He was already getting up, shaking his lion-like head and tawny hair; set erect again by habit and imperious discipline. Gilberte and Madame Delaherche had followed the stretcher, and when the captain had been laid on the oilcloth-covered mattress, they still lingered there, standing just a few paces away.
'Good! it's above the right ankle,' said Bouroche, who talked a good deal by way of occupying the minds of his patients. 'That's not so bad. Wounds there can be cured—I'll examine it.'
It was evident, however, that Beaudoin's state of torpor preoccupied him. On looking at the provisional dressing—a simple band tightened and secured to the trousers by a bayonet sheath—he began growling between his teeth, asking what fool was responsible for that. Suddenly, however, he became silent again. The truth had just dawned upon him. During the transport, no doubt—in the landau packed full of wounded—the bandage had loosened and slipped, ceasing to compress the wound, so that an abundant loss of blood had ensued.
Guessing this, Bouroche—by way of venting his feelings—flew into a violent rage with an attendant who was helping him. 'You —— dawdler; make haste with that cutting,' he shouted.
The captain's trousers and drawers, shoe and sock were thereupon cut open. First the leg, then the foot appeared; their wan nudity stained with blood. And above the ankle there was a frightful hole, into which a splinter of a shell had driven a shred of red cloth. A swelling of lacerated flesh, a protuberance of the muscle emerged in a pulpous state from the wound.
Gilberte had to lean against one of the posts supporting the roof of the shed. Ah! that flesh, that flesh so soft and white, now bleeding and mangled! Despite her horror, she could not turn her eyes away from it.
'The devil!' said Bouroche, 'they've put you in a nice state!'
He felt the foot and found it cold; no beat of the pulse could be detected. His face had become very grave, and his lips were drawn down, as always happened when he found himself confronted by a disquieting case. 'The devil!' he repeated, 'that foot's bad.'
Roused from his somnolence by anxiety, the captain looked at him, waiting; and ended by saying: 'Do you think so, major?'
Although amputation might be a matter of necessity, Bouroche's system was never to ask a wounded man point-blank for the customary authorisation. He preferred that the sufferer should, of his own accord, resign himself to the operation. 'A bad foot,' he muttered, as if he were thinking aloud; 'we can't save it.'