David Hagberg - Mutiny - The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

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.

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.

“What are you talking about, Boris?” Kuzmin asks. “Sablin is a traitor. What, are we supposed to treat him like a tsar? He’s going to get us killed.”

“Exactly,” Gindin agrees. “Unless we can somehow get out of here and stop him.”

“That’s the point—,” Kuzmin starts to say, but then he realizes what Gindin is trying to tell them. Kuzmin averts his eyes. “Shit,” he says. “Pizdec.”

The other officers aren’t sure.

“We had a chance when Captain Sablin had the hatch open,” Gindin explains. “We could have rushed him and the guards. We might have been able to get out of here and grab their weapons.”

The officers are silent for a long time, each with his own dark thoughts. Gindin is thinking about his own vote. If he had voted with the white backgammon piece, pretending to go along with Sablin, he would be free right now, with the possibility of doing something to stop the insanity.

Maybe that was Firsovs thinking.

Right now all Gindin and the others have is hope.

If he cares to admit it to himself, Sablin is shaken by the reaction to his offer of a little humanity. It was just some tea, after all, not some political statement. On the way back to his cabin he can’t help but think about the letter he sent to his wife, Nina. In it he’d outlined his plan and his reasons for going through with the mutiny, but he never expected the kind of anger he got from his own officers.

He believes that given the chance Gindin and the others might have actually done him bodily harm. He shakes his head. The Kremlin would not be amused when they found out what was going on. But his own officers?

If he couldn’t explain the necessity for what he was doing to Gindin and the others, how could he explain it to the Russian people? He was starting to get seriously worried.

When he reaches his cabin the young sailor standing guard can’t help but notice that something is wrong.

“How’s it going?” The kid uses Sablin’s own words back at him.

Sablin looks up and manages a slight smile. “No problems,” he says. “It’s going to be a quiet night. We’ll get under way first thing in the morning with the rest of the fleet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Inside, Sablin once again walks over to his safe, but he just stands there. An almost overwhelming lethargy may have overcome him, as he realizes perhaps for the first time the enormity of the thing that he has set in motion. All of his life he has been a good Communist. Despite his student letter to Khrushchev, which very nearly derailed his career, he has been the textbook-perfect zampolit. Almost like a Baptist minister, he has tended to his flock, guiding them through the minefields of understanding, appreciating, and believing in the system they were born into.

Now he’s not so sure.

He has reached down to twist the dial for the first number in the combination when he is distracted by a commotion in the corridor. He looks up as someone pounds on the door.

“Captain Sablin!” they are shouting.

In three steps Sablin is across the cabin and he flings open his door. The sailor who has been standing guard has been joined by another sailor, Seaman Aleksei Sakhnevich, who is red faced and all out of breath.

Sablin’s heart is in his throat. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Lieutenant Stepanov and some others in his cabin! They’re talking about freeing the captain and coming to arrest you!”