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 G.o.d'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 anaesthetist 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 anaesthetist.

"Here's a man dead through your neglect. Don't you b.l.o.o.d.y 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 "b.l.o.o.d.y 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 unb.u.t.toned. 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 ma.s.s 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 mult.i.tudes. 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 anaesthetic 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 quant.i.ty 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 una.s.sisted. 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 G.o.d'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."