"Forgive me, mon cher Baron, if I remark that as yet I have only your word for your somewhat extraordinary story."
"But, Comrade General, you have seen the passports ofMadame la Comtess and myself," Gregory protested quickly.
The Russian stubbed out the end of his thin cheroot and a smile creased the wrinkles at the corners of his lazy blue eyes. "Passports can be forged, you know, and in a frontier command like this we have to be constantly on the watch for er spies. I endeavoured to put the matter as tactfully as possible but I'm afraid that you and your friends will not be able to leave the castle until I have had an opportunity to make full inquiries about you."
Chapter XXVII
The General with a Past
GREGORY knew that any check up would prove fatal to them all. The Russian Military Intelligence in both Murmansk and Moscow would deny that any Colonel Baron von Lutz and his companions had been expected to report to the H.Q. of the Northern Soviet Army on the first day of the war. The matter would then be referred to the German Embassy in Moscow and the Military Attaché would communicate with Berlin. The War Office there would know that Colonel Baron von Lutz had been shot dead on his estate on the night of November the 26th and would consult the Gestapo. As the inquiry concerned German subjects outside Germany it would then be passed to the Foreign Department U.A. I, and would come before Grauber. He would instantly realize that his old enemies had turned up again at Kandalaksha and apply to Moscow for their extradition. They would then be sent under armed guard back to Germany and woe betide them when Grauber had them in the Gestapo torture cell.
Now, too, there was something far more important than their lives at stake. By hook or by crook the typescript from Goering’s safe had to be got back to England.
Concealing the consternation that he felt Gregory said smoothly: "How long D’you think it will take for you to satisfy yourself about us?"
General Kuporovitch shrugged. "In winter we are very isolated here. The heavy falls of snow often interrupt our telephone and telegraphic communications with Leningrad. Since the war, too, they are sometimes cut by raiding parties of Finns and our Air Mail has been stopped because we need all our best pilots for service at the front; so I send all my dispatches by courier. However, I should receive a reply in a week or, at the utmost, ten days."
He rang the old fashioned hand bell on his desk and went on: "But, as I mentioned before, it is not often that I have the opportunity of talking to intelligent foreigners and I shall accept your story strange as it is until it is proved to be false;; so I have no intention of throwing you into the castle dungeons… On the contrary; since you cannot possibly escape from the castle I will put you in some of the guest rooms that overlook the inner courtyards and I hope that we may enjoy some pleasant evenings together."
"That is most kind," Gregory murmured tactfully, as the orderly appeared in answer to the bell.
The General spoke to him in Russian, then turned back to the others. "I expect you'd like to wash after your journey. The orderly will take you to your rooms; then we will sup together. You will probably find his manners a little uncouth compared to those of the servants to which you are accustomed, but as long as people do what they're told we are all equals in my country now. You will observe that he talks to me with a cigarette in his mouth and if he had a mind to do so he would certainly spit on the floor. That gives him a delightful illusion of freedom and equality but he knows perfectly well that if he didn't obey me I should have him shot without trial."
Gregory grinned. The cynical humour of the lazy eyed Russian appealed to him tremendously and with a further word of thanks for the General's courtesy in providing them with bedrooms instead of cells he followed the others out of the room.
The orderly led them down a long corridor and throwing open two doors side by side, tapped first Erika then Gregory on the shoulder, indicating that they should go in and remove their furs. The rooms had the same lingering flavour of past glories that they had noticed in the General's office, so evidently the castle had not been sacked in the Revolution but had been taken over with its furnishings complete. 'The beds were large and looked comfortable but the sheets were of the poorest quality cotton and pale grey in colour. 'There were no fixed basins in the rooms or water in the jugs, so having taken off their furs they both came out into the corridor again
A door on its far side stood open and looking in they saw that it was a big room with a huge four poster double bed. Freddie was standing near it, blushing furiously, while Angela was taking off her furs, and the orderly leaned against the wall near the door smoking a cigarette. Erika caught Angela's eye, then Gregory's, and all three of them had difficulty in suppressing their mirth. They had forgotten for the moment that Angela and Freddie were supposed to be the van Kobenthals; their host was naturally treating them as man and wife.
With a muttered word the orderly took them to the far end of the corridor and showed them a big, old fashioned bathroom where they all took turns to wash. He then escorted them back to the main hall on the first floor of the castle and threw open another door next to that of the General's office.
Kuporovitch was there standing with his back to a big fire of logs. Another orderly was laying a mahogany table for five people. Moving over to a’ sideboard the General poured out five glasses of vodka.
The fiery spirit made Angela choke but Gregory took his down in one gulp, as he knew he was expected to do, and was poured a second ration as they sat down to table where, to start off with, they were given helpings of caviar which would have cost a pound a portion in London.
It was their first opportunity for nearly two months to learn anything of the progress of the war and the General spoke quite freely about it when they questioned him.
The Finns had put up a much stronger resistance than had been expected. It seemed that the Soviet Political Commissars had been grossly misinformed. They had believed that they had only to create a Finnish Communist Government under Kuusinen for the Finnish workers to arise and revolt against the brigand, Mannerheim; but that had not proved the case at all. Instead of a walkover the war was proving an expensive business for the Soviet. The early attacks on the Mannerheim Line had failed completely so many more troops had been brought up and another onslaught launched between January the 22nd and 28th; but that had failed also. It had not been until a third great offensive, at the end of the first week in February, that the line had even been dented at its coastal extremity to the south and the Finns were still holding their first line positions in the north, at Taipale, where the line ended on Lake Ladvga.
The Soviet attacks had proved equally disastrous against the Finnish waistline further north and owing to the incredibly bad communications several Russian divisions had been very badly mauled. The General attributed these reverses to the fact that, against the advice of the military commanders, the politicals had insisted that second rate troops were quite good enough to use in the easy victory they anticipated over Finland; but he said he thought that things would be different now as Marshal Budenny had brought some of his crack divisions up to be employed on the Karelian Isthmus, and the Russian War Lord, Marshal Voroshilov, had taken command of operations there in person.
As a dish of venison was served they passed to the war between Germany and England and France; but about this the General had little to tell. He said that all over Europe it had proved the severest winter for the best part of a century. Even England was reported to have been under snow for several weeks at a stretch and Central Europe had been entirely frozen up; which probably accounted for the continued delay in the launching of the threatened Nazi Blitzkrieg.