Алистер Маклин - Where Eagles Dare

Schaffer dropped his gun.

‘You shouldn’t have tried it,’ von Brauchitsch said to Smith. ‘An extremely silly thing to do . . . In your circumstances, I’d have done exactly the same silly thing.’ He looked at Kramer. ‘Sorry for the delay, Herr Colonel. But I thought the young lady was very anxious and restive. And she knows precious little about her native Düsseldorf. And she doesn’t know enough not to let people hold her hand when she’s telling lies – as she does most of the time.’ He released the girl and half turned her round, smiling down at her. ‘A delightful hand, my dear – but what a fascinating variation of pulse rates.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t care.’ Kramer gave vent to a long luxurious sigh and drooped with relief. ‘Well done , my boy, well done. My God! Another minute–’ He heaved himself to his feet, crossed over to Schaffer, prudently keeping clear of von Brauchitsch’s line of fire, searched him for hidden weapons, found none, did the same to Smith with the same results, handed him a white handkerchief to stem the flow of blood, looked at Mary and hesitated. ‘Well, I don’t see how she very well can be, but . . . I wonder. Anne-Marie?’

‘Certainly, Herr Colonel. It will be a pleasure. We’ve met before and she knows my methods. Don’t you, my dear?’ With a smile as nearly wolf-like as any beautiful Aryan could give, Anne-Marie walked across to Mary and struck her viciously across the face. Mary cried in pain, staggered back against the wall and crouched there, eyes too wide in a pale face, palms pressed behind her for support from the wall, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. ‘Well?’ Anne-Marie demanded. ‘Have you a gun?’

‘Anne-Marie!’ There was protest and aversion in Kramer’s face. ‘Must you–’

‘I know how to deal with cheap little spies like her!’ She turned to Mary and said: ‘I’m afraid they don’t like watching how I get results. In there!’

She caught Mary by the hair, pulled her to the side door, opened it and pushed her violently inside. The sound of her body crashing to the floor and another gasp of pain came together. Anne-Marie closed the door behind them.

For the next ten seconds or so there could be clearly heard the sound of blows and muffled cries of pain. Von Brauchitsch waved Smith and Schaffer back with his gun, advanced, hitched a seat on the edge of one of the big arm-chairs, winced as he listened to the sound of the struggle and said to Kramer dryly: ‘I somehow think the young lady would have preferred me to search her. There’s a limit to the value of false modesty.’

‘I’m afraid Anne-Marie sometimes lets her enthusiasm carry her away,’ Kramer conceded. His mouth was wrinkled in distaste.

‘Sometimes?’ Von Brauchitsch winced again as more sounds filtered through the door, the crash of a body against a wall, a shriek of pain, low sobbing moans, then silence. ‘Always. When the other girl is as young and beautiful as herself.’

‘It’s over now,’ Kramer sighed. ‘It’s all over now.’ He looked at Smith and Schaffer. ‘We’ll fix that hand first, then – well, one thing about the Schloss Adler, there is no shortage of dungeons.’ He broke off, the fractional widening of his eyes matching a similar slumping of his shoulders, and he said carefully to von Brauchitsch: ‘You are far too good a man to lose, Captain. It would seem that we were wasting our sympathy on the wrong person. There’s a gun four feet from you pointing at the middle of your back.’

Von Brauchitsch, his gun-hand resting helplessly on his thigh, turned slowly round and looked over his shoulder. There was indeed a gun pointing at the middle of his back, a Lilliput .21 automatic, and the hand that held it was disconcertingly steady, the dark eyes cool and very watchful. Apart from the small trickle of blood from her cut lip and rather dishevelled hair, Mary looked singularly little the worse for wear.

‘It’s every parent’s duty,’ Schaffer said pontifically, ‘to encourage his daughter to take up Judo.’ He took the gun from von Brauchitsch’s unresisting hand, retrieved his own Schmeisser, walked across to the main door and locked it. ‘Far too many folk coming in here without knocking.’ On his way back he looked through the opened door of the room, whistled, grinned and said to Mary: ‘It’s a good job I have my thoughts set on someone else. I wouldn’t like to be married to you if you lost your temper. That’s a regular sick-bay dispensary in there. Fix the Major’s hand as best you can. I’ll watch them.’ He hoisted his Schmeisser and smiled almost blissfully: ‘Oh, brother, how I’ll watch them.’

And he watched them. While Mary attended to Smith’s injured hand in the small room where Anne-Marie had so lately met her Waterloo, Schaffer herded his six charges into one of the massive couches, took up position by the mantelpiece, poured himself some brandy, sipped it delicately and gave the prisoners an encouraging smile from time to time. There were no answering smiles. For all Schaffer’s nonchalance and light-hearted banter there was about him not only a coldly discouraging competence with the weapon in his hand but also the unmistakable air of one who would, when the need arose and without a second’s hesitation, squeeze the trigger and keep on squeezing it. Being at the wrong end of a Schmeisser machine-pistol does not make for an easy cordiality in relationships.

Smith and Mary emerged from the side room, the latter carrying a cloth-covered tray. Smith was pale and had his right hand heavily bandaged. Schaffer looked at the hand then lifted an enquiring eyebrow to Mary.

‘Not so good.’ She looked a little pale herself. ‘Forefinger and thumb are both smashed. I’ve patched it as best I can but I’m afraid it’s a job for a surgeon.’

‘If I can survive Mary’s first aid,’ Smith said philosophically, ‘I can survive anything. We have a more immediate little problem here.’ He tapped his tunic. ‘Those names and addresses here. Might be an hour or two before we get them through to England and then another hour or two before those men can be rounded up.’ He looked at the men seated on the couch. ‘ You could get through to them in a lot less than that and warn them. So we have to ensure your silence for a few hours.’

‘We could ensure it for ever, boss,’ Schaffer said carelessly.

‘That won’t be necessary. As you said yourself, it’s a regular little dispensary in there.’ He removed the tray cloth to show bottles and hypodermic syringes. He held up a bottle in his left hand. ‘Nembutal. You’ll hardly feel the prick.’

Kramer stared at him. ‘Nembutal? I’ll be damned if I do.’

Smith said in a tone of utter conviction: ‘You’ll be dead if you don’t.’

Smith halted outside the door marked RADIO RAUM, held up his hand for silence, looked at the three scowling captives and said: ‘Don’t even think of tipping anyone off or raising the alarm. I’m not all that keen on taking you back to England. Lieutenant Schaffer, I think we might immobilize those men a bit more.’

‘We might at that,’ Schaffer agreed. He went behind each of the three men in turn, ripped open the top buttons on their tunics and pulled the tunics down their backs until their sleeves reached their elbows and said in the same soft voice: ‘That’ll keep their hands out of trouble for a little.’

‘But not their feet. Don’t let them come anywhere near you,’ Smith said to Mary. ‘They’ve nothing to lose. Right, Lieutenant, when you’re ready.’

‘Ready now.’ Carefully, silently, Schaffer eased open the door of the radio room. It was a large, well-lit, but very bleak room, the two main items of furniture being a massive table by the window on the far wall and, on the table, an almost equally massive transceiver in gleaming metal: apart from two chairs and a filing cabinet the room held nothing else, not even as much as a carpet to cover the floor-boards.