He studied his new pipe, it was carved intricately around the bowl and stem, not like scrimshaw, but deeper, more distinct cuts forming a pastoral scene of jumping deer and woodland animals.
The stem was about five inches long with a slight curve, and the bowl was about the size of an egg, which provided adequate area for tobacco. The stem had yellowed slightly from use, which gave it even more character, and Leslie Greenhow’s name was carved on it in small letters. The ambulance hopped over a rut and Dan let out a holler from the ever-increasing pain and pushed his arms down to take the pressure off of his leg.
“Sorry ’bout that mate” the driver glanced over his shoulder at Dan. “Believe it or not, just two months ago you would have been clomping along in one of the old Mark 3 horse-drawn ambulances. Rough ride they are – wooden wheels and all. Slow too, never much faster than three to four miles per hour. This here is the real deal. Nothin’ too good for our wounded boys.”
The driver caught sight of Dan’s new pipe. “Hello, now what ’ave we ’ere?” he asked. “That’s some fine stoker you ’ave there mate.”
“A present from someone I knew. You a pipe smoker?” Dan asked.
“Indeed I am,” the driver said flashing a sparsely toothed smile.
“I’m not really a smoker,” Dan said, “but since I’ve inherited this beauty, perhaps I should give it a try.”
“Listen, mate,” the driver said, “I’ve got a treat for you. Reach into the left breast pocket of me tunic and you’ll find a pouch of tobacco and a box of blue tips.” He leaned over so Dan could reach his tunic. “I’d join you, but I can’t drive wif two hands and smoke a pipe at the same time.”
Dan reached into his pocket and found the leather pouch and the small cardboard box of blue tip matches.
“Now what?” Dan asked.
“Take out a pinch of tobacco and fill the bowl, then tap ’er down wif your thumb, not too tightly now.”
Dan opened the pouch releasing the aromatic sweetness of the moist tobacco and did as instructed. “Smells like candy – good enough to eat,” Dan commented.
“Me own blend. I soak the tobacco in cherry juice and rum for a week, then dry ’er out for smoking. Me Grandpop taught me that back in Queensland.”
“Aussie, eh?” Dan asked as he tamped the tobacco into the bowl.
“Right on, Canuck, eh?” the driver responded, with a extra emphasis on the “eh.” They both laughed.
“Well, I think we’re ready to give her a test run,” Dan announced.
“Well then, give er a toke or two and be on wif it. Do the old boy a favor, will ya mate, and be good enough to blow some smoke my way,” the driver asked.
“It’ll be the least I can do.” Dan struck a blue tip along the wooden posts that make up the box frame of the ambulance. The flame from the match was drawn into the bowl and then belched back out as Dan puffed the pipe to life. The result was an ever-increasing cloud of the sweetest aromatic smoke that Dan had ever smelled.
He blew a large plume of smoke across the face of the driver who in turn drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. The beautiful aroma emanating from Dan’s new pipe replaced the ever-present smell of spent artillery shells and death.
“That’s a smell I could get used to,” Dan said.
“The smoke transports me away from all this,” the driver said, looking off into the distance. Both men became momentarily lost in the brief distraction from reality. The moment was too pleasant to interrupt with casual conversation. For a spell, they were afforded an escape from the madness and they both wanted to keep it pure.
Several minutes had passed in silence when the steering wheel of the ambulance was abruptly jerked out of the hands of the driver sending it veering sharply to the left, almost up on two wheels. The driver grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the right correcting the swerve and putting it back on the correct side of the road.
“Sweet friggin’, bloody, bugger all!” he shouted while he fought to regain control of the vehicle. “Pardon me foul language mate,” he said, as Dan hung onto the frame of the ambulance box, grimacing in pain from being tossed about. “Me wife says I have a short fuse and a foul mouth.”
“This is a war pal,” Dan said through clenched teeth. “You’re allowed to use bad language – besides your wife isn’t here.”
“Ha! Right you are mate!” The driver saw that Dan was in pain. He knew the morphine’s effectiveness, which usually lasted about two hours, was beginning to wear off on Dan and the rest of the passengers in the back.
“About one more hour to the hospital, mate, and the road improves from ’ere on in.” Dan nodded a grateful thanks and remained quiet on the bench trying to stifle the pain.
The road did improve as the driver had promised, and the ambulance was able to pick up speed, increasing from ten to almost twenty miles per hour. Forty-five minutes later, they had joined a long line of ambulances – both motorized and horse drawn – that were awaiting their turn into the triage area of the 5th Canadian Stationary Hospital.
FINDING LAZARUS
The sorting area of the 5th Canadian Stationary Hospital was normally abuzz with activity, but nowhere near as much of a madhouse as it would soon become. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies performed triage, methodically attending to each patient in order to determine the severity of the wounds and separating those who required immediate care.
This was another link in the chain of retrieval set up by the Royal Army Medical Corp. The system was actually very well thought out and organized. Like a family tree, the outer branches were regimental aid posts, a forward position that would be attended by field medical officers, orderlies and several stretcher-bearers. The aid posts were located in the advanced trenches. They were often dugouts covered by corrugated steel and sandbags to protect its inhabitants from debris.
Regularly four aid posts were attached to one advanced dressing station and they would bring the wounded there to replace field dressings and better attend to their wounds. Because the trenches were narrow, the stretcher-bearers often employed a wheeled stretcher. It was simply a rigid stretcher with two large wheels located in the middle. The wheels had pneumatic tires that aided in transport over muddy terrain.
The advanced dressing station was located at a more comfortable distance from No Man’s Land, but was still in the outer edges of the trench system. That meant it had to be a deep, well-built dugout – sometimes as deep as thirty feet – or even the basement of an abandoned farmhouse. They were also located close to a supply trench or road to allow the wounded to be taken rapidly away by ambulance.
The ambulances leaving the advanced dressing stations reported to the main dressing station, where the wounded would be cleaned, warmed, and fed. Those needing further medical attention would either be treated or sent to the next link in the chain, the stationary or railhead hospital. These hospitals were called stationary, but could be quickly packed up and moved to another location so as to better serve the requirements of the front. These hospitals were the first link in a new chain referred to as the evacuation zone and could send great numbers of wounded by ambulance train to connect to hospital barges, and then to hospital ships and back to Britain.
This was the path of the wounded and those lucky enough to have earned their blighty. And this is how Dan McKee found himself climbing out of the back end of the Sunbeam into the activity of the 5th Canadian Stationary Hospital casualty clearing area.
Two orderlies had taken Kelton away on a wheeled stretcher and another had come over with a wheelchair that Dan refused to use. He was very stiff from the rough ride and thought it might help to try and stretch a little before he let the system take him hostage. He hobbled around the ambulance several times leaning against it with his arm and keeping as much weight off of his wounded leg as possible.
The driver had left to relieve himself so Dan had several minutes to try to get his kinks out. The buzzing in his ears remained although the noise of the artillery was distant. He m
uttered to himself, complaining about the inconvenience of his pain.
On his third circuit around the Sunbeam, Dan began to feel light-headed. The loss of blood – and now the exercise – was causing dizziness.
Then, a loud female voice screeched above the busy sounds of the clearing area. “Holy Crap! McKee!”
Dan was startled and, without thinking, spun around on his bad leg almost collapsing from the pain of his quick movement.
Running at him was a nurse, at full speed. Sheila Lougheed hit Dan at a full run, which would not have been a problem had Dan not been wounded. Unable to catch her – or stop her – and already off balance from his quick turn, Dan went down and they both hit the ground with a thud. The pain shot through McKee’s body like a lightning bolt, he let go with a low growl through clenched teeth trying not to pass out.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Dan, I’m so sorry! Oh, God! Are you alright?” she pleaded.
“I feel like a million bucks,” Dan said through his pain. “I just got beat up by a woman.”
Sheila’s expression quickly went from concern to hilarity at her friend’s joke, and she laughed loudly. She quickly realized that Dan was hurt.
“Oh my God! What’s wrong with you? What happened?” She saw the dressing on his right thigh, the blood showing through the bandages. “You’re injured – your leg!”
“Sheila, stop! Take a breath!” Dan commanded as he attempted to get up to a standing position.
She froze, eyes wide, and remained silent. Dan’s gruff, pain-riddled face was slowly replaced by the warm McKee smile as he regained his footing.
“I love you,” he said. “Now I believe I’ll take that wheelchair before I pass out.”
Sheila grinned, gave him a warm hug and went to get a wheelchair. Within minutes she returned with an orderly and a chair, the big man would have been a struggle for her to wheel alone.
“I’ll take you to the best doctor I know,” she said. “He’s unusual and speaks with a difficult accent, but he is the best. We’ll catch up after you’re taken care of.”
Dan felt much better now about allowing the system to take him knowing that he had a guardian angel on the inside. They moved into a large semi-permanent building in which there were a number of doctors, all inspecting and assessing patients in small areas divided by drawn curtains. Sheila led the orderly into one cubicle where a doctor had just finished with a wounded man.
The doctor was a tall man, in his early forties, and about the same size and build as Dan. He had dark hair, a baby face, and a very laid back demeanor. He looked tired and seemed to have some stiffness in his back, a result of his college football days. With warm eyes and a closed-mouth, crooked smile the doctor greeted them.
“How y’all doin?” he asked. “Kin ya hop up on the table or do y’all need help?”
Dan glanced at Sheila, who whispered, “I told you, didn’t I?”
“I can make it up,” Dan said as he stretched out on the examination table. “It looks like a couple of clean bullet wounds.”
The doctor ignored Dan’s statement and cut the bandages off the wounds. “Ahm Doctor Bill Bradley,” he said as he inspected the wounds and prodded with a surgical prod. “And what’s your name doctor?”
Dan was momentarily taken aback but quickly recovered. “Well, I wasn’t trying to tell you your job, Doc. I was just making small talk.”
“Ah don’t do small talk,” Bradley said in his heavy southern accent as he flushed the wounds with saline solution. Dan stiffened from the hot pain produced by salt water on an open wound. “Here’s what y’all are lookin’ at. Your statement ’bout a clean-through wound wasn’t completely correct. Did ya fall down into the mud after y’all were shot?”
Dan nodded, still fascinated by this man’s unusual accent.
“Ya see, the soil in these here parts is cultivated by horse and cow dung and has been for hundreds of years. That along with rotting bits and pieces of your fellow soldiers, rats, vermin and sewage makes for some remarkable infections. First, y’all need a dose of tetanus antitoxin so ya don’t end up twisted up like my grandpa in the Civil War. Then, I’m gonna start y’all on a new program developed by a French surgeon, Doctor Carrel. Ya see one of the real problems created by that bad soil in y’alls deep wound is somethin called “Gas gangrene.” Doctor Carrel’s procedure reduces the incidence of gangrene and, therefore, the possibility of losing y’alls leg by ’bout forty percent.” He paused a moment allowing the information to sink in.
The thought of losing a leg was not one that Dan relished. “When do we start?” he asked.
“We sorta just did,” Bradley said. “I’ll have to open your wound a little more to remove any dead flesh and muscle, but the procedure is quite simple. We bathe or irrigate the wounds with saline solution several times a day and keep a close eye out for infection. The procedure does extend the healing process some, but the pluses outweigh the minuses. Oh, and as you’ve already discovered the irrigation can be quite painful. Now you ready to proceed?”
“Do what you need to do and leave the pain to me,” Dan quickly shot back.
“Very well, then. Sheila, give the patient some morphine and a leather strap to bite on.”
Several minutes of gut-wrenching pain from the cutting was followed by still more intense pain from the saline bath, but Dan bit down and powered through with little more than a muffled growl.
Both men instinctively appreciated each other’s directness and obvious inner strength. In different circumstances they would have become great friends, but under the present conditions socializing was kept to a minimum.
“He’ll be square dancin’ in no time,” Bradley told Sheila, who watched the procedure intensely. “Now find this man a good bed with a view. This table has a waitin’ line.”
Both men smiled and nodded. “Be seein’ y’all,” Bradley said.
“I’ll buy you a beer when this is all over.” Dan said.
“Hope I don’t die of thirst first!” Bradley quipped. As Dan was wheeled away, another badly wounded soldier quickly took his place.
After the procedure, Dan was drained. The cumulative effect of the long night in No Man’s Land, the wounds, the transportation process, and now the pain of the procedure had taken its toll. As he stood to get out of the wheel chair and into the bed, he passed out in a heap.
Sheila and two orderlies got him off the floor and into his bed where he slept for the next fourteen hours.
At 0500 hours, Dan was awakened by some noise in the ward. He looked around in the predawn darkness, puzzled as to his whereabouts.
The haze was slowly lifting and he realized where he was, the throbbing of his leg also became noticeable. He moved his hand down to feel under the sheets. “Still there,” he said softly with a sigh of relief. He had heard enough stories about men feeling phantom pain in a limb that had been taken off, the tingle in a foot or itch of an arm that was no longer there. He was clearly glad to find the leg still attached.
A gentle voice came out of the darkness. “I’m still here, too.” From a wicker chair three feet away, Sheila had been keeping watch over her friend. “You’ve been asleep for a long time,” she said. “You must need to go to the bathroom. I’ll call an orderly.”
“You’re a mind reader,” Dan said. Several minutes later after an uncomfortable struggle with a bed pan Dan felt better indeed.
“Hungry?” Sheila asked.
“I’m so hungry, I could eat Bully Beef!” Dan said with a broad smile. Sheila suddenly was reminded that she needed to check on Bully. She had been preoccupied since Dan arrived and now made a mental note to do so.
“We can actually do better than that. How you feeling?” she asked.
“Like a million bucks. What time is it, anyway?” It always seems to be one of the first questions a person asks after an operation or after a long sleep.
“Six in the morning. I’ll get you some food and tea,” Sheila said, and disappeared through a doorway.
&n
bsp; The light from the morning sun was now chasing away the shadows and the cool air of the night was being replaced by comfortable warmth. There was an increase in activity throughout the ward when Sheila returned with Dan’s breakfast.
“You’re lucky, six months ago you would have lost that leg.” She said while plumping up the pillows behind Dan’s head.
“Yeah, the Doc told me. Nice guy, the real deal,” he said with a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
“When you’re finished, we’ll go outside for some air. It always smells bad in these wards.”
“Smells better than No Man’s Land,” Dan replied somberly.
After breakfast and a changing of bandages, Dan could feel his strength returning. With the help of an orderly, he got into a wheelchair and Sheila pushed him out into the courtyard. Because his leg had to be elevated, Dan’s wheelchair had a lift that kept his leg sticking straight out. This long protruding leg was a magnet for everything and caused both Dan and Sheila to shout to on-comers, “Watch the leg!”
They moved into a sunny spot of the courtyard and chatted for a while until something seemed to catch Dan’s attention. He leaned forward in his wheelchair squinting his eyes and looking past Sheila with a puzzled look. Behind Sheila, a man across the courtyard was walking using two canes.
Dan’s puzzled look became a grin. “Hey! You friggin’ farmer,” he shouted. Sheila spun around to see who Dan was hollering at.
With a stunned look, she turned back to Dan. “Do you know him, Dan?”
“I should, eh. I’ve played rugby with him about a hundred times. If that’s not Ian Macdonald’s older brother Alan, I’ll eat my hat.”
GUELPH VETERAN’S HOME, PRESENT DAY
“Mr. Macdonald? Mr. Macdonald,” I said quietly to the old man. It was no use, he had nodded off after going on for hours about the war and his amazing experience. His accounts of his past were so clear and detailed that there was no doubt in my mind that these events had been a true recollection of history and not some fictitious story made up by a lonely old man.
The Last Lady from Hell Page 22