Gregory emptied his second goblet of champagne. He was feeling pretty good again now as he said: "I think you'll admit that I've managed to interest you on the subject of Finland, so can I take it that I shall not be handed over to the gentlemen downstairs who beat people with steel rods?"
"Yes. You've won your wager," Goering nodded, "but don't get any idea that I mean to let you go; you'll still have to face a firing squad."
"Have I convinced you that it is in Germany ’s interests that Finland should resist Russia ’s demands?"
"Yes, and I admit that your long term policy for Germany and the world offers the best hope of permanent peace that has ever been devised."
"Are you, then, prepared to lead Germany on this new and glorious destiny?"
"If I could do so without disloyalty to my Führer" Good. Then let us discuss it further."
"It would be useless to do so. Our talk has clarified my ideas on the subject and many of your views are in line with those that I've held for a long time, but the plan breaks down at its very outset because the Finns dare not resist."
"If I could produce a method by which you might induce them to do so, would you give me my life?"
"No." Goering turned away. "I've talked much too freely for that. I'm sorry on personal grounds, but I never allow such things to influence my decisions. Nothing you can say now will save you from a bullet."
Chapter XI
Faked Passports
GREGORY remained quite silent for a moment, studying the heavy, forceful face in front of him. It was serene but implacable. There was nothing cruel about it, nothing evil. It was fat with good living, like those of the later Caesars and, like the best of them, still handsome in its rugged strength. The eyes, too, were quick with understanding and intelligence.
Hours earlier that evening when Gregory had first entered the great, silent apartment in which they stood he had believed that if he could once intrigue Goering with the story of his adventures his life would be safe. He had done so and they had dined together like the best of friends, yet he had lost that round.
Afterwards he had still believed that he might save his neck if he proved clever enough to clarify the Marshal's ideas upon the European situation by putting forward possibilities with a bluntness that few Germans would' have dared to use. He had done so; and to such a degree that he might, perhaps, even have altered the whole course of events in Europe for the next fifty years by influencing Goering's decisions through the ambitious plans he had laid before him. But he had lost that round as well.
What was there left? An appeal to sentiment was utterly useless. Goering moved through life as a super battleship ploughs the seas; he allowed nothing to deflect him from his course once he had set it, and all lesser vessels were forced to give way before his relentless progress. Having once decided that Gregory knew too much to be allowed to live, what possible argument could make him go back on his decision? He liked brave people and if he would not spare Gregory when he had shown himself to be a man of courage he would only treat him with contempt if he started to beg for mercy.
Gregory knew that he was up against the toughest proposition that he had ever encountered; but he felt no malice. Goering was an opponent worthy of his steel. If the sands of his life were really running out at last he could console himself with the thought that he had failed only because he had tried to move a mountain. It was no disgrace to have broken oneself against the implacable 'Iron Hermann'.
With a little shrug he said: "Well, I suppose we might as well finish the magnum."
"Certainly." Goering refilled the champagne goblets for the third time and replaced the big bottle in its ice bucket. "I don't feel in a mood for company this evening so I shan't go down and join my guests now. I shall set to work on this Russian business; but there's no immediate hurry, as I never go to bed before two in the morning."
"Good. In that case I may be able to help you."
Goering grinned. "I was thinking of my interview with the Soviet Ambassador tomorrow; and although you're a very clever fellow, Sallust, I don't see how you can help me to bring pressure to bear on the Kremlin."
"No. Nobody can help you there. I meant my scheme for persuading the Finns to resist Russia 's demand."
"But you ask your life for that, and as I don't think it possible, I'm not playing."
"You can't say whether it's possible or not until you've heard it."
"In my view, whatever your scheme might be, the general situation would make it impossible of application; because we are no better placed to exert pressure on the Finns than we are on the Russians."
"I don't agree; and since you won't pay me for it I'll give it to you for nothing."
"Why should you?"
"Oh, I owe you something for having made the last evening of my life such an interesting one; and when I get to Hell I'll make even Satan's mouth water by a description of that bottle of Marcobrunner Cabinet 1900 you gave me for dinner."
"All right, go ahead if you wish."
"Tell me first what you know about the U.S.S.R. The German Secret Service is pretty good and a prcis of all essential reports come to you. Russia is a closed book to most of us. Some people believe her to be the same old Russia of the Tsarist days; slow moving, inefficient, with bribery and corruption rife everywhere; almost unlimited man power still, of course, but not the organization to operate one tenth of it effectively. Other people believe that Russia has undergone a real rebirth; that her soldiers are now educated men, clean, efficient, proud of their country; and that Voroshilov has forged a weapon in the Soviet armies and air force which is the most powerful fighting machine in the world. Few people can know the real truth but you must have a very shrewd idea of it."
"The first is thee case." Goering lit a cigarette and drew heavily upon it. " Russia remains unchanged in all essentials. They are a lazy, shiftless lot and are always saying, 'Nichevo- nichevo!' never do to day what you can put off till tomorrow just as they used to say in the past. Apart from a few people in the Polit Bureau, the Organizational Bureau and the Secretariat there is hardly a Russian that can't be bought. Their Air Force is big very big. That is why if the Soviet had tied up with the Democracies it might have done considerable damage in Berlin during the first few weeks of the war. Numbers cannot possibly be ignored in such matters and the Soviet pilots are brave men, as they proved in Spain. But aircraft types get out of date more quickly than any other arm. The Soviet Air Force reached its peak as a weapon three years ago and plane for plane the Russians wouldn't stand a dog's chance against any of the more modern types that we or the Western Powers now have."
Gregory nodded. "I thought as much. How about the army?"
"There are two armies in Russia. The Army proper is very big in numbers but is composed mainly of conscripts who are ill armed, ill officered and ill fed. They're not even up to the standard of the reserve battalions of Moujiks which the Tsar sent against us in 1915. None of these units is equipped with the most modern weapons apart from tanks because the Kremlin has always been afraid of an Army Putsch. Stalin has deliberately starved the Army proper of equipment, to ensure his own political battalions having at least a great superiority of weapon power over the ordinary troops if it ever came to a show down with the Generals.
"Those political battalions form an army in themselves but a much smaller one, numbering some 300,000 men. Every man in them is a Communist Party member admitted only after the severest tests in the same way as our S.S. men here. They have the best of everything food, quarters, women and would fight tooth and nail to protect the Government that ensures them these privileges. They are commanded by Budenny, who is