But only one bearer appeared with a stretcher over his shoulder. I
helped him to lift the corpse on to it and carry it away. It was an
intensely black night. All was silent except for an occasional muffled
boom in the distance and the sound of someone whimpering in one of the
wards. Our load was very heavy and we had to feel our way slowly along
the duckboards. When they came to an end we walked through the grass. I
was in front and all at once I tripped over some obstacle. With a
strenuous effort I retained my balance but nearly tipped the dead man
off the stretcher. We walked on, but did not reach the mortuary,
although we should have done so long ago. We put the stretcher down and
looked around. The darkness enveloped us like a mantle. We could see
nothing except a few shafts of light that shone through chinks in the
walls of the distant operating theatre. Roughly guessing our direction
we continued our journey. I felt a tent rope brushing against my leg. I
stepped over it and encountered another, while the orderly knocked his
foot against a peg. We put the stretcher down a second time. It rested
partly on the ground and partly on the ropes, and we held the corpse for
fear it should roll off. We shouted for a light. Someone answered near
by and struck a match. The momentary glimmer was sufficient to show that
we were standing amongst the ropes of the mortuary marquee. The man
struck another match to show us the way in. We entered and added our
burden to a double row of other dead, who lay there in the flickering
match-light staring at the roof with sightless eyes and rigid,
expressionless faces.
When we got back to the theatre all the three teams were busy again.
The bearers came in with a case, and one of them said:
"This is the last Englishman, sir. There's about half a dozen Fritzes to
do, sir."
"Bring 'em along--let's get the job done."
The swing-doors were pushed open and two bearers appeared with a
stretcher on which a man clothed in grey was lying. His dark hair was
matted. His boyish face was intensely white. His eyes were closed. He
gave a hardly audible moan with every breath. A blanket was drawn up to
his chin.
"Is this a Hun or a gentleman?" asked Captain Calthrop.
"A 'Un, sir," said one of the bearers and grinned.
"Dump him on the table!"
The blanket was removed and a blood-sodden strip of linen unwound from
the German boy's right forearm, which was hanging to his shoulder by a
few shreds of flesh and sinew.
"Tell him his arm's got to come off."
I explained to the boy that it would be necessary to remove his arm in
order to save his life.
He did not seem to understand at first and looked at me with a puzzled
expression. Then he suddenly broke into a wail, like a little child, and
cried, "Ach Jesus, ach Jesus, ach Jesus ..."
The chloroform mask soon muffled his cries and he became unconscious. I
grasped his cold hand and slender wrist. The arm was rapidly amputated.
The red stump with the disc of severed bone in the middle was cleaned
and bandaged and he was carried back to the prisoners' ward, retching
and vomiting.
On Captain Wheeler's table lay a healthy looking German with a bronzed
face. His legs were pitted with a great number of small wounds caused by
minute bomb fragments. The mask was clapped over his mouth and the
chloroform allowed to drip on to it. But he inhaled the fumes with
difficulty, and began to choke.
The anæsthetist got angry and snarled:
"That's it, choke away--a choker like all the rest of them--you blasted
race of murderers--I'm sorry for the individual though, this deluded
fool, for instance."
Captain Dowden was vainly trying to converse with a German who had been
hit in the back. The bullet had passed through the lower part of his
lung, and then through the abdomen, leaving a hole through which part of
the intestine projected.
"Come along and ask him some questions," he said to me. "Don't stand
about there doing nothing--make yourself useful. Tell him he'll be well
treated--better than the English wounded are treated in Germany."
The prisoner answered in a drawling whisper:
"I never expected bad treatment--the English wounded are not treated
badly by us either."
"Aren't they! That's all he knows about it!... Ask him if he likes war."
"O God, no--war's good for the rich, not for the poor."
"I thought these Huns loved warfare--ask him if he thinks Germany will
win."
"Germany's in a bad way--Ach Gott, don't ask me any more, give me
something to stop my pain!"
"That's the retort diplomatic! Send him off to sleep--let's get the job
done."
When the man had lost consciousness, Captain Grierson, the anæsthetist,
put the chloroform bottle aside, jumped down from the stool, and
searched the pockets of his helpless patient. He did not find much,
however, only a few letters and picture postcards until he came to a
deep trouser pocket from which he drew a big German pipe.
"Not a bad souvenir," he said, as he put it into his own pocket and
returned to his stool. Of course this was not stealing, it was merely
"scrounging" or "pinching" or "collecting souvenirs," which is an
entirely different thing.
For a time the surgeons worked silently, amputating arms and legs,
holding the bare skin between two fingers and cutting the flesh,
throwing bleeding bits on to the floor, dressing and bandaging stumps
and excised wounds.
Captain Calthrop was grumbling at the tedium of the work when his
anæsthetist lit upon a happy thought and said:
"How'd you like to try your hand at giving an anæsthetic? I'll have a
shot at surgery--I've never done it before. I'd like to see if I'm any
good at it."
"Right you are," replied Captain Calthrop, "we'll change over."
"Jolly good idea," added Captain Wycherley at the next table, "we'll
change over too."
"Right-o," said his anæsthetist.
And so the two anæsthetists operated and the two surgeons gave
anæsthetics. It was, perhaps, rather a dangerous thing to do, but as the
wounded men were only Germans it did not matter.
Captain Dowden took no part in this experiment. In fact he even
suggested that it was "a bit thick," but his disapproval did not assume
a more tangible form.
After finishing one case each, the four surgeons and anæsthetists
changed back again.
"Surgery, isn't so bad as I thought it would be."
"Isn't it--you wait till you get an abdominal!"
"Giving an anæsthetic's rather a ticklish affair. I thought my man was
going to choke to death, he got so blue in the face."
A few more Germans with slight flesh wounds that only required dressing
were brought in, and then the work of the night shift was over.
The surgeons, anæsthetists and sisters trooped out gaily to have tea and
cakes in the shed opposite the entrance to the theatre.
Our work was not yet over, for we still had to put everything in order
for the day shift.
The operating theatre looked like a butcher's shop. There were big pools
and splashes of blood on the floor. Bits of flesh and skin and bone were
littered everywhere. The gowns of the orderlies were stained and
bespattered with blood and yellow picric acid. Each bucket was full of
blood-sodden towels, splints, and bandages, with a foot, or a hand, or
a severed knee-joint overhanging the rim.
Two of us got pails of hot water and set to work with swabs, scrubbing
brushes and soap. We mopped up the pools of blood and wrung our swabs
out over the pails until the dirty water became dark red. We scrubbed
till our arms ached. With our bare hands we brushed the bits of flesh,
skin and bone into little heaps and threw them into the buckets, and
these we emptied into a big tub after picking out the amputated limbs
which we carried off to the incinerator to be burnt. Within an hour and
a half the theatre was clean and tidy.
A heap of blankets and articles of clothing had been left in a corner.
We loaded them on to a stretcher and carried them to a small tent some
distance away, taking a candle with us.
We folded the blankets and stacked them carefully. Some of them were
clammy and slippery to the touch. Others were hard and stiff. The rank
smell of stale, clotted blood was sickening.
The clothing we carried to the pack store, a large marquee, where we
sorted it, putting great-coats, tunics and shirts on separate heaps. I
was holding a shirt when I became aware of a tickling sensation across
one hand. I hurriedly dropped the garment and lowered the candle so that
I could see it distinctly. It was swarming with lice.
We walked out into the darkness and made for our own marquee. As we
passed the prisoners' ward an orderly called out from inside:
"'Ere, just come in a minute. 'Ere's a Fritz been 'ollerin' out all the
evenin'--come an' tell us what 'e wants."
We went in. The prisoners were lying on stretchers in two rows. Most of
them were asleep, but one was tossing about and crying in piteous tones:
"Hab'ich noch'n Arm, oder hab'ich keinen?"
"'E's bin at it for 'ours, pore bloke. Arst 'im what 'e wants--I 'xpect
it's somethin' ter do with 'is arm what they took orf early in the
evenin'."
I asked the man what he wanted and noticed that his right arm had been
taken off at the shoulder. He was silent for a moment and looked at me
with haggard eyes. Then suddenly he wailed:
"Kamerad, sag mir doch--Comrade, tell me--is my arm still there, or is
it gone?"
"He wants to know if he's still got his arm," I said to the orderly, who
turned to the prisoner and exclaimed: "Arm bon, goot!"
"Aber ich fühl ja nichts--But I can't feel anything--for God's sake tell
me if it's still there!--Ach Gott, ach Gott, ach Gott."
He buried his face in his pillow and sobbed hysterically.
I explained to him that it had been necessary to remove his arm, but
that he would live and be well treated and see no more fighting.
He turned round and stared at me and then shouted jubilantly:
"Jetzt weiss ich's--Now I know--thank God, I shall live, live, live. O
du lieber Himmel, das Glúck ist zu gross."
He gave a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction and closed his eyes and
turned on his side to go to sleep.
Somehow it seemed strange that there could be any happiness left in the
world.
"Thanks awfully," said the orderly. "It must 'a' bin the uncertainty
what upset 'im. I'm bloody glad yer came in. Yer've done 'im a world o'
good. I took to the pore bloke some'ow--I allus feels pertickler sorry
fur wounded Fritzes, I dunno why. I 'xpect 'e's got a missis an' kiddies
just like meself.... Good-night!"
"Good-night," I answered, and added mentally:
"Your profession of soldier, the most degrading on earth, has not
degraded you. You are engaged in the most infamous and sordid war that
was ever fought, and yet you have remained uncontaminated--there is no
honour or decoration in all the armies of the world good enough for
you."
We entered our marquee and made our beds.
All at once I noticed how utterly tired I was both in mind and body. I
crept under the blankets and closed my eyes and saw a vast confusion of
red and yellow patches, of severed limbs and staring eyes and blue,
distorted faces of suffocating men. They thronged the darkness in ever
increasing numbers and then they arranged themselves into a kind of
gigantic wheel that began to turn slowly round and round. And suddenly I
became conscious of a grief so intense that it seemed almost like
physical pain, but weariness soon mastered every other sensation and I
fell into a dreamless sleep.
V