Come into my Parlour

by Dennis Wheatley

  In the meantime the Marshal was going on again. “You will appreciate too, the enormous advantage that our simplification of the supply system and virtual abolition of administrative departments gives us. You were contending just now that owing to the employment of great numbers of slave workers the Germans could put a higher proportion of their man-power into the field than we could, but our elimination of non-combatant establishments more than cancels that out, so, in actual fact, the boot is on the other foot.”

  “I certainly begin to understand now your unbounded confidence in ultimately defeating my country,” Gregory admitted. “But the question remains as to how long it will take you to do it. And, of course, a change of Government here might undermine the will to fight in your people, just as much as one in Germany would adversely affect the morale of our armies.”

  “A change of Government!” exclaimed Voroshilov. “But such a thing is impossible here. The situations in Germany and in the Soviet Union are not comparable. The bulk of your General Staff apparently regard Hitler as a dangerous maniac, whereas the whole of ours looks up to Stalin as a wise and brilliant leader. If you are thinking of the Trotskyites, or the pro-Germans who conspired together under the leadership of Marshal Tukachevsky, forget them. All such traitors were liquidated by us years ago.”

  “All the same, Marshal, a change might be forced upon you. I understand that for some years past Premier Stalin has been suffering from trouble with his heart. The very fact that from the highest to the lowest you have such faith in his leadership would make his loss all the more serious.”

  Voroshilov put his hands to his sides, sat back in his chair and roared with laughter. When he had recovered a little, he gasped: “Forgive me, Herr Baron, but the joke was too much for me. Just to think that you highly-placed Germans should still believe that old story. It was nothing but a rumour deliberately put out by us during the months that the Tukachevsky conspiracy was being cleared up. We decided in the Polit-Bureau that until all who had been involved had been traced and liquidated we could not allow our beloved Comrade to make any public appearance, and so expose himself to possible assassination. The story that he was suffering from an affection of the heart was simply an excuse for his absence for a time from all important functions. No, you may rest easy on that score. Stalin is only two years older than myself, and as fit a man as I am.”

  The second part of Gregory’s secret questionnaire had now been answered in the same unequivocal manner as the first. He could only pray now that he would meet with equal good fortune regarding the third; yet he approached it with considerable trepidation, since, staggeringly frank as the Marshal had been on other matters, it still seemed almost unbelievable that he would be prepared to disclose Russia’s future strategy to a man whom he believed to be a German officer shortly about to return to Germany, and for whose integrity he had only the word of his old friend Stefan Kuporovitch.

  It was, however, now or never, so Gregory took the plunge and made a skilful lead in.

  “All that concerns me, Marshal, is that we should work together to bring this war, which is wasting both our countries, to an end as speedily as possible. That can best be achieved by co-ordinating the time when I and my friends should strike at Hitler, with a major Russian victory, or at least a definite check to the advance of the German armies. Can you give me any indication when such an event is likely to occur?”

  Voroshilov shook his head, then wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, as he was now perspiring slightly, before he replied. “No, it is almost impossible to forecast that at the present time. While the Germans continue to hold the initiative and we rely on a high percentage of practically untrained troops to maintain some sort of line, we are in no position to plan counter-offensives in advance.”

  “But you have this magnificent reserve Army Group of first strata troops, which you can use at any time.”

  “True; and we have used them to slow down the rate of the German advance in our centre, but we dare not gamble them in a full scale counter-offensive on any one sector while the rest of our front remains unstable. However, time will adjust that, in two ways. Firstly, every day that passes a few thousand of Germany’s first line troops become casualties, and, secondly, ever greater numbers of our new levies are rapidly becoming old soldiers from their battle experience and qualifying themselves for transfer to artillery, engineer and tank units. The time must come, therefore, when the German advance will be held, and we can use our crack troops in a counter-offensive of real strategic importance.”

  “You may have to use them before that,” Gregory hazarded. “Germany’s campaigns in Poland, Norway, the Low Countries and the Balkans were so short and swift that her losses were almost negligible, and she has now had two years of war to train her reserves, so when the German Army marched into Russia it was more powerful than ever before. I am convinced that it will be able to campaign for many months yet without showing any perceptible loss of vigour.”

  “I think you are probably right about that.”

  “Well then, how much more territory can you afford to lose? You have already been deprived of Minsk, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Bryansk, Gomel, Zhitomir, Roslavel, Dnepropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Nikolaiev and Kherson, all valuable manufacturing towns, while Leningrad, Odessa and Kiev—three out of your seven biggest cities—are now surrounded and can no longer assist your war effort, except by holding out. I know that in recent years you have created great armament plants behind the Urals, but a war cannot be fought on men and armament plants only. An innumerable variety of products are required to keep a great army in the field, your plants supplied and your munition workers fed, housed and clothed. With every town you lose, your command of certain war essentials lessens and, if the Germans continue to force you back, a time must come when you can no longer carry on the war from lack of vital necessities.”

  “You are right again. Look! I will show you!” Voroshilov jumped up, lurched slightly, and fumbled among the maps on his table. Finding one that showed the whole of European Russia, with the approximate front marked on it, he spread it out while his visitors stood up and looked over his shoulder. Then, stubbing down the square tip of his forefinger on Baku, he went on, still speaking fast but a little thickly:

  “Oil is the most important of those war essentials of which you speak. But the Germans still have eight hundred miles to go before they reach the shores of the Caspian, and, personally, I believe that their effort will be spent long before they can menace our principal oilfields. Yet, if our armies were cut off from the main producing centres that would be almost as disastrous. Look now how the oil comes to us.”

  His thick finger traced the line of the Volga from its mouth on the Caspian at Astrakhan in a great sweep north-westward to Stalingrad, then north and slightly east to Saratov; after which the great river turned north-eastwards to Kubishev but further up curved back again in a huge arc to the north of Moscow.

  “You see! In peace the Volga is the greatest commercial highway in European Russia, and in war it forms the backbone for our lateral communications. All the oil comes up it in barges, and from it there radiate canals and railways to all parts of the front, by means of which the armies are supplied. Therefore the retention of the line of the Volga is vital to us. Now, observe the great bend that it makes westward towards the Ukraine. The arc of that brings the river much nearer to the Germans than it is at any other point, so, if they still have strength enough left when they get there, that is obviously where they will attempt to cut it. On the apex of the bend stands Stalingrad. Twenty-three years ago this autumn, the defeat or victory of the Russian working-man in his war against tyranny depended on the retention of this city. It was then called Tzaritsyn. Well, we held it, and the Revolution triumphed over the forces of reaction.

  “We now fight a still greater war against a new tyranny. It may be that once again victory or defeat will hang upon the retention of Stalingrad. The loss of Moscow would be a great blow to us. Naturally
we shall hold it if we can, but even the loss of the capital would not prejudice the final outcome of the war. The loss of Stalingrad and all that it implies would definitely do so. Therefore, of one thing you may be certain. If the Germans get near enough to menace the city the flower of the Soviet Army will be thrown in without reserve. Even if half a million of our finest troops have to lay down their lives there, the German armies will break themselves upon that rock, the Volga will be kept open and the People’s Republic will emerge victorious.”

  As he finished speaking there was a brief silence, then Gregory said: “Thank you, Marshal. You have given me all that I require. If the German armies reach the approaches to Stalingrad that will be my cue. During the month or six weeks that it will take to make the final preparations for our Putsch they will be held there and, for the first time, the German people will begin to lose their faith in Nazi leadership. That will be the psychological moment for us to strike, and as soon as my friends are in power we shall propose a general armistice. We shall have saved Germany from the fate to which Hitler’s crazy ambition is leading her, and you, I hope, will never be called upon to sacrifice the finest of your Russian youth.”

  Voroshilov passed his hand over his eyes and swayed slightly. For some time Kuporovitch had been regarding him with puzzled anxiety. Now he said: “You’re tired, Clim. You’ve been taking too much out of yourself.”

  “No,” replied the Marshal, with a quick shake of his head. “I’m all right.” And he turned back to Gregory.

  “You realise, Herr Baron, that your troops may never get within a hundred miles of Stalingrad. What happens then?”

  “Once it becomes obvious—making due allowances for winter-that the general advance has begun to lose its momentum, we shall start our preparations, then a fortnight or so after the first major German defeat we shall act.”

  “Good, I am glad of that, as you Germans are tenacious fighters and otherwise it might mean another year of war before we could drive your troops right out of Russia. You know I am only a soldier by accident. I am really a man of peace. I like to make things, not break them; and I want to see the young people of our new Russia happy and prosperous, not dying by the thousand, years before their time.”

  There was a sharp knock on the door and Colonel Gudarniev came in.

  “Hello, Ivan!” the Marshal greeted him with a vague smile. “Have you come to collect our friends? Well, I think we’ve settled everything, I’ve told them all that they want to know.”

  A look of surprise came into the Colonel’s dark eyes as they took in his Chief’s perspiring face and the marked maps spread out on the table, and he asked: “What is it that you’ve been telling them, Clim?”

  The question was put with the easy familiarity of a personal staff officer, and the Marshal answered at once:

  “Oh, all sorts of things about the build-up of our forces, and how we mean to beat these Hitlerite bandits. It has been a very valuable talk and I hope great things will come of it.”

  The Colonel’s face showed some concern as he said quickly: “Are you feeling quite all right? You don’t look too good. Is anything the matter with you?”

  “No,” Voroshilov staggered back to his chair and flopped down into it. “I’m a bit tired now, that’s all. I’ll get to bed as soon as you’ve all gone.”

  Gregory had known for the past half hour that something was radically wrong with the Marshal, and he could see that Gudarniev sensed it, but there was nothing he could do or say as they were talking in Russian again, so he could not understand what was being said.

  In an attempt to set the Colonel’s mind at rest Kuporovitch laughed and remarked: “We’ve all had quite a drop to drink, and after such a long day a last brandy often makes one a bit unsteady on the legs.”

  “That’s it,” agreed Voroshilov with tired cheerfulness, then he turned to Gudarniev. “Take our friends back to the club, Ivan, and give orders that they are to have everything they want. Tomorrow we will make arrangements to get the Herr Baron out of the city, but we must discuss first what route he is to take. It would be best if we dropped him from an aircraft somewhere in Esthonia, I think. He should be able to make his way back to Germany quite easily from there.”

  “Back to Germany!” repeated Gudarniev, with a puzzled glance at Gregory. “The Herr Baron?”

  “That’s right That’s where he wants to go. Well, I must get to bed.”

  They said good night to him, then Gudarniev politely showed them out to the lift and down to the main hall of the building.

  As they accompanied the Colonel their feelings were extraordinarily mixed. Both of them were filled with elation at the thought that they had got the information they had come to Russia to get. Every ounce of it and more. But they were conscious that some quite abnormal agency had helped them to obtain it. No words of theirs could normally ever have caused the Marshal to speak to two people, whom he had only an hour or so before regarded as most dubious characters, with such complete disregard for the dictates of security. They had hoped to pick up just a hint or two out of which they might afterwards make something tangible; but to be given the whole picture had been beyond their wildest dreams. It had almost seemed as if Voroshilov had been temporarily out of his mind, or under the influence of a spell. But their feeling of triumph was undermined by a most disconcerting uneasiness, since they felt certain that Colonel Gudarniev was also aware that the Marshal had not been himself.

  Their perturbation grew when, down in the hall, the Colonel summoned two soldiers to accompany them out to a waiting car It might be a regulation always to escort visitors to the besieged city in this way, but armed guards seemed redundant when the visitors had been referred to by the Marshal as his friends.

  In the semi-darkness outside it was difficult to make out the route that the car was taking, but after a little it seemed to them that the journey had already lasted longer than it had on their coming from the Astoria. A few minutes later the car pulled up, but the block before which it had halted was not the Officers’ Club.

  As he stepped from the car Gregory had half a mind to bolt for it. He was now in the possession of secrets of inestimable value to his country. It had already occurred to him that Gudarniev might have decided to disobey the Marshal’s order. That seemed unlikely, yet why had he brought them to the tall gloomy building that now loomed up across the pavement, instead of taking them back to the Astoria? If it was some form of trap and he once allowed himself to be caught in it, he might never get back to London with the invaluable information that he had obtained. On the other hand, if he took to his heels one of the armed guards might shoot him in the back. Then he would never get back to London anyway.

  He was still hesitating when Gudarniev said to Kuporovitch: “I have brought you here because I felt that I could provide much more suitable quarters for you than you had at the Astoria.”

  Kuporovitch, who had also been acutely apprehensive of what the next few moments might bring, translated to Gregory, and, with a sudden easing of the tension that both had been feeling, they turned and followed Gudarniev, while the two soldiers brought up the rear.

  As they passed through the heavy doors of the building they saw that the hall had a bleak, official look. A man in the uniform of the Ogpu sat at a desk at its far end and two more stood near the doorway. The second Kuporovitch caught sight of the uniforms he took a quick step back, turned, and with a shout to Gregory, attempted to regain the street.

  But the two guards barred the path. As Gregory swung round, they found themselves looking down the muzzles of sub-machine guns.

  Gudarniev had turned too. While Gregory was aware only of the sudden hostility in his voice, his low fierce whisper hissed into Kuporovitch’s ears with the venom of a rattlesnake.

  “You filthy Nazi spies! How you did it, I don’t know. But somehow, tonight, you managed to administer to our Marshal the Truth drug.”

  Chapter XIII

  The Truth, and Nothing But the Trut
h

  The street, freedom, and all that freedom meant were still only a couple of yards away, yet a barrier as impassable as a steel wall now shut Gregory and Stefan off from it. Even if they had instantly flung themselves upon the two fur-clad troopers and borne them down, before they could have got the heavy doors open again Gudarniev and the armed men inside the hall would have shot them from behind. As it was, the two soldiers already had their fingers on the triggers of their weapons. At one word from Gudarniev they could have filled the prisoners full of lead. There was nothing they could do but obey their captor, as he snapped at them:

  “Come along. I promised you more suitable accommodation, and, by heavens, you shall have it! Two cells in the basement are the place for you, for the rest of the night; tomorrow we’ll find you two yards of earth and a bucket of quicklime apiece.”

  “I protest!” declared Kuporovitch, turning swiftly back to him. “You heard the Marshal’s orders. How dare you disobey them!”

  The Colonel’s dark eyes had gone black with anger. “That is my responsibility,” he flared.

  “Damn you!” roared Kuporovitch. “You seem to forget that I am your superior officer. I demand to be released and taken back to the Astoria.”

  But his bluff was useless. Gudarniev’s only answer was to draw his pistol and jab it in the ex-General’s ribs, as he yelled: “You’re a lousy traitor. Get over to that desk now, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”