At the sharp left-hand corner at the foot of the street the two remaining motor-cycles slid off the snow- plough and smashed into a low stone wall: two more absolute certainties, Smith thought inconsequentially, for the automobile cemetery behind Sulz's garage. Ahead of him now he could see the road stretch almost arrow-straight alongside the dark waters of the Blau See. He switched off the Alpine horn button, changed his mind and switched it on again: that horn was worth a pair of machine-guns any day.
“Don't you know any other tunes?” Schaffer asked irritably. He shivered in the icy blast from the smashed front window, and sat on the floor to get what little shelter he could. “Give me a call when you require my services. A mile from now, I'd say.”
“What do you mean, a mile from now?”
“The barrack gates. That guy in the command car had a radio phone.”
“He had, had he?” Smith spared him a brief glance. “Why didn't you shoot him?”
“I'm a changed man, boss.” Schaffer sighed. “Something splendid has just come into my life.”
“Besides, you didn't have a chance.”
“Besides, as you say, I didn't have a chance.” Schaffer twisted round and looked through the rear windows of the bus for signs of pursuit, but the road behind them was empty. For all that, Schaffer reflected, the rearward view was one not lacking in interest: the Schloss Adler, now completely enveloped in flames, a reddish-white inferno by this time lighting up for half a mile around the startling incongruity of its snow and ice covered setting, was clearly beyond saving: arsonist's dream or fireman's nightmare, the castle was finished: before dawn it would be an empty and desolate shell, a gaunt and blackened ruin to haunt and desecrate for generations to come the loveliest fairy- tale valley he had ever seen.
Schaffer shortened his gaze and tried to locate the three others, but all were on the floor, under seats and completely concealed. He cursed as the shaking and shuddering bus lurched violently, throwing him against the right-hand front door, then straightened and peered at the illuminated dashboard.
“God save us all,” he said piously. “Ninety!”
“Kilometres,” Smith said patiently.
“Ah!” Schaffer said as he watched Smith's foot move quickly from accelerator to brake, hoisted a wary eye over the lower edge of the shattered windscreen and whistled softly. The barrack gates were barely two hundred yards away: both the area around the guard-house and the parade ground beyond were brilliantly illuminated by overhead flood-lamps: scores of armed soldiers seemed to be running around in purposeless confusion, a totally erroneous impression as Schaffer almost immediately realised. They were running towards and scrambling aboard trucks and command cars and they weren't wasting any time about it either.
“A hive of activity and no mistake,” Schaffer observed. “I wonder—” He broke off, his eyes widening. A giant tank came rumbling into view past the guard-house, turned right on to the road, stopped, swivelled 180° on its tracks, completely blocking the road: the gun turret moved fractionally until it was lined up on the headlights of the approaching bus. “Oh, my gosh!” Schaffer's shocked whisper was just audible over the fading sound of the post- bus's diesel. “A Tiger tank. And that's an 88-millimetre cannon, boss.”
“It's not a pop-gun, and that's a fact,” Smith agreed. “Flat on the floor.” He reached forward, pulled a switch, and the eighteen-inch long semaphore indicator began to wave gently up and down. Smith first dipped his main headlights, then switched them off altogether, covering the last thirty yards on side-lamps alone and praying that all those signs of peaceful normality might help to keep nervous fingers away from the firing button of the most lethal tank cannon ever devised.
The fingers, for whatever reason, left the button alone. Smith slowed to a walking pace, turned right through the guard-house gates and stopped. Taking care to keep his injured right hand well out of sight, he wound down his window and leaned out, left elbow over the sill as three guards, led by a sergeant and all with machine-pistols at the ready, closed in on the driver's cab.
“Quickly!” Smith shouted. “Telephone. Surgeon to the sick-bay.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Colonel Weissner. They got him twice. Through the lungs. For God's sake, don't just stand there!”
“But—but the post-bus!” the sergeant protested. “We had a call from—”
“Drunk, by God!” Smith swore savagely. “He'll be court-martialled in the morning.” His voice dropped menacingly. “And you, if the Colonel dies. Move!”
Smith engaged gear and drove off, still at walking pace. The sergeant, reassured by the sight of a major's uniform, the fact that the bus was moving into the barracks, the slow speed with which it was moving and, above all, by the authoritative clamour of the Alpine horn which Smith still had not switched off, ran for the nearest phone.
Still crawling along in first gear, Smith carefully edged the post-bus through the press of men and machines, past a column of booted and gauntleted soldiers mounted on motorcycles, past armoured vehicles and trucks, all with engines already running, some already moving towards the gates—but not moving as quickly towards the gates as Smith would have wished. Ahead of the post-bus was a group of officers, most of them obviously senior, talking animatedly. Smith slowed down the bus even more and leaned from the window.
“They're trapped!” he called excitedly. “Upstairs in ‘Zum Wilden Hirsch’. They've got Colonel Weissner as hostage. Hurry, for God's sake!”
He broke off as he suddenly recognised one of the officers as the Alpenkorps captain to whom in his temporary capacity of Major Bernd Himmler, he'd spoken in “Zum Wilden Hirsch” earlier that evening. A second later the recognition was mutual, the captain's mouth fell open in total incredulity and before he had time to close it Smith's foot was flat on the accelerator and the bus heading for the southern gates, soldiers flinging themselves to both sides to avoid the scything sweep of the giant snow-plough. Such was the element of surprise that fully thirty yards had been covered before most of the back windows of the bus were holed and broken, the shattering of glass mingling with the sound of the ragged fusillade of shots from behind. And then Smith, wrenching desperately on the wheel, came careering through the southern gates back on to the main road, giving them at least temporary protection from the sharp-shooters on the parade ground.
But they had, it seemed, only changed from the frying pan to the fire. Temporary protection they might have obtained from one enemy—but from another and far deadlier enemy they had no protection at all. Smith all but lost control of the bus as something struck a glancing blow low down on his cab door, ricocheted off into the night with a viciously screaming whine and exploded in a white Sash of snow-flurried light less than fifty yards ahead.
“The Tiger tank,” Schaffer shouted. “That goddamned 88-millimetre—”
“Get down!” Smith jack-knifed down and to one side of the wheel until his eyes were only an inch above the foot of the windscreen. “That one was low. The next one—”
The next one came through the top of the back door, traversed the length of the bus and exited through the front of the roof, just above the windscreen. This time there was no explosion.
“A dud?” Schaffer said hopefully. “Or maybe a dummy practice—”
“Dummy nothing!” Upright again, Smith was swinging the bus madly, dangerously, from side to side of the road in an attempt to confuse the tank gunner's aim. “Armour-piercing shells, laddie, designed to go through two inches of steel plate in a tank before they explode.” He winced and ducked low as a third shell took out most of the left-hand windows of the bus, showering himself and Schaffer with a flying cloud of shattered glass fragments. “Just let one of those shells strike a chassis member, instead of thin sheet metal, or the engine block, or the snow- plough—”
“Don't!” Schaffer begged. “Just let it creep up on me all unbeknownst, like.” He paused, then continued: “Taking his time, isn't he? Lining up for the Sunday one.”
“No.” Smith glanced in the rear-view mirror and steadied the wildly swaying bus up on a steadier course. “Never thought I'd be glad to see a few car-loads or track loads of Alpenkorps coming after me.” He changed into top gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. “I'm happy to make an exception this time.”
Schaffer turned and looked through the shattered rear windows. He could count at least three pairs of headlights on the road behind them, with two others swinging out through the southern gates: between them, they effectively blotted the post-bus from the view of the tank gunner.
“Happy isn't the word for it. Me, I'm ecstatic. Tiger tanks are one thing but little itsy-bitsy trucks are another.” Schaffer strode rapidly down the central aisle, passing by Mary, Heidi and Carnaby-Jones, all of whom were struggling rather shakily to their feet, and looked at the crates stacked in the rear seats.
“Six crates!” he said to Heidi. “And we asked for only two. Honey, you're going to make me the happiest man alive.” He opened the rear door and began to empty the contents of the crate on to the road. A few of the bottles
