Part 18 (1/2)

Left alone in the silence of the night, the Subaltern felt the horror of the situation take hold of him. He was alone with his pain and his paralysis. There was no hope of alleviation until morning. What time was it then? he asked himself. Seven, at the latest. That meant eight long hours of agony, before anything _happened_! That is what the wounded love and long for--something to happen--something to distract the attention from the slow, insistent pain--something to liven drooping spirits, and raise falling hopes.

Slowly and surely he began to take stock of the situation. First of all came his head. The pain of the wound was an ache, a dull ache that sharpened into shooting pains if he moved. Still, he told himself that it might be worse. There was much worse pain in the world. It could not be called unbearable or excruciating.

His spine seemed in some way twisted. It ached with an insistence and annoyance only second to the wound. All his most determined efforts to wriggle it straight failed lamentably. Indeed, he almost fancied that they made matters worse.

As for the paralysed limbs, theirs was a negative trouble. He did not know where his right hand was. He had to grope about with his left hand under coats to find it. And when found, it was as if he had grasped somebody else's hand. The situation was weird, and in an uncanny way it amused and pleased him to take hold of the inert fingers. They were so soft and cold. The hand of a dead man, heavy, heavy--impossible to describe the dragging, inert weight of it.

But what frightened him more than anything was his face. One side was drawn up, and was as impossible to move as the arm. The lower jaw seemed clamped to the upper, and it, too, ached. A horrible fear crept into his head.

”Teta.n.u.s!”

He recalled tales of the terrible end of those who were marked down by this terrible disease. How they died in awful agony, the spine bent backwards like a bridge!

In spite of the coats, the cold seemed to eat into his very heart.

He started the night bravely enough, and fought against his troubles until his nerve collapsed hopelessly. The night was too long: it was too much to bear. He groaned aloud in his agony, and discovered that it was an immense relief.

The men near him began to open fire. If it were really an attack, it was soon beaten down, and he began to shriek at them for wasting precious ammunition that they might want when it was too late. He used words that he never even knew that he knew. Great bursts of anger, he found, distracted his attention from the pain, if only for a few moments. To this end he worked himself into such a transport that the bleeding re-commenced, and he was forced to cease, exhausted. In another hour his nervous downfall was completed. He began to cry.

Each second of the interminable night dragged slowly by, as if it gloated over his pain. In the end it became too much for him and he fainted away, peacefully and thankfully.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE FIELD HOSPITAL

When he came to, it was daylight, and two Stretcher Bearers were tugging at his feet. The weight of him seemed terrific, but eventually they hoisted him on to the stretcher.

Some of his men gathered round, and told him that ”they'd soon put him straight at the hospital.”

He smiled, rather wryly, but still he smiled, and mumbled: ”Well, good luck, No. 5 Platoon.”

And so they carried him away, feet foremost.

They plunged along the muddy paths. He was convulsed with fear that they would overturn him. And the jolting sent red-hot pains through his head, and twisted his back terribly.

A Company came straggling up the path, led by no other than the Major, who had been his Company Commander at the beginning of the war.

”Well, young feller, how are you? You'll be all right in a day or two.”

Reply was impossible for him, and the Major hurried on.

The men who followed seemed shy of him. They looked at him covertly, and then turned their eyes quickly away, as if he were some horrible object. It annoyed him not a little.

That journey was the most painful thing that happened to him. But each sickening jolt had the compensation of landing him a yard nearer the hospital, and the hope of easing his pains buoyed him up somehow.

When they arrived at the Gunner's Cave, the Stretcher Bearers put him resolutely down, and intimated that it was not ”up to them” to take him any further. The Ambulance, they said, ought to be there to ”take over”