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

Sablin hesitates again before he keys the microphone. Until last night and this morning he’s never disobeyed a direct order. He’s preached the Party line his entire career. He has been a good Communist. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I cannot comply with that order.”

“Report your situation, Sablin.”

“Respectfully, sir, I cannot do that, either.”

“You will do as you’re told—”

Sablin keys his mike, stepping over the vice admiral’s transmission. “Sir, since this ship is no longer apart of the Baltic Fleet, I am no longer under your command. I am no longer accountable to you. I have sent my message to the Soviet people, and now it is up to them to respond.”

“Sablin!” Vice Admiral Kosov shouts.

“Storozhevoy, out,” Sablin radios. He replaces the microphone on its bracket and turns off the VHF radio. There will be no further communications.

Soloviev disagrees. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to switch off the radio, sir,” he says.

Sablin looks at him.

“We don’t have to answer. But if someone who wants to help tries to reach us, we should be ready to acknowledge.”

Soloviev is right, of course, and Sablin reaches up and switches the radio on, but he turns down the volume.

Gorshkov is seated at a desk in a small office adjacent to Brezhnev’s conference room, connected by telephone to Vice Admiral Kosov. The transmissions to and from the Storozhevoy have been patched to the telephone circuit. The Fleet Admiral has heard everything.

“It’s definitely mutiny,” Kosov says. “The man must be insane.”

“Da,” Gorshkov replies dourly. This is not like the old days, when his officers obeyed their commands without hesitation. He’s heard that the Soviet navy is trying to learn a lesson from the Americans and British. The Soviet navy is supposed to become the “thinking man’s” navy, whatever that means. It’s a mystery to him, where the time has gone, and he has to wonder if the incident now unfolding aboard the Storozhevoy is a portent of the end of the Soviet regime, just as the mutiny aboard the Potemkin signaled the beginning of the end for the tsars.

“What are your orders, sir?” Kosov wants to know.

Gorshkov thinks that this will be a big responsibility for a mere chief of staff. But in this incident at this moment in time the responsibility will be given to any officer willing to take it. “The order is to hunt for the Storozhevoy and sink him before he reaches Sweden.”

“What about the officers and crew? Surely not all of them have gone along with this insanity. Captain Potulniy is apparently under arrest. And there are others.”

“The mutineers have given up their right to our consideration, and Captain Potulniy should never have allowed his ship to be taken from him. Find the Storozhevoy, Admiral, and kill him. That order comes directly from Secretary Brezhnev.”

Kosov is momentarily taken aback. “He knows?”

“Yes, and in the next few hours half of Moscow will probably know,” Gorshkov says. “Carry out your orders, Admiral. Quickly.”

“Yes, sir,” Kosov replies, and the connection is broken.

Gorshkov puts the phone down. Now that the order has been given he could drive back out to the dacha, return to his apartment on Arbat Street, or go to his office. But if there is to be an assault on the Kremlin, he wants to be here.

For the first time he’d seen genuine fear in the eyes of the Party General Secretary, and it was disquieting. It was like this during what the Americans called the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the fear was in Khrushchev’s eyes. And the reasons were the same: Both men were afraid of making the one mistake that not only would cost them their jobs but also could cost the Soviet system its very existence.

Russians are a passionate people. It had been decades since crowds had marched in protest in Red Square, but it could happen again. A military command structure is only as good as the willingness of its officers to obey orders. And any government, even one so powerful as the Soviet Union’s, is only as strong as the confidence of its citizens in the status quo.

The young mutineer aboard the Storozhevoy meant to destroy this confidence, by seizing the ship and sending his message to the people.

Thank God it had been broadcast in code.

But Sablin could very well discover that error and retransmit the message, this time en clair. That was the major reason Brezhnev had ordered the Storozhevoy found and destroyed, before the message was sent again.

It’s after six in the morning. Some of the officers are curled up on the deck, asleep, and Gindin wishes that he could be like them. He is bone weary, but he can’t shut down his thoughts about what happened last night in the midshipmen’s dining hall.

Sablin’s incredible speech, unbelievable then, is even more unbelievable now. Their only chance is to reach Swedish waters before Fleet Headquarters sends a force out here to either stop them or sink them.

Kuzmin, who’s been lying in a corner, gets up, comes over, and sits down on the deck next to Gindin. He looks just as worried as Gindin feels. “I can’t sleep,” Kuzmin says.

“Neither can I,” Gindin replies.

Kuzmin looks over at the hatch to the corridor. “It feels like we’re in the open sea.”

“I think so.”

Kuzmin nods toward the hatch. “Anything from those pricks with the guns?”

“Not for the last few hours.”

“Do you think maybe they’re gone?” Kuzmin asks. “I don’t mean from just out in the corridor, but maybe they decided to abandon ship. We could be down here all alone.”

“I don’t think so, Sergey. They’d have to slow down first, but the engines have run steady all night. Means somebody is driving the ship and some of my guys are running the engines.” It’s a bitter thought for Gindin, that the men he trained had so easily betrayed him.

“I wonder what Sablin offered them so that they would go along with the mutiny,” Kuzmin muses. It’s almost as if he is reading Gindin’s mind.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Gindin says. “My guys wouldn’t have gone along with the crazy scheme unless there was something in it for them.” Gindin shakes his head. “Not that it makes much difference to us now.”

“Maybe if we can find out what it was, we can make them a better offer,” Kuzmin suggests.

The two of them get up and go to the hatch, where Gindin places his ear against the steel door. The only sound he hears is the distant hum of the turbines. He looks up and shakes his head.

Kuzmin slams the heel of his hand against the door. Once, twice, three times, and Gindin puts his ear to the door again. Still nothing.

“You out there!” Kuzmin shouts. “Open this door! We want to tell you something!”

The other officers are waking up, because of the noise.

“What’s going on, Boris?” Proshutinsky asks.

“We’re trying to get their attention,” Gindin answers.

“Da, we can hear that. But why? They’re not going to let us out of here.”

“They might if we can find out what Sablin offered them to go along with the mutiny. Maybe we can make a better offer.”

“I don’t think so,” Proshutinsky says.

“Sir?”

“I can guess exactly what he offered the enlisted crew. The only thing they care about is getting out of the navy and going back home.”

“Sablin doesn’t have that authority” Gindin says.

“True, but those boys probably don’t know that,” Proshutinsky points out.

Kuzmin has been listening at the door. He looks up and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s out there. They’ve gone.”