make it?”
“Can I make it?” Schaffer tested both knife and torch and smiled, a pretty strained effort, but his first for some time.
“After what I've been through—well, ever seen a monkey go up a coconut palm tree?”
Fifty feet above their heads, Mary withdrew from the window and laid the binoculars on the chest of drawers. Her hands shook and the metal of the binoculars rattled like castanets against the glass top. She returned to the window and began to pay out the weighted string.
Smith came up the last few feet of the sloping roof at the end of the rope, caught Schaffer's hand, stood upright on the flat inner section of the roof and at once began to unwind the rest of the knotted rope from his waist. Schaffer, although the temperature was far below freezing, wiped his brow like a man in a heat-wave.
“Brother!” He mopped his brow some more. “If I can ever do you a favour, like lending you a car-fare—”
Smith grinned, clapped his shoulder, reached up into the gloom, caught the weighted end of the suspended string and quickly bent the nylon on to it. He gave two gentle tugs and the rope began to move upwards as Mary hauled it in through the window. Smith waited until two more gentle return tugs indicated that the rope was securely fastened and began to climb.
He was half-way up to the window when the moon broke through. In his Alpenkorps uniform he was perfectly silhouetted against the gleaming white of the castle walls. He hung there motionless, not daring to move, not so much as even daring to glance upwards or downwards lest the movement attract some hostile attention.
Twenty-five feet below him Schaffer peered cautiously over the edge of the header station roof. The guards and dogs were still patrolling the area round the roof of the volcanic plug. They had only to give one casual upwards glance and Smith's discovery was inevitable. Then some hair-prickling sixth sense made Schaffer look sharply upwards and he became very still indeed. The sentry, another circuit of the battlements completed, was standing with hands splayed out on the parapet, gazing out over the valley, perhaps watching the now dying flames from the burnt-out station: he had to lower his eyes only a fraction and that was that. Slowly, with his right hand, Schaffer brought up the Luger with the long perforated silencer screwed to its muzzle and laid it, in the best police fashion, across his left wrist. He had no doubt he could kill his man with one shot, the only question was when best to do it, how to weigh the balance of possibilities. If he waited until the man sighted them, he might give a warning shout or thrust himself back into cover before Schaffer could kill him. If he shot the sentry before he sighted them, then there would be no question of either escape or warning. But there was the possibility that the man might pitch forward over the battlements, crash off the roof of the header station and fall into the valley below, close by the patrolling men and dogs. A possibility only, Schaffer decided, not a probability: the slamming effect of the Luger shell would almost certainly knock him backwards off his feet. Schaffer had never before gunned down an unsuspecting man, but he coldly prepared to do so now. He lined up the luminous sight on the man's breast-bone and began to squeeze the trigger.
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 manoeuvring 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 immobilising 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 immobilise anything from a bulldozer to a bicycle.”
“And without the four-pounder? This is not a boiler-makers' 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.
