Two Captains (70 page)

"Without a doubt. But I did not mean that, I meant the exclu-siveness of his destiny. The fact that oblivion had been dogging his steps all his life, and but for us"-he said "us"-"there would hardly be a person in the world who would have known who he was and what he had done for his country and for science."

This was about the limit, and I was on the point of saying something rude to him, when the door opened and a girl came out of the interrogating officer's room and invited me in.

I had a feeling all the time that if the examiner had not been so young and attractive, she (for it was a woman) would not have questioned me in such a pointedly dry manner. But then, her interest stimulated as I gave my story, she eventually dropped her official tone.

"Are you aware. Comrade Grigoriev," she began after I had told her my age, occupation, whether I had ever stood trial before, and so on, "what business I have summoned you on?" I answered that I was.

"You once made a deposition." Evidently she meant my interrogation at N. Base. "Some things there are not quite clear, and I want to talk to you first about this." "I'm at your service," I said. "Here, for example."

She read out several passages in which I had given my conversation with Romashov at his flat word for word.

"Am I to understand that when Romashov wrote his statement against you he was a tool in the hands of some other person?"

"That person has been named," I said. "It is Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov, who is waiting outside to see you. As to who was the tool and who the hands, I cannot say. That's your problem, not mine."

I lost my temper a bit, probably because she had politely referred to Romashov's denunciation as a statement.

"Well then, it is not quite clear what purpose Professor Tatarinov could have had in trying to stop the search party. He is an Arctic scientist and you would expect any plan for the search of his lost cousin to have his deepest sympathy."

I said that Professor Tatarinov could have pursued a number of ends.

First of all, he was afraid that a successful search for the remains of the St. Maria expedition would confirm my accusations. Then, he was no Arctic scientist, but simply a type of pseudo-scientist who had built his career on the books dealing with the story of the St. Maria expedition. Therefore, any competition in this field affected his vital interests.

"Did you have serious reasons for hoping that a search would confirm your accusations?"

I answered that I did. But that no longer came into question, as I had found the remains of the expedition, and among them direct proofs which I intended to make public.

It was after this reply that my interrogator quickly climbed down from her official perch.

"Found the proofs?" she queried with genuine astonishment. "After so many years? Twenty, or even more, I believe?"

"Twenty-nine."

"What could have been preserved after twenty-nine years?"

"A good deal," I said.

"Did you find the Captain too?"

"Yes."

"Alive?"

"Of course not. We know exactly when he died-it was between the 18th and 22nd of June, 1915."

"Tell me about it."

I couldn't tell her everything, of course. But Professor Tatarinov waited long to be received, and no doubt had plenty of time to think things over and talk things over with himself before taking my place at the desk of this handsome, inquisitive woman.

I told her of things indictable and things non-indictable because of the offence having been committed so long ago. An old story! But old stories live long, much longer than appears at first sight.

She listened to my story, and though still an interrogator, she was now an interrogator who, together with me, read the letters which had been carried into our yard with the spring freshet, who together with me had copied out passages from polar exploration reports, and together with me had flown teachers, doctors and party functionaries out to remote Nenets areas.

Navigator Klimov's diaries had already been perused and the old boat-hook found-the final touch, as I had then believed, completing the picture of evidence. Then I came to the war and fell silent, because everything we had lived through rose before me in a boundless panorama, in the depths of which there just glimmered that idea which had stirred me so strongly all my life.

It was hard to explain this to an outsider, but I explained it.

"Captain Tatarinov appreciated what the Northern Sea Route meant for Russia," I said. "And it's no mere accident that the Germans tried to cut it off. I was a soldier when I flew to the place where the St. Maira expedition had perished, and I found it because I was a soldier."

Everybody came to hear my paper, even Kiren's mother. Unfortunately, I do not remember the exact words of the little speech of welcome, with quotations from the classics, with which she greeted me. The speech was a bit longish, and it amused me to see the look of resignation and despair on Valya's face as he listened to it.

I seated Korablev in the front row, directly facing the speaker's desk-1 was accustomed to looking at him when I made speeches.

"Well, Sanya," he said gaily, "I'll hold my hand like this, palm downward, and you keep an eye on it when you speak. When I start drumming my fingers, it means you are getting excited. If I don't you're not."

"Ivan Pavlovich, you're a dear."

I wasn't in the least excited, though I did feel a bit nervous, wondering whether Nikolai Antonich would come or not.

He did. After hanging up my maps I turned round and saw him in the front row, not far from Korablev. He sat with his legs crossed, looking straight in front of him with an immobile expression. I thought he had changed these last few days-his face had a hangdog sort of look, with sagging jowls and a thin, wrinkled neck showing high above the collar. It was very pleasant, of course, when the chairman, an old, distinguished geographer, before calling on me to speak, himself said a few words about me. I even regretted that he had such a quiet voice. He said that it was to my "talented tenacity" that Soviet Arctic science owed one of the most interesting pages-and I took no exception to this either, especially as the audience applauded, loudest of all Kiren's mother.

I ought not, perhaps, have made such a long preamble dealing with the history of the Northern Sea Route, even though it was an interesting history.

I spoke about this rather lamely, often halting and forgetting the simplest words, and generally humming and hawing, as Kiren said

afterwards.

But when I came to our own times and gave a general outline of the military significance of the North, I caught a glimpse of Katya far down the dark isle. She had been indisposed-having caught a cold-and had promised to stay indoors. But what a good thing, how splendid it was that she had come!

It cheered me up immensely and I began to speak with greater confidence and assurance.

"It may seem strange to you," I said, "that in a time of war I should be talking to you about an old expedition, which ended nearly thirty years ago. It's now history. But we have not forgotten our history, and perhaps our main strength lies in the fact that war has not negated or arrested a single one of the great ideas which have transformed our country. The conquest of the North by the Soviet people is one such idea."

I hesitated for a moment, as I wished to speak of how Ledkov and I had surveyed the Arctic region, but this was remote from the subject, so I switched over, none too skilfully, to the Captain's life story.

I spoke about him with an indescribable feeling. As if it were I, not he, who had been that boy, the son of a poor fisherman, born on the shores of the Sea of Azov. As if it were I, not he, who had sailed before the mast in oil-tankers plyingbetween Batum and Novorossiisk. As if it were I, not he, who had passed his examination for sub-lieutenant and had then served in the Hydrographical Board, suffering the slighting arrogance of the aristocratic officers with proud indifference. As if it were I, not he, who had made notes in the margins of Nansen's books and by whose hand was written down that brilliant idea: "The ice itself will solve the problem."

As if his was not a story of ultimate defeat and obscure death, but, on the contrary, of victory and joy. The story of friends, enemies, and love was repeated, but life was different now, and it was friends and love, not enemies, who had won the day.

As I spoke I experienced a mounting sense of exhilaration verging

on inspiration. It was as though I were looking at a distant screen and had sighted beneath the open sky a dead schooner buried in snow. But was she dead? No, there was a sound of hammering: skylights were being boarded up and ceilings covered with tarred felt in preparation for wintering.

Naval men standing in the aisle made way for Katya as she passed

to her seat, and I thought it was only right that they should make way respectfully for the daughter of Captain Tatarinov. Besides, she was the best one there, especially in that simple tailored suit. She was the best, and she, too, in a manner of speaking, had a share in that fervour and exhilaration with which I spoke about the voyage of the St. Maria.

But it was time I passed on to the scientific aspects of the drift, and I prefaced it with the statement that the facts established by Captain Tatarinov's expedition had lost none of their significance today. Thus, from a study of the drift, Professor V., the well-known Arctic scientist, deduced the existence of an unknown island between the 78th and 80th parallels, and this island was actually discovered in 1935 just where V. had figured it should be. The constant drift-current shown by Nansen was confirmed by the voyage of Captain Tatarinov, whose formulae of the comparative movement of ice and wind were a notable contribution to Russian science.

A stir of interest ran through the hall when I began to relate how we had developed the expedition's photographic films, which had lain in the earth for nearly thirty years.

The light went out, and on the screen appeared a tall man in a fur cap and fur boots strapped under the knees. He stood with head doggedly bent, leaning on his rifle, and at his feet lay a dead bear, its paws folded like a kitten's. It was as though he had stepped into that hall-a strong intrepid soul, who had been content with so little! Everyone stood up when he appeared on the screen, and the hush that fell upon the hall was so deep and solemn that not a soul dared breathe, let alone utter a word. And in this solemn silence I read out the Captain's report and his letter of farewell:

" 'It makes me feel bitter to think of all I could have accomplished if I had been-Iwould not say helped-but at least not hindered. What's done cannot be undone. My one consolation is that through my labours Russia has discovered and acquired large new territories...'

"But there is a passage in this letter," I continued when everybody had sat down, "to which I want to draw your attention. Here it is:

'I know who could help you, but in these last hours of my life I do not want to name him. I didn't have a chance to tell him to his face everything that had been rankling in my breast all these years. He personified for me all that force that kept me bound hand and foot...' Who is that man whose name the Captain did not want to utter at his dying hour? It was to him that he referred in another letter: 'It can positively be said that we owe all our misfortunes to him alone.' It was of him that he wrote: 'We were taking a chance, we knew that we were running a risk, but we did not expect such a blow.' It was of him that he wrote: 'Our main misfortune was the mistake for which we are now having to pay every hour, every minute of the day-the mistake I made in entrusting the fitting out of our expedition to Nikolai...'"

Nikolai! But there are many Nikolais in the world!

There were even no few in this auditorium, but only one of them suddenly stiffened and looked round him when I uttered that name in a loud voice; and the stick on which he was leaning dropped with a clatter. Someone picked it up and gave it to him.

"If today I am going to give the full name of that man it is not because I wish to clinch an old argument between him and me. Life itself has settled that argument long ago. But he continues to claim in his articles that he has always been Captain Tatarinov's benefactor, and that even the idea itself of 'following in the steps of Nordensk-jold', as he writes, was his. He is so sure of himself that he had the audacity to come here today and is now in this hall."

A whisper ran through the hall, then there was a hush, followed by more whispering. The chairman rang his little bell.

"Strangely enough, he has gone through life without ever having had his name spelled out in full. But among the Captain's farewell letters we found some business papers. There was one, which the Captain evidently never parted with. It was a duplicate of a bond under which: (1) On the expedition's return to the mainland all the spoils of their hunting and fishing belonged to Nikolai Antonich Tatari-nov-named in full. (2) The Captain renounced in advance any claims whatever to any remuneration. (3) In the event of the loss of the vessel the Captain forfeited all his property to Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov-named in full. (4) The ship itself and the insurance belonged to Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov-named in full.

"Once, in conversation with me, this man said that he recognised only one witness-the Captain himself. Let him deny those words now before all of us here, because the Captain himself now names him-in full!"

Pandemonium broke loose in the hall the moment I finished my speech.

People in the front row stood up and those behind shouted at them to sit down, because they could not see him. He was standing, holding up his hand with the stick in it, and shouting: "I ask for the floor, I ask for the floor!"