The Long Walk (3 page)

After two hours the guards behind me were replaced. I found that the changing of the escort every two hours was the regular procedure throughout the trial. I went on answering the
President’s questions. They afforded me no difficulty because they were the long, routine preliminaries. I had not yet reached the point where I had to think, to recognize a flash of danger
and avoid some carefully-baited trap. Although it must have been clearly stated many times in the documents before him that I spoke fluent Russian, the President had meticulously repeated the
question ‘Do you understand and speak Russian?’ Thereafter all the proceedings were in Russian and most of the questions were tinged with the special distrust which all Russians seem to
have for the foreigner who knows their language. The underlying suspicion is that no foreigner would learn Russian if he did not want to be a spy.

As I stood there I was shaping my plans. I decided it would be to my advantage not to antagonize the court. I freely admitted those facts which were undeniable. Where an accusation was
manifestly false I refuted it but asked the court’s permission to explain why it was so. They let me talk quite a lot. I agreed with this, partially acknowledged that, denied most things and
almost eagerly did my explaining. The atmosphere was hostile but faintly interested in my methods. The rigid nature of the questions left me under no illusion that I could change the official
attitude, but at least I felt I was not worsening my position by appearing anxious to co-operate with the court.

The informality of the proceedings impressed me. The members of the court smoked cigarettes endlessly. The stream of visitors I had noted while I was waiting for things to start continued while
the hearing was on. There was a constant mutter of behind-the-scenes talking, little murmured exchanges with the men on the long table, smiles, hands laid on shoulders in a friendly and
confidential way. As I listened and talked I observed all the new sights and sounds. Like a man at a theatre, I tried to assess the importance and significance of each character in order of
appearance.

Most intriguing was a distinguished-looking man in uniform, tall, with white-streaked hair, who strolled through one of the curtained doors when the trial had been in progress about three hours.
The President was half-way through a question when one of his flanking N.K.V.D. officers nudged him and inclined his head towards the door. The newcomer, his hand still holding the curtain, was
looking round the court. His glance took me in, paused on my two guards and swung to the judicial bench. The President leapt to his feet. All the officials stood with great haste. There was a great
scraping of heavy chairs. He had a nervous look, this distinguished visitor, a tense jerky gait as he walked over towards the beaming President. There were polite murmurs as he passed all the way
down the table, of which I picked out repeatedly the greeting ‘Comrade Colonel’. The President shook 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
make
you tell the
truth.’ He turned abruptly, strode back to his place at the table. The young observers behind the presidential chair jotted furiously in their little notebooks.

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!
That
was where you handed over your spy reports!’ A torrent of abuse and accusations
would follow as I kept repeating that I knew neither the town nor the man he mentioned.

The day before, when I had been expansive and friendly, I had talked about the happy days when I went duck-shooting with my father in the Pripet Marshes. Today, Mischa used this as a theme for a
blistering, blustering attack on my character as a spy and saboteur. Beyond the Pripet was Russia and Mischa did not intend that either I or the court should forget it. Yesterday I had quietly
boasted of my prowess with a sporting gun. Today I was not only the most despicable of spies but also a well-trained potential assassin, a crack-shot hireling of Polish Army Intelligence. And so it
went on.

It was a crazy trial, run by madmen. It became in the end a test of endurance between one weak, half-starved, ill-used Pole and the powerful, time-squandering State machine. I had been given no
food before I came in and I received nothing throughout the long day’s trial that ended, astonishingly, at midnight. Seventeen hours I stood there. There were no cigarettes, no coffee. Mischa
would occasionally step out and punch or slap me, especially when I looked like keeling over or nodding to sleep on my feet.

Everyone else in the court, Mischa included, took a break at intervals during the day. Other people took over the examination. The composition of the court was constantly changing. During the
afternoon the President came in for a few hours to allow his deputy a rest. The guards were regularly changed every two hours. Only I went on standing there, dry-throated, swaying, wondering dully
if this day would ever end.

When I stumbled back into my cell there was still no food for me. At 7 a.m. the next day when I was led back again I was still without food and again, hungry, aching and deathly tired, I
survived another marathon madmen’s session of Soviet justice. Why do they do it, I kept asking myself. Why do they waste all this time on one Pole? Why don’t they just sentence me and
have done with it? For myself, I could have admitted all the things they charged me with and ended it all. But I still did not want to die. For me it was a struggle for life.