Archiwum
- Index
- 002 The Old Republic Revan Karpyshyn Drew
- Anderson, Poul We Have Fed Our Sea
- Clockwork Heart Dru Pagliassotti
- Anonimo Libro de Apolonio
- MacLean Alistair (1974) Przelecz zlamanego serca
- Eo Orzeszko, Eliza Marta
- W pogoni za szcz晜›ciem(2)
- Diana Copland Grand Jete (pdf)
- Zamówienia publiczne praktyczny poradnik dlaorgaizacji pozarzć…doych
- CSI Miami Cortez, Donn MĂśrderisches Fest
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- stemplofil.keep.pl
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from?" "A cabman gave me the tip. A chap called Volodya." "Used to be a partisan? Crippled arm?"
"That's him. He happened to mention that there was a man from Sevastopol living in Matrosskaya
Settlement who'd as good as taken part in the uprising. So off I went to see him. It turned out that he
hadn't been on the Ochakov himself, but he'd kept a life-buoy from the ship that started the mutiny. It's a
precious relic! Had a hard job wheedling it out of him."
The coffee that Golovatsky had put on came to the boil. Golovatsky lifted the copper saucepan and
placed a strip of metal over the blue flame of the spirit stove, so that the brew would simmer.
"Now look at this photograph, Mandzhura," Tolya said, striding across the room. "He comes from
round our way too."
The photograph was of a smart-looking naval officer in tsarist uniform. He was sitting facing the
camera, in a white tunic hung with medals, and a white cap with a dark band, his hands resting on his
knees.
"Why are you so keen on Whiteguard officers?"
"In the first place, he was never a Whiteguard," Golovatsky corrected me. "And secondly, if all the
tsarist officers had done as much in life as he did, and known so much trouble, I don't suppose the White
generals would have been able to make them fight against the Revolution. They simply wouldn't have
obeyed them. . . For your information, that is Georgy Sedov, the famous Arctic explorer, who died of
scurvy on an ice-floe near the North Pole."
"Was he from the Azov Sea too?"
"Of course! From Krivaya Kosa. You see, not all officers are the same. If Lieutenant Schmidt,
besides his sincere desire to overthrow the autocracy, had possessed the character of Georgy
Sedov who knows how the uprising on the Ochakov might have ended!"
"So Sedov was a good man?" I asked cautiously, completely at a loss.
"He came from the people and he loved his country," Golovatsky said with great feeling and reached
down a book from one of the shelves. "Listen to what Sedov said in his last order" of the day, written
before setting out for the Pole. He wrote this order on February the second, 1914, when he was already
very ill. '... Today we are setting out for the Pole. This is an event for us and for our country. Discovery
of the Pole has been the dream of great Russians for centuries Lomonosov, Mendeleyev, and others.
We, ordinary people, have the honour to realize their dream, and to do our best in polar discovery for
the benefit and pride of our dear Motherland. I do not want to say "good-bye" to you, dear companions,
I want to say "till we meet again," so that I may embrace you once more, and rejoice with you over our
common success, and return with you to our country...' " "And did he return?" I asked.
"He was buried out there, in the Arctic, on the road to his goal. He gave his life for the good of his
people, and all the time the tsarist ministers were pouring abuse on him in the newspapers..."
"Yes, a man like him would have supported Soviet power unhesitatingly. He wouldn't have sneered
and picked holes like Andrykhevich!" I flashed out suddenly.
"Well, that is comparing a lion to a mouse..." Golovatsky looked at me with reproach. "That fellow is
just a philistine with a university education. Do you know Andrykhevich personally?"
"Happened to meet him the other day," I replied. "Strange how a man could betray a tradition that
had-been in the family for generations. His parents took part in the Polish uprising against the Russian
emperor. They were exiled to Siberia for it. But their son has served the tsar and the capitalists and treats
the Revolution as a great personal misfortune."
"But he doesn't say that openly, does he?" "Sometimes he likes to play the democrat, comes out of his
little mansion and takes a trip round the town. On Sundays mostly. He goes into the pubs and The Little
Nook,' listens to the blind bayan players. Drinks beer and talks a lot. One or two of the foremen are
under his influence. Can't hear a word spoken against him."
"But on the whole, he's a clever man, he's useful, isn't he?"
"He has to work, there's no way out. But I can very easily imagine what Andrykhevich would do if
there was a war. As for how useful he is well, a man can be just a little bit useful, just for form's sake,
or he can give the job everything he's got. That member of the gentry only does what he's told to do.
You've probably heard about the owners taking a lot of production secrets away with them, or hiding
them before they went. Well, Ivan Fyodorovich is doing his best, but so far the results aren't very great.
And the chief engineer just hangs around and waggles his eyebrows, laughing up his sleeve all the time.
Now, I ask you, do you think Caiworth kept any technical secrets from his chief engineer? All that about
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