I darted to the next table and seized another foot and ankle.  There was a greenish festering hole so high up the leg that it was impossible to use a tourniquet.  So the surgeon laid bare the main artery by a longitudinal incision and tied it up with catgut to prevent excessive loss of blood.  With a rapid stroke of his knife he then made a shallow cut right round the limb above the injured spot, and depressing the blade cut deeply down to the bone.  The blood gushed up suddenly, formed a pool on the towels and sheet underneath, overflowed the edge of the table, and splashed down on to the floor in a cascade.  The operator paused a moment and then, while the blood continued to stream from the wound, he cut round the bone until flesh was entirely severed from flesh.  The upper periosteum was pushed back and held by means of a metal plate.  The bone was sawn through—­the saw grated and jerked and jarred in a horrible manner.  The leg came off and I dropped it into the white enamelled pail.  The toe-nails clicked against the enamel, and the thigh, bumping against the rim, overturned it and flopped into the pool of blood under the table.

“Come on—­look sharp—­never mind that leg—­give a help here and remove this man’s bandages.”

I was looking at a head that resembled a huge football made of soiled linen.  In place of the mouth there was a small, dirty hole through which the fetid breath came and went.  Above the hole was a big red patch.  I unwound the bandages one by one.  Gradually the face was revealed.  Between the mouth with black, swollen lips and the bruised eyes, closed by grey greenish lids, there was, where the nose should have been, a red hole big enough to contain a human fist.

The wounded came and went in an unbroken stream.  The tables were always occupied.  I went from one to another, unwound bandages, held up limbs for amputation, fetched splints, padding, gauze, or new bandages.  I was too busy to think or to feel any horror.  I was vaguely conscious of nausea and of a hot, stifling atmosphere heavy with the fumes of chloroform and ether.

Some of the wounded had arms that hung by shreds of muscle and sinew.  Others had feet that were nothing but masses of clotted blood, lumps of torn flesh, and bits of bone tied up in blood-sodden linen parcels.  Some had deep holes in their backs, others had gashes in their heads from which soft, pink matter oozed.

Before me lay a man with a blackened face, a shattered knee, and festering holes all over his body.  Gas-gangrene had set in and the stench was almost unendurable.  The surgeon gently felt the injured leg, but the man gave such long-drawn piercing shrieks that he had to be left alone.  He was sent to the resuscitation ward to recover strength a little, for he was very weak through loss of blood.  In the evening he began to rave—­he asked for whisky in a boisterously jovial voice, and then he yelled and cried:  “Sergeant, Sergeant, Sergeant, you’ve ruined my career.”  In the night he died.