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Page 23
"Come on--look sharp--never mind that leg--give a help here and remove
this man's bandages."
I was looking at a head that resembled a huge football made of soiled
linen. In place of the mouth there was a small, dirty hole through which
the fetid breath came and went. Above the hole was a big red patch. I
unwound the bandages one by one. Gradually the face was revealed.
Between the mouth with black, swollen lips and the bruised eyes, closed
by grey greenish lids, there was, where the nose should have been, a red
hole big enough to contain a human fist.
The wounded came and went in an unbroken stream. The tables were always
occupied. I went from one to another, unwound bandages, held up limbs
for amputation, fetched splints, padding, gauze, or new bandages. I was
too busy to think or to feel any horror. I was vaguely conscious of
nausea and of a hot, stifling atmosphere heavy with the fumes of
chloroform and ether.
Some of the wounded had arms that hung by shreds of muscle and sinew.
Others had feet that were nothing but masses of clotted blood, lumps of
torn flesh, and bits of bone tied up in blood-sodden linen parcels. Some
had deep holes in their backs, others had gashes in their heads from
which soft, pink matter oozed.
Before me lay a man with a blackened face, a shattered knee, and
festering holes all over his body. Gas-gangrene had set in and the
stench was almost unendurable. The surgeon gently felt the injured leg,
but the man gave such long-drawn piercing shrieks that he had to be left
alone. He was sent to the resuscitation ward to recover strength a
little, for he was very weak through loss of blood. In the evening he
began to rave--he asked for whisky in a boisterously jovial voice, and
then he yelled and cried: "Sergeant, Sergeant, Sergeant, you've ruined
my career." In the night he died.
The wounded were often perfectly silent. But more often they would groan
or wail or shout. Sometimes they would all howl in chorus like cats on a
roof. Indeed the weird and terrible howling of wounded men is more like
the howling of cats than any other sound I know.
Men regaining consciousness after an operation would sometimes laugh
uproariously or cackle fiendishly. Or they would break into torrents of
filthy language. One man yelled in a crazy voice that England was the
most glorious country on earth and that he had done his best to be a
good soldier. Then he was seized by a fit of violent weeping, while
someone at the other end of the theatre was shouting with intense fury:
"If I had Lloyd George here, I'd shoot the blighter," and another man
was carried out with his head lolling from side to side and saying in
mad, amiable tones: "Zig-zag, zagazig, zig-zag," and so on without a
break.
A man who had undergone an operation some days previously was brought in
to have his wound redressed--a deep laceration, that reached from knee
to hip and exposed the thigh-bone. The padding was removed, but as soon
as the raw flesh was touched he threw back his head, bared his teeth,
and uttered shrill, piercing cries in sudden blasts, and nothing could
be done to comfort him.
Near by a wounded man had been lying quietly on a table when all at once
he gave a yell and, before we could rush to the spot, he plunged head
foremost and crashed down on to the floor. We picked him up, but his
mind seemed too confused to realize what had happened. He did not
struggle any more, but gibbered and whimpered piteously.
If the chloroform and ether were not administered with great care and
skill, the patients would choke and kick and make furious efforts to
tear the mask from their faces. And so great was the number of wounded
and so rapidly was it necessary to perform each operation, that it was
not humanly possible to devote sufficient time to each individual case.
Gas was the most merciful anodyne, but it could only be used for brief
operations. Under its influence men became unconscious quickly and
without a struggle, and they recovered consciousness without the fearful
retching and vomiting that always followed the use of chloroform or
ether. And yet, even with gas, haste and carelessness and defective
apparatus added suffering to suffering.
On the table lay a man with a shattered gangrenous knee. He received gas
and became unconscious, but, just as the bone was being sawn through, he
regained his senses. His face was ashen pale and the sweat ran down it
in big drops. He was too weak to struggle, but his eyes were staring in
a way that was terrible to see. I held the foot and an orderly held the
stump while the saw grated harshly as it cut through the bone, and the
man moaned in piteous drawling tones: "Jesus Christ have mercy upon me,
God Almighty have mercy upon me, and forgive me _all_ my sins." When
the operation was over, he was carried out, making unintelligible
sounds.
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