Faked Passports (51 page)

The soldier who had shown them up to the room roused them before it was light. As they had slept in their furs they were already dressed and apparently their hosts considered any form of toilet quite unnecessary, so they were led straight downstairs to join the soldiers at a breakfast which did not differ in any way
from the meal they had had the night before. Afterwards they sat by the stove for about an hour while the Russians eyed them with a curious but not unfriendly stare; then the street door opened and the officer appeared in it, beckoning them to follow him outside.

Two sleighs were standing there in the pale dawn light, each with a soldier sitting in it and another on the box. Gregory and Erika entered one sleigh and Freddie and Angela the other. The big officer gave them a wave and both sleighs drove off. Any form of communication with their respective guards was impossible and it would have been completely pointless to attempt either to overpower them or to get away, so they resigned themselves to being driven south-eastward through the crisp, frosty air.

They halted every few miles to give the horses a breather and to restore their own circulation by flapping their arms and stamping their feet. At midday they made a longer halt during which the soldiers provided a picnic meal of coarse bread and iron rations. All through the afternoon they drove on again, making, Gregory estimated, a steady twelve miles an hour, and just as dusk was falling they pulled up at another village. The prisoners assumed that they were to spend the night there but after having been given mugs of very weak hot tea and a bowl of stew apiece, in a large, log building where there were a number of other soldiers, their guards led them out again and with fresh teams of horses they took the road once more.

At six o'clock the road emerged from the forest and they saw that the carpet of snow ahead was broken by some scattered buildings. These soon grew more numerous. They passed a railway-station, then the houses merged into the street of a small town where other sleighs and people were moving in the semi-darkness, which was broken here and there by street lamps and the lighted windows of a few poor-looking general shops. On reaching a small square the sleighs turned right and mounted a steep incline at the end of which there loomed up the bulk of a great building that seemed to tower above the town. Two minutes later they were halted by a sentry who, after a brief exchange with their escort, passed them through a high, arched gateway and from lights fixed to the walls they saw that they were in the courtyard of an ancient castle.

The drivers of the sleighs remained with their horses while the two other soldiers led their charges through a low door. A non-commissioned officer who was writing at a desk in a small
room took the guard's report, then he shouted for an orderly who took the whole party along a gloomy, vaulted corridor and left them in a large room with some benches in it and a stove at one end. Having loosened their furs they waited there for three-quarters of an hour, after which the orderly reappeared to conduct them through several more long, echoing passages and up a broad flight of stairs. Their guide then unceremoniously threw open a large door in the upper hallway and motioned to them to pass in.

The room they entered was large and lofty but its furniture presented some interesting contrasts. Much of it revealed the splendour of bygone days when the castle was a Tsarist stronghold. There were bearskin rugs on the now unpolished parquet floor; a fine array of antlers and heads interspersed with a collection of ancient arms decorated the walls; several settees and chairs, from which the brocade was worn and the gilt rubbed, looked like genuine
Louis Seize
pieces and might still have fetched a good price at Christie's, but the room had now been converted for use as a modern office. Incongruously a row of steel filing-cabinets lined a part of one wall under a piece of fine
Gobelin
tapestry, while in the very centre of the apartment there stood a cheap pinewood desk on which were littered cardboard files and wire letter-trays.

Behind the desk a clean-shaven, grey-haired officer with several stars on his collar was sitting smoking a cheroot. His eyebrows were still black and ran thin and pointed towards, the temples of his smooth, white forehead. Under them were a pair of rather lazy blue eyes of which Gregory took quick note. He had met that lazy look before in other people and knew that it nearly always boded a shrewd intelligence. At a word from the man behind the desk the two soldiers told their story, helping each other in a friendly, conversational way as they went along and showing none of the trepidation which is usual in privates who are addressing an officer of high rank.

When they had done the officer looked at the prisoners and said: “
Parlez-vous français?
”

“
Oui, mon Général,
” replied Gregory at once, giving him the benefit of General's rank although he was not sufficiently well acquainted with Soviet badges to know the Russian's actual status.

“Good,” said the officer, continuing in French. “I should be glad, then, if you will give some account of yourselves.”

Gregory had had ample time to think out what he meant to
say when they had to face an examination and he had realised that, short of telling the truth, which would certainly land them in serious trouble owing to the Russians they had shot at Petsamo, only two lines were open to them. Angela had a British passport, Erika had a German passport, he had a faked British passport in his own name and a German passport in the name of Colonel-Baron von Lutz, but Freddie had no passport at all. With the two countries at war such a mixed bag was sure to arouse unwelcome suspicion so they must either all pose as Germans or all pose as British and, since Germany was now Russia's ally, it seemed that Germans would be likely to meet with a much better reception.

Having informed the others early that morning of what he intended to do he produced the two German passports, and announcing himself as Colonel-Baron von Lutz, introduced Erika as the Countess von Osterberg and Freddie and Angela as Oscar and Fredeline von Kobenthal.

The officer glanced at the passports and asked for the other two.

“They were lost, unfortunately, with our baggage,” smiled Gregory.

“Indeed?” The Russian told the soldiers to bring up chairs for their charges and went on: “Remove your furs and be seated, please; then continue.”

Gregory acknowledged the courtesy and proceeded to the much more difficult task of explaining what his party had been doing up in the Arctic.

“Von Kobenthal and I,” he said, “are members of the German Military Intelligence and these two ladies were acting as our assistants. Before the war broke out we were naturally able to move about Finland with much more freedom than would have been accorded to any Soviet subjects, and we were allotted the duty of assisting your attack on Petsamo. We lived in the town for a couple of weeks during which we were able to gather considerable information about the Finnish plans for resisting a Soviet invasion and it was our job, immediately upon the declaration of war, to cross the frontier, contact the Russian Military Intelligence and pass over to them such data as we had gained.

“We left Petsamo in our aeroplane on the morning the war broke out, ostensibly for Helsinki, but fifty miles south of the town we turned east intending to cross the frontier and land at your Arctic base of Murmansk. Unfortunately, we ran into a
terrible blizzard, ice formed on the wings of our plane while we were still somewhere over the frontier and we were compelled to make a forced landing. The snow was so thick that we could see nothing, but luckily for us we came down in a clearing instead of crashing among the trees.

“I will not describe to you, General, the incredible hardships which we suffered during the next twenty hours. The undercarriage of our plane had been ripped away on landing so it was impossible for us to take off again, and if we had not made a bonfire of the wreckage we should have frozen to death during the night. We should certainly have died in the forest if we had not been lucky enough to find on the following day a trapper's shack which had been provisioned for the winter. As we had no means of getting back to civilisation the only thing we could do was to remain there until the coming of spring or until help reached us.”

“A most interesting and exciting adventure,
Monsieur le Baron
,” commented the Russian. “So you have been out of everything for nearly three months. And how did you manage to make a break from your snow-bound prison after all?”

“A sleigh and horses were virtually sent to us as a gift of Fate,” Gregory lied affably. “Four days ago we were gathering kindling in the woods when we saw three horses drawing a
troika
come galloping down a long clearing in the forest on a most eccentric course. They did not appear to have any driver but we managed to head them off and halt them. We found that there was a driver in the sleigh but, as far as we could judge, he had been dead for some hours; probably he had refused to halt when challenged by some sentry. In any case, he had a bullet through his heart and evidently the horses had bolted. The following day we packed the sleigh full of provisions and set off eastward into Soviet territory. As no doubt the soldiers who brought us here will have told you, we narrowly escaped being devoured by wolves two nights later. But all's well that ends well. I can assure you that it's a great joy to myself and my friends to meet someone who can speak some other language than Russian and to find ourselves in comfortable surroundings once again.”

“It is a pleasure for me to receive you here,” the Russian said. “I am General Kuporovitch, the Military Governor of Kandalaksha, and I shall do my best to make you comfortable during your stay here.”

“General, you are most kind,” Gregory smiled, “but I was
hoping that you would provide us with facilities to proceed on our journey.”

“Certainly,” said the General. “Certainly,
Monsieur le Baron
. But we took Petsamo on the first day of the war, so your mission has long since lost its purpose. As you have been out of everything for nearly three months a few extra days will surely make no difference to any new plans which you may have formed. I see so few people here—I mean, of course, people who know anything of what is going on outside the Soviet Union. It will be a great treat for me to have you as my guests.”

“I can assure you, General, there is nothing that we should like better,” Gregory replied most cordially; “but unfortunately my country is at war and as a serving officer it is my duty to report there as soon as possible. The families of myself and my friends probably fear that we are dead by this time, too, so while we should be most grateful for your hospitality tonight I trust that you will find it convenient to help us proceed on our way south tomorrow morning.”

“Forgive me,
mon cher Baron
, if I remark that as yet I have only your word for your somewhat extraordinary story.”

“But, Comrade General, you have seen the passports of
Madame la Comtess
and myself,” Gregory protested quickly.

The Russian stubbed out the end of his thin cheroot and a smile creased the wrinkles at the corners of his lazy blue eyes. “Passports can be forged, you know, and in a frontier command like this we have to be constantly on the watch for—er—spies. I endeavoured to put the matter as tactfully as possible but I'm afraid that you and your friends will not be able to leave the castle until I have had an opportunity to make full inquiries about you.”

Gregory knew that any check-up would prove fatal to them all. The Russian Military Intelligence in both Murmansk and Moscow would deny that any Colonel-Baron von Lutz and his companions had been expected to report to the H.Q. of the Northern Soviet Army on the first day of the war. The matter would then be referred to the German Embassy in Moscow and the Military Attaché would communicate with Berlin. The War Office there would know that Colonel-Baron von Lutz had been shot dead on his estate on the night of November the 26th and would consult the Gestapo. As the inquiry concerned German subjects outside Germany it would then be passed to the Foreign Department U.A.-1, and would come before Grauber. He would instantly realise that his old enemies had turned up again at Kandalaksha and apply to Moscow for their extradition. They would then be sent under armed guard back to Germany and woe betide them when Grauber had them in the Gestapo torture cell.

Now, too, there was something far more important than their lives at stake. By hook or by crook the typescript from Goering's safe had to be got back to England.

Concealing the consternation that he felt Gregory said smoothly: “How long d'you think it will take for you to satisfy yourself about us?”

General Kuporovitch shrugged. “In winter we are very isolated here. The heavy falls of snow often interrupt our telephone and telegraphic communications with Leningrad. Since the war, too, they are sometimes cut by raiding parties of Finns and our Air Mail has been stopped because we need all our best pilots for service at the front; so I send all my dispatches by courier. However, I should receive a reply in a week or, at the utmost, ten days.”

He rang the old-fashioned hand-bell on his desk and went on: “But, as I mentioned before, it is not often that I have the opportunity of talking to intelligent foreigners and I shall accept your story—strange as it is—until it is proved to be false; so I have no intention of throwing you into the castle dungeons. On the contrary; since you cannot possibly escape from the castle I will put you in some of the guest-rooms that overlook the inner courtyards and I hope that we may enjoy some pleasant evenings together.”

“That is most kind,” Gregory murmured tactfully, as the orderly appeared in answer to the bell.

The General spoke to him in Russian, then turned back to the others. “I expect you'd like to wash after your journey. The orderly will take you to your rooms; then we will sup together. You will probably find his manners a little uncouth compared to those of the servants to which you are accustomed, but as long as people do what they're told we are all equals in my country now. You will observe that he talks to me with a cigarette in his mouth and if he had a mind to do so he would certainly spit on the floor. That gives him a delightful illusion of freedom and equality but he knows perfectly well that if he didn't obey me I should have him shot without trial.”