There was no attempt to put us into prison clothes; we had small packages of things with us. My underclothes were not all that one could wish after two days and nights in the police-station cells. They were amongst other things covered with fleas, and I had at my trial, and on various occasions, become exceedingly hot, which, now that the hunger-strike had begun, was exchanged for extreme cold. The prospect of a month in them as they were was extremely undesirable. I wrote to the Home Secretary, as I was told this was the only means, but I knew that anything I asked for from him might as well be let alone.
The first day, Tuesday, was fairly fine. At exercise in the morning we looked around and we noticed some broken glass windows. We shouted “Votes for Women, Hurrah! Hurrah!” but were not sure of any response. They had put our companions, of two days before us, into the punishment cells. We were scarcely back in our cells before there were hasty footsteps; they slammed our doors shut, we could only dimly hear the steps as they passed our cells and then above. Soon after we heard shrieks, always coming from the same direction. It seemed as if the others were being fed by force. During about half an hour the sounds were terrible. Then the doctors, two of them, came to us. They had on white jackets, as if they had just come from an operation, as indeed they had. I said to them, “You have been feeding our friends by force?” One of them answered, “Well, yes, we were bound to have a food trial with one or two of them.” They felt my pulse, first one, then the other; they felt it over again, then they went out. Mrs. Brailsford and I discussed the feeding of our friends, which had sounded most awful; we did not know what to do. We had, of course, not touched any food since our breakfast in the police-station cells. We ourselves had met with nothing but kindness.
The knotting in my stomach from lack of food was fairly painful by the second night. Whenever I fell asleep I woke with my knees curled under my chin. I had also a great aching in my back, probably through fatigue and the plank bed in the police-station. The night wardress was very kind to me. I asked once if she couldn’t come in and rub my back just a little. “Why, my dear, the gate’s locked and I have nae got the key.” Mrs. Brailsford said she felt well in every way, save that she could do nothing but think of the other prisoners who were being fed by force. When we walked round the exercise yard on Wednesday morning it was snowing hard. It made me think of Robert Buchanan’s poem, “The Ballade of Judas Iscariot.”
“’Twas the wedding guests cried out within,
And their eyes were fierce and bright—
‘Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot
Away into the night!’
“The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he waved hands still and slow,
And the third time that he waved his hands