"Nonsense, we've been in many a worse fix! I've been talking to the sailors, their morale is wonderful.... I'll get you a tug and anything else you need.... We'll call a meeting.... It'll all come right in the end...."
He asked for a motor-launch and had himself taken up to the Svobodnaya Rossia.
After this, he sped from one ship to another in the launch.
Semyon could' see his small figure, now dangling from the accommodation ladders of merchant vessels, now leaping ashore and plunging into the crowd, from the thick of which immediately came shouts and raised hands.
Once there was the roar of a thousand voices shouting '"hurrah!"
Some pinnaces, crammed with sailors, sheered off from the pier and rowed up to a small rusty craft far back in the harbour; very soon thick clouds of smoke were rolling out of the little steamer's funnels as it weighed anchor and steamed up to the Svobodnaya Rossia.
A schooner, too, raised its sails.
The Lieutenant Shestaftov had come back to take another destroyer in tow.
Soon after nine the crowd began moving up to the gangway of the Kerch.
The general feeling seemed to have changed for the worse.
Queer-looking ragamuffins' were elbowing their way to the side of the ship, their hands full of smoked sausage, bread, and bacon fat.
Grinning and winking at the sailors, they let them see the bottles of spirits with which they were also provided.
Kukel gave the order to draw up the gangway and cast off, and the Kerch fled from temptation into the middle of the harbour, from where she watched the destroyers being towed away.
The rusty steamer, looking like a mere empty hulk, at last managed, puffing and smoking, to move the Svobodnaya Rossia, which floated majestically past the thousands of watchers.
Men took off their caps, as if a funeral procession were passing.
The great ship passed the booms, the gates and the harbour, and moved into the roads.
Everyone expected German airplanes to appear again, but all was quiet in the sky and on the sea.
The destroyer Fidonisi was now the only vessel left in harbour.
Once more there was a turmoil in the crowd, and a caviar-like coagulation of black heads at the pier to which the Fidonisi was moored.
A sailing-schooner with an outboard engine moved up to take her in tow.
Stones were flung at the schooner from the crowd, and a few revolver shots were heard.
A grey-haired man climbed a lamppost, shouting:
"Fratricides! You have betrayed Russia.... You have betrayed the army....
What are you waiting for, mates?
They're selling the only ships we have left!"
The crowd roared and tore at the paving stones.
Some men jumped on to the deck of the Fidonisi.
The Kerch moved rapidly shorewards, ringing the battle alarm, the muzzles of its guns turned on the crowd, while the captain shouted into the megaphone:
"Back—or I open fire!''
The crowd swerved and fell back, to the accompaniment of shrieks from those trampled underfoot.
There was nothing left on the deserted quay but a rising cloud of dust.
The schooner made fast to the Fidonisi and towed her away.
The Kerch followed them slowly to their destination, where all the other vessels were rocking in a light swell.
Semyon watched the gulls flying high above the bows, and then looked at the captain, who was standing on the bridge, gripping the rails with both hands.
It was going on for four, when the Kerch passed the Fidonisi on her starboard. The captain uttered a single word, and a torpedo slid from its sheath like a dark shadow. A strip of foam raced along a ripple, and the Fidonisi, heaving herself bodily upwards, broke in two, while a shaggy mountain of foaming water boiled up from the ocean depths, and a heavy rumbling roar reverberated far out to sea.
When the mountain of water had subsided, there was no Fidonisi to be seen any more. Nothing but foam.
The sinking of the fleet had begun.
Demolition squads opened the sea cocks and slide valves of the destroyers, ripped the portholes from the side of the listing vessels, setting light, just before leaping into the waiting boats, to the fuses which were to detonate the ten-foot charges at the base of the turbines and boilers.
The destroyers rapidly disappeared beneath the water, which was many fathoms deep here.
In twenty-five minutes the roads were clear.
The Kerch approached the Svobodnaya Rossia full steam ahead, and released her torpedoes.
The sailors slowly bared their heads.
The first torpedo struck the bows, and the dreadnought swayed beneath the violent onrush of the water.
The second struck her sideways, amidships.
Through the cloud of water and smoke the mast could be seen to sway.
The great ship—more majestic than ever amidst the roaring waves and thunder of detonations—seemed to struggle for its life like a living creature.
Tears ran down the sailors' cheeks.
Semyon covered his face with his hands....
Captain Kukel seemed to be wasting away, until all that was left of him was his nose, turned in the direction of the dying vessel.
The last torpedo struck, and the Svobodnaya Rossia began to heel over.... For a moment, as if making one last effort, she thrust herself out of the water, and then went rapidly to the bottom in a whirlpool of foam.