“Are you not a deserter?”
“No.”
“But did you not belong to a regiment in Berlin?”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you explain your presence here, and in civilian clothes?”
Without waiting for a reply, the officer, fuming with rage, and in a voice which made the attendants tremble, ordered Werner to prison. Thence he was arraigned before the German Police Commissioner, who, threatening the most dire punishment, said to the prisoner in an aside: “You will now know what it is to be dealt with by the Prussian military authority. I would not give much for your skin, young man.”
Werner was taken back to prison and a few days later transferred to Berlin. Here he was thrown into a dungeon, and the next morning appeared before the regiment major–the officer who had in the first instance given him a permit to go to Hamburg. This man nearly choked with rage when he saw the prisoner.
“Take him from my sight; take him from my sight,” he repeated.
Werner was taken away, was put back into uniform, and only then would the major consent to see him again. On this occasion he once more gave way to a fit of passion. He banged the table with his fist and menaced Werner with all kinds of torture, going so far as to threaten to have him executed. Once he paused in his wrath to ask what had become of the uniform Werner wore when he went away.
“I sent it back to barracks here,” replied Werner.