Combed Out eBook

F. A. Voigt
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 199 pages of information about Combed Out.

Combed Out eBook

F. A. Voigt
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 199 pages of information about Combed Out.

We finished our work as the sun was setting.  The clouds on the horizon had vanished.  One by one the stars came out.  It was “an ideal night for a raid.”

Soon after dark a man was brought into the station with a crushed knee.  Immediate operation was necessary.  He was carried into the theatre and laid on to one of the tables.  He received an anaesthetic and became unconscious.  With his scalpel the surgeon made a deep cut in the knee-joint and searched the cavity with his finger.  There was a Sister standing by.  Also an orderly who had won the Military Medal for bravery in an air-raid some months before.  Suddenly there was an outburst of anti-aircraft firing and a tumultuous whistling of shells overhead.  It lasted for several seconds and then with a deafening, reverberating thunder-clap that shook the entire theatre, the first bomb fell.  Before our ears had ceased drumming another bomb exploded and then another.  The orderly, who had held his hands in front of his face, now gave way to fear.  He darted madly to and fro and then scuttled beneath a table.  The Sister, who had remained quite calm, said in an amused voice:  “Pull yourself together, it’s all over now.”  The orderly got up trembling, his face very white.  The surgeon had not moved away.  He had just grasped the edge of the table tightly and had bent his head forward, while his muscles seemed stiff with a violent but successful effort at self-control.  The anaesthetist, too, had remained on his stool, but was leaning right over his patient.  I had been conscious of a powerful impulse to duck down, but I grasped the table and gave way to the impulse so far as to lean slightly forward.  This compromise saved me from any violent expression of fear.  The Sister was the only one of us who showed no sign of fear at all.

The surgeon went on with his work and extracted several fragments of bone from the injured limb.  A few seconds passed and suddenly the electric light went out in accordance with the orders that decreed that all lights should be extinguished on the approach of hostile aeroplanes.  The surgeon cursed loudly and the Sister fetched an electric torch which she held over the knee.  The operation continued, but it was not long before anti-aircraft fire broke out once more.  Then there was a weird bustling, rushing sound, followed by a roar that again shook the theatre and rattled the windows.  Six explosions followed in rapid succession.  This time the orderly controlled himself, for he knew the Sister was watching.  Nevertheless, his knees trembled violently.  The Sister held the torch steadily and the surgeon paused for a moment and went on with the operation as soon as all was quiet.

In a few minutes it was finished.  The wound was dressed and bandaged and the patient carried away.

I stepped out into the clear night.  The sky was thronged with glittering stars.  Everything seemed strangely peaceful.  I walked round the station, trying to find out where the bombs had fallen, but nobody knew.  I went to the marquee and found Private Trotter sitting there, breathless and white.  The neighbouring C.C.S. a few hundred yards away had been hit.  A Sister and an orderly had been killed and several patients wounded.

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Project Gutenberg
Combed Out from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.