Authors: Dennis Wheatley
Circling round he slowly began to bring the plane much lower until after circling six times they picked up some flashes of light. A moment later they were flying over the lights and were able to see that there were two distinct groups of them, about a mile apart. The snow blanket seemed to be less solid down here and they suddenly realised that instead of a uniform greyness below them the cloud-like landscape was rent into two jagged halves, one of which was much darker than the other. As Helijarvi circled again they saw that one group of flashes came from the edge of a prominence in the whiter part while the other was out in the darker, and the explanation flashed upon the two airmen simultaneously. The first group of flashes came from shore batteries on the harbour and the second from Soviet warships which were shelling them from the sea.
As Helijarvi knew Petsamo well the flashes from the forts of the harbour gave him a good idea of his position. Turning inland again he sailed low over them and a moment later was flying only fifty feet above the roof-tops of the town.
They could spot scattered lights below them now, as the black-out was anything but perfect. It was impossible to see the people who were down there but the glow from the snow which was broken by black patches, enabled them to pick up the principal buildings. For a second Freddie's heart was in his mouth as they narrowly missed a church spire, but that gave Helijarvi the final key to his direction and almost immediately afterwards he pointed at a light ahead which he declared came from the air-port.
As they passed over it they saw that the light did not come from the control tower but from a window in the air-port buildings and Helijarvi began to radio again for the landing-lights to be switched on. Twice more they circled but no fresh lights appeared, so they decided that the air-port wireless must have been put out of action by an air-raid earlier in the day and that the only thing to do was to risk a landing without guidance. Zooming up again Helijarvi banked to get into the wind, flattened out and came down on the snow-covered ground.
Owing to the difficulty of such a landing at night they bumped heavily, which woke Gregory and the two girls; but after three more bumps Helijarvi steadied the plane and managed to halt it about two hundred yards from the dark control tower. Directly the plane was at rest they opened the cabin-door
and all climbed out, gaily congratulating Helijarvi on his successful flight.
They could now hear the dull rumble of the guns in the distant harbour, but as the town was quiet it seemed a little strange that no air-port people had come out to meet them, since they must have heard the plane droning overhead. There was little wind but it was snowing quite fast, the large flakes coming down silently and steadily. Through the snow they could just make out the glow from the lighted window. With his satchel of papers tucked under his arm Helijarvi led the way towards it. As they approached they heard the muffled sound of singing coming through the double-windows of the building and striding to a door through which he had often passed on completing his flights to Petsamo Helijarvi pushed it open.
It gave on to the Petsamo Air Club smoking-room where, in peace-time, in- and out-going pilots usually had drinks together. After the intense cold of the air outside the heat of the place seemed to hit the newcomers in the face and it was thick with smoke and the smell of spilt beer. The room was occupied by about twenty soldiers who were lolling about on the chairs and settees bawling a raucous chorus as one of their number hammered at the piano. Some of them were very drunk indeed, but that was not the only thing which Gregory noticed in his first swift glance over Helijarvi's shoulder. The soldiers were wearing pointed, gnome-like caps. They were not Finns; they were Russians.
In a flash Gregory realised that although the Finns were still holding out in the forts on the harbour their small garrison must have been driven from the town by a massed Soviet attack that afternoon.
From the open door a flurry of snow driven on an icy blast swept into the room. The singing quavered out; the brutish, drunken faces turned towards the door and the nearest soldiers jumped to their feet. As they recognised Helijarvi for a Finnish officer they grabbed up their rifles. One pulled an automatic from its holster and swaying unsteadily yelled something in Russian which clearly meant “Put your hands up!” Before he could pull the door shut again the thick-set Finn was covered from a dozen different directions.
But he had seen instantly the trap into which he had walked; even before they had him covered his hand jerked to his own pistol. Although he knew it was death to do so his choice was instantaneous. Better to kill a few Russians if he could than be ignominously captured on the first day of the war. Whipping out his gun he pressed its trigger and sent a stream of lead into the crowd of soldiers. The screams of the wounded were half-drowned in the crash of shots that followed and, his pistol slipping from his hand, Helijarvi fell in the doorway riddled with bullets.
Gregory grasped the situation at the same instant as Helijarvi's hand had jumped to his gun. Leaping back he nearly knocked over the two girls who were behind him. As the bullets aimed at the Finn sprayed the open doorway one passed within an inch of Gregory's ear, another zipped through the thick fur on his shoulder, and a third thudded into the dressing-case he was holding in his hand. The Russians were now almost hidden by the drifting blue smoke from the barrels of their
rifles; before they had time to aim again he had turned and thrusting his friends back yelled: “Run! Run for your lives!”
Freddie had been bringing up the rear of the party; seizing Angela he wrenched her round and almost dragging her off her feet scampered with her along the side of the building. Lowering her head Erika plunged along in their track until Gregory caught her up and, grabbing her arm, ran with her.
Orders, counter-orders, drunken shouts came from the open doorway behind them as the soldiers tumbled out of it and the horrid fear of bullets in the back lent added speed to the fugitives' flying feet. Freddie and Angela reached the corner of the building and dashed round it into the temporary safety of a narrow passage. A rifle cracked when Erika and Gregory were still some five yards from it, but the bullet went wide and Erika raced after the others.
Gregory had dropped her case and drawn his gun as he was running. He did not want to fire. He and his friends had no quarrel with Russia and it was the most evil luck that at the sight of Helijarvi the troops should have taken the whole party for Finns. Yet he knew that in the darkness and confusion, and lacking any common language, any attempt at explanation was impossible. The Russians, furious at the casualties they had already suffered and half-stupid with liquor, were shooting to kill on sight. Unless they could be checked his whole party would be massacred so, flattening himself against the wall, he sent three rounds of rapid fire into the dark crowd of figures which was pouring from the club-room; a scream of pain told him that at least one of his bullets had found a billet in flesh or bone. His shots halted their pursuers for a moment, and in it he slipped round the corner. Ahead of him he could see his friends running; behind him came the stamping feet and drunken shouts of the Russians.
Freddie was still leading. On reaching the far end of the passage he saw that it gave on to a wide sweep where in normal times people drove up to the air-port. As he charged out into the open a ragged volley sounded in their rear. Some of the bullets whizzed harmlessly overhead and others spattered into the snow. The Russians were shooting wildly as they ran and were too drunk to take proper aim but none the less their shots carried possible agony and death.
When the fugitives were half-way across the open space a tall wooden fence loomed up through the drifting snowflakes in front of them. They had hardly reached it when the Russians
came streaming out from between the buildings in hot pursuit.
The fence was too tall and difficult to attempt to scramble over at such a moment and Freddie did not know in which direction the gateway through it lay. Trusting to luck he turned blindly to his left; and luck was with him. Twenty yards further on two big stone pillars flanking a gate appeared. It was open and there was no sentry on it. But the Russians, instinctively assuming that they would make for it, were taking a short cut across the carriage sweep and so had considerably decreased their distance. Yelling and shouting they came pounding over the snow as Freddie and Angela dived through the gate with Gregory and Erika hard on their heels.
Just as they reached the street one of the Russians paused to fire. Gregory gave a cry, staggered and pitched forward on his face. Erika stopped in her tracks and pulling out the little pistol which she had pushed into her pocket after packing her dressing-case opened fire with it.
“Gregory! Gregory!” she cried imploringly, as she prayed with all her might that he would stagger to his feet and run on; but he did not stir.
At the sound of shots so close behind them Freddie and Angela turned. Seeing what had happened, Freddie let go of Angela's arm and running back seized Gregory by the shoulders. He was quite limp and either unconscious or dead.
In all his life Freddie had never had a more difficult decision to make. The two girls were now dependent on him as their only protector, and to try to carry Gregory would enormously increase their chances of capture. If he were dead the added risk would serve no useful purpose; but the young airman felt that he could not possibly leave the companion with whom he had spent so many weeks of difficulty and danger, in case there was still life in him. Seizing Gregory in his strong arms he hoisted him up in a fireman's lift across his shoulders and turning, began to run again.
Erika had taken cover behind one of the stone pillars to which the gate was hinged and stood there peering round it. Her first shots had checked the drunken soldiers for a moment. Instead of turning with Freddie she remained half-crouching there waiting for the Russians to come on. They sent a burst of fire through the now empty gateway and then came plunging forward in a body. Erika aimed carefully as they loomed up out of the drifting snow then pressed the trigger of her pistol twice.
There was a shriek as the leading man slumped in his tracks; another staggered sideways and went down in a heap. Several more tripped sprawling across their comrades' bodies, but Erika had barely glimpsed the result of her shooting before she sprang to her feet and was running for her life. She could no longer see her friends but she knew the direction they had taken and fled over the crisp white carpet in their tracks.
She had barely covered a hundred yards when shots came whipping after her; the soldiers had gathered in the gateway and were firing down the street. The gauzy veil of drifting snow now hid her from them and she felt certain that she could outdistance them owing to the lightness with which she could skim over the ground; yet a ghastly fear tore at her heart-strings as she ran. Her adored Gregory might be dead.
Another twenty yards and she caught sight of Freddie. He was plunging along with Gregory's limp body slung over his back and Angela beside him. Putting on a spurt Erika came level with them. In spite of the icy cold, rivulets of sweat were running down Freddie's face. His breath was coming in awful sobbing gasps and each gulp of the freezing air that he drew into his aching lungs hissed out again like a cloud of steam. He had made a supreme effort and covered the first hundred yards in remarkable time considering that he was carrying the dead weight of a fully-grown man; but he could not possibly keep up such a pace. Now, he was stumbling as he ran and his heart was hammering against his ribs as though it would burst with the strain. He knew that he must soon set his burden down or his legs would give way under him.
The firing had ceased but a fresh chorus of drunken shouts told them that the troops had not given up the chase; they were coming down the street after them. As they ran both the girls kept glancing over their shoulders. The dancing snowflakes still hid them from the pursuing soldiers but now that Freddie's pace was flagging they knew that they must be losing their lead and they expected to see the troops emerge through the curtain of whiteness at any moment.
Erika was at her wits' end. She still had two or three bullets left in the magazine of her pistol. But even if she could again manage to pick off their foremost pursuers she knew that she would never be able to hold the others up long enough to give Freddie a new lead that would be of any use now. He was almost done and from his reeling gait she could see that he was due to collapse within another thirty paces.
The collosal physical effort that Freddie was making took every ounce of his energy so that he could not use his brain at all but only stagger blindly on to the limit of his endurance. Every second the weight of Gregory's body seemed to grow heavier and now he felt as though he were crushed under the bodies of five men instead of one. This time it was Angela who once more temporarily saved the situation.
They had passed the limits of the air-port and were no longer running along beside the fence but had entered a street with small houses on either side. Between two of them Angela spotted a narrow alleyway. Seizing Freddie by the arm she pulled him with all her force so that he swung round into it. Losing his balance he fell with Gregory just inside its entrance. Erika came sprawling on top of them but in an instant she was up and helping Angela to drag Gregory's body from on top of Freddie and further into the ally. By the time they had pulled the body four or five yards Freddie lurched to his feet and came lumbering after them, only to collapse again just as he caught them up.
While he sprawled there panting as though his lungs would burst, Gregory lay inert and silent. Erika
had
to know if he was alive or dead. Wrenching off her right glove she fumbled franticaly at the furs about his neck and thrust her hand down under his clothing. He was alive. His heart was still beating. Her unspoken relief lasted only for a second. The blank walls of the houses rose steeply on either side of the alley and it was pitch-dark in there except for a faint, greyish oblong which showed where it entered the street. It was impossible for her to ascertain where, or how badly, he was wounded. Perhaps he was dying. Her brain reeled under a fresh spate of agony as she realised that he might be bleeding to death, yet she was powerless to stop it.