Faked Passports (54 page)

Drawing a long breath Gregory said: “You were talking about valuta just now. If it could be arranged for me to try to reach Voroshilov I should want some Russian roubles. Make your own rate of exchange. I'm prepared to pay four times the normal value if you like—in German or Finnish marks—and I've got a big sum on me.” He had played his ace, but for all he knew it might be the Ace of Spades—the death card.

For a moment the Russian's face remained absolutely impassive, then he asked sharply: “How much have you got?”

“About six thousand five hundred marks.”

“A nice sum.” Kuporovitch's eyes narrowed and he stared at Gregory with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Enough to keep you in moderate comfort in Paris for the best part of a year,” Gregory said slowly.

The General did not reply. He stood up, walked to the door with a slightly unsteady gait and left the room without a word.

Gregory helped himself to another ration of
slievowitz
. He was pretty tight himself but he had a head like a rock and was a very long way from passing out. As he might be dead within the next quarter of an hour he didn't feel that it would make very much difference if he got slightly tighter; but he could not keep himself from wondering why the General had left him. The most likely answer to that all-important question was that he had gone down to the guard-room to fetch a couple of soldiers. These Russians were quite used to shooting people without a trial. It was all in the day's work to them and they would think nothing of it if they were told to take a prisoner down to the castle execution chamber in the middle of the night; then good-bye to Gregory Sallust.

‘Well,' he thought, ‘I haven't had a particularly short life and I have enjoyed it; and, after all, death
is
the greatest adventure upon which any man can set out!' He had been near death on too many occasions for the thought of it to worry him; but he
was
worried about Erika and the others. Those hectic nights that he had spent with her in Munich and Berlin had been very marvellous; but recently, since he had got his memory back, he had grown to feel a far deeper and more profound love for her. In his life he had known many women
and it seemed hard that now he had found the one whose presence gave him such utter satisfaction and contentment their ways should be parted after a few brief weeks of happiness and—worse—that he should have to leave her as a prisoner, menaced by the grim prospect of being handed over to the Gestapo, which he could do nothing to avert.

The door opened again and the General came in—alone. His gait was brisker and Gregory noticed that his hair was slightly damp. Evidently he had been to his room and poured a jug of cold water over his head to bring himself back to a complete state of sobriety before taking any decision. Such an act was typical of the man and Gregory did not yet allow himself to hope. It might be that the Russian wanted all his wits about him so as to trick his prisoner out of the money before he had him shot, in order that the execution squad should not see him take it from the body and report the fact to Oggie.

With a steady hand Kuporovitch collected the three empty
slievowitz
bottles from the small table, replaced them on the sideboard and said abruptly: “Say I give you a quarter of the value of your marks in roubles, what d'you wish me to do?”

Gregory breathed again. Although he might have soiled his hands in all sorts of dirty business for nearly a quarter of a century, the Russian was, at the rock-bottom, still the man of honour that he had been as a young officer in pre-Revolution days.

“Since your Political Commissar is bound to hear about us tomorrow,” Gregory replied, “fix it so that it looks as if we had escaped during the night.”

Kuporovitch shook his head. “Four of you—including two women? No. Oggie would never believe that. Besides, only a strong and resolute man could leave the castle, even with my aid, in a way which would enable me to avoid all suspicion of complicity. The best I can do is to arrange matters so that it appears that
you
have escaped. My record is so good that no-one will hold the escape of one prisoner against me; but your friends must remain and the report about them will have to go in tomorrow morning through the usual channels. If you can reach Voroshilov within a week or ten days and get an order for your friend's release, with permission for all of you to leave the country, you'll have cheated the Gestapo. If not, your friends must take their chance.”

Gregory was thinking swiftly. Nothing would have induced him to desert his friends in ordinary circumstances but if he
could get away himself it would at least offer him some chance to save them; and—above all—there was the typescript. That must be put before everything. He nodded slowly.

“In that case it's imperative that I should get to Voroshilov's headquarters at the earliest possible moment. I can't speak Russian and I may have difficulty with the railway people. Are you willing to throw in a railway voucher for my journey, faked in any name you like?”

“Yes, I'll do that.” The General moved towards the door again.

“All right. That's a deal, and I'm eternally grateful to you.”

Gregory removed his boots and took out all his bank-notes except five hundred German
Reichmarks
. The General was away about a quarter of an hour and when he returned he was carrying Gregory's furs as well as the railway voucher.

The money was changed and the voucher handed over. Kuporovitch said that he had made it out for a mythical Vassily Stetin and that it was signed by Imitroff, one of his clerks whose name he had forged; but as the man was in hospital even if the paper were ever traced the clerk could not be held responsible for its issue and it would be impossible to find out who had forged his signature.

Gregory drew on his furs and said: “I'll just go along and tell the others what I propose to do; so that they'll know what's happened to me and at least have something on which to pin their hopes during the coming week.”

“Oh, no, you don't!” The Russian shook his head. “Oggie will question them all tomorrow and I'm not going to risk their giving anything away. They mustn't know that I've had any hand in this, or even that you've escaped until they learn it for themselves. That's why I collected your furs from your room on my way back from the office.”

It was a bitter blow to Gregory that he had to leave without even being able to say good-bye to Erika and the others but he saw the soundness of Kuporovitch's dictum.

“Very well,” he said reluctantly. I'd better get off, then. But I shall want the Russian for ‘railway-station', in case I get lost in the town, and the name of the place at which I'm most likely to find Voroshilov.”

“‘Railway-station' is
Vogzal Borzair
” replied the General, and went on: “The Supreme Command is at Nykyrka, in captured Finnish territory, on the south of the Isthmus. Would you like one for the road?”

“Thanks.” Gregory nodded, so they moved over to the sideboard to empty the remains of a bottle of vodka into glasses.

“Good luck,
mon cher Baron
!” The Soviet General winked.

“Good luck—and a thousand thanks, Comrade General,” the impostor Nazi Colonel smiled back, and they emptied the glasses.

Outside on the landing it seemed that the whole of the ancient castle was sunk in grim, foreboding silence. No sentries were about and although they trod as softly as they could their footfalls echoed on the stone steps of the grand staircase. Down on the ground-floor the General turned along a narrow passage. At its end he produced a large bunch of keys, shone a torch and unlocked a door; then they tiptoed down two more long, chill corridors till they reached a heavy postern. The bolts creaked a little as they drew them back, but no other sound disturbed the stillness. Kuporovitch unlocked the door with another large key and swung it open as he put out his torch; the cold, night air struck their faces.

As Gregory stepped out into the snow the Russian said: “Keep along this wall as far as the corner then turn left for a hundred paces; that will take you past the sentry. Ahead of you, you will find a shed that is used as a wood store. If you get on to its roof you'll be able to climb to the top of the outer wall of the castle. It's a nasty drop—about twenty feet—but the snow will break your fall. Go straight ahead again and youll reach the nearest buildings of the town.”

Gregory gripped his hand and slipped away into the darkness. He was free again; but he had only seven days—or ten at the most—to save his friends from being sent back into Nazi Germany to face a Gestapo execution squad.

It was nearly five o'clock in the morning so the moon had set and he was almost invisible against the blackness of the castle. Gaining the corner he paused for a moment to peer ahead in case the sentry was patrolling there; but he could detect no trace of movement in the shadows so turned left and crossed the open space. The store of wood had overflowed and at one side of the shed was a great heap of logs which made an easy way up to its roof; but as he scrambled up the pile some of the loosely-stacked logs rumbled down under his feet. Fearing that the noise, which sounded like hammer-blows in the silence, might attract the attention of the sentry he crouched on the roof's edge for a moment holding his breath.

Nothing stirred so he pulled himself up to the apex of the
roof and, by balancing himself upon it, found that he was just able to grasp the edge of the castle wall. With a heave he wriggled up on to its broad surface and lay there, flat, so that even in the dim light his silhouette would not be conspicuous against the fainter darkness of the sky-line. The next stage was a tricky one, as twenty feet is a nasty height from which to have to drop. Had there been no snow on the ground he would have had to risk injuring himself seriously and, even as it was, he feared that if he let himself drop feet-first he might break a leg, which would put an inglorious finish to his enterprise. But Gregory was an old escaper and knew a trick or two. Wrapping his arms round his head to protect his face he just rolled off the wall. The act required much more courage than jumping but it distributed his weight over a greater surface. He struck the snow full-length and suffered no ill effects apart from a hard jolt as his body buried itself in the soft cushion of whiteness.

Picking himself up he went forward until some buildings loomed in his path and, skirting round the nearest, entered a narrow street, down which he proceeded at a rapid pace, to keep his circulation going. The houses were all shuttered and silent, the infrequent street-lights dim and the road deserted.

He had a vague idea that Kandalaksha was at the head of a gulf running westwards from the White Sea. From what he had seen the previous evening it was quite a small place and dreary in the extreme. There were a certain number of brick and stone buildings in the centre of the town but most of the houses were made of wood. There were no tramways or buses. But the important thing was that it lay on the Murmansk-Leningrad railway. Five minutes' walk downhill brought him to the little square and, turning left out of it, he reached the railway-station ten minutes later.

In peace-time it would certainly have been shut at this hour as it is doubtful if more than one train each way passed through it per day, but the war had caused a big increase in traffic. The line was Russia's only link with her northern forces operating round Petsamo and trains were coming through at all sorts of odd hours, so the station was open day and night. Marching into the booking-hall he handed his railway warrant to an official who, after examining it, said something to him in Russian.

Gregory tapped his lips and ears and shrugged his shoulders, conveying that he had the misfortune to be a deaf-mute. He then pointed to himself, to the voucher and to the door on to the platform; upon which the official nodded kindly and indicated
by signs that Gregory should go into the waiting-room and that he would fetch him when the next train for Leningrad came in.

The waiting-room was incredibly stuffy and already full of people. Most of them were soldiers but there were a certain number of peasants and townsfolk who had evidently gathered there not knowing when the next train was likely to come in and, for fear of missing it, had parked themselves at the station for the night. All the benches were occupied, and a good portion of the floor, where dirty, smelly people lay sprawled, looking extremely repulsive in their sleep. Gregory found a corner and, as he had not slept for nearly twenty-four hours, dropped off almost as soon as he had stretched himself out.

When he awoke daylight was filtering through the grimy window, so picking himself up he left the waiting-room to see if he could find some breakfast. There was a small buffet on the other side of the booking-hall and after doing his deaf-mute act again he secured a huge doorstep sandwich, which contained some sort of sausage between the thick layers of greyish bread, and a steaming cup of substitute coffee. As he had had a good dinner the night before he did not want the sandwich and forced himself to eat it only because he did not know when he would be able to feed again; but the boiling-hot coffee substitute was extremely welcome, since the amount of vodka, Caucasian champagne and
slievowitz
that he had had to drink the night before had given him a most frightful hangover and he felt like death. While paying for his snack he also bought some biscuits rather like stale sponge-cakes—which were the only kind available—and a packet of chocolate that cost him about ten times as much as it would have done in England.

He then showed himself to the official again so that the man should not forget about him and went back to the waiting-room to nurse his splitting head. The fug and smell there were quite revolting but it was the only warm place available. A sharp wind was coming up the frozen gulf across the harbour, which lay on the far side of the station, and the cold outside was bitter.