Jack Higgins - World War 2 Thriller Collection - Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head

These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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Winter first published in Great Britain by Hutchinson Ltd 1987

The Eagle Has Flown first published in Great Britain by Chapmans Publishers Ltd 1991

South by Java Head first published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1958

Winter copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 1987

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2010

Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2010

The Eagle Has Flown © Jack Higgins 1991

South by Java Head © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1958

Winter cover design and photography © Arnold Schwartzman 2009

The Eagle Has Flown cover illustration © Nik Keevil 2013; cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

South by Java Head cover illustration © headdesign 2008

E-bundle cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

Len Deighton, Jack Higgins and Alistair MacLean assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of their works

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contracual and technological constraints in operatin at the time of publication

Source ISBNs: 9780586068953, 9780007304653, 9780006172482

Ebook Edition © December 2013 ISBN: 9780007563401

Version: 2017-08-24

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page World War Two Thriller Collection Len Deighton, Jack Higgins and Alistair Maclean

Copyright

Winter

The Eagle Has Flown

South by Java Head

About the Authors

Also by the Same Authors

About the Publisher

In attempting to come up with a concept for the cover design for Winter, Len Deighton’s saga of a Berlin family set in the first half of the twentieth century, I sought a striking image that would express the outcome of the Winter family’s story. I recalled a photograph in my wife Isolde’s family album of her father as a child dressed in a sailor suit standing beside his father. This image seemed to fit the time and place precisely. By tearing the photograph apart it implied the outcome of their relationship; and in a metaphorical sense it would also suggest what lay ahead for the city, and indeed the entire country. Sometimes the simplest of images are the most effective.

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

The Tragic Story of a Berlin Family 1899–1945

Cover designer’s note

In attempting to come up with a concept for the…

Title Page

Introduction

This is how it started. It was Friday afternoon –…

Prologue

Winter entered the prison cell unprepared for the change that…

1899

‘A whole new century’

1900

A plot of land on the Obersalzberg

1906

‘The sort of thing they’re told at school’

1908

‘Conqueror of the air – hurrah!’

1910

The end of Valhalla

1914

War with Russia

1916

‘What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?’

1917

‘Not so loud, voices carry in the night’

1918

‘The war is won, isn’t it?’

1922

‘Berlin is so far away and I miss you so much’

1924

‘Who are those dreadful men?’

1925

‘You don’t have to be a mathematician’

1927

‘That’s all they ask in return’

1929

‘There is nothing safer than a zeppelin’

1930

A family Christmas

1932

‘Was that more shouting in the street?’

1933

‘We think something is definitely brewing over there’

1934

‘Gesundheit!’

1936

‘Rinse and spit out’

1937

‘You know what these old cops are like’

1938

‘Being innocent is no defence’

1939

‘Moscow?’ said Pauli

1940

The sound stage

1941

‘It was on the radio’

1942

‘I knew you’d wait’

1943

‘Happy and victorious’

1944

‘We’re all serious’

1945

‘It’s a labour of love’

This is how it started. It was Friday afternoon – exactly 2.20 pm – and the snow was falling. The flakes that hit the car’s windscreen were not the soft, watery sort that slide downwards and fade away like old soldiers. These were solid bullets of ice, perfectly formed and determined to stay put. These were German snowflakes. Our elderly Volvo was on the road heading west from Munich, with the cold waters of the Ammersee close at hand and my sons on the back seat politely starving to death. My wife was at the wheel. ‘The next place we see; we stop,’ I said. ‘It’s getting late. I don’t care if it’s just a currywurst van parked on the roadside.’

The ‘next place’ was the Gasthof Kramerhof. It was a typical Bavarian inn, with a large restaurant that attracted locals and a few well-kept rooms for travellers. It was sited well back from the road and had an extensive parking area, which is often a measure of an inn’s popularity. Now lunchtime had ended and there were no cars there. The loops of tyre tracks that marked their departure were now disappearing under the continuing snowfall. But in such a Gasthof all travellers are welcome and mealtime lasts all day. Soon we were relishing a Bavarian meal: kraftbrühe – clear soup – followed by pork cutlets in a sour cream sauce with spätzle on the same plate. Had I been better informed about German food I might have guessed that the owners were Schwabs, for these were the long square-sided ‘pasta’ that is a delight of Schwabian cooking.