The Town By The Sea

ACROSS THE AZOV WAVES

Such a gale blew up in the evening that the yellow waves raged fiercely even in the harbour. The low-funnelled paddle steamer moored there ready for sailing rose and fell on the pounding seas.

The name of the ship was written in a semi-circle over one of the paddle-wheels:

FELIX DZERZHINSKY

Not long ago when calling at our port on its way to Kerch, this steamer had been the first to bring us the sad news of the death of the man whose name it now bore. Even before, it entered the harbour from the bay, we heard the melancholy note of its siren. Its flag, edged with mourning, flew at half mast.

Before the newspapers arrived from Mariupol, we had learnt all the details from the ship's wireless operator. We were told that Felix Dzerzhinsky had died of heart failure in Moscow, after his speech to the Central Committee, where with his usual vehemence he had exposed those despised enemies of the people—the Trotskyites. The news of Comrade Dzerzhinsky's death overwhelmed us... Not long ago, just before I set out for this town, I had heard Dzerzhinsky ring up the chief of our frontier-guard detachment. I still remembered with what excitement Nikita had said to me: "Do you know who that was on the phone? The first security man of the Revolution!"

The next day, at lunch-time, on Flegontov's instructions, I read out the Central Committee's announcement on the death of Dzerzhinsky to the workers of the foundry.

"The sudden death from heart failure of Comrade Dzerzhinsky, terror of the bourgeoisie, true knight of the proletariat, noble fighter for the communist revolution, tireless builder of our industry, ceaseless toiler and fearless soldier of great battles...

"His weak heart, strained beyond endurance, at last refused to function and death claimed him instantly. Death in battle..."

I got that far and stopped. Choking sobs rose in my throat. With an effort I checked myself from

bursting into tears before the whole foundry, before the sad, stern faces of my mates. Afterwards, when in a quiet, muffled voice I had finished reading the announcement, folded the newspaper and was walking back to my machine, Flegontov came up behind me and placed his heavy graphite-smeared worker's hand on my shoulder.

"Hard to read, wasn't it, Vasil?" he said quietly. "I know how you feel. What a great loss! You understand, old chap, how all of us—young and old, Communists and non-Communists—must rally round the Party to make up for our loss. We must press on no matter what the bourgeoisie plot against us. . ."

And now, as I stood on the quay looking at that name I loved so well, I still could not get used to the idea that Dzerzhinsky was no longer with us...

The Felix Dzerzhinsky was on her way to Rostov-on-Don from the Crimea and we were to make the stormy voyage on her to Mariupol, where a district Komsomol conference was being held.

Not being used to rough weather, we felt rather scared of putting out to sea on a night like this...

A tall sailor appeared on the upper deck and shouted: "Hi, Selezen! Get the boats ready!"

The sailor's voice had a familiar ring but I could not see his face.

Tolya Golovatsky, who was standing near me, said: "It's going to be tough, chaps! The barometer's falling."

"The wind seemed a bit quieter to me..."

"Don't you believe it, Mandzhura. Take a look at the weather tower. There were only eight balls hanging up there, this afternoon. Now there are nine."

"Yes, if the captain has ordered them to get the lifeboats ready, the sea must be really rough," Kolotilov, the freckled secretary of the customs Komsomol group, agreed with Golovatsky.

We mounted the creaking gangway and the officer of the watch checked our tickets. Golovatsky suggested going up on deck.

"The cabins are stuffy, you'll feel rotten down there," he said, glancing at Kolotilov who was already looking rather pale.

Having stacked our things near the stern life-boat, we went to the rail. We could make out distant signal lights somewhere near Kobazovaya Hill.

Soon the gangway was taken in. The stevedores cast off the bow line. There was a hiss of steam, the engine burst into life and the ship moved slowly away from the granite harbour wall. The stern line slipped off the mooring post and was thrown on to the deck. Its paddles churning swiftly, the ship manoeuvred out into the harbour. The rudder chain clanked. Slowly the grey hump-backed warehouses dwindled in the distance.

Striving to make his voice heard above the roar of the wind, Golovatsky shouted: "Shall we have a song, chaps?"

And taking our answer for granted, he struck up in a deep pleasant voice:

Forward, young sailors and Communists all,

Arise to build the new age!. . .

Looking back affectionately at our little harbour, we picked up the refrain in ringing voices that were at once borne away on the wind.

Dotted with twinkling yellow lights our town slipped past along the sandy Azov shore. As I sang my favourite song, I tried to pick out the lighted window of our little house. Sasha and Petka had volunteered to see me off, but I had refused. It had not been certain that the ship would leave on time, and they had to work the next day.

I also wanted to spot Lika's ivy-covered window in the house next door. Now I was sure that she would carry out her promise. At dinner today, Maria Trofimovna, our landlady, had unwittingly confirmed my conviction.

"There's been a terrible crying to-do next door," she had said. "The lady's sobbing her heart out and the engineer's black as thunder. Their daughter wants to go to Leningrad and they've been trying to talk her out of it. Her mother says she'll give her anything. 'You don't need that .. . what d'ye call it ... "conservatoire," ' she says. 'We'll teach you at home. I'll hire two teachers and the choir-master from the Liski church will come round too. You'll die of consumption in Leningrad. But their daughter won't give in. Dead set on the idea, she is. She's a stubborn little miss."

Maria Trofimovna was a reliable source of information about next door and as I listened to her I felt glad Lika was going away, yet sorry that she would go without my being there to see her off. I had wanted to talk to her frankly about everything and say good-bye to her and wish her success in her new life of independence.

Children of workers and sailors, we march

With hearts that are strong and loyal.

No fear have we oftempest or storm,

Nor of long hard days of toll. . .

sang the boys.

The ship was pitching hard. Now it would plunge down from a billowing, foam-capped wave, so that your heart rose to your throat and your legs suddenly felt as if they had been filled with air, now it would rear up on a mountain of angry water and-the paddles would lash the long broken ridges of the waves. The rising wind howled at us from the pitch blackness of the open sea which was broken only by the flashing beam of the beacon on the headland.

One by one, the shore lights disappeared and the light of 'the beacon showed us that we were leaving the bay.

But we sang in spite of the storm:

Let the storm winds rage and the tempest blow, The tide of the workers is high.

Forward, young sailors and Communists all, Forward to conquer or die!...

"Your singing's fine, but do you mind clearing your stuff away from the boats. We might have to lower them if things get worse." Again I heard that familiar voice, this time at my elbow.

I turned. For an instant the beam from the lighthouse showed up the face of a young navigating officer and I recognized my old friend.

"Weasel!"

I gave such a shout that all our delegates turned round.

The sailor fell back a pace and his quick gypsy eyes widened. Obviously it was a long time since anyone had called him by his childhood nickname. For a moment he rubbed his forehead in a puzzled fashion, as if trying to remember something, and only when the beam from the lighthouse swept again over the heaving deck did he run towards me with outstretched arms.

"Mandzhura!. . . Where did you spring from?" ... Something caught in Yuzik's throat. He glanced round helplessly, then mastering his excitement, he spoke more quietly.

"Fancy meeting you here? Well, I'm darned! Vasya!. . ." I could hardly believe it myself. On a ship's deck, in a storm like this! But he it was, my old friend Weasel!

Half an hour later, the Felix Dzerzhinsky rounded the harbour bar and set course across the open sea for Mariupol. Yuzik was relieved from his watch and invited me to the officers' saloon. Golovatsky and several of the other delegates went with me.

With great difficulty, clutching hand-rails and banging our elbows on the bulkheads, we made our way to the saloon.

"I've found a friend, Nikolai Ivanovich!" Yuzik said joyfully to an old waiter in a white apron. "Haven't seen each other for years!. . . How long is it since we met, Vasil?"

"Over five years."

Weasel put his arm round my shoulders and said reproachfully: "You couldn't even write to me!

You're a fine pal!"

"But we did write to you! Petka and I, both of us! You answered once, then dried up. We we're a bit sore about it, thought your naval training had made you stuck-up."

"Me stuck-up!" Yuzik laughed. "I kept on writing and the letters came back to me all the time."

"What address did you write to, I wonder?"

"To 37, Zarechye."

"So that's what it was!" I said with relief. "We had moved to a flat in the Party School."

"Now I understand," Weasel said, also with a kind of relief in his voice, and again his face brightened with joy.

The ship was pitching and rolling. Any moment, it seemed, the huge waves would smash one of the glass portholes and pour into the saloon.

"You've grown up," Weasel said eyeing me closely. "Not the same Vasya that ransacked the birds' nests, eh! Remember how we found that hawk's nest on the cliff near the cemetery?"

"You bet I do!" I said smiling. "We found a yellow egg there with red spots on it."

"Yes, a very rare egg. And Dad chucked it away with all the rest of my collection." There was a genuine note of regret in Weasel's voice.

"That was when you took two icons out of their frames and put eggs in them instead, wasn't it?"

"That's right," he exclaimed. "What a memory you've got!"

"You made us so jealous with your gilded boxes. None of us had anything like them."

"No, they didn't," Weasel agreed and his face broke into a broad smile.

The waiter came over to us, wiping his tray and balancing with the agility of a tight-rope walker.

"What's this, friends meeting at an empty table!" he said with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

Golovatsky winked at me, then cleared his throat pompously and asked: "Any lobsters?"

"What do you mean, sir!" The waiter stared at Golovatsky as if he had dropped from the moon.

It cost us a great effort not to burst out laughing.

Weasel also looked at Tolya in surprise. How was he to know that it was a favourite joke of our secretary's to amuse us with the knowledge of aristocratic manners that he had gleaned from old novels?

"What else has this unsavoury establishment to offer then?" Golovatsky drawled in his best aristocratic manner.

The old waiter brightened up visibly.

"Olives, if you wish, sir! Caviare, fresh or salted! Very nice with fresh cucumbers! Butter. Smoked mullet. Mackerel. Sturgeon. Herrings and mustard sauce. Cold veal and horse-radish..."

"Listen, old chap," Tolya said, suddenly changing his tone, "give us a good plateful of olives and about ten pounds of bread. We've got terrific appetites. Is your bread fresh?"

"Baked in Kerch," said the waiter.

"That's fine!" Golovatsky said. "Nice and crusty?"

"Very crusty, sir!"

"Let's go on then. Butter. Cucumbers. Mackerel, or mullet, if it's good. And tea with lemon in it, of course... "

"Nothing to drink?"

"How do you mean, 'nothing'?" Tolya exclaimed. "What about the tea?"

"Nothing stimulating?" The waiter eyed our secretary meaningfully.

"Don't go in for such things," Tolya snapped. "We'll have some mineral water though, if you've got it."

"The passengers drank it all this afternoon!" And the waiter spread his arms despairingly.

"Just a sec', chaps!" Yuzik jumped to his feet and walked quickly to the companion way with as much ease as if the ship had not been rolling at all.

My old friend had been nimble enough as a boy. He had Ukrainian, Polish, and perhaps even gypsy blood in his veins. There wasn't a cranny in the Old Fortress that he hadn't climbed into, and that was why we had called him Weasel. But at sea Yuzik's movements had become amazingly sure and supple. He swayed effortlessly with the roll of the ship. Just the man to dance a hornpipe at one of our shows!

"Fine chap, isn't he?" I said to Tolya.

"Looks as if he's a smart sailor," Tolya agreed. There was a clatter from the companion way as Weasel ran down it carrying two bottles of mineral water. A third was peeping out of his side pocket.

"From my own cellar!" he said heaving a deep breath. And to the waiter: "Nikolai Ivanovich, bring us some glasses, please."

"'Coming right away, Yosif Vikentievich!" the waiter called.

It was the first time anyone had addressed my old friend by his patronymic in my presence. I didn't

even know that Weasel was a "Vikentievich!"

Well, our childhood days were over now. Gone were those wonderful times when we used to run about the grassy banks of the Smotrich hoping to find Turkish coins in the mud.

"What's your job on this ship, Yuzik?" I asked.

"I'm fourth mate," Yuzik replied. "Before I came to the Azov Sea, I'd sailed on quite a few other craft—the Toiler of the Sea, the Feodosiya, and the Pestel. I went through my practical training on the Transbalt. Even went abroad on her."

"How did you manage it all in the time!" I said, envying Weasel a little. "We only finished at the factory-training school this year."

"I'm older than you," Yuzik replied with dignity. "You and Maremukha were still at the people's school when I was manning sails off Batumi."

A heavy wave struck the ship. Tea-spoons scattered over the buffet-counter. A few olives slipped off their plate and rolled over the floor.

"Oho!" said Yuzik, and listened for a moment. "That took us head on. The wind's changing. It'll be blowing right from the East soon."

"Will an east wind be better or worse than the one we've got now, Yuzik?" I asked as off-handedly as I could, but there must have been a note of alarm in my voice.

Yuzik eyed me keenly.

"Afraid of getting drowned, Vasil? Don't worry! This ship can weather any storm. A change of wind can't hurt her."

With the head wind howling louder and louder outside it was pleasant to sit among a circle of new friends listening to your old friend yarn about his voyage, remembering other old friends and the battle with those boy-scout snobs...

Then Yuzik took me over the ship, showed me the stokehold, the chart house, the crew's quarters, and finally led me to his cabin. He made his bed on a little couch, and since I was his guest, offered me the narrow bunk with a high side to prevent one from falling out.

The cabin was cosy and well looked after. Above the table hung a bookshelf with a number of books on navigation and steering. I thumbed through one of the books whose margins were covered with notes in Yuzik's hand. It was hard to believe that my old friend had already learnt something so incomprehensible to me as this science of navigating a ship.

A kind of map moulded in lead hung over the couch. There was something familiar about it. On glancing at it more closely I recognized the outlines of our town, copied from a map of the sixteenth century.

Putting his arm round my shoulder, Yuzik said: "I bought it in Odessa. I thought I'd seen it somewhere before, so I took a closer look. And blow me if it wasn't our town!"

"The Old Fortress is shown on it too! Look!" I exclaimed, examining the fortress with its walls and bastions that barred the entrance to the town.

"It's very fine work. Everything's shown, even the smallest tower," Weasel assented. "And the river Smotrich. See how it makes a loop round the town that's knotted by the fortress?"

"And here's the fortress bridge! Gosh the banks are steep here! Remember, Yuzik, how we carried flowers across that bridge to Sergushin's grave and Maremukha was frightened all the time that we'd be stopped by Petlura men?"

"As if I could ever forget it!" Weasel answered, and I realized that the evening we had spent tending the grave of the murdered Bolshevik had made a deep mark on him too. "But where do you three live?"

"In Primorskaya Street. Almost next door to the harbour."

"Gosh, what a pity!..." Yuzik murmured. "If I'd known, I should always have dropped in to see you when we were in port. . ."

When at last we had exchanged all our news, it seemed almost as if we had never parted. We realized that not only had we grown up and become men, but that our young country had grown up too.

I learnt that while he was still on the Black Sea Yuzik had been admitted to the ranks of the Communist Party. The oldest of our trio, he had become a Communist at the time of Lenin's death in 1924. Lying on the little plush coach, his feet propped against the wall of. the next cabin, Yuzik asked: "Is yours an important invention, Vasil? Or just a little thing?"

So I had to tell him about that too.

... I had found people who were willing to take up my proposal. Andrykhevich's remark about my "fantastic ideas" had scared off Fedorko, the foreman, but it had not affected our director. After all, someone at head office had even called Ivan Fyodorovich a "reckless character" because he was planning to raise the roof of the foundry and complete the blast-furnace without stopping production.

The director had called me up and said: "Well done, Mandzhura! Go on plugging away at things, as you are now. It's a good thing to work hard and fulfil your target, but use your brains as well. Let your imagination go!.. . You won't object if we put an engineer with you on the job for a week or so, will you? Not to make him a co-designer, of course, but to get your idea into proper technical shape." Naturally I agreed willingly.

Soon a placard appeared over the works gate: "Young Workers! Follow the example of the young foundry men. Vasily Mandzhura's rationalization proposal will save the plant 660 working hours per day. His proposal to get rid of the heaters and introduce a central heating system will also protect workers from catching cold and other illnesses!"

This placard, so I heard later, had been drawn on Golovatsky's advice by the same artists from the metalworkers' club who had caricatured the frequenters of Rogale-Piontkovskaya's dancing-saloon.

Rudenko thanked me publicly on behalf of the whole works and awarded me a prize of 500 rubles.

We were no longer in danger of having to make do with "tropical furniture." That night, while I chatted with Yuzik, my friends were sleeping at home on proper comfortable beds, with spring mattresses. And there was a bed in the attic for me, too, covered with a green woolly blanket.

With this unexpected windfall we subscribed to Home University for Workers, as well as to several magazines and a daily newspaper.

Following Golovatsky's advice I bought myself an excellent brown tweed suit and a good pair of shoes at the co-operative store.

And even then II still had ninety-five rubles left over. This I put away in the savings bank. I told none of my friends what I needed the savings for. That was a secret. I had decided to save the money in case Angelika needed it when she was in Leningrad. Whether asked for my help or not, I considered it my duty to assist her at the start of her independent life.

"Well, now I understand why you've been made a delegate to the conference!" Yuzik said, when I had told my story. "And what are your plans for the future?"

"Everything's decided, Yuzik!" I answered proudly. "All three of us are going to study at the workers' university. Work in the day-time, study in the evening. The winter will pass in no time... Where will you

be this winter, when the sea freezes?"

"On the Black Sea. Odessa-Sukhumi line. Or perhaps I'll get a job on an ice-breaker, helping the Azov Sea fishermen."

"Ice-breakers are little ships, aren't they?"

"Yes, not very big. Sailors laugh at them. 'Old tin cans!' they call them. But I don't mind. While you're young you can learn navigation even on coasting vessels. And soon, you know, we'll be having ocean-going ships here. That'll mean long voyages. We may even go up to the Arctic. Look up there," Yuzik nodded at the bookshelf, "I'm studying the charts of the Barents and Karsk seas in my spare time."

"So you like your life too, Yuzik?"

"Like it? That's hardly the word! As soon as I see a compass dial in front of me, I feel on top of the world. The waves slap against the bows, the engine- chugs down below, and I keep watch knowing that the lives of our passengers are in my hands. They sleep peacefully in their cabins, confident that I know my job, and it's my duty to steer the ship on a safe course!... And there are enough seas to last my lifetime. And stars to reckon by. . . Now let's get to sleep, Vasil! I'm due on watch at four." And Yuzik put out the light.

The waves kept heaving the ship up on their great crests, then letting her down into yawning troughs. Creaking and groaning she reared and fell over the oncoming seas, beating them into submission with her paddles. The engine thudded steadily below. It was powerful enough, as Yuzik had explained to me, to light our town and all the surrounding villages as well.

As the ship steamed on its course, I listened to the steady beat of the engine and thought how fine it was that we, chaps, had not been mistaken about our path in life. My father had said something good about that in his last letter to me from Cherkassy. He told me how he had once had to dissuade my aunt from the absurd idea of taking me with her to Cherkassy. "But I thought, Vasil," my father wrote, "that it would be better to let you stay at the factory-training school. Now your hands know a good trade, and although you had a lot of difficulty learning it, it's better than being tied to your aunt's apron strings. I am sure that now you are on a true, independent path of your own, you won't let anyone budge you from it. I also approve of your decision to go and study at the workers' evening university. Good lad! Soviet power is giving you, young people, things that we of the older generation didn't even dare dream about. And it would be wrong if you didn't take advantage of what we've gained by the Revolution. Learn and study, son, don't waste your life on trifles, remember that communist society can only be built by educated people with firm characters and a clear idea of what they are striving for."

Mariupol came up at dawn, wonderfully white and clean in the rays of the morning sun.

When I opened my eyes sleepily and saw the pink light of dawn filtering through the porthole, I jumped out of my bunk. Yuzik's couch was empty and the bedding gone. When he went on watch, Yuzik had left the cabin silently, without even waking me.

I washed my face quickly over the basin and feeling fresher slipped out of the cabin. Swabs were swishing up and down the deck and water was hissing out of hoses. Stalwart sailors, barefoot and with their trousers rolled up to their knees, were washing down the forecastle head. The deck gleamed wetly under my feet. Its clean boards smelt fresh. A bright pennant fluttered at the mast.

The white horses riding from the east were flushed pink in the windy dawn. But what were they to compare with the mountainous foam-capped waves of yesterday! Weasel had been right; the wind blowing from Rostov had not only tamed the storm, it had brought down a lot of fresh water from the Don. The sea had become even yellower and in some places looked like the sandy shores of Tavria.

Mariupol spread out before us. The chimneys of a big plant were smoking in the background. Flame-flecked clouds of smoke belched from the black, dumpy blast-furnaces. "That must be Sartana!" I

thought.

The railway station of Sartana outside the town was the place where the Ilyich plants were situated. Before the Revolution they had belonged to the Providence Company. Probably most of the delegates to the conference would be from these plants, for they were the biggest on the Azov coast. They had more Komsomol members in one of their shops than we had in the whole works.

And as soon as I thought of the conference, I began to feel worried. What should I say in my speech?

"Mind you speak, Mandzhura!" Golovatsky had advised me when he handed me my mandate the day before I left. "Tell them about your working experience. But don't get nervous. Think out what you are going' to say on the journey."

I had thought of everything but that!. . .

"Awake already, Vasil? Come up here!" Yuzik called out.

He was standing on the captain's bridge in a tunic with little gold chevrons on the sleeves and a peaked cap. A pair of binoculars dangled on his chest.

"How did you sleep? All right?"

"It was all right for me, but you didn't have much."

"We mustn't get into the habit. Our job's like that— sailors always sleep with one eye open."

"It's a lovely day," I said. "You were right with your forecast."

"But it's clouding up again in the East," Weasel answered, nodding towards la cloud that had crept up over the horizon. "There'll be another gale by the evening. But by that time we shall be safe up the Don. .

. What are we steering, Vanya?"

"North-East by North!" the helmsman shouted.

Everything was new to me in this long, passage-like room panelled with fumed oak: the telegraph with its arrows and instructions written on the white dial, "Full Speed Ahead," "Stop," "Full Speed Astern"; the polished speaking tubes leading down to the engine-room; the sensitive compass floating like a huge eye-ball under its glass cover.

Yuzik showed me his domain. Now and then he would go over to the wheel and check the course shown on the compass. He kept glancing from side to side where buoys were bobbing on the yellow waves, as if wishing us "good morning." They showed us the way into the harbour, and then, bowing politely, dropped away astern.

I listened to my friend, looked through the spotlessly clean windows of the bridge at the town rising up out of the sea, and thought over my speech. What if I begin with the story of three friends who came here, to the Azov Sea, from distant Podolia, and became active members of the Komsomol?

I'll tell the delegates how ever since we were children we have hated the Petlura men and other scoundrels who try to prevent the Soviet Ukraine growing and developing. . . I'll tell them about Petka Maremukha, about Weasel, about the vow we made under the green bastion of the Old Fortress... Perhaps I'll say something about how we studied and what our aim is in life?... After all, our three small lives are very typical; the whole working youth of the Ukraine has been through the kind of thing we experienced. Then I must swear to continue being loyal to the behests of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And say that we have the Party and the Komsomol to thank for everything we have achieved. I'll make a solemn promise to the delegates that we three, friends, will go on fighting for every young chap at our works, to win him over from the old world and teach him to serve the people and those fine, noble ideas that the Communist Party has pointed out to us.

The dazzling sun rose higher and higher, gilding the tops of the waves. The white town, with the strong

salty east wind blowing round it, spread out before me in the faint mist of the July morning.