Dennis Wheatley - The wanton princess

Within a matter of minutes he had decided that either he dare not return to France, or he must provide himself, in the role of Colonel Breuc, with an alibi. To achieve the latter it seemed there was only one way. He must reappear in Paris so soon that no-one there would believe that he could possibly have been in St. Petersburg at the time of Duroc's arrival in the Russian capital.

For another hour or more he moved gracefully among the throng exchanging platitudes or witticisms with a number of his acquaintances but, all the while, keeping an eye on Count Pahlen. When the young Czar had withdrawn and the Min­ister left the grand salon Roger followed him downstairs and asked him to give him a lift in his carriage.

As the carriage moved off Roger said gravely, 'Your Excellency; by secret channels, into which we need not enter. I have tonight received a communication from England. It informs mc that my wife has had a serious accident. In the circumstances you will appreciate that I wish to return home with the utmost possible speed, and I beg Your Excellency to assist mc in so doing.'

The Minister at once expressed his sympathy and willing­ness to help, and they discussed the swiftest means by which Roger could make his journey. St. Petersburg was now ice-free, so if a ship was shortly about to sail it should carry him down to Copenhagen more swiftly than he could reach a German North Sea port by road. As against that, to take a ship was always to gamble with the weather—unfavourable winds might cause as much as a week's delay, and the roads were no longer deep in snow. Moreover, although Roger could not disclose the fact, Paris was his real goal so he meant to head, not for eastern, but for western Germany.

By the time they reached the Pahlen mansion it had been decided that Roger should travel in a coach, in which he could sleep, and that everything possible should be done to expedite his journey.

Among the numerous offices the Count held was that of Minister of Posts, so he had no need to seek the assistance of a colleague. While Roger packed, all the arrangements were made. Outriders were to be sent ahead of him to ensure relays of horses being in readiness; a sotnia of Cossacks was to accompany him as protection against the possibility of his being held up by bandits and, finally, the Count provided him with a document stating that he was travelling on the Czar's business which, as long as he was on Russian soil, would give him priority over all other travellers. Having expressed his heartfelt thanks to the Count, he left St. Peters­burg in the early hours of the morning of May 25th on his seventeen-hundred-milc journey.

For travelling fast he had one great thing in his favour. Along two-thirds of the way. until he entered Germany, the highway would be almost flat: so there would be no infuri­ating delays while the horses were walked up hills or down steep declivities. A team of six drew his coach and for long stretches across the boundless steppes and through silent forests of fir and larch they maintained a steady trot.

Even so, the journey seemed endless and was broken only at small towns, to change the horses, renew the stock of cold food with which Count Pahlcn had furnished him, and stretch his legs for a quarter of an hour. The Cossacks who formed his escort were hardy, bearded men and their tough little ponies seemed tireless. At times they galloped on for a mile or so ahead of the coach, then dismounted to rest their mounts until it had passed them and covered another mile; but they always kept it in sight and seemed to think nothing of riding a hundred miles or more until they reached a garrison town and were relieved by another troop.

The coach was well sprung and furnished with many cushions, but in spite of that Roger found its swaying and jolting extremely tiring, and the monotony of being driven hour after hour through the cheerless, almost uninhabited landscape became nearly intolerable. Having been up for some twenty hours before he started he would have liked to get to sleep as soon as they were clear of St. Petersburg; but the motion of the coach kept him awake, and it was not until he had been on his way for another eight hours that he dropped off into an uneasy doze. From then on he slept only when nature overcame his discomfort: sometimes during the day, sometimes at night, but never for more than a few hours at a time.

When he reached the city of Paskov, he allowed himself to spend two hours at the best inn having a hot meal. Next day they entered Livonia, but the monotony of the countryside remained unchanged. At Dvinsk he again stopped for a proper meal at an inn. Soon after crossing the Dvina river they were in Lithuania, but the endless steppes occasionally broken by dark forests or a small township appeared no different from those he had passed through on preceding days. At Vilna he could stand the interminable swaying and monotony no longer, so spent a night in a reasonably com­fortable bed. There he slept like a log but he had ordered the inn servants to wake him at six the following morning and, still bleary-eyed, stumbled down to the coach which by then he had come to look on as a particularly unpleasant form of prison.

At Grodno he entered Poland, but since its final partition among Russia, Prussia and Austria in '95. it was no longer an independent country and the city now stood just inside German Poland. Count Pahlen had generously made him a present of the coach, but here he had to part with his coachmen and escort.

Prussia, having invaded Hanover at the end of March, was now at war with England and, as Alexander had not yet formally withdrawn from the Northern League, still allied to Russia; so as Roger was travelling as a Russian courier, he had no difficulty, after a few hours, in engaging another coachman and outriders.

Setting off again on his gruelling journey through the still flat lands of Poland he reached Warsaw. There he spent another night in bed, in the morning taking the road to Breslau in Silesia. Two days after passing through it he went to bed to his heartfelt relief in the civilized capital of Saxony. From Dresden onwards there would, at least, be better inns at which to snatch a meal and much greater variety in the scenery. But that had to be paid for by a considerable slowing up of his progress owing to the hilly nature of the country. Maddened by having to get out and walk, at times for a mile or more, while his coach lumbered up steep slopes, when he got to Frankfurt he decided to make the remainder of the journey on horseback.

He had now entered territory held by the French, so he destroyed his Russian passport and drove to the Head­quarters. After some enquiries there he ran to earth an officer who knew him as Colonel Breuc. He then had no difficulty in disposing of the coach for a good round sum and securing a military permit to use relays of post horses.

After a good sleep he set off while it was still dark to cover the last two hundred and fifty miles as fast as he possibly could. Breaking his journey only to sleep at Verdun, late on the evening of the second day he rode into Paris. By deter­mination and endurance, and maintaining throughout an average of slightly under five miles an hour, he had per­formed the amazing feat of covering the immense distance between the Russian and French capitals in fourteen and a half days.

His last tour de force on horseback had left him saddle-sore, aching in every limb and terribly exhausted, but he did not mean to lose an hour of the time he had won. At La Belle Etoile, while a hot bath was being prepared, he revived himself with a pint of champagne, and after his bath he got Maitre Blanchard to massage him vigorously. Then, dressed in his smartest uniform, he had himself carried in a sedan chair to Talleyrand's; for, as Duroc had been sent on a diplomatic mission, it was to the Foreign Minister that he would write any suspicions that he might have about 'Le Colonel Breuc'.