OPERATION
The news came as a distinct shock to him. He had not even entertained
the possibility of undergoing an operation. Years ago he had had his
adenoids removed, and the memory was by no means pleasant. All along he
had told himself he would recover in time--that was all he wanted. To
have an operation was, he thought, to run another and unnecessary risk.
Later in the evening the Sister came in with a large phial, and injected
the contents into his arm.
"Morphine," she explained.
In a moment or so he felt that he did not care what happened. The
morphine made him gloriously drunk.
"Sister," he confided. "I'm drunk. It isn't fair to go and kill a fellow
when he's drunk, you know. It isn't playing the game. You ought to
suspend hostilities till I'm sober!"
He felt ridiculously proud of himself for these inanities.
"I know you," he strutted with laughter. "After it's all over, you'll
write home to my people and say, 'The operation was successfully
performed, but the patient died soon afterwards!'"
By this time they had stripped him of all but his shirt.
"Where's my bier? Where's my bier? Is a gentleman to be kept waiting all
night for his bier?" he exclaimed, with mock impatience.
They lifted him on to a stretcher, and began to push it through the open
window into the street.
"Farewell, Ophelia!" he cried to the Sister, as his head disappeared.
He was too drunk to feel afraid.
They carried him into the room that had been turned into a theatre. He
found that the same young Doctor was to operate on him. He was alarmed
at his youth.
"I like a fellow to have white hair if he's to operate on me," he said
to himself.
Another Doctor began to adjust the ether apparatus.
"Look here," he mumbled, "how do you know my heart's strong enough for
this sort of thing?"
"Don't be a fool; it's your only chance."
"Oh, all right. Have it your own way, only don't say I did not warn
you!" he replied.
"Rather a character," said one of the Doctors, as he placed the sodden
wool firmly over his nose and mouth.
"Yes," replied the Sister; "he said just now that the operation would be
unsuccessful and that he would die!"
Drat the woman, she had spoiled his last joke!
He strove to explain. But the fumes were clutching at his senses, and he
could not. The white walls of the room swam and bounced before his eyes.
Rivers were pouring into his ears. Everything was grey and vibrating. He
made a frantic effort to turn his thoughts towards God and home, "in
case." But he failed to think of anything.
With a jerk his senses left him.
* * * * *
When he recovered his senses it was still dark, but he realised that he
was in another room.
And in that room he stayed for nearly a fortnight before the Doctor
would allow him to proceed to the Base.
As regards the paralysis, there was little or no improvement, although
he thought at one time that he was succeeding in wagging his big toe.
The Doctor would come in and say with mock petulance, "Surely you can
move that finger now. Pull yourself together! Make an effort!"
He used to make tremendous efforts. Even his left hand used to twitch
with the effort of trying to move the right.
"No, not your left; the right," the Doctor would say.
Then he would laugh, and go away saying that it would be all right in
time.
His chief difficulty, not counting, of course, the perpetual headache,
was his inability to sleep. The nights seemed interminable, and he
dreaded them. The days were only less so because of the excitement of
meals and being talked to by the Sister. They became fast friends, and
she would tell him all about her work, her troubles with the Doctors and
with refractory Orderlies. They used to laugh together over the short
temper of a patient below, whom she used to call "Old Fiddlesticks," and
who seemed to be the most impatient of patients. Then she would wander
on about her home, how she nursed half the year, and spent the remainder
with her married sister in Fondborough Manor.
One day one of the Orderlies shaved him, and every one was surprised "to
see how much better he looked!"
They used to give him aspirin, and though it generally failed to bring
sleep, his pains would be relieved almost instantly, and his spirits
would rise to tremendous heights. The only time he was able to sleep
seemed to be between six and ten. He was nearly always awakened by the
lusty voice of a peasant entering the room beneath. He complained to the
Orderly, with the result that the next night the lusty voice was
suddenly silenced.
"Shut yer mouth, or I'll knock yer blinking face in!" And Lusty Voice
understood.
* * * * *
At last the Doctor gave his consent for removal to the Base Hospital,
and the Subaltern found himself being once more hauled on to a stretcher
and heaved into the Ambulance.
They dragged him out at the station, and he saw the long train, each
carriage brilliantly lit. The sight seemed so civilised that it cheered
him not a little.
The carriage was an ordinary "wagon-lit" converted with considerable
ingenuity into a Hospital Train. He shared his compartment with a young
Guardee, "a sitting case."
He had no sooner settled down than a voice was heard calling for
"Second-Lieutenant Hackett."
"Here," replied the Guardee, without any enthusiasm.
A dapper Staff Officer, so tall that he had to stoop to enter the
compartment, drew a paper from his pocket.
"You?" he asked. "Well, Hackett, this is a great evening in your life,
and I congratulate you." He shook the Guardee's left hand. "You have
been given the D.S.O.," he added hurriedly, for the train had already
begun to move. With that he disappeared.
It was not until the following morning that the Sister came in to dress
his wound.
"What strong teeth you've got, boy!" she said.
Nobody knew better than he did that his teeth were large and tended to
protrude, but it is always annoying to have one's defects admired.
The Orderly was, in his way, an artist. He was light-handed, quick,
deferential, and soothing--a prince among Orderlies. He produced
wonderful tit-bits--amongst other things tinned chicken, sardines,
chocolate, and, for the Guardee, stout! Three minutes after the Sister
had strictly forbidden him to read, the Orderly smuggled into his hand
the Paris _Daily Mail_ of the day before. Von Moltke had been dismissed.
"The first of the great failures," he said to himself. But the Sister
was right; it was too painful to read.
"What are we stopping here for?" the Guardee asked once.
"To unload the dead, sir," replied the Orderly, with serious suavity.
The journey took over two days. They touched at Versailles and Le Mans,
the Advanced Base, swept slowly down the broad valley of the Loire, past
the busy town of Nantes, followed by the side of the estuary, oddly
mixed up with the shipping, and eventually came to rest in the town of
St. Nazaire, at that time the Base of the British Army.