A sailor struck him a blow on the back of the neck; another seized Gregory by the arm and attempted to drag him off the pavement. A dozen hands were stretched out to grab at them and pull them down.
The situation began to look really ugly, but they were saved by the intervention of several officers who were among the crowd. Dakov and the Ogpu man called for their assistance. After a few curt threats that disciplinary action would be taken if the prisoners were harmed, the sailors sullenly drew off and made a passage so that they could be marched back to the Admiralty.
Realising that there was no possibility of their learning the dénouement of this exciting scene the crowd now melted away as rapidly as it had gathered, so that by the time they reached the door of the big block Gregory and Kuporovitch were accompanied only by Dakov, the Ogpu man and his son. The youngster was sent into a waiting-room while the other two, having shown their passes, silently escorted the prisoners upstairs to the first floor.
On reaching the door of the room where they had been interviewed Dakov went in, leaving the others outside in the corridor. The fat Mongolian evidently had no fear that the prisoners might attempt to escape, now that they were actually inside the building, and it did not even cross the minds of either of them to attempt to do so since he was armed, which they were not, and at his first cry help would have been so readily available to detain them.
The whole disaster had occurred so suddenly, and so little time had elapsed since their denunciation, that neither of them had had a chance to think out a story which might offer even the remotest possibility of getting them out of their mess; but, while he was walking up the stairs, Gregory had realised that they must at least endeavour to adopt the same line when questioned, otherwise they would damn themselves irretrievably by contradicting one another. So when they halted in the passage he took a chance that the Ogpu man might understand French and seized the opportunity to say to Stefan:
“Quick! Tell me what course you mean to adopt.”
“We’d better deny everything and refuse to talk,” suggested Kuporovitch.
“Silence!” snapped the Ogpu man, in Russian. Evidently he had not understood, but all the same had no intention of allowing the prisoners to formulate a common policy before they were examined.
Gregory nodded quick approval, just as Dakov reappeared and said:
“The captain has just put through a long-distance call on the telephone, so we must wait five or ten minutes before going in to him.”
The little group then remained there for some moments in complete silence. As Gregory thought it over he did not feel that in the face of their positive identification by the Mongolian there would be very much point in denying that. In fact, it was absurd to do so since he had booked them into the Lubianka under the same names as they had on their passports, and these were already known to the captain before whom they were shortly to be re-examined. On the other hand, to refuse to talk at all seemed much the best policy for the present, as if they were left together they might yet have an opportunity of concocting an account of what had happened which would appear slightly less damaging than their case as presented in the facts known to the Russians at the moment. With that in mind he ignored the Ogpu man’s order and said:
“We must admit our identity, but let’s say that only Marshal Voroshilov knows the truth about us and that we refuse to discuss matters until we are brought before him.”
“Silence!” snapped the Mongolian once more; and, drawing his pistol, he jabbed it into Gregory’s side.
Having got his point across Gregory shook his head and smiled at him, as though he had not understood. The four of them then fell silent again.
The thing that worried Gregory so intensely was their apparent complicity in their own escape. There was no avoiding the Naval Intelligence captain learning in the next few moments that they had told him a pack of lies about their having been in Sweden and Esthonia. In consequence, he would be furious with them for having tricked him so completely and immediately become convinced that his first theory, about their being German agents who, on the sinking of the U-boat, had endeavoured to plant themselves, was correct. The fact that they had escaped while being moved from the Lubianka the previous night would only serve to corroborate that. He would have every possible reason for condemning them out of hand, and their only tenuous line of temporary safety lay in that, as they had escaped from the Lubianka, he might send them back there to be dealt with. Even if that happened the odds were that Voroshilov would not grant them another interview but order the suspended sentence of death to be carried out at once, merely on the written report that they had succeeded in escaping and been recaptured. The more Gregory thought about it the more slender he felt their chances were.
They had been standing there for about three minutes when Kuporovitch looked at the Ogpu man, pointed at the next door along the corridor, and said something in Russian.
There was some lettering on the door which Gregory could not read, but on the Mongolian nodding Kuporovitch moved towards it and Gregory stepped after him. As the door swung open at a touch he saw that the room beyond was a man’s washplace and lavatory.
As they went in the Ogpu man and Dakov followed them inside. Kuporovitch walked straight over to one of the cabinets, entered it, and shot the bolt behind him. Gregory stepped into the one next door and did likewise.
The bottom of the window was open a few inches. Easing it gently up, Gregory saw that it looked down into a small courtyard surrounded by a well in the building. As they were on the first floor the ground was only about twelve feet below; and the courtyard was empty. The second Gregory realised that, he stepped up on to the seat and thrusting a leg over the sill began to wriggle through the window. However slender this chance of escape might be, to take it was better than submitting tamely to being shot that night, or, at best, being sent back to the Lubianka.
Turning over on his tummy, he lowered himself till his hands were gripping the sill and his legs dangling. As he dropped, he blessed Stefan with all his heart for the brilliant idea that had inspired this eleventh-hour attempt to get away, since it would at least enable them to give their captors a run for their money.
He came down feet first, staggered, and fell heavily. In a moment he was up again and looking round for Kuporovitch, whom he had expected to reach the ground as soon as, or perhaps even before, himself. To his amazement no trace of his friend was to be seen. He certainly had not had time to get down and out of the courtyard without Gregory catching a glimpse of him as he jumped himself, and not even a projecting limb showed that he was, so far, attempting to get out of his window.
“Stefan!” Gregory cried in a low, urgent whisper.
There was no reply, so he ran back a few paces and looked up again. The bottom of Kuporovitch’s window was a little open, just as his own had been. Through it he could see the back of the Russian’s neck and the grizzled hair at the base of his skull. Apparently he had simply made a natural request, without the least thought of escape, and was just sitting there doing his business.
“Stefan!” called Gregory, slightly louder this time.
Kuporovitch did not even budge.
Gregory cast a frantic glance about him at the surrounding windows. The rooms on the ground floor appeared to be mainly store-rooms. The first and second floors were offices and through some of their windows he glimpsed vague signs of activity, but no one was actually looking down at him.
“Stefan!” he called again, raising his voice to a pitch which made him fearful that half the people in the rooms overlooking the courtyard must hear it.
At last Kuporovitch responded. Screwing round his head he peered out over the sill and, on seeing Gregory, his heavy black eyebrows shot up with surprise.
Gregory ran back to the wall below the row of lavatories, then slid along it to a corner of the courtyard, so that he should be visible from only two of its sides while he waited. For the next few moments he stood there almost hopping fro
m foot to foot with impatience while Kuporovitch did up his clothes. He did not hear the window raised because the Russian was clever enough to pull the plug in order to drown the sound, but next minute there was a heavy thump and he landed within a few yards of Gregory.
Near the far corner of the courtyard there was a door. As Kuporovitch scrambled to his feet Gregory ran towards it. To his immeasurable relief he found that it was not locked, but gave on his turning the handle. With Kuporovitch now close on his heels he slipped inside it. The door opened on to an empty side passage; closing it gently behind them they paused there a moment.
“D’you mean to hide?” whispered the Russian, still gasping for breath.
Gregory shook his head. “No. Once they have a chance to check up that we haven’t left the building they’d start a systematic search, and they’d be bound to find us within a few hours. We haven’t got an earthly unless we can get out of the building in the next five minutes.”
“We’d have to show passes to get out.’
“Not necessarily. The chap from the destroyer showed his both times when he came in, but they didn’t bother him for it as he came out. That’s the practice in lots of Government buildings. But it means our using the same entrance. D’you think you could find it?”
“First right, right again, left, then right,” Kuporovitch said after a moment. “That is, if the passages here are on the same as the first floor.”
“That’s as I remember it,’ agreed Gregory. “Come on, we haven’t got a second to lose.”
As they started off, Gregory went on: “When we get to the hall we mustn’t seem in a hurry and you must be talking to me loudly in Russian. Better choose a subject now. Something we might be arguing about that has nothing to do with the war. I know, you’ve read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, haven’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can be laying down the law to me that Dostoevsky was a far greater writer than the old Count. If we can raise the nerve for it the strongest card we could possibly play would be for you to grab my arm just as we got opposite the desk, and pull me up for a minute while you angrily hammer home some point or other. I only hope to God that these passages do run under those on the first floor.”
They passed a messenger, two girl clerks and an officer, none of whom took any notice of them. While they traversed the echoing stone corridors Gregory was desperately trying to calculate times. After Kuporovitch had pulled the plug the Ogpu man would have given him a couple of minutes, at least, to put himself to rights before becoming suspicious about his non-appearance. The fact that only one plug had been pulled would probably cause their captors to wait a moment or two more before doing anything about either of them. The odds were, therefore, that from the time Stefan had dropped out of the window they would not have less than three and not more than five minutes’ clear start before the Mongolian began to bang on the doors. They had crossed the courtyard in something less than a minute, their swift conference had lasted about the same length of time, and, at a fast walk, one can cover a lot of ground in sixty seconds. It looked as if they should reach the hall with about a minute to spare before the Ogpu man had definitely made up his mind that they were staying in the lavatories too long.
What would happen then? Gregory wondered, his thoughts racing on. The Mongolian might think that they were still in there, having both taken poison, or hanged themselves, from fear that if they remained alive they might be tortured. Both he and Dakov were only visitors to the building. That might make all the difference to the escapers between getting away and immediate recapture. The two visitors would, perhaps, hesitate before destroying Admiralty property by breaking down or forcing the doors of the compartments. They would probably waste precious time in finding someone to summon the guard to do that.
It was possible, of course, that they might look out of one of the other windows and see the tracks of the fugitives in the snow that covered the courtyard, but even if they did, they would not be able to give a general alarm themselves. It was a safe bet that in the Soviet Admiralty some form of alarm system existed at the sounding of which all exits were closed and guards turned out, and it was probably operated from the command post. But the visitors would not know where to find that, so in any case they would have to go to the bald captain’s office and explain matters to him before a general search could be ordered.
He had got so far in his agitated speculations when, to his immense relief, they saw that the fourth passage into which they had turned was leading them out into the main hall.
Kuporovitch had realised that at the same instant and immediately began his literary dissertation in a loud voice. As they entered the hall he was declaiming heatedly that the Brothers Karamazov was a far greater work than War and Peace. Pulling up with a jerk in front of the desk, he suddenly looked straight at the man behind it and appealed to him for his support.
“Do you not agree with me, Comrade? This blockhead here contends that Tolstoy is our greatest Russian writer, while I say that there are many superior to him.”
Gregory halted too, and was on tenterhooks at this audacity. He thought it a splendid piece of bravado on Stefan’s part but was terrified that they might become involved in a general argument, in which it must soon transpire that he could not understand what was being said.
The man looked a little surprised, but smiled and said: “Tolstoy was a fine writer in a dark age, Comrade, but I agree with you that there have been many better since. My own favourite is Maxim Gorky.”
“There!” cried Kuporovitch triumphantly. “You see!” And grabbing Gregory by the arm he turned him quickly towards the door.
Gregory smiled, shrugged as though he was still not convinced and allowed himself to be led away by his verbose companion. With every step he took he feared to hear the man call out after them to see their passes, but he was just smiling amusedly at their backs. He had recognised them as having entered the building with the Ogpu men and the destroyer officer a quarter of an hour before. There had been nothing to show that they were under arrest or that one of them was a foreigner. Strictly speaking, as they were civilians and had no passes of their own, they should have been seen out by the officers who had brought them in; but officers were sometimes slack about that sort of thing if they were pressed for time, and such minor breaches of the regulations were not infrequent.
When they had passed the sentry on the door their sense of relief was tremendous, but so fleeting as to be gone in a bare moment, since they knew that they had yet to get off the fortress island and that a hue-and-cry might start up after them at any second.
They turned right, as they had done before on leaving the building with Dakov, the same thought being in both their minds—that their one chance of getting clear was to catch the liberty boat before their descriptions had been circulated and the dock police warned to keep a look-out for them.
“D’you know where the main jetty is?” Gregory asked in a low voice.
Kuporovitch nodded. “I think so; and unless things have changed since I was last here they use as a liberty boat one of those old two-funnelled flat-bottomed ferries, so we ought to be able to spot her. It’s five to twelve though, so we’ll have to step out if we’re to make it.”
Side by side they hurried down the quay. It was still thronged, but the twenty minutes that had elapsed since the mob had surged round them had greatly altered the composition of the crowd. The passing pedestrians who had witnessed the excitement had now left the spot to proceed upon their various activities, and many of the small boats that had then been loading up with stores or waiting for officers from the ships had now put off, others with different crews having taken their places. Nevertheless they dared not break into a run for fear of attracting attention, as some of the sailors who had seen them arrested when they passed that way before might recognise them, and tumble to it that, having eluded their guards, they were escaping.
They reached the jetty at one minute to twelve. There cou
ld be no mistaking it as, at its far end, lay the old-fashioned, two-funnelled ferry. Three sailors reached its entrance at the same moment, and began to run. Now that they had an obvious reason for hurrying, Gregory and Stefan followed their example.
As they pelted along just behind the sailors both of them were wondering desperately if they would get over the next hurdle that lay immediately ahead of them. Barely eight minutes had elapsed since Kuporovitch had dropped from the window, but by this time it was pretty certain that the Ogpu man would be giving excited explanations to the Naval Intelligence captain. Would they jump to it at once that the prisoners had lost not a second in getting out of the Admiralty building, and, having their liberty boat passes still on them, make a desperate effort to get away on her? If so they would telephone to the jetty and the fugitives would be stopped at the control post at its head before they could get aboard. Against that there was a fair chance that the speed and audacity with which they had acted might yet save them. Back at the Admiralty it might not occur to anyone that they could have got out so quickly. In that case the guards would be put on to searching the ground floor store-rooms for them and the doorkeeper might not even be questioned for a quarter of an hour or so yet.
Breathless they arrived at the end of the jetty. Two Marines were standing in front of a hut there examining all passes. The sailors showed theirs and ran down the gangway. The fugitives had already taken the flimsy papers from their pockets as they ran and pulled up panting to show them. One of the Marines just glanced at the papers and signed to their bearers to go on.
The twelve o’clock hooter blew; the ferry sounded her siren in reply. As Gregory and Stefan charged down the gangplank two sailors were undoing the ropes; the moment the fugitives reached the deck the gangway was pulled in and the ferry put off.
Still panting, they looked at one another and grinned. They had performed the almost impossible feat of escaping not only from the Admiralty building but also from Kronstadt island in the brief space of nine minutes. Yet in a moment they were gravely sober again, as they knew that they had still to get through the third barrier which separated them from their liberty, and that their chances of doing so were even less than they had been at the other two.
Come into my Parlour Page 35
