When next I found myself in my cot, that awful pain was unnerving me, but the doctor, Captain Allen, assured me that I would be all right after a few weeks’ rest in Blighty. I immediately asked when I was to go. His reply was: “When your temperature goes down. It has been 104 for about a week.”
I said I would like to write home, and my soft-voiced nurse thereupon brought me paper and envelope. I moved to extend my right hand for the paper, and with dismay found it in splints and bandages, with a strong resemblance to a huge boxing glove. Quickly I glanced at the left hand, to find with relief that it, at least, was whole.
I had of course never learned to use my left hand for writing. Observing my need of assistance, the nurse sat on the edge of my bed and took pen and paper to write for me. I had not even to ask her to do this service. The tears came into my eyes at her willing, quiet helpfulness.
After she had finished writing my letter, I asked her about my condition. She seemed reluctant to tell me, but as I urged her to do so she finally said:
“Your leg will probably have to be amputated, as it has been completely turned round and the knee badly shattered. Some splinters of shell still remain in it.”
She left me—but not for long. She had gone for the plate with the impression of my knee. This she held up to what light could get through the roof of the yellow canvas, and the picture I saw quite startled me. I counted four little black specks around the joint, and to one piece in particular she called my attention. It was about the size of a one-carat diamond pointed at both ends and was embedded in the knee cap. This tiny object was giving me nearly all of my pain.
The medical officer on his rounds approached us and greeted me with “You certainly had a miraculous escape.”
Later, one of my mates in the hospital, who was with my regiment, told me how I got mine. He had witnessed it. A Jack Johnson striking about fifteen yards in front of the trench I was in, exploded, caving the trench in for a length of about thirty yards. I, with Sergeant Johnstone, who had come up the previous day with reinforcements, was buried completely. Then the Germans charged over the trench at our fellows, who retired to their reserve trenches. However, the enemy was repulsed and had to retire to their own lines again. This fight started about 2 P.M., and it was not until about nine o’clock that night that our company came up and began to re-open the trench. It seems that one fellow was about to use his pick when another close by with a shovel noticed something in the form of a head. He stayed the hand with the pick just in time. It was a head—and mine at that. They completely unearthed me, and, as I looked to be dead, placed me to one side with a waterproof sheet over me, to be buried later. Luckily enough, a medical officer examined me and found there was still a little life left. He used artificial respiration, put my legs in splints made up of empty ration boxes, bandaged my damaged right hand, and sent me to the Rouen Hospital, unconscious, but with a spark of life still in me.
Even after two weeks’ stay in the hospital my condition was still very critical, but I had the courage and optimism peculiar to the Scot and my hopes for recovery endured stubbornly. The moans of my German neighbour, mixed with cries for “Das Ei,” didn’t allay my fever at all. No one knew what he wanted. Latterly one of our wounded fellows called the nurse over and suggested very earnestly that perhaps he had a glass eye and it needed some attention. The nurse at once examined his eyes, but found them all right.
However, the next medical officer on duty understood German and acquainted the nurse with the fact that the patient had been calling for an egg. He marked on his chart that he should be given two fresh eggs every morning.