Yuri was the captain of this warship.
A handsome, tall man of honour , with great goals and ambitions to make his mark in this war.
Russia was at war with Japan and his responsibility was not only to navigate this ship across the ocean.
He also had a deadly cargo on board, consisting of formidable weapons and cannons and men willing to use those weapons.
They thirsted to vent their dark thoughts and feelings and express their rage and hopelessness by fighting this terrible enemy who had brought them this war by turning against their country.
The years on board, without the warmth of a woman and the laughter of children had made them numb.
Numb and heartless …and…without wanting to offend them, also a bit dull.
Between maneuvers, they loitered on deck, got secretly drunk, and then fought.
They would fight and have their comrades cheer them on until one of them was down.
Most of the time they didn’t even know what the fight was about.
Some others sat a bit secluded and carved small wooden figures with their knives.
Little animals and huge giants, animals they discovered on their deadly journey. Animals they had never seen in their lives before and which, of course, did not exist in Russia.
They carved daily and with the last bit of hope in their cells that there would still be a life for them after this life full of horrors, unworthy commands, rapacity, anger and the confusion of politics, whose executing puppets they had become, to a large extent unasked.
They hoped for a life after this life.
And for women and children in a loving home, who would marvel full of curiosity at their exotic figures and listen to their stories, about a distant, exciting world, which they themselves would never travel.
On board there were also ” the others “.
Those who stood at the bridge with pride in their eyes and pulled out their telescope as soon as a ship appeared on the horizon.
Hoping there would be food for their hungry cannons again and thus even more medals on their immaculately clean jackets with ironed and starched collars.
They had no qualms about sacrificing every man on board for their goals.
And they each had their own ideas about where they wanted to find themselves after the war.
And their ideas had little to do with warm-hearted women and laughing children.
For many, the war was a welcome career ladder and they were determined to climb it, no matter what the cost.
Their destination and mission were both determined and tragic.
They were sailing to Madagascar.
There they were to anchor in a hidden bay of a protected peninsula and from their hiding place ambush the Japanese warships in order to attack them deceitfully from there.
Long before the spotter yelled rom high above at the ship mast:
“Land in sight ” Yuri had discovered the silhouette of the huge and somehow magical island in the Indian Ocean.
With every meter they came closer to the island, the realization of his goals seemed more real and tangible. Yes, he had a difficult mission here, but he had been promised great things.
And for that, he was willing to risk everything.
His soldiers jumped up, one of them, who had been a circus performer before the war, even jumped onto the railing and balanced on it, joyfully waving his cap in his hand.
At last they would feel ground under their feet again, and at last they would eat real food. Not this muck which was brewed from the leftovers in every ship’s galley when the journey was about to come to an end.
The men were rough and loud and made crude jokes and pushed each other into the dinghies after they had completed the anchor maneuver.
Driven by greed and need, they rowed ashore. When they arrived, however, they became silent….
On the shore, on the bright white sandy beach right on the edge of the jungle, there were children. And women and men.
And a man who was probably the king of this tribe.
A great dignity emanated from them. And a pleasant silence.
Yuri straightened to his full height and put one hand behind his back.
He knew how to talk to kings.
He secretly saw himself as a conqueror, and had rehearsed this situation many times internally.
He entered this sacred land and the moment he set his foot on the beach glittering with coral, the people also started moving and approached them in a friendly manner.
The children laughed, and danced excitedly around the boats, tugging Yuri by the sleeve of his medal-crowned jacket and helping to pull the other boats ashore.
Their eyes sparkled and focused them like little laser beams. Yuri had never seen eyes like that before.
They seemed alert and clear, and somehow not from this world. The women stopped behind the men and answered their children’s curious question.
Yuri straightened his shoulders.
He walked up to the king and greeted him with a nod. He introduced himself, including his rank and name, knowing that no one would understand him.
And the king smiled to himself, unimpressed.
With a quick wave of his hand, he invited Yuri to follow him to his village.
After a tense moment of silence, Yuri’s men also streamed ashore excitedly and this time a little quieter past the laughing children.
They could not hide their joy, and something about this island made their hearts dance.
There was such a quiet dignity, as if they were here at the pulse of Mother Earth and somehow also at the pulse of time.
A warm kind of energy flowed through their veines.
While Yuri and two of his men followed the king and his tribe into the village, the men looked around for a suitable place to camp.
Quickly the best place was found and they set up and hammered laughing and also straining until late in the evening.
Just before the sun would disappear behind the lush green rainforest, Yuri and the king of the Malagasy indigenous people of the island reached the village.
As he entered the village, the children looked at him with curious, open eyes and they giggled and whispered and a strange feeling overcame Yuri.
Faced with this innocence in their nature, questions arose in him that he had never asked himself before.
The king pointed to a place next to him by the fire.
Yuri sat down.
They sat there for a long time, sometimes in silence and sometimes exchanging some words. Nobody knows to this day how they communicated and what happened that day at the fire, but Yuri left the village with an inner smile and found his way to the camp even in the darkness.
That night he did not talk.
Not to anyone. He sat quietly by the fire and listened to the pulse of Mother Earth and the pulse of time.
In the morning, the camp came to life with the first rays of the sun. During the night it had rained and everything around them sparkled in the brightest colors.
The children from the village were no longer shy and scurried everywhere between them, touching everything with their curious little hands and the soldiers were unable to make them understand that the weapons they carried were deadly. And especially that they were deadly to humans.
And the more they tried to explain it to the children, who simply did not understand why there were weapons that could kill them and other people, the more absurd it seemed even to themselves.
The tent for the strategy meetings of the generals and officers was quickly erected and Yuri was also at the table planning the attacks on the Japanese warships sailing by.
In between, graceful women with large baskets full of tropical fruits and fish on their heads came to the edge of the camp and placed them there.
Yuri sent the ship’s cook with two soldiers to the village to bring barter goods to the king.
So the days on this mystical island passed somehow like in a dream.
The soldiers swam in the sea, let the local men teach them how to fish with small nets, sometimes went out to sea for fun with their adventurous little sailing pirogues, which they mastered perfectly, and let them show them how to fish the Marlin, Tuna and the Barracuda.
When they were successful, it was natural for them to sit together around the fire in the king’s village and enjoy exotic-smelling food on banana leaves with the villagers.
The Malagasy were very musical people and music was always played afterwards.
The women and sometimes the men danced wildly and did not allow even the strangers to remain seated on the ground.
They laughed a lot and spoke little because they did not understand each other’s languages.
But what they shared was so much more than words.
And each time they returned to their camp, they continued to draw up devious strategy plans, cleaning their guns and weapons, while their thoughts wandered to the village, to the shining bright eyes of the Kids and the warm smile of a special woman.
Their everyday soldiering was corroded to the pulse of time and the heartbeat of Mother Nature.
Thoughts of war and intrigue, of maneuvers and strategies gave way to thoughts of life itself, and the women and children which now appeared daily in the Camp and some of them did not leave anymore.
No one remembers how long it lasted. And no one talked about it, but one evening, they had just caught a huge tuna, with one of the villagers on his little colorful sailing pirroge, they did not go straight back to the village.
The men of the village joined them, and together they moved the Great Ship to a hiding place in a side channel.
The cannons and weapons they did sank in the deep ocean and the ship was covered with the plants of the jungle.
It was seen two more times, it is said, to trade with the passing pirat ships.
After that it was not seen again.
None of these soldiers ever returned to Russia, and none of them was ever ready to wage war again.
The island and its inhabitants brought them back to real life and they lived happily with their families on the Malagasy peninsula until in 1936 the last of them died with a peaceful smile on his face.
That is why this peninsula still is called Russian Bay by the Malagasy…