THE GRAPHIC DELIRIUM OF CHLOROFORM

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2612, 6 November 1915, Page 2

THE GRAPHIC DELIRIUM OF CHLOROFORM

HOW HE GOT HIS WOUND,

Tho extraordinarily rapid moving hands of tho surgeon were still for a moment.

"Next case, please! Thank you, Mr. Martin. Mill yon please itet along with tho next case? What is he? Oh, Shandy—Sergeant Shandy, Victoria AVard; a smashed knee. A bad case—! fairly sniithereened!"

The surgeon proceeded to change his gloves and carefully to resterilise his hands. Tho junior anaesthetist, incorrigibly imaginative, turned to his task of getting his patient "under." The sickly fumes of the chit roform mounted to his nostrils. Llo regarded the dark head with >ts starolmglv blue eyes looking up at aim so co'i'idnncly. ; . "I wonder how hp got his wound?"muttered the junior anaesthetist to himself (lie iu&ed himself the same question over every one of the wc-mided soldiers he had to anaesthetise). "Typical bullet wound—small aperture of entry—large .exit. . . . Must have got it at close quarters, too—with the knee flexed. . . . Must have been running . . . charging perhaps. Caught the lower end of tho femur and faiily powdered it . . . goshl This Gailipoli crowd has been catching it hot. . . ." The patient, Sergeant Shandy, began to moan and move his hand restlessly. The junior anaesthetist examined his pupil. . . . Wants a lot of 'scent, '■ this fellow ..." and poured on mora chloroform. Then out of a blood-smok-ing, shell-sla-shed past spoke Sergeant Shandy:

"What is Wilson doing without his bayonet ?_. . . Pass the word to Alison to fix his bayonet. . . . What's the good of going into a charge without jour bayonet fixed? . . . Pass the word to Wilson. ... Is Wilson's bayonet fixed ?

"Fancy Wilson not fixing his bayonet. . . . Is Wilson's bayonet fixed"? . . .

"Keep your head down . . now then . . .' now then, keep your head down . . . keep your head down . . ~ now keep your head down, or you'll get something in' it. . . . Keep . . . "NOAVI UP I DAMN YOU, UP!" "That's a bullet . . . that's another 1 one . . . another one .. . bullets.Ocoh! my leg! . . . leg! Hell!" "How many' of us are there?—how many of us are there? Only three of us ? . . ; Can't keep a trench "with three of us! . . .

"If you're afraid to go back I'll come with you. . . Oil, liell! my leg I''— "R.8.J.," in tho "Westminster Gazette."