"Just there, above the knee. That'll mortify in twenty hours from now. Thank the Lord I never wasted much morphia on the niggers. There's plenty in stock. So it won't worry me much."
"Look here," said Kettle, "I will cut that leg off for you."
"You! My good Skipper, you're a handy man, I know, but what the blazes do you know about amputation?"
"You've got to teach me. You can show me the tools to use, and draw diagrams of where the arteries come."
"By the powers, I've a great mind to. There's something pretty rich in giving an amputation lecture with one's own femorals as a subject."
"You'd better," said Kettle grimly, "or I shall cut it off without being taught. I like you a lot too well, my man, to let you die for want of a bit of help."
And so, principally because the grotesqueness of the situation appealed to his whimsical sense of humor, Clay forthwith proceeded to pose as an anatomy demonstrator addressing a class, and expounded the whole art of amputation, handling the utensils of the surgeon's craft with the gusto of an expert, and never by shudder or sigh showing a trace of the white feather. He carried the whole thing through with a genial gayety, pointing his sentences now with a quip, now with some roguish sparkle of profanity, and finally he announced that the lecture was complete and over, and then he nodded familiarly at his wounded limb.
"By-bye, old hoof!" he said. "You've helped carry the rest of me into some queer scrapes, one time and another. But we've had good times together, as well as bad, you and I, and anyway, I'm sorry to lose you. And now, skipper," said he, "get off your coat and wade in. I've put on the Esmarch's bandage for you. Don't be niggardly with the chloroform--I've got a good heart. And remember to do what I told you about that femoral artery, and don't make a mistake there, or else there'll be a mess on the floor. Shake hands, old man, and good luck to your surgery; and anyway, thank you for your trouble."
I fancy that I have made it clear before that Captain Kettle was a man possessed not only of an iron nerve, but also of all a sailor's handiness with his fingers; but here was a piece of work that required all his coolness and dexterity. At home, on an operating table, with everything at hand that antiseptic surgery could provide, with highly trained surgeons and highly trained nurses in goodly numbers, it would have been a formidable undertaking; but there, among those savage surroundings, in that awful loneliness which a white man feels so far away from all his kin, it was a very different matter.
It makes me shiver when I think how that little sailor must have realized his risks and his responsibility. It was a situation that would have fairly paralyzed most men. But from what can be gathered from the last letter that the patient ever wrote, it is clear that Kettle carried out the operation with indomitable firmness and decision; and if indeed some of his movements were crude, he had grasped all the main points of his hurried teaching, and he made no single mistake of any but pedantic importance.