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.