"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 realize 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 paralyzed 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 realized 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 tire 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. Ire could hardly think for himself any more, except to realize 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 gloom
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 conic back?" the General said, stan
ding 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 eve 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."
Chapter XXXII
The Road to Berlin
O w the morning of Saturday, February the 24th Erika was roused by a sharp double knock. She woke to find herself in pitch darkness and for a moment wondered where she was. In their Arctic home it had never been pitch dark, as there was always the warm, gentle glow from the cracks of the stove. Then a door opened and a light clicked on.
The glare from the single unshaded bulb lit the worn and ancient furnishings of the bedroom in Kandalaksha Castle and memory returned to her. Apparently there were no women servants in the castle, as one of the General's shaven headed orderlies had come into the room carrying a large can of hot water. As he put it down and laid one minute towel beside it she wondered why Gregory had not been in to see her on his way to bed the previous night.
In those hectic days they had spent in Munich and Berlin together early in November they had been the most passionate lovers. When they had met again in Helsinki his absence from her seemed only to have increased his eagerness; but their opportunities for love making had been lamentably few. Then his injury at Petsamo had changed his mentality in that respect as in all others. On waking on their first morning in the trapper's house he had accepted quite naturally the fact that he was in love with her, but it had been an entirely different kind of love. He was tender and thoughtful for her and followed her every movement with an almost dog like devotion, but he did not seem to know even the first steps in physical love making any more.
Erika had known the love of many men but to be treated as a saint and placed upon a pedestal was an entirely new experience to her and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. There was something wonderfully refreshing in Gregory's shy, boyish attempts to hold her hand or steal a kiss on the back of her neck when the others were not looking; and she had known that at any moment she chose she could reawake his passions just as they could open up the cells of his memory upon other matters. But she had deliberately refrained from doing so; feeling that they had many weeks ahead of them and that it would be such a wonderful experience for them both if she allowed him to develop his full physical love for her quite unaided.
During those weeks she had grown to love him more than ever before; but she had been cheated of the consummation of her subtle plan by the sudden flooding back of his memory after his fail upon the ice roil. All his old desire for her had returned with renewed force. But within a few hours of that Freddie had solved his puzzle, Gregory had brought home to them the immense importance of it and they were on their way again in a desperate endeavour to get the German plan for world dominion back to London; so in the last five days there had been no opportunity for them to be alone together for more than a few moments.
It was for that reason that she had felt certain that he would come to her the previous night' and kiss her into wakefulness directly he succeeded in getting away from General Kuporovitch. But she knew the reputation that Russian officers had for hard drinking and tried to console herself with the thought that their host must have plied Gregory with so much liquor after she had left them, which out of tactfulness he had fell bound to consume, that by the time he got away, hard headed as he was, he had felt that he would spoil a very perfect moment if he roused her.
When the orderly had left the room she got up to wash and dress. As she looked at her clothes she sighed a little. Her one set of undies had had to do duty with constant washings for twelve weeks and they were in a shocking state. Perhaps she would have been wiser to have availed herself of some of the things belonging to the dead wife of the trapper, but she simply had not been able to bring herself to encase her lovely limbs in those unlovely garments. The tweeds in which she had left Helsinki had weathered their hard wear fairly well, but the soles of her snow boots were wearing thin and the cold had driven her to make use of the Finnish woman's great, thick, woolen stockings. Fortunately her golden hair had a natural wave so, although to her critical eye it badly needed the attention of a hairdresser, she knew that as far as other people were concerned it still passed muster; but powder, lipstick and face creams had all been abandoned in her dressing case. Nevertheless, as she studied her face in a cracked Venetian mirror she had to admit that she was looking little worse for the lack of them.
She would have given a lot for a lipstick and some powder for her nose but she had managed to keep her face from chapping and the cold Arctic air had given her back a natural complexion which was better than anything she had had since she was a young girl. As she studied herself she decided that nobody would ever believe she was twenty eight. She did not look a day over twenty four and her figure, kept in perfect trim by the work she had had to do in these last few months, was as beautiful as ever.
On going out into the corridor she found the orderly there and Freddie standing beside him. He looked at her, blushed scarlet and looking quickly away again, said:
"Angela won't be a minute."
"Have you seen Gregory?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No. I went into his room a few minutes ago but he wasn't there so I suppose he's already with the General."
"It's rather queer that he didn't look in on me first, to say good morning," she remarked; but her mind was distracted by Angela's appearing at that moment.
Angela had not the good fortune to possess a natural wave so her dark hair was now neatly drawn back and pinned up in a small bun on the nape of her neck; but with her deep blue eyes and milk white skin she still looked extremely pretty and Erika, with a knowing eye, took in the fact that she looked prettier than ever this morning. She showed none of Freddie' embarrassment but smiled gaily as she said:
"Wasn't it fun to sleep in a proper bed again after all these weeks of dosing down on the top of the old brick oven? I wish they hadn't got us up, as I should like to have stayed in bed all day."
Erika took her arm affectionately. "Well, darling; let's hope the time is soon coming when you'll be able to, as perhaps Gregory has persuaded the General to release us. I'm sure he wouldn't have sat up all night drinking unless he thought that he could get something out of him."
The orderly beckoned to them and they followed him down the corridor to the room where they had fed the night before. The General was there, looking somewhat bleary eyed, and his manner was abrupt as he addressed them:
"I regret that I shall have to make a change in your accommodation, since the Colonel Baron has abused my hospitality."
"Really?" Erika raised her eyebrows. "What has he done?"
"As he can't be found, he must have left the castle in the early hours of the morning; although how he did it is not yet clear. If he had dropped from his window he could not get out that way, as all your rooms overlook interior courtyards; in any case, he couldn't have made the drop without using his bedding as a rope; and his bed is undisturbed."
Their first feeling oh learning that Gregory had escaped was one of elation; but it was quickly crushed as the General went on: "I expect he will soon be brought back again. The fact that he cannot speak Russian, together with this godforsaken climate, will prevent him getting very far. In the meantime I intend to see that none of you others plays me any tricks. I am having you transferr
ed to cells downstairs until I receive instructions about you from Moscow."
While they remained silent for a moment Freddie struggled to compose a sentence in French, then said haltingly: "How long do you think that will be; and what sort of orders do you think you will receive about us when they do come in?"
The General frowned. "I should receive instructions about you in a week, or ten days at the most. What they will be I don't know, but in view of what the Colonel Baron told me last night after you went to bed, I should think that you will be sent to Moscow under guard and handed over to the German Embassy there for transfer to Berlin, as it appears that the Gestapo are most anxious to interview you."
His words were a most frightful blow to them all. It seemed impossible to think that Gregory had betrayed them; yet, on the face of it, that appeared to be what he had done. He had escaped himself without endeavouring to take them with him or even letting them know his intentions, as he obviously could have done if he had gone to his room after leaving his host. Worse; before going, either because he was too drunk to know what he was saying or for some inexplicable reason, he had told the General that they were wanted by the Gestapo.
They had barely taken in this almost unbelievable and very frightening piece of news when the General went on: "You will be treated well white you are here and, you have nothing to be afraid of; but in your own interests I advise you to stick to the story that you told me last night until you are out of my keeping. Nobody here speaks French, German or English except myself, so no one else can question you; but I shall have to do so formally this morning in front of my Political Commissar and I shall naturally translate accurately any answers which you make to my questions. Follow the orderly, please, and he will take you to your new quarters."
The orderly shepherded them downstairs to the ground floor, where some of the stone wailed rooms of the old castle had been converted into cells. They were given one apiece, each of which was furnished with bare necessities and a stove; but the General had provided them with the additional amenity of a fourth cell in which to take their meals together and sit during the day. As soon as they had been shown their cells a plain but eatable breakfast was served for them in the sitting room cell and they were locked in there.
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