"You don't remember me, Frau Gräfin?" he said in a low voice.
"Why, yes “she exclaimed. "You're Rupprecht von Geisenheim."
He nodded. "Yes. I'm the head of the German Military Mission to the Soviet and I don't know if you know it, but this camp is Marshal Voroshilov's Headquarters."
The tears sprang to her eyes as she muttered: "Oh, take me away from that fiend Grauber, he he's killing me by inches."
Von Geisenheim shook his head sadly. "I can't possibly express how sorry I am for you, but you know the power of these Gestapo chiefs. It's more than my life is worth to try to give you my protection in fact, I am risking a great deal by coming to see you here today, and I only decided to chance it because Grauber has gone into Leningrad for the night."
"Why have you come, then?" she cried desperately.
"Just to tell you two things which I thought might enable you to die more bravely. Firstly, I wanted you to know that the man you are in love with did not desert you; he moved heaven and earth to get an order for your release and to reach Kandalaksha before the Gestapo."
"I know that," she said quickly. "I know that."
"I'm aware of his real identity," the General went on, lowering his voice to a whisper. "We recognized each other when he arrived here. We were together in the fight that night at the Adlon, but by a miracle none of the Gestapo people who were there appear to have noticed me, so I was not arrested afterwards."
"You-you're one of us, then?" Erika said slowly.
"Yes. And the movement is still going on. As you know, it was only our friends in Berlin who revolted on the night of November the 8th. Since the Putsch was a failure the officers who commanded at the battle fronts and in the garrisons all over Germany did not join in, so there are still many thousands of us who are ready to make a new bid for freedom when the time is ripe. You have been out of things for the last three months so you know nothing of our new plans and therefore can give nothing away however much they may torture you. But I wanted you to know that, although you will not live to see the day, all that is best in Germany will yet rise to overthrow Hitler and make our people great, free and respected again.
Thank you." she murmured, the tears streaming down her face. "Thank you, Herr General; it was good of you to come to me. I shall bear things better now that I know that our country is really to be freed from men like Grauber and all the evil they have brought into the world."
"You see now why I must resist the dictates of all decency and chivalry," Von Geisenheim went on. "By seeking to intervene on your behalf I should 'Jeopardize my life; and it is my duty to live because I have work to do for the salvation of Germany. You will die, I know, with the courage of a true von Epp; in the meantime I can only wish you fortitude." Clicking his heels he bowed low over her swollen, blistered hand and kissed it; then he left the room as quietly as he had come.
That night she tried to fortify herself again with the thought that what she was undergoing was no worse than the sufferings of thousands of other men and women in the German concentration camps who had earned the hatred of individual Nazis or of the countless Czechs and Poles they had enslaved. Yet the knowledge that these brute beasts, who were now seeking to bring the whole world under the scourge of their whips at the orders of their soulless, power lusting Leader, would be swept away in due time by the forces of Good which were rallying against them was scant comfort beside the fact that she had yet so much to suffer before she died.
On the Wednesday morning she was shivering with fear again and even the sound of prolonged cheering in the camp about eleven o'clock did not rouse her curiosity. At three o'clock in the afternoon the door of her cell opened once again to admit Grauber.
He was in high good spirits and told her that the Russo Finnish War was over. As he plied his switch from time to time he gleefully outlined the humiliating terms which the unfortunate Finns had been forced to accept after their magnificent resistance. In a spurt of rage Erika flared at him:
"You laugh too soon, you filthy brute. The Russians and you Nazis can smash these small people at your will, but you yet have Britain and France and America to deal with and they'll get you in the end; then the German people will revolt and crucify every one of you."
He laughed and flicked her across the face with his whip. "You little wild cat; you're talking nonsense. And, anyhow, if things do go that way you'll never live to crow over us. Now this war's over I'm going back to Berlin and I mean to take you with me. You remember that private cell of mine in my own house? We can have many pleasant little sessions there when
I'm off duty. Auf weidersehen, Frau Gräfin. He stressed the last
word mockingly as he turned and left her.
That night of Wednesday, March he 13th, was the worst of
all the ghastly nights that she had spent during the past fortnight. The picture of the cell of which Grauber had spoken was constantly before her eyes; he might keep her there for weeks while satiating his sadistic brutality upon her. All night through she tossed and turned and when morning carne she could hardly think coherently. She was afraid now that she would go mad
before she died and barely had the strength to wonder what was about to happen; when, long before dawn, her cell was opened, her furs were thrust at her by one of the Russian soldiers and she was led outside to a sleigh.
In the faint Light she saw that Grauber was already sitting in it dressed for a journey. He was wearing his eagle crested peaked cap, instead of the fur papenka that he had worn on his visits to her hut, but he had a fur coat over his uniform and its collar was turned up round his ears to protect him from the cold. A Russian soldier was driving the sleigh and another sat on the box beside him. When she got in Grauber grunted at her as he moved over a little to make room, and the sleigh drove off.
Once it was clear of the wood it turned south. A few miles further, having reached the coast line, it left the shore and drove on, continuing in the same direction over the ice. Erika roused herself for a moment to wonder if they were taking a short cut to the nearest railway station by crossing a big bay; but she was so cold and utterly wretched that she no longer cared. Grauber, hunched up in his furs beside her, had gone to sleep and, having been roused so early, she tried to follow his example.
A bitter wind was blowing and it was still dark when, after two hours' driving, they reached a break in the ice beyond which blue water could be faintly seen. The sleigh halted and, getting out, Grauber began to flash a torch. His signal was answered.
A quarter of an hour elapsed and the sound of oars splashing in the water became perceptible; then a boat drew up along, side the edge of the ice.
Grauber motioned to her to get into the boat and she obeyed he turned back to talk to the two soldiers for a few minutes. She noticed that in comradely Russian fashion he shook hands with them before he joined her. The boat pushed off and were rowed away through the gloomy dawn light to a small tramp steamer which was standing out about half a mile away in the bay where the ice had melted. Some sailors helped Erika up the ladder and Grauber followed her. The boat was hoisted in and the ship's engines began to turn over.
Erika had already guessed what was happening. Now that the ice in the Baltic was breaking up it would be quicker and more comfortable to go down by ship to Danzig than to spend two nights sitting up in a railway carriage on a journey through Russia and Poland. Grauber was standing beside her on the deck as she watched the icy shore of mutilated Finland recede. Suddenly she felt him put his arm through hers and the voice she loved more than anything else in the world said: