The Storozhevoy is a little universe all of its own, connected to Fleet Headquarters only by radio while at sea. The captain is the supreme authority, of course. He has the power of life and death over his crew. His eighteen officers are his standard-bearers, responsible for every detail 24/7. That means if an ordinary sailor makes a mistake, the first person to take the heat will be the officer in charge of his section. And the punishments, especially when Novozilov is involved, will be swift and harsh. More than one Soviet naval officer’s career has been short-circuited because he didn’t pay attention to how his sailors were behaving.
Two schedules are kept aboard ship. The routine daily one that starts with wake-up at six in the morning and ends with bedtime at ten in the evening. Intertwined is the duty schedule in which every sailor and officer works eight hours per twenty-four, is on call for eight hours, and is off for eight hours. That means everybody aboard adheres to both schedules at the same time, which can be grueling.
At 0600 reveille sounds and everyone in bed gets up. The ship’s day has begun, and for the next thirty minutes everyone who can be spared from duty comes up on deck for exercises, no matter the weather. These are push-ups, jogging in place, stretches, and sit-ups. Afterward the men have a half hour to clean up and get dressed for duty.
Showers aboard a Soviet warship are almost as rare as democratic elections. Freshwater is very scarce, so everyone, even officers, is allowed to take a shower only every few weeks, perhaps once a month. It’s just a fact of life aboard that no one questions.
After the first week at sea everyone stinks to high heaven—but it’s everyone, so after a while no one seems to notice. But when you do get to take a shower and change into clean clothes you suddenly realize that everyone else smells really bad.
Since Lieutenant Gindin is in charge of the water makers and water-heating equipment he can be one of the more popular officers aboard.
Breakfast starts at 0700 and can last as long as forty-five or fifty minutes. It’s when everyone gets to talk about the coming duty day or perhaps problems on the overnight shifts or about family and kids and letters from home. And it’s the time to tell jokes—but never about a man’s wife or girlfriend. It is an unwritten rule. Duty at sea is tough enough without worrying about your wife because one of your fellow officers told an off-color joke and put an idea into your head.
If Potulniy or Novozilov or even Sablin is in the officers’ dining hall while they are in port, the jokes cease and everyone finishes eating as quickly as possible and gets back to work.
“We had to prove that we didn’t have any extra time on our hands,” Gindin says.
But at sea the atmosphere, at least in the dining hall, is more relaxed, even when the captain is there. Everyone tells jokes, because the pressure on them is enormous and a good belly laugh provides a little relief.
Even Potulniy isn’t above playing a little practical joke. The Storozhevoy had a new dietary officer assigned to the crew. His main job was to take charge of all the food and miscellaneous supplies aboard. According to the duty roster, he was listed as an assistant to the captain. This dietary officer had never gone to any naval academy to learn a profession; he got his rank in an army college before he was sent out to the fleet, but as a captain’s assistant he thought that he was a pretty big deal.
So a few days out, Potulniy sends the dietary officer to do a complete inventory of all the food and supplies, and when he is finished he bumps into Boris in a corridor.
“The inventory is finished, Comrade Lieutenant,” the big shot says, a self-important smile plastered on his rat face.
But Boris has caught on right away. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean? I checked everything!”
“But not the lifeboats. They have to be checked for supplies such as chocolate and spirt. You know, in case we have to abandon ship we’ll need those things in order to survive. But a lot of the time the sailors get into the lifeboats and steal everything.”
Of course this is simply not true. Lifeboats are hermetically sealed in canisters and open automatically when they are launched into the water.
“I’ll take care of it immediately, Comrade.”
“But you’ll need the captain’s permission first,” Boris reminds the young officer.
The next day at lunch in the officers’ dining hall Potulniy introduces the new dietary officer to the others. “How do you like this?” the captain says. “Our new lieutenant has never seen a ship before, except in a picture, and now he wants my permission to open all our lifeboats to check the supplies. What do you think?”
The joke is on the hapless lieutenant, and the other officers have a good laugh, in part because the guy was such a self-important ass but also because the captain has just shown them that he’s human after all.
At 0800 everyone not stuck at their duty stations assembles on deck to salute the raising flag. This is another time that the crew, especially the officers, is feeling a wave of patriotism. It’s the same in every navy; some of the crew are happy to salute their flag, while others couldn’t be bothered. And all of the patriots pretty well know who’s in the other group.
The first four-hour duty shift begins at midnight, the second at 0400, and the third at 0800. So it is right after the flag ceremony when the oncoming crews assemble in the dining areas, where they meet their officers, who escort them to their duty stations to conduct the first equipment checks of their shift.
During each twenty-four-hour period one officer and a sailor-assistant are assigned the responsibility for the entire ship. It’s their job to make sure that the proper officers show up at their assigned times. During the evening hours, from ten at night until six in the morning, it’s the sailor’s job to go up to each duty officer’s cabin and remind him that his shift is coming up. During the daytime hours, it’s the officer in charge who makes the announcements over the 1MC, the ship’s intercom.
The officers not on duty from 0900 until noon on alternate Mondays are expected to teach political classes to the sailors in their divisions. No one likes this job except for Sablin, who often volunteers to handle it for the officers. No one turns down the zampolit.
On all other days, from 0900 to noon, the standby officers make sure that their areas of responsibility are clean and conduct training sessions for their sailors on the equipment and on their military duties and responsibilities.
From noon to 1300 is lunch, and afterward until 1400 is something called admiral’s hour. It’s when everyone aboard ship who isn’t on duty gets to relax. It’s about the only time in the day that anyone gets a real break, although some officers find little things for their sailors to finish up, and of course the inventive sailors make damned sure they’re nowhere in sight when their officer comes looking. It is admiral’s hour, after all.
The 1400 period starts with a glass of juice for every sailor aboard, followed by two hours of training on emergency procedures: military actions including biological or chemical attack—the Storozhevoy is a warship—as well as the usual emergency procedures covering fires, man overboards, and other accidents.
From 1600 to 1800, more ship cleaning—this time not only the duty stations but every square centimeter of the ship is washed and polished. That includes the crew’s cubricks and the officers’ cabins.
From 1800 to 1900 is dinner, and from 1900 until 2030 is another free period. But this is one of the times when sailors and officers alike are expected to play catch-up with whatever they didn’t have a chance to finish earlier. And there’s always some of that.