Come into my Parlour (27 page)

When the General had left him Gregory mingled with the crowd
again. At midnight a pair of double doors at the end of the room were thrown open and a fine selection of hot dishes was wheeled in on trolleys. Gregory had already done ample justice to the cold spread and could not have eaten another sausage, but the Russians crowded round, helping themselves to great plates of bortch, poliviack and chicken fried in butter. Sweet Caucasian champagne had now replaced the vodka on the silver salvers that were being handed round. No one was the worse for liquor but everyone was laughing and talking at the top of their voices, and the Polish officers, who had been very stiff and correct when they first arrived, were now as merry and apparently carefree as their hosts.

About one o'clock in the morning Molotov came in, and stayed for about three-quarters of an hour. He shook hands with all the Poles, made a short speech which was translated into Polish, and then drank a toast with their senior General. Gregory would have given a lot to be able to wave a magic wand and change the sleek, black-haired, pale-faced Commissar for Foreign Affairs into little bright-eyed Uncle Joe, so that from a distance of only a few feet he could have made his own assessment of the great man's health; but in other ways, before the night was out he had no reason to complain of his luck.

Soon after Molotov had gone Alyabaiev led a young Brigadier up to him and reopened the matter of his going to Leningrad. As he had supposed the Russians were much more elastic in their dealings with such situations than the British would have been, and his suggestion of ignoring the Press Bureau was accepted as a short cut to getting the job done instead of a matter for head-shakings and fears of possible inter-Ministerial repercussions. The Brigadier proved to be in charge of communications with Leningrad and told Gregory that if he and his friend would hold themselves in readiness to leave their Embassy at short notice he would have them flown into the besieged city during the course of the next three days.

Several other officers joined them and were told about the project. All of them were anxious to get to one of the fronts, so none of them thought it strange that Gregory should be prepared to risk his life by making a long stay in a city under bombardment. On the contrary, they congratulated him on his luck and another half-dozen rounds of drinks were tossed off to the success of his venture. It was nearly five in the morning before he got home, but he went to bed well satisfied.

Next morning he told Kuporovitch how things had gone and they set about their preparations for departure. These were simple, as they had only to repack two of their suit-cases and place the other two, containing the bulk of their wealth in soap and cosmetics, in the care of the Press Attaché. But they were now also faced with the far more
difficult task of deciding what their policy was to be when they reached Leningrad; and they spent the whole of the forenoon discussing it.

The salient difficulties were that Voroshilov must know that his old companion-in-arms, Stefan Kuporovitch, had disappeared from the Castle of Kandalaksha in March 1940, and presumably abandoned his command to become a deserter; and that, on the previous occasion when the Marshal had met Gregory, that worthy had been posing as the German Colonel Baron von Lutz. Somehow these matters had to be accounted for and a plausible explanation offered as to why they both now reappeared carrying British passports.

This was the barest necessity which would enable them to escape being handed over to a firing-squad, but, if they were to succeed in their mission, they had to do far more. It would not be enough merely to convince the Marshal that the one was not a traitor or the other an enemy; in addition they must provide some subtle inducement for him to place his complete trust in them, and, still further, impel him to take the quite extraordinary step of confiding to them the full truth about Russia's resources and future strategy.

At first the problem seemed so hopelessly insoluble that they were inclined to regret the rashness of their decision to voluntarily push their heads into the lion's mouth; but they both felt that Gregory's activities the previous night had practically burnt their boats and, although it might have been possible to wriggle out of the trip at the last moment, they were impelled to go through with it on account of their earlier decision—that it offered the only slender hope that they could see of succeeding in their mission.

Having argued round the matter for an hour, Gregory suggested that they should put the cart before the horse, and, instead of trying to think up ways of explaining away the past and their new rôles to the Marshal, they should endeavour to assess to whom he would be likely to divulge the information they were seeking.

“He would certainly not tell you anything at all if you appeared before him in your old rôle as a German,” remarked Kuporovitch.

“No, and I think it most unlikely that he would tell me the truth if I approached him as an Englishman,” Gregory replied. “He must know that Russia is asking Britain for armaments, so naturally he would make Russia's case out to be better than it is, and say that time is on her side and that she has practically unlimited numbers of trained men to use them. He'd be a fool if he didn't.”

Kuporovitch leant forward and his lazy blue eyes narrowed a little. “Listen,” he said. “We have to think of the
circumstances in
which he would speak freely, more than the sort of men to whom he would do so.”

“That's true,” agreed Gregory, thoughtfully, and after a moment, he added: “It might have something to do with the time-factor. He knows how far the Soviet armies can afford to retreat and must have a pretty shrewd idea how long it is likely to be before they are forced back to their final line. If someone was able to offer him really important assistance—some blow at the Germans which might shake them badly and temporarily throw them off their balance—”

“Yes, yes. I get your idea. He would then have to show his own hand in order that the blow might be delivered at the most critical point in the campaign.”

“It would have to be something that could be used only once.”

“For instance, a British landing on the Continent.”

“That's the sort of thing.”

“If it were put to him that the opening of a Second Front was in active preparation, but that the longer the British could be given the more powerful their blow would be, it would then be in Russia's own best interests for him to disclose the absolute maximum for which he considered she could hold on unaided.”

Gregory nodded. “Those are the sort of circumstances in which he would tell the real truth all right. I think we're getting somewhere now. But I'm not certain that a Second Front is the right bait for our line.”

“Perhaps not. You mean it would need a great deal of explaining as to how we had been sent as emissaries on such a matter, instead of its being handled through the Embassy and the British Military Mission? Then too, why should Clim, who is besieged in Leningrad, be consulted, instead of the question being referred direct to Stalin in Moscow. Those points would certainly be very difficult to get over.”

“They would; and there's another thing. Most of the officers that I met last night seem to have very little idea of the damage the collapse of France and the equipment we lost at Dunkirk did to Britain. They obviously believe that we could launch a Second Front at any time we chose. They don't realise that we're still only half armed and half trained, and that even when the job is completed Britain's man-power is so comparatively limited, that with her huge commitments in the Mediterranean and the East she could never find an army large enough to tackle the Germans on the Continent. But Voroshilov is in a different category.

“You mean that as he is a member of the Camorilla that runs Russia he has access to much secret information that the Generals would not see? In fact, that he probably has a pretty good idea of the true state of things in England and knows that any prospect of a Second Front is right out of the question—at least, for some years to come.”

“Exactly! So however plausible our story might be in other respects he'd smell a rat, and hand us over to his gunmen.”

“We must rule that out then,” Kuporovitch sighed. “But what other outside blow against the Germans could occur that would need careful timing?”

For a little they sat in silence, drawing heavily on their cigarettes. At length Gregory looked up and said:

“I believe I've got it, Stefan. What do you think of this?”

For another half hour they talked, first one, then the other, adding a detail or rounding off a thought, to clothe the bare bones of the idea that Gregory had produced. By lunchtime they felt that they really had the groundwork of a reasonably plausible story, but they worked on it again all through the afternoon, until, when they went to the Mess for the single before-dinner whisky and soda that was all each member was allowed, they were satisfied that, although they would be taking their lives in their hands, they would at least be doing so on a brilliantly audacious and very carefully-worked-out plan.

Now that they had settled matters, for better or for worse, they were anxious to be off; and when no message came for them during the second day after the reception Gregory began to fear that the Brigadier had forgotten his promise; but that night, Friday, 19th of September, just as they were thinking of going to bed, a box van called for them. In anticipation of possibly having to leave in a hurry, they had already said good-bye to their nominal master, the Press Attaché, and the other friends that they had made in the Embassy annexe during their eight-day stay in Moscow, so they had only to put on their furs and carry their bags out to the waiting car.

It bore them through the dark, deserted streets to a big office block. The driver, beckoning them to follow him, took them up in the lift to a waiting-room on the third floor, where a girl messenger motioned them to sit down. During the twenty minutes that they waited there, three officers and a civilian, with the black eyes and high cheekbones of a Tartar, joined them, each giving his name to the girl on his arrival. Then Gregory's friend, the young Brigadier, came hurrying in, and the three officers immediately sprang to attention.

It was a critical moment as, although the great size of the Soviet Army made it unlikely, there was always the possibility that he might at one time have served under Kuporovitch. If so, recognition would be certain to result in a postponement of their departure until the Soviet authorities had made full enquiries as to how their ex-General came to be on the staff of the British Embassy. But the Brigadier gave Gregory a quick smile, nodded amiably to Kuporovitch when he
was introduced as Mr. Cooper and handed each of them an envelope containing the necessary papers for their journey.

He then called one of the officers over, and introducing him as Major Makhno, said that he would look after them on their trip and secure accommodation for them in Leningrad. Cutting Gregory's thanks short he gave them a quick handshake, wished them a safe passage over the enemy lines, and hurried back to his own work. The Major said something to the others in Russian and the little party all went downstairs.

In the street the box van was waiting for them. They climbed into it and an hour later it set them down in front of some hutments on one of the military airfields some way outside Moscow.

In one of the huts an officer examined the papers of the party, then they were shepherded into another and left to wait there three quarters of an hour. At length, a little after one o'clock in the morning, they were led out onto the airfield and across to a big bomber. Having climbed in the passengers were directed down into the bomb bay. There was no room to stand upright there and no seats, only a double tier of temporary racks, across which wire netting had been nailed, on which they could lie down.

It was both cold and stuffy down there, and extremely uncomfortable, as each individual had only just enough space to turn round, and could not even raise his head more than a few inches. They were told that smoking was forbidden and when the doors were closed the bay was lit only by one dim blue light.

Gregory was far from happy, as, at times, he suffered from mild claustrophobia, and few things could have been better calculated to bring it on than being packed like a human sardine in a tin. Moreover, he knew that if the aircraft ran into trouble its passengers stood little chance of surviving. Down there in the belly of the ‘plane they would be more exposed to anti-aircraft fire than in any other part of it, and if the machine caught fire the crew might bale out but there would be small hope of anyone in the bomb bay being able to extricate themselves from their narrow quarters in time to do so; in addition, if the aircraft had to make a forced landing there was more than an even chance that its passengers would be crushed, trapped and, if they survived the crash, burnt to death.

The fact that the great majority of staff officers of all nations who made night journeys by air in wartime had to travel this way, and that most of them reached their destinations in safety, was small consolation. The ensuing hours were the most miserable that Gregory had spent for a long time, as he could neither divert his mind by watching the night landscape over which they were flying nor, owing to the roar of the engines, even hear the sound of the guns when they entered the
war zone, so he could only lie there in a cold sweat visualising all the horrible things that might happen to him at any moment.

After what seemed a dozen hours at least, the aircraft began to drop sharply and for a few moments Gregory wondered wildly if they were being forced down; then it banked and the engine stopped. He clenched his teeth and waited for the crash. There was a sharp jolt that threw him half out of his makeshift bunk, a lesser bump, another and another, then, with a sigh of relief, he realised that the machine was running smoothly along the ground.