Chapter 4 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.

"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.

He was followed by a man from whose chest I removed a filthy, blood-sodden mass of padding. I observed that his breathing was becoming weaker and weaker. The an?sthetist shouted:

"Fetch the oxygen-look sharp!"

An orderly brought a long black cylinder along, but the rubber tubing was knotted in a bundle and several seconds passed before it could be disentangled. At last the end of the tube was pushed into the mouth of the dying man. The tap of the cylinder was turned on, but there was no sound of gas running through. The an?sthetist glared angrily around and shouted: "Corporal Chamberlain!"

The Corporal came and the an?sthetist thundered:

"Go and get a new cylinder-this one's empty-your damned carelessness again-look sharp about it."

It was the Corporal's business to see that the cylinder in the theatre was always full. He fumbled in his pockets for the key to the cupboard in which the reserve cylinders were kept, but he could not find it. He walked out and searched in the shed opposite the theatre. He came back without it.

"Hurry up for God's sake-the man's dying-it'll be too late in a minute!"

He looked round the theatre with affected deliberation, for the angry shouting of the an?sthetist had wounded his pride. At last he found the key on a shelf. He unlocked the cupboard, fetched out a new cylinder, and placed it beside the table. The tube was pushed into the open mouth, the tap was turned, there was a rush of gas. But it was too late. The man was dead.

"D'you see what you've done?" shouted the infuriated an?sthetist. "Here's a man dead through your neglect. Don't you bloody well let it occur again, else I'll put you under close arrest and have you up for a court martial."

The Corporal walked sulking out of the theatre and muttered something about a "bloody fuss."

One of the orderlies went to the door and shouted:

"Another slab for the mortuary!"-Those who died on the operating tables were facetiously called "slabs."

Two bearers came in with a stretcher. The corpse was pushed on to it and carried away to the mortuary. There it would be sewn up in an army blanket, ready for burial. And then a telegram would be sent to a wife or mother, informing her that her husband or son had "died of wounds received in action."

There was amputation after amputation. The surgeons were tired of cutting off legs and arms-it was "so monotonous and uninteresting," as one of the sisters put it.

Then there came a little variety in the shape of a man with a bullet wound in his throat. He breathed quite normally, but when the bandage was removed, his breath rushed bubbling through the aperture and bespattered all who stood around with little drops of blood. "A most unpleasant case." He was quickly replaced, however, by another who lay on a stretcher white and motionless. His tunic had been unbuttoned. His shirt had been pulled loosely over a big, round object that appeared to be lying on his belly. The surgeon drew back the shirt. The round object was still concealed by a dirty piece of lint. The surgeon lifted it off and revealed a huge coil of bluish red entrail bulging out through a frightful gash in the abdomen.

"Here, Crawford, here's something for you!"

Captain Crawford was an abdominal specialist, at least he was particularly interested in abdominal cases, or "belly cases" as they were humorously termed. Captain Wheeler, who had called him, was interested in knee cases. Captain Maynard, who was working at the far end of the theatre, had a fondness for head cases.

"Such a delightful tummy, isn't it?" said Captain Wheeler, who spoke in the affected drawl of our public schools and universities.

"Rather," replied Captain Crawford, who had come over from his table holding a blood-stained scalpel in his hand. He added:

"Just my rotten luck-I've only had amputations."

He looked at the bulging entrail admiringly and went back to his work. In a few minutes he was ready for the next case-a man whose head was thickly swathed in bandages.

"That's a bit of a change, anyhow-I'm fed up with legs and arms."

The bandages were removed. Amid a mass of tangled, blood-clotted hair was an irregular patch where a piece of bone had been blown away, leaving the brain-matter exposed.

The Sister looked at it with eager curiosity and said:

"A most interesting case. I'm sure Captain Maynard would so love to see it! Captain Maynard!"

"One moment, Sister!" He was busy with a delicate knee operation. After a little delay he came over and inspected the damaged head.

"You've got all the luck," he said. "I haven't had a decent head for ages. Still, I s'pose we have to put up with these annoyances-horrors of war, you know!" He laughed and the Sister smiled. Then he went back to his knee while Captain Wheeler attended to the head.

It must not be supposed that the surgeons, sisters and orderlies of the ----th C.C.S. were particularly cruel and heartless. They were simply ordinary human beings and the ordinary human being, however he may be horrified by the first sight of wounds and suffering, soon gets used to them and accepts them as facts of everyday life.

It was growing dark outside and the electric light was switched on. The wounded still arrived in multitudes. Towards eight o'clock the day-shift came to an end and the night-shift began. We had no time to clear the theatre. The new surgeons continued where the old had left off. They were in high spirits and set to work merrily, exchanging jokes all the time.

The bearers were utterly exhausted and several of them had blue rings round their eyes through lack of sleep.

"Poor bearers," said one of the Sisters, "I do feel so sorry for them-they have an awfully hard time!"

Captain Dowden-another "head specialist"-said to me:

"Give the bearers a bit of a rest. Go to the Prep. yourself and bring me a nice head case."

I went accompanied by an orderly. The Prep. was a long marquee and on either side was a long row of stretchers, one close up against another. A man was lying on each, generally silent and motionless. Only a few were groaning feebly. We selected one whose head looked like a parcel of blood-sodden bandages. We carried him into the theatre and laid him on to the table.

The bandages were unwound. The man's hair was matted and caked with gore. There were three deep gashes in the skull. The head was washed and shaved and then painted with picric acid. The brilliant electric light, the clean white garments of the fresh teams, the bare head painted bright yellow and the three thin streaks of red blood trickling down made a strange picture. The largest wound was just above one ear. A local an?sthetic was injected and the skin round the injury pushed back. With a pair of curved pincers the surgeon broke away bits of bone from the edge of the hole. Then he pushed his little finger deeply into it and fetched out a large bone fragment and a quantity of soft matter, coloured a pale red, which he allowed to flop down on to the floor. The man was motionless except that he violently wagged his left big toe. And all the time he made a continuous cooing, purring noise, like that of a brooding hen.

The surgeon working at the next table, Captain Wycherley, received a "case" with a shattered right arm and a right thigh. He called his colleague, Captain Calthrop, over, and the two operated together, the one amputating the arm and the other the leg.

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 an?sthetist 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."

"Good-we shall be able to get off early, at two or three in the morning if we're lucky. We can take things easy a bit."

The bearers came in with a stretcher.

"Take it easy, bearers. There's no hurry-we haven't got many more to do. Just put him on that table there."

The newcomer's left leg was thickly bandaged, but the blood was oozing through and forming a pool on the table. When the bandage was removed, Captain Dowden examined the limb, but no injury was visible on the upper surface. I grasped the foot-it was blue and cold. I raised it, so that the surgeon could look at the under-surface of the leg. As I did so, the calf gave way in the middle. He told me angrily to pull harder. I pulled until the leg was taut again. The muscles and the sinews squeaked faintly as they stretched. Underneath the calf was a big hole and the bone had been completely shattered. The man was strangely quiet. His bare chest did not move. I looked at his face and suddenly I saw his lower jaw drop. He was dead.

"Another slab for the mortuary!"

The remaining tables were empty and no more wounded were brought in for a while. The bearers were obeying the surgeon's order and were taking a rest. The officers and sisters in the theatre were in high spirits. They were trying to speak French and ridiculing each other's efforts. Captain Wycherley began to hum a tune and wave his amputation knife like the conductor of an orchestra, whereupon the others locked arms and danced up and down the theatre, talking and joking. Then Captain Calthrop broke away and danced by himself, kicking his legs up in the air. The Sisters watched him and laughed loudly. One of them could hardly control herself, and shrieking with laughter, cried:

"Oh, Captain Calthrop, you really are too funny!"

Captain Dowden had not joined in the merrymaking. He was standing by the table on which the corpse was lying. He smiled uneasily and said to an orderly: "Tie up his jaw and his feet and hands and take him away. And tell the bearers to get a move on. Let's get finished as quickly as possible."

The orderly pushed the dead man's lower jaw sharply against the upper, so that the teeth clicked, and kept it in position by tying a bandage right round the head. Then he crossed the dead hands and feet and tied them together also.

He went to the door and shouted, "Bearers!"

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 an?sthetist 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 an?sthetist, 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 an?sthetist lit upon a happy thought and said:

"How'd you like to try your hand at giving an an?sthetic? 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 an?sthetist.

And so the two an?sthetists operated and the two surgeons gave an?sthetics. 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 an?sthetists 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 an?sthetic'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, an?sthetists 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.

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