I told him what it was about, and he surveyed his craft with an air of
cool pride, as though he had never doubted that she would take her
destined place in the history of the Russian fleet. It may sound rather
funny, but the fact is that my encounter with the Lebedin cheered me up
immensely. Although I had read the life of Captain Tatarinov, the last
page of it still remained closed to me.
"This is not the end yet," that old tugboat with her ruddy-cheeked young
skipper seemed to be saying to me. "Who knows, the time may yet come
when you will succeed in turning that page and reading it."
On my third visit to the Personnel Officer I asked him to post me to a
regiment, or, if that was impossible, to place me under the orders of the
Northern Fleet Air Arm HQ.
He was obviously in the know as regards my personal affairs and service
record, because, after a pause, he asked me in a kindly tone:
"What about your health?"
I told him I was as fit as a fiddle. It was the truth or pretty near the
truth, for I always felt better in the North than I did in the South, the
West or the East.
"Ah well, I suppose you'd better be put to use rather than hang about
doing nothing at such a time," the Personnel Chief said reasonably if
rather vaguely.
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He had in mind, of course, my being used on the ground. "Catch me
doing ground work. I'm going to fly," I said to myself as I watched his
old but strong hand writing down and underlining my name on his desk
diary.
I was appointed to an Arctic base within several kilometres of
Polarnoye.
I am not going to say much about the air war in the North, though it
was very interesting, since nowhere else were the qualities of the
Russian airman displayed with such brilliance as here in the North,
where, to all the difficulties and hazards of flying and fighting were
added those of bad weather and six months of Arctic night. I heard one
British officer say: "Only Russians can fly here." This was a flattering
exaggeration, of course, but we had earned the compliment.
Combat conditions in the North were much more difficult than in the
other theatres of air warfare. The German transports usually hugged the
coastline, keeping as close to the cliffs as their draught would permit. It
was hard to sink them, not only because transports, generally speaking,
are hard to sink, but because it is impossible or well-nigh impossible to
get a clear run-in at a transport which is under a cliff.
In July I went to Kirkenes with a load of bombs-with fair success, as
the photographs showed. At the beginning of August I persuaded my
regimental commander to let me go out "hunting" in search of German
convoys. Paired with some lieutenant we sank a transport of four
thousand tons. Strictly speaking, it was the lieutenant who did the
sinking, as my torpedo, launched at too close range, slipped under the
keel and went wide. But in that fight everything was put to the test,
including my wounded leg, which behaved splendidly. I was pleased,
although during the debriefing the squadron commander proved
incontestably that this was just the way transports "ought not to be
sunk". Two or three days later he had occasion to repeat his arguments,
as I flew still lower over a transport, so low that I came home with a
piece of the ship's aerial embedded in my wing. The transport—my
first—was sunk, so that his arguments, while losing none of their
cogency, acquired merely a theoretical interest.
To be brief, I sunk a second transport in the middle of August, one of
six thousand tons, escorted by a patrol vessel and a torpedo boat. This
time I was accompanied by the squadron leader himself and I noticed
with amusement that he attacked from still lower than I did. Needless to
say, he did not give himself a reprimand.
And so life went on—on the whole, not at all badly. At the end of
October the Air Force Commander congratulated me on the award of
the Order of Alexander Nevsky.
I already had friends at the base—the placid, taciturn, pipe-smoking
navigator in the wide trousers turned out to be an intelligent, well-read
man. True, he had little to say for himself, and that little was reduced to
nil when we were in the air, but when asked, "Where are we?" he always
answered with astonishing accuracy. I liked his way of getting onto the
target. We were unlike each other, but you cannot help getting to like a
man who shares with you every day the hard and hazardous work of
flying and making torpedo attacks. If we were to meet death, it would be
together, the same day and hour. And those who face death together,
face life together.
I had other friends at the base besides my navigator, but this was not
the friendship my heart was yearning for. No wonder such a heap of
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unmailed letters had accumulated in those days-I was hoping that Katya
and I would read them together after the war.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DOCTOR SERVES IN THE ARCTIC
I dreamt all night that I had been wounded again, that Doctor Ivan
Ivanovich was bending over me and I was trying to say to him:
"Abraham, saddle, drink", but I couldn't, I was struck dumb. This was a
recurrent dream, but the first one in which this long-forgotten sensation
of dumbness was so vividly real.
And so, waking up before reveille, I found myself thinking of the
doctor and recollected Romashov telling me that the doctor had come to
visit his son at the front. I don't quite know how to explain it, but I felt
vaguely disturbed by this memory, which had been on my mind for a
long time. I went over it word for word and realised what it meant:
Romashov had been telling me that the doctor was serving at Polarnoye.
The amazing thing is that the doctor, too, had been thinking about me
on that very day and at that very hour. He assured me of it quite
seriously. He had read the order concerning my decoration the day
before and at first had not thought it was me. "There are plenty of
Grigorievs in the world," he had said to himself. But the next morning,
while still in bed, he decided that it must be me, like me, he made for the
telephone immediately.
"Ivan Ivanovich!" I cried, when a hoarse voice, which it was hard to
associate with the doctor, reached me as though fighting its way through
the howling autumn wind which raged that morning over Kola Bay.
"This is Sanya Grigoriev speaking. Do you recognise me? Sanya!"
I remained in ignorance as to whether the doctor had recognised me
or not, because the hoarse voice changed to a rather melodious
whistling. I roared myself red in the face, and telephone operator,
appreciative of my efforts, informed me that "Medical officer, Second
Class, Pavlov was reporting".
"What's he reporting? Tell him this is Sanya speaking!"
"Very good," said the telephone girl. "He asks whether you'll be at N.
Base this evening and where can he find you?"
"I'll be here!" I yelled. "Let him come to the Officers' Club. Is that
clear?"
The operator did not say anything, then something clicked in the
earpiece and a voice, which did not sound like hers, growled: