He was followed by a man from whose chest I removed a filthy, blood-sodden mass of padding.  I observed that his breathing was becoming weaker and weaker.  The anaesthetist shouted: 

“Fetch the oxygen—­look sharp!”

An orderly brought a long black cylinder along, but the rubber tubing was knotted in a bundle and several seconds passed before it could be disentangled.  At last the end of the tube was pushed into the mouth of the dying man.  The tap of the cylinder was turned on, but there was no sound of gas running through.  The anaesthetist glared angrily around and shouted:  “Corporal Chamberlain!”

The Corporal came and the anaesthetist thundered: 

“Go and get a new cylinder—­this one’s empty—­your damned carelessness again—­look sharp about it.”

It was the Corporal’s business to see that the cylinder in the theatre was always full.  He fumbled in his pockets for the key to the cupboard in which the reserve cylinders were kept, but he could not find it.  He walked out and searched in the shed opposite the theatre.  He came back without it.

“Hurry up for God’s sake—­the man’s dying—­it’ll be too late in a minute!”

He looked round the theatre with affected deliberation, for the angry shouting of the anaesthetist had wounded his pride.  At last he found the key on a shelf.  He unlocked the cupboard, fetched out a new cylinder, and placed it beside the table.  The tube was pushed into the open mouth, the tap was turned, there was a rush of gas.  But it was too late.  The man was dead.

“D’you see what you’ve done?” shouted the infuriated anaesthetist.  “Here’s a man dead through your neglect.  Don’t you bloody well let it occur again, else I’ll put you under close arrest and have you up for a court martial.”

The Corporal walked sulking out of the theatre and muttered something about a “bloody fuss.”

One of the orderlies went to the door and shouted: 

“Another slab for the mortuary!”—­Those who died on the operating tables were facetiously called “slabs.”

Two bearers came in with a stretcher.  The corpse was pushed on to it and carried away to the mortuary.  There it would be sewn up in an army blanket, ready for burial.  And then a telegram would be sent to a wife or mother, informing her that her husband or son had “died of wounds received in action.”

There was amputation after amputation.  The surgeons were tired of cutting off legs and arms—­it was “so monotonous and uninteresting,” as one of the sisters put it.

Then there came a little variety in the shape of a man with a bullet wound in his throat.  He breathed quite normally, but when the bandage was removed, his breath rushed bubbling through the aperture and bespattered all who stood around with little drops of blood.  “A most unpleasant case.”  He was quickly replaced, however, by another who lay on a stretcher white and motionless.  His tunic had been unbuttoned.  His shirt had been pulled loosely over a big, round object that appeared to be lying on his belly.  The surgeon drew back the shirt.  The round object was still concealed by a dirty piece of lint.  The surgeon lifted it off and revealed a huge coil of bluish red entrail bulging out through a frightful gash in the abdomen.