Faked Passports (34 page)

On Nerva's field, on Poland's sand; at Leipzig

Lutzen's dark hills under

Not yet is Finland's manhood dead
.

With foeman's blood a field may still be tinted red
.

All rest, all peace, away be gone!

The tempest loosens; the lightning's flash
;

And o'er the field the cannon thunders
.

Rank upon rank, march on, march on!
”

At first the singing was faltering and uncertain but soon it swelled to a great volume of sound and Gregory Sallust, who was a hard man, felt himself touched to the very heart by so fine a demonstration of childish faith and courage; when he glanced at Erika he saw that she was openly crying. The hellish battle above continued and at times they could even hear the scream of the bombs as they hurtled earthwards.

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting roar as a bomb hit the building. One corner of the ceiling of the swimming-bath seemed to dissolve in a great puff of smoke, rubble, dust and flame, obscuring the children who were nearest to it.

While the women teachers gathered their charges to them and endeavoured to still their frightened cries the men, with Gregory's party, thrust their way among them until they reached the great pile of debris under which some of the children had
been buried. Above them now gaped a great hole, through which they could see the open sky and the black murder planes circling in it with the shells from the few anti-aircraft batteries breaking like white puff-balls here and there among them.

Fortunately the bulk of the fallen masonry had landed on the broad platform that ran round the edge of the bath and comparatively little had crashed into it where the children were standing. With frantic energy, careless of bleeding hands, the rescuers dragged aside the great lumps of brick and stone until they could get at the poor mangled, bleeding little bodies. Six children had been crushed to death and another fifteen injured.

Those still living were carried through into an underground gymnasium near-by which had already been fitted up as a first-aid station. By the time the rescuers had all the wounded children clear the teachers had stilled the panic of the others by the courage and calmness of their own example and the headmaster was driving fear from their minds by making them use their bodies in swift, rhythmatical physical jerks. The sound of the explosions gradually lessened and at twenty-past one the “All Clear” again sounded.

Gregory's party went upstairs with a number of other civilians who had taken refuge in the building. They found the car undamaged except for one smashed window which had been broken by a splinter and, getting into it, they drove on to the air-port which they reached ten minutes later. As they descended from the car an official came to meet them, and smiling at him Gregory said at once:

“We're a party of neutrals. Now things are getting so hot here we've decided to go away at once; so we're leaving in the Sabina plane in which my friend and I arrived here on Tuesday morning.”

The official shook his head. “I'm sorry, sir: the Russians are shooting down any plane that goes up. Instructions have been given that for the present no planes are to leave the airport.”

“Oh, come!” Gregory protested. “They won't interfere with us; our plane is a Belgian make and it has the British markings. The Russians won't fire on a neutral.”

“I'm afraid you're wrong there,” grunted the official. “That's just what they have been doing. They shot down two Swedish planes and a Dutchman this morning.”

“Were they civil planes or owned by volunteers who had offered their services to Finland in the event of war?”

“Civil planes, sir. Two were caught in the first raid at nine-twenty-five. They had just taken off and were flying south when they ran right into the Russians coming up across the Gulf; the other was shot down as it was coming in and about to make a landing on the air-port at about ten minutes to one.”

“But why; Russia is not at war with Sweden or Holland?”

The official shrugged. “You've seen what they've done in the city, sir, and most people would tell you it's because they're a lot of cut-throats who delight in murder; but if you want my honest opinion it's because these Russians are an ignorant lot: they don't know the markings of one country from those of another and they're not taking any chances. They regard any plane that's not one of their own makes as a potential enemy and shoot it down.”

“That's pretty rough on the civilian pilots and their passengers; but the sky's clear now and I don't suppose there'll be another raid for a few hours, at any rate, so I think we'll chance it and get out while the going's good.”

“I'm sorry, but that's impossible. As I've told you, the airport's closed until further orders and no planes of any kind are to be allowed off the ground.”

Gregory was getting worried, but he tried not to show it as he said: “That's all very well as a precautionary measure; and
it's only right that every pilot should be warned what he may be letting himself in for if he goes up; but once you've issued the warning it's the pilot's own responsibility.”

“Oh, no, it's not,” the official disagreed quickly. “Finland is responsible for the safety of neutrals as long as they're flying over her territory. If we had a decent Air Force we should be able to protect them from attack. As we haven't, the only thing we
can
do is to protect them against themselves by refusing to allow them to go up. It wasn't our fault that those three were shot down this morning but we shall have the job of explaining to their Governments how it came about and, naturally, we don't want to explain any more such incidents if we can possibly avoid it.”

“What are you going to do if I insist on going up?” Gregory hazarded.

“The air-port police would prevent your taking off, sir, and I'm sure you don't want to give us any unnecessary trouble when we have so much on our hands already.”

“Of course not,” Gregory agreed. “But is there anyone else that I can see—someone from whom I might be able to obtain a special permit?”

“There's no-one out here at the port who has the power to grant you that and I doubt if you'll get one anyway; but if you're determined to try the only person who could give you one is the Chief of Police.”

“Thank you,” said Gregory thoughtfully; “thank you very much.”

The others had been standing near him and they all turned away towards the waiting car. Freddie's German was good enough for him to have followed the conversation and he muttered to Gregory: “What the hell do we do now? They may not lift the ban on neutral planes leaving for several days and, even if they do so tomorrow, by that time the air-port police will have been informed that a murder warrant is out against us.”

“How much petrol was there left in the tanks when we landed?” Gregory asked. “Enough to get us to Stockholm?”

“I should think so. Anyhow, there's ample to get us across the Gulf to the Estonian coast and we'd be better off there than we are in Finland; but, as a matter of fact, I told them to fill her up. Why d'you ask?”

“Because,” said Gregory slowly, “unless we want to be hanged we'll have to return here after dark, get into the air-port
by coming across the fields, run the plane out of its hangar ourselves and take off. With all the snow about would you be able to take off at night without assistance from the ground-men?”

“Oh, yes. I've had so much experience of night-flying that I could manage quite easily. The snow doesn't make any difference in places where they're used to it because they have proper arrangements for rolling it solid so that the wheels of the planes don't get clogged. The difficulty will be to get the plane out of the hangar without being spotted.”

“I know. It'll be a tricky job and we may have to sandbag one of the watchmen. We won't have any time to examine the plane either, so if they haven't filled her up and she runs out of fuel we may all find a watery death in the Gulf of Finland.”

“No. I'm sure there's enough juice in her to get us over to Estonia; once we're in the air I can soon see what we've got and let you know if we can risk making the full trip to Stockholm.”

“That's what we'll do, then. But where the devil can we go in the meantime? In these parts it's dark at this season by half-past three so fortunately we haven't got very long to wait, but it's only just on two o'clock. If we hang around here we may arouse the suspicions of the air-port people. On the other hand, if we drive back to the centre of the town we may be spotted by Grauber or one of these law-abiding Finns who want to put ropes around our necks.”

“Ask the chauffeur,” Freddie suggested. “He may know of a small hotel or café in the suburbs where we're not likely to run into anyone who would recognise us while we shelter from this freezing cold for a bit.”

There is nothing like a danger shared for the swift ripening of friendship between strangers and having just passed through an air-raid with the Finn, who had proved himself a stout fellow throughout, Gregory felt that he could risk being more frank with him than he would ordinarily have been with someone that he had never seen until two hours before; so he said to the man:

“Look here, we're in a spot of trouble. The air-port has been closed till after dark, because the Russians are shooting down every plane that goes up, but we don't want to go back to the centre of the town in the meantime because, between ourselves, my friend and I had a slight difference of opinion on Tuesday night with the police. That's one of reasons that Mr. Fordyce wanted to see us out of Helsinki as soon as possible. Can you
suggest anywhere not too far from the air-port where we could lie up for an hour or two?”

The chauffeur grinned. As his master had told him to drive the two Englishmen to the air-port and young Miss Fordyce was going with them, he felt what was actually a quite groundless confidence that they could not be wanted for any very desperate crime; so he replied at once: “My home's only about a couple of miles from here; it's quite a small place, but if you'd care to wait there you'd be very welcome.”

Nothing could have suited the fugitives better. Having thanked the chauffeur they gladly accepted his offer, got back into the car and drove away.

Gregory learned that the chauffeur's name was Aimo Loumkoski, and that his excellent colloquial English had been acquired as third engineer on a British tramp steamer in which he had spent the best part of four years; but he declared that the sea was a hard life and he had been glad to leave it when he married.

His home proved to be one of a row of small, two-storeyed timber houses in a suburban street. He took them inside and introduced them to his wife: a good-looking woman of about thirty, with fair hair and rosy cheeks whose face, owing to the Finnish prejudice against make-up of any kind, was entirely innocent of powder and shone as though it had been deliberately polished. She spoke a little English and in spite of their protests she insisted on bustling into her spotless kitchen to prepare hot coffee for them.

While she was getting the coffee they talked with Loumkoski about the prospects of the war. He was over forty but expected to be called to the colours any day, as although the Finnish regular army is almost negligible, every Finn is trained in the militia, and for many weeks all the younger classes had already been called up to man the fighting positions in the Mannerheim Line. Loumkoski said that they felt confident that they could hold the line for a month and that Viborg would not fall before Christmas at the earliest; but after that it might be difficult to hang on unless they received foreign help.

He thought it almost certain that Norway and Sweden would declare war on Russia during the next few days; his reason being that whereas Finland had her Mannerheim Line across the Karelian Isthmus, and her chains of lakes further north, which made her eastern frontiers easy to defend with comparatively
small forces, the Scandinavian countries had no such prepared or natural defences. As long as the Finnish front held, Russia's path to the west was barred and the whole peninsula safe, but if Finland were once overrun Norway and Sweden would fall an easy prey; therefore their only hope of salvation from eventual conquest by Russia lay in their throwing in their lot with Finland and fighting now.

On the other hand, he realised the difficult situation in which the Scandinavian countries found themselves owing to Russia's tie-up with Germany. Whereas before, Norway and Sweden would, without hesitation, have come out openly on the side of Finland, the Swedes were now afraid that if they acted Germany, as Russia's new friend, might invade them in the south; so they would be most reluctant to send their best troops right up round the north of the Gulf of Bothnia to Finland.

As Loumkoski talked Gregory was amazed to find what a wide knowledge the chauffeur had of the international situation and it cheered him immensely. It showed so clearly that whereas the masses in Russia could have little idea what they had been ordered to fight for, and the masses in Germany were being deliberately misled, the democratic Finns knew exactly and precisely
why
their Government had called upon them to lay down their lives; which made an immense difference to the morale and fighting power of any nation.

Loumkoski went on to say that the Finns had always looked to Germany as their natural protector but, since Germany had let down Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Finland could hardly expect any assistance from the Nazis. Did Gregory think that Britain and France might send Finland aid?

“The trouble is that the Baltic's closed to us,” Gregory replied, “so it wouldn't be easy to bring you military support.”

“There is our ice-free port of Petsamo in the north,” suggested Loumkoski; “they could land troops there.”