LITMIR.BIZ

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captain, “What hit you?”

      Me, with the eyes shut, “A trench mortar shell.”

      The captain, doing things that hurt sharply and severing tissue — “Are you sure?”

      Me — trying to lie still and feeling my stomach flutter when the flesh was cut, “I think so.”

      Captain doctor — (interested in something he was finding), “Fragments of enemy trench-mortar shell. Now I’ll probe for some of this if you like but it’s not necessary. I’ll paint all this and — Does that sting? Good, that’s nothing to how it will feel later. The pain hasn’t started yet. Bring him a glass of brandy. The shock dulls the pain; but this is all right, you have nothing to worry about if it doesn’t infect and it rarely does now. How is your head?”

      “Good Christ!” I said.

      “Better not drink too much brandy then. If you’ve got a fracture you don’t want inflammation. How does that feel?”

      Sweat ran all over me.

      “Good Christ!” I said.

      “I guess you’ve got a fracture all right. I’ll wrap you up and don’t bounce your head around.” He bandaged, his hands moving very fast and the bandage coming taut and sure. “All right, good luck and Vive la France.”

      “He’s an American,” one of the other captains said.

      “I thought you said he was a Frenchman. He talks French,” the captain said. “I’ve known him before. I always thought he was French.” He drank a half tumbler of cognac. “Bring on something serious. Get some more of that Anti-tetanus.” The captain waved to me. They lifted me and the blanket-flap went across my face as we went out. Outside the sergeant-adjutant knelt down beside me where I lay, “Name?” he asked softly. “Middle name? First name? Rank? Where born? What class? What corps?” and so on. “I’m sorry for your head, Tenente. I hope you feel better. I’m sending you now with the English ambulance.”

      “I’m all right,” I said. “Thank you very much.” The pain that the major had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without interest or relation. After a while the English ambulance came up and they put me onto a stretcher and lifted the stretcher up to the ambulance level and shoved it in. There was another stretcher by the side with a man on it whose nose I could see, waxy-looking, out of the bandages. He breathed very heavily. There were stretchers lifted and slid into the slings above. The tall English driver came around and looked in, “I’ll take it very easily,” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfy.” I felt the engine start, felt him climb up into the front seat, felt the brake come off and the clutch go in, then we started. I lay still and let the pain ride.

      As the ambulance climbed along the road, it was slow in the traffic, sometimes it stopped, sometimes it backed on a turn, then finally it climbed quite fast. I felt something dripping. At first it dropped slowly and regularly, then it pattered into a stream. I shouted to the driver. He stopped the car and looked in through the hole behind his seat.

      “What is it?”

      “The man on the stretcher over me has a hemorrhage.”

      “We’re not far from the top. I wouldn’t be able to get the stretcher out alone.” He started the car. The stream kept on. In the dark I could not see where it came from the canvas overhead. I tried to move sideways so that it did not fall on me. Where it had run down under my shirt it was warm and sticky. I was cold and my leg hurt so that it made me sick. After a while the stream from the stretcher above lessened and started to drip again and I heard and felt the canvas above move as the man on the stretcher settled more comfortably.

      “How is he?” the Englishman called back. “We’re almost up.”

      “He’s dead I think,” I said.

      The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone. It was cold in the car in the night as the road climbed. At the post on the top they took the stretcher out and put another in and we went on.

      CHAPTER 10

       Table of Contents

      In the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was coming to see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there were many flies in the room. My orderly had cut paper into strips and tied the strips to a stick to make a brush that swished the flies away. I watched them settle on the ceiling. When he stopped swishing and fell asleep they came down and I blew them away and finally covered my face with my hands and slept too. It was very hot and when I woke my legs itched. I waked the orderly and he poured mineral water on the dressings. That made the bed damp and cool. Those of us that were awake talked across the ward. The afternoon was a quiet time. In the morning they came to each bed in turn, three men nurses and a doctor and picked you up out of bed and carried you into the dressing room so that the beds could be made while we were having our wounds dressed. It was not a pleasant trip to the dressing room and I did not know until later that beds could be made with men in them. My orderly had finished pouring water and the bed felt cool and lovely and I was telling him where to scratch on the soles of my feet against the itching when one of the doctors brought in Rinaldi. He came in very fast and bent down over the bed and kissed me. I saw he wore gloves.

      “How are you, baby? How do you feel? I bring you this — ” It was a bottle of cognac. The orderly brought a chair and he sat down, “and good news. You will be decorated. They want to get you the medaglia d’argento but perhaps they can get only the bronze.”

      “What for?”

      “Because you are gravely wounded. They say if you can prove you did any heroic act you can get the silver. Otherwise it will be the bronze. Tell me exactly what happened. Did you do any heroic act?”

      “No,” I said. “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”

      “Be serious. You must have done something heroic either before or after. Remember carefully.”

      “I did not.”

      “Didn’t you carry anybody on your back? Gordini says you carried several people on your back but the medical major at the first post declares it is impossible. He has to sign the proposition for the citation.”

      “I didn’t carry anybody. I couldn’t move.”

      “That doesn’t matter,” said Rinaldi.

      He took off his gloves.

      “I think we can get you the silver. Didn’t you refuse to be medically aided before the others?”

      “Not very firmly.”

      “That doesn’t matter. Look how you are wounded. Look at your valorous conduct in asking to go always to the first line. Besides, the operation was successful.”

      “Did they cross the river all right?”

      “Enormously. They take nearly a thousand prisoners. It’s in the bulletin. Didn’t you see it?”

      “No.”

      “I’ll bring it to you. It is a successful coup de main.”

      “How is everything?”

      “Splendid. We are all splendid. Everybody is proud of you. Tell me just exactly how it happened. I am positive you will get the silver. Go on tell me. Tell me all about it.” He paused and thought. “Maybe you will get an English medal too. There was an English there. I’ll go and see him and ask if he will recommend you. He ought to be able to do something. Do you suffer much? Have a drink. Orderly, go get a corkscrew. Oh you should see what I did in the removal of three metres of small intestine and better now than ever. It is one for The Lancet. You do me a translation and I will send it to The Lancet. Every day I am better. Poor dear baby, how do you feel? Where is that damn corkscrew? You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.” He

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