hands warmly with Comrade Colonel and Comrade Colonel listened in a detached way to the President’s few remarks. Then he turned about, gave a smiling nod to the elegant Mischa and stood against the wall near the door through which he had arrived.
Comrade Colonel made some gesture and the court resumed its seat. The questioning was resumed. The visitor listened with apparent boredom, glanced up to the ceiling, appeared to be wrapped up in thoughts of things far more weighty than the trial of a mere Pole, and then, after about ten minutes slipped quietly out the way he had come.
About two o’clock in the afternoon the President yielded his place to a younger man and went off, presumably to lunch. There were changes among the officials in other parts of the long table. In this type of court it was apparently not necessary to preserve continuity. Anyone who had read the depositions could take over to give the principals a rest. The deputy-President had an air of efficiency which the older man lacked. His questioning was quicker, left less time to think. But he was not unpleasant, and soon after taking over he astonished me by offering me a cigarette. There was no catch. An official brought me a cigarette and lit it for me. I drew the smoke in and felt good. Before the end of the day they gave me another. Two cigarettes in a day. I felt that perhaps the signs were auspicious.
Comrade Colonel looked in once more during the afternoon, walked along the long table, picked up documents, laid them down, nervously exchanged words with two or three of the top men, and slipped out again. The examination went on.
The second change of guard at my back marked the passage of another two hours. Mischa now put in some rather leisurely cross-examination. Occasionally he smiled. I answered with a show of great willingness. I thought what a welcome change it was to be dealing with a man who seemed to have brought back with his stylish Western clothes some of the niceties of another civilization.
It almost seemed to me that there was even a remote touch of sympathy when they asked me about my wife. It was a brief enough story. I married Vera at Pinsk on 5 July 1939, during a forty-eight-hour leave from the Army. My mother called me from my place at the table during the wedding feast on the pretext I was wanted on the telephone. She handed me a telegram which ordered my immediate return to my unit. I packed my bags. Vera cried as I kissed her goodbye. The tears streamed down as she stroked my hair and face. So I went away, and most of the wedding guests did not know I had gone. A fortnight later I was able to get permission for her to come and stay near me at Ozharov. She stayed for four or five days and I was able to see her for about three hours a day. They were glorious, wonderful hours, in which we almost succeeded in banishing the sense of doom which hung heavily over us and over all Poland. It was all the married life I was to know with Vera. When I had fought the Germans in the West and the Russians had pushed in from the East I went back to Pinsk. The N.K.V.D. moved very swiftly. I had barely time to greet Vera, to answer her first eager questions, when they walked in. That was the last time I saw her.
About mid-afternoon when I had been standing before the court for well over four hours, the deputy- President asked me if I would like a cup of coffee. I said ‘Yes, please.’ That was when I was also given my second cigarette. The coffee was excellent — hot, strong and sweetened. When I had drunk and smoked — the coffee first and the cigarette afterwards because of my clumsy one-handedness — there were a few questions from a burly civilian at the opposite end of the table from Mischa. This man, I gathered, was my defence counsel. He showed every sign of irritation at the role he was forced to play and gave me the impression of being barely able to conceal his contempt for me. He took very little part in the trial and certainly his intervention at any stage did nothing to advance my cause. He was, at best, a most reluctant champion.
The day’s proceedings ended rather abruptly at about four o’clock. One of the two centre-of-the-table officers whispered to the deputy-President. An officer called my guards to attention and I was turned about and marched back to my cell. Food was brought me and I sat down to ponder the events of the day. I decided that my trial must be over, that there remained now only the formality of being told the sentence of the court. I did not think I had done badly this day. I even cherished a slight hope that the sentence would be light. That night I slept very well. It was the most restful night I had enjoyed for many months.
The guards came for me at seven the next morning. The weather was misty and the damp chill struck through my clothes and caused me to shiver as we walked across the cobbled yard to the court building. There was the routine search at the entrance inside the big doors and again I was pushed through the curtained door to my place facing the long table.
But things inside were much different from yesterday. The tribunal, all of them with a sour-faced, early- morning look, were ready and waiting for me. There was none of yesterday’s badinage. The Soviet Supreme Court was showing me a very cold and businesslike face. The tribunal was the same as that which had sat at the end of yesterday — the younger deputy-President in the middle, his two N.K.V.D. advisers on right and left. This is it, I thought. They are going to announce my sentence. I stood up straight and waited The gentlemen of the court stared at me.
A quick shuffling of papers and the trial restarted. The deputy-President whipped out the questions. Name?… Age?… Where born?… The same routine. It was as though I had never before seen this white-walled courtroom. Yesterday might never have been. There was a new and forceful insistence about the catechism, as though my answers of the day before had been shrugged away, wiped off the slate. For the first half-hour I fought with waves of engulfing depression. I felt utterly miserable, downcast almost to breaking point. I told myself bitterly what a hopeful and stupid fool I had been to delude myself into thinking they would let me go so easily. I had relaxed and now I had to fight again, and the fight was all the harder for having allowed myself to weaken. These men and the men of Minsk and Kharkov were all Russians, motivated by the same hatreds, working along the same lines, one-tracked.
I was bawled at, my answers were cut off half-heard, the table was thumped until the heavy inkstand leapt up and rattled back. Polish spy. Polish traitor. Polish bastard. Polish fascist. Insults were thrown in with the questions.
A new and tense, unsmiling Mischa rose to continue the questioning. The court was for a moment quiet as he stood there eyeing me. Behind the presidential chair stood three young civilians I had not seen before. Each had a little notebook. They looked expectantly towards the chief prosecutor. I remember thinking back to The Bull and his coterie of apprentices.
‘Now, Rawicz, you Polish son of a bitch,’ he said, ‘we have finished pandering to your stupidity. You know you are a dirty spy and you are going to tell us all about it.’
‘I have told you all I know,’ I said. ‘There is nothing more to tell. I have nothing to hide.’
Dramatically, Mischa walked from behind the table, took about ten steady paces and pulled up in front of me. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are a professional liar.’ Then, very deliberately, he smacked me across the face with the full fling of his arm, once, twice, three times, four times. And as I shook my head he added, ‘But I will
I stood there shaking, hating him and them and all the Russians, all they were and all they represented. For fully fifteen minutes I shut my ears to a barrage of insults and questions and, tight-lipped, refused to answer. My cheeks burned from the face-slapping, a cut inside my mouth bled and I could taste the salt blood. Finally I talked because I knew I must go on fighting them to the end. I chose my moment to break silence when Mischa spoke three names — all unknown to me — of men he claimed to be self-confessed spies against Russia and who were witnesses of my own treacherous activities.
‘Why don’t you bring them here and confront me with them?’ I asked. ‘Maybe we will, maybe we will,’ said Mischa. But no ‘witnesses’ were ever produced against me. There was no real case against me. Except, perhaps that I was a Pole. That indeed seemed to be a grave offence against the Russians.
I cannot remember all the questions, but I do remember Mischa’s skill as a prosecutor. He was adept at leading me along a clear path of places and people I knew so that I could almost anticipate the next question and have my answer half-formed. Then, abruptly, with no change of tempo there would be another town mentioned, another name. I would pause to get on to the new track and Mischa would shout in triumph, ‘So, you Polish dog, that question stops your lying mouth!
The day before, when I had been expansive and friendly, I had talked about the happy days when I went
