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

Away from the lights of downtown Riga, it seems as if the fog has cleared a little. In any event, they are able to pick out the buoys marking the fairway by eye.

Sablin had planned to shut down the ship’s radar once they had cleared the river and were out into the gulf. He was enough of a naval officer to understand at least rudimentary battle tactics. If their radar sets were banging away, whoever the fleet sent out after them would be able to home in on them. Besides, Maksimenko was too nervous to do a very good job.

“Shut down the radar, Oleg,” Sablin ordered.

“Sir?”

“Turn the radar set off. We don’t want anyone picking up our signals.”

Maksimenko shuts off the power as Sablin picks up the intercom handset and keys the push-to-talk switch.

“This is your zampolit speaking.” His voice is broadcast to every compartment aboard ship. “All hands— boevaya trevoga —man your battle stations. All hands, man your battle stations.”

“But, sir, we have no rockets or ammunition,” Soloviev points out.

“It’s all right,” Sablin says calmly, the first major crisis behind them. “They need something to keep them busy.”

Standing on the quay watching the Storozhevoy disappear into the fog, Firsov figures that if he had not waited so long to abandon ship and sound the alarm, none of this would be happening.

The petty officer who brought Firsov ashore from the submarine is still there on the launch watching the same thing. He and the two sailors on the crew cannot believe what they are witnessing. First the Storozhevoy crashed into a mooring bouy, and then he very nearly collided with a gasoline tanker leaving the dock.

The petty officer looks up at Firsov. “Pizdec, whoever is in command of your ship is a crazy man. He’s going to get your crewmates killed if he keeps up like that.”

“He’s probably already done so,” Firsov replies. He wants to tell the petty officer that if the skipper of the submarine, Captain Second Rank Leonid Svetlovski, hadn’t been so slow on the uptake, this could have been prevented.

As soon as Firsov had made it to the deck of the submarine, he ran aft to the sail, where he shouted up to the pair of sailors on the bridge on watch trying to keep warm.

At first they wouldn’t look down. But they must have heard him. He was making enough racket to wake the dead.

“Bljad, pull your heads out of your asses up there!” he shouted even louder. He glanced back up at the Storozhevoy’s bows looming overhead, fearful that someone might realize that he’d jumped ship and spot him down here. God only knows what order Sablin might give.

Finally one of the sailors looked over the coaming and spotted an officer, his uniform filthy from climbing down the mooring line. On the one hand the sailor had a responsibility for the security of his ship, while on the other he had to show respect to an officer. Right then the sailor was caught between a rock and a hard place, which is fairly common in the Soviet navy.

“Sir, do you need some assistance?” the sailor calls down. It’s the only thing he can think to say.

“Is your captain aboard?” Firsov asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“With compliments, tell him that Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Firsov from the Storozhevoy is on deck and would like to have a word with him. Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Yes, sir,” the sailor replies, and he disappears, presumably to use the submarine’s interphone to call the captain.

Still no one has come to the Storozhevoy’s bow, but Firsov suspects that can’t last much longer.

The sailor is back in a couple of moments. “The captain asks that you come below!” he calls. “Just through the hatch, sir.”

A hatch opens at the base of the sail, and a warrant officer beckons from inside.

Now it begins, Firsov tells himself, not at all sure how this will turn out. But the one thing he’s feared the most turns out to be justified. When he tells his story to the sub’s skipper, Captain Second Rank Svetlovski, he’s met with stunned disbelief.

“A mutiny of the officers is impossible,” Svetlovski fumes. “Such things no longer happen aboard Soviet warships. Where is your KGB officer?”

“He’s been reassigned, sir. The mutiny was ordered by our zampolit. He’s arrested Captain Potulniy and a few of the officers who tried to stop him.”

“What, are you crazy? I know your captain. He would never allow such a thing to happen.”

The next two things Svetlovski does are completely predictable given the circumstances and given the general mood in the Soviet navy. First he steps a little closer so that he can smell Firsov’s breath. Accurate or not, it’s been said that half of all Soviet military forces are drunk half of the time. But Firsov has not had a drink all night, though he wishes he had some of Boris’s spirt.

The second thing the submarine captain does is pass the buck. “I cannot do anything without authorization, Senior Lieutenant,” he tells Firsov. “I’m sending you ashore. You can tell your fantastic story to the duty officer, and it will be up to him. Though if he doesn’t have you shot I’ll be surprised, because God help us all if you’re telling the truth.”

It takes more than a half hour for the launch to be summoned and bring Firsov ashore and several precious minutes longer to convince the security guards on the quay to call the duty officer.

Nobody believes Firsov’s story. Nobody wants to believe him.

Yet the Storozhevoy dropped her moorings, nearly collided with the submarine next to her, almost ran down a tanker, and has sailed downriver into the fog.

The security guard comes back from his post. “The duty officer is on his way, sir.”

“Thank you,” Firsov replies politely, though he feels anything but polite at this moment.

The security guard and the crew aboard the launch are looking at him as if he were insane or as if he were a bug under a microscope. None of them has any real idea what he’s been talking about, but to a man they understand that very big trouble is afoot, and they are thanking their lucky stars that they are not involved.

Another half hour passes before Petty Officer Nikolai Aksenov finally shows up in a gazik, which is the same sort of general-purpose military vehicle as the American jeep. He gives Firsov’s filthy uniform a hard stare, then takes in the security guard and the launch and its crew before he offers a salute.

“Senior Lieutenant, I understand that there may be some trouble,” the duty officer says.

Firsov snaps a sketchy salute in return. “There has been a mutiny aboard the Storozhevoy.”

“How do you know this, sir?”

“He’s my ship. I just came from there!” Firsov shouts. He wants to punch the stupid kid in the mouth. “He just dropped his moorings and headed downriver.”

“What, at this hour? No ships are scheduled to leave until morning.”

“It’s true,” the petty officer aboard the launch says. “We just saw him leave in a big hurry. And he damned near ran down a tanker.”

“I know about the tanker’s schedule,” the petty officer says. He looks downriver, as if he’s trying to spot the departing ship with his own eyes. Of course nothing is to be seen except for the fog and the indistinct hulking shapes of the fleet still at anchor in the middle of the river.

“Well?” Firsov demands.

“I’m sorry, sir, but what do you want me to do?” Aksenov asks. This situation is way beyond him, except that, like the others, he understands there is the potential for a great deal of trouble. He wants to cover his own ass. It’s the sensible thing to do.