Two Captains (43 page)

This is what the article said:

1. That there lived in Moscow a well-known educationalist and public figure. Professor N. A. Tatarinov, author of a number of articles on the history of Arctic exploration and development.

2. That an airman by the name of G. was making the round of various offices connected with Arctic affairs and casting slurs upon this worthy scientist, whom he accused of swindling (!) the expedition led by his cousin. Captain I. L. Tatarinov.

3. That this airman G. intended to read a paper on these lines, evidently regarding his slander as a scientific achievement of major importance.

4. That the conduct of this man, who was sullying the good name of Soviet Arctic workers, could bear looking into on the part of the Northern Sea Route Administration.

The article was signed "I. Krylov", and I was surprised at the editors using the name of the great man for such an article. I had no doubt that Nikolai Antonich had written it-this was the "letter" the old lady had been talking about. The newspaper was addressed to me.

Hell, what if it isn't him? It was three o'clock and I was still pacing the room, thinking. This letter from the Geographical Society now-that surely was his doing. Korablev told me that Nikolai Antonich was a member of the Geographical Society, and scolded me for having told Romashka about my paper. But the article was his too! He'd lost his head, what with Katya going away.

I pictured him sitting in that old woman's shawl, listening in silence to Romashka's insults. It was quite possible!

The last thing they would wish was to have the N.S.R.A. call me out and demand an explanation. It was just what I wanted! I thought of this as I lay in my bed. "Conduct sullying the good name of Soviet Arctic workers..." What conduct? I hadn't spoken to anyone about it yet. They thought they'd scare me, make me back out.

Possibly, if it hadn't been for this article, I would have left Moscow without having accomplished anything worth mention for the Captain's cause.

The article acted as a spur. I had to do something now, the sooner the better.

It would be wrong to think that I was as calm then as I am now, when I am looking back at it. Several times I caught myself playing with crazy ideas of a kind that come within the jurisdiction of the C.I.D. But I had only to remember Katya and her words: "ill or well, dead or alive, I do not want to see him"-for everything to fall into its proper place, and I was really surprised at the calm way I spoke and acted that busy day.

I had a plan worked out first thing in the moming-a very simple plan, but one which showed how fed up I was with having to deal with secretaries and clerks. It was this:

1. To go to Pravda. I had to be there in any case as I had to hand in the promised article before my departure.

2. To call on C.

The idea of going to see C., that famous C. who had once been our hero at the Leningrad Flying School and afterwards became Hero of the Soviet Union, a man the whole country knew and loved-this idea occurred to me during the night, but had then seemed to be too audacious. I wondered whether I could presume to phone him. Would he remember me? I had only been an air cadet when we last

met.

But now I had made up my mind. I did not think he would refuse to see me, even if he did not remember me.

I don't know who it was that answered the phone-his wife, perhaps.

"This is air pilot Grigoriev."

"Yes?"

"I'd very much like to see Comrade C. I've come down from the Arctic, and it's very important for me to see him."

"Then come along."

"When?"

"Today, if you can. He'll be home from the airfield at ten o'clock."

I went to Pravda, and this time I had to wait two hours to see my journalist. At last he arrived.

"Ah, airman G.?" he said in a rather friendly tone. "The man who sullies the name?"

"That's him."

"What's it all about?"

"Let me explain," I said calmly.

There followed a very serious talk in the private office of the Editor-in-Chief, in the course of which I placed on his desk, one after another:

(a) The Captain's last letter (a copy).

(b) The navigator's letter beginning with the words: "I hasten to inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and well" (a copy).

(c) The navigator's diaries.

(d) The story of the hunter Ivan Vilka taken down by me and witnessed by the doctor.

(e) Vyshimirsky's story certified by Korablev.

(0 A photograph of the boat-hook bearing the inscription "Schooner St.

Maria".

I think it was a useful talk, because one very serious man shook me warmly by the hand, while another said that my article on the drift of the St. Maria would be published in one of the next issues of the newspaper.

It was at least six kilometres from the Pravda offices to where C.

lived, but I did not remember until I had gone half way that I could have taken a tram. I ran like mad, thinking of how I was going to tell him about my talk at the Pravda offices.

At last I climb the stairs of a new apartment house, and stop in front of the door and wipe my face-it is very hot-trying to think slowly about something-a sure way of keeping calm.

The door is opened, I give my name and hear his deep voice from one of the rooms: "Somebody to see me?"

And now this man, whom we loved in our youth and of whose wonderful flights we had heard so much, this man comes towards me holding out his strong hand.

"Comrade C.," I say, "you would hardly remember me. My name is Grigoriev. We met in Leningrad when I was an air cadet."

After a slight pause he says with pleasure: "Why, of course! You were a regular ace. Sure I remember you!"

And we go into his room, and I begin my story, feeling more excited than ever at the thought that he has remembered me.

It was at this meeting with C. that he gave me his photograph, writing across it the words: "If it's worth doing at all, do it well." He said I belonged to the breed who have "a long-distance ticket". He heard me out and said that he would telephone the N.S.R.A. the next day and speak to the Chief about my plan.

CHAPTER TWELVE ROMASHKA

It was a little past eleven when I took my leave ofC. and returned to my hotel. Rather a late hour for visitors. But a visitor there was for me, though an uninvited one.

The man at the desk said: "Someone to see you."

And Romashka rose to meet me.

He must have prepared himself for this visit in body as well as in soul, for I had never seen him look so smart. He was wearing a loose overcoat of a steely colour and a soft hat which did not so much sit as stand on his big misshaped head. He had an odour of eau-de-cologne about him.

"Ah, Romashka," I said cheerfully. "How do you do, old Owl?"

He seemed shaken by this greeting.

"Ah, yes. Owl," he said smiling. "I quite forgot that you used to call me that at school. Fancy remembering all those school nicknames!"

He, too, was trying to appear at ease.

"I remember everything, old chap. You want to see me?"

"If you're not too busy."

"Not at all," I said. "I'm absolutely free."

In the lift he studied me narrowly all the time, apparently trying to make out whether I was drunk, and if I was, how he could profit by it. But I was not drunk. I had quaffed only one glass of wine to the health of the great airman who hacfheld out to me the hand of friendship.

"Nice room, this," he remarked as he accepted the armchair I politely offered him.

"Not bad."

I was expecting him to ask how much I paid for the room, but he did not.

"This is quite a decent hotel," he said. "As good as the Metropole."

"I daresay it is."

He was waiting for me to begin the conversation. But I sat there with my legs crossed, smoking, deeply absorbed in a study of the "Rules for Visitors" which lay under the sheet of glass covering the desk. Finally, he sighed quite openly, and began.

"Look here, Sanya, there are quite a number of things we must talk over," he said gravely. "I think we're sufficiently civilised to discuss and settle matters in a peaceful manner. Don't you think so?"

Evidently, he had not forgotten the anything but peaceful manner in which I had once settled matters with him. But his voice hardened with every word he uttered.

"I don't know what induced Katya suddenly to leave home, but I have a right to ask whether the reasons for it have anything to do with your appearance on the scene?"

"Why don't you ask Katya that?" I said coolly.

He fell silent. His ears flushed, his eyes snapped viciously and his brow smoothened. I looked at him with interest.

"But from what I know, she went away with you," he resumed in a slightly suppressed voice.

"So she did. As a matter of fact I helped her pack."

"I see," he rasped. One eye was now almost closed and the other squinted-not a pretty sight. I had never seen him like that before. "I see,"

he repeated.

"Yes, that's how it is."

"I see."

We fell silent.

"Look here," he resumed, "we didn't finish our talk that time at Korablev's anniversary. I want to tell you that in a general way I know all about the expedition of the St. Maria. I was interested in it, too, the same as you are, only from a different angle, I daresay."

I did not answer. I knew what that angle was.

"Among other things, you were interested, I believe, is finding out what Nikolai Antonich's role was in that expedition. At least, that's what I gathered from our conversation."

He could have gathered that in other ways too, but I let his remark pass. I wasn't sure yet what he was driving at. "I think I can be of great service to you in this." "Really?" "Yes."

He suddenly lunged towards me, and I instinctively jumped up and stood behind my chair.

"Listen," he muttered, "I know such things about him! Such things! I have evidence that will settle his hash, if only you go about it the right way. What d'you think he is?"

He repeated the last phrase three times, moving up to me so close that I was obliged to take him by the shoulders and gently push him away. But he didn't even notice this.

"Things that he's even forgotten himself," Romashka went on. "In papers."

He was referring, of course, to the papers he had taken from Vyshimirsky.

"I know why you quarrelled with him. You told him that he had swindled the expedition and he threw you out. But it's true. You were right."

It was the second time I had heard this acknowledged, but now it gave me little pleasure to hear it. I merely said in feigned surprise:

"You don't say?"

"It's him all right!" Romashka repeated with a sort of rapturous glee.

"I'll help you. I'll hand it all over to you, all my evidence. We'll send him toppling."

I should have kept silent, but I could not help asking:

"How much?"

He collected himself.

"You can take it any way you please," he said. "But all I ask of you is that you should go away."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Without Katya?"

"Yes."

"That's interesting. In other words, you are asking me to give her up."

"I love her," he said almost haughtily.

"You do. That's interesting. And we're not to correspond with each other, I suppose?"

He was silent.

"Wait a minute, I won't be long," I said, and left the room.

The floor lady was sitting at her desk. I asked permission to use her telephone, and while I was talking I kept an eye on the corridor to make sure that Romashka did not leave. But he did not-it probably did not occur to him that I had gone out to make a call.

"Nikolai Antonich? Grigoriev here." He asked me to repeat the name, evidently thinking that he had misheard. "Nikolai Antonich," I said politely, "excuse me for disturbing you so late. But I must see you."

For a moment he did not answer. Then he said: "In that case, come along."

"Nikolai Antonich, if you don't mind I'd like you to call at my place.

Believe me it's very important, not so much for me as for you."

There was another pause and I could hear him breathing at the other end.

"When? I can't come today."

"But it must be today. Right now. Nikolai Antonich," I raised my voice,

"believe me this once, at least. You will come. I'm ringing off now."

He did not ask where I was staying, and that was proof enough, if proof were needed, that it was he who had sent me the newspaper containing the article "In Defence uf a Scientist". But just then I had other things on my mind and I dismissed the matter and went back to Romashka.

I don't remember ever having lied and shuffled the way I did during the twenty minutes before Nikolai Antonich arrived. I pretended that I did not care at all what Nikolai Antonich had ever been, I asked what the papers were about, and assured him in a voice nasal with cunning that I could not go away without Katya. Then came a knock at the door and I cried out: "Come in!"

Nikolai Antonich came in and stopped in the doorway.

"Good evening, Nikolai Antonich," I said.

I wasn't looking at Romashka but when afterwards I did I saw him sitting on the edge of the chair, his head drawn down into his shoulders with an anxious listening air-a real owl, and a sinister one too.

"There, Nikolai Antonich," I went on very calmly, "you probably know this gentleman. He goes by the name of Romashov, your favourite pupil and assistant, and almost next door to a kinsman, if I am not mistaken. I've invited you here to give you the gist of our talk."

Nikolai Antonich was still standing by the door, very erect, surprisingly upright, coat and hat in his hand. Afterwards he dropped the hat.