Part 15

Meanwhile the head case was replaced by a boy who came walking into the theatre and mounted the table unassisted. His right eye was bandaged. As he became unconscious under gas the bandage was removed. With a few dexterous strokes of his scalpel Captain Dowden removed all that was left of the eyeball, a dark, amorphous mess. The wound was cleaned, dressed and bandaged. The boy regained consciousness. For a moment he looked vacantly round. Then he slowly raised his hand to the bandage, and, turning down the corners of his mouth suddenly broke into bitter weeping. He was gently helped down from the table and led out of the theatre, crying: "They've done for me eye, oh, oh, oh, they've done for me eye!"

"Poor kid," murmured the Captain sympathetically, and began to operate on the next man, who had a wound in his shoulder about as large as a hand. In the middle of the raw flesh a short length of undamaged bone was visible. Nothing serious, and only a flesh wound. The man inhaled the chloroform and ether fumes without choking or struggling. His wound was excised, "spirit bipped," dressed and bandaged. Then he was whisked off the table and carried away to a ward.

In the doorway appeared a man with his arm in a sling. He was dazzled by the electric light and put his hand over his eyes. Captain Wycherley called out to him: "Come along, my lad, and hop on to this table." He walked up to the table with uncertain steps. An orderly helped him on to it. He lay back and turned his head to one side and looked towards the next table on which Captain Calthrop was amputating an arm. It came off in the hands of an orderly who dropped it into the bucket. The newcomer followed it with horror-stricken eyes. He continued to gaze, as though fascinated, at the half-closed hand that projected above the edge of the bucket. Then he trembled violently.

Captain Wycherley observed what was happening and said:

"Come on, don't worry about the next man. Let's have a look at your wound."

"Yer not goin' ter take orf me arm, are yer, sir?"

"No, of course not, don't be so silly!"

"Yer won't 'urt me, sir, will yer?"

"No, no. Pull yourself together now. Be a man! You won't feel anything at all."

The orderly untied the sling and began to unwind the bandage, but the man drew his arm away and cried:

"Oo, oo, oo,--very painful, sir, very painful!"

The orderly, pleased at being mistaken for an officer, said in a soothing, patronizing voice:

"We'll just have this bit o' bandage orf an' then we'll give yer some gas and send yer orf to sleep. You won't feel nothin' and yer a sure Blighty. I wouldn' be surprised if yer got acrorss termorrer."

He went on unwinding the bandage, but the man began to shout and struggle again.

Thereupon the surgeon intervened:

"For God's sake be quiet. Pull yourself together and don't make such a fuss."

"I can't 'elp it, sir--I couldn't never stick no pain, sir, no, sir, never, sir--it's very painful, sir, very painful. I'll try 'ard, I'll do me best--but it is painful, sir."

However, as soon as the bandage was pulled a little he yelled and writhed. The surgeon at last lost patience and said: "Hold him down."

Two orderlies and two bearers seized his hands and feet while the bandage was quickly removed. He shrieked and struggled violently, but he was firmly held.

He had a small, deep wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. He received gas and soon lost consciousness. The surgeon pushed a probe into the hole. There was a metallic click, whereupon he inserted his forceps and pulled out a jagged piece of steel, the fragment of a German shell. When the wound had been excised and dressed, the man was carried away and replaced by another whose right leg was thickly wrapped up. The wrapping was removed and revealed a shattered knee and two toes dangling from the foot. Captain Wycherley snipped them off with a pair of scissors. The man winced and they dropped on to the floor. The anaesthetist administered gas. It was some time, however, before the patient lost consciousness, for the balloon that adjoined the mouthpiece leaked badly and once the rubber-tubing was blown off the nozzle of the cylinder.

Captain Dowden was busy with a foot, or all that was left of a foot, a number of crimson shreds hanging from an ankle over a projecting piece of bone. Captain Calthrop was attending to a "belly case"--he had cut a longitudinal slit in his patient's abdomen and both his hands were groping inside it, buried up to the wrists, while the stomach-wall heaved up and down with the breathing of the unconscious man.

The "case" lying on the end table had been in the C.C.S. for several days. He had undergone operation as soon as he arrived. At that time he only had a small surface-wound below the knee, but it was slightly gangrenous. The next day the gas-gangrene appeared above the knee-joint. The wound was excised a second time. But soon afterwards gangrene appeared again, still higher up, and a third operation was necessary. And now the wound stretched from below the knee almost as far as the hip. It was shallow, but as broad as a hand and of a greyish-green colour. The man breathed feebly and his eyes were turned up so that only the whites were visible. He received gas. Amputation was impossible for the gangrene had reached too far. The wound was excised, but the surgeon said: "I'm afraid he's done for, poor fellow." The man's breathing became almost imperceptible. The oxygen cylinder was sent for, the rubber tube was pushed in between the blue lips, and the gas rushed through. In a few seconds he had revived and gave loud and regular snorts, jerking back his head and shaking his body with each ingoing breath. He was taken back to the ward and put back to bed. He began to talk volubly about his wife and children. Within half an hour he was dead.

"Just go and see if there are many left in the Prep.," said Captain Dowden to his orderly.

The orderly came back and reported that there were hardly a dozen.

"Any Huns amongst them?"

"Four or five, sir."

"Are we still receiving?"

"No, sir, we stopped about an hour ago. There won't be any more cases arriving to-night, sir."