Gregory said a cheery word to the two soldiers; put his suitcase in the sleigh and getting in himself said good bye to the officer, who had been no more than a shadowy form and a voice in the semi darkness. Sergeant Boroski cracked his whip and the horses went forward at a canter out of the little harbour.
With a sigh of relief Gregory snuggled down into the sleigh, pulling the thick fur rugs right up to his chin. One great danger was safely past. Grauber's men might get the Russians to telephone till all was blue but they could not stop him now. Communications ended on the south western shore of the Lake; the very thing which had previously prevented him from getting an order for Erika's release to Kandalaksha was now his protection. They could send a courier after him but they could not catch him, and even a few hours' lead would be enough. If he could reach Kandalaksha before the Gestapo men he could free Erika and leave with her immediately. Now that he had Voroshilov's carte blanche order in his pocket for everyone to facilitate the journey of his party he backed himself to get clear before the pursuit with counter orders could possibly arrive.
Yet he knew that he was still terrifyingly far from succeeding in his bid to rescue Erika and was only now entering upon the most dangerous and difficult stage of his journey. While by no means an impossibility, seventy two miles is a terrific distance for horses to cover without at least one interval for prolonged rest and recuperation; yet in that bitter cold there could be no question of halting for any length of time, as there was no shelter for the teams and if they were given more than a breather at stated intervals the cold might affect them too severely for them to proceed further. He remembered, too, what he had been told about Finnish patrols often penetrating between the Russian outposts on the Lake. For the first six or eight miles, at least, there was the added risk of being shot or captured, and he could riot possibly afford the time to make a wide detour which would have carried him outside the limits of this very definite danger.
Recovered now from his hellish scrap with Grauber, except for dull aches which he knew would not leave him for many hours, he began to calculate times while the sleigh ran smoothly forward., drawn at a fine pace by the fresh, well fed horses. The distance from Leningrad to Petrozavodsk along the great bend in the railway was just over three hundred miles, and Gregory knew from his own experience that on that line the Russian trains averaged only eighteen miles an hour, so the Journey would take the Gestapo agents seventeen hours. If they had not left Leningrad until that evening say, at eight o'clock they would not get into Petrozavodsk before one o'clock the following afternoon; in which case, if he succeeded in crossing the Lake and managed to maintain a reasonable speed in doing so, he should arrive well before them.
On the other hand they might have left Leningrad much earlier. It was possible that they had departed as early as two o'clock in the afternoon. If so, they would get into Petrozavodsk at about seven o'clock in the morning,
Gregory asked Boroski what speed he thought they could make over the ice and the Sergeant replied: "Twelve miles an hour in normal conditions; I might do even better with such fine horses, but if we encounter broken ice we may be badly held up. As we have such a great distance to cover I must husband the strength of the horses or we might never get there at all, so we cannot hope to do more than nine or ten miles an hour at the most."
The man spoke of versts but Gregory translated the Russian measure into English distances as he listened and began another series of calculations. Nine miles an hour would bring them to Rabaly in eight hours about half past two in the morning. They would then have to make arrangements for fresh horses and cover another seventy miles to Petrozavodsk. The going would be better along the road say fifteen miles an hour with halts which meant another five hours. It seemed doubtful if they would arrive at Petrozavodsk before eight thirty at the earliest. He could only pray that the Gestapo men had not left Leningrad until the evening.
Behind them the guns still thundered and,, looking over his left shoulder, to the west, Gregory could see a constant flickering in the night sky as shells and Verey lights burst upon the Finnish defences at Taipale, although the rising shore of the lake and the pinewoods which fringed it hid the actual explosions from him. To his front and right the darkness was unbroken, but the snow and stars enabled them to penetrate it for some distance. Orloff had gone ahead with the spare horses to act as an advance guard and give warning if he sighted any detachments of troops out on the ice of the Lake; but Gregory and Boroski also kept their eyes strained to the north west, as in this first part of the journey there was a constant danger that a white coated Finnish ski patrol might suddenly emerge out of the shadows. Twice they caught the flash of rifles out there to the left and heard sharp reports; once a single wailing cry of a man in his death agony echoed over the snow field.
While keeping alert Gregory began to think about Grauber and wonder if he would die from his injuries in the night. He hoped so, and cursed himself for his weakness in not having killed him when he had the chance. If Grauber survived he would be found, at the latest, when the soldier servants came to call their officers at seven o'clock in the morning and he would have a fine story to tell von Geisenheim and the Russians. The General already knew that Gregory was an impostor but he could not possibly admit it and would have to press the Russians for the speedy capture of the false Colonel Baron. That would make things damnably tricky once the hunt was up. But Gregory thought he knew how to cheat them. He would not come south again; that would be running into trouble. He would maintain his lead of it by heading north. Murmansk was only a hundred and seventy miles north of Kandalaksha and from there, with Voroshilov's order, they could get a ship along the coast to Norway. They would be out of Russia before the news that they were wanted reached the Arctic port. If only he arrived in time to save Erika, if only he arrived in time.
Suddenly a challenge rang out right in front of them. Boroski swerved the sleigh to the right with the intention of making off at a gallop towards the east. Gregory snatched up the sub machine gun that was part of the sleigh's equipment; but Orloff answered the challenge as he was nearer the point from which it had come and had heard it clearly enough to recognize that the men ahead of them were Russians. Having shouted a pass word he called to the others that it was all right and Boroski turned the sleigh back towards the north again. A moment later they passed a group of a dozen silent, ghost like figures on skis, who waved to them before being swallowed up in the darkness.
At the end of the first hour they halted to rest the horses and swap teams. The men changed over duties, too, Sergeant Boroski mounting the spare riding horse to lead his team and Orloff's mount, while the Corporal got into the sleigh as driver. They felt considerably easier now, as it was hardly likely that any Finnish patrols would be so far out on the ice, and Gregory decided to try to get some sleep. His eye was hurting him abominably and his shin ached acutely where Grauber had landed a heavy kick on it; but the mutter of the guns had sunk away to a dull rumble in the distance, which only served to make him drowsy, so after a little time he managed to get off.
When he awoke it was just after ten o'clock and he asked at once how they were going. Boroski was driving again and he replied: "Quite well we are nearly half way across the Lake now."