They have commenced to refuse permission for the crowd to enter, it embarrasses and hinders the nurses.
At the side of soldiers, with resigned faces, are others who murmur and complain. The idea of an amputation scarcely frightens the French soldier, because of his careless nature, but he is impatient and irritable; the Austrian, of a less thoughtless disposition, is more inclined to be melancholy in his isolation.
I find in these hospital wards some of our wounded from Castiglione. They are better cared for now, but their torments are not ended.
Here, is one of the heroes of the Imperial Flying Guard, wounded at Solferino. Shot in the leg, he passed several days at Castiglione, where I dressed his wounds for the first time. He is stretched on a straw mattress; the expression of his face denotes profound suffering; his eyes are hollow and shining; his great pallor gives evidence that purulent fever has set in to complicate and increase the gravity of his condition; his lips are dry; his voice trembles; the assurance of the brave man has given place to fear and timidity; care even unnerves him; he is afraid to have any one approach his poor injured leg which the gangrene has already attacked.
A French surgeon, who makes the amputations, passes by his bed; the sick man, whose touch is like burning iron, seizes his hand and presses it in his own.
"Do not hurt me! My suffering is terrible!" he cries.
But one must act, and without delay. Twenty other wounded must be operated on during the same morning, and one hundred and fifty are waiting for bandages. One has not time to pity a single case nor to await the end of his hesitation. The surgeon, cool and resolute, replies: "Let me do it." Then he rapidly lifts the covering. The broken leg is swollen double its natural size; from three places flows a quantity of fetid pus, purple stains prove that as an artery has been broken, the sole remedy, if there is one, is amputation.
Amputation! Terrible word for this poor young man, who sees before him no other alternative than an immediate death or the miserable life of a cripple.
He has no time to prepare himself for the last decision, and trembling with anguish, he cries out in despair: "Oh! What are you going to do?" The surgeon does not reply. "Nurse, carry him away, make haste!" he says. But a heartrending cry bursts from that panting breast; the unskilled nurse has seized the motionless, yet sensitive, leg much too near the wound; the broken bones penetrating the flesh, has caused new torments to the soldier whose hanging leg shakes with the jolts of the transportation to the operating room.
Fearful procession! It seems as if one were leading a victim to death.