Ocr: Konstantin Stanyukovich

OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/ KONSTANTIN STANYUKOVICH MAXIMKA SEA STORIES Translated from the Russian by Bernard Isaacs Designed by Sergei Pozharsky Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics CONTENTS MAXIMKA THE NURSE ESCAPE MAN OVERBOARD SHORTY AMONG FRIENDS STORM -TOSSED DAREDEVIL On a misty October morning in 1860 the Russian corvette Kalevala set sail from Kronstadt on a foreign cruise. Among the ship's company was seventeen-year-old midshipman Konstantin Stanyukovich, a graduate of the Naval College. A quarter of a century later he published his sea stories, which won him public recognition. But that autumn morning when lie first left his native shores the young naval officer little suspected what an important part that cruise was to play in his life. Stanyukovich was appointed to the corvette against his own wishes. His ambition was to leave the service and enter the St. Petersburg University, But his father, an old admiral and a man of strong, harsh character, set his face against it and got his son sent on a long foreign cruise. The three-year voyage, however, failed to "knock (lie nonsense" out of Stanyukovich's head, and on returning to St. Petersburg he promptly retired with the fixed intention of taking up a literary career. The summit of that career, namely, his sea stories, was reached by a thorny path. "To make a close study of the life of the people" Stanyukovich worked for several years as a village school-teacher. In 1884 he was banished to Siberia for being connected with Russian revolutionary emigrants. It was there, in exile, that he wrote his sea stories. The experiences of his youth came to vivid life again, as it were, in his writings. The reader is given a picture of the hard and hazardous life of sailors at sea, he is shown shipboard life in all its aspects, from the hoisting to the lowering of the flag, he can almost hear the bells striking and see the deck officer pacing the bridge. But the chief thing is the human element on board—the deep-sea men, wise in the ways of ships and the sea. The sea puts them through a thousand ordeals, taxes their strength, their will and muscles to the utmost. The heroes of Stanyukovich's sea stories, "those who keep the works, going," are seasoned jack tars with weather-beaten faces, who "know their onions" and are capable of feats of valour, men like Luchkin (the story "Maximka"), Chizhik ("The Nurse"), Mityushin ("Daredevil"). Side by side with these are shown brave sympathetic officers, men of honour like Luzgin ("The Nurse"), and Opolyev ("Storm-Tossed"), with the author himself always an invisible presence. Konstantin Stanyukovich did not become an admiral, but he was, to use his own words, "one of those literary mariners who fear neither gales nor storms and do not abandon their ship in times of distress." MAXIMKA Dedicated to Tusik I HE ship's bell had just struck. It was six o'clock of a magnificent tropical morning in mid Atlantic. The sun, a dazzling, burning ball of gold, was quickly climbing the light blue eastern sky, whose soaring loftiness and soft transparency were flecked here and there, as with scraps of delicate lace, by tiny snow-white wisps of clouds. It suffused the vast expanse of the ocean with radiant lustre. The sea stretched one endless, gently undulating plain from one distant blue horizon to the other. There was a sort of solemn stillness in the air. The only sound was that of the enormous light blue waves racing after each other with silver crests glittering in the sunlight, and merging together with a gentle, almost caressing murmur, as if whispering to you that, out there in the tropics, the ancient primeval ocean is always in the best of moods. Carefully, like a tender, loving nurse, does she bear the sailing ships upon her gigantic bosom, with never a threat of storm or hurricane to sailor. The sea was deserted. There was not a single sail to be seen anywhere, not a single puff of smoke. Nothing but the broad ocean highway. Now and again the bright silvery scales of a fly-fish would glitter in the sunshine; or a playful whale would show its dark back and noisily send up a fountain of water; or a black frigate-bird or snow-white albatross would soar overhead; or a little grey petrel would speed past over the water, bound for the distant shores of Africa or America. Then again the sea would be deserted. Nothing but the murmuring waves, the sun, and sky—all bright, cheerful and kindly. Rocking lightly on the ocean's swell, a Russian steam-driven warship, the clipper Zabiyaka , was swiftly heading south, each day carrying her still further from the North, a land grim and sombre, yet so dear and beloved. A small, black, trim-looking vessel with a flowing grace of line, her three tall raking masts clothed in canvas, the Zabiyaka , listing slightly to leeward, was sailing at seven or eight knots, borne along by a steady, favourable north-east trade wind. She rode the waves lightly and gracefully, cleaving the sea with her prow amid swirls of tumbling foam and flying glittering spray. The waves softly licked her sides, and in her wake lay a broad ribbon of sparkling silver. Above and below decks the usual 8 a.m. cleaning and scouring were in progress in preparation for hoisting the ship's flag and starting the day on board. Scattered about the deck in white work shirts with wide blue collars revealing muscular, weather-tanned necks, their feet bare and trousers tucked up above the knees, the sailors were busy washing down, scrubbing and scouring the decks, the sides of the ship, the guns, the brass-work and everything else on the Zabiyaka that required such attention. They worked with the meticulous care sailors always show when they are cleaning their ship, seeing to it that everything, from the trucks down to the holds, shall be spotlessly clean and that everything that can respond to brick, cloth and whiting shall be spick and span. The sailors were working with a hearty good will, chuckling each time they heard the "bawling" bo'sun, Matveyich—a typical old sea-dog with popping grey eyes and a face red from sunburn and drinking bouts ashore—improvised a particularly talented piece of invective that struck even the accustomed ears of a Russian sailor. Matveyich did this not so much to spur the men on as to stick to form. No one minded Matveyich's cursing. The men knew him to be a kind and decent man who always dealt fair with them and never abused his position. And they had long grown accustomed to his not being able to speak three words without swearing. Indeed, they were often delighted by the range and variety of his vocabulary in this respect. He was a real artist at it. Now and again a sailor would run down to the forecastle where the water-tub and the smoke-lamp stood to get a quick smoke of acrid makhorka and exchange a few words with his friends. Then he would return to his task of scrubbing and scouring, making a special effort each time he caught sight of the tall, lean figure of the chief officer, who had been nosing about in every corner of the ship since early morning. The officer of the watch, a fair-haired young man, whose watch was from four till eight, had long since thrown off the drowsiness of his first half hour. Clad in white, his shirt open at the neck, he paced up and down the bridge, breathing in great gulps of the cool, fresh morning air which the burning sun had not yet heated. A balmy breeze pleasantly caressed the nape of his neck each time he stopped to look at the compass to see whether the helmsman was steering the right course, whether the sails were properly set or whether there were any squall clouds in the sky. But all was well, and the officer of the watch had practically nothing to do in these blessed tropics. And he continued his pacing of the bridge, dreaming prematurely of the end of his watch when he would be able to drink a cup of tea with those fresh warm rolls which the officers' cook was such an expert at making, providing that the vodka he got for "raising the dough" was not used by him internally. II All of a sudden the morning stillness was broken by the startled, unnaturally loud cry of the look-out man in the bows: "Man in the sea!" The sailors dropped their work, rushed to the forecastle and gazed anxiously out into the ocean. "Where is he?" they shouted to the look-out man, a young fair- haired sailor whose face had gone as white as a sheet. "Over there!" he said, pointing with a shaking hand. "I can't see him now. But I saw him a minute ago, boys! Hanging on to a mast, he was. Looked as if he was tied to it," he went on excitedly, as he vainly tried to catch sight of the mast again. The officer of the watch, startled by the look-out man's cry, jammed his binoculars to his eyes and gazed out in the direction in which he had pointed. And the signaller, with his spyglass, did the same. "Can you see anything?" asked the young officer.

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