"Damn you! Can't you see I'm busy?" K—— is boring, with all the strength of his massive shoulders, into the skull of his case. Trephining is, literally, hard work; but not that alone. L—— is cutting, cutting, cutting, at the buttock of the wretch, paring the hideous gas gangrene as one would pare the rottenness from an apple. A third surgeon is probing for bomb splinters in rear of the thigh; and getting them. The man is splintered all over. For one horrible moment you conceive him as suddenly and treacherously deprived of unconsciousness, with —— boring here to the brain membrane, —— slicing generously at his buttock, and —— probing relentlessly to the bone in the gaping incision.
"Well, it certainly looks as though we are doing what we like," says ----. "It is rather bloody; yet the C.O. says the most revolting operation to watch is that of the removal of a finger-nail."
"If we go much further, he'll drop his subconscious ire upon us," says ----.
"Yes, I suppose his subconsciousness is protesting in blasphemous silence: 'Pourquoi'?"
"Stitches, Sister," says ——, at the head. The blood-clot has flowed; and in a twinkling the triangular exposure of skull is covered by the stitched scalp.
"He'll be easier," says ——.
And then begins the tabulation of his multiple wounds. They cover half a page. It's a miracle of symbolism which can suggest all that man has suffered (and has yet to suffer) in the handwriting of half a page....
"Clear, thank God!" says ——, as Multiple Wounds is borne out insensible half an hour later. "It's eleven, and I've been here since the middle of the morning; and I could almost sleep. Good-night, Sister! I'm off."
So they go to the freezing dampness of their camp stretchers. The orderlies set about "cleaning up."