Bouroche raised his eyes, and growled: 'Do they want to finish off our wounded? That row is insupportable.'
In the meantime an attendant had caught hold of the captain's wounded leg by the foot, and by a rapid circular incision the major now cut the skin below the knee, at a couple of inches from the point where he contemplated sawing the bone. Then, with the same narrow knife, which he did not exchange for another, since he wished to accomplish the operation as speedily as possible, he detached the skin, raising it up all round, much in the fashion in which one peels an orange. Just as he was about to sever the muscles, however, an attendant approached him and whispered in his ear: 'Number two has dropped off.'
So frightful was the din that the major could not hear. 'Speak louder, will you? My ears are tingling with that cursed cannonade.'
'Number two has dropped off.'
'Who's number two?'
'The arm.'
'Oh! all right! Well, you'll bring me number three—the jaw.'
Then, with extraordinary skill, he at one stroke severed the muscles to the bone. He bared the tibia and the fibula, and, as a support, passed the three-tail compress between them. Then, with a single kerf of the saw, he lopped them off, the foot remaining in the hands of the attendant who was holding it.
But little blood flowed, thanks to the pressure which the assistant was maintaining higher up, around the thigh; and the ligation of the three arteries was swiftly accomplished. Nevertheless, the major shook his head; and when his assistant had taken his hands away, he examined his work, and, certain that his patient could not as yet hear him, muttered: 'It's a nuisance; no blood comes from the little arteries.'