Dennis Wheatley - The Forbidden Territory

“I’m so sorry — so dreadfully sorry. You must have had an awful time,” Simon tried to comfort her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rex helping Marie Lou back into the ’plane, and, realizing the immediate danger now that he knew Leshkin was somewhere on the scene, he looked apprehensively at the sky-line for signs of the big troop-carrier.

“The suspense! It was ’orrible,” Valeria Petrovna cried. “’Ow I live through the night I do not know. I wait... wait... wait in the lounge of the ’otel, praying for news. Then, at last, when I am worn out, the little one arrive! But why did you not tell me that you mean to leave me?”

“You didn’t tell me that you left my friends in prison to be shot — did you?”

“’Ow you know that?”

“Doesn’t matter much now, does it?”

“Oh, Simon, I ’ave been wrong about that. I know it! But what would you ’ave me do? I could not save you all!”

He frowned. “If only you had told me.”

“My brave one. You would ’ave run into awful danger to try an’ save your frien’s. It is you I love. I try to save you from yourself!”

“Well, let’s not say any more about it.”

“But, Simon, ’ow could you leave me without one word?”

“Seems I’ve got to leave you in any case — unless you’ll come with me?”

“Oh, Simon — Simon —” She wrung her hands.

“’Ow can I? Russia is my country. I love ’er, even as I love you.”

Rex stood by the Duke watching Richard wheel above them to gain altitude. The little white ’plane banked sharply and then, straightening out, headed for the Rumanian frontier. It had hardly disappeared above the tree-tops to the south when his quick ear caught the note of another engine. “Look out!” he yelled. “’Plane over!”

Simon gripped Valeria Petrovna by the arm. “Quick! We must run for it — the farmhouse!”

The dull booming of the big bomber could be clearly heard now. They had hardly crowded into the doorway of the farm when Rex spotted her. “Look!” he cried. “There she is!”

“It is Leshkin,” exclaimed Valeria Petrovna.

Rex nodded. “If he spots Richard I guess our number’s up.”

At that moment Richard was flying low over patches of wood and growing crops on the Rumanian side. He noticed a broad meadow and ’planed down into it, making an easy landing.

“Jump out, Marie Lou,” he called. “I’ll be back in five minutes with one of the others.”

She climbed out, laughing — her blue eyes brilliant in the sunshine. “Be back soon,” she cried. “I will be waiting.”

Richard took off again, and in a few minutes had all the altitude he needed for this short flight. He could see the roof-tops of the tiny township to the east, how the streets twisted in and out among the houses. The orchards and fields spread out before him like a patchwork quilt; he could see the farmhouse again now.

De Richleau saw him first “But they will see him for a certainty,” he cried, anxiously.

The others had their eyes glued to the giant ’plane sailing serenely, high up among the little white clouds that flecked the empyrean blue. Suddenly it swerved from its course!

“He’s spotted!” cried Rex. “Look! The big boy’s circling!”

“We’ll never do it,” said Simon, nervously. “Richard’s ’plane can’t take us all. What about the car?”

“Useless,” the Duke replied, curtly. “The frontier guards would get us. It’s Richard — or capture!”

Valeria Petrovna was right. Leshkin himself was in the big ’plane; since the first light of dawn he had been patrolling the frontier, scouring the road for her car, determined that the fugitives should not escape. The sight of the small ’plane coming in from Rumania had roused his suspicions immediately; he knew that his enemies had powerful friends outside Russia.

“Higher,” he shouted to his pilot, “higher!” He did not want Richard to suspect their presence until he had actually landed.

Two thousand feet under the big bomber Richard’s ’plane showed like a cardboard toy against the flattened landscape. As it circled, and its wings gave free vision, Leshkin could see the tiny group of figures huddled in the farmhouse doorway through his binoculars. Sharply he gave the order to descend.

Richard had landed; he waved a greeting to his friends as they ran towards the ’plane. He was a little surprised at the excitement they displayed, gesticulating as they ran. The roar of his own engine downed the noise of the other; he had taken out his cigarette-case and was just about to light up when Rex reached him.

“Great stuff, Richard,” he shouted. “But it’ll be a mighty near thing. Can you take us all?”

“Don’t be silly — one at a time.”

“Holy mike, man, don’t you see the Bolshies are on your tail?” Rex pointed upwards.

Richard looked up, and saw, for the first time, the air-liner slowly descending in great sweeps above his head.

“Good God! I had no idea. Look here — the ’plane’s only built for two — she’ll never carry five!”

“She’s just got to! If one of us stays behind he’ll be bumped off for sure!”

“I do not come with you,” said Valeria Petrovna.

“But you must,” exclaimed Simon, seizing her arm.

The Soviet machine was at less than five hundred feet now.

“All right, with four we’ll chance it,” shouted Richard. “Take the seat, Rex, you’re heaviest. The Duke must manage, somehow, on your knees.”

“Please — please,” Simon was urging Valeria Petrovna.

“No... no... that I cannot do.”

“Why not?”

“I would ’ate it in your capitalist country.”

“Come on, Simon,” cried the Duke.

He took no notice. “Have you ever thought how I might hate it here?”

“That is different. I do not belong to myself. My art belong to the ’ole Russian people; after they ’ave seen me act they ’ave new strength for the work they ’ave to do.”

“Simon!” pleaded De Richleau.

Still he took no notice. “Work!” he said, angrily. “Destroying all freedom, you mean, and preventing anybody having a chance to get on in the world.”

“No!” she cried, her eyes lit with a fierce enthusiasm. “For the greedy and selfish we ’ave no place, but we give life and ’appiness to all the thousands that toil in the factory and the mine. We free the women from the children that they should not be forced to bear, we save them from the drudgery of the ’ome. In a hundred years we will ’ave destroyed for ever that any ’uman being should suffer from ’unger and disease. Christ ’imself taught the brother’ood of all men, and that will He realize here, in Russia, two thousand years after ’e is dead.”

It was the supreme declaration of the Bolshevist ideal, and Simon was almost stunned by her outburst. Long afterwards he wondered how she reconciled her theories with the fact that she lived in the same state of luxury as the daughter of a capitalist multi-millionaire, but at that moment De Richleau seized him from behind and flung him bodily on to the fuselage of the ’plane.

“Hang on to the back of the seat, and lie flat, with your feet to the tail,” he cried.

With one pull of his strong arms Rex had hoisted the Duke up beside him. “All set,” he shouted. “Let her go.”

They ran forward slowly, bumping on the uneven ground. The ’plane lifted slightly, then bumped again, then rose once more, but only a few feet from the earth. Richard was nervous now that he would not be able to clear the bars at the end of the field. He was frightened, too, that with the extra weight on the tail they might stall at any moment. Quite suddenly the ’plane rose sharply — they were over the barns, sailing freely — rising every moment higher in the air.