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

Sablin reaches his quarters without encountering a single soul, which is spooky. The Storozhevoy is barreling up the coast toward the open Baltic Sea, his engines spooled up to top speed, and yet the corridors and companionways are deserted. No one is hanging around smoking a cigarette; no music plays from the seamen’s mess; no one is making jokes.

Once he has his safe open, he removes the taped message and retraces his steps up to the radio room, where a midshipman and an ordinary sailor are sitting in front of their radio equipment. For the first time Sablin draws a blank on their names. He knows their faces, but he cannot dredge up their names or anything else about them from his memory. And right now he is too excited, too focused, to ask.

Both men look up, alarmed by what they see in Sablin’s expression. “Are we okay?” the young midshipman asks.

“We’re perfectly okay,” Sablin replies. He hands over the tape. “This explains everything.”

“Sir?” The young officer is jumpy.

“It’s a message I taped. I want it sent out immediately on a civilian broadcast channel. The people need to know what we are doing, and why.”

The young officer holds the tape as if it were a wild animal ready to bite him. “When should we send this?”

“Right now!” Sablin fairly shouts. His nerves are finally starting to bounce all over the place. So much is at stake, and he hasn’t gotten any decent sleep or rest in the past week. He’s been too keyed up, knowing what was coming.

If only Firsov had not jumped ship!

The midshipman just sits there, a dumb expression on his face, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Now!” Sablin shouts. “Send it right now!”

“Yes, sir.” The young officer turns, shoots a look at the seaman sitting next to him, mounts the loaded reel on the recorder’s left spindle, and threads the tape through the heads to the empty twenty-five-centimeter reel on the right.

Sablin remains only long enough to see this much before he turns and hurries back up to the bridge. He has to make sure that the radar set does not remain on. Everything is coming together now. Everything is coming to a head, and yet there is so much left to accomplish.

Just a little more luck. It’s all he asks for.

Midshipman Yevgenni Kovalev has loaded the tape correctly on the machine, his hands shaking. Whatever message their zampolit has recorded will certainly be controversial.

The recording is Zampolit Sablin’s business, but a radio message from the Storozhevoy while Kovalev is on duty is his business.

The crew has mutinied; the captain was under arrest; what made you believe that it was your duty to send such a message en clair so that everyone in the Soviet Union could understand your shame?

Kovalev can hear the question now.

He flips a series of switches on his main transmitter, which will broadcast the tape to anyone with a military receiver monitoring this frequency.

But his hand hesitates at the switch that will start the message.

How will he answer the questions about his role in the mutiny? How will he defend his actions against his duties?

He hesitates a moment longer before flipping another series of switches that enables the encryption equipment to come on line. Only then does he switch the tape recorder on, and the reels begin to turn.

Sablin’s message is being broadcast from the Storozhevoy all right, but it is encrypted. No one but the navy will be able to understand what is being sent.

Sablin’s impassioned message to the people will never reach them.

43. BELOWDECKS

Gindin sits on the deck, his back to the steel bulkhead, thinking about his father. It is early morning now. In a few hours the sky to the east will begin to lighten with the dawn. But that’s topsides. Here, in the small compartment, it could be night or day, except for the numbers on their wristwatches.

Some of the others are asleep on the floor. Their situation is essentially hopeless. They are at the mercy of Sablin and his armed crewmen just outside the door. Yet they must be feeling the pinch of no water by now. Or at least Gindin hopes so.

He can see his father’s face in the dim light. It is careworn, with a hint of the illness that has just ended his life. But in happier times he was an animated, happy man.

On the day the letter came announcing that Boris has been accepted into the academy, his father was grinning ear-to-ear as he dressed in his best clothes, his holiday suit. He knotted his tie just so, polished his shoes, brushed his hair, and kissed his wife on the cheek before he left the apartment for work.