Come into my Parlour (44 page)

As the victors of the fight stepped from the cabin they both slid on the slippery sloping plates and fell with a splash into the waterlogged channel.

At that instant the emergency lights went out. A new terror gripped them as, knee deep in water, they strove to find a footing in the darkness. For a few moments the blackness weighed upon them like a pall of death, then, as their eyes became accustomed to it, they realised that it was not completely dark. Away ahead of them there was a faint patch of greyness. It was the reflected moonlight coming down the conning-tower hatch.

Slipping, staggering, falling, they made towards it, then groped their way awkwardly up the sideways-tilted ladder. As they emerged
from the hatch they saw that a Soviet destroyer was lying about a hundred yards off their port beam and that one of her boats was alongside the U-boat, taking off the last half dozen of her crew. A bright moon rode in a clear sky and by its light they could also see two other destroyers and several smaller warcraft in the near distance, slowly circling about their kill.

Clinging to the hand-rails, they hurried along the dangerously sloping deck to the boat and scrambled into it. The other survivors hardly gave them a glance, being too absorbed in their own misery at having just become prisoners. But suddenly, as the boat was about to push off, the
Leutnant
noticed Gregory and, starting up, exclaimed:

“What have you done with the
Kapitänleutnant
Where is he?”

Gregory stared him straight in the face, and replied: “He will not be coming. He is going down with his ship.”

“But it was you who were to go down with the ship!” cried the young German. “It was an order! He told me so, and that I had been wrong to release you.”

“That's just too bad, isn't it?” grinned Gregory. “Well, things didn't pan out that way. My friend bust his face in with the wrong end of a bottle, and we felt no obligation to saddle ourselves with a Nazi murderer.”

Suddenly the
Leutnant's
hand jerked down to his belt. The Russians had not yet disarmed their prisoners, and he pulled out his gun.

The Soviet sailor who had just pushed off the boat saw the gesture and hit him a sharp blow on the wrist with the end of the boat-hook. The gun fell from his hand and clattered on the bottom boards. For a second the young man stared at him open-mouthed, then he burst into tears.

“Come on,” said Gregory, not unkindly. “Take it easy. You're only a youngster and you showed plenty of pluck in coming down to that stinking hole to let out the prisoners. Your trouble is that you've been brought up all wrong; but by the time you get back to Germany things will be different and you may become quite a decent citizen.”

Ten minutes later they were on the fore-deck of the destroyer being herded together with the other prisoners. Kuporovitch stepped out of the mob and addressed one of the Soviet officers in Russian.

“My friend and I were prisoners on the U-boat. He is an Englishman and I too, am British, although born in Russia. We are both war correspondents, and were being taken to Germany. May we see your captain?”

After expressing his astonishment that two British prisoners should
have been on board the submarine, the officer took them aft and up to the bridge.

The captain of the destroyer was in a high good humour on account of his recent kill. Kuporovitch congratulated him on it, then told him that Gregory and himself had been captured in Tallinn while reporting on the campaign in the Baltic States. They produced their papers, which were all in order, so the captain saw no reason to disbelieve them, and, after congratulating them on their escape, sent them below with the officer to whom Kuporovitch had just spoken.

The officer, having introduced himself as Lieutenant Dakov, took them to the mess and gave them half a tumbler of vodka apiece. Then, as they were now shivering with cold, he suggested that they should turn in for a bit while he had their clothes and furs dried. Gratefully they followed him to a double cabin, stripped off their saturated things, and got between the blankets in the bunks. Utterly exhausted, within five minutes they were both sound asleep.

By half past four the destroyer was back at her moorings in Kronstadt bay, but her captain had the kindness not to have his guests called until ten o'clock. Their dry clothes were brought to them and, greatly refreshed by a seven-hours' sleep, they dressed. They were then given a good breakfast in the mess and, as soon as they had finished, Lieutenant Dakov told them that he was going to take them ashore.

Their terrible experience of the previous night was still too recent for them to get it quite into focus as yet, and they both felt that they had not actually lived it but, rather, passed through a most appalling nightmare. So far they had had little chance to speak of it to each other, or to make future plans; but immediately they were settled in the boat Gregory said anxiously to Stefan:

“Where is he taking us?”

“To the Naval Governor's office,” Kuporovitch replied. “Naturally they want an account of how we came to be captured.”

Gregory already knew that the Soviet officer who was with them could not understand French, so he went on, “What do you suggest telling them?”

“That we were both pressmen working in Sweden, and that when Hitler attacked Russia we decided to slip over to the Baltic States, to report the new campaign. That as the Soviet forces were driven back we too fell back, until we were cornered in Tallinn. Naturally we were anxious to escape capture by the Germans, so we tried to get away in a small boat; but we were caught by the submarine and taken prisoners, after all.”

“That sounds a pretty plausible story. The only trouble is that
our passports won't bear it out. They have never been franked in Sweden, and they have been franked in the Soviet Union.”

Kuporovitch shrugged. “But they are visad for Sweden; and, in fact, for practically every country that is still neutral in Europe.”

“Yes, because old Pellinore had the blessed forethought to realise that we might want to come out of Russia a different way to that by which we went in.”

“All right, then. The fact that they are good for Sweden is half the battle. I shall say that since they are diplomatic passports entrance and exit stamps were not considered necessary there. And by the mercy of God the Soviet stamp does not show at what place we entered the Union. I looked at mine this morning. The Soviets took over the Baltic States over a year ago, so if we had been there it would have been the Russians who stamped them, and there is nothing to show that we came through Persia because, when we did, the country was in a state of upheaval.”

“That's true. And as we were travelling as semi-military personnel all the way out from England our passports weren't stamped in the Middle East either. Still, Kronstadt is inside the Leningrad defence ring and, except by making one's way through the German lines, which they would not expect two pressmen to attempt, there is no way out——”

“They could fly us out.”

“Yes, I was just about to add—except by air. But that needs a pretty high priority. Naturally we should ask them to fly us to Moscow; but if they say that space in an aircraft cannot be spared, what do you propose suggesting that they should do with us?”

“I shall ask them to let us proceed to Leningrad, in order that we may be attached to Marshal Voroshilov's press bureau and make ourselves useful there, until a place in an aircraft going to Moscow can be found for us.”

“Right. Now say that they question me separately. How long were we supposed to have been prisoners in the U-boat?”

“Let us say for three days.”

“How long were we at sea in the little boat before the sub picked us up?”

“Two days; and we were picked up soon after dawn on the third day, about thirty miles west of Tallinn. The boat was a small motor-launch. We had plenty of fuel but the engine had failed and neither of us knew how to put it right.”

Gregory took up the fabrication. “We left Sweden in a tramp, two days before the stamps on our passports show that we entered Russia,
and we went first to Riga. We had been working in Stockholm as freelance journalists and thought it a good chance to get a scoop for the British papers because, as far as we knew, there were no official Ministry of Information correspondents attached to the Soviet forces. We had been in Sweden since the fall of Norway. We took refuge there because we got cut off from the British forces operating round Trondheim. But how the hell did we get ourselves attached to the Legation?”

They both thought hard for a moment, then Gregory added: “I know. We'll say that free-lance journalism is our normal profession, but it is a precarious existence and the war offered a chance of steady jobs; so we got ourselves taken on by the Ministry of Economic Warfare as temporary Civil Servants. As we had volunteered for service overseas we were attached to the British Legation in Oslo; but, after a bit, we got fed-up with office routine, so when the trouble started there, we went off free-lancing again. There's nothing so terribly improbable about that.”

“No,” Kuporovitch agreed. “After all, Soviet officers and officials know practically nothing of how British wartime Ministries work and the conditions under which they issue diplomatic passports, so they're not likely to question us much on that side of our story. It is our experiences in the U-boat which will interest them.”

“We'll say nothing of Grauber, of course.”

“Why not? If we give his description they could send out an alert to all the Soviet forces on the Esthonian coast, and they might catch him.”

“No. Old man Grauber is as slippery as an eel, and a mighty fast worker. The Russian-held belt is only about thirty miles deep out there, and I wouldn't mind betting that he's reached the German lines by this time. In any case the hope of their picking him up is so slight that it isn't worth the risk of the trouble we may land ourselves in if we mention him.”

“Why should we land ourselves in trouble?”

“Because we'd have such a frightful lot of explaining to do. If we were just a couple of strays picked up from a boat how would we know anything about Grauber? It's a thousand to one that we'd have spent the whole of our three days in the lock-up, so we wouldn't have even seen him. Even if we had we wouldn't have known who or what he was. And we certainly wouldn't know how or when he came aboard the ship or left it. We'd have to make up a whole new story to account for such knowledge and that might lead to all sorts of complications.”

Kuporovitch nodded. “You're right. I hadn't thought of that,” and Gregory went on:

“We've got to keep our story as simple as we possibly can. Such a hell of a lot hangs on our being believed. We've had a marvellous break but we're very far from being out of the wood yet.”

“Yes, I realise that.”

“Good! Our attitude is that we're only too anxious to help but we know practically nothing, because we've spent the last three days in the U-boat's cells. We don't know anything about her having picked anyone up off Kronstadt or having put someone ashore further down the coast. If we can put that over we're as good as free men, and with a little luck we'll get back to London and complete our mission. But if we fail we'll find ourselves back in the Lubianka; and we can't expect Marshal Voroshilov to take any risk of our being taken out of Soviet hands again.”

The boat had hove to alongside a jetty while they had been talking, and they finished their conversation only as they were walking up it with their escort.

The scene on the water-front of the famous Russian naval base was one of great activity. Warships of all sizes lay at anchor in the bay and small craft of all kinds were continually going to and from them. On the quays scores of sailors were handling stores or passing to and fro along the street. There was only a sprinkling of civilians and women to be seen as Kronstadt was a purely naval port and entry to it could be obtained only by special permit. But Gregory and Stefan were not given long to observe their surroundings, as a few hundred yards from the jetty stood the big Soviet Admiralty building, and their guide took them into it.

Having shown his pass he led the way upstairs to the first floor, put them into a waiting-room and left them there. He was away for some time and during his absence Gregory could not help feeling distinctly uneasy. He recalled Mr. Micawber into whose mouth Dickens had put the admirable dictum: “Income twenty shillings a year, expenditure nineteen and sixpence—happiness. Income twenty shillings a year, expenditure twenty shillings and sixpence—misery.” He knew that the coming interview could result in no half measures. Just like having or not having the odd sixpence in hand at the end of the year, they would either get away with it completely and be free to use their wits in devising a good way to get home, or they would find themselves back in a Soviet prison, as suspects; be identified in due course, have to face the merciless wrath of the Marshal, who would certainly believe that they had been in league with the Germans the whole time and had somehow managed to arrange to be rescued by their pay-masters.

At last this period of anxious waiting came to an end. The officer returned, led them down several passages, and ushered them into a
room where a bald, moon-faced naval captain with prawn-like eyebrows was sitting.

The captain greeted them pleasantly, asked them to sit down and listened intently to Kuporovitch's story. Having looked carefully at their passports he handed them back and appeared quite satisfied. He then asked a number of questions about the U-boat and their activities in Esthonia. About the three days they were supposed to have spent in the cells there was little to be said, and as the Esthonian battle front had been much like any other Kuporovitch was able to bluff quite convincingly about experiences they might well have met with there.