"If, on the other hand, you are an Englishman you have lied to me for some reason best known to yourself. It may be that you are an agent provocateur and that all those documents which you brought to Finland were forged with the object of inducing Finland to go to war as a pawn in the game that the Western Powers are playing-caring nothing for her, but just so that Russia should be distracted from sending supplies to Germany for a few weeks. If they are forgeries the details in them can no longer be facts culled from an authoritative source. If we act upon them, and they are incorrect, thousands of Finnish soldiers may lose their lives in consequence of alterations in our strategy. In such a case you will have acted as the betrayer of my country, instead of as its friend, and I shall not lift one finger to avert such consequences as may come to you as a result of the affair last night."
Before Gregory could speak again Wuolijoki bowed to Erika and, turning sharply on his heel, left the room.
"Are you an Englishman?" von Kobenthal suddenly asked from his bed.
"Yes," Gregory replied frankly. "I'm sorry I had to deceive you about that; but the whole situation was so damnably implicated and my one anxiety was that Wuolijoki should have no reason to question the authenticity of the report; otherwise he would never have supplied us with bombs last night
" without bombs we should have been powerless to pull the job off."
"The report we risked our lives for was faked, then," said on Kobenthal bitterly. "You swine! "
"Good God, no " Gregory took no notice of the abusive epithet. "I give you my word of honour that every one of those documents is absolutely genuine. We flew direct to Helsinki with them from Karinhall.'.'
Freddie nodded. "That's so. I'll give you my word on that as well."
Von Kobenthal frowned. "You expect me to believe that Goering would trust an Englishman with such a mission?"
"You don't understand, Oscar," Erika hurried into the reach. "Mr. Sallust is an English agent but he has proved himself our friend. It was he who made possible the ArmyPutsch of November the 8th, and Uncle Jocheim decorated him with the Iron Cross for his services. Goering knew that he was an Englishman but also knew that he could be trusted."
"I see," said von Kobenthal slowly. "Well, I suppose if von Pleisen decorated him he must be one of us. It seems a queer business, though, that we should be hand-in-glove with an Englishman when our two countries are at war."
"No queerer than that you should have consented to go in with Charlton, here, last night," Gregory pointed out.
"No; but the whole thing was arranged so swiftly that there wasn't much time to think about it then."
"Our interests were entirely identical; you must agree about that."
"Yes, that's true; but since you are an Englishman, what's going to happen if Wuolijoki finds that out? The whole report will be discredited as a fake and we'll have landed ourselves in pretty mess for nothing."
Gregory smiled. "Oh, no. If the report had been faked they would have discovered that before now. You can bet that the Finnish Secret Service were working on it all last night and all day. They must have quite a bit of information about Russia themselves. The report will check with that and amplify it; them selves if there are lots of discrepancies and improbabilities in the Finns would know that it was a fake-even if Goering had handed it to them himself. No. We've done our job, all right, and the report will do its work."
"In that case we haven't much to worry about," said Freddie optimistically. "Directly Wuolijoki is convinced that the report is genuine he'll become friendly again and get us all out of here."
"That's the spirit, Freddie, my boy " Gregory patted him on the back. He was by no means certain that Charlton's reasoning was logical, as it failed to take into account Wuolijoki’s extremely anti-British bias, which Gregory now considered to be their gravest danger; but he welcomed the cheery confidence of the airman, whose whole personality seemed to have changed since the day before when he had so unexpectedly found his Angela. All through their time in Germany he had been suspicious, difficult and pessimistic, whereas for the last twenty four hours he had been willing, easy and amazingly cheerful; so the last thing Gregory wished to do was to damp his newfound optimism. For the morale of the whole party, too, it was much better that they should no longer dwell upon Wuolijoki's change of attitude-at least, until they had some more definite reason to fear that it might bring serious consequences on themselves. He therefore loudly declared that Freddie was right, and proceeded to change the conversation.
Dinner- time came at last and, shortly afterwards, the doctor appeared to have another look at his patients. With him he brought a pair of crutches for Suki and the news that the United States had offered to arbitrate in the Russo-Finnish dispute.
The day had been one of great strain in the Finnish capital, so the doctor told them. Everywhere the whole population had been working frantically on last-minute preparations to face the onslaught of their giant antagonist; evacuating children, sandbagging buildings, preparing yet more and more beds in the buildings that had been taken over as temporary hospitals. All the younger men of the nation had been mobilized for weeks and were already at their war stations on the Mannerheim Line and along the chain of lakes and canals which form the Russo Finnish frontier north of Lake Ladoga; but in the last few days many more classes had been called up. The streets were full of middle-aged reservists going off to join their units while men of any age up to seventy-and older-were drilling in the fire fighting and ambulance squads against the possibility of devastating air-attack.
That was the great danger. The Finnish Air Force was absolutely negligible compared to the thousands of planes which the Russians could put into the air. Unlike London at the Beginning of the war, Helsinki had no balloon-barrage and very few anti-aircraft guns for its defence, yet, according to the doctor, the people were wonderfully calm in spite of the great danger which threatened them and which they could do so very little to avert if it were once launched for their destruction. The women were proving as brave as the men and doing men's work; filling the sand-bags, digging air-raid trenches and taking over a thousand and one jobs so that their men-folk could don their uniforms and go to the front. Nevertheless, that Wednesday had been one of terrible tension and the news of the American offer of mediation had been received with inexpressible relief.
America, the doctor went on, had always had especially friendly feelings towards his country because Finland was the only European nation which had honoured its debt and paid up in full the American loan made in the last Great War. True, the loan was not a very large one, but the thought that a small country that was by no means rich should have managed to meet its obligation, when other much wealthier and more powerful countries had failed, had appealed to American sentiment. The American people were passionate believers in democracy, too, so it was certain that they would not let Finland down. If the United States mediated. Finland might have to accommodate Russia on certain points-such as demilitarizing some of her island fortresses, giving trade concessions and allowing the Russians access to her ice-free port of Petsamo in he far North-but the great American people would see to it hat Finnish independence was preserved.
"I wouldn't count too much on that," Gregory advised him. 'I'm sure that the American statesmen would like to help you, and also many of the more cultured Americans, but unfortunately the fate of Europe means very little to the millions who live in the Middle West. In spite of papers and radio the bulk of them are still much more remote from world affairs than most if us are apt to imagine. They've known one war in their lifetimes and they can't see any earthly reason why they should be dragged into another, just because what they regard as a lot of lunatics five thousand miles away from them have started to slit one another's throats; and no political party dare go against them, for fear of losing votes at the next election."