"It was getting dark when they left the fortress. The local man borrowed Sashko's submachine-gun and disposed of an enemy sentry, thus providing himself with a weapon.
"The three of them made their way through the back yards to Orlovsky's Mill, where a German battery was stationed. They wiped out its crew and threw the breechblocks from the guns into the river. That happened half an hour after they had left the fortress. After that they put eight guns which had been shelling the fortress out of action. First they would deal with the crew, then smash the breech-blocks, and on they went!
"In one of the skirmishes the guide was wounded in the arm. Then the three made their way to a hut in the forest where this local man was living, bandaged his arm, picked up some food, and moved on... On the second of April all three of them were found dead near a shattered German machine-gun.'.."
'"Did you find out the name of the guide, Valerian Dmitrievich?" Maremukha asked. "He must have come from round here."
"He certainly did, he was a pupil of mine... His name was Yosif Vikentievich Starodomsky!" Lazarev said proudly. "I don't suppose you remember him. He was away from the town for a long time."
"Not remember Starodomsky? Yuzik, Weasel!" I exclaimed.
"But Starodomsky was 'a sailor," Maremukha put in, also surprised. "How did he come to be here, so far from the sea, and in war-time too?"
"He was a sailor, you're right there," Lazarev replied, "perhaps I am in a better position than anyone else in this town to confirm that. Come into the museum for a minute. . ."
A clear smiling face looked down at us from a photograph draped with mourning. Yuzik wore a smart naval cap. His face had remained almost as thin and dark and stubborn as on that July morning twenty years ago when Yuzik and I stood on the captain's bridge as our ship steamed into Mariupol.
In a glass case there were several exhibits. The first that caught my eye was a rusty Turkish dagger. Above it I read the same faded notice, written a quarter of a century ago: "Presented by a pupil of the Town School, Yosif Starodomsky."
I remember one cloudless Sunday when Yuzik and I were walking round the Old Fortress. Searching for the nest of a linnet that had flown up out of some hawthorn bushes under the Donna Tower, Yuzik poked about for a long time and at last came out of the bushes, beaming with pleasure and carrying in his hand this Turkish weapon —relic of a cruel and bloody age.
With what pride he afterwards watched Lazarev, our chief adviser on the history of the town, peer down at the rusty sheath of the curved dagger, almost touching it with his pince-nez. "This weapon dates from the second half of the seventeenth century," Lazarev said at last. "It is just possible that this dagger was dropped by one of the Turkish janissaries fleeing from Podolia as the Russian troops advanced."
Beside Starodomsky's dagger there now lay a long thick note-book in strong binding. The white label bore an inscription in Indian ink: "Log-book of the Slava."
"You know what a log-book is, don't you?" Lazarev asked, noticing that I was staring at this exibit in some surprise. "It's a document that every sea captain must bring ashore if his ship is sunk. It's the living history of the ship and its voyages. It records everything that happens on board."
"But how did it come to be here?" Petka asked.
"Starodomsky picked it up just before his ship was sunk and brought it ashore," Lazarev replied.
"And after that he brought it home with him."
"May I see what's written there?" I asked.
"Why not?" Lazarev replied, "You are close friends of the owner."
The director of the museum opened the case and handed me the thick note-book. It had been started in the winter of1939 and the first entries were made in an unfamiliar hand.
From the hurried entries made during the first days of the war we could picture the situation in the southern theatre of operations during the second half of1941.
"15.02. Enemy aircraft sighted in the North-East.
Maintaining course.
15.08. 80° to starboard German aircraft attacked one of our neighbours. Force composed of 10-15 torpedo aircraft and bombers.
15.17. Chief Engineer Voskoboinikov wounded.
15.20. Attack weakening. Bombing from high altitude. Guns still firing, I have ordered Kostenko to
take over from Voskoboinikov in the engine-room. Voskoboinikov has been put in the saloon and is being attended..."
I turned over several pages of the log and read an entry made in Yuzik's handwriting, but in very big, sprawling letters:
"It is getting light. I am on a spit of land. Surely it isn't the Belosaraiskaya Kosa? How I got here I don't know. Near me a life-boat is lying on the sand. There's a terrible row in my head all the time. Must be concussion. My hands are scalded. Did the boilers burst? I'm only writing down what I remember clearly.
"Yesterday, October 7, 1941, the market was still open at ten in the morning and I sent Grisha Gusenko there with all the cash we had. The other ships were taking wounded men and machinery on board. We were anchored in the bay waiting for our turn to go in for loading. At approximately 13.00 a column of enemy tanks and submachine-gunners suddenly broke through into the harbour itself.
"Seeing that the other ships had nearly finished loading, I started the engines at half speed to avoid running aground and engaged the enemy advance guard with all the fire power at my disposal. 'I wanted to draw enemy's fire and give our chaps a chance to get away. I saw several ships cast off and steam out into the bay. The Slava was hit eight times by fire from the enemy's tanks. We burnt two enemy tanks on the quay. I saw Nazi submachine-gunners falling under my machine-gun fire. Just as we were getting away, a direct hit in the engine-room put the ship out of action. I continued to engage the enemy while the ship sank.
"We didn't stop firing until our guns were under water. Then there was an explosion and I don't remember anything more..."
"The concussion was very serious," Lazarev said. "Starodomsky could scarcely hear anything even when he got here. And his face was scalded. His uncle, a forester, told me about that. It was his uncle who gave me this logbook. At the very end there is another remarkable entry. . ."
At the back of the log-book, separated from the official entries by a few clean pages, we read a passage scrawled in the unsteady hand of an old man.
"I curse myself for not being able to get through to the East because of this concussion. When I found myself in Yasinovataya I got a lift on a coal train and decided to hide with my family until I got better.
"The front is moving farther and farther away towards Moscow. Those dirty Hitlerite hirelings are trying to put the rumour round that we are beaten. It's not true! Russia can't be beaten. And neither can the Ukraine while she is with Russia! The gravestones of our ancestors will rise and fight if there are no Soviet people left alive.
"Whatever side you come from, you Hitlerites, you can't win! You'll drown in your own blood sooner or later..."
"Those lines were written in the winter of 1941-42," said Lazarev, and looked at the photograph from which our old friend smiled down on us.
In the glass case lay the mangled remains of the German machine-gun. There were dull spots on its black steel. Perhaps they were from the blood of Yuzik Starodomsky and his comrades who had been found dead beside the gun.