Making a Man of Him

by LEONID SOBOLEV

1

WASHING dishes, as everyone knows, is a dirty job and something that one gets fed up with, particularly if one has to do it day in and day out. But in the small wardroom galley of the destroyer with which this story deals there was a certain apparatus for this purpose which radically altered matters.

This apparatus occupied the right-hand corner of the galley where a shining copper samovar, standing on a zinc-plated tray, hissed out steam — a small samovar, it is true, but wicked, constantly snorting sparks and boiling hot. The tray on which it stood was covered with wire racks for dishes; there were little nests for tumblers and a special hanging compartment for knives and forks. Over all this hung an intricate system of copper pipes with little holes drilled in them, the pipes being attached by a rubber hose to the faucet of the samovar. Through the holes streams of boiling water squirted over the racks in strong, even-flowing jets which washed the dishes clean of grease, the sticky remains of stewed fruit, and condensed milk — the latter being a particular favorite with the Commissar of the destroyer.

Disdainfully leaving the water to do the dirty work, Andrei Krotkikh, the wardroom orderly, would go into the tiny cabin which bore the proud title of “Commander’s Saloon,” and while he was changing the white tablecloth for a flowered one in token of the fact that the Commander and Commissar had finished their meal, the first part of his work would finish itself without him. On returning, he would soap a narrow, long-handled brush and with the same disdainful expression on his face swoosh it around the wire racks of plates, rinse away the soapsuds with the hose, and then turn off the water. In the hot air of the close galley the dishes dried of themselves, and all that remained was to put the gleaming plates and sparkling glasses in their proper place so that they would not fall when the ship rolled. And only the fighting steel of the knives and forks required a towel.

This ingenious automatic machine was born of the mortification that ate into the soul of Andrei Krotkikh, Red sailor and Young Communist League member. He loathed dirty dishes as the symbol of an unsuccessful life. The fact was that the other men of his class who had been called up were training to look after engines, to fire guns, to stand at the helm, while to him had fallen the strange naval duty of washing dishes. The reason for this was that Krotkikh, who had been reared on a distant collective farm in the Altai, had decided to part with his textbooks in the fourth grade, with the result that when men were being selected for the naval schools he had been left out in the cold.

Of course, when “general quarters” sounded, it was Krotkikh’s duty to bring up the shells to AA Gun No. 2 in the stern. But this duty was a very unimportant one: all he had to do was to take from their cases the tapering shells, resembling cartridges for some giant rifle, and place them on the tray near the gun. It was the duty of another sailor, Gunner Pinokhin, to place them in the clip of the gun — while he could only stand and watch, envying him and bewailing too late the gaps in his boyhood education. During their very first encounter with dive bombers, Krotkikh realized bitterly that at his post he would never become a Hero of the Soviet Union, and that after the war the Young Communist League in the Altaiskaya Zarya Collective Farm would not have occasion to be proud of him.

It was Gun No. 2 that gave him the idea for the automatic dishwasher in the galley. Once, while washing dishes, it suddenly occurred to him that the plates could also be placed in a clip, so to speak. Then there would be no need to carry them one by one under the stream of water, scalding one’s hands, but, on the contrary, it would be possible to direct the stream on a number of dishes at once. He hopelessly tangled up quite a lot of wire before he got what he had dimly pictured to himself and what, as he learned later to his chagrin, had been thought out long, long ago and was being used in most big restaurants. He was told this by Battalion Commissar Filatov, the Commissar of the ship, on the very first evening the latter had looked into the galley for some tea and had noticed the ” automatic machine” that Krotkikh had rigged up.

This setback, however, unexpectedly turned out to have a good side to it: the Commissar had had a heart-to-heart talk with him, and Krotkikh had poured out his whole soul, a mixture of dishes and the Altaiskaya Zarya Collective Farm and dreams about being a Hero of the Soviet Union and a certain Olya Chebykina, to whom it was simply impossible to write a letter about a war in which he was washing dishes, besides which the words crawled out onto the paper with such difficulty that even he could not reread his own scribbling afterwards.

The Commissar listened to him, smiling ever so slightly as he gazed with interest at his face — the broad, high cheekbones of a Siberian, with the clear smooth skin — and looked deep into the bright, intelligent eyes. He smiled because he recalled the time when he had entered the Navy as a League member himself, and had himself suffered when, instead of being put into some hair-raising action station, he had been set to the uninteresting and dirty work of cleaning out the hold of a destroyer that was undergoing repairs, and how he had suffered over his first letters to his friends, and how brazenly he had lied to them, describing the long journeys, the storms at sea, and the streamers of his cap as they fluttered on the bridge beside the commander. Youth, so long past and beyond recall, breathed on him from those shining eyes, and he understood with all his soul that it really was absolutely impossible to write to this Olya Chebykina about dishes.

And he began to question Krotkikh with such friendly concern about the collective farm, about Olya, about how it had happened that he had left school, that the latter felt as if the man before him was not an elderly officer who had come to the ship from the reserves, not the Commissar of a destroyer, but a League member of his own age. The interested and friendly eyes of the Commissar drew the words from him in a regular torrent, and if Political Officer Kozlov had not chanced to come in, the conversation would most likely have continued for a long time. The Commissar put down his glass and once again was the man Krotkikh had always been accustomed to seeing: reserved, somewhat dry, with the same weary, mature eyes.

“You’ve come just in time, Comrade Political Officer,” he said in his usual soft, clipped voice. “Since we’re at war, do people have to develop and grow by themselves? No need to teach them or train them. As the saying goes, war gives birth to heroes. Spontaneously. Is that it?”

“I don’t understand, Comrade Battalion Commissar,” replied Kozlov, foreseeing unpleasantness.

“What can’t you understand? — Thank you, Comrade Krotkikh, no more tea. You may go.”

Krotkikh quickly picked up the glass and the can of condensed milk (lest the Commissar take it into his head to t reat Kozlov with it), but on going out he lingered for a moment on the other side of the door: the conversation seemed to be about him. The Commissar wanted to know whether the Political Officer was aware of the fact that Andrei Krotkikh, able-bodied seaman of his unit, was rather shaky in his general education and that it was impossible for him to get ahead. Further, he asked whether it could really be that there were no League members on board who had been in the university before being called up, and then himself named the chemist Sukhov, who had been attending teachers’ college.

Kozlov replied that Sukhov was very active in the League, and so overloaded with all sorts of assignments, such as the ship newspaper, the Y.C.L. Bureau and lectures, that he simply hadn’t the time. The Commissar grew very angry. Krotkikh knew this by the sudden silence that fell: when the Commissar was angry he usually became silent and slowly rolled a cigarette, looking at the person with whom he was talking and then immediately turning away, as if waiting for his rage to subside. The silence continued. Then there was the click of a cigarette lighter, and the Commissar said softly: —

“I believe it’s you who haven’t the time to think, Comrade Political Officer. Why have you loaded everything onto Sukhov? No one else around, eh? The trouble is you’re blind to the people around you, just as you’ve been blind to this lad. See to it that you arrange something with regard to his studies, yes, and step into the galley occasionally — take an interest in what’s going on in his head.”

2

FROM that evening perspectives opened up before Andrei Krotkikh. The war continued as ever. There were skirmishes, storms, journeys, gunfire at night, and raids by dive bombers during the day. The automatic AA gun greedily swallowed the shells fed into its insatiable maw. Krotkikh dragged them to the gun and washed dishes — but all this was thrown into the shade by the future: before him was the spring, when he would be going to the Artillery School. He maneuvered so as not to lose a minute of time. While squirting the hose on the dishes, he would hold a grammar book in his other hand. While polishing the brass in the Saloon, he would recite the multiplication tables to himself. While standing in readiness at the shells, he solved problems in his notebook. The notebook had been given him by the Commissar. Everything had been given him by the Commissar — the notebook, the lessons, and the future.

And the heart of the nineteen-year-old sailor was filled with a strong and unwavering love for this calm, elderly man.

He was happy when he saw that the Commissar was in a good mood. He moped when he saw that the Commissar was tired and preoccupied. He hated those who made the Commissar fall silent and slowly roll a cigarette. At such times rage would mount in a hot wave in his heart, and once it even flooded over into an offense which in its turn made the Commissar fall silent and roll a cigarette.

The night had been fraught with alarm. The Black Sea gleamed under the cold winter moon. There was only a slight wind and the ship was not rolling, but it was bitterly cold on deck. The destroyer was not far from the enemy and at any moment the clear white sky might rain down bombs on the vessel, which made a distinct target against the path of moonlight on the water. The gunners had orders to remain at their posts all night.

The Commissar came down from the bridge and made the rounds of the guns. He looked as if he were chilled to the marrow. When he came to Gun No. 2 in the stern he suddenly stretched out his arms and began to do some setting-up exercises.

“I advise you to do the same,” he said to the sailors. “It makes your blood circulate.”

Krotkikh went up to him and asked leave to go below: he would heat up some tea and bring it to the Commissar on the bridge. Filatov smiled.

“Thanks, Andryusha,” he said, addressing him as he always did in the long unofficial conversations they had, “thanks, lad. But I don’t feel like tea. Besides, you won’t be able to warm up everybody — they’re also frozen.”

He turned to the gun and began to joke, glancing around in his usual way to see whether all the members of the crew were at their posts. The gun layers were lying face up on their seats, scanning the hazy moonlit sky. The other members were squatting on their haunches, ready to jump up and take their places at the gun. The gun commander, Petty Officer Gushchev, was standing there wearing his telephone headset, looking like a deep-sea diver in the tangle of pipes and hoses. The gun was in readiness to fire at the twinkling of an eye. But suddenly the Commissar frowned.

“And where is the loader? What’s the meaning of this, Comrade Petty Officer?”

Gushchev reported that he had given Pinokhin leave to go below for a few minutes. The Commissar looked at his watch and fell silent. A long, silent five minutes passed and he raised his eyes to Gushchev. In an undertone the latter ordered Krotkikh to look for Pinokhin in the head gallery and to tell him to make it snappy.

Pinokhin was not there. As he had suspected, Krotkikh found him on the forecastle deck. Pinokhin had stretched himself out on the locker near the alarm gong and was sleeping peacefully, apparently having decided that in the event of a call to action the gong would rouse him.

Krotkikh looked down at him; rage and resentment on behalf of the Commissar seethed in his heart. He recalled how the Commissar had tried to warm himself by doing exercises, how he had refused a cup of tea, how he was standing there now in the cold, silent and waiting — and suddenly gritting his teeth he swung out and punched Pinokhin.

This whole affair was gone into after the destroyer had carried out its mission. The Commissar had been silent and had rolled a cigarette — rolled it because of him, because of Krotkikh, and this was beyond bearing. Life seemed to have come to an end: now the Commissar would never again call him Andryusha, never again ask him how much nine times nine was, never again smile and say, “Well, then, cadet.” Tears welled up to his eyes and apparently the Commissar realized that they were ready to fall from under his lowered lids. He put down his cigarette and began to talk.

His words were slow and biting. He began by saying that if any other Commissar had been in his place Krotkikh would not have taken Pinokhin’s behavior so much to heart. Further, he said that he had long noticed how devoted and loyal Krotkikh was to him, but that all this was not quite the thing. It seemed that the Commissar had noticed one night how Krotkikh had tiptoed up to him, closed the porthole, arranged his blanket, and gazed at him for a long time smiling. He called all this childishness and unbecoming to a sailor in the Red Navy.

If Krotkikh had struck Pinokhin because the latter had abandoned his post, thereby injuring the whole ship and in actual fact betraying his country, then the Commissar might have understood it more or less. But Krotkikh had acted from entirely different motives, as he himself had admitted when he had shouted that a man like the Commissar was freezing on deck while that skunk was snoring away in the warmth.

He spoke sharply, and Krotkikh suffered the tortures of the damned. Everything he said was true: he had not even given a thought to the fact that Pinokhin was interested only in himself and was a deserter. Evidently the Commissar noticed this, because at long last he lit the cigarette that he had rolled, and Krotkikh, who knew his habits, realized that he was no longer angry. But Filatov exhaled the smoke and unexpectedly concluded: —

“It goes without saying that you will have to be punished. Your case will be taken up by the League as well. And you will have to be transferred.”

Everything swam in front of Krotkikh’s eyes.

“Comrade Battalion Commissar — I couldn’t stand it on another ship,” he said in a choked voice, and suddenly the Commissar softened.

“Now, then, I’m not sending you away from here. Where would you find another Sukhov? Why, all your studying would be done for. Lou are to be transferred to the general mess. Take your automatic dishwasher with you — you’ll need it. I guess that’ll be all right now, won’t it?”

And although in his heart of hearts Krotkikh considered that it was not at all right, that the Commissar did not understand his love and devotion, that his whole life was now clouded over, and that to go over to the general mess was really hard lines, nevertheless he drew himself up smartly and replied: —

“Aye, aye, Comrade Battalion Commissar.”

It was a real tragedy to him. To cap everything, Krotkikh had never known that besides love there was also such a thing as jealousy in this world. Now for the first time he experienced that bitter and resentful feeling. The love for the man who had found the way to his young and ardent heart, and who had then turned away from him, burned too strongly and brightly within him.

He could not help thinking that someone else was concerning himself about the Commissar now, that someone else was listening to his jokes at mess, that the Commissar was having heart-to-heart talks with someone else as he sipped his tea and condensed milk. And the new orderly would, of course, never think of hiding the can of condensed milk from visitors and would never be able to serve the Commissar during a storm as he used to, when soup would slop out of the plate, tea scald your fingers, and you had to think up something fast.

3

IN THIS sorrow of his, this jealousy and remorse, Krotkikh matured. He became more serious, reserved, and, involuntarily imitating Filatov, kept quiet when anger or offense dictated immediate action. Of course he didn’t roll a cigarette: you couldn’t smoke everywhere. But he taught himself on these occasions to wriggle his fingers, one by one, which could be managed even when he had to hold his arms stiffly at his sides.

He saw Filatov now much more rarely than before: at official meetings or when the Commissar came to talk to the men on the lower deck. He always tried to get into the crowd of men around the Commissar, but Filatov spoke to him as he did to all the others, and his eyes never once flashed with the warmth and lively interest to which Krotkikh had become accustomed and which he missed so much now. And little by little, Filatov, the man who was so near and dear to him, was replaced in his mind by Filatov, the ship’s Commissar. And, strange to relate, it was then that Filatov fully entered his heart.

This was no longer that childish, confused, and touching but foolish love with which he had burned previously. This was something new, the profound love that binds comrades at war.

The Black Sea was up to its old alarming habits, and the ship dived into the waves like a submarine, while the whole deck was awash with the icy waters. On the forecastle deck there were hot coffee, a peg of vodka, and dry felt boots, while the watch was changed every hour — and Krotkikh realized that this was the Commissar’s doing. At the small base where they had put in for repairs after the storm, a cart had come up to the gangway with eight sheep, two guitars, tangerines and cabbages. The men in the shaggy fur caps had asked in broken Russian how they could hand over this little gift to the sailors about whom the Commissar had spoken to them the day before at their collective farm. In every big and small event in the life on board ship, in battle and in storm, in the work of machine and gun, everywhere Krotkikh felt the Commissar — his thought, his will, his solicitude.

There came a troublous day in that strange southern winter, when the sun warms while the wind is cold, in which everyone on the destroyer walked around silently and gloomily all the morning: news had come that the Germans had captured Rostov. Distressed and alarmed thoughts flew to the Caucasus, to the oil, to disrupted railway lines. The men did not speak to one another, each thinking his own thoughts, while the work was done in any old way. But later heads began to rise, eyes to sparkle with hope and hate, hands to work furiously and swiftly. Now everyone spoke about Moscow, about the push that Stalin was planning, which would be launched at any moment now — and Rostov took its place in the huge scheme of the war, while Krotkikh realized with pride that it was the Commissar who had told the men about this,

Krotkikh began to understand just what the ship’s Commissar meant and why the sailors spoke of him with respect and love although they knew him little privately, off duty. He began to understand why every one of them was ready to risk his life in battle for Filatov, not only as a splendid, honest, responsive person but as the Commissar, a Party man, and the life and soul of the vessel.

4

AS EVER, Krotkikh stood at his case of shells, placing them beside the gun, no farther. But his childish envy of the gunner (now no longer Pinokhin, who had been handed over for court-martial, but Trofimov) had ceased to worry him, just as the knowledge that he would perform no great feats of valor here had also ceased to be a source of mental agony. He now had an entirely new conception of the ship. He admired it as such, admired its strength and its men, its steel and its commanders, its motion and its name.

This new attitude towards the ship as a living, strong, and affectionate friend took such a grip on his imagination that one evening he sat down to write his first letter to Olya Chebykina.

But nothing came of his efforts. The writing was now clear enough and easy to read, but he could in no way convey his amazing feeling about the ship and his love for it. He wrote a whole page of trite, inexpressive words and tore up the letter in a rage, even forgetting to wriggle his fingers. For two days he walked about moodily, searching for the words he needed to write about the ship, but the ship itself distracted his thoughts.

They were making ready to send out a landing party to participate in a raid on the enemy. At the League meeting, everyone had volunteered. But only fifteen men were needed from the destroyer, and these had to be good at handling tommy guns, bayonets, and mortars. Krotkikh did not answer these requirements at all, and the Commander did not even look his way. Krotkikh wriggled his fingers and was silent.

But at dawn, when the destroyer came to the landing place, and when the landing party came up on deck with their arms, and the case of bombs for the mortar was set down beside his case of shells in readiness to be loaded on the ship’s boat, he yearned to go with them. The mortar bombs lay in the case in even rows, fat-bellied and familiar; he was expert at taking them out of the case and carrying them over to the mortar, better than anyone else. But just then the destroyer veered sharply, the Commander of Gun No. 2 blew his whistle: aircraft had appeared overhead and had to be driven off.

The AA gun barked fitfully and accurately, but something was rattling down on the deck like dry peas. Trofimov fell, dropping the shell, and the AA gun began to hang fire. The dive bomber had fired a burst from its machine gun. Krotkikh dashed up to the gun and, quickly bending over the shells that he himself had laid out in readiness, fed the ravenous clip. Once again the gun set to work.

Every bit of Krotkikh’s attention was concentrated on taking new shells from the case and getting them to the clip in time, so that he had absolutely no time whatever to reflect on the fact that, at last, he, Krotkikh, was actually fighting himself. Something whistled past the gun, and a huge column of water and smoke rose into the air. Right after the bomb, the screaming and roaring plane nose-dived into this same choppy water. Krotkikh noticed only the tail with the black cross and realized that they had brought down the German that had been so brazenly diving over the destroyer. But before he could feel delight or surprise, someone shouted: —

“The mortar bombs!”

He wheeled round. The case with the bombs was on fire. At any moment the bombs would begin to explode, He saw someone’s figure flit through the smoke, someone’s hands trying to lift the case, and then the sailor (who it was he could not make out) sheering off. Gushchev waved his hand despairingly, tore off the telephone headset, and shouted: —

“All out of the stern!”

Any second now, two dozen bombs, one of which would suffice to wipe out the whole gun crew, would blow up. It suddenly flashed through Krotkikh’s mind that, after the mortar bombs, his shells would also begin to explode in the fire, and after them the magazine and the whole ship — and he took a step towards the case. But just then Gun No. 4 thundered from behind the aft turret, and it seemed to him that it was the death flaming in the case which had exploded. This notion so terrified him that he dashed from the stern after the others. That step towards the case had left him behind the rest, and despair gripped him: if he tripped, there would be no one to help him. Terror paralyzed him. Then suddenly, near the bridge, he caught sight of the Commissar,

Filatov was pushing through the men coming his way and was running towards the stern. And Krotkikh was thunderstruck. In two leaps he was back at the case, trying to lift it and burning the palms of his hands. But the case was too heavy for one man to lift. Someone was running to his assistance. But that “ someone ” was the Commissar, and he must not get near the case.

Krotkikh crouched down and seized the smoking stabilizer of the end bomb. It seared the palm of his hand, and for a moment the agonizing pain wrung his heart, but the bomb flew overboard.

It is possible that he shouted something. As his comrades related afterwards, he had hopped about like a frog beside the case, dancing some kind of ghastly dance of pain, and cursing senselessly and horribly at the top of his voice. But the bombs flew overboard one after the other, rapidly emptying the burning case. Straightening out with the next, bomb in his hands, he saw the Commissar. The latter was already at the stern bridge, alongside death. In a flash Krotkikh crouched down again and raised the half-emptied case. The flames lapped his face. His jacket caught fire. Turning his face aside, he heaved the case overboard with a mighty effort. Then he began to beat at his burning jacket, no longer feeling the pain.

At this point someone grasped him firmly around the shoulders. He turned his head. It was the Commissar.

“It’s all right, Comrade Commissar, it’s out already,” he said, thinking that the Commissar was trying to extinguish his burning jacket.

But glancing into the Commissar’s eyes he realized that this was an embrace.