That was all I said, but, would you believe it, among our own fellows there was one dirty dog who went and reported my bitter words to the camp commandant.
"The camp commandant, or Lagerfiihrer, as they called him, was a German called Muller.
Not very tall, thick-set, hair like a bunch of tow; sort of bleached all over. The hair on his head, his eyelashes, even his eyes were a kind of faded colour, and he was pop-eyed too.
Spoke Russian like you and me, even had a bit of a Volga accent, as if he'd been born and bred in those parts.
And could he swear! He was a terror for it.
I sometimes wonder where the bastard ever learned that trade.
He'd form us up in front of the block-that's what they called the hut-and walk down the line surrounded by his bunch of SS men with his right hand held back.
He wore a leather glove and under the leather there was a strip of lead to protect his fingers.
He'd walk -down the line and bloody every other man's nose for him.
'Inoculation against flu', he used to call it.
And so it went on every day.
Altogether there were four blocks in the camp, and one day he'd give the first block their 'inoculation', next day it'd be the second, and so on.
Regular bastard he was, never took a day off.
There was only one thing he didn't understand, the fool; before he started on his round, he'd stand out in front there, and to get himself real worked up for it, he'd start cursing.
He'd stand there cursing away for all he was worth, and, do you know, he'd make us feel a bit better. You see, the words sounded like our own, it was like a breath of air from over there. If he'd known his cursing and swearing gave us pleasure, I reckon he wouldn't have done it in Russian, he'd have stuck to his own language.
Only one of our fellows, a pal of mine from Moscow, used to get wild with him.
'When he curses like that,' he says, 'I shut my eyes and think I'm in Moscow, having one at the local, and it just makes me dizzy for a glass of beer.'
"Well, the day after I said that about the cubic metres, that commandant had me up on the mat.
In the evening an interpreter and two guards came to our hut.
'Sokolov Andrei?'
I answered up.
'Outside! Quick march! The Herr Lagerfiihrer wants to see you.'
I guessed what he wanted me for.
So I said good-bye to my pals- they all knew I was going to my death. Then I took a deep breath and followed the guards.
As I went across the camp yard, I looked up at the stars and said good-bye to them too, and I thought to myself:
'Well, you've had your full dose of torture, Andrei Sokolov, Number 331.'
I felt somehow sorry for Irina and the kids, then I got over it and began screwing up my courage to face the barrel of that pistol without flinching, like a soldier should, so the enemy wouldn't see how hard it'd be for me at the last minute to part with this life, bad though it was.
"In the commandant's room there were flowers on the window-sill. It was a nice clean place, like one of our clubs.
At the table there were all the camp's officers.
Five of 'em, sitting there, downing schnapps and chewing bacon fat.
On the table there was a big bottle, already open, plenty of bread, bacon fat, soused apples, all kinds of open tins.
I took one glance at all that grub, and you wouldn't believe it, but ,I felt so sick I nearly vomited.
I was hungry as a wolf, you see, and I'd forgotten what the sight of human food was like, and now there was all this stuff in front of me. Somehow I kept my sickness down, but it cost me a great effort to tear my eyes away from that table.
"Right in front of me sat Muller, half-drunk, flicking his pistol from one hand to the other, playing with it. He had his eye fixed on me, like a snake.
Well, I stood to attention, snapped my broken-down heels together, and reported in a loud voice like this:
'Prisoner-of-war Andrei Sokolov at your service, Herr Kommandant.'
And he says to me:
'Well, you Russian Ivan, four cubic metres of quarrying is too much for you, is it?'
'Yes, Herr Kommandant,' I said, 'it is.'
'And is one cubic metre enough to make a grave for you?'
'Yes, Herr Kommandant, quite enough and to spare.'
"He gets up and says:
'I shall do you a great honour. I shall now shoot you in person for those words.
It will inake a mess here, so we'll go into the yard. You can sign off out there.'
'As you like,' I told him.
He stood thinking for a minute then tossed his pistol on the table and poured out a full glass of schnapps, took a piece of bread, put a slice of fat on it, held the lot out to me and says:
'Before you die, Russian Ivan, drink to the triumph of German arms.'
"I had taken the glass and the bread out of his hand, but when I heard those words, something seemed to scald me inside.
Me, a Russian soldier, I thought, drink to the victory of German arms?
What'll you want next, Herr Kommandant?