Jimmie saw the heavy face of the doctor as he bent over and impersonally examined him. The doctor spoke to an assistant, they both looked him all over again, and then the doctor gave a quick, sharp order to the stretcher-bearers who were waiting. They picked him up and carried him into another room, setting the stretcher down upon the floor.
As he looked around the bare little room, he made out two other figures—one stretched out in a bunk built into the side wall and filled with straw, the other on a stretcher near by. A soldier with a gun leaned against the doorway and inspected Jimmie curiously.
Gradually it came back to Jimmie that it must be eleven o’clock. There was a pain in his chest which hurt him to breathe, but still the thought persisted in his mind, “The car goes at eleven for the leave-boat.” Then he slowly and painfully realized that the leave-boat was not for him. He was down ... he had crashed ... he was on the wrong side of the lines....
If he could only breathe easier things wouldn’t be so bad. Through the doorway came a man dressed all in black with a long cinnamon-colored beard. Suspended from his neck on a silver chain was a cross, which he fingered as be made his way to the figure in the bunk. It came over Jimmie that this was a priest who had come to give the Last Sacrament to a man who was not expected to live. The priest finished his rites with the man in the bunk, then turned to the figure on the other stretcher, and again came the low mumble of his voice.
He next approached Jimmie.
Then Jimmie began to understand that the doctor had sent him to this room because he was not expected to live. This worried him not at all. He felt sure that if the obstruction in his chest could be removed, if he could take one long, deep breath, everything would be all right.
As the priest came toward him, Jimmie set up a great outcry. Not realizing that the priest might not understand English, he explained to him over and over again that he must be sent back to the doctor, and that if the doctor would remove this lump in his chest all would be well.
The priest appeared to be unconvinced. Jimmie half raised himself on his stretcher, and repeated again and again that the priest must send for the doctor. At last the priest seemed willing to humor him in his wish, patted him on the head and went out of the room.
Left alone, Jimmie was more miserable than ever, wondering if the priest had understood.
After what seemed to him an eternity, the priest came back, gesticulating with his hands to the doctor who accompanied him. Jimmie repeated his demands and the doctor, apparently convinced, leaned over, opened Jimmie’s tunic, and after another examination had him carried back to the operating room. After a few torturous minutes with a peculiar wire instrument, the doctor gave a triumphant “Ach!” and held up for Jimmie’s inspection a piece of metal the size of his little finger, and saying “Souvenir” handed it to him.