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

“We must go slower, Captain,” Soloviev tells Sablin. “I can’t see a bloody thing.”

“Steady,” Sablin orders. “Are we clear?” he asks Maksimenko at the radar.

“I can’t tell yet!” the seaman shouts. He is nervous as hell. This job normally would be done by a petty officer or even a warrant officer, not a rating. Maksimenko wants to be home planting potatoes in the garden, not taking responsibility for an entire ship like this. He looks up and Sablin is saying something. Maksimenko figures the only way he’ll ever get home to the garden is to do what he’s told.

“Can we turn?” Sablin shouts.

Maksimenko tries to make some sense of what he is seeing on the radar screen, but everything is confusing. “Da!” he calls out. “We may turn now.”

Sablin is also caught up in the moment, and he doesn’t stop to think that perhaps the sailor is merely telling him what he wants to hear. “Turn hard to port now,” he gives the order to Soloviev, who puts the wheel hard over.

The Storozhevoy’s bows come around smartly and there is a collision. They have hit something! Not such a hard blow that they will have to stop here or even sink in the river, but they have hit something.

The ship seems to shudder, then shrug off the hit, and immediately begins to accelerate into the left turn, which will put their bows facing downriver.

Sablin cannot live with the possibility that by his actions he not only has damaged a Soviet navy ship but also might have hurt someone. He tears open the hatch on the starboard side and rushes out onto the wing and looks over the side. They are rapidly leaving their mooring barrel and the Alpha submarine rocking in their wake. They evidently struck a glancing blow to the blue-striped barrel, but so far as Sablin can tell no damage has been done, and it’s not even likely that the crew aboard the submarine has taken notice of the small wake. He takes a deep breath of the cold night air, as if it’s his last.

He steps back inside, relief washing over him at least for the moment. But they have a long way to go before they’re out of trouble. “Tell me when we’re lined up with the channel,” he orders Maksimenko. The buoys marking the path downriver will show up clearly on the radar screen.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” the sailor stammers. The collision was his fault and he is afraid of the consequences for himself.

“Don’t worry about it, Oleg. Just tell me when we are lined up with the channel. This is very important.”

“Da,” Maksimenko responds, and he turns back to his radar set as the Storozhevoy’s bows continue to swing around to the north.

The bridge door is open to the corridor that leads aft and down. Even this far up Sablin can hear the commotion below. Each time the Storozhevoy got under way there was a great deal of activity as the crew jumped to their stations and carried out their duties. But this sounds different to Sablin. Not as ordered. More chaotic. It’s disquieting, and certainly not how he imagined their departure on what he thinks is a grand and noble endeavor.

“We’re coming into the channel now, sir!” Maksimenko calls out.

“Very well,” Sablin says. “Ease your helm, Viktor.” It’s the same kind of command Sablin has heard Potulniy give countless times before, only the captain never used an ordinary sailor’s first name.

Soloviev straightens the helm, and the Storozhevoy slips into the groove that will guide them the fifteen kilometers or so to the mouth of the river. From there they will have to get around the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa before they will be well out into the gulf and where Sablin figures he will be able to breathe a real sigh of relief.

Firsov’s jumping ship bothers Sablin more than he cares to admit at this moment; he’s just too busy to think about it. But it’s there, like a nagging toothache that will not go away. Conning a ship the size of the Storozhevoy in the open sea is a piece of cake. Simply set a course and speed, dial in the autopilot, and keep a sharp radar and visual lookout. But driving a ship down a narrow river, at night, in the fog, with a heavy current running, while all around are moored vessels and God only knows what other hazards on and below the surface, is something else entirely. This sort of an endeavor takes not only the cooperation of the entire bridge and engine room crew but also a knowledgeable, experienced man in command, whose entire mind is on the job at hand.

It’s something Sablin is not, and he is acutely aware of his lacking.

“We’re lined up with the fairway, sir!” Maksimenko calls out. He’s lined up the buoys on the radar screen.

“Are you certain?” Sablin demands.

“Yes, sir!”

Sablin reaches over to the engine telegraph and signals for all ahead full. It takes several moments for the gas turbine crew to respond, and he is just about to pick up the phone to call down there when the answering bells sound. The Storozhevoy’s engines spool up and their speed quickly rises.