Wednesday
I lay in bed, at the clearing station at Heilly. It was just after nine o’clock the same morning, and the orderlies were out of sight, but not out of hearing, washing up the breakfast things. Half the dark blue blinds were drawn, as the June sun was blazing outside. I could see the glare of it on the cobbles in the courtyard, as the door opened and a cool, tall nurse entered. I closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. I felt she might come and talk, and one thing I did not want to do, I did not want to talk.
My body was most extraordinarily comfortable. I moved my feet toes-up for the sheer joy of feeling the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet when I turned them sideways again. The pillow was comfortable; the whole bed was comfortable; even my arm, that was throbbing violently now, and felt boiling hot, was very comfortably rested on another pillow. I just wanted to lie, and lie: only my mind was working so fast and hard that it seemed to make the skin tight over my forehead. And all the time there was that buzz, buzzing. If I left off thinking, the buzzing took complete mastery of my brain. That was intolerable: so I had to keep on thinking.
At the Citadel an R.A.M.C. doctor had given me tea and a second label. He had also given me an injection against tetanus. This he did in the chest. Why didn’t he do it in my right arm, I had thought: I would have rather had it there. Again, I had had to wait quite a quarter of an hour, while he attended to the “D” Company private. I had learned from an orderly that this poor fellow was bound to lose a leg, and again I had felt that I was in the way here, that I was a bother. I had then watched the poor fellow carried out on a stretcher, and the stretcher slid into the ambulance. There was a seat inside, into which I was helped. Lewis had gone in front, very red-faced and awkward. And an R.A.M.C. orderly had got in behind with me. Sitting, I had felt that he must think I was shamming! Then I remembered the first ambulance I had seen, when I first walked from Chocques to Béthune in early October! Was there really any connection between me then and me now?
Then there had been a rather pleasant journey through unknown country, it seemed. After a few miles, we halted and changed into another ambulance. As I had stood in the sunshine a moment, I had tried to make out where we were. But I could not recognise anything, and felt very tired. There was a white chalk road, a grass bank, and a house close by: that is all I could remember. And then there was another long ride, in which my one paramount idea was to rest my arm (which was in a white sling) and prevent it shaking and jarring.
Then at last we had reached a village and pulled up in a big sunlit courtyard. Again as I walked into a big room I felt that people must think I was shamming. A matron had come in, and a doctor. Did I mind sitting and waiting a minute or so? Would I like some tea? I had refused tea. Then the doctor and an orderly came in, and the doctor asked some questions and took off my label. The orderly was taking off my boots, and the doctor had started helping! I had apologised profusely, for they were trench boots thick with mud. And then the doctor had asked me whether I could wait until about eleven before they looked at my arm: meanwhile it would be better, as I should be more rested after a few hours in bed. Bed! I had never thought of going to bed for an arm at all! What a delicious idea! I felt so tired, too. I had not been to bed all night. Then I had been helped into this delightful bed, and after scrawling a letter home to go away by the eight o’clock post (I was glad I had remembered that), I had been left in peace at about half-past four. And here I was! I had had a cup of tea for breakfast, but did not want to eat anything.
I wished I could go to sleep. Yet it was not much good now, if they were going to look at my arm at eleven. I opened my eyes whenever I was sure there was no one near me. Then I thought I might as well keep them open, otherwise they would think I had slept, and not know how tired out I felt. There was a man in the next bed with his head all bandaged; and round the bed in the corner was a screen. Opposite was an R.A.M.C. doctor, as far as I could gather; he was talking to the nurse, and looked perfectly well. I thought perhaps he might be the sort who would talk late when I wanted to sleep—he looked so well and lively; suppose he had a gramophone and wanted to play it this afternoon. I should really have to complain, if he did. Yet perhaps they would understand, and make him give it up because of us who were not so well. On my right, up at the other end of the room (was it a “ward”? yes, I suppose it was) were several voices, but I could not turn over and look at their owners, with my arm like this. How it throbbed and pulsed! Or was it aching? Supposing I got pins and needles in it....
A khaki-clad padre came in. He just came over and asked me if I wanted anything, and did not worry me with talking. He had a very quiet voice and bald head. I liked both. I felt I ought to have wanted something: had I been discourteous?
The door opened, and the doctor entered, with another nurse and another doctor. Somehow this last person electrified everyone and everything. Who was he? His very walk was somehow different from the ordinary. My attention was riveted on him; somehow I felt that he knew I was there, and yet he did not look at me. They wheeled a little table up from the other end of the room, laden with glasses and bottles and glittering little silver forks and things. I could not see clearly. An orderly was reprimanded by the nurse for something, in a subdued voice. There was a hush and a tenseness in this man’s presence. Yet he was calmly looking at a newspaper, and sitting on an empty bed as he did so! Apparently Kitchener was reported drowned in the North Sea: he spoke in a rich, almost drawling voice. He was immensely casual! And yet one did not mind. He walked over and washed his hands, and put on some yellowy-brown india-rubber gloves that scrooped and squelched in the basins. And then he turned round, and the other doctor (whom I had seen at four o’clock and who already seemed a sort of confidential friend of mine in the presence of this master-man) asked him, which case he wanted to see first. And as he jerked his hand casually to one of the beds, I was filled with a strange elation. This was a surgeon, I felt; and one in whom I had immense confidence. He would do the best for my arm: he would make no mistakes. I almost laughed for sheer joy!
He came at last to my bed and glanced at me. He never smiled. He asked me one or two questions. I said I was “? fracture,” that my arm was throbbing but felt numb more than anything.