ACTING JAIL PHYSICIAN
During the three years of my captivity in the jail at Berlin I
frequently had occasion to exercise my profession as a medical
doctor. Medical care was supposed to be given to the prisoners by an
old practitioner of Berlin, a Dr. Becker. He visited the jail every
day between the hours of nine and ten o’clock in the morning. Sick
prisoners, accompanied by a non-commissioned officer, went to him in
his office, which was situate in a section of the building adjoining
the jail proper. Exactly at ten o’clock the aged doctor would leave
his office, not to return until the following morning. For twenty-four
hours every day I was the only physician in the section of the jail I
occupied. The adjoining sections, which were likewise of triangular
shape, were occupied by German soldiers who had been accused of breach
of discipline. On several occasions I was called upon to give medical
attention to some of these soldiers while they were awaiting trial
before a court-martial. During the daytime I was free to visit these
patients, going from cell to cell. At night, however, I was locked in
my own cell like the other prisoners, and if something happened in
the neighboring section a non-commissioned officer would arouse and
conduct me to the place where my professional services were required.
This happened very often. I was in this way not infrequently called to
attend to a prisoner who had attempted suicide. In no fewer than ten
instances it was a case of actual suicide, committed in some cases with
a revolver; in other cases with a razor and sometimes by strangulation.
No experience was more appalling than to hear in the dead of night
the report of a gun. The walls would vibrate, the prisoners would be
aroused from sleep, and one would ask the other who now had preferred a
sudden end to a continuance of misery. A few minutes after the report
my cell door would be opened by a non-commissioned officer. He would
request me to follow him in order to ascertain the cause of death or
render medical aid to an injured prisoner, as the case might be.
Services which I rendered to prisoners of all nationalities, and
oftentimes to non-commissioned officers, placed me in a favorable
position with the guards. There was no attempt to restrict the freedom
of my movements inside the prison, and in this way I was able to aid
less fortunate prisoners, either with medical attention or by providing
food where the need was most urgent. I received cordial co-operation
from my fellow captives, more especially from the English-speaking. One
had only to make an appeal on behalf of a prisoner to at once receive
from others tea, biscuits, margarine or any little delicacy that was
available. No sacrifice was too great if these men could only relieve,
if only in a small measure, the distress of their fellows.
One of the most pathetic cases which came within my personal
observation was that of Dan Williamson. Twice he had escaped from
Ruhleben camp. After his first recapture he was interned at the
Stadtvogtei, where he remained for about a year. Then he was sent
back to Ruhleben camp. A few months later he escaped again. In
company with a companion named Collins he succeeded in passing the
German sentries and was on his way towards Holland when he and his
companion were arrested. They were brought to the jail in Berlin.
At that time recaptured prisoners were being punished by solitary
confinement in dark dungeons for two weeks at a time. Williamson and
Collins were placed in separate dark cells–two of the fourteen with
the dark shutters which I have previously referred to. One day, at
about five o’clock in the afternoon, a terrible noise was heard.
This was succeeded by what appeared to be the pounding of the walls.
Threats were overheard. A non-commissioned officer appeared at the
door of my cell and informed me that Williamson had just attempted to
commit suicide; that he had been found covered with blood, and that a
blood-stained razor with which he had attempted the deed had been taken
from him. Meanwhile the noise of the blows against the wall of the
neighboring cell continued. My informant said: “Williamson is making
all this noise.” I reflected that a man of so much apparent vigor was
not in immediate danger.
At the request of the non-commissioned officer I proceeded to the door
of Williamson’s cell. I was attempting to speak to him through the
small aperture in the middle of the door when my words were interrupted
by a heavy blow on the door from the inside. Instinctively I withdrew
and decided that it would not be wise to open the door at the moment.
Williamson evidently had a weapon of some kind in his possession,
and it was supposed he had succeeded in tearing off one of the legs
from the iron bedstead in the cell. I advised the non-commissioned
officer to telephone to the police station for two constables, and a
few minutes afterwards these men appeared accompanied by two other
non-commissioned officers of the jail. I suggested that we should first
open the door of Collins’ cell, which was immediately adjoining the one
occupied by Williamson. This done, I advised Collins to stand on the
threshold of Williamson’s cell and try to appease his friend. Then the
door was opened. Williamson leaped from his cell like an enraged tiger
let loose from a cage. He struck his friend Collins, knocking him to
the ground, and he would have beaten the fellow unmercifully had not
the whole party of us seized Williamson and overpowered him. He was
like a man who had lost his reason. I was about to speak to him when
he cried out: “Give me my razor so that I may end it all.” His clothes
were covered with blood. On his right arm was a deep wound, though not
a long one. It had manifestly been inflicted with some sharp instrument.
While the others held him I obtained the necessary dressing and at once
gave the wound the surgical treatment it required and dressed it. Then
the constables handcuffed him, carried him into a distant padded-cell,
locked the door and left him for the rest of the night. Before I left
him, however, I asked if there was anything I might possibly do for
him. Williamson, poor fellow, looked at me with a blank stare and said
nothing. I urged my request, but it was in vain. He would not say one
word.
My mind was preoccupied with the man until the next morning, when I
asked one of the non-commissioned officers to accompany me to the cell
where Williamson had been placed. Arriving there we found the prisoner
standing in the middle of the cell. He fixed his haggard eyes upon us,
but he remained mute to my “Good morning.”
“Well, how are you feeling now?” I asked him.
No answer.
“Did you sleep?”
Again there was no answer.
“Come, come, my dear, good fellow,” I said, “cheer up; I have brought
you some warm tea and some biscuits. Do you wish for anything else? If
so I may be allowed to bring it to you.”
Williamson still stood silent, with his cold stare fixed upon me,
unmindful of all I said to him. I placed the cup of tea and the
biscuits on the mattress, which was the only commodity in the cell, and
once more I tried to make him understand me, but it was of no avail.
His lips were as though sealed. And so we left him–the officer and
I. A report was at once made to the prison doctor, Dr. Becker, who,
when he arrived at nine o’clock that morning ordered Williamson into
hospital. Three weeks afterwards he came back to the jail, looking
much better. But the same night I was again called to his cell by a
non-commissioned officer. Williamson lay stretched on the floor near
his bed suffering from an acute fit of epilepsy. After we had him
calmed down we placed him on the bed and I talked with him for an
hour. He was calm and self-contained. He gave me news of some British
prisoners of war–some of whom were wounded–whom he had met at the
Alexandrine Street Hospital where he had been a patient himself during
the three preceding weeks. It was then that I resolved to apply to the
German authorities for permission to serve at this hospital as surgeon
to the British prisoners. I communicated my intention to Williamson.
“You may make your application, doctor,” he said, “but it will be
refused.”
“Why do you say that?” I inquired.
“Because these people will know that, in the position you seek, you
will see too many things and get to know too much.”
Williamson’s prediction was right. My request, made a few days later,
was refused. In the meantime Williamson had another fit of epilepsy.
He was at that time in the cell of a Mr. Hall, another Englishman. It
was between five and six o’clock in the afternoon. Non-commissioned
officers hastened to the cell, and, frightened by the serious turn
Williamson’s illness had taken, they made a joint report to the officer
in charge, who at once interviewed Dr. Becker on the subject. The
outcome was that Williamson was released from the jail. I never was
able to ascertain where he was taken. I believe he was sent to an
asylum for the insane, and from there he would be exchanged.
One night we were awakened by a series of detonations coming from
outside the jail. What could it be, we wondered. There we were right in
the heart of Berlin, and there was unmistakably a serious disturbance
of some kind. Was it a riot? Was it the noise of an encounter between
the gendarmes and a band of workmen on strike? We could obtain no
answer to these questions at the time, but soon afterwards I was
informed of what had taken place. Shortly after hearing the noise of
the first shots I was called from my cell to ascertain the cause of the
death of a soldier who had been brought from the battle-front to Berlin
to be locked up at Stadtvogtei pending trial before a court-martial.
This refractory soldier, the guards reported, had behaved himself well
all the way from Flanders to Berlin, but directly he reached the front
of the jail he became unruly, broke from his guards, and escaped. The
guards went in pursuit. There was an exciting chase around the walls of
the jail, which are seventy-five feet high. The fugitive soldier was
gaining on his pursuers when one of the latter fired on him. Thus it
was a dead soldier, and not a live prisoner, that the guards brought
into the jail. He had been struck by five bullets, and the only duty I
was called to perform was to declare the man dead. I did this in the
presence of the doorkeeper, the night watchman, and the two guards.
Early the next morning, aroused by some commotion, we all stood on
our chairs and stretched our necks in order to get a glimpse from the
windows of what was going on below. The men had come to remove to the
morgue the body of the soldier who had been killed by one of his former
companions-in-arms.