Then there was a break in the procession.
Eight destroyers remained in the harbour.
There was no sign of movement on them.
Now all eyes were fixed on the Volya, a light-grey, steel mountain with rusty streaks on her sides.
The sailors, forgetting their swabs, cloths, and hose nozzles, stood staring at her.
The flag of the Commander in Chief of the Fleet, Commodore Tikhmenev, flapped lazily in the breeze.
On the deck of the destroyer Kerch sailors were talking anxiously, under their breath:
"You'll see...
Volya will go to Sevastopol...."
"Could they be such worms, mates?
Have they no revolutionary conscience left?"
"If the Volya goes, brothers, who can we trust?"
"As if you didn't know Tikhmenev!
He's our worst enemy, a real fox."
"She's going!
Oh, the traitors!"
Anchored next to the Volya stood the twin destroyer, Svobodnaya Rossia.
But she seemed to be peacefully dozing—all her guns were covered and not a soul was to be seen on deck.
Boats were being rowed frantically towards her from the pier.
And suddenly the boatswain's whistle rent the stillness of the bay, the Volya's winches creaked, and dripping chains and silt-covered anchors slowly ascended her sides.
The bows began to turn, and a network of funnels and turrets was set in motion against the sun-bleached roofs of the town.
"They're going.... To the Germans.... Oh, mates.... To surrender to the Germans!...
What have you done?"
The captain of the Kerch, his huge peeling nose standing out on his sunburnt face, appeared on the bridge.
He followed, hollow-eyed, the movements of the Volya.
Bending over from the bridge, he gave the order:
"Hoist a signal!"
"Aye-aye!" cried the sailors readily, rushing towards the box containing the signal flags.
The gay pennants flew up the mast of the Kerch, fluttering against the azure sky.
Their combination meant:
"To the ships going to Sevastopol—shame on the betrayers of Russia!"
The Volya, as if the message had not been noticed, gave no answering signal, but, unmanned, disgraced, slipped past the battleships which had remained true to their honour.
"She's seen the signals!" cried the sailors suddenly, for the muzzles of the two giant guns on her after-turret lifted, and the turret turned towards the destroyer....
The captain of the Kerch, gripping the rail, thrust out his great peeling nose to meet death.
But the guns only shifted and lowered their muzzles.
Gathering speed, the Volya doubled the pier, and soon her proud profile disappeared beneath the horizon, only to reappear, many years later—disarmed, rusted, and eternally disgraced—in far-away Bizerta.
Commander in Chief of the Fleet Tikhmenev insisted on carrying out the order of the Council of People's Commissars to the letter, and the dreadnought Volya and six destroyers surrendered at discretion in Sevastopol.
All her officers and sailors were allowed to leave.
The sailors made for their homes and birthplaces.
They said, of course, that they had been unable to bring themselves to sink their ships, but the real reason had been their fear of the forty thousand Red Army men who threatened to bayonet the entire population of Novorossiisk.
The dreadnought Svobodnaya Rossia, and eight destroyers, remained in the port of Novorossiisk.
The time for executing the terms of the ultimatum would expire on the morrow.
German airplanes were circling high above the town.
In the roads, among the prancing dolphins, appeared the periscopes of U-boats.
The Germans were said to have effected a landing not far away, at Temryuk.
And on the quays of Novorossiisk stormy meetings were held day and night, and suspicious characters in civilian clothes were shouting more and more insistently:
"Don't bring ruin on yourselves, mates, don't scuttle the fleet...."
"It's only the officers who want to scuttle the fleet, and all the officers, to a man, have sold themselves to the Entente...."
"In December you threw your officers into the sea at Sevastopol—what are you afraid of now?
Why not do it again?"