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

Everyone is talking at once, ignoring the zampolit. Yesterday was a holiday and no one is in a mood to listen to what is probably going to be another patriotic speech about serving the great Soviet people.

Sablin holds up a hand. “Settle down, please. This is important.”

“Pardon me, Comrade Sablin,” Gindin speaks up. “Where is the captain?”

“Stop talking now, so we can get on with this meeting,” Sablin says.

Gindin looks over his shoulder just as Alexander Shein, one of the ratings, closes the door on them. Their eyes meet for just a moment, but then Shein slips into the projection booth and closes that door. “What the hell—?”

“What’d you say?” Firsov asks.

“That was Shein. He’s in the projection room.”

Firsov glances over his shoulder at the door, a look of puzzlement on his face. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Gindin says, but his stomach is doing a slow roll.

Every sailor aboard is assigned a duty area that he has to keep clean. Shein’s duty area includes Gindin’s and Firsov’s cabin. He did his job without complaining, but he’s also struck Gindin as being a little bit sneaky. The other sailors are watching a movie in their own dining hall, so what is Shein doing up here, closing the door and hiding in the projection room?

No one else has noticed, but gradually the other men begin to settle down, until finally the dining hall is quiet.

“To answer your question, Lieutenant, Captain Potulniy is in his quarters resting,” Sablin says. He isn’t smiling, like usual. “In fact, he told me that I was to conduct this meeting and he did not want to be bothered.”

“Why is the door closed?”

Sablin shrugs indifferently. “So we will not be disturbed, Lieutenant.” He looks at the others crammed together at the tables. “What I have to say to you tonight is very important; I want you to know that from the start.”

“This is a holiday; what’s the problem?” one of the other officers asks. Gindin isn’t sure who it is, but the others grumble their agreement.

There is a tightening in Sablin’s eyes, as if he is a little uncertain what to do next. Gindin has never seen this look of hesitancy on the zampolit’s face before, and it adds to Boris’s already tense mood.

Something wasn’t right. But Sablin was a senior officer and they had to follow the chain of command. If he said there was to be a meeting of all officers, then there was no questioning such an order. But all of them thought it was a damned odd thing just then.

All of a sudden Sablin stops his fidgeting and stands a little taller, his shoulders squared, his expression set. It’s as if he’s made a difficult decision and he’s just realized that it’s the right one. He blinks as if he’s coming out of a sleep, but he is not smiling, and this is the most disturbing thing of all. The Sablin standing in the middle of the room, facing the eight officers and six midshipmen, isn’t the Sablin whom they have come to know. He is a completely different man, all of a sudden.

“His face did not reflect any holiday mood,” Gindin relates. “There wasn’t so much as a hint of a smile, or some kind of friendliness, his usual sociable self. Nothing like that. He was different. It was like seeing another side of him that we’d never seen before.”

Gindin looks around the room at the other officers, and he can see that they share his misgivings.

“What I am saying to you tonight, and what I am asking you to do, is not a betrayal of the Rodina. I want to make that very clear. I’m simply making a political declaration about the bureaucracy and the corruption that has taken over our country.

“Everyone here knows exactly what I am talking about. The great principles of Marx and Lenin have been totally perverted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.”

Gindin cannot believe what he is hearing. He glances over at Firsov and then at the other officers, and he can see by their expressions that they are as confused as he is. Is this some sort of a test that Sablin is giving them? To find out how deep their loyalty to the Motherland runs?

“You know that all Russians are not treated equally. You can see that very problem here aboard ship, and everywhere you go you can see that the poor dumb muzhiks never have their day in court. They never have the same rights as we do.”

Firsov catches Gindin’s eye and he shrugs. Eb tvoiu mat, what the fuck is going on?

Gindin shakes his head, completely baffled. It’s even possible that Sablin has lost his mind. It’s happened to other sailors and officers during or just after a difficult rotation. Maybe Sablin is having troubles at home with his family. Maybe he’s just found out that he has an illness. Maybe cancer.