For a moment the two men stared at each other, speechless with surprise, but it took Gregory only a fraction of that time to guess how it had come about that he found Grauber unpacking a suitcase in his room.
He had been so preoccupied over lunch with the thought of his coming interview with Voroshilov that at the time he had hardly taken in something Major Woltat had said to him. It had been to the effect that he had received a wireless message from Berlin that a number of other officers were on their way by plane to join the German Military Mission; mainly engineers who were coming out to examine the undamaged forts in the Mannerheim Line when the Finns surrendered and the Russians took them over. The Major had gone on to say that as accommodation was limited he would have to put one of the new arrivals in Gregory’s room. Evidently Grauber had come in on the plane that afternoon and an evil fate had decreed that he should be chosen as Gregory’s stable companion.
It took Gregory barely a second to realise what had happened and in another he had answered his own question as to why Grauber should have accompanied a group of engineer officers to the Russian front. As the Chief of the Gestapo Foreign Department U.A.-1 that bird of ill-omen appeared almost automatically at each point outside Germany to which the main interest of the war shifted. The surrender of the Finns appeared imminent, so what was more natural than that the Gestapo Chief should pay a flying visit to the Soviet General Headquarters, where the military side of the negotiations would be conducted?
The instant Grauber swung round from unpacking his suitcase he recognised Gregory. The black patch still hid his left eye-socket but his good eye flashed amazement—then deadly hatred. His gun was lying on a camp table just out of reach and he did not make the mistake of trying to grab it. As Gregory thrust his hand into his furs to draw his pistol the sixteen-stone Gestapo Chief hurled himself at him. The weight and suddenness of the attack carried Gregory right off his feet. They went down together with a frightful crash, Gregory underneath. With a speed which would have done credit to an all-in wrestler Grauber got his hands on the Englishman’s throat. Next moment Gregory was fighting for his life.
Wriggling like an eel he twisted himself partly from under the German and bringing up his knee thrust it into his adversary’s groin. Grauber let out a harsh grunt and for a second his hold on Gregory’s throat slackened. Their faces were within a few inches of each other. As the grip on Gregory’s throat relaxed he jerked his head forward and buried his teeth in Grauber’s chin.
For two minutes the Gestapo man bore the intense agony, his blood streaming over Gregory’s face while they fought with silent ferocity, then Grauber could bear the pain no longer. Withdrawing his right hand he clenched it and lifted it for a sideways blow that would smash Gregory’s face away from his own. As the blow came Gregory let go his bulldog grip and flung his head aside so that the German’s fist lost most of its force and only hit him a glancing blow on the left ear. But, twist as he would, he could not get out from under the heavy body.
Having freed his chin Grauber jerked himself up and holding Gregory down with his left hand bashed at his face with his right. Gregory dodged two of the blows but the third caught him full in the left eye. The pain was excruciating and for a moment he thought that he was blinded. Gathering all his force he kneed Grauber in the groin again. The German gave another awful grunt and tried to retaliate, but as his body shifted Gregory crossed his legs and stiffened the muscles of his stomach. At the same instant he brought up his right fist with a short-arm hook to the side of Grauber’s chin. Grauber’s face, as he straddled Gregory, was almost out of reach so the blow was not a heavy one; but it was just sufficient to tip him off his balance and, straining every muscle, Gregory forced him over on to his side.
Grauber kicked out and his heavy boot landed on Gregory’s shin, but thrusting the German away from him he managed to wriggle to his knees. Rolling right over, Grauber jumped to his feet with the agility of a huge cat; but Gregory was as quick. Flinging himself at the Gestapo Chief’s knees he embraced his legs and pitched him right over his left shoulder to crash, face-foremost, spread-eagled on the floor.
The fall gave Gregory just time to stagger to his feet. He was puffing like a grampus, sweat and blood were streaming down his face, his heart was pounding as though it would burst through his ribs, but he dared not let up for a second. It was no time for Queensberry rules but a matter of life and death, and much more than his own life depended upon his getting out of that room a free man. As Grauber rolled over and came up on his knees again Gregory hit him full in the face.
He swayed there for an instant, rocking on his knees, yet such were his enormous powers of resistance that in spite of the blow he jerked up to his feet and came charging at Gregory like a thunderbolt.
Gregory managed to keep his balance but was forced back against the wall. He landed a right on his enemy’s ear just as Grauber drew back his right and swung a terrific punch on his opponent’s body. The blow left Gregory gasping and he sagged a little. Half-blinded and sick with pain he lurched sideways; but his right hand brushed the top of the small table and its fingers encountered Grauber’s automatic. There was no time to grasp it properly, as Grauber had drawn back and was coming at him again with a hail of blows. Raising his left arm to protect his face Gregory dodged aside and lifting the clubbed automatic struck Grauber with all his remaining force upon the temple. The German collapsed like a pole-axed ox and lay, a limp, still, huddled lump, on the floor.
It was three minutes before Gregory could get back his breath or concentrate his thoughts. Once he could do so he listened for any sound in the passage or the adjoining rooms. It seemed certain that someone must have heard the racket caused by that frightful struggle and come to find out what it was all about; but in spite of its intensity it had occupied only a few moments and at this hour all the other occupants of the line of huts would be gathered in the Mess for their usual afternoon Kafe-trinken. As Gregory realised that he breathed a little more easily, locked the door and set about examining Grauber.
Blood was trickling from the German’s temple as well as from his chin, but he was not dead, For a moment Gregory toyed with the idea of killing him. He was a murderer many times over and—worse—a blackmailer and a torturer, who had climbed to high office in the Nazi State upon the blood, the misery and the tears of innumerable victims. With Hitler, Himmler, Heidrich, Streicher and all their crew, he deserved a more agonising end than the human brain has power to devise; yet, while Gregory would have emptied the contents of an automatic into Grauber’s stomach with the greatest possible pleasure if he had been conscious, he could not bring himself to crack the man’s skull with one more blow from the pistol now that he lay there helpless.
A great thermos containing two quarts of hot water was kept filled in each hut by the soldier-servants for their officers to wash with when they came off duty. Gregory emptied his into the canvas basin and, having cleansed his face and hands of blood, began to bathe his eye; it was horribly inflamed but had not yet started to colour up. He felt extremely shaky but, using all the speed he could command, he collected everything of Grauber’s that he thought might be of use to him and rammed the articles into the suitcase. Next he lashed Grauber hand and foot, lifted him on to his camp bed and drew the blankets over him; so that if anybody looked in they would think that, tired after his journey, he had turned in at once and was sound asleep. With luck he would not be discovered until the soldier-servant came to rouse them the following morning.
Gregory had just started to tidy the hut and remove all traces of the struggle when he caught the sound of footsteps. Next moment there came a sharp knock on the door.
For a second his heart stood still but he controlled his breathing and asked in a steady voice: “Who is it?”
“Von Geisenheim,” the reply came back. “You said you would be only a quarter of an hour and over half an hour has gone already.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ll be with you now in one moment,” Gregory called out. He felt certain that although von Geisenheim might be secretly anti-Nazi he would never dare to condone a murderous attack upon a Gestapo Chief who had been attached to his Mission. Swiftly righting the remaining things he snatched up the suitcase and opening the door slipped through it before the General had time to get a glimpse of more than a section of the room.
There was a bright, unshaded light in the passage; by it von Geisenheim immediately noticed Gregory’s chalk-white face and damaged eye. Before he had time to speak Gregory said:
“I’ve just had a nasty accident. While I was packing I tripped over my suitcase and fell against the corner of the table. I was darned lucky not to lose the sight of my left eye and it hurts abominably. That’s what delayed me.”
“Hum! It looks as though you’ve caught it an awful smack,” von Geisenheim agreed sympathetically as they stepped out of the hut into the darkness together, but he made no other comment.
Five minutes later they were outside Voroshilov’s office. A powerful car was waiting in the roadway with a military chauffeur at its wheel, and beside it stood the Staff-Major. In the half-light which came from the headlamps of the car he did not notice the state of Gregory’s face as he said that he had made arrangements for a racing sleigh to be in readiness on the southwestern shore of the Lake and wished him good luck.
Gregory murmured his thanks, shook hands with him and von Geisenheim, saw from a glance at his watch that it was a quarter-past five, and got into the car. The chauffeur spoke German but had already been given his instructions. Next moment they were off.
Directly they left the cover of the wood it was much easier to see their surroundings. No moon could be hoped for later that night, as it was the dark quarter, but for several days past it had been what had become known as “Molotov weather”; clear, almost cloudless, blue skies from which the Soviet planes were easily able to pick up their objectives without having to come right down low as an easy target for the Finnish antiaircraft gunners. The nights had been equally fine, with a million stars gleaming in a frosty sky, and now that the early darkness had fallen again they were just beginning to twinkle.
Gregory’s head was splitting and his body was one mass of aching bruises, but as they turned on to the main road towards Nykyrka he rallied himself to ask the chauffeur what he thought he could get out of the car. The man gave a figure in versts, which Gregory calculated as about eighty miles an hour; but the chauffeur went on to add that he meant ‘given a clear stretch of good road’, and they would be lucky if they could average a quarter of that speed at night through cross-country lanes only a few miles from the firing-line where masses of troops were in constant motion. Gregory knew the journey across the Isthmus to be nearly sixty miles. If the chauffeur was right it would take them at least two and a half hours whereas he had hoped to do it in under two; but they were soon out of the snow-mounds which were all that was left of the Finnish town and making good going along a road that led almost due east.
Their route lay practically parallel to the battle-front as although the Soviet Armies had forced the south-western end of the Mannerheim Line and made an advance of nearly seventy miles there they had made hardly any impression upon its northeastern end at all, and the Finns still held Taipale, which lies on Lake Ladoga. That was the nearest point from which to cross the Lake, but to remain within the Soviet lines they would have to keep a little to the south of it.
Fortunately the chauffeur had been driving officers of the Soviet General Staff all over the Isthmus for several weeks past so he knew every road and village on it well. He handled his car admirably, seizing every advantage to accelerate and press ahead whenever there was a free stretch of road or he could slip round a slowly-moving vehicle. This part of Finland had been very highly populated so the roads were good, and after each fall of snow the Russians were clearing them by mechanised snow-sweepers to enable their troops and transport to move about more freely, but the car had constantly to slow down when parties of marching men or guns and tanks showed up in the headlights.
For the first hour of the journey Gregory sat almost comatose while he slowly recovered from his fight for life with Grauber; then, after the terrible strain of inaction and anxiety for so many days, all he could think of were the precious papers in his pocket and the fact that he was at last on the move again. He had become so accustomed to the constant thunder of the guns that he hardly noticed it any longer except when the road passed near one of the concealed Russian batteries which loosed off with an ear-splitting crack, without any warning. Although the Soviet offensive had eased during the last two days and they had not been hurling thousands upon thousands more of their infantry into fresh attacks the artillery bombardment seemed very nearly as devastating as before; the Soviet guns were still battering the Finnish forts night and day without respite.
Rousing himself again he asked the chauffeur: “What is the Russian for ‘It is by order of the Marshal and my business is most urgent’?”
“Prikaz Marshala ie srotchnya prikaz” said the man, and Gregory repeated the phrase over and over again until he had mastered and memorised it perfectly.
Swerving, darting—down to a crawl—swerving and darting again, the car nosed its way eastward through farmlands and half-glimpsed ruined villages, gradually drawing a little nearer to the firing-line until, just before seven o’clock, the chauffeur turned off a main road and up a side-track into a coppice that concealed a block of huts which were similar to those they had left at General Headquarters but not so numerous. The car drew up before one of the huts and the chauffeur sounded his horn loudly; the hut door opened and an officer came out who asked in German if it was the Colonel-Baron von Lutz.
As Gregory acknowledged his false identity he took a new grip on himself and prepared for trouble. This was evidently the Divisional Headquarters which was to provide him with a sleigh and horses. If the trussed and battered Grauber had been discovered by a soldier-servant or one of his own people while the car was crossing the Isthmus there would be hell to pay. G.H.Q. would have phoned through ordering the arrest of the Colonel-Baron pending explanations. Even if he could lie his way out of the new tangle vital time would be lost; not moments but hours, or days perhaps, while he was sent back under guard to face his accusers; and Erika’s life hung on the ticking of the clock. If he was arrested now the game was up.
“They telephoned us from G.H.Q.,” the officer began, but as he went on Gregory allowed himself to breathe again. “In the last two hours I’ve made all the arrangements and everything possible has been done to assure you a safe crossing of the Lake. It’s four miles to the foreshore. The horses are waiting so we will go to them in your car.” Getting in, he gave the chauffeur directions and turned again to Gregory. “This is a most unusual journey you are making, Herr Oberst-Baron.”
“It is a matter of great urgency,” Gregory replied.
“So I understand. But it’s a most hazardous undertaking to attempt to cross the Lake in such a manner; particularly as there is no proper front upon it and our men are constantly engaging Finnish patrols out there which sometimes slip through behind them in the darkness.”
Gregory shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s a risk that must be taken.”
They ran along a twisting road through the trees until it sloped down to a little village which had been almost pounded to pieces. As the car drew up in an open space among the ruins Gregory could see that they were on the edge of a small, frozen harbour which in peace-time had sheltered the fishing-boats of the villagers. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 7.20. They had crossed the Isthmus in two hours, five minutes, averaging about twenty-eight miles an hour, which was a magnificent effort considering that for nearly the whole way they had had to pass along troop-congested by-roads.
Having thanked the chauffeur for his excellent driving Gregory picked up his suitcase, left the car and went down a few ice-covered steps to the frozen harbour. A group which consisted of a light troika, eight horses and two bearded, fur-muffled soldiers was waiting there.
“It’s seventy-two miles from shore to shore,” said the officer, “and, as you probably know, it’s unusual to drive for more than thirty miles without a change of team. Unfortunately there’s nowhere in the middle of the Lake where you can pick up relays, so I’m sending a spare team which will be led with a spare saddle-horse. That will enable you to change teams every hour or so. The horses are all young and fresh, the best that could be picked for such a journey, but I’m afraid you may have to kill some of them if you are to get through. The strain upon them will be frightful.”
“I know.” Gregory nodded. “It’s a pretty desperate venture, but it’s got to be done, and I’m more than grateful to you for giving me your best horses for such a ghastly trip.”
“The two men have been picked because they both speak German and are well fitted to act as your guides,” the officer went on. “They will accompany you right through in order to act as your interpreters with the officials in any villages where you have to get relays on the opposite mainland. This”—he pointed to the taller man who was standing in the sleigh—“is Sergeant Boroski; the other, who is holding the spare team, is Corporal Orloff.”
Gregory said a cheery word to the two soldiers, put his suitcase in the sleigh and getting in himself said good-bye to the officer, who had been no more than a shadowy form and a voice in the semi-darkness. Sergeant Boroski cracked his whip and the horses went forward at a canter out of the little harbour.
With a sigh of relief Gregory snuggled down into the sleigh, pulling the thick fur rugs right up to his chin. One great danger was safely past. Grauber’s men might get the Russians to telephone till all was blue but they could not stop him now. Communications ended on the south-western shore of the Lake; the very thing which had previously prevented him from getting an order for Erika’s release to Kandalaksha was now his protection. They could send a courier after him but they could not catch him, and even a few hours’ lead would be enough. If he could reach Kandalaksha before the Gestapo men he could free Erika and leave with her immediately. Now that he had Voroshilov’s carte blanche order in his pocket for everyone to facilitate the journey of his party he backed himself to get clear before the pursuit with counter-orders could possibly arrive.
Yet he knew that he was still terrifyingly far from succeeding in his bid to rescue Erika and was only now entering upon the most dangerous and difficult stage of his journey. While by no means an impossibility, seventy-two miles is a terrific distance for horses to cover without at least one interval for prolonged rest and recuperation; yet in that bitter cold there could be no question of halting for any length of time, as there was no shelter for the teams and if they were given more than a breather at stated intervals the cold might affect them too severely for them to proceed further. He remembered, too, what he had been told about Finnish patrols often penetrating between the Russian outposts on the Lake. For the first six or eight miles, at least, there was the added risk of being shot or captured, and he could not possibly afford the time to make a wide detour which would have carried him outside the limits of this very definite danger.
Recovered now from his hellish scrap with Grauber, except for dull aches which he knew would not leave him for many hours, he began to calculate times while the sleigh ran smoothly forward, drawn at a fine pace by the fresh, well-fed horses. The distance from Leningrad to Petrozavodsk along the great bend in the railway was just over three hundred miles, and Gregory knew from his own experience that on that line the Russian trains averaged only eighteen miles an hour, so the journey would take the Gestapo agents seventeen hours. If they had not left Leningrad until that evening—say, at eight o’clock—they would not get into Petrozavodsk before one o’clock the following afternoon; in which case, if he succeeded in crossing the Lake and managed to maintain a reasonable speed in doing so, he should arrive well before them.
On the other hand they might have left Leningrad much earlier. It was possible that they had departed as early as two o’clock in the afternoon. If so, they would get into Petrozavodsk at about seven o’clock in the morning.
Gregory asked Boroski what speed he thought they could make over the ice and the Sergeant replied: “Twelve miles an hour in normal conditions; I might do even better with such fine horses, but if we encounter broken ice we may be badly held up. As we have such a great distance to cover I must husband the strength of the horses or we might never get there at all, so we cannot hope to do more than nine or ten miles an hour at the most.”
The man spoke of versts but Gregory translated the Russian measure into English distances as he listened and began another series of calculations. Nine miles an hour would bring them to Rabaly in eight hours—about half-past two in the morning. They would then have to make arrangements for fresh horses and cover another seventy miles to Petrozavodsk. The going would be better along the road—say fifteen miles an hour with halts—which meant another five hours. It seemed doubtful if they would arrive at Petrozavodsk before eight-thirty at the earliest. He could only pray that the Gestapo men had not left Leningrad until the evening.
Behind them the guns still thundered and, looking over his left shoulder, to the west, Gregory could see a constant flickering in the night sky as shells and Verey lights burst upon the Finnish defences at Taipale, although the rising shore of the lake and the pinewoods which fringed it hid the actual explosions from him. To his front and right the darkness was unbroken, but the snow and stars enabled them to penetrate it for some distance. Orloff had gone ahead with the spare horses to act as an advance guard and give warning if he sighted any detachments of troops out on the ice of the Lake; but Gregory and Boroski also kept their eyes strained to the north-west, as in this first part of the journey there was a constant danger that a white-coated Finnish ski-patrol might suddenly emerge out of the shadows. Twice they caught the flash of rifles out there to the left and heard sharp reports; once a single wailing cry of a man in his death agony echoed over the snow-field.
While keeping alert Gregory began to think about Grauber and wonder if he would die from his injuries in the night. He hoped so, and cursed himself for his weakness in not having killed him when he had the chance. If Grauber survived he would be found, at the latest, when the soldier-servants came to call their officers at seven o’clock in the morning and he would have a fine story to tell von Geisenheim and the Russians. The General already knew that Gregory was an impostor but he could not possibly admit it and would have to press the Russians for the speedy capture of the false Colonel-Baron. That would make things damnably tricky once the hunt was up. But Gregory thought he knew how to cheat them. He would not come south again; that would be running into trouble. He would maintain his lead of it by heading north. Murmansk was only a hundred and seventy miles north of Kandalaksha and from there, with Voroshilov’s order, they could get a ship along the coast to Norway. They would be out of Russia before the news that they were wanted reached the Arctic port. If only he arrived in time to save Erika, if only he arrived in time.…
Suddenly a challenge rang out right in front of them. Boroski swerved the sleigh to the right with the intention of making off at a gallop towards the east. Gregory snatched up the sub-machine-gun that was part of the sleigh’s equipment; but Orloff answered the challenge as he was nearer the point from which it had come and had heard it clearly enough to recognise that the men ahead of them were Russians. Having shouted a pass-word he called to the others that it was all right and Boroski turned the sleigh back towards the north again. A moment later they passed a group of a dozen silent, ghost-like figures on skis, who waved to them before being swallowed up in the darkness.
At the end of the first hour they halted to rest the horses and swap teams. The men changed over duties, too, Sergeant Boroski mounting the spare riding horse to lead his team and Orloff’s mount, while the Corporal got into the sleigh as driver. They felt considerably easier now, as it was hardly likely that any Finnish patrols would be so far out on the ice, and Gregory decided to try to get some sleep. His eye was hurting him abominably and his shin ached acutely where Grauber had landed a heavy kick on it; but the mutter of the guns had sunk away to a dull rumble in the distance, which only served to make him drowsy, so after a little time he managed to get off.
When he awoke it was just after ten o’clock and he asked at once how they were going. Boroski was driving again and he replied: “Quite well. We are nearly half-way across the Lake now.”
Gregory was surprised and elated. If that were so, as they had been going for about two and three-quarter hours they must be averaging thirteen miles an hour, which was much better than anything he had hoped for; but his jubilance was abruptly checked as Boroski went on.
“There is trouble ahead now, though. It must have been that bad bump that woke you up.”
“What was it?” Gregory inquired.
“Broken ice. A ship, or perhaps an ice-breaker, must have ploughed her way through here just as the ice was forming and churned it all up so that it is hilly and uneven.” As he spoke Boroski brought the horses to a walk and strained his eyes into the semi-darkness to catch the signals of Orloff who was riding ahead and picking out the best route for them to follow between the hummocks. For half an hour, while Gregory sat there fretting, impatient and freezing, it was impossible for them to move faster than a walking pace; but at last they got on to smooth ice again and with renewed energy after their change of gait the horses were able to go forward at a trot once more.
They were now over thirty miles from either shore and even the booming of the great guns could no longer be heard. The only sound which broke the stillness was the gentle clopping of the horses’ hoofs and the swish of the snow as the sleigh cut into it. The stars overhead were brilliant and enabled the drivers to find their way in this forlorn, white wilderness without reference to the compass which Boroski was carrying.
An hour later they struck another patch of broken ice which delayed them further; by the time they got through it midnight had come and they still had another twenty miles to go. The horses were flagging now as, apart from the distance they had covered, the strain of pulling the sleigh up and down over the big hummocks on this second patch of bad ice seemed to have taken a lot out of them. The drivers were changing teams at shorter intervals and at each halt they were giving the horses a handful of grain soaked in vodka.
By one o’clock, when they pulled up again, the horses stood with splayed legs and their heads were hanging dejectedly down in front of them, breathing heavily. The lead team seemed in little better condition than the one which had just been unharnessed from the sleigh.
“They’re in a bad way,” Boroski commented, “and, poor beasts, they will be in a worse state before we reach Rabaly; but it cannot be helped, as there are many miles to go yet and we cannot afford the time to walk them.”
When Orloff took over he drove the horses at a steady trot, for the first time using his whip to keep them up to their work. Gregory noticed that he did not halt at the half-hour as usual, so some minutes later he asked: “What about giving them another breather?”
Orloff shook his head. “If I do, they will lie down and we may have difficulty in getting them on their legs again. It is better that we should drive them as far as they will go now and, if necessary, walk the rest of the distance.”
Gregory’s heart sank. If they had to abandon the sleigh and walk in the snow it might be hours yet before he reached the far shore of the Lake. His only consolation was that the night continued fine and that there were no signs of approaching snow; as a heavy fall during the next hour or so would trap them on the Lake and they might die there. He could now hear the sound of gunfire once more and for some time there had been a flicker in the sky, to the north-west, where the Russians were pounding the Finnish lines before Sortavala.
At ten minutes to two the near-side horse of the troika stumbled and fell, bringing the sleigh to an abrupt standstill. The other two stood by it moaning for breath, their heads hanging down within a foot of the snow. Orloff got out and unharnessed the dead horse, then he freed the other two while Boroski brought up the team he had been leading and harnessed them.
For another twenty minutes they drove on, then a second horse fell dead in its tracks; the other two lay down beside it. The Russians replaced the dead horse with the fittest from Orloff’s team and, using their whips ruthlessly now, got the others on to their legs. At a slow amble the sleigh slid over the snow again.
Ten minutes later a third horse died, upon which both its companions and the led horses lay down directly they were halted. It was a nightmare business getting them up again and Gregory, numbed by the cold as he was, in spite of frequent pulls at his flask of vodka, had to leave the sleigh and give his assistance. Both men and beasts were nearly exhausted from the terrific strain which they had undergone, but somehow the job was done and, driven by the whips, the horses went forward once more.
It was with inexpressible relief that a few moments after the last halt, on Orloff’s giving a loud shout, they saw a long, low patch of deeper darkness ahead of them and knew that they were in sight of the north shore of the lake. The horses, too, knew it, and made a last effort. But the course of the sleigh across the ice had only been plotted roughly, so they still had to find the little town of Rabaly.
Here luck was with them. They were still scanning the dark, desolate foreshore for lights when a challenge rang out. By great good fortune they had run into another Russian patrol which was able to direct them. The town was only a mile away; just round a small headland to their left front. Another horse was lost before they reached it and they had to put the spare saddle-horse in to make up the team; but when Gregory stepped ashore in the small harbour he was smiling for the first time that night as he saw from his watch that it was only 2.30. They had made the crossing of the lake in seven hours and ten minutes.
Three soldiers from the patrol had accompanied them on the last lap of their journey, running beside the sleigh, and they roused some of their comrades who were quartered in the houses along the harbour. These took over the remaining horses and the sleigh while with an N.C.O. as guide Gregory, Boroski and Orloff proceeded on foot up the main street of the town to a building which housed the local military headquarters.
It was here, while they were waiting for an officer to be fetched, that Gregory had his first chance to see his two guides properly. The tall Sergeant Boroski was a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed Baltic type, while the shorter Corporal Orloff had a red beard, freckled face and snub nose. They had evidently been specially picked from the Divisional Staff, as they were much above the average Soviet soldier that Gregory had seen during his time in Russia, both for liveliness and smart appearance.
When an officer who was on night duty joined them Boroski acted as interpreter and Gregory produced his chit from Voroshilov with the Russian phrase that he had learnt: “It is by order of the Marshal and my business is most urgent.”
On the officer’s learning that they had just crossed the Lake he expressed great astonishment but agreed at once to provide them with a sleigh and order relays of horses to be ready at every point to get them to Petrozavodsk as quickly as possible. Dispatching two orderlies from the room he sat down to a telephone.
After a few minutes one of the orderlies returned carrying a tray with steaming cups of tea and some hunks of bread and sausage for the half-frozen travellers. They had hardly finished their meal when the second orderly reappeared to say that the sleigh was ready. The officer told Gregory, through Boroski, that he had arranged for a relay at the first village along the road and that directly they had gone he would telephone through to further points with instructions that they were to be given the fastest horses available. Then he took them outside and saw them off.
The magic name of Voroshilov had performed, wonders. Instead of the usual Russian delays they had spent barely twenty minutes in Rabaly. Orloff took the reins of the new sleigh while Boroski sat beside Gregory. The hot tea had not thoroughly warmed them through but they were in much better spirits now that they had fast horses again and the really dangerous part of the journey was over.
The road was long and straight, mainly through forest country, but as that part of Russia was much more thickly populated than the far north they passed through villages every few miles. At nearly every village a fresh relay of horses was waiting for them as the whole area was under military control and plenty of horses were available. Whenever possible, while the horses were being changed, they had further hot drinks in Russian troop canteens to warm them as the cold was bitter, and if it had not been for their thick furs they would have got frost-bite through sitting still for so long in the sleigh. On and on they drove through the long night, the miles falling away behind, yet new vistas of tree-lined road ever opening before them; but now that they constantly had fresh relays that they could count on they did not spare the horses and were making far better going than they had done across the Lake.
The stars were paling in the sky when they came out of the forest to see buildings ahead of them and, from their inquiries at the last halt, knew that they had reached Petrozavodsk. As the sleigh drove up before the railway-station Gregory saw from his watch that it was 7.10; they had done the seventy odd miles from Rabaly in four hours and twenty minutes, averaging sixteen miles an hour, and he had accomplished the whole, almost incredible journey from G.H.Q. of nearly two hundred miles in just under fourteen hours.
Since it was only just after seven in the morning Gregory’s hopes were high. Even if the Gestapo men had left Leningrad early the previous afternoon they could hardly have reached Petrozavodsk before him. There was a military guard at the station and having handed over the horses and sleigh Boroski and Orloff accompanied him into the building. Thrusting their way into the station-master’s office they inquired at once about the next train to Kandalaksha.
The sleepy official, who had been on duty all night, shrugged in the true Russian manner. “There should be another at about nine o’clock, or perhaps ten.”
“Is there no hope of one arriving before nine?’ Gregory said, through Boroski. “We are in a great hurry.”
“Then you should have got here earlier,” the man grunted, “and you would have caught the one which left here ten minutes ago.”
When Gregory heard that they had just missed a train he swore profusely; then, producing Voroshilov’s order, he demanded to know at what time the train had left Leningrad.
The official suddenly came to life and said that he would do his best to find out. It took him a quarter of an hour to get through on the telephone to Leningrad and while he was speaking Gregory asked that he should also ascertain at what hour the one before the train they had just missed had left.
Boroski interpreted after the man had hung up the receiver. The train they had missed had left Leningrad at 3.45 the previous afternoon, and the one before that at 1.40.
Gregory bit his lip. Although he thought it unlikely that the Gestapo men had caught a train as early as 1.40, there was just a chance that they had. If so, they were two trains ahead of him, and both trains had made a much better speed than he had assumed likely; probably because the permanent way was in better condition at this end of the line than further north; a point that he had left out of his calculation. It was quite definitely on the cards that the Nazis were on the train that had just gone through. If they were, and he had to wait for the next, they would have between two and three hours’ start, which he would never be able to make up. Given that much time in Kandalaksha they might execute Erika before he could get there. Somehow or other he had to get on the train he had just missed.
Turning to Boroski he tapped the Marshal’s order and said: “Tell the station-master that he is to hold the train at the next station; we will go on by sleigh and catch it there.”
Boroski translated. At first the official demurred but Gregory rapped out his solitary phrase of Russian: “Prikaz Marshala ie srotchnya prikaz”
The station-master shrugged and got through on the telephone to a place called Baylik, which, it transpired, was about ten miles further north. After an excited conversation arrangements were made for the train to be held there until the Supreme Commander’s emissary could join it. Gregory and his two henchmen then hurried outside to reclaim their sleigh and demand another relay of horses, as the ones which had brought them in had just been watered and fed.
A quarter of an hour later they were on the road again. Their conversation with the station-master and military had occupied the best part of three-quarters of an hour but they reached the village of Baylik at 8.25, and found that the train had been waiting for them for only just under an hour; which, as Gregory pointed out to his companions, was nothing abnormal for any train on that railway.
The train was packed, mostly with troops, but as Gregory’s warrant conferred almost limitless powers upon him he determined to see to it that his two men had good accommodation. Both of them had alternatively ridden or driven during the seven hours’ crossing of the lake, and for a further five hours they had taken turns in driving the eighty miles from Rabaly to Baylik; so, tough, hefty fellows as they were, they were both nearly asleep on their feet. Having tackled an officer he had a carriage cleared of troops and made Boroski and Orloff lie down at full length on the two seats so that they could sleep in such little comfort as it was possible to secure for them.
He was in slightly better trim as, although it was nearly twenty-six hours since he had got out of bed at General Headquarters the previous morning, he had lent a hand with the horses only during the last stages of the terrible journey across the Lake and, not having had to drive at all, he had been able to doze for a good part of the time. Moreover, he yet had work to do. It was essential to his peace of mind that he should ascertain as soon as possible whether the two Gestapo men were on the train, and directly it moved out of the station he set about the job.
The wintry daylight now disclosed the snow-covered landscape. To the left of the track the forest stretched almost unbroken with only a clearing round a village here and there; but to the right there were sometimes gaps between the trees several miles in length as the railway ran alongside the creeks on the west of Lake Onega which stretched, a vast expanse of frozen snow, as far as the eye could see. Slowly but methodically Gregory pushed and bumped his way along the crowded corridor of the train, peering at the sleepy, dirty faces of the occupants of each carriage. The Gestapo men would almost certainly be wearing furs in such a climate but he felt sure that he would have no difficulty in recognising them both from their appearance and their luggage; yet none of the few civilians that he could see in the crowded compartments looked the least like Germans.
However, the train was not connected by corridors all the way along, so having examined one portion of it he had to wait until it had pulled up, get out, and reboard another portion of it to examine that. The business was a long and tiring one and took him the best part of four hours; but when the train pulled into the town of Perguba, at the head of Lake Onega, he had fully satisfied himself that the Gestapo agents were not on it.
Rousing his two companions he took them to the station buffet to give them a good meal and while they ate he considered the position. It now seemed probable that the Gestapo men had not started until the previous evening, in which case they were one or perhaps more trains behind him; but there was still just a chance that they might have caught the 1.40 from Leningrad. If they had, it would normally have given them a lead of two hours and five minutes over the train he was on, but he himself had held that up at Baylik for just under an hour, whereas in the ordinary way it would probably not have stopped at such a small place for more than twenty minutes. The train ahead, therefore, now had a lead of approximately two hours and forty minutes; five times as long as was necessary to arrange the formalities of the most ceremonious firing-squad. Somehow he had got to get on the train ahead and make dead certain that the Gestapo agents had not caught it.
When they had finished their meal he got Boroski and Orloff to take him to the station-master and, producing his famous order once again, he demanded that the train ahead should be held until the train in which they were travelling could catch up with it; but here, for the first time, he met with determined opposition.
To hold a train for an hour or so was one thing, said the man, but to hold it for three hours was quite another. In peacetime Perguba was a quiet little town where officials led a pleasant life and were not bothered with such mad requests, and a couple of trains a day were quite sufficient to satisfy everybody. But now that there was a war on things were very different; everyone had to work night and day; the traffic on the line was chaotic; military officers were always demanding impossibilities. To do as Gregory suggested would upset all the traffic and make bad infinitely worse.
“It is by the order of the Marshal and my business is most urgent,” Gregory snapped with a cold authority which he had often found extremely efficacious when forced to browbeat petty officials; but the man was obdurate. He pointed out that the order said that Gregory should be given every assistance to facilitate his journey, but not that trains should be held up for him unnecessarily; and that in this case it was not necessary to hold up the train ahead, because it would have to wait until Gregory could reach it and, therefore, would not get to Kandalaksha any quicker than the train he was on at the moment.
Seeing that it was useless to argue further Gregory began to insist that his train must put on more speed in order to get him to Kandalaksha as soon after the other train as possible. In consequence, the engine-driver was summoned.
He shrugged his shoulders a great deal and waved his hands, asking if they thought that his engine was an aeroplane. They knew quite well, he said, that it dated from pre-Revolution days and was held together only by bits of wire and his own brilliance as an engineer. Moreover, how could anyone get more than twenty-five miles an hour out of an engine when they had only wood fuel on which to stoke it?—and that was all that was procurable in this part of the country.
Gregory produced his order again and told the driver that whatever his difficulties might be he had got to catch up the other train because, if he did not, Marshal Voroshilov would have him shot as a saboteur and an enemy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The engine-driver’s mouth fell open in comical dismay and promising to do his best he hurried out to get his ramshackle engine going. Five minutes later they started off at a pace quite unprecedented and with such suddenness that a number of the passengers were left shouting indignantly on the platform.
It was now past one o’clock and Gregory was very nearly all-in. He had done everything conceivable to expedite his journey, so he lay down on one of the seats in his carriage while Boroski took the other and Orloff the floor, and they all went to sleep.
Although the two Russians had had four hours’ sleep apiece during the morning they slept like the troopers they were, and Gregory was so exhausted that he, too, slept heavily, so it was getting on for midnight when they were awakened by a particularly violent series of jolts. The train had come to a halt in another station, which they soon discovered to be Kem.
Directly they had roused up they went along to see the engine-driver to find out how much time he had managed to make up, and they caught him just going off duty. He protested that he had done his very best, but he had succeeded in making up only an hour. His relief arrived while they were still discussing the matter, so the new man was questioned as to whether he thought he could catch the train ahead before it arrived at Kandalaksha. He proved as pessimistic as his colleague but Gregory cut short his complaints about the engine and asked, through Boroski, for a definite answer as to whether or not they could catch up the other train.
The reply was, “No”. From Kem to Kandalaksha was under two hundred miles and the new driver said that it was quite impossible to make up the best part of two hours in that distance. Gregory then ordered the whole party to the station-master’s office and on the way told Boroski of a new décision he had taken. If the second train could not catch up the first, its engine could; so they were going to abandon the whole string of coaches and proceed on the engine with every ounce of speed that it could muster.
The station-master argued and protested. It would take at least two hours to get another engine out of the yard and ready to carry on the abandoned train; and where, at this time of night, could he be expected to find another driver? But Gregory flung discretion to the winds and sternly pronounced an ultimatum. Either they let him have the engine or he would go straight to the local G.P.U. and have both station-master and driver arrested pending the lime when he could see Marshal Voroshilov again and make it his personal business to have them both hanged, drawn and quartered. Under this dire threat, with many gesticulations and expostulations, they at last gave way and Gregory was at last allowed to have his engine.
Once it was going, with only a single coach behind it as ballast to keep it on the rails, their speed was more than doubled and on straight stretches of the line the driver managed to rev. it up to the incredible speed of fifty miles an hour. Gregory rode with Boroski and Orloff in the bunker to make certain that the driver did not slacken in his efforts, and as he sat there on the pile of logs he cursed himself for not having thought of this excellent expedient before; since if he had commandeered the engine to start off with, at Baylik, they would easily have overhauled the train ahead by now.
The glowing furnace of the engine gave them some heat, but the bunker was open to the icy wind so from time to time they took a hand in heaving wood to keep themselves warm, as the solitary engine roared on through the dark night, a cascade of sparks streaming from its funnel.
They had left Kem at half-past twelve and covered the next hundred miles in two and a half hours; so by three o’clock in the morning they were keeping a sharp look-out for the rear lights of the train they were pursuing, expecting to catch it up at any moment. Gregory was now satisfied that even if the Gestapo men were on the train ahead they could not reach Kandalaksha before him; but he was feverish with impatience to board it at its next halt so as to place the matter beyond all possible doubt.
They had been travelling south-west for the last twenty miles, as a creek running inland from the White Sea necessitated the line making a huge hairpin bend and they had just reached its extremity, where the track curved back towards the north, when the engine-driver shouted something to his stoker and grabbed the brake lever. Peering anxiously from the cab Gregory saw that a red light was being waved on the line ahead of them; with a scream of ill-oiled brakes the engine slowed down over the next quarter of a mile and came jerking to a halt within twenty yards of the light.
A man who was holding a red lamp approached and called out to them; upon which Boroski and Orloff, who had now entered into the excitement of the chase with as much enthusiasm as Gregory, exclaimed simultaneously:
“He says the bridge is down.”
Gregory used an Italian oath which in the imagination of man has never been exceeded for its blasphemy, and asked them to get details. After an excited conversation, in which Boroski, Orloff, the driver, the stoker and the man with the lamp all joined, his guides told him.
“It is the Finns. Before turning north-east again the railway crosses a bridge at this point, which spans a river running into the creek. The Finnish frontier is only sixty miles from here. This is the fourth time during the war that one of what the Finns call their ‘death companies’ has come through the forests unknown to us and blown up this bridge in the middle of the night. They creep up so quietly that the sentries cannot see them and they are always cutting the telephone and telegraph wires, because it is impossible for us to keep sentries posted every fifty yards along the line.”
“When did this happen?” Gregory asked.
“It has only just occurred. The man with the light is surprised that we did not hear the explosion, but the roar of the engine must have drowned it and we should not have seen the flash because of the curve in the line and the surrounding trees. The Finns are cunning fellows and they always try to blow the bridges up just as a train is passing over.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Gregory. “Do you mean that the train ahead of us has been wrecked and gone crashing headlong on to the ice of the river?”
“No. This time the Finns exploded their dynamite a few minutes too late and the train was almost across; only the two last coaches were wrecked. It was lucky, though, that this man happened to see the sparks flying from our engine; our train is not due here for another two hours yet. If he hadn’t pulled us up we should have gone through the broken bridge and all been killed.
The man with the lamp climbed on to the running-board of the engine and the driver turned over the lever. Puffing on slowly for a few hundred yards they rounded the curve and pulled up again. Ahead of them they could now see the silhouette of the bridge and moving lights beyond it where the people from the train were examining the wrecked rear coaches and rescuing their occupants.
Gregory was half-numb with cold and most terribly tired but his brain was still quick enough to realise that, for him, the wrecking of the train ahead was a blessing in disguise. He had only to cross the river to find out whether or not the Nazis were on the train. If they were not, he had got ahead of them by his dash across Lake Ladoga; if they were, it mattered no longer now that they could not possibly reach Kandalaksha before him; but the confirmation of either fact would be a blessed relief after the crushing anxiety that had tortured him for so many hours.
Leaving the engine they walked to the river-bank and scrambled down it on to the ice. Shouts and cries came from ahead and they could now see that it was the furthest of the three spans of the bridge which had been wrecked. The last two coaches of the train had snapped their couplings, run backwards down the collapsed span of the bridge and crashed through the ice, where they lay, half-submerged, one on top of the other.
As Gregory’s party mingled with the crowd of people from the train he learned that one of the coaches contained only military stores and that the other was the guard’s van in which eight or ten people had been travelling. An officer had taken charge of the proceedings and was directing some of the troops as they tried to rescue the poor, shouting wretches entrapped in the van; while the rest stood on the ice round the great hole which the two coaches and the broken bridgework had made in it.
A number of the men had torches or lanterns so there was quite enough light in which to see people’s features, and for ten minutes Gregory moved among them trying to ascertain if the Gestapo agents were anywhere in the crowd; but he could see no-one who looked even remotely like a German S.S. man. Yet there were two or three hundred people standing there in the uncertain light, so having sent Boroski off with his suitcase to secure seats for them in the train, which he assumed would start again when the injured and dead had been got out of the guard’s van, he continued his search.
Suddenly a cry of terror went up from a dozen men all round him. The ice upon which they were standing had begun to move. It tilted beneath him quite slowly but he instantly guessed what had happened; the falling coaches had cracked the heavy ice for some distance round the hole that they had made, and the weight of so many people as they all crowded together at the jagged edge of one huge slab that had broken free was causing it to turn over. With screams and shouts the terrified men strove to dash for safety but as the ice tilted more sharply they could not scramble up its slope and slid backwards from it into the water. Swept off his feet in the press, Gregory was carried in with them.
As he went under the cold was so intense that it seemed to pierce his heart like a knife. Striking out blindly he came to the surface; only to be clawed round the neck by a frantic soldier who could not swim. Gregory knew that he would be dead himself in another minute if he could not get out of that deadly, gripping cold which went through his furs as though they were paper and paralysed his muscles. In a fierce determination to live he thrust the man off and grabbed the edge of the ice which, being relieved of its weight, had now fallen back into place. Next moment a man who had managed to retain his balance hauled him to safety and as he crouched, shuddering where he lay, he suddenly realised that it was Orloff who had rescued him.
Half a dozen other men had also been saved but a number of their comrades had died instantly from the shock of the immersion while others, again, had come up under the ice and so were past all aid.
The cold was so intense that the drips from the victims of this new catastrophe were already freezing into icicles as they were hurried away up the far bank towards the train. By the time they got to the engine their clothes were frozen on them; but huddled by the furnace they thawed out and as soon as it was possible began to strip. In spite of the heat from the furnace the cold of the air seemed to burn them as parts of their bodies were exposed to it, but blankets were brought to wrap them in while their clothes were dried. The cab of the engine was only just large enough to hold them all but they huddled up there, with their teeth chattering and their limbs aching, until their clothes, which the driver was holding garment by garment to the engine fire, were dry enough to put on again.
It was an hour before Gregory was able to rejoin his companions. He still felt chilled to the bone and had a splitting headache; but he resisted their attempts to persuade him to lie down as he was determined to make certain whether or not the Gestapo men were on the train. Now that he had succeeded in catching the train it no longer mattered in the least, since he had Voroshilov’s order for Erika’s release in his pocket and General Kuporovitch would naturally accept that as a higher authority than any document the Gestapo men might produce from the Foreign Office, but to find out if the Nazis had caught the 1.40 from Leningrad on the previous day had now become an obsession with him.
When they had arrived at the bridgehead it had been three o’clock in the morning. It was half-past five before a move was made for the train to proceed again. As the people climbed on board Gregory went from carriage to carriage and he was still at it long after the train was in motion. It was after seven before he had fully convinced himself that the S.S. men were not on this train either. Half-dazed with fatigue, but completely satisfied, he made his way back to Boroski and Orloff and sank down to sleep in the seat they had kept for him for the rest of the way to Kandalaksha.
It was after ten o’clock when they roused him to tell him that they had at last reached their journey’s end. When he awoke he felt positively ghastly and knew that he was running a high temperature. He could hardly think for himself any more, except to realise in a dazed way that he had done the job which he had set out to do. He had beaten the Gestapo men and got to Kandalaksha before them. Boroski and Orloff, seeing his state, took charge of him, secured a drosky outside the station and drove with him to the castle.
They were kept only for a few moments in the gloomy vaulted waiting-room that Gregory well remembered; then they were led upstairs to the great chamber with the incongruous furnishings, where Kuporovitch, his dark, slanting eyebrows contrasting so strangely with his grey hair, was seated behind his pinewood desk.
“So you’ve come back?” the General said, standing up. “But you look in a pretty mess. Whatever have you been doing to yourself?”
Gregory was in an appalling condition. Beads of sweat from a raging fever were standing out on his forehead; the black smuts from the wood fuel of the trains had smeared and run all over his face as a result of his plunge into the river. His left eye was entirely closed and the flesh all round it was a bright purple. His teeth were chattering and he could hardly stand, so that Boroski and Orloff were supporting him by the arms on either side; but he managed to stammer out:
“I’ve beaten them! I’ve beaten the Gestapo—I’ve got the order for release, signed by Voroshilov, in my pocket. Send—send for the Countess von Osterberg.”
For a second the General’s face went quite blank, then he said slowly: “You are too late. The Countess was taken away by two Gestapo men—in a plane—yesterday.”