29. DISAPPOINTMENT
The mood among the crew is high with enthusiasm, but Sablin carries a tight knot in his gut. So many things can still go wrong with his plan that he can’t help but stop for a moment to reflect on just what it is that he has set in motion this evening. Two hundred officers and men are depending on him to get them through this ordeal. The burden is on his shoulders.
Sablin may be an idealist, but he’s far from being a stupid man. He knows that he will have one shot, and only one shot, at surviving this business. If he can convince the Russian people themselves to rise up in revolt, the Kremlin will be all but powerless to stop what he believes will be a groundswell—just like the revolt that toppled the tsarist government in October 1917.
He has worked out a plan for that.
Almost as soon as he had formulated his idea for the mutiny, Sablin began working on a speech that he would broadcast to the Russian people. He has recorded it, and once the Storozhevoy is in position near Leningrad and he has been given access to Russian radio and television, he means to broadcast his plea directly to the people. “…our announcement is not a betrayal of the Motherland, but a purely political, progressive declaration, and the traitors to the Motherland are those who would seek to stop us.
“My comrades want me to pass on to you our assurance that if our nation is attacked, we are fully prepared to defend it. Right now we have another goaclass="underline" to take up the voice of truth…”
But first he has to get away from Riga and the rest of the fleet, and to do that he has to make sure that the ship is secure. For that they will need weapons.
The warshots for all the Storozhevoy’s combat systems—the rockets, depth charges, and ammunition for the deck guns—have already been off-loaded before he heads to his refurbishing berth. This is routine. But the ship has two armories of light weapons, mostly pistols and AK-47 assault rifles.
Sablin got a set of keys for one of the armories from their starpom Nikolay Novozilov, before the exec went home on leave. Now Sablin takes a few of the enlisted crewmen with him, and they retrieve all the weapons and ammunition they can carry.
Then he begins issuing the orders crucial for their survival until they can slip their mooring and get out into the open Baltic. First he posts two armed crewmen on the bridge to make sure that not only the ship’s controls are theirs but also that no one can sneak up and use the radio to call for help.
Next he sends several crewmen belowdecks to help Shein make sure no one tries again to release the captain. Sablin sends others to the sonar compartment where Gindin and the others who voted with the black backgammon pieces are under arrest and one young man with a rifle to guard his cabin.
At this point Sablin has every right to be paranoid, but he wants to prevent someone trying to find the recording of his speech and destroy it.
Finally, he sends men from each division to watch over their own equipment. Among them are several from Gindin’s gas turbine division who have as much enthusiasm for the project as everyone else.
“No matter what happens, you must keep in control of the engine room,” Sablin tells the kids who are by this time jumping all over the place.
They want to tell their stories about how rotten things are at home and how once they get back everything will be better.
“Of course life will get better once we have elected some proper leaders,” Sablin assures them. “But for now no one gets to the engines unless I give the order.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorus.
“Once everything is secure down there, I want you to get the engines ready to start on an instants notice. Can you do this?”
One of them nods. “Yes, of course. Our lieutenant is a good man; he taught us—” The kid stops in mid-sentence, a little embarrassed by the betrayal of an officer he actually admires.
“I understand,” Sablin says. “None of them will come to any harm. Anyway, this is just as good for them as it is for us.”
The embarrassment passes. They’re eager to begin.
“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.