"Do you remember Daddy's story about Sedov's expedition?" I ask Shura.
"Yes, Mother."
"Do you remember how Sedov said before he left: 'How can we go to the Pole with equipment like this! Instead of eighty dogs we have only twenty, our clothes are worn out, food is scarce.'…Remember…? Well, look here, an icebreaker is leaving for the Arctic now. What haven't they got on board! They have thought of everything—from needles to cows."
"Cows? What cows?"
"Yes, there are twenty-six live cows on board, four pigs, fresh potatoes and vegetables. I don't suppose the sailors will go hungry this trip."
"And they won't get frozen, either," adds Zoya, looking over my shoulder at the paper. "See, what a lot of everything they've got: fur clothing, and their sleeping bags are fur too, and coal and benzine and kerosene.
"And skis!" Shura contributes, rather irrelevantly. "And sleighs, and all kinds of scientific instruments. That's equipment for you…! Ooh, and guns! They will use them to shoot seals and polar bears."
I never thought then that the ship Chelyuskin would soon become our chief topic of conversation. The newspaper bulletins were not too numerous, or perhaps they did not catch my eye. Anyway, the news which Shura suddenly rushed in with one day took me completely by surprise.
"Mama!" shouted Shura, flushed and tousled, as he burst into the room. "The Chelyuskin! The ship you were telling me about! I just heard it myself…!"
"What's happened?"
"It's been crushed! In the ice!"
"And the men?"
"They were all taken off. Right onto an iceberg. Only one man fell overboard…
It was unbelievable. Yet it turned out that Shura had not mixed anything up—it was the talk of the whole country. On the 13th of February ("They are right about thirteen being an unlucky number!" said Shura despondently) the ice floes of the Arctic crushed the ship. Under their mighty pressure the port side caved in, and two hours later the Chelyuskin was swallowed up by the waves.
In the space of these two hours the men unloaded a two months' supply of food, tents, sleeping bags, an airplane and a radio station. They took their bearings by the stars, got in touch by radio with the polar stations on the Chukotsk mainland, and immediately began to build themselves living quarters, a kitchen, a signal tower.
Soon the newspapers and radio brought more news: the Party and the Government had organized a commission for the rescue of the Chelyuskin crew. And without delay the whole country began to take part in the rescue work: icebreakers were hurriedly put under repair, airships and airsledges were made ready for flight.
On North Cape, at Wellen and in Providence Bay airplanes prepared to take off for the scene of the catastrophe. Dog teams set out from Wellen towards the camp. Across the ocean, right round the world, went the icebreaker Krasin. The steamers Smolensk and Stalingrad sailed up to latitudes which no steamer had ever reached in wintertime, and took airplanes to Cape Olyutorski.
I do not think there was a single person in the whole country whose thoughts were not with the men of the Chelyuskin. Zoya and Shura watched developments with bated breath. I need not have listened to the radio or read the papers—the children knew everything down to the tiniest detail, and for hours on end they would argue hotly on one subject: What are the Chelyuskin crew doing now? What are they thinking about? Are they afraid?
There were one hundred and four of them on the ice floe, including two children. And didn't Shura envy them!
"Why should they have all the luck? They don't understand anything: one is not two yet, and the other isn't out of its cradle. Now, if I were there., . !"
"Shura, think a moment! How can you call it luck? People in such trouble, and you say 'luck'!"
Shura waved my objection aside. He cut out every line in the paper concerning the Chelyuskin men. He drew nothing but the North: ice floes and the camp—as he saw it.
We knew that although a dreadful catastrophe had overtaken the men of the Chelyuskin, they were neither afraid nor bewildered. They were staunch and full of courage—real Soviet people. No one lost heart. Each man did his duty, made scientific observations, and it was with good reason that the newspaper which they put out while living on the ice was called, We Won't Give In! They improvised stoves out of tin barrels, frying pans and lamps out of tins, carved spoons out of bits of board. The windows of their hut were made out of bottles. They had enough ingenuity, gumption and patience to tackle all their problems. And how many tons of ice did they carry on their backs, clearing a space for an airfield on the ice! They would clear the field in the day, and in the night ridges of ice would shoot up again all over the place, destroying every trace of their stubborn hard work. But the brave men of the Chelyuskin knew that salvation was sure to come: in the Land of Soviets the Party and Comrade Stalin would not leave anyone in the lurch.
And then in the beginning of March ("In time to celebrate International Women's Day!" Zoya cried out at this news) Lyapidevskj's plane made a landing on the ice, and brought the women and children back to safety. "Lyapidevski! What a man!" I heard all round me.
Zoya and Shura pronounced Molokov's name with veneration. And it really did make you catch your breath just to think of what this intrepid airman was doing. In order to hasten the rescue of the marooned explorers he carried men in parachute cradles fastened to the wings. He made several trips in one day. He alone took thirty-nine people off the ice!
"If only I could see him!" Shura dreamed aloud.
The Government commission sent additional aircraft from Kamchatka and Vladivostok to rescue the Chelyuskin crew. At this point it became known that the ice round the camp was breaking in several places. New huge cracks appeared and wide patches of water. The ice shifted and formed into ice packs. The night after the women and children were taken off, the wooden barracks in which they had lived collapsed. Lyapidevski's plane had been only just in time!
Soon came a fresh disaster: a mass of ice swept away the kitchen, and destroyed the airfield, where Slepnev's plane was standing. The situation was one of extreme danger, more menacing with every day and every minute that passed. Spring was coming into its own. Shura greeted the warm days with sheer hatred. "Sunny again! Melting off the roof again!" he would exclaim indignantly.
The number of people on the ice, however, grew less and less, and, at last, on the 13th of April there was no one left. The last six men of the crew had been brought safely back to the mainland.
"Well, is thirteen an unlucky number?" Zoya shouted at Shura triumphantly.
"What joy to know it's all over now!" said Shura with deep feeling.
I am sure that if it were they themselves who had been brought off the ice they could not have been more overjoyed.
Everyone living securely on dry land had feared for the life of those on that ice floe. And now the two months of tense waiting were over!
Previously I had read much about Arctic expeditions. Anatoly Petrovich had been interested in the North, and he had quite a few books about the Arctic—novels and stories. From the books which I had read in childhood I remembered that people lost in the ice were frequently overcome with animosity, mutual distrust, hatred and the animal desire of each to save his own skin, to preserve his own health, even at the cost of the lives and health of his erstwhile friends.
But all this was utterly alien to my children, and in fact to all Soviet children. In their eyes, the way the hundred Chelyuskin men had lived and behaved for two long months on the ice, their courage, their staunchness and comradeship, was the most natural thing in the world.
In the middle of June Moscow greeted the Chelyuskin men. The sky was grey and dreary, but I cannot recall a brighter or more brilliant day! Early in the morning the children dragged me to Gorky Street. The whole of Moscow seemed to have gathered here. There was not an inch of space left on the pavements. Aircraft were circling above. Everywhere, on the walls of houses, in small windows and in huge shop windows, were the portraits of those who had become so dear and familiar to us, the heroes of the Chelyuskin and their rescuers. Everywhere there were huge blue and scarlet banners, warm words of welcome, and no end of flowers.
And suddenly cars appeared from the direction of the Byelorussian Railway Station. When you first saw them you could not even guess they were cars: it seemed as if some kind of flying gardens or big flower beds on wheels were approaching! They went past, heading for the Red Square. A pile of flowers, huge bouquets, garlands of roses, and in the middle of it all you could barely make out a man's laughing, excited face, and the wave of his hand. From the pavements and windows, from the balconies and roofs, people threw still more flowers. Leaflets dropped from airplanes fluttered down like big butterflies to cover the asphalt below with a thick rustling layer of paper.
A tall sunburnt man picked Shura up and put him on his strong broad shoulder, and from there my son seemed to shout louder than anyone else.
"What a happy day!" said Zoya breathlessly, and I think those words were on everyone's lips that day.
Next: His Elder Sister