance-Smythe, as languidly aristocratic-looking as any ci-devant French count that ever rode a tumbrel, a doleful ex-Oxford don who clearly wished he were back among the University cloisters. “Christiansen, Thomas, old Smithy and myself. We're just a bunch of civil servants, filing clerks—”
“I know very well what you are,” Smith said quietly.
“Or yourself.” In the de-synchronised thunder of the engines the soft-voiced interruption had gone unnoticed. “A major in the Black Watch. No doubt you cut quite a dash playing the bagpipes at El Alamein, but why the hell you to command us? No offence. But this is no more in your line than it is ours. Or Lieutenant Schaffer here. An airborne cowboy—”
“I hate horses,” Schaffer said loudly. “That's why I had to leave Montana.”
“Or take George here.” Carraciola jerked a thumb in the direction of the last member of the party, George Harrod, a stocky army sergeant radio-operator with an expression of profound resignation on his face. “I'll bet he's never as much as made a parachute jump in his life before.”
“I have news for you,” Harrod said stoically. “I've never even been in a plane before.”
“He's never even been in a plane before,” Carraciola said despairingly. “My God, what a bunch of no-hopers! All we need is a team composed of specialist Alpinists, Commandos, mountaineers and safe-breakers and what do we have?” He shook his head slowly. “We have us.”
Smith said gently: “We were all the Colonel could get. Be fair. He told us yesterday that the one thing in the world that he didn't have was time.”
Carraciola made no reply, none of the others spoke, but Smith didn't have to be any clairvoyant to know what was in the minds of all of them. They were thinking what he was thinking, like himself they were back several hours in time and several hundred miles in space in that Admiralty Operations Room in London where Vice-Admiral Rolland, ostensibly Assistant Director of Naval Operations but in fact the long-serving head of M.I.6, the counter- espionage branch of the British Secret Service, and his deputy, Colonel Wyatt-Turner, had gravely and reluctantly briefed them on what they had as gravely and reluctantly admitted to be a mission born from the sheerest desperation.
“Deucedly sorry and all that, chaps, but time is of the essence.” Wyatt-Turner, a big, red-faced, heavily moustached colonel, tapped his cane against a. wall-map of Germany, pointing to a spot just north of the Austrian border and a little west of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. “Our man was brought down here at 2 a.m. this morning but SHAEF, in their all-knowing wisdom, didn't let us know until 10 a.m. Damned idiots! Damned idiots for not letting us know until so late and double-damned idiots for ignoring our advice in the first place. Gad, will they never learn to listen to us?” He shook his head in anger, tapped the map again. “Anyway, he's here. Schloss Adler. The castle of the eagle. Believe me, it's well named, only an eagle could get there. Our job—”
Smith said: “How are you so sure he's there, sir?”
“We're sure. Mosquito he was in crash-landed only ten miles away. The pilot got off a radio message just before a German patrol dosed in.” He paused, smiled grimly, continued: “Schloss Adler, Major Smith, is the combined H.Q. of the German Secret Service and the Gestapo in South Germany. Where else would they take him?”
“Where indeed? How was he brought down, sir?”
“Through the most damnable ill-luck. We carried out a saturation raid on Nürnberg last night and there shouldn't have been a German fighter within a hundred miles of the Austrian border. But a wandering Messerschmidtt patrol got him. That's unimportant. What's important is getting him out before he talks.”
“He'll talk,” Thomas said sombrely. “They all do. Why did they disregard our advice, sir? We told them two days ago.”
“The whys don't matter,” Wyatt-Turner said tiredly. “Not any more. The fact that he'll talk does. So we get him out. You get him out.”
Torrance-Smythe cleared his throat delicately. “There are paratroops, sir.”
“Scared, Smithy?”
“Naturally, sir.”
“The Schloss Adler is inaccessible and impregnable. It would require a battalion of paratroops to take it.”
“Of course,” Christiansen said, “the fact that there's no time to mount a massed paratroop attack has no bearing on the matter.” Christiansen appeared positively cheerful, the proposed operation obviously appealed vastly to him.
Wyatt-Turner gave him the benefit of his icy blue stare then decided to ignore him.
“Secrecy and stealth are the only hope,” he went on. “And you gentlemen are—I trust—secretive and stealthy. You are experts at that and experts at survival behind enemy lines where all of you have spent considerable periods of time, Major Smith, Lieutenant Schaffer and Sergeant Harrod here in their professional capacities, the rest of you in—um—other duties. With the—”
“That was a damned long time ago, sir,” Carraciola interrupted. “At least for Smithy, Thomas, Christiansen and myself. We're out of touch now. We don't know the latest developments in weapons and combat techniques. And God only knows we're out of training. After a couple of years behind a desk it takes me all my time to run fifty yards after a bus.”
“You'll have to get fit fast, won't you?” Wyatt-Turner said coldly. “Besides, what matters most is, that with the exception of Major Smith, you all have an extensive knowledge of Western Europe. You all speak fluent German. You'll find your combat training—on the level you'll be engaged in—as relevant today as it was five years ago. You are men with exceptional records of resourcefulness, ability and ingenuity. If anyone has a chance, you have. You're all volunteers, of course.”
“Of course,” Carraciola echoed, his face carefully deadpan. Then he looked speculatively at Wyatt-Turner. “There is, of course, another way, sir.” He paused, then went on very quietly indeed. “A way with a hundred per cent guarantee of success.”
“Neither Admiral Rolland nor I claim to be infallible,” Wyatt-Turner said slowly. “We have missed an alternative? You have the answer to our problems?”
“Yes. Whistle up a Pathfinder squadron of Lancaster's with 10-ton blockbuster bombs. Do you think anyone in the Schloss Adler would ever talk again?”
