Faked Passports

by Dennis Wheatley

  The official bowed. “I am mos’ sorry, Madame; but ’ow can we let private matters interfere with the necessities of our country?”

  “But this isn’t a private matter,” Freddie put in rashly. “I’m a Royal Air Force pilot and this is a British plane. If you’re not darned careful you’ll have a diplomatic incident on your hands, and you’d be penny wise and pound foolish to start even a minor quarrel with the British Government at this juncture.”

  The Finn who was dressed in pilot’s kit spoke in halting English. “We should have great regret, sir, to offend your Government in any way but this is an urgency. Our so few military planes are all needed; our civil planes are took also for many purposes. I introduce myself. Staff-Captain Helijarvi. I have urgent orders that I must take with no delays to our forces at Petsamo. Please be reasonable. You see how great is our necessity.”

  In the face of such an appeal they all felt how impossible it was to place what the Finns, not knowing that two of them were wanted for murder, could only regard as their temporary safety before such a vital matter as conveying Marshal Mannerheim’s orders to his troops in the far north.

  For a moment they all stood there in silence, then Gregory asked: “Do you intend to bring the plane back here and, if so, will it be free then, or will you require it for further service?”

  “I shall make return in it,” replied Captain Helijarvi, “immediately I ’ave deliver my dispatches, but after—who can say? I fear that all aeroplane in Finland will be required for the duties until more aeroplane come to our ’elp from neutral countries.”

  It had occurred to Gregory that if there was a chance of their regaining possession of the plane they might have found their way back to Loumkoski’s and lain doggo there for twenty-four hours until the plane was back and they could get away in it; but evidently this was the most slender thread upon which to pin their hopes. Clearly, too, even if they could persuade the Staff-Captain to take them with him to Petsamo, as he meant to return at once he would not release the plane there so that they could fly on with it into neutral Norway. But another possibility suddenly occurred to Gregory, and he turned to Charlton.

  “Look here, Freddie, Petsamo, as you probably know, is an ice-free port in the Arctic. If we could get there we might have to wait a week or so but we should almost certainly be able to secure a passage in a British or neutral ship and go home that way. How about it?”

  “That would suit Angela and myself,” Freddie nodded; “but how about Erika?”

  Erika shrugged. “Almost any ship sailing from Petsamo would call at one of the Norwegian ports before going on to England or America, so you could drop me off in Norway. The point is, though, would Captain Helijarvi be willing to take us?”

  “Madame,” said the Finn at once. “I only regrets that I ’ave to take your plane at all. In any other way please make your command to me. If it is ’elpful to you that I fly you to Petsamo it will be big pleasure for me to take you.”

  “This is mos’ irregular,” cut in the air-port official. “These peoples have not pass the controls, Captain. They mus’ ’ave known that we would not allow them to take their plane.”

  For a second their fate seemed to hang again in the balance, then Helijarvi laughed—a rich, deep chuckle. “There is a war on, friend.’ Ow can you blame two gentlemens for not observing regulation when they wish to get their ladies to safe places? Let us ’ave no more delays.”

  Gregory felt that his star was once more in the ascendant as the thick-set Finnish Staff-Captain climbed into the plane and began to examine the controls. Freddie got in beside him and swiftly explained the more subtle idiosyncrasies of the plane which his own flight from Germany had shown him. It was a four-seater but none of them were heavy-weights; the two girls weighed only sixteen stone between them and their two dressing-cases were the only luggage; so Helijarvi and Freddie agreed that the plane would not be overloaded. Gregory and the girls wedged themselves into the back while the two pilots sat in front. One of the air-port men blew a whistle; a light flickered for a moment in the distance to give Helijarvi his direction; the engine roared and they were off.

  Freddie had offered to fly the plane if Helijarvi would act as his navigator but the Finn had replied that he preferred to fly it himself and knew the route to Petsamo so well that he could manage without assistance; so for once the ace British pilot experienced the, to him, rather dubious joy of being a passenger. Apart from Angela none of the fugitives had had their full ration of sleep for the past two nights and, from nodding drowsily to the engine’s monotonous hum, after about twenty minutes they all dropped off to sleep.

  The first part of the journey lay over Central Finland, so there was little danger of encountering the Soviet war-planes; which, if their pilots were not tired out after their long day of murder, would be operating against either the towns of the South or the fortifications on the frontier. Helijarvi’s only anxiety was that they might run into a blizzard; but the weather had been good all day and the calm of the early night suggested a peace which no longer existed in the stricken land. The Soviet bombers had not confined their attention to Helsinki but had raided many towns and villages that day, so as the plane flew on its pilot picked up the glare of still burning homesteads from time to time and knew that in the dark forests below him a million homeless people were striving to keep the warmth of life in their shivering bodies.

  At seven o’clock Freddie roused up, upon which Helijarvi told him that they had accomplished about two-thirds of their journey and were now approaching a part of the country where the Russian frontier juts out like a big cape into Northern Finland. To remain on the direct route to Petsamo he would have had to fly over Soviet territory for about a hundred miles; so he altered course slightly to keep inside the Finnish border, but they were near enough to the frontier to see here and there far below them some evidence of the fighting that was still in progress.

  The main battle-fronts were hundreds of miles away to the South, on the Karelian Isthmus and north of Lake Ladoga. Up here the fighting consisted only of encounters between small detached units who occasionally came up against one another in their endeavours either to penetrate or to defend the frontier. At one point a battery was shelling some unseen target but in all the hundred and fifty miles of their detour they saw only three other local engagements and in these the sporadic spurts of fire and individual flashes showed that nothing heavier than machine-guns and rifles were in action.

  Soon after they passed away from the frontier they ran into cloud and, coming down to a thousand feet, encountered snow. It was not a blizzard but the gentle, drifting snow that falls so frequently in the Arctic and which pilots must always anticipate there when flying below the lower cloud-levels. Helijarvi said that Petsamo must now lie somewhere beneath them and switching on his navigation lights he began to send out radio signals in anticipation that the air-port would give him a beam to guide him in. After several minutes’ tapping they received no response; which looked as though the air-port people were not operating their wireless, for fear of giving guidance to Soviet bombing-planes which might quite possibly be in the area. Without radio assistance it would prove difficult to find the landing-ground but Helijarvi felt confident he could do so.

  Circling round he slowly began to bring the plane much lower until after circling six times they picked up some flashes of light. A moment later they were flying over the lights and were able to see that there were two distinct groups of them, about a mile apart. The snow blanket seemed to be less solid down here and they suddenly realised that instead of a uniform greyness below them the cloud-like landscape was rent into two jagged halves, one of which was much darker than the other. As Helijarvi circled again they saw that one group of flashes came from the edge of a prominence in the whiter part while the other was out in the darker, and the explanation flashed upon the two airmen simultaneously. The first group of flashes came from shore batteries on the harbour and the second from Soviet warships wh
ich were shelling them from the sea.

  As Helijarvi knew Petsamo well the flashes from the forts of the harbour gave him a good idea of his position. Turning inland again he sailed low over them and a moment later was flying only fifty feet above the roof-tops of the town.

  They could spot scattered lights below them now, as the black-out was anything but perfect. It was impossible to see the people who were down there but the glow from the snow which was broken by black patches, enabled them to pick up the principal buildings. For a second Freddie’s heart was in his mouth as they narrowly missed a church spire, but that gave Helijarvi the final key to his direction and almost immediately afterwards he pointed at a light ahead which he declared came from the air-port.

  As they passed over it they saw that the light did not come from the control tower but from a window in the air-port buildings and Helijarvi began to radio again for the landing-lights to be switched on. Twice more they circled but no fresh lights appeared, so they decided that the air-port wireless must have been put out of action by an air-raid earlier in the day and that the only thing to do was to risk a landing without guidance. Zooming up again Helijarvi banked to get into the wind, flattened out and came down on the snow-covered ground.

  Owing to the difficulty of such a landing at night they bumped heavily, which woke Gregory and the two girls; but after three more bumps Helijarvi steadied the plane and managed to halt it about two hundred yards from the dark control tower. Directly the plane was at rest they opened the cabin-door and all climbed out, gaily congratulating Helijarvi on his successful flight.

  They could now hear the dull rumble of the guns in the distant harbour, but as the town was quiet it seemed a little strange that no air-port people had come out to meet them, since they must have heard the plane droning overhead. There was little wind but it was snowing quite fast, the large flakes coming down silently and steadily. Through the snow they could just make out the glow from the lighted window. With his satchel of papers tucked under his arm Helijarvi led the way towards it. As they approached they heard the muffled sound of singing coming through the double-windows of the building and striding to a door through which he had often passed on completing his flights to Petsamo Helijarvi pushed it open.

  It gave on to the Petsamo Air Club smoking-room where, in peace-time, in- and out-going pilots usually had drinks together. After the intense cold of the air outside the heat of the place seemed to hit the newcomers in the face and it was thick with smoke and the smell of spilt beer. The room was occupied by about twenty soldiers who were lolling about on the chairs and settees bawling a raucous chorus as one of their number hammered at the piano. Some of them were very drunk indeed, but that was not the only thing which Gregory noticed in his first swift glance over Helijarvi’s shoulder. The soldiers were wearing pointed, gnome-like caps. They were not Finns; they were Russians.

  Chapter XX

  Hell in the Arctic

  In a flash Gregory realised that although the Finns were still holding out in the forts on the harbour their small garrison must have been driven from the town by a massed Soviet attack that afternoon.

  From the open door a flurry of snow driven on an icy blast swept into the room. The singing quavered out; the brutish, drunken faces turned towards the door and the nearest soldiers jumped to their feet. As they recognised Helijarvi for a Finnish officer they grabbed up their rifles. One pulled an automatic from its holster and swaying unsteadily yelled something in Russian which clearly meant “Put your hands up!” Before he could pull the door shut again the thick-set Finn was covered from a dozen different directions.

  But he had seen instantly the trap into which he had walked; even before they had him covered his hand jerked to his own pistol. Although he knew it was death to do so his choice was instantaneous. Better to kill a few Russians if he could than be ignominously captured on the first day of the war. Whipping out his gun he pressed its trigger and sent a stream of lead into the crowd of soldiers. The screams of the wounded were half-drowned in the crash of shots that followed and, his pistol slipping from his hand, Helijarvi fell in the doorway riddled with bullets.

  Gregory grasped the situation at the same instant as Helijarvi’s hand had jumped to his gun. Leaping back he nearly knocked over the two girls who were behind him. As the bullets aimed at the Finn sprayed the open doorway one passed within an inch of Gregory’s ear, another zipped through the thick fur on his shoulder, and a third thudded into the dressing-case he was holding in his hand. The Russians were now almost hidden by the drifting blue smoke from the barrels of their rifles; before they had time to aim again he had turned and thrusting his friends back yelled: “Run! Run for your lives!”

  Freddie had been bringing up the rear of the party; seizing Angela he wrenched her round and almost dragging her off her feet scampered with her along the side of the building. Lowering her head Erika plunged along in their track until Gregory caught her up and, grabbing her arm, ran with her.

  Orders, counter-orders, drunken shouts came from the open doorway behind them as the soldiers tumbled out of it and the horrid fear of bullets in the back lent added speed to the fugitives’ flying feet. Freddie and Angela reached the corner of the building and dashed round it into the temporary safety of a narrow passage. A rifle cracked when Erika and Gregory were still some five yards from it, but the bullet went wide and Erika raced after the others.

  Gregory had dropped her case and drawn his gun as he was running. He did not want to fire. He and his friends had no quarrel with Russia and it was the most evil luck that at the sight of Helijarvi the troops should have taken the whole party for Finns. Yet he knew that in the darkness and confusion, and lacking any common language, any attempt at explanation was impossible. The Russians, furious at the casualties they had already suffered and half-stupid with liquor, were shooting to kill on sight. Unless they could be checked his whole party would be massacred so, flattening himself against the wall, he sent three rounds of rapid fire into the dark crowd of figures which was pouring from the club-room; a scream of pain told him that at least one of his bullets had found a billet in flesh or bone. His shots halted their pursuers for a moment, and in it he slipped round the corner. Ahead of him he could see his friends running; behind him came the stamping feet and drunken shouts of the Russians.

  Freddie was still leading. On reaching the far end of the passage he saw that it gave on to a wide sweep where in normal times people drove up to the air-port. As he charged out into the open a ragged volley sounded in their rear. Some of the bullets whizzed harmlessly overhead and others spattered into the snow. The Russians were shooting wildly as they ran and were too drunk to take proper aim but none the less their shots carried possible agony and death.

  When the fugitives were half-way across the open space a tall wooden fence loomed up through the drifting snowflakes in front of them. They had hardly reached it when the Russians came streaming out from between the buildings in hot pursuit.

  The fence was too tall and difficult to attempt to scramble over at such a moment and Freddie did not know in which direction the gateway through it lay. Trusting to luck he turned blindly to his left; and luck was with him. Twenty yards further on two big stone pillars flanking a gate appeared. It was open and there was no sentry on it. But the Russians, instinctively assuming that they would make for it, were taking a short cut across the carriage sweep and so had considerably decreased their distance. Yelling and shouting they came pounding over the snow as Freddie and Angela dived through the gate with Gregory and Erika hard on their heels.

  Just as they reached the street one of the Russians paused to fire. Gregory gave a cry, staggered and pitched forward on his face. Erika stopped in her tracks and pulling out the little pistol which she had pushed into her pocket after packing her dressing-case opened fire with it.

  “Gregory! Gregory!” she cried imploringly, as she prayed with all her might that he would stagger to his feet and run on; but he did not stir.
>
  At the sound of shots so close behind them Freddie and Angela turned. Seeing what had happened, Freddie let go of Angela’s arm and running back seized Gregory by the shoulders. He was quite limp and either unconscious or dead.

  In all his life Freddie had never had a more difficult decision to make. The two girls were now dependent on him as their only protector, and to try to carry Gregory would enormously increase their chances of capture. If he were dead the added risk would serve no useful purpose; but the young airman felt that he could not possibly leave the companion with whom he had spent so many weeks of difficulty and danger, in case there was still life in him. Seizing Gregory in his strong arms he hoisted him up in a fireman’s lift across his shoulders and turning, began to run again.

  Erika had taken cover behind one of the stone pillars to which the gate was hinged and stood there peering round it. Her first shots had checked the drunken soldiers for a moment. Instead of turning with Freddie she remained half-crouching there waiting for the Russians to come on. They sent a burst of fire through the now empty gateway and then came plunging forward in a body. Erika aimed carefully as they loomed up out of the drifting snow then pressed the trigger of her pistol twice.

  There was a shriek as the leading man slumped in his tracks; another staggered sideways and went down in a heap. Several more tripped sprawling across their comrades’ bodies, but Erika had barely glimpsed the result of her shooting before she sprang to her feet and was running for her life. She could no longer see her friends but she knew the direction they had taken and fled over the crisp white carpet in their tracks.

  She had barely covered a hundred yards when shots came whipping after her; the soldiers had gathered in the gateway and were firing down the street. The gauzy veil of drifting snow now hid her from them and she felt certain that she could outdistance them owing to the lightness with which she could skim over the ground; yet a ghastly fear tore at her heart-strings as she ran. Her adored Gregory might be dead.