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.