An agitator would immediately take the place of the troublemonger, tearing at the front of his shirt and yelling:
"Pay no heed to enemy agents, Comrades!
If you deliver up the fleet to the Germans, they will shoot you down with your own guns.... Don't give up your arms to the imperialists.... Save the world revolution! ..."
How was a man to know which ones to heed?
After the agitator, a soldier straight from the fighting at Ekaterinodar, hung with all sorts of weapons, would jump up and repeat the threat of the forty thousand bayonets. And by the night of the 18th of June many crews had not returned to their ships. They had run away, gone into hiding, fled to the mountains.
All through that night the destroyer Kerch communicated with other ships by means of signals.
Svobodnaya Rossia answered that she was ready to scuttle herself on principle, but that she had less than a hundred of her crew of two thousand left, and that these doubted whether they would be able to get up steam for taking off.
The destroyer Hadzhi-Bei had blinked the news that a meeting was still raging on deck, that there were girls on board, with bottles of spirits, probably sent there on purpose, and that looting of the vessel might be expected.
Only the captain and the ship's engineer remained on deck of torpedo boat Kaliakyria, and there were not more than six sailors on board the Fidonisi.
Similar answers were received from destroyer Captain Baranov, Smetlivy, Stremitelny, Pronzitelny.
The only ships to boast a complete crew were the Kerch and the Lieutenant Shestakov.
Towards midnight a boat approached the Kerch, and a bold voice cried:
"Comrade seamen ... a correspondent from Izvestia, the organ of the Central Executive Committee, speaking. We have just received a telegram from Admiral Sablin in Moscow: you are on no account either to scuttle the fleet or go to Sevastopol, but to await further instructions...."
The sailors leaned over the rail, straining their eyes to see the swaying boat in the darkness.
The voice went on arguing and persuading.... Senior Lieutenant Kukel climbed on to the bridge and interrupted it:
"Show me the telegram from Admiral Sablin."
"Unfortunately I haven't got it on me, Comrade, but I can go for it...."
Then Kukel said, loudly and distinctly, so that all should hear him:
"The boat to stand away half a cable to starboard.
Sheer off, there, or...."
"Excuse me, Comrade!" shouted back the bold voice. "Since you refuse to obey orders from the centre, I shall have to telegraph to Moscow...."
"... or I will sink your boat, and have you hauled up on deck.
And I cannot answer for the actions of the crew."
No answer to this came from the boat, but there was a cautious splashing of oars, and the faint outline disappeared in the darkness.
The sailors laughed.
The captain, lean and round-shouldered, his hands behind his back, paced the bridge like a caged beast.
Few slept that night.
Men lay about the dew-drenched deck; every now and then a head would be raised, and a few words dropped, effectually banishing sleep, and giving rise to muttered conversations.
The stars grew pale, and dawn was beginning to light up the mountains, when Midshipman Annensky, captain of the Lieutenant Shestakov, came on board from ashore, reporting that not only were the crews of destroyers, port-tugs and motor boats deserting, but that even the merchant ships were left without a single seaman, and that there was not a vessel left able to take the ships into the roadstead.
"Midshipman Annensky," replied the captain of the Kerch, "the responsibility rests with us, we must scuttle our ships at all costs."
Midshipman Annensky shook his head.
There was a brief silence, after which the midshipman went on shore again.
When the sun was high over the bay, the Lieutenant Shestakov steered slowly off from the pier and made for the outer roads, taking the Captain Baranov in tow, where the scuttling was to be done.
The destroyers flew the signal at their mastheads:
"I go down, but I do not surrender."
Very soon they disappeared in the morning mist.
All the ships seemed deserted now.
Seagulls were hovering over the steel mountain of the Svobodnaya Rossia.
Smoke was coming from the funnels of the Kerch.
Even at this early hour there were milling crowds on the dock-side, and the strip of pier was black with running figures, as if covered with clusters of flies.
There was an awful crush around the ships themselves, men climbing on to one another's shoulders, some even falling into the water.
Semyon Krasilnikov was standing guard at the gangway.
Soon after five, a little man, scarlet with excitement, in a black reefer jacket with no shoulder straps, stamped noisily up the gangway.
Beads of sweat stood out on his scarlet face and ran in rivulets on either side of his tiny, puckered mouth.
"Is Senior Lieutenant Kukel here?" he cried to Semyon, glaring from round, merry blue eyes at the sailor barring the way with his bayonet.
Patting himself on the chest and sides, he at last produced a mandate made out in the name of Comrade Shakhov, representative of the central Soviet power.
The sailor lowered his bayonet with a set face.
"Pass, Comrade Shakhov!"
Kukel came to meet him and at once started telling him about the situation, which he described as all but hopeless.
He spoke slowly and at length, and Shakhov's eyes rolled impatiently.