Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

“As soon as you’re ready, call me, or send a runner,” Sablin tells them. “Now go, and be careful.”

Sablin watches them with real affection as they scurry belowdecks to carry out his orders. He is alone for just that moment, and perhaps he listens to the sounds of the Storozhevoy. His ship now. An instrument, like the Potemkin, for a nation-changing revolution.

It’s chilly up on deck, in the open, and the fog has thickened. He might think that he is alone at this point in time. Not one person aboard this ship has any real idea what he is trying to do for them, for the Rodina. Nor, he supposes, will they understand what has happened even after it is all over with and the revolution has come and gone. Only afterward, when their lives have become materially better, might they stop from time to time to think of what part they played this evening.

When that happens they will feel proud. Sablin is utterly convinced of it, and he is filled with a holy zeal.

He takes a quick turn around the decks to make sure that everything is in order, then ducks through a mid-ship hatch and heads forward to his cabin. He sincerely hopes that when the time is right Potulniy will hear him out with an open mind. He wants to apologize to the captain for the rough treatment. Sablin has to keep reminding himself that under the circumstances there was no other way. Potulniy either had to be placed under arrest or had to be killed, and Sablin will make sure the captain understands just how humanely he was treated.

A crewman, whose name Sablin can’t remember, is standing guard in the corridor. He snaps to attention as Sablin comes around the corner. It’s obvious that the crewman is almost as frightened as he is excited. He’s had a little time to think about the situation that he and the others have gotten themselves into with their captain locked up and their zampolxt in charge.

“How’s it going, Seaman?” Sablin asks kindly. “No trouble here?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s good. Very good. Just keep a sharp eye.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy says. He might seem a little less tense now. After all, Sablin is their political officer. Who would know better than such a man?

Sablin enters his cabin and goes directly to his wall safe, where he’s locked the reel of tape on which he recorded his speech. But before he can retrieve it, he has another idea. He looks at his wristwatch. It is coming up on nine; the men from the midshipmen’s dining hall who voted with the black backgammon pieces have been locked belowdecks for nearly two hours. Maybe some of them have had a change of heart.

He sincerely hopes so. It would be better if he had all of the officers behind him.

“Stay here,” he tells the seaman at his door, and he heads down the corridor and below to the compartment.

The two armed sailors guarding the hatch stiffen to attention when Sablin comes around the corner.

“How’s it going?” he asks. “Are they giving you any trouble?”

“They were raising some hell to start with,” one of the kids reports. “But they finally shut their traps.”

“We made sure of it, sir,” the other sailor says.

“Open up.”

“Sir?”

“Open the hatch; I want to talk to them,” Sablin says. Discipline is already starting to get a little ragged. The sailors are taking time responding to clear orders. He expected it, but not so soon. Once they get under way in the morning he hopes moving into action will calm them down.

One of the sailors opens the hatch, and Sablin steps up, though he does not go inside. The nine men are looking at him. Some of them are leaning against the work bench; others are seated on the floor or on the two chairs. Gindin is standing in the doorway to the other section of the compartment.

“Is everything okay in here?” Sablin asks. The question sounds ridiculous even in his ears.

No one says a thing.

“It’s twenty-one hundred hours. Would you like some tea?”

Vinogradov steps forward. “Stick it up your ass!”

Sablin rears back. “I don’t mean to offer you any harm, or—”

“Get out of here before we tear you apart!” one of the other officers shouts.

“Traitor!”

“Bastard!”

Sablin looks to Gindin. He’d sincerely hoped at least Boris would have changed his mind by now. A man such as Boris should understand the real score, even if the others didn’t. But Gindin’s expression is stony.

“You’ll get us all killed,” Kuzmin says. “You’d better get out of here.”

Sablin steps back and slams the door.

30. RAGE

The hatch is dogged with an audible clang.

“You dumb bastards!” Gindin shouts. He can’t help himself, but he is overcome with a sudden rage. It doesn’t matter that he’s outranked by Captain Lieutenant Proshutinsky, and Senior Lieutenants Smirnov and Vinogradov; what they’ve just done is nothing short of insane.

“That’s enough, mister,” Proshutinsky warns.

“Do you understand what’s just happened, sir?”

“You’re being insubordinate.”

Gindin turns to the others. “Don’t you get it?” he demands. He thinks that he’s going insane. Or maybe the others are crazy.