Faked Passports (60 page)

The instant Grauber swung round from unpacking his suitcase he recognised Gregory. The black patch still hid his left eye-socket but his good eye flashed amazement—then deadly
hatred. His gun was lying on a camp table just out of reach and he did not make the mistake of trying to grab it. As Gregory thrust his hand into his furs to draw his pistol the sixteen-stone Gestapo Chief hurled himself at him. The weight and suddenness of the attack carried Gregory right off his feet. They went down together with a frightful crash, Gregory underneath. With a speed which would have done credit to an all-in wrestler Grauber got his hands on the Englishman's throat. Next moment Gregory was fighting for his life.

Wriggling like an eel he twisted himself partly from under the German and bringing up his knee thrust it into his adversary's groin. Grauber let out a harsh grunt and for a second his hold on Gregory's throat slackened. Their faces were within a few inches of each other. As the grip on Gregory's throat relaxed he jerked his head forward and buried his teeth in Grauber's chin.

For two minutes the Gestapo man bore the intense agony, his blood streaming over Gregory's face while they fought with silent ferocity, then Grauber could bear the pain no longer. Withdrawing his right hand he clenched it and lifted it for a sideways blow that would smash Gregory's face away from his own. As the blow came Gregory let go his bulldog grip and flung his head aside so that the German's fist lost most of its force and only hit him a glancing blow on the left ear. But, twist as he would, he could not get out from under the heavy body.

Having freed his chin Grauber jerked himself up and holding Gregory down with his left hand bashed at his face with his right. Gregory dodged two of the blows but the third caught him full in the left eye. The pain was excruciating and for a moment he thought that he was blinded. Gathering all his force he kneed Grauber in the groin again. The German gave another awful grunt and tried to retaliate, but as his body shifted Gregory crossed his legs and stiffened the muscles of his stomach. At the same instant he brought up his right fist with a short-arm hook to the side of Grauber's chin. Grauber's face, as he straddled Gregory, was almost out of reach so the blow was not a heavy one; but it was just sufficient to tip him off his balance and, straining every muscle, Gregory forced him over on to his side.

Grauber kicked out and his heavy boot landed on Gregory's shin, but thrusting the German away from him he managed to wriggle to his knees. Rolling right over, Grauber jumped to his feet with the agility of a huge cat; but Gregory was as quick.
Flinging himself at the Gestapo Chief's knees he embraced his legs and pitched him right over his left shoulder to crash, face-foremost, spread-eagled on the floor.

The fall gave Gregory just time to stagger to his feet. He was puffing like a grampus, sweat and blood were streaming down his face, his heart was pounding as though it would burst through his ribs, but he dared not let up for a second. It was no time for Queensberry rules but a matter of life and death, and much more than his own life depended upon his getting out of that room a free man. As Grauber rolled over and came up on his knees again Gregory hit him full in the face.

He swayed there for an instant, rocking on his knees, yet such were his enormous powers of resistance that in spite of the blow he jerked up to his feet and came charging at Gregory like a thunderbolt.

Gregory managed to keep his balance but was forced back against the wall. He landed a right on his enemy's ear just as Grauber drew back his right and swung a terrific punch on his opponent's body. The blow left Gregory gasping and he sagged a little. Half-blinded and sick with pain he lurched sideways; but his right hand brushed the top of the small table and its fingers encountered Grauber's automatic. There was no time to grasp it properly, as Grauber had drawn back and was coming at him again with a hail of blows. Raising his left arm to protect his face Gregory dodged aside and lifting the clubbed automatic struck Grauber with all his remaining force upon the temple. The German collapsed like a pole-axed ox and lay, a limp, still, huddled lump, on the floor.

It was three minutes before Gregory could get back his breath or concentrate his thoughts. Once he could do so he listened for any sound in the passage or the adjoining rooms. It seemed certain that someone must have heard the racket caused by that frightful struggle and come to find out what it was all about; but in spite of its intensity it had occupied only a few moments and at this hour all the other occupants of the line of huts would be gathered in the Mess for their usual afternoon
Kafe-trinken
. As Gregory realised that he breathed a little more easily, locked the door and set about examining Grauber.

Blood was trickling from the German's temple as well as from his chin, but he was not dead, For a moment Gregory toyed with the idea of killing him. He was a murderer many times over and—worse—a blackmailer and a torturer, who had
climbed to high office in the Nazi State upon the blood, the misery and the tears of innumerable victims. With Hitler, Himmler, Heidrich, Streicher and all their crew, he deserved a more agonising end than the human brain has power to devise; yet, while Gregory would have emptied the contents of an automatic into Grauber's stomach with the greatest possible pleasure if he had been conscious, he could not bring himself to crack the man's skull with one more blow from the pistol now that he lay there helpless.

A great thermos containing two quarts of hot water was kept filled in each hut by the soldier-servants for their officers to wash with when they came off duty. Gregory emptied his into the canvas basin and, having cleansed his face and hands of blood, began to bathe his eye; it was horribly inflamed but had not yet started to colour up. He felt extremely shaky but, using all the speed he could command, he collected everything of Grauber's that he thought might be of use to him and rammed the articles into the suitcase. Next he lashed Grauber hand and foot, lifted him on to his camp bed and drew the blankets over him; so that if anybody looked in they would think that, tired after his journey, he had turned in at once and was sound asleep. With luck he would not be discovered until the soldier-servant came to rouse them the following morning.

Gregory had just started to tidy the hut and remove all traces of the struggle when he caught the sound of footsteps. Next moment there came a sharp knock on the door.

For a second his heart stood still but he controlled his breathing and asked in a steady voice: “Who is it?”

“Von Geisenheim,” the reply came back. “You said you would be only a quarter of an hour and over half an hour has gone already.”

“I'm so sorry. I'll be with you now in one moment,” Gregory called out. He felt certain that although von Geisenheim might be secretly anti-Nazi he would never dare to condone a murderous attack upon a Gestapo Chief who had been attached to his Mission. Swiftly righting the remaining things he snatched up the suitcase and opening the door slipped through it before the General had time to get a glimpse of more than a section of the room.

There was a bright, unshaded light in the passage; by it von Geisenheim immediately noticed Gregory's chalk-white face and damaged eye. Before he had time to speak Gregory said:

“I've just had a nasty accident. While I was packing I
tripped over my suitcase and fell against the corner of the table. I was darned lucky not to lose the sight of my left eye and it hurts abominably. That's what delayed me.”

“Hum! It looks as though you've caught it an awful smack,” von Geisenheim agreed sympathetically as they stepped out of the hut into the darkness together, but he made no other comment.

Five minutes later they were outside Voroshilov's office. A powerful car was waiting in the roadway with a military chauffeur at its wheel, and beside it stood the Staff-Major. In the half-light which came from the headlamps of the car he did not notice the state of Gregory's face as he said that he had made arrangements for a racing sleigh to be in readiness on the southwestern shore of the Lake and wished him good luck.

Gregory murmured his thanks, shook hands with him and von Geisenheim, saw from a glance at his watch that it was a quarter-past five, and got into the car. The chauffeur spoke German but had already been given his instructions. Next moment they were off.

Directly they left the cover of the wood it was much easier to see their surroundings. No moon could be hoped for later that night, as it was the dark quarter, but for several days past it had been what had become known as “Molotov weather”; clear, almost cloudless, blue skies from which the Soviet planes were easily able to pick up their objectives without having to come right down low as an easy target for the Finnish antiaircraft gunners. The nights had been equally fine, with a million stars gleaming in a frosty sky, and now that the early darkness had fallen again they were just beginning to twinkle.

Gregory's head was splitting and his body was one mass of aching bruises, but as they turned on to the main road towards Nykyrka he rallied himself to ask the chauffeur what he thought he could get out of the car. The man gave a figure in
versts
, which Gregory calculated as about eighty miles an hour; but the chauffeur went on to add that he meant ‘given a clear stretch of good road', and they would be lucky if they could average a quarter of that speed at night through cross-country lanes only a few miles from the firing-line where masses of troops were in constant motion. Gregory knew the journey across the Isthmus to be nearly sixty miles. If the chauffeur was right it would take them at least two and a half hours whereas he had hoped to do it in under two; but they were soon out of the snow-mounds
which were all that was left of the Finnish town and making good going along a road that led almost due east.

Their route lay practically parallel to the battle-front as although the Soviet Armies had forced the south-western end of the Mannerheim Line and made an advance of nearly seventy miles there they had made hardly any impression upon its northeastern end at all, and the Finns still held Taipale, which lies on Lake Ladoga. That was the nearest point from which to cross the Lake, but to remain within the Soviet lines they would have to keep a little to the south of it.

Fortunately the chauffeur had been driving officers of the Soviet General Staff all over the Isthmus for several weeks past so he knew every road and village on it well. He handled his car admirably, seizing every advantage to accelerate and press ahead whenever there was a free stretch of road or he could slip round a slowly-moving vehicle. This part of Finland had been very highly populated so the roads were good, and after each fall of snow the Russians were clearing them by mechanized snow-sweepers to enable their troops and transport to move about more freely, but the car had constantly to slow down when parties of marching men or guns and tanks showed up in the headlights.

For the first hour of the journey Gregory sat almost comatose while he slowly recovered from his fight for life with Grauber; then, after the terrible strain of inaction and anxiety for so many days, all he could think of were the precious papers in his pocket and the fact that he was at last on the move again. He had become so accustomed to the constant thunder of the guns that he hardly noticed it any longer except when the road passed near one of the concealed Russian batteries which loosed off with an ear-splitting crack, without any warning. Although the Soviet offensive had eased during the last two days and they had not been hurling thousands upon thousands more of their infantry into fresh attacks the artillery bombardment seemed very nearly as devastating as before; the Soviet guns were still battering the Finnish forts night and day without respite.

Rousing himself again he asked the chauffeur: “What is the Russian for ‘It is by order of the Marshal and my business is
most
urgent'?”

“
Prikaz Marshala ie srotchnya prikaz
” said the man, and Gregory repeated the phrase over and over again until he had mastered and memorised it perfectly.

Swerving, darting—down to a crawl—swerving and darting
again, the car nosed its way eastward through farmlands and half-glimpsed ruined villages, gradually drawing a little nearer to the firing-line until, just before seven o'clock, the chauffeur turned off a main road and up a side-track into a coppice that concealed a block of huts which were similar to those they had left at General Headquarters but not so numerous. The car drew up before one of the huts and the chauffeur sounded his horn loudly; the hut door opened and an officer came out who asked in German if it was the Colonel-Baron von Lutz.

As Gregory acknowledged his false identity he took a new grip on himself and prepared for trouble. This was evidently the Divisional Headquarters which was to provide him with a sleigh and horses. If the trussed and battered Grauber had been discovered by a soldier-servant or one of his own people while the car was crossing the Isthmus there would be hell to pay. G.H.Q. would have phoned through ordering the arrest of the Colonel-Baron pending explanations. Even if he could lie his way out of the new tangle vital time would be lost; not moments but hours, or days perhaps, while he was sent back under guard to face his accusers; and Erika's life hung on the ticking of the clock. If he was arrested now the game was up.

“They telephoned us from G.H.Q.,” the officer began, but as he went on Gregory allowed himself to breathe again. “In the last two hours I've made all the arrangements and everything possible has been done to assure you a safe crossing of the Lake. It's four miles to the foreshore. The horses are waiting so we will go to them in your car.” Getting in, he gave the chauffeur directions and turned again to Gregory. “This is a most unusual journey you are making,
Herr Oberst-Baron.
”

“It is a matter of great urgency,” Gregory replied.

“So I understand. But it's a most hazardous undertaking to attempt to cross the Lake in such a manner; particularly as there is no proper front upon it and our men are constantly engaging Finnish patrols out there which sometimes slip through behind them in the darkness.”