Dave Dawson on the Russian Front Part 2

Everybody chuckled at that remark, and then Colonel Welsh's thin face became very grave and serious.

"I really meant that, just the same," he said with a grim nod. "This one is really tough, and your chances of pulling it off successfully are about one in six million, roughly speaking."

"The odds have been pretty big against us in the past, sir," Dave said quietly. "But where are we heading this time, or shouldn't I ask yet?"

"You may, and I'll answer it," Colonel Welsh replied. "This time it's Russia."

That brought both youths up stiff and straight on the edges of their chairs.

"Russia?" Dave gasped out.

"Russia?" Freddy Farmer echoed incredulously. "Good grief!"

"That's right, Russia," Colonel Welsh repeated. "But just where in Russia, the good Lord Himself alone knows. To be perfectly frank, it's quite possible that I'm sending you after no more than a handful of Russian air. That's why I say the odds against your success are about one in six million. However, if by any possible chance you do pull this one off, why then--"

The American Intelligence Chief paused and made a little gesture with his hands.

"Why then," he continued a moment later, "Civilization will owe you a far bigger debt of grat.i.tude than it does now, even."

Neither of the boys said anything. They just sat quietly, with their eyes fixed on the senior officer, and waited for him to continue.

However, when the Colonel spoke again it was not to the boys. He addressed himself to Air Vice-Marshal Leman.

"On second thought, sir," he said, "perhaps you'd better tell your part of it first. Then I'll take it up from there."

The senior R.A.F. officer shrugged and nodded.

"Very well, if you like, Colonel," he said. And then, turning to the two air aces, he began, "This all started back in the summer of 1939, just before Hitler started into Poland. Of course, anybody with half an eye, or half an ear, could have both seen and heard things that would have left no doubt of what the n.a.z.is had up their sleeves. We of Intelligence knew perfectly well that no amount of appeas.e.m.e.nt would change Hitler's plans one single bit. We knew that the man was no more than a mad dog, and that only a bullet in the brain could stop him. However, the Government in power at the time thought otherwise, and tried to--Well, all that blasted business of the Munich meeting is dead history now. So it doesn't help anything to bring it out into the light again."

The R.A.F. Intelligence chief paused for breath and to clear his throat.

Then he made a little gesture with one hand and continued.

"What I'm trying to bring out," he said, "is that though there was hope in certain quarters that something could be done to stop Hitler at that time, and without bloodshed, we of Intelligence were carrying on as though we were actually at war. Or at least on the brink of war, which of course we were. Anyway, our agents were all over Europe gathering every bit of information possible, and making underground contacts that might prove useful when, and if, the guns started firing. Well, one of my agents--and we'll call him Jones for the moment--had a rare bit of luck. It was one of those things that happen say once in a hundred years. It happened as a result of no effort of his part, either.

It--well, it was simply a bit of absolutely lucky coincidence.

"This Jones, having completed a small mission in Prague, in Czechoslovakia, was on his way by train to Krakow, Poland, when right at the borders of Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the train was wrecked. Split rails caused the wreck, and some sixty odd persons were killed. Fortunately, Jones was in one of the three cars that remained on the track, and he received no more than a severe shaking up. Well, it so happened that a n.a.z.i trade mission on the way to Moscow was aboard the train, and two of its members were killed. That, of course, made it more than just an ordinary train wreck. According to Jones the whole place was alive with n.a.z.i officials in no time at all. Actually the exact location of the wreck was a good mile within the Polish borders, but that didn't bother the n.a.z.is any. They regarded it as German ground and took complete charge of everything at once. The Polish officials objected, but that's all the good it did them. Incidentally, the thing did not appear in the public prints, but as a matter of record that wreck was the first of the so-called border incidents that terminated with the n.a.z.i invasion, and slaughter, of Poland."

Air Vice-Marshal Leman paused again, and sat staring off into s.p.a.ce as though choosing the words he would speak next. And when he did speak again there was just the faintest trace of bitter disappointment in his voice.

"Whether the wreck was an accident, or was deliberately planned," he continued, "will never be known. However, the n.a.z.is instantly took it as an act of sabotage and, in true n.a.z.i fas.h.i.+on, started arresting people left and right. They arrested people who were actually on the train, as well as a lot of the male inhabitants of a small village that bordered that stretch of track. And anybody who even so much as offered a single word of protest was immediately clubbed half to death, and definitely regarded by the n.a.z.is as one of the perpetrators of the so called crime against the Third Reich. Well, you can imagine what a madhouse that place was, with pa.s.sengers dead and dying, others trying to do what they could for the injured, and the n.a.z.i brutes pounding roughshod over everything and everybody. It was indeed a perfect pre-view of what was to come on a much more gigantic scale.

"Well, Jones, being no more than shaken up a bit, joined those who were doing what they could to help the injured. He came upon one man who was pinned under the shattered end of one car. The man was conscious, but he was bleeding at the mouth, and his chest was horribly crushed. Jones took him for a German, but that didn't make any difference at the time.

He started trying to get the pieces of the shattered car off the man and drag him free in case fire broke out. It was a pretty hopeless task. The slightest movement made the pinned man's face go grey with pain, and finally he begged Jones--and in perfect English, mind you--just to let him stay where he was. The intense pain of being rescued was too much for him. And no sooner had he spoken the plea than the surprising thing happened. The injured man whispered for Jones to bend close, and listen to what he had to say. Jones did just that, and the man said that he was a Russian by birth but had lived most of his life in Germany. He said that he had discovered a horrible plot to wipe the Soviet Republic from the face of the earth. That he had learned every detail of Hitler's mad plan to conquer and enslave the entire world!"

The R.A.F. officer stopped short and smiled almost apologetically.

"I know what you must be thinking," he said to the two air aces, who sat motionless and just a little bit wide-eyed. "You're thinking that perhaps I've gone a bit balmy, or that I'm reciting a bit from one of those crazy war stories that are being so widely read these days. But that's not true. All this actually _did_ happen. In short, over a month before the war actually started, one man pinned under a wrecked railroad train just inside the Polish border knew every detail of Hitler's entire war plan. And what's more, he gave _half_ of that invaluable information to the British Intelligence agent I've called Jones!"

CHAPTER THREE

_Fate Laughs_

The echo of Air Vice-Marshal Leman's last words seemed to hang in the air for long seconds. And then suddenly the echo faded out and the room was filled with a silence in which a pin could have been heard to drop.

Dave Dawson gulped softly as he let the clamped air from his lungs, and inched forward on the edge of his chair.

"Only half the information, sir?" he questioned. "So it didn't do Agent Jones any good?"

The senior R.A.F. officer smiled sadly, and seemed to emphasize his feelings with a soft sigh.

"Let me continue with the story, and I think your question will be answered, Dawson," he said. "Yes, the injured man gave Jones only half the information he had collected. But even that half didn't help any.

You see, this man had written down everything that he had learned.

According to Jones he must have done it with a needle point pen, and under a magnifying gla.s.s. It filled two sheets of ordinary ma.n.u.script paper, on both sides. It was sewn in his coat, and he got Jones to take it out for him. And then the man tore the two sheets in half and gave half to Jones. Then he tore his half to bits, put them in his mouth and swallowed them!"

"Well, for cats' sake!" Dave Dawson blurted out before he could check himself.

"Quite!" the Air Vice-Marshal said with a faint smile. "It was quite a mad thing to do, considering. But we must suppose that the poor chap was probably half mad from the pain he was suffering. And of course, Jones had naturally not revealed his true ident.i.ty. Well, anyway, this man told Jones to get away from the spot as soon as he could, and reach the village of Tobolsk as soon as he could. Tobolsk doesn't appear on any of the maps, but it is a tiny village situated about eighty miles west of Stalingrad on the Volga. He told Jones to deliver his half of that precious information to a farmer who lived in Tobolsk. And--well, that's where the real hard luck began to set in."

"Beg pardon, sir?" Freddy Farmer murmured as the senior officer suddenly lapsed into silence and sat scowling darkly down at the top of his desk. "You mean, sir, that Agent Jones wasn't able to contact this farmer in Tobolsk?"

"I mean much more than that!" the other replied with a grimace. "I mean that everything simply went from bad to worse. To begin with, Jones was unable to catch the name of the man he was to contact in Tobolsk. He asked the injured man to repeat it, but it wasn't repeated. The man had become unconscious. Jones had no chance to try to revive him, or to wait for the man to regain consciousness either, for at that moment a party of n.a.z.is swept down on him, thrust him to one side and started getting the injured man out from under the wreckage. It seems that they had suddenly decided that the poor devil had had an active part in causing the wreck. I know that sounds incredible. But I ask you, is there anything sane about the n.a.z.i mind, let alone their actions?"

"Not the ones I've run up against," Dawson grunted with a shake of his head.

"Definitely not!" Freddy Farmer agreed. "But what rotten luck for Agent Jones!"

"And only the beginning!" Air Vice-Marshal Leman growled in his throat.

"As Jones stood there quite helpless, the n.a.z.is hauled that poor chap out from under the wreckage and whisked him away, just like that. There was absolutely nothing Jones could do about it without getting into trouble himself. After all, he certainly couldn't take any chances of being arrested. Himmler, of course, knew full well that we had our agents all over Europe, and with war just around the corner it would be all up with any of the poor chaps who were caught. War or no war, we'd certainly never hear from them again. And we couldn't very well admit that they were agents of ours and ask the German Government to release them. Once an agent goes out on a mission he is absolutely on his own.

If he gets into a tight corner it's up to him to get himself out of it.

To a.s.sist him would simply tip our hand, and unquestionably disrupt our entire espionage system. And--"

The R.A.F. Intelligence officer stopped short with a little laugh.

"But I'm a fine one to be telling that to you two chaps, who have actually experienced the situation more than once," he said. "Of course you understand what Jones was up against. His hands were tied, and he simply couldn't make any move without walking straight into the clutches of the n.a.z.is. However, his very good judgment didn't gain him a single thing. He _was_ arrested by the n.a.z.is!"

"Arrested?" Freddy Farmer gasped. "Good grief! What for?"

"For the same reason other pa.s.sengers aboard the train were arrested,"

the Air Vice-Marshal replied. "Simply for no good reason at all, other than the fact that the n.a.z.is figured they weren't functioning according to plan unless they made some arrest. Anyway, Jones was presently arrested along with the others, perhaps because he was seen talking to the injured man. At any rate, they arrested him and herded him into one of the several police vans that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. Just picture what must have been going on in his mind! Stuffed down in one of his pockets were two halves of sheet paper containing data on Hitler's war plans for ultimate world conquest. And there he was in a n.a.z.i prison van under guard, and being driven _back into Germany_."

"Not so good!" Dawson grunted impulsively. "Right behind the old eight ball, and how!"

"Eh?" the R.A.F. Intelligence chief echoed with arched eyebrows.

"An American expression, sir," Colonel Welsh spoke up with a chuckle.

"Dawson means that Jones was certainly between the devil and the deep blue sea. Right out on the end of the limb, so to speak."