‘Stay!’ shouted the officer, divining the danger in this demonstration.
He spoke too late. As my hand grasped the lever, I vaulted into the car, and before the excited soldiers realised that it was under way, the Panhard was tearing towards the boundary line at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour.
The Russian sentry ran out into the middle of the road to stop me. He was a poor peasant, perhaps from the banks of the Volga, who must have thought that the Evil One himself was upon him. I saw his face blanch, and almost heard the chattering of his teeth, but he did not flinch from his duty. I rode right over him, and I am sorry to say that I believe he was killed.
“I rode right over him.”
The Austrian sentry simply fired off his gun as a warning to his comrades at the guard-house further along the road. They swarmed out, and I pulled up the machine. I had put the brake on immediately after crossing into Austrian territory.
‘In the Emperor’s name!’ I whispered to the Austrian officer of the guard. ‘I am not an Englishman, but a member of the Austrian Secret Service. By allowing me to pass without delay you will render the Government a vital service.’
‘You have just killed a man,’ the officer objected, pointing to the blood on my wheels.
‘I am afraid so. The fact that I killed a Russian sentry in order to cross the frontier should convince you that I am in deadly earnest.’
The officer, by some rare chance, was intelligent enough to believe me.