Gregory had been driving along the side of the forest for several moments before he realized that the surface they were now on was harder than that over which they had been moving before. Instead of being crisp and uneven it was solid and beaten flat. By pure chance they bad struck a road and troops with lorries or tanks must have passed that way recently. The new hope that came to him with the discovery was killed almost instantly. Villages were so incredibly few and far between up there in the far north, and the fact that troops had used the road that day did not mean that they were necessarily encamped in that area. They might be a dozen miles away by this time and in the almost static war that was being fought in the Arctic one convoy might move along a road without its following that a second would do so for another week or more.
Freddie had his rifle trained again. The girls were crouching on either side of him; the wolves had ceased to bay and were running, a sinister, silent mass, no more than a hundred yards behind the sleigh. Now that they were on a road, with little risk of being overturned by crashing into some unseen obstacle in their headlong flight, Gregory was able to glance over his shoulder from time to time. The wolves were gaining upon them every moment. He thought of sacrificing the near side horse as the only means of securing further respite but after a moment's reflection he knew that he dared not do it. Both horses were flagging and if he cut free the near side horse the centre one, which carried the heavy arch of the troika, would not have sufficient strength to pull the fully loaded sleigh much further. In its terror it would go on until it dropped; but the strain the horses had undergone in the last hour was already terrific. As it was, either of them might burst blood vessels or die from a heart attack at any moment.
The silence was broken only by the hoof beats of the horses. Not a sound or whisper of wind disturbed the illimitable forests and the pack ran on, a little tired now but silent, relentless and still making a better pace than the horses. The wolves crept up and up until the white breath of the leaders formed a little cloud above the dark, heaving mass of furry bodies.
Freddie waited, staring into the fiery eyes of the pursuing pack. He did not mean to waste a single bullet. But at last the leader of the pack was within five yards of the end of his rifle. He took careful aim and fired.
The big beast turned a complete somersault and vanished under the swarm of lean, dark forms that leapt across him. A few wolves at the rear of the pack stopped to worry the carcass, but the others, feeling their prey almost within their grasp, did not swerve from their course or even hesitate an instant.
Within a minute Freddie had to fire again; then he settled down to the job in earnest. It was easy enough to pick off the wolves one by one as they came up to within a few yards of the back of the sleigh; but there seemed so many of them, and ammunition was limited. As Freddie emptied one rifle Angela passed him the other and reloaded the first. Soon he had to shoot more rapidly. The wolves spread out a little on to a frontage of about thirty feet and those at each extremity of the line were constantly creeping right up to the level of the sleigh in an attempt to pass it. He had to fire first to one side and then to the other as well as picking off the more courageous brutes that were still following in the sleigh's track.
The road lay clear before Gregory now as another thick belt of trees loomed up on their left hand side and the way entered the depths of the forest. But a mile further on he suddenly saw that the road seemed to end; there, were trees ahead of him as well. Turning, he glanced back. The wolves, now spread out across the whole width of the road, seemed hardly to have decreased in numbers for all the execution that Freddie had done among them.
With anxious eyed Gregory stared ahead, then the moonlit showed him that the road did not end but took a sharp bend to the left. As hecornered it was just the opportunity the wolves had been waiting for. Those on the off side of the road fell behind but those on the near side cut off the corner and streaked ahead.
Freddie had just exhausted the magazine of one of the rifles. Grabbing the other from Angela he opened rapid fire with it but there was no time to take careful aim. Two wolves leapt and fell in their tracks. Erika came into action with her pistol, firing over his shoulder, and killed a third; but the other bullets went wide and half a dozen of the brutes were now running level with the horses next instant their leader, a great, grey beast with slavering jaws, leapt at the throat of the near horse. It screeched and reared, jerking the sleigh violently to one side; but Gregory had out his knife again and in two swift strokes severed the harness.
With a neigh of fear the centre horse plunged forward just as Gregory released the near horse's rein. The terrified beast had hardly broken free when another wolf buried its fangs in the wounded animal's flank and the sleigh had not covered another ten yards before a dozen wolves had pulled the poor brute, screaming, to the ground
Gregory knew that their lives could now be measured by minutes. Crazy with terror the centre horse was galloping blindly on, but now that it had to drag the full weight of the sleigh it could not possibly continue much further. The nearside horse would be devoured before they could cover another half mile; then the pack would be after them again and all hope of outdistancing them gone.
Suddenly, ahead of him, he saw a change in the dim landscape. The forests on either side of the road ended abruptly but they did not give way to another open space. The snow was broken here and there by the black bulk of buildings. Glancing back he saw that the wolves were already on the move behind them. A black heap in the moonlight showed where about a third of their number were still tearing the remnants of the dead horse; but the rest had abandoned the fight with their comrades for a mouthful of the easier prey and were once more in full pursuit.
Even now Gregory feared that they might not reach the village in time. At this hour nobody would be about. The wolves would follow them into the village street and they might be pulled down before they could rouse the peasants to their assistance. Their only chance seemed to be that they might secure shelter in the nearest house. Freddie and Erika were now firing again as the nearest wolves gained once more upon the sleigh. The house was only a hundred yards ahead now. Using his whip for the first time Gregory drew the last spurt out of the beaten horse.
Suddenly the door of the house was flung open and a light appeared. The inmates had been aroused by the sound of firing. A group of men came out and in the bright moonlight one glance was enough for them to take in the situation. Some of them ran back into the house. As the sleigh drew level with them they tumbled out again; next moment there was the crash and rattle of machine gun fire. There was no need to pull up the sleigh; the remaining horse tottered to a halt and fell dead at that moment, and as the party it had carried to safety stepped into the road they saw that their rescuers were soldiers.
Their burst of fire had scattered the wolves, which were running up and down baying again now, but not daring to approach any nearer. In a few moments they were driven off and the survivors, still howling dismally at being cheated of their prey, disappeared into the edge of the forest.
No sooner had the, last shots been fired than the soldiers turned with cheerful exclamations of congratulation to the people whom they had saved; but it soon became apparent that none of them could understand what was said. All Gregory and his friends could do to express their gratitude was to shake hands, smile and pat the soldiers on the back. A very tall, black bearded, dark eyed officer motioned Gregory's party into the house which was evidently used as an out post. The fug in the low room was frightful but they hardly noticed it in their relief at their miraculous escape and sank down, with their hearts still pounding, on a long bench by the wall.
They had eaten only a few hours before so they were not particularly hungry but after a little while some of the soldiers brought them bowls of hot stew and mugs of coffee substitute which Gregory thought was probably made from acorns. A quarter of an hour after their arrival the street door opened and the officer entered with another man who came over and
greeted them in a language which was different from that of the soldiers. They guessed then chat they had been taken for Finns and that the officer had brought a Finnish prisoner who could speak Russian from the local lock up to question them and. act as an interpreter.
This having proved a failure the officer stroked his long, black beard and regarded them with increased interest. Gregory attempted to open communications with him by using German, English, French and Italian, but apparently none of the Russians or the Finn had even a smattering of any of these languages, so the deadlock continued.
When they had finished their not very appetizing meal out of politeness rather than because they wanted it the officer spoke to one of his men, who led them through a short passage and up a narrow stairway to an attic under the rafters of the house. With a broken toothed grin the man pointed to the rugs from the sleigh which had been thrown down on the floor there, handed to Freddie a tallow candle that he was carrying and closed the door behind him; but he did not lock it. The Russians were evidently not bothering to take any precautions to prevent the party from leaving without permission because they knew quite well that now they no longer had horses, the deadly cold, the isolated position of the village and the wolves in the forest would be a better deterrent to any attempt at escape than iron bars, steel doors and sentries with loaded rifles.
"What d'you think they'll do with us?" Angela asked in a low voice.
"Send us for questioning to some place where there are people who can speak our language, I expect," Gregory replied.
"I wish we had been able to grow beards like you," Erika said uneasily.
Gregory knew what she was thinking. The hair of both girls was hidden under their fur papenkas and they were quite as tall as many of the smaller Russian soldiers; so in their thick furs, which concealed their clothes and figures, they might quite well have been taken for men, except for the tell tale smoothness of the lower parts of their faces.
He stroked his own black and grey imperial. "I'm afraid there's no hiding the fact that you're women and you might have had a nasty time if you'd fallen into the hands of those drunks at Petsamo; but I don't think you've got anything to fear here. Women are really treated as the equals of men in Russia and there's quite a lot of them in the Soviet Army, so the troops are used to having women among them. They won't make a pass at you unless you show any inclination that way yourselves."
He was by no means certain that things would be as easy as all that, since no outlandish clothes could disguise Erika's loveliness and Angela's good looks, but it was no good meeting trouble half way and he wished to reassure them as far as possible. On his old axiom that in any difficult situation one should always get as much sleep as possible when there was nothing else drat one could do, he added: "Our best line at the moment is to follow a masterly policy of inactivity; so let's turn in."
The soldier who had shown them up to the room roused them before it was light. As they had slept in their furs they were already dressed and apparently their hosts considered any form of toilet quite unnecessary, so they were led straight downstairs to join the soldiers at a breakfast which did not differ in any way from the meal they had had the night before. Afterwards they sat by the stove for about an hour while the Russians eyed them with a curious but not unfriendly stare; then the street door opened and the officer appeared in it, beckoning them to follow him outside.
Two sleighs were standing there in the pale dawn light, each with a soldier sitting in it and another on the box. Gregory and Erika entered one sleigh and Freddie and Angela the other. The big officer gave them a wave and both sleighs drove off. Any form of communication with their respective guards was impossible and it would have been completely pointless to attempt either to overpower them or to get away, so they resigned themselves to being driven south eastward through the crisp, frosty air.
They halted every few miles to give the horses a breather and to restore their own circulation by flapping their arms and stamping their feet. At midday they made a longer halt during which the soldiers provided a picnic meal of coarse bread and iron rations. All through the afternoon they drove on again, making, Gregory estimated, a steady twelve miles an hour, and just as dusk was falling they pulled up at another village. The prisoners assumed that they were to spend the night there but after having been given mugs of very weak hot tea and a bowl of stew apiece, in a large, log building where there were a number of other soldiers, their guards led them out again and with fresh teams of horses they took the road once more.
At six o'clock the road emerged from the forest and they saw that the carpet of snow ahead was broken by some scattered buildings. These soon grew more numerous. They passed a railway station, then the houses merged into the street of a small town where other sleighs and people were moving in the semidarkness, which was broken here and there by street lamps and the lighted windows of a few poor looking general shops. On reaching a small square the sleighs turned right and mounted a steep incline at the end of which there loomed up the bulk of a great building that seemed to tower above the town. Two minutes later they were halted by a sentry who, after a brief exchange with their escort, passed them through a high, arched gateway and from lights fixed to the walls they saw that they were in the courtyard of an ancient castle.
The drivers of the sleighs remained with their horses while the two other soldiers led their charges through a low door. A non commissioned officer who was writing at a desk in a small room took the guard's report, then he shouted for an orderly who took the whole party along a gloomy, vaulted corridor and left them in a large room with some benches in it and a stove at one end. Having loosened their furs they waited there for three quarter of an hour, after which the orderly reappeared to conduct them through several more long, echoing passages and up a broad flight of stairs. Their guide then unceremoniously threw open a large door in the upper hallway and motioned to them to pass in.
The room they entered was large and lofty but its furniture presented some queer contrasts. Much of it revealed the splendour of bygone days when the castle was a Tsarist stronghold. There were bearskin rugs on the now unpolished parquet floor; a fine array of antlers and heads interspersed with a collection of ancient arms decorated the walls; several settees and chairs, from which the brocade was worn and the gilt rubbed, looked like genuine Louis Seize pieces and might still have fetched a good price at Christie's, but the room had now been converted for use as a modern office. Incongruously a row of steel filing cabinets lined a part of one wall under a piece of fine Gobelin tapestry, while in the very centre of the apartment there stood a cheap pinewood desk on which were littered cardboard files and wire letter trays.
Behind the desk a clean shaven, grey haired officer with several stars on his collar was sitting smoking a cheroot. His eyebrows were still black and ran thin and pointed towards the temples of his smooth, white forehead. Under them were a pair of rather lazy blue eyes of which Gregory took quick note. He had met that lazy look before in other people and knew that it nearly always boded a shrewd intelligence. At a word from the man behind the desk the two soldiers told their story, helping each other in a friendly, conversational way as they went slang and showing none of the trepidation which is usual in privates who are addressing an officer of high rank.
When they had done the officer looked at the prisoners and said: "Parlez vous francais?"
"Oui, mon General," replied Gregory at once, giving him the benefit of General's rank although he was not sufficiently well acquainted with Soviet badges to know the Russian's actual status.
"Good," said the officer, continuing in French. "I should be glad, then, if you will give some account of yourselves." Gregory had had ample time to think out what he meant to say when they had to face an examination and he had realized that, short of telling the truth, which would certainly land them in serious trouble owing to the Russians they had shot at Petsamo, only two lines were open to them. Angela had a British passport, Erika had a German passpo
rt, he had a faked British passport in his own name and a German passport in the name of Colonel Baron von Lutz, but Freddie had no passport at all. With the two countries at war such a mixed bag was sure to arouse unwelcome suspicion so they must either all pose as Germans or all pose as British and, since Germany was now Russia’s ally, it seemed that Germans would be likely to meet with a much better reception.
Having informed the others early that morning of what he, intended to do he produced the two German passports, and announcing himself as Colonel Baron von Lutz, introduced Erika as the Countess von Osterberg and Freddie and Angela as Oscar and Fredeline von Kobenthal.
The officer glanced at the passports and asked for the other two.
"They were lost, unfortunately, with our baggage," smiled Gregory.
"Indeed?" The Russian told the soldiers to bring up chairs for their charges and went on: "Remove your furs and be seated, please; then continue."
Gregory acknowledged the courtesy and proceeded to the much more difficult task of explaining what his party had been doing up in the Arctic.
"Von Kobenthal and I," he said, "are members of the German Military Intelligence and these two ladies were acting as our assistants. Before the war broke out we were naturally able to prove about Finland with much more freedom than would have been accorded to any Soviet subjects, and we were allotted the duty of assisting your attack on Petsamo. We lived in the town for a couple of weeks during which we were able to gather considerable information about the Finnish plans for resisting a Soviet invasion and it was our job, immediately upon the declaration of war, to cross the frontier, contact the Russian Military Intelligence and pass over to them such data as we had gained.
"We left Petsamo in our aeroplane on the morning the war broke out, ostensibly for Helsinki, but fifty miles south of the town we turned east intending to cross the frontier and land at your Arctic base of Murmansk. Unfortunately, we ran into a terrible blizzard, ice formed on the wings of our plane while we were still somewhere over the frontier and we were compelled to make a forced landing. The snow was so thick that we could see nothing, but luckily for us we came down in a clearing instead of crashing among the trees.
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