Authors: Dennis Wheatley
“I'm sorry, but I'm sure it would be useless. You see, he is intensely nationalistic and resents any suggestion that Russia is not capable of concluding this campaign successfully without help from Germany. In consequence, he won't even speak to any of us in public except on ceremonial occasions, in case it is thought that he is seeking our advice. But I'm having an interview with him tomorrow and I'll ask then if I can present you to him.”
It was a maddening situation but there was nothing that Gregory could do about it so with bitter disappointment he accompanied the others back to Battle Headquarters.
On Thursday evening he asked von Geisenheim if he had been successful in obtaining an interview with the Marshal for him and the General said: “I'm afraid I haven't managed to fix any definite appointment but he said that he would send for you as soon as he is able to spare a moment,” so Gregory could only endeavour to possess his soul in patience.
All through Friday and Saturday he waited in the German
Mess hoping for the Marshal's summons; but Voroshilov was away long before dawn on both days visiting various sectors of the front. Unlike most modern Generals who spend nearly all their time in conferences far behind the lines, he maintained his old routine which had won him his brilliant victories twenty years earlier. Utterly fearless of death, he was always to be found in the most dangerous forward areas observing things for himself while daylight lasted, and it was only when he got back to camp at night that he reviewed the general situation with his Staff from the day's reports.
The battle for Viborg raged with unceasing ferocity. By Saturday, March the 2nd, the Russians had fully established themselves on the coast south of the city. The Mannerheim Line was still holding in the north, at Taipale, on Lake Ladoga, but in the south it had now been completely outflanked and nothing except one wing of the small exhausted Finnish Army lay between the Soviet host and an advance direct on Helsinki.
By Sunday morning Gregory was becoming desperate. It was eight days since he had left Kandalaksha. Instructions might be arriving at any time now for the prisoners to be transferred to Moscow. Even when he was allowed to see Voroshilov he had yet to get over the big fence of securing from him an order for their release, and in the desperate conditions of this ghastly weather it might take a considerable time to get the order through. Except by railway, communications with Kandalaksha were most unreliable. Kuporovitch had told him how he always sent his reports by courier as the quickest and surest way during the worst months of the winter. It seemed certain to Gregory now that under the pressure of his own affairs Voroshilov had forgotten his promise to give him an interview; so he made up his mind that, legitimate means of getting to see the Marshal having failed, the time had come when he must resort to desperate measures; he would throw all military regulations overboard and attempt to beard Voroshilov personally on his return to camp that night.
Although Gregory had no uniform his civilian clothes did not make him a conspicuous figure about the camp as everybody there was muffled in fur or leather garments of one kind or another. Having dined with the Germans he went out and took up a position among the trees from which he could observe the front of the long hutment that contained the Marshal's quarters. After a few moments the bitter cold forced him to start walking up and down, but as a number of people were
constantly moving about the camp, and he kept at some distance from the building, he did not excite the attention of either of the sentries who were on guard outside it. An hour later his teeth were chattering in his head but at last he heard the note of a musical klaxon horn and the Marshal's fleet of cars came twisting down the woodland road.
As the klaxon sounded Gregory moved swiftly forward. At the same moment the sentries shouted something in Russian and he guessed that they were turning out the guard to receive the Marshal. When the leading car pulled up Gregory was still about thirty yards from the road and he began to run; three fur-clad figures stepped out of the car as he reached a point halfway between them and the hutments. Pulling up in their path he came to attention and saluted smartly; but even as he did so he caught the sound of running footsteps behind him. Before he had time to open his mouth the guard had seized him by the arms and dragged him aside.
“Marshal! Marshal! I have a request,” he cried in German; but one of the soldiers clapped a gloved hand over his mouth, muffling his cries, and Voroshilov walked on, followed by his officers who seemed scarcely to have noticed the incident. With kicks and curses the Russians hauled Gregory across the snow towards the end of the long hutment. Two minutes later he was thrown head-foremost into the guard-room.
As Gregory lay bruised and panting on the guard-room floor he realised that his crushing fear for Erika had become such an obsession that it had led him into making a blunder which might prove disastrous to them all.
Now that the failure of his plan had sobered Gregory's anxiety-racked brain he knew that even the Supreme Commander of the Soviet forces would not keep a German officer of some standing waiting indefinitely for an interview, when he had a personal letter from Marshal Goering and the backing of the chief of his own Military Mission; but by tonight's exploit he might have sabotaged his own chances and be held a prisoner during these next few all-important days.
When the officer of the guard found that Gregory could not speak Russian an interpreter was sent for and explanations ensued. The Russians became slightly more courteous when they learned that he had not had any intention of attempting to assasinate the Marshal, but they were still frigid as they left the guard-room, locking him in.
A quarter of an hour later, to his immense relief, von Geisenheim arrived and, having identified him, vouched for his future good conduct. Gregory had to give his word that he would not try to force himself on the Marshal again. He was then released and, unbelievably thankful at having so swiftly got out of the mess in which he had landed himself, he listened with a good grace to a severe ticking-off from von Geisenheim, who privately
sympathised with him but had his own position to consider as the responsible head of the German Military Mission.
The whole of Monday Gregory sat fuming in the Mess, hoping for a summons and listening with one ear to the talk which was all of Mr. Sumner Welles' arrival in Berlin on the previous Friday and his interviews with the German leaders on the succeeding days. Von Ribbentrop was on his way to Rome further to strengthen the Berlin-Rome Axis and the British were giving considerable offence to the Italians by detaining their coal-ships; so the officers hoped that Mussolini might be persuaded to give stronger support to Germany. Gregory smiled to himself that evening when the news came through that Britain had spiked von Ribbentrop's guns by releasing the coal-ships at the last moment. Just as he was going to bed he was warned by Major Woltat that the Military Mission was to accompany Voroshilov to the front again on the following morning.
It was now apparent that the Finns could not hold out much longer although they were contesting every inch of ground, and on the Tuesday of this second visit to the front Gregory saw for himself the frightful price that Russia was paying for her victory. This time Voroshilov and his
entourage
went right across the bay to the coast that had been the main Russian objective in the previous week's battle. In front of the now abandoned trenches on the Finnish mainland the Russian dead were piled waist-high in one horrible, frozen tangle which stretched as far as the eye could see on either side. The carnage there had been without precedent in history and those members of the German Military Mission who had been allowed to question Finnish prisoners said that the Finns declared that they had plied their machine-guns upon the massed Russians until their fingers ached to such a degree that they were positively forced to release the triggers. For days on end, until they had lost all hate for the Russians, they had continued the slaughter filled with utter horror at the massacre which duty called upon them to accomplish; then, at last, from sheer exhaustion they had dropped beside their weapons and had been captured in their gun-pits fast asleep.
It was that night they heard the first rumours of peace negotiations and Gregory's immediate thought was as to how an armistice might affect his friends; but as far as he could see, it would not be of any help to them at all. They were being held as German subjects and once they reached the German Embassy
in Moscow they would be dispatched to Berlin to be dealt with whether the Russo-Finnish War was still going on or not.
On Wednesday morning they learned that Doctor Svinhufoud, the ex-President of Finland, had accompanied von Ribbentrop to Rome and that Sven Hedin, the pro-Nazi Swedish explorer was on his way to see Hitler in Berlin, as apparently both Italy and Sweden were now concerned in assisting the Russo-Finnish Peace
pourparlers
.
By this time Gregory could barely eat or sleep for the gnawing worry that beset him. It was eleven days since he had left the Arctic and nine of those days had dragged by in fruitless, nerve-racking waiting. He seemed no nearer now to getting ten minutes with Voroshilov than he had been on the first day of his arrival in the camp, and, badger his wits as he would, he could think of no way in which to expedite matters except plaguing von Geisenheim morning, noon and night; which he did without success.
His complete helplessness had driven him to such a state of despair that at first he hardly believed it when, on coming into the Mess for lunch that day, von Geisenheim said to him:
Now that peace is almost certain the Soviet offensive is to be temporarily eased, as Voroshilov does not want his troops to be killed unnecessarily. He did not pay his usual visit to the front this morning so I was able to get hold of him. He has agreed to see you at half-past two this afternoon.”
Over the meal the Germans were all talking of the rumoured Soviet peace terms, which seemed extremely harsh and would give Russia even more than she had demanded before the outbreak of hostilities; but Gregory hardly listened, until his attention was caught by a monocled Colonel named von Falkenhausen saying:
“I hear that the British refused to pass on the same terms to Finland three weeks ago, because they considered them brutally excessive, and that they are now talking of coming to the help of the Finns. No Allied Expeditionary Force could possibly reach Finland in time to be of any use, of course, but it will suit us admirably if they try it. They can't make such a move without declaring war on Russia, which would be playing right into our hands. Then they would have to infringe the neutrality of Norway and Sweden or, if the Scandinavians agreed to allow the passage of their troops, give us a perfect excuse for walking into both countries. And, in either case, when they came down that railway from Narvik to Lulea, which
is their only line of advance to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, our bombers would be able to blow their troop trains to merry Hell.”
It seemed to Gregory that the German had put the situation in a nutshell and he prayed with all his might that the Allied Governments would not undertake any such futile and suicidal venture.
At twenty-five minutes past two he was with von Geisenheim in the ante-room of Voroshilov's office. At half-past two, with quite exceptional punctuality for Russia, they were shown in, and the interview proved infinitely easier than Gregory had expected.
The Marshal was a bluff, hearty man who stood up to shake Gregory warmly by the hand directly von Geisenheim presented him. The German General, who spoke Russian fluently, stated briefly that the plane in which the Colonel-Baron von Lutz's party had left Germany had run into a blizzard and that, having lost all sense of direction, they had crashed hundreds of miles from their destination to become snow-bound in the Arctic forests for nearly three months. He added that having made a bid to get back to civilisation towards the end of February the party had encountered Soviet troops and been arrested on a quite unjustifiable suspicion of espionage; but that the Colonel-Baron had been allowed to come south on parole while his friends had been detained at Kandalaksha as a surety for his good behaviour.
Gregory then handed over the forged letter from Goering. The Marshal put on a pair of pince-nez, glanced at it and passed it to a Major who was with him. The Major gave Voroshilov a swift translation and the Marshal then spoke quickly in Russian for a few moments; after which von Geisenheim said:
“The Marshal condoles with you upon the accident which deprived him of your services for so long but congratulates your ladies on having survived the rigours of the Arctic under such conditions for so many weeks. He says that it is a pleasure for him to give hospitality to any friend of Marshal Goering's. He regrets that you have had trouble with some of the Nazi leaders but assures you of his protection for as long as you choose to remain in the Soviet Union. He is sorry that your friends should have been detained in Kandalaksha and will give an order for their immediate release. He wishes to know now if they would prefer to be given accommodation in Leningrad or travel permits to one of the neutral countries in the Baltic.”
“If the Marshal could have them sent to a Baltic port where they could get a ship for Sweden I'm sure they would all be extremely grateful,” said Gregory. “The trouble is, though, that they may already be on their way to Moscow, because a report will have gone in about the party and, as they are Germans, if nothing is known about them it may have been decided to hand them over to the German Embassy.”
When this had been translated Voroshilov said that the question of their whereabouts could easily be ascertained by a telephone inquiry to the War Office at Moscow and, when this had been made, he would let the Colonel-Baron know.