The Russian raised his dark eyebrows. 'But surely she will be just as liable to secret attacks from the Gestapo in Sweden as she would be here?'
'No. Here she had to disclose her true identity to get into the country. My suggestion is that she should quietly slip away from Oslo and cross the border at some place up-country; then she could settle in Sweden, under an assumed name, until I can make arrangements for her to sail to America.'
'America!' Erika exclaimed. 'But, darling, once there I may not be able to get back, and I just can't live unless I'm to have some hope of seeing you again before many months are past.'
Gregory sighed. 'We'll talk of that later, my sweet. Your immediate safety is the most important thing. It shouldn't be difficult for you to keep out of trouble in some small Swedish town, even without a passport, for the next few weeks, and my idea was that Stefan could go with you.'
'But I have no wish at all to go to Sweden,' the Russian protested. 'It is to see Paris again ...'
'I know.' Gregory interrupted swiftly; 'but you didn't let me finish. Without a passport you haven't got a hope in hell of getting to France, but the British Government owes me a bit for services rendered so I mean to try to get you a passport and entry permit to France at the same time as I get them for Erika to the United States. In the meantime you can take care of each other.'
'Ah, in that case'—Kuporovitch waved his cigar—' I shall be delighted to place myself at the disposal of Madame la Comtesse.'
'That's settled, then,' said Gregory. 'Let's pay the bill and go up to bed.'
Kuporovitch accompanied them only as far as the lift, since now that he was back in civilisation he had other ideas as to how he meant to spend his evening.
Very reluctantly the following morning Gregory and Erika got up at eleven o'clock and went out into the clear, frosty air of the Norwegian capital. Since he was staying at the hotel as a German, they went to Cook's, where he was able to produce his British passport, and he managed to secure a seat on the air liner which would be leaving for London two days later— Friday the 22nd; after which they bought a number of things that would add to their comfort and some new clothes to make themselves more presentable.
Uli von Einem lunched with them and, preserving the same discretion as on the day before, forbore to inquire into their private concerns but gave them the latest war news that had come through the German Legation. The Finns were submitting peaceably to the terms which the Russians had imposed upon them.
The uncaptured portion of the Mannerheim Line was being rapidly evacuated and Soviet troops had already taken over Finland's 'Gibraltar' on the island of Hangoe, so Russia was now the unchallenged mistress of the Northern Baltic. That was the price that Germany had had to pay to keep her eastern neighbour quiet while she dealt with her enemies in the West. On the other hand, Hitler and Mussolini had met on the Brenner Pass the previous Sunday. No details had been allowed to leak out about the matters discussed there, but it was understood that the meeting had proved highly satisfactory. One presumable result had been the withdrawal of Italy's support from Rumania so that King Carol had been compelled to lift the ban on the Rumanian Iron Guard, which was definitely a victory for the Nazis. Gregory took it all in with the glib appreciation which might have been expected from a German officer, and it did not add to his satisfaction about the way in which the war was going.
He had already scanned the latest English papers to reach Oslo so was more or less au fait with the situation. The big news item was that an Indian fanatic had assassinated Sir Michael O'Dwyer and succeeded in wounding Lord Zetland, Sir Louis Dane and Lord Lamington before he was overpowered, but otherwise old England seemed to be jogging along as though the war were just a rather remote and tiresome business. The British Union, the Nordic League, the Peace Pledge people, and all sorts of other dangerous bodies composed of rogues, cranks, half-wits and actual traitors were still allowed complete liberty to publish as much subversive literature as they liked and to advise cowards how to evade military service on the plea that they were conscientious objectors.
One had only to glance at the small news items in the National Press to see how a weak-kneed government was being intimidated by a handful of irresponsible M.P.s into permitting Hitler's Fifth Column in England absolute freedom to contaminate thousands of misguided idealists and so immensely weaken Britain's war effort. Gregory would have liked to have been given Gestapo powers in the Home Office for half a day. He would have signed the death warrant of every spy caught red-handed since the beginning of the war, had them shot in the courtyard and published photographs of their bodies to intimidate the others. He would then have made both the Fascist and Communist Parties illegal, locked the Home Secretary up in one of his own asylums, retired every permanent Civil Servant over the age of fifty and departed with reasonable confidence that the younger men who remained would have got their bearings in a week and settled down to the job of making Britain safe from her internal enemies.
When lunch was over Erika went off to have a permanent wave, and Gregory spent the afternoon in a state of gloomy depression. It was bad enough that he would so shortly have to leave her, without this awful feeling that a gang of woolly old men were letting Britain drift into the gravest danger.
That night they dined alone and went to Oslo's best musical show, where in spite of the fact that they did not understand Norwegian, they were able to forget for a few hours the separation which so soon was to render them even more miserable.
On the Thursday they did not get up until lunch-time; their last lunch together until neither knew when. In the afternoon, in a desperate effort to forget themselves again, they hired a car and a guide and drove round the principal sights of the Norwegian capital, but by cocktail-time they were gazing forlornly at each other over their glasses, with hardly a word to say. For dinner Kuporovitch joined them. They had seen little of him during the past two days. Perhaps he would really have done them better service if he had remained with them as much as possible to cheer them up, but realising how little time they had together he had tactfully left them to themselves and amused himself with a glamorous blonde whom he had acquired in a dance-club on his first night in Oslo. But it was necessary that their final arrangements should be made, as Gregory's plane left early on Friday morning.
To Gregory’s' relief he found that the Russian was a much more capable companion than the stout-hearted but unimaginative young airman, Freddie Charlton, who had accompanied him on his travels through Germany, Finland and Russia. Kuporovitch had spent such time as had not been occupied in playful dalliance with the glamorous blonde in thinking out the details of the plan that Gregory had outlined two nights before.
He proposed to accompany Erika as her deaf-and-dumb uncle and had already booked accommodation for them at a hotel in Flisen, a small town about seventy miles north-east of Oslo and only about fifteen miles from the Swedish border. After Gregory's departure they would leave Oslo by the eleven-fifty train, sleep at Flisen and hire a car for a week. During the next few days they would make several motoring expeditions as though seeing the sights of the country, in order to carry out a careful reconnaissance of the frontier, which, as Norway and Sweden were on the most friendly terms, must be very lightly guarded; then it should not prove difficult to drive to an unfrequented spot one night, abandon the car and slip over the border. Having arrived in Sweden he suggested that they should make their way to the university town of Uppsala, where they were not likely to run into any foreign diplomats who might know Erika by sight, but which, owing to the nature of the town, included in its inhabitants many foreign teachers and students whose presence would render them inconspicuous while living there quietly. As soon as they were settled in they would send Gregory their address by air mail and await his further instructions. He then handed Gregory a slip of paper with the names under which he proposed they should travel, and three copies of a passport photograph of himself that he had had taken.