Chapter 1: An Interview With Gorshin

Anatoly Koscuisko walked towards the red brick compound with a mixture of dread and anticipation. This interview could be the making of his career and he was terrified of blowing it. To offend such a well-respected personage as the great Admiral (ret) Yvgeny Ivanovich Gorshin would be curtains for him.

In 1969 the old boy was nearing 90 years old with a well-known short fuse. He was, it was said, particularly impatient with young snotty academics who seemed to be swelling the ranks of the Navy these days. In a well-circulated quote he was reported to have said, 'The art of seamanship is being submerged by black boxes and button-pushing 'Robotniki'.'

The Admiral's apartment wasn't particularly impressive from the outside. It was a rectangular, workmanlike brick building dating from the last century. It sat uncomfortably among the Soviet-era apartment blocks of anonymous light brown stone. The compound accomodated senior officers posted to the Kronshtadt Naval Base. The Admiral's block contained retired officers held in great esteem by the Navy.

The door was answered by an orderly, impeccably rigged in dress blues. He examined Anatoly's papers suspiciously before handing them back with a snap of the wrist.

"This way," he said. Then set off smartly up the stairs. Anatoly trotted rapidly after the orderly, their boots ringing in the cold stair-well. He knocked three times on the polished hardwood door and opened it. Anatoly heard muffled voices before the orderly re-emerged.

"You may go in," he said before retreating down the corridor.

The old Admiral struggled to his feet from his ornately embroidered, padded sofa. He extended his hand, stained yellow with nicotine, and beckoned the young archivist to an armchair. Sitting down once more, the Admiral pulled a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with an aging Ronson petrol lighter.

"Ensign Kosciusco?" the Admiral said, his voice croaky with age and a lifelong tobacco habit, "You are from the Navy's Archives Department?"

"Yes sir," the young officer answered nervously. "We are recording the recollections or our great officers, sir, before, er..."

"Ha!" Gorshin cried, his voice alarming in its sudden strength, "before we all hand in our pensions, eh? Before they spread us over the Baltic from a silver urn?"

"I didn't mean..." the young man started to say, squirming uncomfortably.

"Quite all right," the old man grinned maliciously, "we Destroyer men stop thinking of our futures when we pass down the gangway," he told him, "I have been very lucky to have survived this long."

The young Ensign extracted a sheet from his brown satchel and began to read the first question. His hands were still shaking in the presence of so-great a hero as the Admiral. Gorshin silenced him by holding up his hand.

"You save your questions," he said in a bored voice, "put away that paper, turn on your tape recorder and I'll tell you how it was. Not, young man, as our dear comrade idiots in the Kremlin would like it told, but how it really was. Are you ready for the truth, Ensign?"

"Yes sir, I suppose so, sir," Koscuiko answered doubtfully. The Admiral's tone alerted him that he might hear some things his superiors would not allow him to use.

"It was the autumn of 1904," the Admiral began, "I'd graduated from the Peter the Great Naval academy in Sankt Peterburg two year's before and had made Sub-Lieutenant before being posted to the 'Grozny'."

"A Destroyer, sir?" the Ensign asked.

"In those days we called them PTKs, 'Protivo-Torpedo Korabl' (Anti-torpedo boats). They were small, fast and very lively in rough seas," he chuckled, "you couldn't stand on deck they rolled so much. The crew harnessed themselves to rails bolted to the deck otherwise... poof," the Admiral said, "you go over the side."

"They were very wet boats," the Admiral continued, "the Grozny was of what we called, 'the 600 ton class.' She had a 3.4 inch Oblukhov gun on the forecastle and one on the stern. Two trainable tandem torpedo tubes were mounted in the waist of the ship, between the two sets of funnels. She was fired by four locomotive-style boilers, two to each boiler room. They had to be mounted lengthwise because the boat was so narrow. The engine room was between the two boiler rooms. Two four-cylinder, triple-expansion engines cranked out nearly 3000 horse-power between them. 25... 26 knots in a calm sea. They were good boats for their day."

"Sir, ah..." the young Ensign started to say. He didn't need the specifications of the Navy's old ships, he could look up such information back at the department.

"Don't interrupt!" Gorshin warned, "is that how you demonstrate respect to a superior?"

"No sir, I..." Koscuisko faltered.

"We were all very young, then. The brightest, keenest, most passionate and patriotic signed on to the Destroyers. The big ships, they struggled for crews but not so the 'greyhounds' of the fleet. What young man could resist the adventure of rushing at an enemy, waves crashing over the bows, to launch torpedo after torpedo at a suicidal distance?" the old man enthused. "Didn't the girls love us? Not so our senior Officers, I'm afraid..."

Libau was a fishing port on the Baltic coast of Russian Latvia in 1904. It was there that the Tsar's Second Pacific Squadron assembled for the great epic voyage around the World.

Russia was at war with the fledgling Empire of Japan over who should dominate Korea and Manchuria. The Russians had been given railway concessions and the ports of Port Arthur and Dailan on the Lioshung Peninsula. That is the piece of Manchuria that juts into the Yellow sea.

Striking suddenly, the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur. By a series of blunders and just plain bad luck, the Russians found themselves bottled up by the Japanese army on land and Admiral Tojo's Japanese fleet at sea.

Enthusiastic Russian Naval Officers convinced the Tsar they must send another fleet to Port Arthur's relief. The only problem was that there were no friendly bases with which to coal and provision the fleet on its way. The German Kaiser, however, stepped in, and in order to keep the Russians embroiled in a war, offered 65 colliers from the Hamburg-Amerika Line to provision the fleet at sea.

So it was at Libau that the fleet gathered. The heart of the squadron was the first division of 4 brand new battleships, Kniaz Suvurov, Orel, Alexander the Third, and Borodino. Next came the second division lead by the Oslyabya, Sisoi Veliki, Navarin with the armoured cruiser Monomakh making up the numbers.

The scouting division consisted of the Cruisers Rossiya, Aurora, Oleg, Svetlana, Izumrud, Zhemtchug and the ancient Dimitri Donskoi. Nine Destroyers protected the fleet from torpedo boats, co-ordinated from the light cruiser Almaz (Diamond).

Nearly 20,000 seamen from the warships and the support fleet descended on the small port. One of them was a young Sub-Lieutenant Y I Gorshin.

Gorshin was born into a Naval family and his fate was sealed from an early age. Petrodvorets lay across the Neva estuary from Russia's premier Naval base, Kronshtadt. From there the little Yvgeny could watch the ships at anchor and dream. His Father had been a sea Officer but had later become a teacher at the Gunnery School across the bay. He was an old buddy of Rhozdventsky, the Admiral chosen to lead the enterprise.

Yvgeny worshipped his father. An only child, he had the privileged upbringing of a well-connected family in a system where those things mattered. His childhood memories consisted of boating with his Father, ice fishing in Winter when the fleet was laid up and visits to warships. At 14 he was introduced to Tsar Nicholas the Second on the investiture of his Father into the exclusive Order of St Andrew.

Topping his class at the Navy Academy, Gorshin could have chosen any career in the Navy he wished. Many were surprised when he chose the little cockleshell boats, the Destroyers.

The Destroyers' shallow drafts allowed them to be moored to the fishing jetties at Libau, much to the chagrin of the fishermen. The Almaz was anchored a little way off like a mother hen protecting her chicks. As the harassed clerks tried to unravel the supply and organisational problems, the fleet sat impatiently at anchor for two weeks while the crews drank themselves into a stupor ashore.

Yvgeny found himself a room in the town while they waited to sail. The Grozny's tiny, spartan quarters became unbearably boring for a young Officer with nothing to do.

Merchants, small traders, and local farmers had flooded into the town to take advantage of the sudden increased business. Inebriated sailors bought trinkets, fresh fruit, kvass and pet animals from street stalls as they made their way from bar to bar. All was pandemonium for a few days until the Admiral began to restrict shore leave.

Yvgeny saw Katka at a street stall selling hand-made carpet squares in local designs. At first he was attracted by the bright Latvian artwork until he noticed the girl holding up the rug.

She had the look of mixed parentage about her. Tall and slim, her fair Finnic features were bronzed by the Southern Caucasus. Her eyes were dark and faintly Asiatic. They reminded Yvgeny of rock pools of infinite depth.

"Hey, you buying or looking?" a rather older version of the girl spoke up. Her voice was harsh.

"Um, how much?" Yvgeny replied, unable to take his eyes off the girl.

"10 kopeks for the rug. My Granddaughter's not for sale," she added, pointedly.

"Such fine work," the Sub-Lieutenant told the older woman, "perhaps you can send it to my Mother?"

"Not a problem, Sailor. Give her address to my Granddaughter. My eyes, you know, can't read as well..."

Seizing his chance, Yvgeny scribbled the address down and added a note to the girl. 'Meet me?'

She looked startled and confused. Swallowing, she gave a little shake of the head, indicating her Grandmother with her eyes. Yvgeny took the cue, paid for the rug and bade goodbye to the two women.

For the rest of the afternoon he couldn't take his mind away from the girl. Eventually he took a stroll back to the market, just to get another glimpse. The Grandmother was there alone. Emboldened, he walked back to the stall.

"Back again, Sailor? What are you after this time?" the old woman asked.

"Your Granddaughter..." he started to say.

"I told you before, she's not for sale."

"You don't understand," he said, a little desperate.

"I don't?" she asked, her eyes boring into his skull. "You think I was born yesterday?"

"I just want to talk to her awhile, perhaps take a stroll?" he told her. "Please, I'm from a good respectable family. I will behave honourably."

"Hah!" she spat, "in any case, she has gone with her Mother and little brother to the park at the end of the street. I doubt she will pass the time of day with you."

"Thank you, thank you!" he told the old woman as he sped down the street.

The light was fading and there was a chill breeze coming off the Baltic when he reached the park. It was crowded with children and strollers and it was some time before he spotted the girl. She was sitting with her Mother watching her Brother on the swings.

"Madams!" he bowed.

"Do we know you?" the Mother spoke.

"I met your daughter at the stall," Yvgeny explained. Her Mother shot a glance at her daughter who was trembling with nervousness. "We have not been introduced. Sub-Lieutenant Yvgeny Ivanovich Gorshin, Third Officer of the Grozny."

"I see," the Mother said suspiciously, "Peta Talsii, and this is my daughter Katka, Sub-Lieutenant. What can we do for you?"

"I was wondering..." Yvgeny started to say before his courage began to falter. Taking a deep breath he continued. "I was wondering if your daughter... er, would like to take a little stroll somewhere..."

"Ah!" realisation dawned on the Mother, "I don't think she would be interested. Katka?" The daughter was unable to speak, she was so nervous. Yvgeny found it all very fetching.

"Perhaps a few minutes? Around the park perhaps?" Yvgeny pressed. Eventually the girl's Mother relented with the proviso that they don't leave her sight.

Katka Talsii dumbly followed Yvgeny along the cobbled path. She stared fixedly ahead, although Yvgeny noticed her shoot a little sidelong glance at him.

"Are you local?" he opened the conversation.

"Village... not far," she stumbled a reply.

"Latvian?"

"Finnish, Georgian, Latvian and Russian."

"The blend is a good one," he told her smiling. Katka broke out in a grin that Yvgeny thought would melt snow.

"Mother says I have the temper of a Tartar and the gloom of the Steppe," she told him.

"Gloom?"

"I guess I dream a lot," she explained.

"Nothing wrong in dreaming. Feeds the spirit, my Father always said."

"Ah, and is he a smart man, your Father?" she asked him.

"An Admiral," Yvgeny told her.