A deep and comparatively uninjured German dug-out had been adapted for use as a dressing-station. Its entrance lay in a little cup-shaped depression with a steep, sloping bank behind it, and the position of this bank and the entrance opening out of it away from the British lines had probably been the saving of it from shell fire. Kentucky groped his way down the dark stairway, and the bearers followed with Pug on the stretcher. The stair was horribly steep, built in high and narrow wooden steps which were coated with thick, slippery mud, and it was with some difficulty that the stretcher was brought down. The stair opened out direct into a large, well-built dug-out with planked floor, walls and roof, and beyond it again a narrow passage led to a further room, also well built and plank lined, but much longer, and so narrow that it barely gave room for men to be laid across it. This chamber, too, was filled with254 wounded, some of them stretched at full length, others squatting close packed about the floor. The first room was used by the doctors, because, being more widely built, it gave room for a couple of tables. There were three doctors there, two working at the tables, the third amongst the cases huddled along the wall. Kentucky took his place, leaning back against the wall and waiting his turn, but Pug was carried almost at once to one of the tables.
“Have you heard anything about how the whole show is going?” Kentucky asked one of the orderlies. “Not a word,” said the man. “Leastways, we’ve heard so many words you can’t believe any of ’em. Some o’ the casualties tells us one thing an’ some another. But we’ve bumped the Hun back a lump, that’s sure. They all tell us that.”
Kentucky stayed there some minutes longer, waiting his turn and watching the doctors at their work. They were kept hard at it. The casualties came stumbling down the stair in an unbroken procession, and in turn passed along to the doctors at the tables. Most of those that walked had bandages about their heads, faces, hands, or arms; most of them were smeared and spattered255 with blood, all of them were plastered thick with mud. Many had sleeves slit open or shirts cut away, and jackets slung loosely over their shoulders, and as they moved glimpses of white flesh and patches of bandage showed vividly fresh and clean behind the torn covering of blood-stained and muddy khaki. As fast as the doctor finished one man another took his place, and without an instant’s pause the doctor washed from his mind the effort of thought concentrated on the last case, pounced on the newcomer, and, hurriedly stripping off the bandages, plunged into the problem of the fresh case, examining, diagnosing, and labeling it, cleansing the wound of the clotted blood and mud that clung about it, redressing and bandaging it. Then each man’s breast was bared and a hypodermic injection of “anti-tetanus” serum made, and the man passed along to join the others waiting to go back to the ambulances. And before he was well clear of the table the doctor had turned and was busied about the next case. The work went on at top speed, as smooth as sweet-running machinery, as fast and efficiently as the sorting and packing of goods in a warehouse by a well-drilled and expert staff. It was curiously like the handling of merchandise, if you gave your256 main attention to the figures passing down the stairs, moving into line up to the tables, halting there a few minutes, moving on again and away. The men might have been parcels shifting one by one up to the packers’ tables and away from them, or those pieces of metal in a factory which trickle up leisurely to a whirling lathe, are seized by it, turned, poked, spun about with feverish haste for a minute by the machine, pushed out clear to resume their leisured progress while the machine jumps on the next piece and works its ordered will upon it. That was the impression if one watched the men filing up to and away from the doctor’s hands. It was quite different if attention were concentrated on the doctor alone and the case he handled. That brought instant realization of the human side, the high skill of the swiftly moving fingers, the perfection of knowledge that directed them, the second-cutting haste with which a bandage was stripped off, the tenderness that over-rode the haste as the raw wound and quivering flesh were bared, the sure, unhesitating touch that handled the wound with a maximum of speed finely adjusted to a minimum of hurt, the knowledge that saw in one swift glance what was to be done, the technical skill, instant, exact, and undeviating,257 that did it. Here, too, was another human side in the men who moved forward one by one into the strong lamp-light to be handled and dealt with, to hear maybe and pretend not to heed the verdict that meant a remaining life to be spent in crippled incompetence, in bed-ridden helplessness; or a sentence that left nothing of hope, that reduced to bare hours in the semi-dark of underground, of cold and damp, of lonely thoughts, the life of a man who a few hours before had been crammed with health and strength and vitality, overflowing with animal fitness and energy. With all these men it appeared to be a point of honor to show nothing of flinching from pain or from fear of the future. All at least bore the pain grimly and stoically, most bore it cheerfully, looked a detached sort of interest at their uncovered wounds, spoke with the doctor lightly or even jestingly. If it was a slight wound there was usually a great anxiety to know if it would be “a Blighty one”; if it were serious, the anxiety was still there, but studiously hidden under an assumed carelessness, and the questioning would be as to whether “it would have to come off” or “is there a chance for me?”
When Kentucky’s turn came he moved forward258 and sat himself on a low box beside the table, and before he was well seated the orderly was slipping off the jacket thrown over his shoulders and buttoned across his chest. The doctor was in his shirt-sleeves, and a dew of perspiration beaded his forehead and shone damp on his face and throat. “Shell, sir,” said Kentucky in answer to the quick question as the doctor began rapidly to unwind the bandages on his shoulder. “Dropped in a shell hole next the one I was lying in with another man. That’s him,” and he nodded to where Pug lay on the other doctor’s table. “He’s hurt much worse than me. He’s a particular chum of mine, sir, and—would you mind, sir?—if you could ask the other doctor he might tell me what Pug’s chances are.”
“We’ll see,” said the doctor. “But I’m afraid you’ve got a nasty hand here yourself,” as he carefully unwound the last of the bandage from Kentucky’s fingers and gently pulled away the blood-clotted pad from them. “Yes, sir,” agreed Kentucky. “But, you see, Pug got it in the leg, and the bearers say that’s smashed to flinders, and he’s plugged full of other holes as well. I’m rather anxious about him, sir; and if you could ask....”
259
“Presently,” said the doctor, and went on with his work. “What was your job before the war? Will it cripple you seriously to lose that hand; because I’m afraid they’ll have to amputate when you go down.”
Kentucky was anxiously watching the men at the other table and trying to catch a glimpse of what they were doing. “It doesn’t matter so much about that, sir,” he said: “and I’m a lot more worried about Pug. He’ll lose a leg if he loses anything, and mebbe he mightn’t pull through. Couldn’t you just have a look at him yourself, sir?”
As it happened, his doctor was called over a minute later to a hurried consultation at the other table. The two doctors conferred hastily, and then Kentucky’s doctor came back to finish his bandaging.
“Bad,” he said at once in answer to Kentucky’s look. “Very bad. Doubtful if it is worth giving him a place in the ambulance. But he has a faint chance. We’ll send him down later—when there’s room—if he lasts.... There you are ... now the anti-tetanic....” busying himself with the needle “... and off you go to Blighty.”
260
“Thank you, sir,” said Kentucky. “And can I stay beside Pug till it’s time to move?”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to let you walk if you can manage it. There’s desperately little room in the ambulances.”
“I can walk all right, sir,” said Kentucky; and presently, with a label tied to the breast of his jacket, moved aside to wait for Pug’s removal from the table. They brought him over presently and carried him into the other room and laid him down there close to the foot of another stair leading to above-ground. Kentucky squatted beside him and leaned over the stretcher. “Are you awake, Pug?” he said softly, and immediately Pug’s eyes opened. “Hullo, Kentuck,” he said cheerfully. “Yes, I’m awake orright. They wanted to gimme another dose o’ that sleep stuff in there, but I tole ’em I wasn’t feelin’ these holes hurt a bit. I wanted to ’ave a talk to you, y’see, ol’ man, an’ didn’t know if another pill ’ud let me.”
“Sure they don’t hurt much?” said Kentucky.
“No,” said Pug; “but it looks like a wash-out for me, Kentuck.”
“Never believe it, boy,” said Kentucky, forcing a gayety that was the last thing he actually261 felt. “We’re going down and over to Blighty together.”
Pug grinned up at him. “No kid stakes, Kentuck,” he said; “or mebbe you don’t know. But I ’eard wot them M.O.s was sayin’, though they didn’t know I did. They said it wasn’t worth sendin’ me out to the ambulance. You knows wot that means as well as me, Kentuck.”
Kentucky was silent. He knew only too well what it meant. Where every stretcher and every place in the ambulances is the precious means of conveyance back to the doctors, and hospitals, and the hope of their saving of the many men who have a chance of that saving, no stretcher and no place dare be wasted to carry back a dying man, merely that he may die in another place. The ones that may be saved take precedence, and those that are considered hopeless must wait until a slackening of the rush allows them to be sent. In one way it may seem cruel, but in the other and larger way it is the more humane and merciful.
“There’s always a chance, Pug,” said Kentucky, striving to capture hope himself. “Course there is,” said Pug. “An’ you can bet I’m goin’ to fight it out an’ cheat them doctors if it can be done, Kentuck. You’ll go down ahead o’ me, but262 there ain’t so many casualties comin’ in now, an’ the battalion bein’ on the way out will leave less to be casualtied an’ more room on the amb’lance. You keep a lookout for me, Kentuck. I might be down at the boat as soon as you yet.”
“That’s the talk, boy,” said Kentucky. A man hobbling on a stick came in from the doctors’ room, and, seeing Kentucky, picked his way over the outstretched forms to him. “Hello, Kentuck,” he said. “You got your packet passed out to you, then. An’ you, too, Pug?” as he caught sight of Pug’s face half-hidden in bandages.
“Cheer-oh, Jimmy,” said Pug. “Yes, gave me my little sooven-eer all right. An’ the worst of it is I’m afraid they’ve made a mess o’ my fatal beauty.”
“Never min’, Pug,” said Jimmy, chuckling and seating himself beside the stretcher. “I see they’ve lef’ your ’andsome boko in action an’ fully efficient.”
“Wot’s yours?” said Pug with interest. “Oh, nothin’ much,” said the other. “Bit of shrap through the foot. Just good enough for Blighty, an’ nothin’ else to fuss about. How far did you get?”
Pug tried to tell his story, but in spite of himself263 his voice weakened and slurred, and Kentucky, catching Jimmy’s eye, placed his finger on his lips and nodded significantly towards Pug. Jimmy took the hint promptly. “Hullo, some more o’ the old crush over there,” he said. “I must go’n ’ave a chin-wag with ’em,” and he moved off.
“D’you think you could find me a drink, Kentuck?” said Pug; and Kentucky went and got some from an orderly and brought it and held it to the hot lips. After that he made Pug lie quiet, telling him he was sure it was bad for him to be talking; and because the drug still had a certain amount of hold perhaps, Pug half-drowsed and woke and drowsed again. And each time he woke Kentucky spoke quietly and cheerfully to him, and lied calmly, saying it wasn’t time for him to go yet—although many others had gone and Kentucky had deliberately missed his turn to go for the sake of remaining beside the broken lad. Most of the walking cases went on at once or in company with stretcher parties, but Kentucky let............