Come into my Parlour (26 page)

Gregory nodded. “Yes, I seem to remember you telling me about that once, and even comparing it with Marshal Ney's retreat from Moscow as one of the greatest fighting retreats in history. But, after all, the Germans were pretty well spent by then, and it was only guerilla warfare. To hold a great city is a very different matter.”

“
Sacré nom!
And did he not hold Stalingrad? That summer it was still touch and go for the Bolsheviks. They controlled only Moscow, Leningrad and a triangle extending about two hundred miles south of the capital. Stalingrad was at its southernmost tip and surrounded on three sides. That's why it was known as the Salient of Death. But it
held all the grain of the Ukraine, and Moscow was starving; so its retention was absolutely vital. The place was in a state of anarchy and near surrender when Voroshilov arrived there; but they saw at once that he had a head on his shoulders and made him Commander-in-Chief of the whole area. His spirit infused new energy into everyone and he brought order out of chaos. From July to December he held the ‘Red Verdun', kept the Volga open, fed starving Moscow and saved the Revolution.”

“I know, Stefan, I know.” Gregory sought to check his friend's enthusiasm. “I'm not trying to belittle these splendid feats but they're ancient history now and warfare was a very different business in those days. Voroshilov was holding Stalingrad against a few thousand disgruntled, ill-equipped Czarist officers and a horde of Cossack cavalry; whereas today he is up against a magnificently trained and disciplined German Army plentifully equipped with aircraft, tanks, and every other device of modern war.”

Kuporovitch brought his clenched fist down on the desk with a bang. “You do
not
know,” he exclaimed angrily. “You have not the faintest idea of Clim's capabilities. He is not only a great leader of men and a born commander, he has a brain that seethes with original ideas. It is that which earned him his proudest title—‘Organiser of Victories'. Look what he did in nineteen-nineteen when the Whites were at the very gates of Moscow. He realised that their successes were due to the fact that they still had organised cavalry which could get round our flanks, whereas we had none—only little bands of a score or so of horsemen with every company or battalion of foot. He went to Lenin and demanded permission to form a Cavalry Army, by collecting these little bands together. Lenin was at his wits' end and he agreed. That October Clim formed a Cavalry Corps while the battle was at its height. By November, fighting all the time, he had formed the First Cavalry Army of the Republic. In sixty days we rode six hundred miles, from Tula to the sea. On January eighth, nineteen-twenty, with the hooves of seventeen thousand horses ringing in our ears, we charged into Rostov, having split the White armies completely in half, and having put an end to the last hope of a Czarist restoration.”

Gregory held up his hand, but in spite of that the Russian went on.

“You will no doubt say, ‘But that was only another old-fashioned campaign.' All right; perhaps it was. But remember that this First Cavalry Army was formed not by a horseman of the Steppes but by a mechanic, and that he forged this weapon because it was the one most suited to our dire need at that moment. And now listen to what he did in his own element. At Stalingrad we had not half enough troops to man our perimeter properly. As attack succeeded attack the men
became almost too tired to fight after marching ten, twenty, and often forty miles from one threatened point to another. At that time no one had ever heard of mechanisation, but Voroshilov commandeered every lorry, truck and car in the whole area and mechanised his army, so that it might ride from battle to battle. Not content with that, he laid down railways to all the most vulnerable sectors, then mounted all his artillery on sixty trains that were armoured by the Stalingrad factories while under shell-fire. So, owing to his originality and dynamic energy, our defence became flexible, and within a few hours two-thirds of our fire-power could be brought up to smash an assault on any sector.

“He has not been asleep since then, either; but for the past twenty years has been the first to examine and try out every new device for the strengthening of our army. That is why I tell you that whatever may happen elsewhere, Voroshilov will prove a match for the Germans, and that, as long as he is in command, Leningrad will never surrender.”

“You win,” smiled Gregory. “And, anyhow, I pray to heaven that you're right. If Voroshilov can keep a big German army tied up there in the north all through the winter he'll have done the whale of a fine job. But let's get back to our own pigeon. You think we stand a better chance of getting a permit to visit Leningrad because we're not supposed to be interested in the military side of the war, eh?”

“Yes, I am convinced of that.”

“How about our going to collect starvation statistics, then? Since you are so certain that Leningrad will hold out no doubt General Alyabaiev believes that too. But the amount of food there must be limited and, as the siege progresses, rations will have to be further and further reduced. Britain is up against the U-boat blockade, and if the battle of the Atlantic goes badly for us the same sort of thing might happen there. Statistics concerning the gradual decline of fighting and working ability caused by the lowering of various essentials in diet might prove very valuable data.”

“That sounds pretty good,” agreed Kuporovitch. “In fact, I doubt if we could think of any more plausible and harmless idea on which to hang your request.”

That evening they went to the Ballet, and while watching the superb technique of Russian artists experienced their first air raid in Moscow. For the past eight weeks the Luftwaffe had launched a raid against Moscow every few nights, but Gregory had noticed very little damage in the centre of the city, and now he learned the reason.

When the air-raid warning sounded no special measures were taken; the show continued and no one left their seats. Soon afterwards there came the familiar drone of approaching enemy bombers. Suddenly there was a roar as though a dozen volcanoes had erupted. It
went on for about three minutes, blanketing every other sound and making the whole building vibrate continuously.

This thunder ceased as suddenly as it had began and, in the ensuing silence, the rattle and clack of innumerable Ack-Ack splinters could be heard like the patter of heavy hail upon the roof. A few bomb explosions sounded in the distance, then the guns opened again with a second synchronated burst. Again there came the clattering of the splinters, a longer silence, then the “All Clear”.

To Gregory the episode was a terrific eye-opener. As an old artillery officer he had always thought that it was absurd to dignify the sporadic gunfire heard during London's first year of raids as a barrage. But this had been a barrage in the real meaning of the word—a fire so devastating that nothing could live in it—and to create that unbroken pulverising roar he estimated that anything from one to two thousand heavy anti-aircraft guns must ring the city. It was no wonder that only an occasional German aircraft managed to slip through and that the rest were either destroyed or compelled to drop their bombs on the outskirts. On the face of it, such a terrific concentration of cannon solely in defence of the capital argued well for Russia's armament production.

His card for the reception duly arrived the following morning and he noted that he was bidden for nine o'clock, but several members of the Embassy Press Section, who had also been invited, told him that it was quite useless to put in an appearance until ten, at the earliest, as his hosts would not have arrived themselves. The Russians, it seemed, were always an hour or two late for their appointments and kept the most extraordinary hours, often summoning people to important conferences at three or four o'clock in the morning.

The reception proved another eye-opener. Russia was already said to be faced with the certainty of a food crisis in the coming winter, and the whole population had been graded for rationing. The allowances for services personnel and essential workers were quite liberal, for children and adolescents sufficient, for office workers on the near side, for all other civilians of any war value at all meagre, and for the elderly or useless near the starvation line. Yet here the long tables groaned under a vast and varied cold collation, including practically every fish, meat and bird one could think of, jellied in aspic or garnished with appetising delicacies. Caviare in huge silver ice-surrounded buckets was being ladled out on to plates in quarter-pound dollops, and men-servants in a smart livery were handing round silver salvers on which there were little glasses of vodka of a dozen different flavours.

The gathering was mainly military with a sprinkling of naval officers and civilians, but no hint of war pervaded the assembly. None
of the officers wore anything resembling war kit, and their uniforms were as spotless and well-pressed as if their wearers had been about to attend a peacetime ceremonial parade.

Gregory could not help smiling as he thought of the truly democratic manner in which a similar affair would have been conducted in London. The menu would have been “Strictly in conformity with the regulations of the Ministry of Food” and the representatives of the mighty British Empire would mostly have appeared in well-worn office clothes or battle-dress. Nothing that could possibly impress the visitors to honour whom the feast was given would be allowed, and it would be considered preferable that they should go away hungry, sober and depressed, rather than any opportunity should be given for some Socialist demagogue to accuse the Government in the House of squandering the nation's resources.

Like the Russians, Gregory was sufficient of a realist to appreciate that everything there not eaten by guests and hosts would certainly be finished up by the servants, and that for a few score people to occasionally eat and drink of the best while improving the foreign relations of their country could not make one iota of difference to the general scale of rations. It seemed to him, too, far better for morale that the people should see their Generals dressed as Generals and not slinking about the capital disguised as nearly as possible to look like privates.

Gregory was introduced by his companions from the Embassy to a number of Russian officers. Few of them spoke English but he was able to converse with quite a number of them in French or German. Their comments on the war situation were invariably optimistic but most of them soon switched the conversation to England, a subject in which they were all now keenly interested and about which they could not hear enough. Without exception they asked him when Britain would invade the Continent, and aid Russia by forming a Second Front, and it was clear that none of them had the faintest conception of the colossal strain under which Britain had laboured during the year in which she had stood alone against Hitler, or the immense difficulties to be overcome before a cross-channel operation could be launched with any hope of success. However, they accepted with the best of goodwill his assurance that, even if they had to wait a bit, the day would certainly come when the forces of the Empire and the Soviet would meet in Berlin; and, to that day, he had to knock back with them innumerable small glasses of vodka.

While he was searching for General Alyabaiev he went out into the hall, where he noticed that armed sentries were posted, not only at the main doors to the street, but also on the stairs leading to the floors
above and down to the basement. On his enquiring the reason for this he was told that the whole ground-floor of the hotel had been taken over for the evening, and his informant did not appear to think it at all strange that the people living there should have been confined to their rooms for the night. The Soviet General Staff, who were giving the party, had adopted this measure as the simplest means of ensuring against gate-crashers.

It was half past eleven before Alyabaiev turned up and after a couple of drinks with him Gregory tackled the General about the possibilities of getting to Leningrad. He listened patiently to the reasons on which the request was based, then said:

“Such information as you 'ave a wish to collect would certainly be of big value for your country, an' for us I see no ‘arm in your going. But Leningrad ees now forbidden to all foreign correspondents, so our Press Bureau would, I tink, refuse permission. You see, to make exceptions of yourself an' your friend ees to ask for jealousies with the others.”

Gregory grinned at him. “Leningrad is now in a state of siege, so, surely, what goes on there is solely the concern of the military authorities. I'm much too keen about this thing to tell the other correspondents anything about it; so wouldn't it be possible to side-step the Press Bureau for once and let me go in with my interpreter on a military pass?”

Alyabaiev grinned back. “That would be possible, yes.”

“Well, I can easily tell my people at the Embassy that a trip has been arranged for me to some of your bases on the far side of the Urals. If I disappear for a few weeks they'll simply assume that I'm getting on with my job and won't worry in the least about where I've got to.”

“A few weeks, you say? But eef you go to Leningrad you may be very much stuck there, for months, or all winter perhaps. In no case could I make any promises to get you out.”

“That is a risk I'm quite willing to take, and the longer I am there the more informative will be the figures that I shall obtain.”

“There will be much shelling an' air-raiding of the city. You an' your interpreter will sign a paper that you go there at your own wish, so that eef either of you are killed we can eventually present to your Embassy when they make enquiry about your disappearing.”

“Certainly.”

“Good then, I will consult with a friend who ees of the Operations Staff. Eef 'e make no objection it will be all right with the Security Office. Later tonight I will let you know eef this can be done.”