There was also another break that was sheer coincidence. It was a discovery that could not possibly have turned up save in a situation of pure chaos artificially induced. Joe had had to react in a personal and vengeful way to the manner in which his especial antagonist had fought him. One expects a man to fight fair by instinct, and to turn to fouls—if he does—in desperation only. But Joe’s personal opponent hadn’t tried a single fair trick. It was as if he’d never heard of a fist blow, but only of murder and mayhem. Joe felt an individual enmity toward him.
Joe didn’t consider himself the most urgent of the injured, when doctors and nurses took up the work of patching, but Sally was there to help, and she went deathly pale when she saw his bloodstained throat. She dragged him quickly to a doctor. And the doctor looked at Joe and dropped everything else.
But it wasn’t too serious. The antiseptics hurt, and the stitching was unpleasant, but Joe was more worried by the knowledge that Sally was standing there and suffering for him. When he got up from the emergency operating table, the doctor nodded grimly to him.
“That was close!” said the doctor. “Whoever chewed you was working for your jugular vein, and he was halfway through the wall when he stopped. A fraction of an inch more, and he’d have had you!”
“Thanks,” said Joe. His neck felt clumsy with bandages, and when he tried to turn his head the stitches hurt.
Sally’s hand trembled in his when she led him away.
“I didn’t think I’d ever dislike anybody so much,” said Joe angrily, “as I did that man while he was chewing my throat. We were trying to kill each other, of course, but—confound it, people don’t bite!”
“Did you—kill him?” asked Sally in a shaky voice. “Not that I’ll mind! I would have hated the thought ordinarily, but——”
Joe halted. There was a row of stretchers—not too long, at that—in the emergency-hospital space. He looked down at the unconscious man who’d fought him.
“There he is!” he said irritably. “I banged him pretty hard. I don’t like to hate anybody, but the way he fought——”