The Debacle - Emile Zola [156]
‘Number two’s gone.’
In the appalling din the major could not hear.
‘Speak up, for God’s sake! Those bloody guns are splitting my ears.’
‘Number two’s gone.’
‘Which is number two?’
‘The arm.’
‘Oh, all right… Well, bring along number three, that’s the jaw.’
With wonderful skill, and without any hesitation, he cut the muscles with a single stroke right down to the bones, laying bare the tibia and fibula between which he put a three-tailed compress to keep them in position. Then he cut them through with one stroke of the saw. The foot remained in the hands of the orderly who was holding it.
There was little loss of blood thanks to the pressure being applied higher up round the thigh by the assistant. The ligature of the three arteries was rapidly done. But the major was shaking his head, and when his assistant had taken away his fingers he examined the wound, and feeling sure that the patient could not yet hear he murmured:
‘It’s the devil, there’s no blood coming through the arterioles.’
And he finished his diagnosis with a gesture: one more poor bugger done for! Fatigue and an immense sadness had come back to his sweating face, the despairing ‘what’s the use?’, since they weren’t saving four out of ten. He mopped his brow and began to put back the skin to do the three stitchings.
Gilberte had just turned round again, as Delaherche had told her it was all over and she could look. But she did see the captain’s foot that the orderly was taking away behind the laburnums. The charnel-house was still piling up, two more dead were laid out there, one with his mouth unnaturally open and black, looking as though he were still shrieking, and the other screwed up in an awful death-struggle that had reduced him to the size of a sickly and deformed child. Worst of all, the pile of human remains was now overflowing on to the path. Not knowing where he could decently put the capain’s foot, the orderly hesitated and then made up his mind to throw it on to the pile.
‘Well, that’s that!’ said the major to Beaudoin as they revived him. ‘You’ll be all right now.’
But the captain had nothing like that happy awakening that follows successful operations. He sat up a little and then fell back, gasping in a lifeless voice:
‘Thank you, major. I’m glad it’s over.’
But then he felt the sting of the spirit dressing. And as the stretcher was being brought up to take him away a terrible explosion shook the whole factory. It was a shell that had exploded behind the shed, in the little yard where the pump was. Windows were shattered and a thick smoke came into the ambulance station. In the other hall the wounded had risen in panic from their straw beds and were all screaming with fear and trying to run away.
Delaherche rushed off in a frenzy to assess the damage. Were they going to burn down and destroy his house now? What on earth was going on, then? If the Emperor wanted it to stop why had they started again?
‘For God’s sake, stir your stumps!’ Bouroche bawled to the orderlies. ‘Come on, wash down the table and bring me number three!’
They swabbed the table and once more threw the pails of water over the lawn. The bed of daisies was now nothing but a bloodstained mess, greenery and flowers all mangled up in blood. The major, to whom number three had been brought, began by way of a restful change to look for a bullet which after breaking the lower jawbone must have buried itself under the tongue. There was a great deal of blood which made his fingers all sticky.
In the main hall Captain Beaudoin was back on his mattress, and Gilberte and Madame Delaherche had followed the stretcher. Even Delaherche, upset though he was, came and chatted for a moment.
‘Just relax, captain, we’ll get a room ready and have you with us.’
But the stricken man roused out of his stupor and had a moment of lucidity.
‘No, I’m sure I’m going