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

The two men couldn’t have been more different. Although they both graduated from the prestigious Frunze Military Academy, which put them on a fast track to command positions, Sablin opted to become a political officer. That in some ways is professional suicide, because zampolits never become ship captains and therefore promotions are few and far between. Also, political officers are generally not liked very much by the officers or the crew. They’re the ones whose job it is not only to force-feed the standard Marxist-Leninist doctrine down everybody’s throats but also to sugarcoat the latest Party orders no matter how stupid they are. The captain is the absolute ruler aboard his ship, while the political officer is the Party hack. Every sailor must attend political classes every two weeks. Normally the zampolit supplies the lesson materials and the officers teach the sailors in their sections.

On the one hand the captain should be close to his crew, know their names and backgrounds, know who can be trusted to come through in a tight situation and who will probably fold. After all, the safety of the ship depends on his men. On the other hand, the zampolit is just the guy who dishes out the propaganda that no one ever wants to hear.

But the situation on the Storozhevoy, this crisp November day in Riga, is different. Potulniy really does seem to care more about his ship than he does about his officers and men. He is an aloof man who goes strictly by the book. He is young, and he has a lot to prove. Being the captain of an ASW ship is just the start; it’s a stepping-stone to much bigger and better things. But Sablin is everybody’s friend—officer, midshipman, and ordinary sailor alike. He takes time to talk to the men, find out about their towns and their families, about their fears and ambitions. He’s not afraid to talk about a sailor’s dreams and what they might mean or help a sailor figure out his love life, or lack of love life. Sablin is there to be a friend and to act as the father figure, a role that the captain should be playing. But the zampolit is kind to the other officers as well, offering to take over their political classes when they are too tired or bored. And he’s always cheerful, always ready with a pat on the back, ready to lend a hand, and always genuinely interested in what a man’s job is and how he does it.

Like this morning at breakfast.

Gindin has some vague premonitions this morning, but he does not connect them to the captain or to Sablin or to the marked differences between the two officers. He just has this unsettling feeling of unrest, and he thinks that most everyone else aboard feels the same way to one degree or another. But he can’t put his finger on it.

When he tried to talk to Potulniy about his fears a couple hours ago, the captain dismissed him out of hand.

“Stick to your duties, Boris,” the captain said. “Do your job correctly, supervise your crew, make sure that they’re physically and mentally fit, and everything else will take care of itself.”

It’s as if the captain is so distant from his crew that he doesn’t know what’s really going on aboard his own ship. But that’s not true, either.

They were on their way down to Cuba, and Gindin, like every other officer aboard, did normal duty rotations, which were four hours on, four hours on standby, and four hours off. The rotations were changed each month, so you didn’t always get the same shifts.

On this night, Gindin had the midnight to 4:00 A.M. rotation with two gas turbine specialists, two motor/diesel men, one steam/fuel sailor, and one electrician. These were all young kids, and with nothing much happening on the graveyard shift and their last meal at nine in the evening, they would get hungry. And as stomachs growl, ingenuity increases.

Gindin’s crew wants to know if he’d like something to eat. Of course he says yes, and he’s led aft to the machinery room, where two of the gas turbine engines are turning over. Somehow the men have gotten some potatoes from the galley, some oil, and a frying pan. Each turbine develops a hot spot on its upper casing and they are using one of them to fry up the potatoes. Gindin knows he’s supposed to put a stop to this business, and his sailors know it, too. They’re all standing there, looking at him expectantly, waiting for the shoe to drop, but the smell of the frying potatoes is almost too much to bear.

Anyway, Gindin is not much older than his men, it’s the middle of the night, there is no safety issue to worry about, the engines are running normally and he’s hungry, too. So he says, “Sure,” and the meal is nothing short of fantastic, almost as good as the kinds of snacks he’d had with his dad, picking mushrooms in the woods.