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

“Maybe he realized just how dangerous a situation Sablin had gotten us into and decided to warn somebody what was happening before it was too late.”

Or maybe Firsov was even smarter than that.

“Maybe it was Vladimir’s strategy to try to save us all,” Gindin recalls. “Maybe he volunteered to go over to Sablin’s side to penetrate into the zampolit’s circle in order to find a way out of the mess.”

It’s not known for sure what Firsov’s actual motivations were on that evening or exactly what he was thinking at that moment near the bow of the ship.

Someone shouts something from aft, toward the starboard side of the superstructure, and Firsov turns toward the noise. He heard his name! Somehow they know! Sablin has set men to look for him!

Someone else shouts something.

Firsov rises up just tall enough to look over the side of the bulwarks. An Alpha submarine, low in the water, dark, menacing, is at the same mooring as the Storozhevoy. He can make out a dim red glow from the open hatch at the top of the sail. The sub’s captain will know what to do.

Firsov looks over his shoulder to make sure that there’s no one to see him, and he wiggles through the hawsehole, the filthy seventy-centimeter mooring line getting his uniform dirty, and scrambles down to the bow deck of the sub.

33. THE ALARM

Sablin is hanging over the rail at the bow of the Storozhevoy trying to peer through the fog at something going on in the water below, just to the starboard side of the submarine sitting low in the water, his decks just a meter or so above the surface of the water.

It is a few minutes before 2300, and by now the entire ship has been thoroughly searched from stem to stern and from top to bottom. The sailors and officers have checked every single compartment, crawl space, and locker where a man could possibly hide.

Senior Lieutenant Firsov is not aboard. Kovalchenkov and the others locked in Stepanov’s cabin below were right. Firsov has somehow gotten off the ship and is sending for help. Right now Sablin thinks he knows how it was done.

There is something going on below. He can make out a dim red light coming from the open hatch at the top of the sail. The Storozhevoy’s mooring line goes almost straight down. A man such as Firsov could have easily have crawled through the hawsehole, shimmied down the mooring line, and made it to the deck of the sub.

But would the submarine’s commander or anyone else aboard believe such a wild story about the zampolit arresting Potulniy and taking over the ship?

A brief flash of white light from below illuminates someone scrambling down into a small launch tied up to the side of the sub. It’s like a pulse of a strobe in Sablin’s eyes, an image of a slightly built man in a navy uniform getting into that little boat.

Moments later the small boat’s engine comes to life, and the launch heads away from the submarine.

Sablin rears back. He can hear the speech he means to broadcast as if the recording were playing right now through the ship’s 1MC.

“…we are demanding that our ship be recognized as a free and independent territory. We are demanding daily broadcasts on radio and television for thirty minutes. Our goal will be to oppose the current regime…”

Words and bits and pieces of his speech buzz inside his head like insects around a night-light.

“We are neither traitors to the Motherland nor are we adventurers who seek recognition for our deeds.”

He looks over the rail again, but the launch is long gone, lost in the fog on its way ashore.

To report the situation aboard the Storozhevoy!

To call for help!

To stop them!

“…the people find themselves trapped in a stagnant atmosphere of blind obedience to authority…

“…it’s political tyranny and censorship… Our people have already suffered much… we have laughed a million times, but our laughter is mixed with tears at the thought of the Motherland’s future.”

He turns and looks up at the superstructure, the windows of the bridge. No light is showing, but he has posted guards up there. All he needed was a few more hours before morning reveille, when the entire fleet was scheduled to drop their moorings and head to sea. The Storozhevoy would have slipped away with the others, entirely unnoticed.