The chaplain's denials are in vain. When he repeats that he did not steal the tomato, he is accused of calling an officer a liar. When he proclaims that he is not guilty, he is asked, "Then why would we be questioning you if you weren't guilty?" And there is the crux. Like Clevinger, the chaplain must be guilty because he is accused. Nothing he says in his own defense can be of any help. Critics often refer to Clevinger's trial and the chaplain's interrogation as "Kafkaesque," a reference to the writing of Franz Kafka (1883–1924) in works such as The Trial. There, students can find similar distortions of justice and absurd confusions of good and evil.
The inquisitors eventually find the chaplain guilty but release him for the time being. But they warn, "Just remember that we've got you under surveillance twenty-four hours a day." Here, we witness a change in Chaplain Tappman. Considering the threat, and all that he has been through, it takes considerable courage for the naturally timid chaplain to approach Colonel Korn, whom he meets soon after leaving the cellar, and to protest the deaths, that morning over La Spezia, of men who had completed their seventy missions. Korn, as usual, is glib and condescending: "Would it be any less terrible if they had all been new men?" Tappman seeks permission, as one must in the military chain of command, to take his protest to General Dreedle. Colonel Korn, repeatedly calling the chaplain "padre," encourages Tappman. There is just one catch. Dreedle is no longer wing commander. He has been replaced by General Peckem.
