In one long, narrow room there were about thirty beds, and in each bed lay a young British soldier, or part of a young British soldier. There was not much left of one of them. Both his legs had been amputated to the thigh, and both his arms to the shoulder-blades.
“Remarkable man, that,” said the colonel. “Simply refuses to die. His vitality is so tremendous that it is putting up a terrific fight against mortality... There's another case of the same kind; one leg gone and the other going, and one arm. Deliberate refusal to give in. 'You're not going to kill me, doctor,' he said. 'I'm going to stick it through.' What spirit, eh?”
I spoke to that man. He was quite conscious, with bright eyes. His right leg was uncovered, and supported on a board hung from the ceiling. Its flesh was like that of a chicken badly carved-white, flabby, and in tatters. He thought I was a surgeon, and spoke to me pleadingly:
“I guess you can save that leg, sir. It's doing fine. I should hate to lose it.”
I murmured something about a chance for it, and the M. O. broke in cheerfully.
“You won't lose it if I can help it. How's your pulse? Oh, not bad. Keep cheerful and we'll pull you through.” The man smiled gallantly.
“Bound to come off,” said the doctor as we passed to another bed. “Gas gangrene. That's the thing that does us down.”
In bed after bed I saw men of ours, very young men, who had been lopped of limbs a few hours ago or a few minutes, some of them unconscious, some of them strangely and terribly conscious, with a look in their eyes as though staring at the death which sat near to them, and edged nearer.
“Yes,” said the M. O., “they look bad, some of 'em, but youth is on their side. I dare say seventy-five per cent. will get through. If it wasn't for gas gangrene—”
He jerked his head to a boy sitting up in bed, smiling at the nurse who felt his pulse.