When he entered Kuporovitch’s cell, Gregory found the old campaigner curled up in his furs, sound asleep on the floor. On being wakened he declared that he had had a very good night, and that from about an hour after the German officer had come in to look at him he had only one prolonged period of wakefulness.
As they breakfasted off some of their iron rations they congratulated themselves on their good fortune to date, and discussed the future. They agreed that had it not been for the snowstorm they would probably have had much difficulty in getting through the battle zone that now lay a hundred and fifty miles behind them, and that they could not count upon a repetition of such luck when they made their bid to cross the other, which lay forty to sixty miles further on along the road to Moscow.
However, as Gregory pointed out, the two fronts differed considerably. The one about Leningrad had formed into a solid ring, whereas the main line of conflict was so immensely long that it was occupied in strength by either army only in certain strategic areas. He likened the situation to two forks with a great number of irregular prongs pointed at one another, and constantly being jabbed together so that some of the points met with a clash while others went a little way into the empty spaces between the opposing prongs.
Kuporovitch nodded. “Yes. That must be so; otherwise nothing like so many prisoners would be taken or spearheads cut off. And if only we can find a space between two German prongs, with luck we’ll get through unmolested.”
“Exactly! So our best plan is to keep well away from strategic areas like Kalinin, through which the main Leningrad-Moscow railway runs, or Staritza and Rahev, further south.”
“Staritza is the best part of fifty miles south of the railway and there is nothing worth capturing in between; so we should stand a good chance of slipping through there. You’ll be driving again until we know that we’re in Russian-held territory, I suppose?”
“Yes. But it shouldn’t take us long to cover fifty miles, so we won’t start till dusk. It’s too risky since I’ve had no chance to get a German uniform off a stiff, as I had planned.”
“Perhaps that’s just as well,” Kuporovitch said thoughtfully. “I’m inclined to think that on the route we mean to take you will be in more danger from the Partisans than from the Germans.”
“We must chance that. Anyhow, it’s a good thing that I drove most of last night as I can get a sleep now while you keep watch; then if a band of them is lurking in these woods, and some of them come to investigate, you can explain matters to them in their own lingo.”
With a tired sigh Gregory got into the Black Maria, curled himself up, and was almost immediately asleep.
When he awoke it was well on in the afternoon. To his considerable interest Kuporovitch reported that a little band of ragged Partisans had appeared on the scene shortly before midday, but they had been perfectly satisfied on his telling them that he was a Russian officer trying to get through to Moscow and that he had stolen the Black Maria from a park of vehicles captured by the Germans. They had said that he could drive on for twenty-five miles at least, without fear, as not a single German had been seen in the whole district for days.
They had another meal and, in view of the information of the Partisans, decided to set off immediately dusk began to fall, so by five o’clock they were on their way. A little under an hour later Gregory turned off the main road and began to run through by-ways in a generally south-easterly direction.
A few miles further on, just as it was getting dark, a group of men and women ran out of a roadside coppice and, brandishing an odd assortment of weapons, yelled at him to halt. Instead of doing so he increased his speed. As a result a spatter of duck-shot rattled against the van. Momentarily, he was alarmed by the thought that some of the pellets might have punctured a tyre, but the old Black Maria continued to run on steadily and after another mile or so he knew that his fears had been groundless.
Soon after nine o’clock he found himself on a straight road leading directly towards a town which, it appeared, there was no way of avoiding. In consequence, just before reaching the first houses, he pulled up and went round to the back of the van to consult with Kuporovitch.
They were now in something of a quandary as, according to their calculations, they should by this time be out of the German zone; but not far back Gregory had passed a string of lorries that, even in the semi-darkness, he felt fairly certain had been German and it might prove that in the past week the enemy had made a considerable advance on this sector.
As it was of paramount importance to find out which army held the town it was decided that Kuporovitch should go forward on foot to reconnoitre. He returned half an hour later having questioned some of the inhabitants, to say that the town was Torshok, and that it had recently been captured by the Germans. The front was now fifteen miles beyond it.
The question now was whether to go back and try another way or risk being pulled up at a German police post. Their success so far had, perhaps, inclined them to rashness and they decided to go on. As they entered the small square of the half ruined town they were called on to halt and, in a wave of fresh apprehension, cursed their temerity.
Gregory told the usual story to two military policemen, but they asked him for his area pass and as he could not produce one, they at once became suspicious.
In his cell Kuporovitch could not hear what was being said outside, but from the longish halt he sensed that Gregory was in trouble, so he began to shout and bang violently on the side of the van.
On hearing the noise the two policemen made Gregory get down from his seat and take them round to his prisoner. While doing so he protested vehemently that he had had a pass, but somehow mislaid it. As he opened Kuporovitch’s cell door the Russian, seeing the two Germans behind Gregory, struck him in the chest and, still shouting, attempted to force his way out.
With the assistance of the policemen, Gregory forced him back into the cell and relocked it. But Kuporovitch’s demonstration had convinced the two Germans of Gregory’s bona fides, as it seemed to them that none but a genuine prisoner would behave with such violence, and that Gregory’s obvious business as a driver of a Black Maria was to take him from one safe place to another.
One of them asked what the prisoner was shouting about, and Gregory replied in a surly tone that he did not speak the fellow’s filthy language, but perhaps it was because he had not been given any food all day, and added that he did not believe in wasting food on dirty Russians.
This sentiment so warmed the German hearts of his listeners that they not only agreed to his proceeding, but the senior even wrote out for him a temporary area pass on a perforated sheet of his field pocket-book.
Mutually cursing the country, the weather, the Russians and particularly such Russians as the violent prisoner in the van, they parted, and Gregory breathed again as he drove out of the town.
Having extracted an area pass from the German military police gave him special pleasure; but he was never called upon to use it. He passed some artillery tractors and a squadron of tanks some way outside the town, but covered another twenty miles without being challenged. Then, feeling that he must, at last, be out of the German zone, he pulled up again. They ate another scratch meal from their provisions, after which Gregory shut himself into the cell and Kuporovitch took the wheel.
As they had supposed, the front was fluid almost to the point of non-existence in this sector without objectives. His first indication that they had actually entered the Russian zone was when some soldiers at a cross-road shouted at him to know if he could direct them to a village of which he had never heard. After that his principal anxiety was petrol, since the engine was already being fed from the reserve tank which he knew must now be getting low.
Half an hour after having taken over from Gregory, Kuporovitch found himself running into another small town. Pulling up in its centre, he boldly shouted to some men who were standing about a row of lorries parked in its square asking to be told where the nearest filling st
ation was to be found. They directed him to it and, five minutes later, the tanks of the Black Maria were being filled up. He learned that the town was called Ivanitch and was one hundred and seventy-five versts from Moscow, the equivalent to one hundred and twenty miles. The church clock was striking eleven as he drove out of it.
After that, everything was plain sailing. Soon after three in the morning he was within a few miles of Moscow, and could just make out against the starry night sky the vague outline of its massed buildings, domes and spires. Pulling in to the side of the road, he got off the box and went round to rouse Gregory.
It was clear that to drive into the capital in the Black Maria and abandon it outside the British Embassy would have been positively suicidal. The vehicle that had proved such a godsend to them was so conspicuous and unusual that even to abandon it anywhere in the neighbourhood of Moscow might easily set on foot enquiries which would disclose its origin, lead the Leningrad Ogpu to conclude that Gregory and Stefan had used it as a means to get through the German zone, and result in an intensive search being made for them in the whole of the Moscow area. In fact, their only hope of permanently retaining their hard-won freedom seemed to lie in the total destruction of the van, and, at first sight, this seemed almost impossible of achievement.
They both thought hard for a moment, then Gregory exclaimed: ‘I’ve got it! I felt sure that those explosives of Grauber’s would come in handy sooner or later. Let’s blow the old bus up.”
“Nom d’un nom! What a splendid idea!” Kuporovitch laughed. “Get in the back again and I’ll drive her well off the road into a field.”
Both of them had often handled explosives before so it took them only about ten minutes to arrange the charges and, while Gregory set the fuses, Kuporovitch hastily changed back from his Ogpu uniform into his own clothes. Leaving the uniform on the floor of the van they closed its doors for the last time and, side by side, ran for the road.
They had scarcely reached it when the Black Maria went up with a fine bang, but they had no fear that this would cause undue excitement and bring people hurrying to the scene as German aircraft often dropped bombs on the outskirts of Moscow, and the bang might easily have been the explosion of a time bomb dropped several nights before.
Under a starry sky they completed the last five miles of their journey on foot, arriving at the British Embassy as the bells of Moscow were chiming five o’clock.
They were very tired, very dirty, and with a five days’ growth of stubble on their chins; so at first the porter regarded them with some suspicion, but on their producing their passports he let them in. Going straight up to their little office at the top of the building, they found it just as they had left it only six days—although it seemed to them like six weeks—ago. Sinking into their chairs, they put their feet up on their desks and slept.
After dozing for a few hours, as soon as they thought the Press Attaché would be in his office, Gregory rang through and asked him to come up to see them. He arrived a few minutes later and, on seeing their bedraggled appearance, gave them a surprised and rather anxious grin.
Gregory explained that they had succeeded in their mission, but at the price of falling foul of the Soviet authorities.
“You can’t stay here then,” the Attaché said in quick alarm. “It would make the Ambassador’s position extremely difficult if you are traced to the Embassy.”
“I know that,” Gregory agreed. “But it’s very unlikely that we shall be traced, providing that nobody here gives away the fact that we are back in Moscow. That is why we did not go to the annexe when we arrived early this morning. We dare not risk any indiscretion by one of the Press Section which might lead to General Alyabaiev learning that we have returned. What we have to do now is to get to London by the quickest possible means.”
“That is not going to be easy, since His Excellency is in no position to help you officially. In fact, I don’t think I ought even to inform him that you are here.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. The information that we have is of the very greatest importance. Of course it can be sent to London by Most Secret Cypher Telegram, but I imagine that only he can give authority to use one-time pads. And that’s the way our stuff must be sent.”
“In that case I’ll do my best to arrange matters,” the Attaché agreed. “But the trouble is that the whole Embassy is in a flat spin at the moment owing to the arrival of this War Cabinet Mission the day after tomorrow.”
“What is the reason for the Mission?” Gregory inquired.
“Lord Beaverbrook and Mr. Averill Harriman are arriving for a Three-Power Conference on aid to Russia. The Russians want Britain and the States to supply the Soviet with masses of tanks, lorries, aircraft, and all sorts of other war equipment, and the whole matter is to be thrashed out here.”
“Is it, by jove!” exclaimed Gregory with a quick grin at Kuporovitch. “Then you needn’t bother the Ambassador after all. But you must get us an interview with Lord Beaverbrook before the Conference opens. If you say that we have information which may be of assistance to him in his Mission, and that we have been travelling in Russia on behalf of Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust, I feel sure he will give us half an hour. In the meantime the fewer people who see us the better, so we had best remain in this room.”
The Attaché obviously felt that he was taking on a pretty heavy responsibility in agreeing to their remaining at the Embassy without the Ambassador’s knowledge, now that they were wanted by the police; but he gamely consented to the proposal. Then, having seen that the coast was clear, he took them down to the next floor, so that they could have a bath and shave, and collected their bags from his office, which enabled them to change their underclothes; after which he promised to bring some cold food up to them himself, from time to time, in order that as few people as possible should be let into the secret of their return.
It was the morning of Saturday, the 26th of September, and the three days that followed provided a strange interlude. They had nothing to do but chat and doze, yet they were not bored. In the preceding six days they had had enough excitement for six months; their self-imposed prison was far from comfortable, but it was positively palatial compared with the underground cells of the Lubianka, and they were perfectly content to spend the long hours quietly recovering from the appalling strain through which they had gone.
On the Monday night, round eleven o’clock, the Press Attaché came to fetch them for an interview with Lord Beaverbrook. In spite of the tiring and hazardous flight he had made that day, followed by a long conference with the Ambassador, the indefatigable statesman gave them two and a half hours, and showed no trace of fatigue at the end of it. He asked innumerable questions and with an extraordinarily quick grasp of each situation extracted every ounce of information they had to give. When they finally left him at twenty-five to two in the morning he spoke glowingly of the great help their information would be to him, and they knew that their mission had been well and truly completed.
Next morning they again raised with the Press Attaché the matter of their getting safely back to London. As the imperative need for speed was no longer a factor they were less well placed than ever to ask the Ambassador to compromise himself by giving his assistance; so it seemed that the only thing for them to do was to set off under their own steam, and they agreed to start as soon as darkness fell that night.
The Attaché still knew nothing of the secret of their mission, but their two and a half hours with Lord Beaverbrook the previous night was sufficient guarantee that they had done some very special job of work, and, in any case, as a patriotic Briton the thought of two of his compatriots falling into the hands of the Ogpu worried him considerably. In consequence, at the risk of losing his own post he made a spontaneous and very handsome gesture.
As they were about to leave that evening he produced two British passports which had been issued in Moscow to ex-members of the Consul-General’s staff, and said:
“It may prove a bit da
ngerous to show your own passports anywhere in the Soviet Union now, so I thought you might like to use these instead. I selected them from a pile that had been sent in for cancellation, and although the descriptions and photographs don’t fit too well, I think they’ll pass at a push. But for goodness’ sake don’t let anybody know that I gave them to you.”
For this invaluable help they could not thank him enough. Then, having done their best to express their gratitude, they left the Embassy by its back door.
They had had ample time to plan their journey and had decided against attempting to go straight through on the trunk railway to the Russian frontier. Foreigners travelling direct to and from Moscow were sufficiently few to be subject to careful scrutiny, as they knew from their journey to the capital, so they had agreed to take only local trains and hitch-hike wherever possible.
By these means, and using their priceless supply of soap for bribes wherever necessary, having left Moscow on the evening of the 29th of September, and averaging a little under a hundred miles a day along by-routes, they reached Astrakhan on the morning of the 29th of October. It took them two days to find a tramp going south across the Caspian, and before they could leave the port they had to secure exit visas from the Soviet Emigration authorities.
At Gregory’s suggestion, inspired by his sardonic humour, they posed as two English Communists who, now that Russia had been attacked by Hitler, had decided that they ought to wind up their affairs there and go home to fight for Britain. This absurd illogicality, having the backing of a world-wide appeal by the Comintern, met with such an excellent reception that the passports given them by the Press Attaché were scarcely glanced at, and with great inward relief they went on board.
Come into my Parlour Page 38
