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Page 22
No more shells dropped into the town that day, but instead of going back
to the billet, the men made their beds in the barn at nightfall. I
returned to camp, thinking of the man who was dead and wondering whose
turn would come next.
IV
THE CASUALTY CLEARING STATION
"For who feels the horrors of war more than those who are
responsible for its conduct? On whom does the burden of blood and
treasure weigh most heavily? How can it weigh more heavily on any
man or set of men than those on this bench?"
MR. BALFOUR (House of Commons, June 20th, 1918.)
The rain came swishing down. Water gathered on the canvas above, and
heavy drops fell splashing on to the floor with monotonous regularity.
Somebody was muttering curses in his sleep. Others were snoring loudly.
I lay awake for a long time, staring into the black darkness of the
marquee. Suddenly--it must have been two or three o'clock in the
morning--the familiar rumbling noise broke out in the distance. It
seemed to spread along the whole horizon. The "stunt" had begun.
A drowsy voice growled: "They're at it again--why can't they stop it
once and for all." Another groaned deeply and muttered: "Awful--awful
slaughter--blackguards, blackguards."
The uproar increased. I was filled with a terrible dejection, but I went
to sleep in the end.
It was broad daylight when I woke up to the sound of innumerable
motor-cars coming and going out on the road. The wounded were streaming
in.
The operating theatre was alive with figures clothed in white,
blood-stained garments, bustling up and down, or standing in groups
around the other tables. At the far end of the theatre someone was
blubbering like a little child.
"Here, come on--hold this man's leg up. What d'you think you're here
for?" It was the surgeon at the next table who was speaking to me.
I grasped the leg by the foot--it was quite cold--while the orderly
removed a bandage from the thigh. The bone had been shattered. A bullet
had also entered the man's chest, making a small round puncture. A shell
fragment had struck his upper lip, leaving a jagged triangular hole
below the nose. Several teeth had been knocked out. The upper palate had
been gashed and partly separated from the bone. It hung inside the
half-open mouth like a shrivelled flap. He breathed feebly and
irregularly. The surgeon bent over him and asked him if he had been
wounded long. He answered in low, hoarse whispers that he had been lying
in the mud and rain for several days. Then he turned his eyes up so that
only the whites were visible. They remained rigidly fixed in that
position. He received a dorsal injection, being too weak for chloroform.
The shattered thigh was painted with picric acid and the tourniquet
tightened above the injury. The surgeon cut through the leg with a
circular sweep of the knife, the splintered bone offering no resistance.
The limb came off in my hands. I held it for a moment, being awed by it.
It seemed very heavy. Then I dropped it into the pail below. When the
surgeon had dressed the stump, he made a slight incision in the forearm
in order to inject a saline solution. The man, who had not uttered a
sound hitherto, winced and gave a faint cry.
"Come along--hold this leg up!"
I darted to the next table and seized another foot and ankle. There was
a greenish festering hole so high up the leg that it was impossible to
use a tourniquet. So the surgeon laid bare the main artery by a
longitudinal incision and tied it up with catgut to prevent excessive
loss of blood. With a rapid stroke of his knife he then made a shallow
cut right round the limb above the injured spot, and depressing the
blade cut deeply down to the bone. The blood gushed up suddenly, formed
a pool on the towels and sheet underneath, overflowed the edge of the
table, and splashed down on to the floor in a cascade. The operator
paused a moment and then, while the blood continued to stream from the
wound, he cut round the bone until flesh was entirely severed from
flesh. The upper periosteum was pushed back and held by means of a metal
plate. The bone was sawn through--the saw grated and jerked and jarred
in a horrible manner. The leg came off and I dropped it into the white
enamelled pail. The toe-nails clicked against the enamel, and the thigh,
bumping against the rim, overturned it and flopped into the pool of
blood under the table.
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