Читать книгу War Masters from the Orient - Emile C. Tepperman - Страница 4

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COLD Russian sun glinted on desolate, shell-torn fields. Here and there lay the still-smoldering debris of a wooden house which had been struck by roaring projectiles.

Along the narrow, white road which paralleled the torn-up, single-track railroad lay the bodies of gray-clad Soviet soldiers, torn and maimed. Rifles, knapsacks, canteens, various articles of clothing also lay strewn along the way. At the side of the road, a gun-carriage tilted crazily in the ditch, the gun pointing grotesquely at a sign on the opposite side which had miraculously survived the punishing barrage that must have been laid down upon the road not so long before. The sign read:

Moscow—220 versts— >

< —Leningrad—300 versts

An old Model T Ford touring car chugged over a rise from the direction of Moscow. Its radiator was smoking. Icicles clung to the windshield and to the outsides of the curtains, which were carefully locked on to keep out the cold.

A thin man was driving, and beside him sat a girl of perhaps twenty or twenty-one. They were both clothed in astrakhan coats and caps with earmuffs. They wore heavy, fur-lined gloves. Their faces were red from the biting cold, and the girl's eyes were watering.

The driver was hunched forward over the wheel, and each time he expelled his breath, a huge cloud of vapor issued from between his lips, as if he were smoking. His face was thin, pinched; and at intervals a twinge of agony crossed his features, and he put a hand quickly to his side, where blood seeped through his coat and stained the fur.

At the top of the rise, abreast of the sign, he pressed his foot on the brake, brought the car to a squealing stop. The girl glanced at him swiftly, put a hand on his arm, spoke with quick sympathy.

"Feodor! Your wound makes you weak! Let me drive!"

Feodor smiled bitterly. "It is hopeless, Katerina," he answered, in the full, guttural accents of Southern Russia, in which the girl had also spoken. He pointed to the signpost. "It is three hundred versts farther to Leningrad. The Russian armies have retreated all the way. Behind us come the tanks and the motorcycles of the Asiatic hordes. We cannot hope to outdistance them!"

Weakly, as if every move caused excruciating agony, he opened the side door, stood in the road. The girl descended from the other side of the car and joined him, looking back over the empty expanse through which they had come. Far in the distance, the sunlight glinted on metal.

Feodor raised a hand and pointed. "There they come, Katerina. They move twice—no, three times—as fast as we. There is no chance to escape them!"

Katerina's beautiful, finely chiseled features were raw from the cold. Her black eyes flashed.

"Feodor!" she exclaimed. "You must not give up like this!" The patrician lines of her face hardened, set stubbornly. "Come, Feodor. Let us go on. There may yet be a chance—"

He shook his head. His eyes were on the metallic flashes far back on the road. "See," he said, "the vanguard of the Leopard's hosts will soon be upon us. Those armored motorcycles could have caught us long ago, but the Leopard is playing with us—he knows he will get us. He knows there is no help for us between here and Leningrad." His thin lips tightened. "While Europe drains itself of life in war, these hordes overrun Russia. And you and I, sister, are the only ones who know what the Leopard plans next. If we die here, both of us, there will be no one to warn the world—"

She tugged at his arm, her insistence becoming more frantic as the glinting metal ranks drew ever nearer. Now she could make out the individual shapes of the armored motorcycles which seemed to be flying toward them with the speed of rockets.

"All the more reason for us to escape. Come, Feodor—!"

Gently he pushed her hand from his arm, moved to the car, and reached inside. From within he brought out a submachine gun, lifting the heavy weapon with a tremendous effort. The stain on his coat grew larger as he adjusted a clip in the gun.

"What are you going to do, Feodor?" the girl asked, suddenly breathless.

He looked at her, smiled gravely. "Both of us have no chance to escape, Katerina, One of us has. Get in the car, and drive. It is only thirty miles to where the plane is hidden. I will hold the Leopard here—for a while."

The girl's cheeks paled. "No, no, Feodor! You will be killed—"

"Exactly. I am dying anyway. I will stay here and stop them for a little while. It will give you a start—"

"No! Let me surrender to the Leopard. He will not harm me, and he will spare you if I give myself up to him. It is I whom he wants—"

"Stop!" Feodor's voice was like the crack of a whip. There was a terrible anger in his eyes, and for a moment it seemed as if he would strike her. Then his voice softened. "Katerina," he said urgently, "remember that you are a Saratoff. Remember that your father was a Duke of the Russian Empire. Rather than see you give yourself to this Leopard—this coolie who has made himself the master of Asia—I would shoot you with my own hand. You must go, Katerina. In Leningrad, you will find Captain Kusmarenko. He will take you in his steamer to America. There, you will find this friend of mine, whose name I have given you—James Christopher. He is known as Operator 5 of the American Intelligence. You will tell him you are my sister. He will remember me. Give him the paper which you carry. Make him understand what the Leopard plans. He will know what to do."

Feodor turned from her toward the swiftly approaching motorcycles.

"Go quickly, Katerina. In a moment it will be too late."

"I will stay with you," she announced stubbornly.

He did not look at her. "Go!" he repeated harshly, as he knelt in the road, raising the sub-machine gun, resting it on one knee. "In your hands rests the fate of the world. You have no choice!"

For a moment she stood there, looking down at him rebelliously. The motorcycles were less than a mile away. The road was filled with them, and far behind them she could see horsemen. Great clouds of dust rose in the air from the advancing host.

Feodor said over his shoulder: "Katerina, I am the head of the family. You swore to our father before he died that you would obey me in all things. You swore it by the Holy Virgin, and you kissed the cross. Will you violate that oath now?"

He could not see the anguish in her eyes, but he heard the choked sob that caught in her throat.

"I—will go, Feodor," she said, very low. "I obey."

He sighed, his eyes still on the advancing motorcycles, which had slowed down now, at sight of them. "There are more clips of ammunition in the car," he told her, matter-of-factly. "Leave them beside me."

Moving as in a dream, she took out four clips, placed them next to him, then bent impulsively and threw her arms around him. "Feodor!" she cried brokenly. "I can't bear to leave you here to die—"

He laughed grimly, lifting his eyes to her. "The Saratoffs know how to die, Katerina."

She kissed him. "Good-by, Feodor. I will go to America, and find this friend of yours, this Operator 5. And I swear to you that I will never rest until I have seen the Leopard pay for the Saratoff blood he is about to spill!"

She said it calmly enough, but there was a queer, cold deadness in her voice. He pressed her hand, pushed her away.

She got into the car, the motor of which had been left running. She pressed the pedal and the old Ford pulled away, leaving Feodor Saratoff in the road facing the speeding motorcycles...

He did not look after her, did not wave. Tight-lipped, he stretched out, belly to the ground, and sighted along the submachine gun. He heard the Ford chugging away, and above it the quick back-firing of the oncoming motorcycles. There were perhaps fifty of them, and they advanced two abreast on the narrow road. Each was equipped with an armored side-car, from which projected the muzzle of a gun.

The thundering cycles swept up the rise in the road toward where Saratoff lay, and he pressed the trip of his gun, sent a stream of lead screaming toward them. He aimed low, at a point beneath the metal plates which protected the drivers of the two foremost machines.

His slugs clanged against steel, and the two first motorcycles careened madly, crashed into each other with a deafening explosion, in the center of the road. Tongues of flame lanced up from them, and in a second the second pair of cycles had piled upon the first, adding to the twisted, blazing wreckage.

The cycles behind swerved sharply to avoid the same fate, spreading out to either side of the road, and slowing to a halt.

Feodor Saratoff, grinning coldly behind the sights of his machine gun, kept up a steady stream of lead, fanning it across from one side of the road to the other. But now, with the motorcycles halted, his barrage did little damage. His first burst had caught the only exposed portion of the bodies of the drivers—their feet. The following cyclists had drawn their feet up behind the protection of the armor plates, and there was now nothing to shoot at. The screaming lead from the machine gun clanged futilely against the metal armor.

Strangely enough, the muzzles of the guns which peeped from the loopholes in the armor of each of those motorcycles did not spit death back at the prone man on the hilltop. On the contrary, they were silent.

Saratoff emptied his clip, frenziedly slipped another into the hot gun. In the quarter-minute that it took him to effect the change, the cycles chugged another fifty feet toward him, then stopped again as he let loose another burst, which did no harm.

Behind the cycles, a company of cavalry was cantering up, and the troops stopped, just out of range. Then, at an order from an officer, they fanned out into the fields on either side of the road, and advanced warily in a flanking movement, still staying out of range. Not a single shot had yet been fired at the lone man.

Saratoff wavered to his feet, holding the still chattering machine gun at his hip.

He swung it in a wide arc, so that his slugs now cut a wide swathe into the fields on both sides. He could see where his snub-nosed bullets plowed into the ground, far short of the troops, and he cursed wildly, feverishly inserted another clip. The hot breech burned his hands through the gloves. In the brief respite while he ceased firing, the motorcycles moved forward once more, stopped immediately when he again pressed the trip of the gun. The cavalry remained out of range.

Saratoff glanced fleetingly behind him, smiled thinly as he saw that the road toward Leningrad was empty as far as the eye could reach. The old Ford was out of sight. He turned and bared his teeth at the sight of the motorcycles, which had stolen another fifty feet. He shouted wild defiance into the air.

"You want me alive, Mr. Leopard! Well, come and take me!"

And once more the staccato chattering of his machine gun cut through the air, and the motorcycles halted.

He had only one clip left on the ground beside him. The bloodstain in his right side was spreading over his coat, and dripping to the ground to form a small crimson pool. His face was pinched with frost, though his hands were hot from contact with the gun.

He could see the horsemen, crouching low over their mounts, waiting for him to exhaust his ammunition before charging in. These men wore strange, angularly shaped helmets, and breastplates of some sort of chain mesh which bent with their bodies. The horses were unprotected, and that was why the riders kept out of range.

Grimly he played the mad tune on his gun, finished the clip, and reloaded. Once more the motorcycles rolled up toward him, stopped when he started to fire again. This was the last clip. Behind the motorcycles and the cavalry, marching foot soldiers appeared on the road, helmeted and mailed. They were marching four abreast, and their armor shone in the sun. In the forefront of the infantry, a banner eddied in the slight breeze, billowed out, showing a white background upon which was emblazoned the figure of a leopard, stretched at full length, apparently leaping through the air.

A FIGURE became visible, cantering ahead of that banner. It was a mounted man, riding a tall, coal-black horse. Saratoff's eyes, glued to his sights, glinted with hatred as he glimpsed that horseman. He was naked, save for a loin cloth. Naked, in that frozen country where no man dared venture out unless bundled in furs! Saratoff raised the sights of the gun, sent lead screaming over the heads of the cavalry. His burst fell far short, but the naked rider seemed to recognize the gesture, and raised one arm in a mocking salute.

Now, Feodor's last clip was exhausted. His gun became silent, and he threw the smoking weapon from him, reached into his coat pocket and drew out a heavy automatic. He stood with this in his hand—legs braced wide, tottering upon his feet, with the blood from his side dripping slowly to the ground—and faced the advancing array of mailed men.

His face was set, grim with hatred, as the motorcycles once more resumed their advance, and the horsemen began closing in from both sides. He fired nine times in rapid succession, swinging his gun from side to side. Horses fell with each shot but in a moment he was hemmed in, the last shot fired from his automatic.

Mailed men leaped from the horses and from behind the armored plates of the motorcycles. Saratoff's fists flailed out in fierce resistance, but his arms were seized, and he was held helpless. The faces of his captors were not visible behind their glittering metal helmets, but almond eyes peered out at him through slitted eyeholes as his struggles stopped. He stood, breathing hard, would have fallen were it not for the hands that held him up.

The press about him opened, and the naked man on the black horse rode up close and dismounted, stood facing Saratoff.

The naked man towered above the frail Russian. He was a giant of a man, with muscles that played in powerful ripples over all his body and that ridged his back. He was a Chinese, and his skin was dark, oily, his face was broad, flat, distinctly Mongol, with thick lips and high cheekbones. His hair was cropped close to his head, and his eyes were surmounted by bushy, unkempt brows. The lips were parted now, in a cruel smile of vindictiveness. He spoke in a queer, high-pitched dialect of the Steppes.

"Saratoff, I promised I would kill you with these two hands if you tried to escape with your sister!"

Feodor Saratoff raised his head, not attempting any longer to struggle in the grip of his captors. He answered simply: "I am ready to die, Leopard!"

The naked man turned, spoke swift orders to a mailed officer who stood behind him, using the sing-song Cantonese dialect.

The officer saluted, stepped back, and raised a hand, issued orders to the crews of the motorcycles. At once, the men returned to their machines, started the motors, and set off down the road in the direction the Ford had taken.

The naked man turned back to Saratoff, who smiled defiantly. "You will not catch her, Leopard. By this time, she has reached a plane which we had hidden in Novomirsk!"

The features of the naked man contorted with rage. Stained teeth showed through parted, thick, red lips. For a moment, those two slanted eyes flared in small, ruby pinpoints. Then the huge man seemed to master himself. He said coldly:

"She cannot go far enough, Saratoff. I will have her if I must comb the world. Just as you see the armies of Russia retreat before me, so shall the armies of other countries make way before me. Wherever she may hide, the Leopard will find her. Your sister, Saratoff, shall be the Leopard's queen! Where has she gone in the plane?"

Feodor Saratoff's eyes blazed. His whole body shook in futile anger. Far down on the road he could see rank upon rank of mailed men, marching. The hosts of Asia were behind this naked man in the loin-cloth. His body stiffened, and he threw his shoulders back, raised his head. He spoke slowly, with an apparent effort to remain calm.

"You are nothing but a filthy wharf-rat, Leopard—a filthy coolie who has somehow made himself master of Asia. But ruler of Asia or not, the Saratoffs are too good for you. My ancestors were Dukes of Muscovy while yours groveled in the mud of Mongolia. How dare you raise your eyes to a woman of the Saratoffs?—you, in whose veins runs the hybrid blood of the carrion races of Asia!"

The naked man snarled, stretched out two powerful, hairy hands toward Feodor's throat. But he stopped, suddenly laughed.

"You are clever, Saratoff. You wish to goad me into killing you before I force you to tell me where your sister has fled!" He shook his head. "It does not matter what you say of me. It remains that I am the master of Asia." He nodded. "Yes, a dirty coolie, raised on the waterfront of Mukden, now rules Asia. Soon he will rule the world. Look at these hands. They have loaded freight on a hundred boats, have stoked coal in a hundred engine rooms. Now they hold the fate of Asia. One day they will hold that beautiful sister of yours. It is my misfortune, Saratoff, that I once saw your sister. Now I must have this proud daughter of the Dukes of Muscovy; I will make her the queen of the dirty coolie who will rule the world. And now, Saratoff, you will tell me where she has fled."

Feodor laughed. "You are mistaken, Leopard. You think your tortures will make me talk. But a Saratoff knows how to endure pain. Once I was tortured by the Ogpu for four days, but I did not reveal the secrets of the White Russian army. Do you think I will betray my own sister?"

The Leopard nodded. "I think you will, Saratoff." He gestured at the torn-up fields on both sides of them. "Why do you think the Soviet armies retreated before me? They were as well armed and as numerous as my own forces. I will show you, Saratoff, why they retreated—and why you will tell me where your sister has gone."

He motioned behind him, spoke in Cantonese. A mailed horseman turned, and spurred down the road, alongside the ranks of troops. In a few moments, he returned with another rider. This was an old, wizened Chinese who carried a large, flat, black case under his arm.

The old man dismounted, bowed low before the naked one.

"Doctor Fu," said the Leopard, motioning toward Feodor, "I want this man to talk!"

Doctor Fu bowed once more, opened his case and drew a small vial from it. He came and stood before Feodor, spoke sharply to the two soldiers who held him: "Grip him tight. Do not let him move."

Then he removed the stopper from the vial, held it under Feodor's nose. Feodor tried to rear back, sudden panic in his eyes. But he was held firmly, helpless.

Doctor Fu held the vial under Feodor's nose.

After a moment, Doctor Fu replaced the stopper in the vial, put the glass tube back in the case, and bowed again. "He will talk now, Lord," said the old doctor, and backed away.

The Leopard nodded, pleased, his gaze on Feodor. The thin Russian's eyes were becoming glazed, dull. His jaw sagged a little. His feet slid a bit in the frozen puddle of his own blood.

The Leopard asked him softly: "Where did your sister, Katerina, fly in the plane, Saratoff?"

And suddenly, inexplicably, Feodor answered! He spoke in a dull voice, the words coming from his lips effortlessly, as if it were imperative that he tell: "She flies to Leningrad. There she will embark with a Captain Kusmarenko, who served our father, but who is now in the employ of the Soviet Steamship Lines. He will take her to America."

"And where will she be in America, Saratoff?"

"She seeks an old friend of mine, whom I knew in Constantinople. He is of the American Secret Service. He is known as Operator 5. His name is James Christopher."

The Leopard's ugly face darkened. He took a step closer. "She has a message perhaps, for this James Christopher?"

"She has. I gave her a letter, stating everything that I discovered about you and your plans. It tells that you have some strange means of winning victory after victory in the field. It tells how you mastered Asia, and how you waited, watching Europe destroy itself in this new world war which is even more destructive than the first. It tells how you march across Russia to the sea."

"And do you also write to this Operator 5 of what I plan next?"

FEODOR nodded dully. "I told him in the letter, how you plan to seize ships and sail for America with this strange power of yours that brings you victory always. And I warned him that he must use all his ingenuity if he would prevent his country from becoming vassal to the Leopard of Asia."

The Leopard bent forward eagerly, asked tensely: "This power of mine, Saratoff—did you tell him what it was?"

"No. How could I? I do not know its nature myself."

The Leopard nodded in satisfaction. "That is so. I just wanted to make sure."

He turned to an officer behind him. "You heard, Dato?"

The mailed and helmeted officer bowed. "I heard, Lord."

"Then ride back at once. Send wires to our men in America. Have them watch the docks in every port. Find out what ship this Kusmarenko commands. We cannot reach Leningrad before her, but we can stop her at the docks in America. Also let our own men in America turn their attention to this Operator 5. You understand?"

The officer bowed. "I understand, Lord; and I obey." He clicked his heels, turned, and went to one of the motorcycles. In a moment, the cycle was turned around, and went speeding back up the road, along the ranks of halted soldiers.

The Leopard faced Feodor once more. There was a set smile of savagery on his broad, flat face. "And now, Saratoff," he laughed, "I keep my promise!" His two huge hands came up slowly to Feodor's throat, linked themselves around it, and pressed...