He cries out feebly with his shattered lung:
"I won't go to the Dying Room."
"But we are going to the bandaging ward."
"Then what do you want my tunic for?"
He can speak no more.
Hoarse, agitated, he whispers:
"Stopping here!"
They do not answer but wheel him out.
At the door he tries to raise himself up.
His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears.
"I will come back again!
I will come back again!" he cries.
The door shuts.
We are all excited; but we say nothing.
At last Josef says:
"Many a man has said that.
Once a man is in there, he never comes through."
I am operated on and vomit for two days.
My bones will not grow together, so the surgeon's secretary says.
Another fellow's have grown crooked; his are broken again.
It is damnable.
Among our new arrivals there are two young soldiers with flat feet.
The chief surgeon discovers them on his rounds, and is overjoyed.
"We'll soon put that right," he tells them, "we will just do a small operation, and then you will have perfectly sound feet.
Enter them down, sister."
As soon as he is gone, Josef, who knows everything, warns them:
"Don't you let him operate on you!
That is a special scientific stunt of the old boy's.
He goes absolutely crazy whenever he can get hold of anyone to do it on.
He operates on you for flat feet, and there's no mistake, you don't have them any more; you have club feet instead, and have to walk all the rest of your life on sticks."
"What should a man do, then?" asks one of them.
"Say No.
You are here to be cured of your wound, not your flat feet.
Did you have any trouble with them in the field?
No, well, there you are!
At present you can still walk, but if once the old boy gets you under the knife you'll be cripples.
What he wants is little dogs to experiment with, so the war is a glorious time for him, as it is for all the surgeons.
You take a look down below at the staff; there are a dozen fellows hobbling around that he has operated on.
A lot of them have been here all the time since 'fourteen and 'fifteen.
Not a single one of them can walk better than he could before, almost all of them worse, and most only with plaster legs.
Every six months he catches them again and breaks their bones afresh, and every time is going to be the successful one.
You take my word, he won't dare to do it if you say No."
"Ach, man," says one of the two wearily, "better your feet than your brain-box.
There's no telling what you'll get if you go back out there again.
They can do with me just as they please, so long as I get back home.
Better to have a club foot than be dead."
The other, a young fellow like ourselves, won't have it done.
The next morning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws at them so long that in the end they consent.
What else could they do?— They are mere privates, and he is a big bug.
They are brought back chloroformed and plastered.