“Wait a minute,” I said in Russian. “Don’t I get a lawyer to defend me?”

“Can you afford to pay for one?” asked the chairman.

“I had some money when I left the camp at Krasno-Armeesk,” I said. “While I was being brought here, it disappeared.”

“Are you suggesting it was stolen?”

“Yes.”

The three judges conferred for a moment. Then the chairman said: “You should have said this before. I’m afraid these proceedings may not be delayed while your allegations are investigated. We shall proceed. Comrade Lieutenant?”

The prosecutor continued to read out the charge: “That you willfully and with malice aforethought assaulted a guard from Voinapleni camp number three, at Krasno-Armeesk, contrary to martial law; that you stole a cigarette from the same guard at camp number three, which is also against martial law; and that you committed these actions with the intent of fomenting a mutiny among the other prisoners at camp three, also contrary to martial law. These are all crimes against Comrade Stalin and the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

I knew I was in trouble now. If I hadn’t realized it before, I realized it now: Knocking a man’s hat off was one thing; mutiny was something else. Mutiny wasn’t the kind of charge to be dismissed lightly.

“Do you have anything you wish to say in your defense?” said the chairman.

I waited politely for the translator to finish and made my defense. I admitted the assault and the theft of the cigarette. Then, almost as an afterthought, I added: “There was certainly no intention of fomenting a mutiny, sir.”

The chairman nodded, wrote something on a piece of paper—probably a reminder to buy some cigarettes and vodka on his way home that night—and looked expectantly at the prosecutor.

In most circumstances, I like a woman in uniform. The trouble was, this one didn’t seem to like me. We’d never met before, and yet she seemed to know everything about me: the very wicked thought processes that had motivated me to cause the mutiny; my devotion to the cause of Adolf Hitler and Nazism; the pleasure I had taken in the perfidious attack upon the Soviet Union in June 1941; my important part in the collective guilt of all Germans in the murders of millions of innocent Russians; and, not happy with this, that I’d intended to incite the other plenis at camp three to murder many more.

The only surprise was that the court withdrew for several minutes to reach a verdict and, more important, have a cigarette. Smoke was still trailing from the nostrils of one member of the tribunal as they came back into the room.

The prosecutor stood up. The translator stood up. I stood up. The verdict was announced. I was a fascist pig, a German bastard, a capitalist swine, a Nazi criminal; and I was also guilty as charged.