Madame Loumkoski came in with coffee and sweet cakes but they had barely received cups of the steaming brew when the air raid sirens sounded once more.
Although the Finns had been working desperately hard these last weeks to provide air raid shelters they had had to concentrate their efforts in the more populous parts of the city; so when Gregory suggested that they should all go to the nearest, Loumkoski told him that there was no proper shelter less than half a mile distant. The deep booming of the Russian planes could already be heard, so their host said swiftly that they might easily be killed on their way through the streets and that it would be less risky for them to take refuge in a trench which he had dug in his back garden.
They hurried out through the snow and found it to be a long, narrow ditch about four feet wide partially covered with planking and a few sand bags. Some rubble had been thrown into its bottom to drain away the water but the sides were damp, cold, virgin earth, and there were no seats, so having scrambled down, they had to crouch uncomfortably in it.
They were hardly inside the trench before the bombs began to fall; but it seemed that the Russians were directing their main attack upon the port, which was some miles away. The distant thudding continued for about ten minutes then a few crashes sounded nearer. Suddenly there sounded the sharp "rat tat-tat" of machine gun fire overhead. Loumkoski poked his head out from underneath the boards and gave a whoop of joy. "It's one of ours," he shouted; "it's one of ours " They had been about to pull him back but his excitement as so infectious that even Gregory temporarily lost the extreme caution which had so often been the means of saving his life. He had seen dog fights in the air before and knew that it was a senseless risk to expose oneself to possible death for the sake of seeing the fun; but there was something so very gallant about that solitary Finnish airman up there in the midst of the Red air armada that for once he felt bound to take a chance and see the result of the fight.
The small Finnish plane had just circled under a big black bomber and come up on its tail. There was another burst of machine gun fire; a wisp of smoke streamed out behind the Russian plane, then it seemed to falter. Next moment it was hurtling earthwards with red flames spurting from it and a great tail of oily black smoke smearing the blue sky in its track; while the little Finnish plane streaked away to northwards to attack another enemy.
It seemed that the whole neighbourhood had also come out from their shelters to watch the fight, as the sound of cheering began on every side from the moment the Russian was hit and swelled to a roar as it crashed like a box of lighted fireworks about a quarter of a mile away.
The cheering continued for a moment but was cut short by a fresh series of crashes quite close at hand; another Red plane was unloading its cargo. The earth shook and trembled as each of the great bombs burst with the roar of thunder somewhere on the far side of the house. Stones, earth, and pieces of red tile from the roof tops came sailing through the air to fall with a clatter upon the boards of the trench under which they had once more taken refuge. For another quarter of an hour they crouched there until the detonations ceased. A few moments later the "All Clear" signal sounded for the third time in five hours.
It was only a little after three when they climbed out of the trench but the early winter dusk was already falling and Gregory felt that in another half hour or so they might make their attempt to secure the Sabina. In the little sitting room of the Loumkoskis' house they found the coffee which Madame had provided, and which they had had to abandon on account of the air raid, still fairly warm. She wanted to re heat it for them but they would not let her, as they knew that she was anxious to find out what had happened to her neighbours and give them any help she could.
While they drank the tepid coffee they stood looking out of the window at the sad spectacle the street now presented. Three air raids in five hours had shaken even the courage of the Finns and very wisely, Gregory thought all those who had no duties which detained them in the city had apparently decided to evacuate it.
In front of the small, wooden, workers' houses, sleighs and carts were drawn up and on to them men, women and children were hastily piling their bedding and their most precious belongings. Already a continuous stream of evacuees was passing down the street from the direction of the centre of the city towards the open countryside. Many of them had no conveyances and carried huge bundles on their backs while they led small children by the hand. It was a sight which filled the watching party at the window with a bitter anger against the Russians and the deepest pity for these poor people who had been driven from their homes.
The hearts of the girls were wrung more than those of the men, because they had already been some weeks in Finland and so appreciated more fully the horror of such an evacuation in mid winter up in that northern land. They knew that, unlike the country round London, Paris, and Berlin, where hundreds of thousands of houses could be used for billets in such an emergency, the Finnish countryside outside Helsinki was very little built over. Only a very few of these poor refugees who were being driven forth by the terror of mutilation and death would find accommodation in the farms and barns; the vast majority would have to camp out in the woods where the snow was already two feet deep upon the ground. Thousands of them who were fleeing without even bedding would be frozen to death during the night or get frost bite which would injure them for life.
Gregory, too, felt particularly badly about it, because he knew that he had been to a large extent responsible for the last minute decision of the Finnish Government to defy the might of Russia, but he tried to comfort himself with the thought that the Finns were at least still free men; whereas, if they had surrendered without firing a shot a month or two would have found thousands of them marching through the Russian snows in forced labour gangs.
Madame Loumkoski returned after about twenty minutes to tell a harrowing tale of the havoc wrought by the bombs that had fallen in the next street. A whole row of workmen's dwellings had been blown down and many more were in flames through fires caused by the explosions. The fire fighters and ambulance people were at work there so there was nothing she could do except as she told them render thanks to God that, whereas she had thought that He had cursed her all these years with barrenness she now knew that He had blessed her by preventing her from having any children of her own.
Gregory took out his wad of Finnish notes and peeling off three large ones said to her: "Madame, there is very little that we can do to help but I should be glad if you would take this money. It will buy you a railway ticket to Sweden and keep you there for a few weeks without want, at least; and I'm sure that your husband would rather have you safely out of all these horrors than that you should risk your life to stay with him. If you're lucky you may be able to get one of the trains leaving to morrow morning."
She shook her head. "It is most' kind of you, sir, but I not leave 'im at zis time, no, no."
Her husband and the others all tried to persuade her to do so but she was quite adamant in her refusal. The best that they could do was to make her take the money to put aside so that when her husband was called up which would mean separation for them in any case she would then be able to use it to leave the country; which he said would be a great comfort to him while he was serving with his unit.
At a quarter to four they said good bye to Madame Loumkoski and set off in the car again, back to the aerodrome. It was slow going, as the road was now crowded with an army of refugees who were pouring out of Helsinki to face the bitter cold of the woods rather than spend another night in what appeared to be a doomed city. It was quite dark when they reached the aerodrome and Gregory asked Loumkoski to drive them along a road at its side for about half a mile; then he signalled to him to halt and they all got out. Before taking leave of the friendly chauffeur Gregory asked him if he could spare a spanner with which request he willingly obliged, and they then parted from him with many expressions of goodwill on both sides.