"Think we'd better stop home?" I hazarded.
"M—m! Can't spare the time," he demurred. "Got our work cut out to finish in good time for the burn, you know, so guess we'll chance it."
"Righto!" I answered. So 7.30 a.m. saw us at it as usual. I was on a "mad" patch—trees leaning every way—on the side of a hill. I had sent several drives up; then had to go among the fallen stuff to send the last four trees of that patch down hill. The last one of these four was a long willowy crowfoot elm, and as he had a bit of a lean uphill I "nicked" him well, to make sure he'd go; scarfed the others, and then started on the driving tree. It was blowing fresh and I was a bit nervous. I hurriedly got the belly cut in, and had the back in near enough to make him start talking (i.e., cracking a bit), when a strong gust came along, making the trees sway dangerously. I stood a second or two undecided whether to go or stay, and "he who hesitates is lost." A sharp crack! and the long crowfoot broke back over the scarf, automatically becoming the driver, and sending the whole lot down on top of me. "Oh, Christ!" I panted, and made a jump for safety. A stumble, a slip, and I was down. Up again, and, with the whistling rush of the falling trees loud in my ears, I turned to face and, if possible, dodge them, as the fallen stuff round prevented my jumping aside. The first trunk missed, but tore the shirt off my arm as it swept to earth, throwing me off my balance; then a whirling stick split my head open, sent me down on my face, and next second I was buried in falling limbs. Whack! whack! whack!
I suppose the whole business was only a matter of seconds, but to me it seemed like an eternity. Half-stunned with fright and the bursting crash of breaking branches, with the breath beaten out of my body, I thought at each fresh thump: "This has done it! N-no, not quite yet." Then a sudden silence and a slowly dawning realisation. "Why! I'm not dead!"
I lay a second or two gathering my scattered wits; then slowly raised my head, which sang like a kettle. I was in a sort of rustic grotto of green stuff piled six feet over me. Lord knows how I escaped being killed. Then I set to work to overhaul myself. Didn't feel the least pain. Good! But hallo! What's the matter with my left arm? There should be no joints between elbow and wrist, and here's at least two. I felt an insane desire to laugh as I waggled the injured member about, with the blood running down my face from my cut head. Both bones were broken twice, and the wrist as well, but that seemed to be all; so, under the circumstances, I had got off fairly easy. I crawled out with some difficulty, lay down, and coo-eed for Len.
There's something about the call of a hurt man that can't be mistaken, and Len dropped his axe and raced for me at the first sound of my voice. Again I felt the hysterical desire to laugh at the sight of him tumbling, scrambling, tripping over the jumble of fallen stuff in his eagerness to get to me. He rushed up. I must have looked rather startling—pale and blood-stained, and the shirt half-torn off me.
"My God! Charlie! What's happened?"
"All right, Len," I answered. "Ain't going to snuff it yet; but my arm's broke, and I feel awful sick."
"Well, tell us what to do, ol' chap," he said, fluttering round like a distressed hen. "I feel as useless as the fifth wheel of a coach; but tell us what to do, and I'll do it."
He got a bit of a stick, and we bound the arm to it with the remnants of my shirt. Then, with his assistance, I crawled painfully over the fallen stuff, down and up the steep banks of a creek, and so to the hut. Didn't feel any pain, only a dreadful sick, vomity sensation. I lay down a bit while Len brewed a strong mug of tea; swallowed that; felt a heap better; dragged on my Sunday-go-to-meetings, and prepared for the tramp into hospital. My back was bruised to a jelly nearly, but I didn't feel it. A real injury seems to be its own anaesthetic somehow. We left the humpy about ten o'clock on the ten-mile journey to the station, I cheerfully ruminating en route on this being the end of everything. I wonder how many times since then I've had the same thought: "Oh, Lord! this set-back really is the end." Oh, well! It's all in the day's work.