The Forbidden Territory Read online

  “No, that is not on the Trans-Siberian line.”

  “Ah, what a pity.” De Richleau’s face took on a rueful look. “Always, since I was a little boy, I have wanted to go to Tobolsk—it is, I think, the romance of the name. Is there no place at which we can change trains to go there? I should so greatly like to spend just one day in Tobolsk!”

  The man looked away, impatiently. “It is impossible—a long, uncomfortable journey. Besides, it is a wild place—not fit for foreigners, and the Soviet Government considers itself responsible for all travellers who are its guests.”

  “Dear me, how sad,” said the Duke, politely. “We will then go to Irkutsk and perhaps break our journey at Omsk and Perm on our way back,”

  After they had left the Intourist Bureau, Simon asked, softly: “Why didn’t you take tickets to Sverlovsk or Ekaterinburg, or whatever it’s called—that’s really as far as we want to go!”

  “Because, my friend, there would most certainly have been one of these eternal guides to meet us there if we had. Even if we had managed to evade his attentions the alarm would have been given at once. We arrive at Sverdlovsk at 7.43 on Saturday morning. That is roughly a day-and-a-half’s journey—the train does not get to Irkutsk till midday on Tuesday—that is more than three days later. If we are fortunate the hue and cry will not begin until the guide who is detailed to meet us at Irkutsk finds that we are not on the train.”

  “What about the officials on the train?” demanded Simon.

  “True—that is a difficulty to be faced, but if we can overcome it we should gain three days’ grace, and much can be done in three days. But let us not talk here, we will go down to the bank of the river where there are fewer people.”

  They walked for some time in silence, and when they reached the unfrequented embankment under the walls of the Kremlin, the Duke continued: “Now, we must make plans seriously. You realise of course that we shall have to leave the bulk of our baggage behind?”

  Simon thought ruefully of his beautifully fitted dressing-case. “I suppose they’ll pinch that when they find out?”

  “No.” The Duke’s eyes twinkled. “We can defeat them there. We shall take one suitcase each, and that only for show. The rest of our luggage we will deposit this afternoon at the Legation that you know of, then, if we get out of this wretched country, it can be returned to us through the diplomatic bag.”

  “Well,” Simon grinned, much relieved, “I’m glad about that. I should have hated to see Leshkin with my dressing-case!”

  “We shall have to get knapsacks,” the Duke continued, “to hold all that is essential, and abandon our suitcases when we leave the train.”

  “Where do we get the knapsacks from?”

  “There are several places in the Kitaigorod where we can get them—that is the old town, where the narrow streets are.”

  “And then?”

  “The next thing is supplies. Luckily I brought certain things in case of such an emergency. We will buy some chocolate here, also some smoked ham and biscuits. Are you having a farewell luncheon with your lovely lady?”

  “No, got all that over last night—thought it best.”

  “And you were right,” the Duke agreed. Then, suddenly, but very low: “Hush! I think our wall-eyed friend is behind us again.”

  Simon allowed a minute to elapse and then glanced round casually; sure enough, it was the same wizened little man. Today he was dressed in the slovenly uniform of a Red Guard, but they knew his face too well to mistake him. They quickened their pace, and in the turning and twisting of the narrow streets, succeeded in shaking him off before they reached the Kitaigorod.

  By the time that they got back to the hotel they found that the tickets had been delivered, duly endorsed for Irkutsk. In the afternoon they packed and deposited their luggage with the ever-obliging Señor Rosas. Five o’clock found them standing on the Saverinii Station platform, two suitcases beside them—the principal contents of which were food and the knapsacks into which it was to be transferred at Sverdlovsk.

  They found their compartment on the train without difficulty. Being of the “Direct Communication, 1st Category”, it contained two berths only and a private toilette, and, owing to the wide gauge of the Russian railways, when the berths were stowed away it made a large, comfortable coupé.

  Punctually, at seventeen hours fifty-five, the long train with its powerful engine began, almost imperceptibly, to move and, gradually gathering speed, started on its eleven-day journey to Vladivostock at the other end of Asia.

  They settled themselves comfortably on the wide seats, and the Duke took out Norman Douglas’s South Wind, which he was reading for the fourth time. Simon gazed out into the swiftly moving darkness and thought a little wistfully of these last unforgettable days in Moscow, and the loveliness of the smiling eyes of Valeria Petrovna. He found difficulty in realising that it was really Simon Aron who was even now speeding towards unknown adventures. His heart gave a little bump as he thought of what might lie before them—rescue, hardship by cold and hunger, flight for life, perhaps, and a little smile curved his lips as he found himself humming a tune. It was: “Malbrouck s’en vat en guerre!”

  They dined better in the restaurant car than they had in the hotel, and Simon, at least, was grateful for an early bed.

  When they awoke next day they had left Bui far behind and were crossing a seemingly interminable plain. Simon started to get up, but the Duke forbade him.

  “You are ill, my friend,” he said, quickly.

  “Ner,” said Simon.

  “But yes,” said the Duke. “You are feverish!”

  “Never felt better in my life,” said Simon.

  “That is a pity, since I’m afraid you’ve got to pass the day in bed!”

  Simon grinned understandingly. He knew De Richleau to be a wily man, and felt certain that this was a part of some scheme which the Duke had hatched in the night to get them safely off the train at Sverlovsk.

  When the train steward arrived with the news that breakfast was ready, De Richleau held a long conversation with him in Russian. He was a fat, jolly man, and seemed much concerned. Simon groaned and made himself look as ill as possible, but later he supplemented the weak tea and toast which the sympathetic steward brought him, with several rolls that the Duke had smuggled out of the restaurant car.

  All that morning they rolled through the unending plain, until at a little after half past one they came to a halt at Viatka, where the Duke got out to stretch his legs. Simon, of course, had to remain in bed, and his luncheon was, perforce, meagre.

  The scenery in the afternoon was more varied; they ran for many miles through the valley of the Chepsa River, but the early winter’s dusk had blotted out the landscape by four in the afternoon. It was quite late at night when the train snorted into Perm, but another consultation had been held by De Richleau and the jolly steward earlier in the evening, and certain drugs were procured during the halt, so the drowsy Simon found himself compelled to sit up and pretend to swallow capsules as the train steamed out. The Duke also took his temperature with great gravity in front of the now solemn and anxious steward.

  This second night the train laboured and puffed its way through the Urals, but in the black darkness they could see nothing of the scenery. At a little after six the Duke woke Simon and said, with his grey eyes twinkling: “My poor friend—you are very, very ill I fear—dying almost, I think.”

  Simon groaned, in truth this time, but De Richleau put on his dressing-gown and fetched the steward. “My friend,” he cried in Russian. “He will die—he is almost already dead!”

  “What can we do,” said the fat steward, sympathetically shrugging his broad shoulders.

  “We must get off at Sverdlovsk,” said the Duke.

  “You cannot,” said the man. “Your tickets are marked for Irkutsk!”

  “What does that matter,” protested the Duke, “the only hope for him is hospital.”

  The man shook his head. “T
he station authorities—they will not permit.”

  “It is three more days to Irkutsk,” said De Richleau, almost weeping. “You cannot let him die on the train!”

  “No, no, he cannot die on the train!” agreed the steward, obviously frightened and superstitious. “It might mean an accident!”

  “Then we must get off at Sverdlovsk!”

  “You must see the officials, then—it is the only way.”

  “Bah! the Tchinovinks!” De Richleau cried. “The officials, what use are they? All your life you have lived under the Tchinovinks, and what have they done for you? Tsarist or Bolshevist—they are all the same—delay, delay, delay, and in the meantime my poor friend dies. It must not be!”

  “No, it must not be—” echoed the steward, fired by the Duke’s harangue. “The Tchinovinks are either rogues or fools. I have it! Always before we arrive at Sverdlovsk we draw into the goods-yard. You shall descend there!”

  “Is it possible?” exclaimed the Duke.

  “But yes, it shall be done!”

  “My brother!” cried De Richleau, flinging his arms round the fat man’s neck!

  “Little father!” exclaimed the steward, using in his emotion an expression that must have been foreign to his lips for many years.

  “Come, let us dress him,” said the Duke, and without warning Simon found himself seized; he played up gallantly, letting his head loll helplessly from side to side, and groaning a little. It was a longish job, but at last they had him dressed and propped up in a corner.

  De Richleau packed for both of them—gathering their few belongings together in the two suitcases the steward had left them.

  They jogged on for a while through the grey light of the coming dawn, and at last, after a series of shrill whistles, the train came to a standstill; the steward returned, and with breathless mutterings in Russian, helped the Duke to get the apparently comatose Simon out of the compartment and along the corridor, then down the steps at the end of the carriage. He pushed their bags out after them, and, recognising in the half light the high value of the banknote which De Richleau thrust into his hand, broke into voluble protestations of gratitude.

  The Duke looked quickly about him; the dark masses of buildings seen indistinctly, and the glimmer of lights a few hundred yards ahead, was evidently the main station. They stood in the snow. About them were timber stacks, coal dumps, and immediately in their rear some rough sheds. With a heave the train moved slowly on—the steward still leaning from the window. As it gathered speed and disappeared into the gloom, De Richleau ceased to pretend that he was supporting Simon.

  “Come,” he said. “This way—quickly!” and seizing one of the bags he headed for the cover of the sheds. Simon gripped the other and followed. They were not more than half way across the yard when Simon’s quick ear caught a crunching sound, as of someone stumbling suddenly over cinders. He whipped round, just in time to see in the semi-darkness a figure that had evidently leapt off the last coach of the train, scuttle behind one of the stacks of timber.

  “We’re spotted,” he gasped.

  “No matter. Leave this to me,” said the Duke, as he darted behind the shed. “Here, take this,” and he thrust the other suitcase into Simon’s free hand.

  Simon stood, helpless and gaping, the two heavy bags, one in each hand, weighing him down. De Richleau flattened himself against the side of the shed—they waited breathlessly.

  A soft, padding sound came to their ears, as of someone running on the thick carpet of snow, a second later a small man came round the corner full upon them. He made a rapid motion of recoil, but it was too late, the Duke’s left hand shot out and caught him by the throat. The small man did not utter a sound—he stared with terrified, bulging eyes over De Richleau’s shoulder, full at Simon, who saw at once that in his left eye there was a cast!

  Then there happened a thing which shocked and horrified the mild, peace-loving soul of Simon Aron, for he had never witnessed such a thing before. With almost incredible swiftness the Duke’s right hand left the pocket of his greatcoat—it flew back to the utmost stretch of his shoulder, holding a long, thin, glittering blade—and then, with a dull thud, it hit the little man in the side, just under the heart. His eyes seemed for a second to start out of their sockets at Simon—then his head fell forward, and he dropped limp and soundless at De Richleau’s feet.

  “Good God!” said Simon, in a breathless whisper, utterly aghast. “You’ve killed him.”

  The Duke gave a grim laugh as he spurned the body with his foot. “What else was there to do, my friend—it was either him or us. We are in Soviet Russia, and when we stepped off that train, we placed ourselves beyond the pale.”

  Chapter X

  “Where The Railway Ends”

  Simon felt his knees grow weak beneath him—he was almost overcome with nausea; he was not frightened for himself, only appalled at this sudden slaying of a fellow human without warning. “It’s—it’s awful,” he stammered.

  “There, there, my son,” said De Richleau, soothingly. “Do not waste your great heart on this scum. You would not pity him if you had seen all that I have—a thousand horrors committed at the instigation of your friend Leshkin and his kind. It is a nightmare that I would forget.”

  Simon put down the suitcases and drew a breath. He was a natural philosopher, and once recovered from the shock, accepted the awful thing as part and parcel of this astounding adventure into which he had been drawn.

  The door of the shed was fastened only by a piece of rope, and they found it to be filled with old farm implements.

  Quickly, and as noiselessly as possible, they moved a stack of bent and broken shovels—carried in the body of the wall-eyed man, and piled the shovels over him until he was completely hidden; they secured the door more firmly, and, having obliterated the blood marks in the snow, hurried through the maze of wood stacks towards another group of sheds, the roofs of which were rapidly becoming plainer in the growing light.

  The goods-yard seemed deserted, and they were fortunate in finding an empty shed. Once inside it De Richleau flung his suitcase on the ground, and, kneeling down, commenced to unpack. Simon followed his example. In a few minutes they had stuffed the rucksacks with the supplies of food and their most necessary belongings. Next they defaced the labels on their bags and stowed them in an opening between two sheds, heaping stones and rubble on top to hide them from view.

  Wherever they moved they left large footprints in the snow, and Simon, greatly perturbed, pointed out their tracks to the Duke, but De Richleau did not seem unduly worried.

  “Look at the snow,” he waved his hand about him. “They will be covered in an hour.” And, with the coming of day, the snow had begun to fall again, softly, silently, in great, white, drifting petals that settled as they fell, increasing the heavy band of white on every roof and ledge.

  “Well, I never thought I should be glad to see snow,” said Simon, with his little nervous laugh. “What do we do now?”

  De Richleau adjusted his rucksack on his shoulders; he frowned.

  “We have a difficult task before us—while attracting as little attention as possible, we must find out how the trains run on the branch line to the Tavda River, and then secure seats.

  “How far is it—I mean to Tobolsk?” Simon inquired.

  “Two hundred miles to the dead end of the railway, and a further hundred across country—but we have at least one piece of good fortune.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we should have arrived here early in the morning; if there is a train today we cannot have missed it!”

  “Today?” echoed Simon, aghast. “Aren’t there trains every day?”

  De Richleau laughed. “My dear fellow, it is not Brighton that we are going to. In such a place as this, trains run only twice weekly, or at best every other day!”

  Simon grunted. “Thank God we didn’t arrive in the middle of the night, then.”

  “Yes, we should have been fro
zen before the morning.”

  While they were talking they had left the goods-yard and turned down a road leading away from the station. There were no houses, only timber-yards and back lots.

  After they had walked about half a mile De Richleau spoke again. “I think we might now turn back. Our train should have halted here for about twenty minutes, and it must be forty at least since our good friend the steward set us down.”

  “Poor chap, I hope he doesn’t get it in the neck over this job.”

  “Let us hope not. If he has any sense he will say that we left the train without his knowledge. They are certain to question him at Irkutsk, but if he says that he did not see us after dinner last night, they cannot put the blame on him.”

  Simon began sawing his arms across his narrow chest. “My God, it’s cold,” he said suddenly. “I could do with some breakfast!”

  De Richleau laughed. “About that we shall see. We are coming to a cluster of houses, and that building on the left looks like the station. I should think there is certain to be some sort of inn near it.”

  He was right; they found a small third-rate hostelry, of which the only occupant was a solemn peasant seated near the great china stove, sipping his tea and staring into vacancy.

  The Duke clapped his hands loudly, and the landlord appeared, a clean, honest-looking fellow in a starched white blouse. After some questioning he disappeared, presently to return with two plates of eggs; true, they were fried in lard, but the two travellers were so hungry and cold that almost any food would have been welcome, even the black rye bread and bitter tea which accompanied the eggs.

  When they had finished De Richleau drew the landlord into conversation. They were Germans, the Duke said; fur buyers, seeking new sources of supply. How were the markets in Sverdlovsk for such commodities?

  “Bad,” said the landlord. “Bad; the trappers will not go out any more. Why should they?” he shrugged; “the Government will not pay them for their skins, and there are no longer the rich who will buy. They go out for a few weeks every season that they may catch enough to keep their families from starving by exchanging the skins for corn and oil. For the rest—they sleep!”