Priestess of the Floating Skull

by Edwin Benson

  “You’re a brave kid,” he said simply, “and I’m glad to be here with you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he felt her lips brush his cheek. “ I think you’re all right, too.”

  He slid back the cowling and the wind tore at them. Vanja got up from her crouched position, climbed over the side and stood on the wing. Vorosh held her with one arm. She signaled her readiness and he let go. She jumped.

  IT WAS as though she had vanished into thin air. One second she was there beside him, then she was gone. He strained his eyes below, thought he caught the faint white billow of her parachute, but couldn’t be sure. Tight-lipped with concern, and admiration for her bravery, he climbed to his feet, got on the wing. He reached into the cockpit, pulled viciously.

  Inside the plane there was a puff. Flame burst up, whipped past him viciously in the wind. Vorosh swallowed hard, patted the sleek side of the P-40, and muttered:

  “Sorry, baby! I hate like hell to do this to you, but it’ll be for a good purpose. Maybe you’ll have more to do with winning this war than a thousand others like you when America gets into this scrap!”

  He let go his hold on the side, dived into the blackness behind the wing. He counted ten, yanked the ripcord.

  The parachute dragged on him, then loosened his teeth with a terrific jar as the main silk hit the wind. He swung momentarily like a pendulum, finally stopped swinging. The warmth of the air surprised him; it had been so cold up there, and now, near the ground, it was pleasantly comfortable.

  Down below he saw the flaming P-40 hit the ground in a geyser of red. Flames shot into the air, illuminating the whole countryside. He twisted around in his harness, searched the area around him anxiously. There was no sign of any other parachute.

  He peered as long as he remained aloft, but saw nothing. Below him a tree loomed up. Its branches reached for him. They pulled the chute cords viciously in an attempt to avoid the tree, but too late. He landed in it, crashing lighter branches, and getting scratches and bruises in his descent through them. Abruptly his downward progress halted. He dangled head down, legs tangled in rope.

  Two minutes later he realized the ridiculous truth—he was trapped as neatly as any bird in a cage!

  “Gee-sus!” he exclaimed. “Strung up like a ham!”

  He fought with the harness, managed to unbuckle it. But it had turned during his struggles, and the last buckle he could not reach. He tried to double up his body, to reach his feet and free them. But the ropes had caught below him too, and he was held stretched between two heavy branches.

  Ten minutes later, head ringing, he relaxed, hung helplessly, and a stream of fluid exclamations blued the air around him.

  “Of all the damned messes! Jumping blue catfish . . .” Vorosh raved on, then stopped, panting for breath.

  “Was machen sic da?”[3]

  VOROSH froze, swinging slowly as the tree branches moved slightly in the wind.

  The voice from the ground spoke again:

  “Herunter mit dir oder ich schiesse!”[4]

  Vorosh considered this a few seconds.

  “Fuss socked dew?” he asked. Then: “I’m afraid I don’t understand your lingo, pal. But if you’re asking me to come down, I’d be glad to—with a little assistance. . .”

  The brilliant beam of a flashlight centered on him. Vorosh blinked, stared down. He could see nothing behind the brilliant eye of the flash. He thrashed about demonstratively.

  “I’m caught,” he said.

  The man down below laughed. He spoke gutturally, then shouted. In answer, there came the sound of running feet. Vorosh saw two German infantrymen appear in the light of the flash.

  The man with the flashlight pointed up.

  “Holt ihm herunter!”[5]

  “That’s the stuff!” enthused Vorosh. “And the sooner the better! I’m getting dizzier than a trapeze artist . . .”

  One of the soldiers climbed the tree, reached Vorosh, and ran searching hands over his body.

  “Hey!” said Vorosh, squirming. “Quit the inventory and get me outa here!”

  “Er ist unbewaffnet,”[6] the soldier shouted down.

  “Holt ihm herunter,” repeated the man on the ground.

  The soldier drew his bayonet and slashed at the ropes that held Vorosh prisoner. They gave. Vorosh dropped with a jerk, to crash into the tree trunk with a jar that rattled his teeth.

  “Hey!” he said angrily. “Go easy, or I’ll take a round out of you when we get on the ground!”

  The German grunted, slashed at the other ropes. Vorosh was free now. He slid down to the ground, stood there reeling as his head cleared.

  The soldier slid down beside him, pushed Vorosh into the clearing beside the officer, full into the glare of the flashlight.

  “Spreehen sie Deutch?”

  Vorosh could see now that his captor wore the insignia of a lieutenant.

  “Nine,” he said promptly.

  The German officer gave several guttural orders, and Vorosh found himself being prodded along toward a building that turned out to be a farmhouse. He was marched up the steps and inside. Here he found himself in a small hallway, where a guard accosted them.

  MOMENTS later he was led into a room. There was a table and behind it, scanning a sheaf of papers was a man in the uniform of a major. He wore a Prussian moustache and a monocle.

  “Conrad Veidt!” Vorosh exclaimed. “In the flesh!”

  “Was?” said the major, puzzled. Then all at once he smiled. “Ach! Ya. I do like him look, do I not.”

  He stared at Vorosh.

  “Were you in English speaking!” he stated rather than asked.

  “Yes,” said Vorosh, “or, more correctly, in American.”

  “American!” the major looked startled.

  Vorosh grinned.

  “Sure. I knew that’d jolt you, but it’s the truth. And if you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll explain it to you. Also, I’d like to have some word of my companion, or a search instituted for her. She may be in trouble, as I was. . .”

  “Your companion?”

  “Yes. A girl named Vanja. Used to have a mind-reading act on the stage here in Warsaw. We’ve just escaped from the Russians.”

  The major leaped to his feet.

  “A moment, wait,” he commanded darkly. “You are too fast speaking.

  Warsaw is not here. It is fifty miles away. Also, it is hundreds of miles to Russia. . .”

  “We flew . . .” began Vorosh, but was interrupted by the lieutenant.

  For a moment, the lieutenant explained, and the major listened. Then he turned to Vorosh.

  “In a plane, you crashed, he tells me,” he said. “And what was it you about a companion said . . . a girl?”

  “We both bailed out when the plane caught fire,” said Vorosh. “I lost sight of her, but she must not be far away . . .”

  The major turned quickly to the lieutenant and shot out a rapid-fire series of commands. The lieutenant left.

  “She will be found,” assured the major. “And now, what is your name?”

  “Pete Vorosh, originally of Buffalo, New York, but more recently of Moscow.”

  “Explain,” said the major with a cold frown.

  Vorosh launched into his prepared speech, and finished up with:

  “. . . so naturally, since America is not at war with Germany, I could not allow the plane to remain where it was. And since Miss Nilchenko was so very anxious to return to Warsaw so that she could complete plans for her Berlin appearance, where there is real opportunity for her talents on the stage, I agreed to take her along. We might have made it except for the fire. Then we had to bail out.”

  “Already you were too far,” said the major, a gleam of belief in his eye. “But it was a dark night. I can hardly blame you for your way losing.”

  “What is going to happen now?” asked Vorosh cautiously.

  “I go to Warsaw in the morning. I will along take you.”

  The major walked to th
e door, called a guard.

  He gave a command, then returned to his table, and his papers. He paid no further attention to Vorosh.

  The guard nodded toward the door.

  “Folgen sie!” he barked.

  There was no mistaking his meaning. Vorosh shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll folgen . . .”

  He preceded the guard to an upstairs room and a moment later found himself inside a tiny bedroom and heard the lock turn behind him. The guard, apparently, took up his station outside, because Vorosh could hear his rifle butt thump on the floor, and his feet scraping as he settled himself comfortably.

  Vorosh threw himself on the bed and lay there, staring up into the dark.

  “Something’s happened!” he said to himself. “Something’s happened or she’d have turned on the radio and contacted me!”

  Inside him something tightened into a knot of fear . . .

  CHAPTER V

  Gauleiter of Warsaw

  MORNING came slowly, and with the rising of the sun, Pete Vorosh was grim-faced. All night he had strained his mind to pick up any message that Vanja might have broadcast to him via the telepathic radio. But none had come. He was convinced something had happened to prevent Vanja from contacting him. He was haunted by the memory that he had been unable to see any sign of her parachute in the light of the burning plane. Had it opened? Or had it failed, and was she now lying, a broken, pitiful heap, in some field?

  The key to the door of his makeshift prison grated in the lock. Vorosh sat up on the edge of his bed, waited. The guard appeared.

  “Folgett sie,” he said.

  “All right,” said Vorosh wearily. “You and your one-track mind . . .”

  He went downstairs with the guard. There the major awaited him. Outside was a Nazi staff car. In a moment Vorosh was sitting in the back seat, the guard alert beside him, and they drove off down the road.

  Several hours they drove, and on all sides Vorosh saw ruined and burned farmhouses. Some had been blasted by bombs, others just put to the torch. Even now, so long after the German invasion of Poland, the horror of the attack was apparent in the desolation that passed before his eyes.

  As they neared the city, his jaw grew tight. Shattered skeletons of buildings gaped to the skies. Dive bombers had done that. All along the road, expertly placed on each side so as not to destroy the roadway itself, were bomb craters. Vorosh pictured the brave Poles who had died here from those bomb bursts; died so futilely. His jaw tightened grimly.

  Inside the city they drove to what was obviously the Nazi military headquarters. Nazi officers went in and out, and soldiers marched by on patrol. Few citizens were in this area, and those that appeared where generally being led somewhere under guard.

  Inside the building Vorosh was led to a room and told to wait. He sat there for more than an hour. Then the major appeared in a doorway, beckoned to him. Vorosh came forward, found himself in a room with two other men besides the major. One was a colonel, the other was so bedecked with various medals and insignia that Vorosh was unable to determine just what his status was. He concluded finally that the man was not a military officer, in spite of his military attire. More than likely he was the gauleiter of Warsaw, the Nazi-appointed governor of the city.

  Vorosh hated him instantly.

  “Why have you lied?” he demanded harshly. “You are not an American at all. And you did not fly from Russia.”

  VOROSH paled. His lips set.

  “You are wrong,” he said clearly. “I am American. And last night I flew from an air field near Moscow together with an actress of this very city, a Miss Vanja Nilchenko. Her job was here, and she left Warsaw on the eve of the invasion of Russia. Thus, she was unable to return, until now. I brought her with me. Where she is now, I do not know. I last saw her as she bailed out of my plane when it caught fire. Has she been found?”

  “I know Miss Nilchenko,” said the bedecked Nazi. “I saw her perform here in Warsaw some months ago. But your story is preposterous . . .”

  “It’s true!” exclaimed Vorosh hotly. “The major, here, can testify to that. He must have seen my plane.”

  “True. He saw it. But it was burned almost completely. Perhaps it was an American plane and perhaps it was not . . .”

  Vorosh caught the covert glance the two men exchanged. He shrugged.

  “The fire would not have destroyed the metal parts, the engine; and there are dozens of places bearing serial numbers of the factory, the location of the factory, the make of the plane, and so on,” Vorosh explained. “Surely you have checked those things?”

  Vorosh knew in his heart that they had. But he felt that mention of them would strengthen the evidence.

  The Nazi did not answer. Instead he turned to the major and spoke several sentences in German. Then he turned back to Vorosh.

  “This girl,” he said. “What was she wearing, and what other . . . other things might she have had that would serve to identify her?”

  Vorosh’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Identify . . .?” he faltered. “You don’t mean . . .?”

  “Answer my question! Describe her clothing, anything else . . .”

  Vorosh described the clothing Vanja had worn on the flight, went on to describe the color of her hair, her eyes, her height . . .

  “And,” he finished, “she carried one of the props to her mind-reading act, an artificial human skull which was used to focus the attention of her audience during her act; which required some sleight-of-hand, and various other tricks. She told me that at one portion of her act, she caused the skull to glow and seem to hang suspended in the air before her . . .”

  “How did she do that?” barked the Nazi.

  Vorosh shrugged.

  “I don’t know exactly. Partly by means of thin, invisible wires and I believe the glowing was accomplished by built-in lights and small batteries and coils.”

  The Nazi stepped forward a step, faced him almost threateningly.

  “It could not have been a . . . radio?”

  “A radio?” Vorosh shook his head. “I have never heard it play any music,” he grinned a bit. “No, I’m sure it was necessary to supply music during any act from another source . . .”

  Nazi relaxed.

  “Your answers are satisfactory,” he said. “They check in almost all detail. As for your operations in the Russian capital, with American airplane companies, I’m afraid that will have to be checked further. As a consequence, I am sending you to Berlin. Once there, your case will be looked into further, and if you are telling the truth—you will be free. And after all . . .” the Nazi’s face became crafty “. . . perhaps your company can make a much better business deal concerning your P-40 model with the German government than with the Russian! Many American companies do very profitable business with the German government . . .”

  “Please,” interrupted Vorosh. “Will you inform me first of what happened to Miss Nilchenko? Her chute . . . it failed to open . . .?”

  The Nazi laughed boisterously.

  “You thought she was dead?” he chuckled. “Hah, that is a good joke. No, she is not dead. We have her safe. And not only that, I myself will attend the opening of her act at the theater on Saturday evening. She has graciously consented to give a performance to my troops, entirely free. And, my American friend, I have an idea that you will see her perform in Berlin many weeks have passed!”

  The Nazi turned and waved a hand to his orderly.

  “Bringen sie das madchcn herein.”

  He turned back to Vorosh.

  “I am having her brought in. She has been waiting in another room.”

  “Thank God!”

  The Nazi looked at Vorosh peculiarly, and a half-smile played momentarily over his thin lips.

  The orderly returned, and preceding him was Vanja.

  She rushed toward Vorosh and threw her arms around his neck.

  “I am so glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were dead.” />
  SEVERAL hours later Vanja and Vorosh sat in a tiny, almost deserted hotel lunchroom just opposite the theater. Before them was a bowl of watery soup, several pieces of black bread, and a small plate on which was a sliced onion.

  “If this is what the people of Warsaw have to eat . . .” began Vorosh.

  “It is what the best people of Warsaw eat,” said Vanja gently. “I had to bring you here so we could talk in some privacy. Naturally, I would rather eat at Von Holder’s table . . .”

  “He’s the big shot who’s going to personally open your first performance Saturday night?” growled Vorosh.

  “Yes. But let’s forget that for a moment. I’m too glad to see you, and know that you’re alive. They gave me to believe you were dead.”

  “They did the same to me—more by omission than by any definite implication. I had some bad moments.”

  “Well, you put it over wonderfully—even to the explanation of the skull and the telepathic radio. Obviously they kept us apart to check on our stories. I was believed very readily, but I fear they may still doubt you a great deal. We will have to be very careful.”

  “But why didn’t you use the radio to contact me? Just one little sentence so that I would know you were alive . . .!”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Vanja. “But I forgot to tell you that we had disconnected one little wire in the teleradio so that it would not work, in case we were not received as we have been. It would be tragic if this instrument were to be taken from us. As it is now, it does exactly what we said it does—lights up simply as a stage prop.

  “We will not connect that wire until the performance Saturday night. That will be our first big opportunity. If anyone in the audience, or even in the city, is on the wavelength, we will be able to learn things that may be of use. Of course, Berlin is our real objective. Berlin, where we can read all of the thoughts of Rudolph Hess. We are still too far away here . . .”

  “They are going to send me to Berlin, to check my story,” said Vorosh. “That part of our plan seems to be working out all right.”