information a legend about the St. Maria should have been preserved in
one of the clans.'
It is not difficult to imagine how warmly we were welcomed to
Zapolarie by Ledkov. My memory of him was vague, and I was surprised
to find that the man who came out onto the porch to meet us was
anything but old. After dinner we drove down to the sawmill, then
visited the new health-centre, and so on. Everywhere we had something
to eat and drink, and everywhere I spoke about Ivan Ivanovich. In the
end I began to believe myself that without Ivan Ivanovich's contribution
the defence of our northern sea routes might well have met with
disaster.
Before take-off there were some things I had to attend to. I sent the
navigator and gunners to the airfield, while I remained with Ledkov in
his office at the D.E.C.
'Now tell me frankly,' Ledkov said, 'how's our old friend getting on
out there? We need him here ever so badly. It could easily be arranged,
you know.' 'What could?'
'To have him recalled and demobbed. He's above age.' 'No, he wouldn't
stay,' I said, remembering how sore Ivan Ivanovich had been when the
flotilla commander had not allowed him to join a submarine crew on a
dangerous mission. 'He might agree to come on leave. But not to stay.
Especially now.'
The 'now' was an intimation that the war would soon be over, but
Ledkov interpreted it to mean 'now that Volodya has been killed'.
We were sitting in armchairs by a wide window, which presented a
panorama of new streets running from the riverside to the taiga. Smoke
rose from the sawmill, electric trolleys ran in and out among the timber
stacks at the lumber yard, and a way out, untrodden, bluish-grey, stood
forest upon virgin forest.
I asked him about his visit to the Nentsi camps where they were said
to have preserved some legends about the men from the St. Maria. Was
it true that he had gone there and questioned the Nentsi? 'Yes, I went
there. It was the camp of the Yaptungai clan.' 'Did you learn anything?'
'I did.'
I might have been seventeen again, the way my heart leapt. 'What
exactly?' I asked coolly.
' 'I got the legend and wrote it down. I don't remember now where I put
those notes,' he said, running his eye over the revolving bookstand
loaded with folders and rolled-up papers. 'It runs roughly like this: In
the old days, when 'father's father was alive', a man came to the
Yaptungai family who called himself a sailor off a schooner that was
wrecked in the ice of the Kara Sea. This sailor related that ten men were
saved who wintered on an island north of the Taimyr. Then they made
for the mainland, but on the way 'many, many die'. But he 'at one place
not want to die' and he pushed on. And so he reached the Yaptungai
camp.' 'Do they remember his name?'
327
'No. He died shortly. I took it down like this: 'He come, he say—I will
live. He finish speaking and die.' '
A map of the Nenets region and part of the Kara Sea hung in Ledkov's
office. I found the familiar route—to Russian Islands—Cape Sterlegov—
the mouth of the Pyasina.
'Where do the Yaptungai have their grazing grounds?' Ledkov pointed
them out. But even before he did so I had found the district's northern
boundary and measured the distance with my eye.
'It was a sailor from the St. Maria.'
'You think so?'
'Just figure it out. He said that ten men were saved.'
'Yes, ten.'
'Thirteen went off with Navigator Klimov. That leaves twelve in the
schooner. Two of them-the engineer Tisse and the sailor Skachkov-died
in the first year of drift. That leaves ten. But that's not the point. Even
before, I could have shown you the route they took to within half a
degree. The only thing I was not clear about was whether they had
succeeded in reaching the Pyasina.'
'And now?'
'Now I'm sure.'
And I pointed to the spot where the rest of Captain Tatarinov's
expedition would be found, if they were ever to be found anywhere on
land.
'Anna Stepanovna, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have stayed so long with
Ledkov,' I said, calling at her house that night and finding her waiting
for me, the table laid. 'But I must be going. I'll just give you a kiss and
be off.'
We embraced.
'When will you be coming back?'
'Who knows? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.'
' 'Never' is a dreadful word, I know it,' she said with a sigh and made
the sign of the cross over me. 'You should never say it. You'll come back
and you'll be happy, and we old people will warm ourselves again at
your happiness.'
Late that night—that it was late night you could only discover by
consulting your watch—we started out from Zapolarie. A reddish sun
stood high in the sky. Fleecy clouds raced past, piling up, like steam
from an enormous locomotive.
Could I ever have imagined that the day I had been waiting for all my
life was now coming? I could not! The crew had checked the engines
while I was away, but I was worried whether the check had been
thoroughly carried out.
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CHAPTER SIX
VICTORY
We took off at two in the morning, and at half past four we sank the
raider. True, we did not see it sink. But after our torpedo hit it it lost
steerageway and was swallowed up in a cloud of steam.
