CHAPTER XVIII
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.
CHAPTER XIX
INTERESTING PRISONERS
Among the interesting prisoners I knew in the Stadtvogtei during my long captivity there are several who deserve special mention. Early in 1916 there were frequently heard proceeding from a section of the jail near the division where I was confined the tones of soft music. For a time we did not know whether the music came from the outside or the inside of the building. Conjectures were in order. Some of my companions believed the music was played by a talented violinist who was held prisoner as we were. Others ventured the opinion that the sweet strains emanated from a house in the immediate neighborhood of the prison. One day the Sergeant-Major informed me during his tour of inspection that I was to be permitted to visit a French prisoner confined in an adjoining division of the jail. He said the prisoner was known as Professor Henri Marteau. The name, I at once recalled, was that of a celebrated French musician whom I heard during his visit to Canada some twenty years ago.
“Whenever you feel inclined to call on the Professor,” the Sergeant-Major said, “I will accompany you to his cell; but I have to inform you that while you are making your call the door of the cell will be locked upon you, as the Professor is condemned to solitary confinement. It is to be permitted him to return your call, and if he chooses to do so, your door will likewise be locked while you are together.”
Not unnaturally, I was very anxious to meet this distinguished Frenchman and on the following day I asked the Sergeant-Major if he would be kind enough to conduct me to his cell. I found the Professor one of the most charming and interesting men one could wish to meet. He was then about forty-five years of age, and manifestly an artist to his finger-tips. This is the story he told to me:
At the outbreak of the war he was practising as a professor of the violin at the Berlin Conservatory of Music, and as a French subject, he was ordered interned at Holzminden, in the internment camp designated for civilians of French nationality. A few months later, by the express order of the Emperor, he was granted his liberty in Berlin. Mr. Marteau had married an Alsatian lady, whose sympathies, like those of so many of the people of her Province, were known to be entirely with France. The professor and his wife were admitted to the best society of Berlin, and shortly after Bulgaria had entered the war, Madame Marteau, at a society gathering, expressed the sense of her displeasure at Bulgaria’s stand. Her words were reported to the military authorities, and a few days afterwards two detectives called at the professor’s residence with an order that he and his wife were to be interned. Madame Marteau was taken to an internment camp reserved for women, and the professor was removed to the Stadtvogtei.
“But, my dear sir, why were you interned–you, a professor of the Berlin Conservatory of Music?” I asked him.
“Merely because of my wife’s remarks,” he answered with a delicate smile in which it was impossible to detect the slightest shadow of reproach.
The day following our interview the professor returned my call. He was, of course, accompanied to my cell by a non-commissioned officer, who, according to instructions, locked us in the room together. Mr. Marteau brought with him his marvelous instrument upon which he had been granted the privilege to play during his imprisonment. It was his music which had charmed our ears on previous days.
On this occasion he was kind enough to entertain me with several selections from Bach and Gounod. The Poles, as is well known, have a passion for music, as, indeed, have the Russians, and they flocked to the windows and were charmed by the enchanting music. Every selection was heartily applauded. The entertainment caused a pleasant sensation in the prison, and when the professor visited me again the next day, there was the same enthusiastic audience to enjoy his masterly performance.
Suddenly it was interrupted by the appearance of the Sergeant-Major at the door of my cell. Ignoring the professor’s courteous bow, he cried in a harsh voice: “This cannot be allowed; you have no permission to play here.” The officer left as abruptly as he came, and the door was closed with a bang.
I must be excused if I do not report the remarks that were made at the ill-mannered behavior towards Professor Marteau, who was as refined as he was distinguished.
This worthy man was the father of two charming daughters, aged four and five years respectively, but in spite of his requests–repeated over and over again during his three months’ confinement in the Stadtvogtei–for the privilege of receiving visits from his children and for permission that they might call to see their mother, the Kommandantur categorically refused to grant the petition.
A few months afterwards Professor Marteau was granted provisional liberty. He was permitted to leave the jail and go and reside in the village of Mecklembourg, where he had to report himself daily at the municipal hall; but his movements were confined to the radius of the village boundaries.
During our intercourse, I frequently expressed the hope that, after the termination of the war, we might have the pleasure of welcoming him on a return visit to Canada and the United States. I told him that he might be assured of the greatest triumph an artist of his outstanding talent could hope for.
Two other prisoners, both equally interesting, I had for companions–one for three months, and the other for five months. They were Messrs. Kluss and Borchard, socialistic members of the Reichstag. I did not get so well acquainted with Mr. Borchard as with Mr. Kluss; in the first place, because we were not together for so long, and secondly, because he was in solitary confinement for part of the time. However, I retain very pleasant memories of Mr. Borchard, and I have been able to keep the copy he gave to me of a famous letter he addressed to the German Emperor. It was a masterpiece. In it he resumed all that a man of his talent and political faith could urge against the autocratic system of Germany. I do not know, of course, whether or not it was that letter which resulted in his liberation from prison.
With regard to Mr. Kluss, he remained in jail for what seemed a very long time. He was invariably friendly with every prisoner. He visited one cell after another and talked with every occupant. And his conversation was most interesting. He was a man of wide learning–a scholar, in fact. Often we discussed together the different political institutions of Germany. One incident in which he played an important part during his captivity is worthy of mention. Once a year the general commanding officer of Berlin made a visit of inspection at the jail. General Von Boehm, about seventy years of age, and deaf as a post, was the commanding officer at this time. Well, one fine morning this high officer, surrounded by his myrmidons–one colonel, two majors, two captains, and a number of lieutenants–arrived at the jail. The clanking of their swords and spurs preceded them as they climbed the stairs and walked along the corridors. At each cell door the General would halt and ask each prisoner:
“Have you any complaint to make?”
When the question was addressed to me, I replied: “I submit I have just reason to complain, as a physician, of being interned, and as such I shall not cease from claiming my liberation.”
“Very well,” replied the General, and he continued his tour of inspection, repeating the one question at each cell. The majority of the prisoners made no reply, but when several of them answered: “Yes, I have a complaint to make,” the General said, “Very well then; go down into the yard.”
By the time he had concluded the inspection some twelve prisoners had answered the stereotyped question in the affirmative, and they were assembled in the yard.
Amongst them was the Socialist Deputy Kluss. The General and his camarilla appeared in due course and the prisoners were invited to give voice to their complaints. Seemingly frightened, they all remained silent with the exception of Mr. Kluss. He stepped into the centre of the yard and there commenced to make a formidable arraignment of the German military authorities and the arbitrary regulations of which he said he was one of the victims. Kluss knew very well that General Von Boehm was deaf, and this gave him just reason to raise his voice. Thus we were all able to hear a veritable platform oration pronounced in a voice vibrant and penetrating. One may imagine how amused we prisoners were by this incident. The General went through the motions of listening to the whole discourse; he pretended to hear it, and would occasionally nod his head as though he quite approved of what was being said.
At one stage of his speech, Mr. Kluss likened the methods of the German military authorities as they were directed against him to the worst barbarities of the Middle Ages. One of the officers accompanying the General endeavored to silence the speaker but it was of no avail. Nothing could stem the flow of the man’s eloquence!
When the address was ended, General von Boehm, who evidently had not heard a single word, merely remarked, “Yes, very well,” and was about to move away when Mr. Kluss obstructed his path and cried out: “What is the answer, General–give me an answer, please.”
The General, realizing that he was being addressed again, moved to one side and repeated, “Yes, quite so; very well; very well,” and this time passed on. We did not see him again.
Kluss received the congratulations of the German subjects who were with us and who believed they were the victims of a vicious system and a gross injustice on the part of their Government.
Incidentally, I may say that Kluss was a fervent admirer of Liebknecht.