Faked Passports (61 page)

Gregory shrugged. “I'm afraid that's a risk that must be taken.”

They ran along a twisting road through the trees until it sloped down to a little village which had been almost pounded to pieces. As the car drew up in an open space among the ruins Gregory could see that they were on the edge of a small, frozen harbour which in peace-time had sheltered the fishing-boats of the villagers. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 7.20.
They had crossed the Isthmus in two hours, five minutes, averaging about twenty-eight miles an hour, which was a magnificent effort considering that for nearly the whole way they had had to pass along troop-congested by-roads.

Having thanked the chauffeur for his excellent driving Gregory picked up his suitcase, left the car and went down a few ice-covered steps to the frozen harbour. A group which consisted of a light
troika
, eight horses and two bearded, fur-muffled soldiers was waiting there.

“It's seventy-two miles from shore to shore,” said the officer, “and, as you probably know, it's unusual to drive for more than thirty miles without a change of team. Unfortunately there's nowhere in the middle of the Lake where you can pick up relays, so I'm sending a spare team which will be led with a spare saddle-horse. That will enable you to change teams every hour or so. The horses are all young and fresh, the best that could be picked for such a journey, but I'm afraid you may have to kill some of them if you are to get through. The strain upon them will be frightful.”

“I know.” Gregory nodded. “It's a pretty desperate venture, but it's got to be done, and I'm more than grateful to you for giving me your best horses for such a ghastly trip.”

“The two men have been picked because they both speak German and are well fitted to act as your guides,” the officer went on. “They will accompany you right through in order to act as your interpreters with the officials in any villages where you have to get relays on the opposite mainland. This”—he pointed to the taller man who was standing in the sleigh—“is Sergeant Boroski; the other, who is holding the spare team, is Corporal Orloff.”

Gregory said a cheery word to the two soldiers, put his suitcase in the sleigh and getting in himself said good-bye to the officer, who had been no more than a shadowy form and a voice in the semi-darkness. Sergeant Boroski cracked his whip and the horses went forward at a canter out of the little harbour.

With a sigh of relief Gregory snuggled down into the sleigh, pulling the thick fur rugs right up to his chin. One great danger was safely past. Grauber's men might get the Russians to telephone till all was blue but they could not stop him now. Communications ended on the south-western shore of the Lake; the very thing which had previously prevented him from getting an order for Erika's release to Kandalaksha was now his protection. They could send a courier after him but they could
not catch him, and even a few hours' lead would be enough. If he could reach Kandalaksha before the Gestapo men he could free Erika and leave with her immediately. Now that he had Voroshilov's
carte blanche
order in his pocket for everyone to facilitate the journey of his party he backed himself to get clear before the pursuit with counter-orders could possibly arrive.

Yet he knew that he was still terrifyingly far from succeeding in his bid to rescue Erika and was only now entering upon the most dangerous and difficult stage of his journey. While by no means an impossibility, seventy-two miles is a terrific distance for horses to cover without at least one interval for prolonged rest and recuperation; yet in that bitter cold there could be no question of halting for any length of time, as there was no shelter for the teams and if they were given more than a breather at stated intervals the cold might affect them too severely for them to proceed further. He remembered, too, what he had been told about Finnish patrols often penetrating between the Russian outposts on the Lake. For the first six or eight miles, at least, there was the added risk of being shot or captured, and he could not possibly afford the time to make a wide detour which would have carried him outside the limits of this very definite danger.

Recovered now from his hellish scrap with Grauber, except for dull aches which he knew would not leave him for many hours, he began to calculate times while the sleigh ran smoothly forward, drawn at a fine pace by the fresh, well-fed horses. The distance from Leningrad to Petrozavodsk along the great bend in the railway was just over three hundred miles, and Gregory knew from his own experience that on that line the Russian trains averaged only eighteen miles an hour, so the journey would take the Gestapo agents seventeen hours. If they had not left Leningrad until that evening—say, at eight o'clock—they would not get into Petrozavodsk before one o'clock the following afternoon; in which case, if he succeeded in crossing the Lake and managed to maintain a reasonable speed in doing so, he should arrive well before them.

On the other hand they might have left Leningrad much earlier. It was possible that they had departed as early as two o'clock in the afternoon. If so, they would get into Petrozavodsk at about seven o'clock in the morning.

Gregory asked Boroski what speed he thought they could make over the ice and the Sergeant replied: “Twelve miles an hour in normal conditions; I might do even better with such
fine horses, but if we encounter broken ice we may be badly held up. As we have such a great distance to cover I must husband the strength of the horses or we might never get there at all, so we cannot hope to do more than nine or ten miles an hour at the most.”

The man spoke of
versts
but Gregory translated the Russian measure into English distances as he listened and began another series of calculations. Nine miles an hour would bring them to Rabaly in eight hours—about half-past two in the morning. They would then have to make arrangements for fresh horses and cover another seventy miles to Petrozavodsk. The going would be better along the road—say fifteen miles an hour with halts—which meant another five hours. It seemed doubtful if they would arrive at Petrozavodsk before eight-thirty at the earliest. He could only pray that the Gestapo men had not left Leningrad until the evening.

Behind them the guns still thundered and, looking over his left shoulder, to the west, Gregory could see a constant flickering in the night sky as shells and Verey lights burst upon the Finnish defences at Taipale, although the rising shore of the lake and the pinewoods which fringed it hid the actual explosions from him. To his front and right the darkness was unbroken, but the snow and stars enabled them to penetrate it for some distance. Orloff had gone ahead with the spare horses to act as an advance guard and give warning if he sighted any detachments of troops out on the ice of the Lake; but Gregory and Boroski also kept their eyes strained to the north-west, as in this first part of the journey there was a constant danger that a white-coated Finnish ski-patrol might suddenly emerge out of the shadows. Twice they caught the flash of rifles out there to the left and heard sharp reports; once a single wailing cry of a man in his death agony echoed over the snow-field.

While keeping alert Gregory began to think about Grauber and wonder if he would die from his injuries in the night. He hoped so, and cursed himself for his weakness in not having killed him when he had the chance. If Grauber survived he would be found, at the latest, when the soldier-servants came to call their officers at seven o'clock in the morning and he would have a fine story to tell von Geisenheim and the Russians. The General already knew that Gregory was an impostor but he could not possibly admit it and would have to press the Russians for the speedy capture of the false Colonel-Baron. That would make things damnably tricky once the hunt was up. But Gregory
thought he knew how to cheat them. He would not come south again; that would be running into trouble. He would maintain his lead of it by heading north. Murmansk was only a hundred and seventy miles north of Kandalaksha and from there, with Voroshilov's order, they could get a ship along the coast to Norway. They would be out of Russia before the news that they were wanted reached the Arctic port. If only he arrived in time to save Erika, if only he arrived in time.…

Suddenly a challenge rang out right in front of them. Boroski swerved the sleigh to the right with the intention of making off at a gallop towards the east. Gregory snatched up the sub-machine-gun that was part of the sleigh's equipment; but Orloff answered the challenge as he was nearer the point from which it had come and had heard it clearly enough to recognise that the men ahead of them were Russians. Having shouted a pass-word he called to the others that it was all right and Boroski turned the sleigh back towards the north again. A moment later they passed a group of a dozen silent, ghost-like figures on skis, who waved to them before being swallowed up in the darkness.

At the end of the first hour they halted to rest the horses and swap teams. The men changed over duties, too, Sergeant Boroski mounting the spare riding horse to lead his team and Orloff's mount, while the Corporal got into the sleigh as driver. They felt considerably easier now, as it was hardly likely that any Finnish patrols would be so far out on the ice, and Gregory decided to try to get some sleep. His eye was hurting him abominably and his shin ached acutely where Grauber had landed a heavy kick on it; but the mutter of the guns had sunk away to a dull rumble in the distance, which only served to make him drowsy, so after a little time he managed to get off.

When he awoke it was just after ten o'clock and he asked at once how they were going. Boroski was driving again and he replied: “Quite well. We are nearly half-way across the Lake now.”

Gregory was surprised and elated. If that were so, as they had been going for about two and three-quarter hours they must be averaging thirteen miles an hour, which was much better than anything he had hoped for; but his jubilance was abruptly checked as Boroski went on.

“There is trouble ahead now, though. It must have been that bad bump that woke you up.”

“What was it?” Gregory inquired.

“Broken ice. A ship, or perhaps an ice-breaker, must have
ploughed her way through here just as the ice was forming and churned it all up so that it is hilly and uneven.” As he spoke Boroski brought the horses to a walk and strained his eyes into the semi-darkness to catch the signals of Orloff who was riding ahead and picking out the best route for them to follow between the hummocks. For half an hour, while Gregory sat there fretting, impatient and freezing, it was impossible for them to move faster than a walking pace; but at last they got on to smooth ice again and with renewed energy after their change of gait the horses were able to go forward at a trot once more.

They were now over thirty miles from either shore and even the booming of the great guns could no longer be heard. The only sound which broke the stillness was the gentle clopping of the horses' hoofs and the swish of the snow as the sleigh cut into it. The stars overhead were brilliant and enabled the drivers to find their way in this forlorn, white wilderness without reference to the compass which Boroski was carrying.

An hour later they struck another patch of broken ice which delayed them further; by the time they got through it midnight had come and they still had another twenty miles to go. The horses were flagging now as, apart from the distance they had covered, the strain of pulling the sleigh up and down over the big hummocks on this second patch of bad ice seemed to have taken a lot out of them. The drivers were changing teams at shorter intervals and at each halt they were giving the horses a handful of grain soaked in vodka.

By one o'clock, when they pulled up again, the horses stood with splayed legs and their heads were hanging dejectedly down in front of them, breathing heavily. The lead team seemed in little better condition than the one which had just been unharnessed from the sleigh.

“They're in a bad way,” Boroski commented, “and, poor beasts, they will be in a worse state before we reach Rabaly; but it cannot be helped, as there are many miles to go yet and we cannot afford the time to walk them.”

When Orloff took over he drove the horses at a steady trot, for the first time using his whip to keep them up to their work. Gregory noticed that he did not halt at the half-hour as usual, so some minutes later he asked: “What about giving them another breather?”

Orloff shook his head. “If I do, they will lie down and we may have difficulty in getting them on their legs again. It is
better that we should drive them as far as they will go now and, if necessary, walk the rest of the distance.”

Gregory's heart sank. If they had to abandon the sleigh and walk in the snow it might be hours yet before he reached the far shore of the Lake. His only consolation was that the night continued fine and that there were no signs of approaching snow; as a heavy fall during the next hour or so would trap them on the Lake and they might die there. He could now hear the sound of gunfire once more and for some time there had been a flicker in the sky, to the north-west, where the Russians were pounding the Finnish lines before Sortavala.

At ten minutes to two the near-side horse of the
troika
stumbled and fell, bringing the sleigh to an abrupt standstill. The other two stood by it moaning for breath, their heads hanging down within a foot of the snow. Orloff got out and unharnessed the dead horse, then he freed the other two while Boroski brought up the team he had been leading and harnessed them.

For another twenty minutes they drove on, then a second horse fell dead in its tracks; the other two lay down beside it. The Russians replaced the dead horse with the fittest from Orloff's team and, using their whips ruthlessly now, got the others on to their legs. At a slow amble the sleigh slid over the
snow again
.

Ten minutes later a third horse died, upon which both its companions and the led horses lay down directly they were halted. It was a nightmare business getting them up again and Gregory, numbed by the cold as he was, in spite of frequent pulls at his flask of vodka, had to leave the sleigh and give his assistance. Both men and beasts were nearly exhausted from the terrific strain which they had undergone, but somehow the job was done and, driven by the whips, the horses went forward once more.