Two orderlies and two bearers seized his hands and feet while the bandage was quickly removed. He shrieked and struggled violently, but he was firmly held.
He had a small, deep wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. He received gas and soon lost consciousness. The surgeon pushed a probe into the hole. There was a metallic click, whereupon he inserted his forceps and pulled out a jagged piece of steel, the fragment of a German shell. When the wound had been excised and dressed, the man was carried away and replaced by another whose right leg was thickly wrapped up. The wrapping was removed and revealed a shattered knee and two toes dangling from the foot. Captain Wycherley snipped them off with a pair of scissors. The man winced and they dropped on to the floor. The anæsthetist administered gas. It was some time, however, before the patient lost consciousness, for the balloon that adjoined the mouthpiece leaked badly and once the rubber-tubing was blown off the nozzle of the cylinder.
Captain Dowden was busy with a foot, or all that was left of a foot, a number of crimson shreds hanging from an ankle over a projecting piece of bone. Captain Calthrop was attending to a "belly case"—he had cut a longitudinal slit in his patient's abdomen and both his hands were groping inside it, buried up to the wrists, while the stomach-wall heaved up and down with the breathing of the unconscious man.
The "case" lying on the end table had been in the C.C.S. for several days. He had undergone operation as soon as he arrived. At that time he only had a small surface-wound below the knee, but it was slightly gangrenous. The next day the gas-gangrene appeared above the knee-joint. The wound was excised a second time. But soon afterwards gangrene appeared again, still higher up, and a third operation was necessary. And now the wound stretched from below the knee almost as far as the hip. It was shallow, but as broad as a hand and of a greyish-green colour. The man breathed feebly and his eyes were turned up so that only the whites were visible. He received gas. Amputation was impossible for the gangrene had reached too far. The wound was excised, but the surgeon said: "I'm afraid he's done for, poor fellow." The man's breathing became almost imperceptible. The oxygen cylinder was sent for, the rubber tube was pushed in between the blue lips, and the gas rushed through. In a few seconds he had revived and gave loud and regular snorts, jerking back his head and shaking his body with each ingoing breath. He was taken back to the ward and put back to bed. He began to talk volubly about his wife and children. Within half an hour he was dead.
"Just go and see if there are many left in the Prep.," said Captain Dowden to his orderly.
The orderly came back and reported that there were hardly a dozen.
"Any Huns amongst them?"
"Four or five, sir."
"Are we still receiving?"
"No, sir, we stopped about an hour ago. There won't be any more cases arriving to-night, sir."