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

“What are you talking about, Boris?” Kuzmin asks. “Sablin is a traitor. What, are we supposed to treat him like a tsar? He’s going to get us killed.”

“Exactly,” Gindin agrees. “Unless we can somehow get out of here and stop him.”

“That’s the point—,” Kuzmin starts to say, but then he realizes what Gindin is trying to tell them. Kuzmin averts his eyes. “Shit,” he says. “Pizdec.”

The other officers aren’t sure.

“We had a chance when Captain Sablin had the hatch open,” Gindin explains. “We could have rushed him and the guards. We might have been able to get out of here and grab their weapons.”

The officers are silent for a long time, each with his own dark thoughts. Gindin is thinking about his own vote. If he had voted with the white backgammon piece, pretending to go along with Sablin, he would be free right now, with the possibility of doing something to stop the insanity.

Maybe that was Firsovs thinking.

Right now all Gindin and the others have is hope.

31. REVOLT

If he cares to admit it to himself, Sablin is shaken by the reaction to his offer of a little humanity. It was just some tea, after all, not some political statement. On the way back to his cabin he can’t help but think about the letter he sent to his wife, Nina. In it he’d outlined his plan and his reasons for going through with the mutiny, but he never expected the kind of anger he got from his own officers.

He believes that given the chance Gindin and the others might have actually done him bodily harm. He shakes his head. The Kremlin would not be amused when they found out what was going on. But his own officers?

If he couldn’t explain the necessity for what he was doing to Gindin and the others, how could he explain it to the Russian people? He was starting to get seriously worried.

When he reaches his cabin the young sailor standing guard can’t help but notice that something is wrong.

“How’s it going?” The kid uses Sablin’s own words back at him.

Sablin looks up and manages a slight smile. “No problems,” he says. “It’s going to be a quiet night. We’ll get under way first thing in the morning with the rest of the fleet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Inside, Sablin once again walks over to his safe, but he just stands there. An almost overwhelming lethargy may have overcome him, as he realizes perhaps for the first time the enormity of the thing that he has set in motion. All of his life he has been a good Communist. Despite his student letter to Khrushchev, which very nearly derailed his career, he has been the textbook-perfect zampolit. Almost like a Baptist minister, he has tended to his flock, guiding them through the minefields of understanding, appreciating, and believing in the system they were born into.

Now he’s not so sure.

He has reached down to twist the dial for the first number in the combination when he is distracted by a commotion in the corridor. He looks up as someone pounds on the door.

“Captain Sablin!” they are shouting.

In three steps Sablin is across the cabin and he flings open his door. The sailor who has been standing guard has been joined by another sailor, Seaman Aleksei Sakhnevich, who is red faced and all out of breath.

Sablin’s heart is in his throat. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Lieutenant Stepanov and some others in his cabin! They’re talking about freeing the captain and coming to arrest you!”

It’s as if Sablin has stuck his finger in a light socket. “How do you know this?” he demands.

“They’re in the lieutenant’s cabin and the door is half-open! I heard them talking when I walked past!”

“Are you sure?”

“They’ve got guns.”

“Stay here,” Sablin tells the sailor guarding his cabin. “You, come with me,” he tells Sakhnevich, and they race down the corridor.

Lieutenant Stepanov was one of the officers who hadn’t reported for the meeting in the midshipmen’s dining hall. He was on duty, and Sablin had planned on talking with him and the few others, all of them warrant officers, who’d also been aboard ship but absent later this evening. What could a handful of officers do to interfere with the rest of the ship?

At the lieutenant’s cabin, Sablin pulls out his Makarov pistol, kicks open the door, and bursts inside, Sakhnevich holding back in the corridor.

It’s Lieutenant Stepanov and Warrant Officers Kovalchenkov and Saitov, and they all have pistols. They look up in alarm as their zampolit, brandishing a gun, comes through the doorway.

“What’s the meaning of this meeting?” Sablin cries, and his words sound stupid even in his own ears.

Stepanov steps back, raises his pistol, and thumbs the safety catch to the off position. “You’re a traitor!” he shouts.

“I’m trying to help!” Sablin pleads. “Most of the officers and all the sailors are with me! We have to do this!” He is pointing his pistol in the general direction of Stepanov and the others, but he’s neglected to switch the safety off. His weapon is not ready to fire.

“It doesn’t matter, because this mutiny will soon be over,” one of the warrant officers blurts out.