Gregory nodded. “That looks bad for the Finns, then.”
“Yes. The punishment they are receiving now is terrific; as you will probably see for yourself if you’re here for any length of time. They generally let us go up to see a big attack every few days and I propose to consider you as a member of our Mission, on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“There are about twenty of us here and we have our own Mess. If you are to continue as von Lutz you will naturally be made a member of it. I want your word that you will not use anything which you may learn in conversing with my brother-officers to the detriment of Germany should you succeed in getting back to England.”
Gregory readily gave the undertaking. He felt that the request was only reasonable and, in any case, it was most unlikely that he would learn anything of real importance about projected operations in the West from casual talk of the officers in the German Mission, whose sphere of interest was at present so far removed from their own war with Britain and France.
“Good, then,” von Geisenheim went on. “There’s one other point. How d’you propose to account for your arrival here and the fact that you are not in uniform?”
“I shall say that I left Germany by plane, that my pilot lost his way and was forced down in desolate country by engine trouble and that I’ve been snowbound there until I managed to get away a few days ago. As I was leaving Germany on a foreign mission there is nothing very extraordinary about my having departed in civilian clothes and my uniform could have been destroyed with my baggage when the plane crashed.”
“That’s quite sound. But where will you be if some of the others knew von Lutz and expose you?”
“It’s extraordinary long odds against even one out of twenty officers having known the Baron and the fact that you did so makes the odds twenty times longer. Would any of them have known that he was a friend of yours?”
“I don’t think so. I only knew him in a social way; we were never in the same regiment or command.”
“Then if I am found out you can always say that you didn’t know him and so had no idea that I was an impostor.”
“All right, we’ll risk it. I’ll take you to the Mess and arrange for a room and a servant to be given to you.”
The Mess consisted of a big ante-room and dining-room, in a neighbouring hut. In the ante-room half a dozen German officers were talking or reading and the General introduced Gregory to them, placing him in charge of a Major Woltat, who gave him a drink and led him to another hutment which contained a long corridor and about a dozen rooms. A German soldier-servant was sent to the Quartermaster for bedding, etc., as Gregory had no equipment of his own, and one of the rooms was made over to him.
He dined in the Mess and would have thoroughly enjoyed the experience if he had not been so worried about the apparent difficulty in securing an interview with the Russian Generalissimo. The Germans were nearly all officers of senior rank and although they were very careful to make no reference to the Nazi Government, on account of the three black-uniformed Gestapo men who were present, they discussed the war with considerable intelligence.
Gregory learned that a few days before R.A.F. planes had made successful leaflet raids over Vienna and Prague. This seemed an extraordinarily fine performance, owing to the great distance over enemy territory that had to be covered, and it perturbed the Germans considerably because Goering had transferred some of his largest aeroplane factories to the neighbourhood of Vienna; believing that they would be out of bombing range there and so not only safe but able to work three shifts a day unhindered by the necessity of black-outs.
That Monday night Gregory went to bed thanking his stars that he had happened to see General von Geisenheim among the conspirators at the Adlon, but extremely worried about his prospects of being able to secure the release of his friends.
He spent most of Tuesday morning sitting about in the Mess, for he had no duties to perform, but the Germans also appeared to have very little to do, so he was never without company. However, in the evening Major Woltat informed him that on the following day the Military Mission was to make one of its periodical visits to the front, as part of Marshal Voroshilov’s entourage, so Gregory retired to bed hoping that luck might serve him and that he would be able to get a word with the Marshal.
Next morning he was called early with the rest and long before the late dawn they piled into a fleet of cars which left the wood, moving in a westerly direction until they struck a main road running north that led them to the shore of the great bay south of Viborg. There, in a totally ruined village, they left the cars and changing into sleighs drove out for several miles across the ice until the higher ground of the opposite shore of the bay could be seen in the distance.
The sleighs drew up at a small island which rose out of the ice. It had been a Finnish strongpoint until the day before, but its concrete forts had been reduced to rubble and its abandoned guns lay broken and twisted from the Russian shells. The party numbered about fifty people in all and Major Woltat pointed out to Gregory the Russian Generalissimo as he led the way in the short climb to the island’s top. He was a square-built man of middle height, with a rather plumpish face but good, open features. Beside him his trusted second-in-command, the old ex-Sergeant of Dragoons, Marshal Budenny, was easily recognisable from his huge moustache.
Having taken up their positions they began to scan the bay through their field-glasses and to study the maps which some of the officers were holding. To the north, which was now on their immediate right, they could just make out the square tower of the old castle which rose above the shattered roofs of Viborg; but it was directly in front of them and to their left front that the main Russian attack was being launched; its objective being the ten miles of coast-line running south-westward from the city and behind the last positions in the southern flank of the Mannerheim Line.
Major Woltat explained to Gregory that while the weather had favoured the Finns at the outbreak of the campaign by heavy snow-storms which hampered the Russian advance, the severe winter had now reacted in the Russians’ favour. Normally the bay would have frozen over but the ice would not have been thick enough to send anything but infantry across it; whereas, owing to the extraordinary degree of cold which had continued for so long, the ice had frozen to such a thickness that the Russians were able to send tanks and guns over it without any fear of these falling through.
Individual men could not be seen at any distance as the crack Russian regiments which were now being flung into the battle were all equipped with snow-shirts; but as wave after wave of them came past the island towards the firing-line the great, flat ice-field seemed to undulate with their perpetual motion. From what Gregory could gather, their morale was good, as they pressed forward in spite of the shells from the Finnish batteries which were exploding among them, and all those who passed near enough to the island to recognise Voroshilov raised a cheer for him, which he acknowledged from time to time with a wave of his hand.
Gregory had seen the bombardment which the Germans had put over on March the 21st, 1918, when they launched their last offensive in the first Great War and broke through between the British and French Armies. That was said to be the most devastating that had ever taken place in the history of the world, but from what he could judge the one that he was now witnessing was even greater.
Major Woltat told him that the Soviet artillery was putting over 300,000 shells a day and, from the sector that Gregory could see, he had little reason to doubt this estimate. The whole Finnish line from Viborg in the north to a point far away in the south-west was one continuous ripple of light from the shell-bursts. The hundreds of explosions per minute merged into one unceasing roar that made the air quiver and rocked the senses. The island on which they stood was in a constant state of vibration as though an earthquake threatened or a concealed volcano was rumbling beneath it, and the Finnish coast, now obscured by a dense pall of smoke which sparkled like a black sequin dress with innumerabl
e shifting flashes, appeared such a veritable hell that it seemed utterly impossible for anything to remain living upon it.
By comparison the Finnish artillery retaliation seemed only like a few batteries doing a practice shoot with all the economy which they would have had to exercise in peace-time; yet it was miraculous that they continued to fire at all, and the Russians were so massed that every Finnish shell did deadly execution. Here and there the Finnish heavies blew holes right through the ice causing men and horses to plunge to their death in the freezing water and scattering a great hail of ice-splinters, as deadly as the steel fragments of the shell itself, to whizz through the air killing and wounding scores of Russians.
They remained on the island watching this incredibly terrible spectacle for just over an hour. Then Voroshilov said something to Budenny, which made the old Dragoon laugh, and, turning, led the way back to the sleighs; the whole party following. This looked to Gregory just the opportunity for which he had been waiting, so hurrying up to von Geisenheim, he asked the German if he could possibly request the Marshal to give him a moment; but von Geisenheim shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but I’m sure it would be useless. You see, he is intensely nationalistic and resents any suggestion that Russia is not capable of concluding this campaign successfully without help from Germany. In consequence, he won’t even speak to any of us in public except on ceremonial occasions, in case it is thought that he is seeking our advice. But I’m having an interview with him tomorrow and I’ll ask then if I can present you to him.”
It was a maddening situation but there was nothing that Gregory could do about it so with bitter disappointment he accompanied the others back to Battle Headquarters.
On Thursday evening he asked von Geisenheim if he had been successful in obtaining an interview with the Marshal for him and the General said: “I’m afraid I haven’t managed to fix any definite appointment but he said that he would send for you as soon as he is able to spare a moment,” so Gregory could only endeavour to possess his soul in patience.
All through Friday and Saturday he waited in the German Mess hoping for the Marshal’s summons; but Voroshilov was away long before dawn on both days visiting various sectors of the front. Unlike most modern Generals who spend nearly all their time in conferences far behind the lines, he maintained his old routine which had won him his brilliant victories twenty years earlier. Utterly fearless of death, he was always to be found in the most dangerous forward areas observing things for himself while daylight lasted, and it was only when he got back to camp at night that he reviewed the general situation with his Staff from the day’s reports.
The battle for Viborg raged with unceasing ferocity. By Saturday, March the 2nd, the Russians had fully established themselves on the coast south of the city. The Mannerheim Line was still holding in the north, at Taipale, on Lake Ladoga, but in the south it had now been completely outflanked and nothing except one wing of the small exhausted Finnish Army lay between the Soviet host and an advance direct on Helsinki.
By Sunday morning Gregory was becoming desperate. It was eight days since he had left Kandalaksha. Instructions might be arriving at any time now for the prisoners to be transferred to Moscow. Even when he was allowed to see Voroshilov he had yet to get over the big fence of securing from him an order for their release, and in the desperate conditions of this ghastly weather it might take a considerable time to get the order through. Except by railway, communications with Kandalaksha were most unreliable. Kuporovitch had told him how he always sent his reports by courier as the quickest and surest way during the worst months of the winter. It seemed certain to Gregory now that under the pressure of his own affairs Voroshilov had forgotten his promise to give him an interview; so he made up his mind that, legitimate means of getting to see the Marshal having failed, the time had come when he must resort to desperate measures; he would throw all military regulations overboard and attempt to beard Voroshilov personally on his return to camp that night.
Although Gregory had no uniform his civilian clothes did not make him a conspicuous figure about the camp as everybody there was muffled in fur or leather garments of one kind or another. Having dined with the Germans he went out and took up a position among the trees from which he could observe the front of the long hutment that contained the Marshal’s quarters. After a few moments the bitter cold forced him to start walking up and down, but as a number of people were constantly moving about the camp, and he kept at some distance from the building, he did not excite the attention of either of the sentries who were on guard outside it. An hour later his teeth were chattering in his head but at last he heard the note of a musical klaxon horn and the Marshal’s fleet of cars came twisting down the woodland road.
As the klaxon sounded Gregory moved swiftly forward. At the same moment the sentries shouted something in Russian and he guessed that they were turning out the guard to receive the Marshal. When the leading car pulled up Gregory was still about thirty yards from the road and he began to run; three fur-clad figures stepped out of the car as he reached a point halfway between them and the hutments. Pulling up in their path he came to attention and saluted smartly; but even as he did so he caught the sound of running footsteps behind him. Before he had time to open his mouth the guard had seized him by the arms and dragged him aside.
“Marshal! Marshal! I have a request,” he cried in German; but one of the soldiers clapped a gloved hand over his mouth, muffling his cries, and Voroshilov walked on, followed by his officers who seemed scarcely to have noticed the incident. With kicks and curses the Russians hauled Gregory across the snow towards the end of the long hutment. Two minutes later he was thrown head-foremost into the guard-room.
Chapter XXX
Voroshilov Signs two Orders
As Gregory lay bruised and panting on the guard-room floor he realised that his crushing fear for Erika had become such an obsession that it had led him into making a blunder which might prove disastrous to them all.
Now that the failure of his plan had sobered Gregory’s anxiety-racked brain he knew that even the Supreme Commander of the Soviet forces would not keep a German officer of some standing waiting indefinitely for an interview, when he had a personal letter from Marshal Goering and the backing of the chief of his own Military Mission; but by tonight’s exploit he might have sabotaged his own chances and be held a prisoner during these next few all-important days.
When the officer of the guard found that Gregory could not speak Russian an interpreter was sent for and explanations ensued. The Russians became slightly more courteous when they learned that he had not had any intention of attempting to assasinate the Marshal, but they were still frigid as they left the guard-room, locking him in.
A quarter of an hour later, to his immense relief, von Geisenheim arrived and, having identified him, vouched for his future good conduct. Gregory had to give his word that he would not try to force himself on the Marshal again. He was then released and, unbelievably thankful at having so swiftly got out of the mess in which he had landed himself, he listened with a good grace to a severe ticking-off from von Geisenheim, who privately sympathised with him but had his own position to consider as the responsible head of the German Military Mission.
The whole of Monday Gregory sat fuming in the Mess, hoping for a summons and listening with one ear to the talk which was all of Mr. Sumner Welles’ arrival in Berlin on the previous Friday and his interviews with the German leaders on the succeeding days. Von Ribbentrop was on his way to Rome further to strengthen the Berlin-Rome Axis and the British were giving considerable offence to the Italians by detaining their coal-ships; so the officers hoped that Mussolini might be persuaded to give stronger support to Germany. Gregory smiled to himself that evening when the news came through that Britain had spiked von Ribbentrop’s guns by releasing the coal-ships at the last moment. Just as he was going to bed he was warned by Major Woltat that the Military Mission was to accompany Voroshilov to the front again on th
e following morning.
It was now apparent that the Finns could not hold out much longer although they were contesting every inch of ground, and on the Tuesday of this second visit to the front Gregory saw for himself the frightful price that Russia was paying for her victory. This time Voroshilov and his entourage went right across the bay to the coast that had been the main Russian objective in the previous week’s battle. In front of the now abandoned trenches on the Finnish mainland the Russian dead were piled waist-high in one horrible, frozen tangle which stretched as far as the eye could see on either side. The carnage there had been without precedent in history and those members of the German Military Mission who had been allowed to question Finnish prisoners said that the Finns declared that they had plied their machine-guns upon the massed Russians until their fingers ached to such a degree that they were positively forced to release the triggers. For days on end, until they had lost all hate for the Russians, they had continued the slaughter filled with utter horror at the massacre which duty called upon them to accomplish; then, at last, from sheer exhaustion they had dropped beside their weapons and had been captured in their gun-pits fast asleep.
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