“That fellow won’t last long,” said the M.O., rising from a stretcher. “Hardly a heartbeat left in him. Sure to die on the operating-table if he gets as far as that … Step back against the wall a minute, will you?”
We flattened ourselves against the passage wall while ambulance-men brought in a line of stretchers. No sound came from most of those bundles under the blankets, but from one came a long, agonizing wail, the cry of an animal in torture.
“Come through the wards,” said the colonel. “They’re pretty bright, though we could do with more space and light.”
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 percent 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.
“Looks fairly fit after the knife, doesn’t he? But we shall have to cut higher up. The gas again. I’m afraid he’ll be dead before tomorrow. Come into the operating-theater. It’s very well equipped.”
I refused that invitation. I walked stiffly out of the Butcher’s Shop of Corbie past the man who had lost both arms and both legs, that vital trunk, past rows of men lying under blankets, past a stench of mud and blood and anesthetics, to the fresh air of the gateway, where a column of ambulances had just arrived with a new harvest from the fields of the Somme.
“Come in again, any time!” shouted out the cheery colonel, waving his hand.
I never went again, though I saw many other Butcher’s Shops in the years that followed, where there was a great carving of human flesh which was of our boyhood, while the old men directed their sacrifice, and the profiteers grew rich, and the fires of hate were stoked up at patriotic banquets and in editorial chairs.
X
The failure on the left hardly balanced by the partial success on the right caused a sudden pause in the operations, camouflaged by small attacks on minor positions around and above Fricourt and Mametz. The Lincolns and others went over to Fricourt Wood and routed out German machine-gunners. The West Yorks attacked the sunken road at Fricourt. The Dorsets, Manchesters, Highland Light Infantry, Lancashire Fusiliers, and Borderers of the 32nd Division were in possession of La Boisselle and clearing out communication trenches to which the Germans were hanging on with desperate valor. The 21st Division—Northumberland Fusiliers, Durhams, Yorkshires—were making a flanking attack on Contalmaison, but weakened after their heavy losses on the first day of battle. The fighting for a time was local, in small copses—Lozenge Wood, Peak Wood, Caterpillar Wood, Acid Drop Copse—where English and German troops fought ferociously for yards of ground, hummocks of earth, ditches.
G.H.Q. had been shocked by the disaster on the left and the failure of all the big hopes they had held for a breakthrough on both sides of the German positions. Rumors came to us that the Commander-in-Chief had decided to restrict future operations to minor actions for strengthening the line and to abandon the great offensive. It was believed by officers I met that Sir Henry Rawlinson was arguing, persuading, in favor of continued assaults on the grand scale.
Whatever division of opinion existed in the High Command I do not know; it was visible to all of us that for some days there were uncertainty of direction, hesitation, conflicting orders. On July 7th the 17th Division, under General Pilcher, attacked Contalmaison, and a whole battalion of the Prussian Guard hurried up from Valenciennes and, thrown on to the battlefield without maps or guidance, walked into the barrage which covered the advance of our men and were almost annihilated. But although some bodies of our men entered Contalmaison, in an attack which I was able to see, they were smashed out of it again by storms of fire followed by masses of men who poured out from Mametz Wood. The Welsh were attacking Mametz Wood.
They were handled,
