by Roger Bax
We all became very lively that evening. We had to put out the fire after dark for safety’s sake, but we sat round its embers telling stories and singing in low voices. It was incredibly romantic, sitting on the bank in the warm and scented night, listening to Russian songs sung in harmony by Stepan and the girls. How we missed Stepan’s balalaika! No one had given it a thought when we scuttled Neva, but then who could have foreseen the present gathering, or dreamed that it could be so friendly?
It must have been about six o’clock the next morning when I stirred in my bunk. I looked round the fo’ c’s’le and saw that Marya was still sleeping peacefully. I got up and peeped out of the porthole to see what sort of day we were going to have. It was then that I noticed the dinghy had gone! I looked across at Stepan’s hammock and saw that it was empty.
With a pang I realized how criminally negligent we had been. I threw on some clothes and, without waking the others, climbed quickly to the top of the hill. Perhaps, after all, Stepan had only gone for a short row, though as it was barely daylight the hope seemed slight. I peered anxiously out over the encircling grey water but there was no sign of him.
It seemed only too plain what had happened. Stepan had fooled us. He had traded on our readiness to forgive and forget. All his friendly helpfulness had been a blind. While we had been babbling about England and thinking that we were improving his mind he had been quietly planning his escape. He’d slipped away in the dinghy during the night, along those channels that he knew so well, and at this moment might be on his way back with a launch and an armed party. Our little idyll was shattered. My mind was suddenly filled with a nightmare picture of what would happen if we were captured.
I woke Joe and told him what had occurred. He looked grave. The girls were shocked and incredulous, and Denny could obviously barely restrain himself from saying, “I told you so.” We had a quick council of war. Joe thought we had no alternative but to shift our berth at once and try to find a new hiding place as far away as possible, before Stepan’s party caught us. Denny and Joe began to make Dawn ready for departure and I climbed the hill again to keep watch for a hostile launch. I felt pretty sick. We had overcome so many hazards, and now it looked as if we had run into the worst one of all. I couldn’t imagine what we should do if that launch did appear. Stepan would have all the advantages on his side when it came to a game of hide-and-seek around the islands. Even if we didn’t hit one of the many submerged rocks in our hurry we might well be spotted by boat or ’plane before we’d found shelter.
At least it seemed that we should have a few minutes’ start—there was still nothing in sight, and though the morning was quiet I could hear no engine. I was just going to set off down the hill again in response to a halloo from Joe when I thought I saw something move at the tip of the neighbouring island. It was a very slight movement and I couldn’t make out what it was. For a moment I stood tense, watching. Yes, something was coming. I could see the bows of a little boat .…Then I sat down and laughed hysterically with relief.
It was Stepan, drifting in the dinghy. He had a long rod over the stern and he was fishing!
He must have heard my shouts of laughter for he turned and waved cheerily, and then pulled in his line. He rowed across the creek and gave me a beaming “Good morning” in English as I joined him on the beach.
I hardly knew what to say. I felt pretty ashamed of myself, partly for jumping to the worst possible conclusion and partly for behaving in a way I now felt had verged upon panic. I said: “We thought you’d run away, Stepan. We were just getting ready to leave. Another five minutes and we’d have been gone.”
His blue eyes opened wide. I have never seen a man look so utterly astonished. It was clear that the idea had never crossed his mind. He looked at the dinghy and then at me and at his home-made rod, and suddenly he threw it to the ground and stalked off without a word, like an offended prima donna.
There didn’t seem much point in going after him till he’d cooled off, so I took the dinghy and went back to Dawn. The others had got her out into the channel and were waiting impatiently for my arrival. When I told them what had happened there was a moment’s complete silence. Then Marya burst into tears and Svetlana stood shaking her head in self-reproach. Joe and Denny were too relieved to be upset, and philosophically eased Dawn back into her berth.
I thought I’d better go and look for Stepan. We couldn’t have him sulking about the island—it would make life unbearable. I found him sitting dejectedly on the beach, chewing a piece of grass and gazing out to sea.
I parked myself beside him. “Look here, Stepan,” I said. “We’re all sorry. Forget it.”
Stepan was still looking mortally affronted. He said slowly: “I thought we were friends. How could you think I would betray you and Svetlana and Marya, who have been so kind to me?”
I said: “Now don’t be unreasonable, Stepan. You’d gone and the dinghy had gone. How could I know you’d suddenly decided to go fishing in the middle of the night?”
“If you had waited a little,” said Stepan doggedly, “you would have seen that I came back.”
I decided that this exhibition of Slav temperament was getting us nowhere and said: “Look, Stepan. Everybody makes mistakes. Three days ago you were shooting at us—remember? With real bullets. You might easily have killed Marya or Svetlana. That was a pretty bad mistake. If you’d known us better perhaps you wouldn’t have done it. If we’d known you better perhaps we shouldn’t have thought you’d run away this morning. I think we’re quits. Let’s shake hands on it.”
I watched that sink in. Presently he turned, and a disarming grin spread slowly over his face. “Very well, we are friends again. You forgive me—I forgive you.” We shook hands on it.
As we made our way back to Dawn I said, “Anyhow, what made you go fishing in the middle of the night?”
Stepan shrugged. “It was the right weather. I had made the rod and prepared the line. Svetlana said yesterday she was tired of eating fish from tins. Also, I could not sleep.”
“Mosquitoes?”
“No. I was thinking what I would do—at Stockholm.”
“Oh.” I could see more trouble ahead. “What did you catch, anyway?”
He shook his head sorrowfully. “The fishing was not as good as I hoped.” He led me to the dinghy, in the bottom of which I now noticed two small flounders. I tactfully said that we could fry them for breakfast.
Stepan said with a rueful smile, “We have a saying, ‘Where there is no fish even the crayfish is deemed to be a fish.’”
That closed the incident. At least, I thought so at the time. In fact, the relationship between Stepan and the rest of us had subtly changed. A misunderstanding, a misjudging, either breaks or strengthens friendship. In this case it drew us closer together. There was a sort of assumption that Stepan had been proved, and was now one of us. The girls in particular tried to make up for their earlier disbelief by being extra nice to him.
Our fright had made us restless, and after breakfast we had another long discussion about what we should do next. The air reconnaissance seemed to have been called off altogether. Stepan’s interpretation was that ‘they’ had realized they couldn’t hope to locate us in the islands and had switched their patrol to the fifty-mile-wide mouth of the Finnish Gulf, through which at some time we should have to pass. That certainly made sense.
Our problem was how to get out of the Gulf in one quick dash without being seen from the air and intercepted. We were about fifty miles from the mouth of the Gulf. With a maximum speed of eight knots we couldn’t hope to clear the danger zone in one night’s travelling, and in daylight we should immediately come to grief. What we needed was a safe jumping-off point much nearer the mouth of the Gulf. The chart showed that the archipelago extended westwards along the coast to within about fifteen miles of Hango, so we ought to have no difficulty in finding a suitable spot. But we had to decide how to make the journey. If we put to sea, and sailed boldly outside the islands
by night, there was a risk that we might be caught at daybreak before we had found a safe anchorage. If we worked our way westwards through the archipelago, in daylight, there was the risk of being spotted from the air. Joe thought we should be safe enough if we camouflaged the boat and kept a sharp lookout. Stepan made little contribution to the discussion—he still didn’t want to move at all.
In the end we decided to take the inner route. We covered Dawn’s deck and cockpit with branches of oak leaves until there was barely room left for us to move, and soon after breakfast we pushed her out of her narrow berth and started the engine. Once again Stepan took the helm. Denny went forward to look for submerged rocks and the rest of us acted as aircraft spotters. It was a tortuous, time-wasting passage that we made through the rocks, but at the end of the day we were nearly ten miles further to the west, and found a safe berth under the lee of a thickly-wooded islet.
It had been exciting to be on the move again, but by the end of the third day we were all tired of rock-dodging and were keyed up for the break-out. The islands had now become so scattered that there was no point in going further, especially as during the morning we had again heard a distant ’plane in the direction of Hango. We had reached our jumping-off place. We berthed in the afternoon on the inside of an island close to the open sea, having decided to leave at dusk and to steam at full speed for Stockholm. There was still a great risk, for by morning we should be little more than fifty miles outside the Gulf—near enough, certainly, for the Russians to claw us back if they found us. The risk had to be taken. There was no other way.
I shall never forget those last few hours. The sea was quiet and there was little wind. Dawn was ready, and there was nothing to do but wait. The girls were subdued and Stepan didn’t talk at all. He was whittling away moodily at one of his chess pieces. I was as tense as on the night we went into Tallinn, and I know Denny felt the same. Only Joe looked and behaved as usual.
Just before it got dark we took Dawn round to the seaward side of the island. In this race, minutes might count. Night had still not quite fallen when we cast the last of the camouflage overboard and Joe gave the order to leave. We motored cautiously out into the Gulf. There was a ship’s light over towards Tallinn and another in the direction of Hango. But they were both far enough away not to worry us. Having made sure there were no patrols about, Joe put us on our course and we gave the engine full throttle.
That was a night of horrible tension. I found myself yawning repeatedly, which is how fear takes me. Nobody, of course, had any desire for sleep. We talked, when we talked at all, in undertones. Joe at the tiller was whistling softly but interminably between his teeth. Denny and I kept him company in the cockpit most of the time. Stepan stayed in the unlit cabin communing with himself. From time to time one of the girls brought out sandwiches and coffee, and the hours passed.
We were steaming without lights, and twice we had to alter course to avoid shipping. The steady beat of our own engine made it impossible to hear any other. We brought Hango abeam in the middle of the night, keeping well out to sea. There was still no wind, but there must have been a tidal stream against us through the mouth of the Gulf, for we were falling a little behind schedule. Towards morning we again had to alter course, for we seemed to be slowly overhauling a vessel going our way. We gave it a wide berth, for it might be a Russian steamer, and daybreak was near.
We were now at the crucial point. The next couple of hours would decide our fate. As the grey light spread across the sky we all gathered in the cockpit to see what the morning would bring. Even Stepan stationed himself at the cabin door. His expression was as wooden as the chess piece he was still whittling. He cocked an eye at the steamer which was now far away on our starboard bow, and turned to his carving again.
Then, as the sun rose, we saw a ’ plane. I suppose we had all felt pretty certain it would come. From the Russian point of view it was a simple and obvious precaution. A single dawn patrol each day across the mouth of the Gulf was all they needed to keep tabs on us.
The ’plane was flying at about three thousand feet and didn’t see us at first. Soon, however, it turned, and began to come straight towards us. History was repeating itself. Joe watched it through the glasses. Stepan stepped back into the cabin. With a zoom the machine passed low overhead and then began to fly round us in a tight circle. No doubt the radio operator was already at work.
Joe said, “Ask Stepan how long he thinks we’ve got.”
When I translated Stepan shrugged. “Perhaps half an hour—perhaps an hour. It depends from which direction the gunboat comes.” He asked if he might have the glasses, and when Joe passed them over he turned them, not on the horizon as I expected, but on the distant steamer. He handed back the glasses and whittled for a bit. Then he said: “Why don’t you overhaul that ship? She is not Russian. It is your only chance.”
I told Joe. He said, “Suppose she is Russian?” but he altered course just the same. I gazed at the steamer through the glasses. She was an odd shape.
I said to Stepan, “There seems to be two of them.”
Stepan looked at me almost with indifference. “It is a steamer and a tug,” he said. “That is why we are faster than they. I know her. She is the Vittorina—Swedish. She was damaged in a collision outside Helsinki last week. Now they are taking her home.”
Again I translated. There was a new light in Joe’s eye. He said, “If she is Swedish I think we might just make it.” Already the steamer seemed a little nearer. Excitement filled the cockpit. Even the Russians would hardly attempt high-seas piracy under the eyes of witnesses. The ’plane was still circling but there was no sign of any gunboat. Ten breathless minutes passed. The girls were standing with their arms round each other and Denny was watching the engine as though that would encourage it to put forth greater efforts. Suddenly Joe, who was still holding the glasses, shouted: “She is Swedish! I can see her ensign.”
Stepan must have understood. He looked a little sardonic, but he said nothing.
We were coming up quickly now. We must have been a good two knots faster than the Vittorina. Soon we could make out some of the steamer’s crew, lounging against the stern rail. They were watching us with interest. Presently one of them waved, and the girls waved back.
Joe pointed to the gaping hole in the steamer’s stern, just above the waterline. Stepan regarded it thoughtfully. He said, “In Russia we have a saying, ‘It is a poor wind that blows no one good.’” He couldn’t understand why we laughed. We were closing the Vittorina, rocking through her stern wave until we found calm water abeam of her. There we slowed to her speed.
Joe looked up at her towering rusty side and blew her a kiss. “You lovely ship!” he said.
The aeroplane continued to circle us for a few minutes, then turned and flew away to the south.
We kept close to the Vittorina all day, but the danger was over. Towards evening Joe lashed the tiller amidships and we began a hilarious party in the cabin. Even Stepan brightened up for a while but presently he lapsed into moody silence once more. I said: “Cheer up, Stepan. You’ll soon be back in Russia. I’m sure you won’t be kept long in Stockholm.”
Stepan was toying with his glass. He said, “In Russia I think I shall be shot.” After a little reflection he added, “Or perhaps just sent away.”
A sudden constraint fell on us all. Marya’s hand crept into mine. She said, “I think he will, too, Philip.”
I said, “What do you think, Denny?”
Denny said solemnly: “I wouldn’t be in his shoes, now I come to think of it. Remember how the Russians treated their own men who’d been taken prisoner by the Germans?”
I remembered very well. I had seen some of them in Kharkov after they’d been ‘liberated’—white, ill and ragged, creeping round the market-place trying to beg a crust of bread. They had been left to fend for themselves because the authorities didn’t regard them as trustworthy any longer. It had sickened me at the time.
A sterner vie
w might well be taken of Stepan’s case. I was beginning to realize how greatly he’d compromised himself and how difficult it would be for him to explain. He would be blamed for Kleinman’s failures as well as for his own. I could imagine the charge sheet. He had omitted to keep us under proper observation as a result of getting drunk; he had lost his ship, although he and Kleinman had got guns and we had not. His story about a wild-fowling gun would never be believed. Last but not least he had actually guided us to safety through channels which we would otherwise not have known. He had been on friendly terms with us, the enemy. He had made no effort to get away. Indeed, the N.K.V.D. might well think that Stepan himself had killed Kleinman and joined us in the hope of escaping from Russia. The more I thought of it the more certain I became that he hadn’t a chance. I gazed unhappily at his frank good-natured face. I had a vision of him after he’d spent a few hours in an underground room with a couple of Kleinmans working on him, and I didn’t like it.
For Joe’s benefit I outlined what I conceived to be the probable case against Stepan. Joe was the one who knew least about Russia and he might think our anxiety about Stepan was exaggerated. But in fact he agreed that the case was pretty damaging.
Stepan himself said nothing. I realized now that he’d known from the beginning what his fate would be and that it wasn’t the Stockholm jail he’d been worrying about at all. Looking back over the past day or two I marvelled at his cheerfulness and courage.
I said: “All right, Stepan, let’s agree you’ll be shot. What do you suggest we do about it?”
He said, without any great hope, “Can I not, perhaps, come to England with you?”
“The authorities might refuse to let you land in England,” I told him. “They might send you back.”
