An excerpt from the novel by Alexei Ivanov “Armored steamers”

Part five. Find

01

Starting from the bend near the village of Chastye, the wide Kama unraveled into narrow channels, making their way through the many-verst placer of Chastye Islands. Pilot Fedya Panafidin indicated a place from where you can shoot at any of the three fairways – here the “Ruslo” was on duty, blocking the way for the Bolshevik steamers. The Permian flotilla was stationed in Osa, and every day armed tugboats tried to break through to the rich villages below Chastye – to Hacksaw, Elovo and Babka. The peasants were suffering, and the Reds needed free bread. Only “Ruslo” protected the peasants from the robberies of the food detachments. But on this day, a strange ship appeared downstream.

– Who is rushing there? Nikita Zybalov was surprised.

He left the cabin and rang into the bell, beating the alarm.

The crew’s shoes rattled in the iron belly of the steamer.

“Burmakin, turn left rudder to full,” Fedya ordered quietly to the helmsman, replacing the captain. – We turn around.

Zybalov became the captain of the “Rusla” after the riot of the ill-fated Dorofei. A former mechanic and soldier, Nikita knew nothing about driving a tugboat, but he didn’t need any special skills: the “Ruslo” dangled on the same small section of the river between Sarapul and Osa – these two cities, occupied by the Reds, marked the borders of Izhevsk on the Kama workers’ republic.

An unknown ship was approaching. From the “Rusla” they looked at the stranger intently. A tugboat, but not a Sergei Witte or a Dawn, that is, not from the Votkinsk flotilla. In the translucent blue expanse, he seemed black as a brand.

“The Most Holy Theotokos!..” the sailor Perchatkin gasped in shock.

Some kind of horror emanated from the steamer: its sides were dented, the windows were smashed out, the superstructure was riddled with bullets and shrapnel, the paint was burned. Although the paddle wheels were spinning, smoke was pouring from the chimney, and people could be seen on the deck, the ship seemed like a dead man. On the cabin, the name “Comrade” was barely readable.

And Fedya remembered him. Built in Kostroma by the “Druzhina”, a company of the Shipov brothers, “Tovarishch” honestly trumpeted for forty years on the Volga, and then moved to the Kama – it was bought by Captain Yakov Mikhalych Pirozhkov, a riverman from those stubborn loners who wanted to be both drivers and owners of their courts. Like almost everyone on the Kama, Pirozhkov worked either with the Lyubimovs or Yakutov, or with the Motovilikha factories, the Nobel firm, or the crafts of the Stroganov counts. There was a case, Fedya went on the “Comrade” as a pilot from Usolye to Yaroslavl. Pirozhkov did not make any impression at that time – a practical, but silent person, boring and unremarkable.

“Ruslo” and “Comrade” approached and threw the mooring lines. Fedya saw several coffins on the aft deck.

Zybalov, holding his hand on a holster with a revolver, went up to the bulwark, and on the “Comrade” a man with a makeshift crutch hobbled to the bulwark.

Are you a captain? Zybalov asked. Is there a military team?

“I’m the first mate,” the man replied. The captain is wounded. We don’t bring soldiers.

“Who fried you like that?”

– Yes, yours and tried, white. The tired first mate did not hide the truth. “We served for the Reds.

Zybalov was taken aback.

“And what the hell are you doing here?”

– And now, you see, we have become black. The first mate nodded over his shoulder at the burnt superstructure. – We’re crawling home. Reclaimed.

“Do you think I’ll let you through?” Zybalov screwed up his eyes.

Why do you need us? The sergeant shrugged.

“You are enemies,” Zybalov explained threateningly.

“Well, they were like that,” the first mate agreed reluctantly. – Well, that’s all already.

— The Bolsheviks are requisitioning your ship in Perm!

– They have nowhere to put their ships without our tub.

Zybalov thought, not knowing what to do.

“Go to the captain!” he said decisively, opening the bulwark door.

Fedya followed Nikita: in the team of “Comrade” he did not feel any danger, and Pirozhkov was an old acquaintance with whom he had to say hello.

The sight of Pirozhkov shocked Fedya – and knocked down the commander’s arrogance from Nikita. The captain of the “Comrade” was sitting on a chair in the wheelhouse next to the helmsman. His hands, wrapped in rags, he humbly held on his knees. Pirozhkov’s forehead and eyes were thickly tied with bandages, his beard stuck out in scorched tufts.

“He’s blind,” whispered the first mate, swaying on his crutch.

“Does he even hear?” Zybalov asked in confusion.

“I hear,” said Pirozhkov, without moving.

“The Bolsheviks mobilized us after Trinity in Naberezhnye Chelny,” said the first mate. “Three days ago, a hundred soldiers were driven on board to us, barrels of fuel oil were rolled up, they were ordered to be taken to Smylovka. Well, we were lucky, but where to go? .. Yours flew over the Vyatka mouth, this “Vitya” and “Dawn”. They began to hit us with cannons and machine guns. Death is invisible…

Pirozhkov said nothing, only the tufts of his beard quivered.

– We have a fire on board, and the wheelhouse caught fire … The helmsman was killed. Half of the team – into the water, and to the shore … Soldiers wounded in heaps on the deck lie, some moaning, some screaming. Yak-Mikhalych took the helm himself. The shell exploded – the captain was hit in the face … And he steers, takes us out from under the bullets …

Fedya looked at the steering wheel. Several of its wooden handles were charred. That is why Pirozhkov has both palms wrapped in rags…

– Yak-Mikhalych threw the tug ashore, – sighing, he finished the first officer. – I’ll be blind, in the darkness, according to one firm memory of the captain.

Zybalov listened and rolled his jaws on his cheekbones. He, an infantryman of the German front, was familiar with all this.

“Sure,” he said dully. — Where are you now?

– In Orel. Yak-Mikhalych’s wife is there. Gets better, come on.

Pirozhkov, like Dorotheus and his brother Sevastyan, also came from Orel, the village of captains.

“Go with God,” Zybalov allowed the first mate.

Irreconcilable to the Bolsheviks, now he realized that it does not matter who you are for – for the Whites or for the Reds. Whose power is the tenth thing, when a person chooses his appearance: human, when for his friends, or bestial, when for his own skin.

Fedya almost cried, looking at Pirozhkov, motionless, as on an icon. It seemed to Fedya that there, in his darkness, the captain saw something that is invisible to the eyes – God’s secret of life, and therefore froze in shock. If only he, Fedya Panafidin, would serve as a pilot under a captain like Yakov Pirozhkov.

02

The screw passenger ship was called Vadim Arshaulov. Ivan Diodorovich was familiar with Vadim Pavlovich – he met him in the Moscow house of Dmitry Platonovich Yakutov. Engineer Arshaulov developed a diesel engine for the famous Borodino liner; The “Borodino” series of fourteen ships allowed the “Kavkaz and Mercury” to win in the “competition of the liners.” Recognizing the merits of the engineer, the company gave the name “Arshaulov” to one of the motor ships of the victorious series. However, Ivan Diodorovich thought about this with dark bitterness. After the revolution, Vadim Pavlovich fled from the Bolsheviks abroad, and the Bolsheviks adapted the liner named after him for their headquarters.

Out of habit, a long motor ship moored to the “Merkuriev” landing stage of the city of Osa. On the raised bank rose the white Assumption Cathedral, surrounded by a garden; behind the crowns was the blue dome of the Trinity Cathedral. Armed ships, including the “Levshino”, stood at the piers under steam. In Osa, the Reds gathered both divisions of the armored fleet – “Chekist” and “sailor”. Now the flotilla was part of the Special Forces, commanded by the former staff captain Aplock. The detachment was formed to crush the uprising at the Izhevsk and Votkinsk plants.

Ivan Diodorovich did not know why he was summoned to Aploc.

Red Army soldiers scurried along the shore, unloaded carts, an auto mechanic dug into the engine of an armored car, field kitchens smoked, gunners, swearing, manually rolled a howitzer with a matting cover on the barrel through the puddles.

The sentry stopped Nerekhtin at the footbridge to the landing stage.

“Let go, fighter!” – immediately came from the Arshaulov gallery.

This was shouted by Ganka Myasnikov, the commissar of the first division.

The headquarters of the Special Forces Detachment was located in the forward restaurant. Ivan Diodorovich was alarmed that only commanders were waiting for him here: Aplock himself, the chief of staff and commissar of the detachment, and with them the Czech Langer, the new flotilla commander, and sailor Kirillov, commander of the first division.

– Here he is, Nerekhtin! – Ganka slapped Ivan Diodorovich on the back, like an old friend. – The investigation defined it as one of its own! Even in the backwater, he suppressed the counter-revolution on board, then he carried the surplus appropriation. He carried out military operations with the enemy’s steamer in earnest, so my party recommendation with him is clean and complete. Trusted friend.

Aplock did not seem to listen to Ganka, tenaciously examining Nerekhtin. He, Applec, was not even thirty years old, but he looked older from his early gray hair. Slender, with the stern bearing of an officer who had broken through the ranks and therefore honored his charter, Aplock wore a field cap without a cockade.

How long have you been a captain? he asked Nerekhtin.

Ivan Diodorovich liked that they didn’t poke him like a Bolshevik.

“Since ninety-one,” he replied.

“I suppose Kama has been studied well?”

– I’m going without a pilot.

“That’s their position, which is good,” Ganka put in, explaining.

Ganka felt that he was not an authority for the military, and he fussed, trying his best to impress himself as a specialist in local shipping.

— Do you know the village of Arlan? Apple frowned slightly.

I know, but I haven’t been there. There is a road to Arlan from Nikolo-Berezovka.

Do you know anything about the oil industry?

Ivan Diodorovich remembered how Hans Ivanovich Vikfors, the manager of the Nobel campus, told him several times about Arlan.

“The Branobel was drilling somewhere near Arlan. I haven’t heard of fountains though.

“There are no fountains,” Aplock agreed. – So far, only towers in the forests.

“I was an active member of the underground in Baku,” Ganka immediately poked his head in again. – Sabunchi-tabunchi, I’ve seen all sorts of trades. The earth is drilled for a year or two, oil is in deep belts. The republic is nowhere without oil!

“By order of Commander Berzin, we must take these fisheries under protection,” said Aplock, watching Ivan Diodorovich. – We need to deliver a landing of sailors there on a barge. I entrust this to you, Comrade Nerekhtin.

Ivan Diodorovich said nothing. Coercion has always oppressed him.

– Refusing? Ganka stared cheerfully at Nerekhtin.

Ivan Diodorovich had no doubt that Ganka – give him a reason – would pounce on him with the same ardor with which he had just praised him, and tear him to shreds.

“I’m not refusing,” he sullenly laid siege to Ganka. “But there are considerations…” Nerekhtin looked at Aplock incredulously. Or is it not important?

“Speak,” said Applec calmly.

— We’ll have to break past the chebak.

“They call the Votkinsk Chebaks,” Ganka explained.

– And Nikolo-Berezovka, where the road to Arlan came from, a long time ago …