CHAPTER XXI
THE KNIFE
They bore the patient as gently as possible to the camp, and placed him in the bark shelter, close by the warmth. Lang built up the fire, while Morrison hurried away for the needed utensils.
Eva came back with him, looking rather pale and excited. Both of them were laden with blankets, towels, kettles of water and all the extemporized instruments that Morrison could lay his hands on. Lang knew what she was thinking of, but his professional breakdown seemed to him now a far-away, unimportant thing. He was not concerned with it. He knew exactly what he had to do; he had no doubt of being able to do it.
While the kettles of water came to a boil, Lang sat and put a finer edge on one of the keen pen-knives Morrison had brought. He put the instruments into the boiling water, timing them for the required twenty minutes’ sterilization. He scrubbed his hands assiduously, sponged them with iodine, laid out the apparatus to his hand. He did not say a word and looked utterly abstracted, but his mind was thrilling with an elation that he had not known for a long time.
When sterilization was complete, he took out water in a basin to cool; then folded a towel into cone shape, placed it over Carroll’s face, and dropped on the ether. He kept one hand on the patient’s pulse; from time to time he raised an eyelid and warily examined the pupil. Carroll was weak with loss of blood; he needed careful treatment, but his unconsciousness made anæthesia come more quickly.
Lang surrendered the ether bottle to Morrison, with instruction to drop a little more at the word. He then turned Carroll’s head gently to expose the spot where the bullet lay. With the razor he shaved away a bare space; he cut a small slit, and, as he expected, the little blackened lump of lead almost popped out. He cleansed the wound carefully, applied a wad of absorbent gauze, and fastened it down.
So far all was easy and simple. The critical part was to come. Without any hesitation, he turned the patient’s head again, and shaved and cleaned a space of about three inches around the wound, which made a purplish spot on the white scalp. A little more ether was given.
“Hand me the knife,” he ordered. “Be ready with the saw. Don’t touch anything. Hand them with the forceps.”
With a quick, deft stroke he made a semicircular incision around the bullet mark, and turned back the flap of skin. Reaching for the keen little saw, he attacked the skull in the shortest cut he could contrive.
At the rasp, and the first reddened particles of bone under the steel teeth, Eva turned pale, but braced her nerve. Lang did not notice; from that moment he was aware of nothing but his work. Impassive and abstracted as he looked, jubilation sang in him. His hands obeyed his will. He felt as if he had been restored to life; as if a familiar spirit, long absent, had returned to serve him.