Chapter 29 surgeon's story
"I operated through the night until dawn. The orderlies were as tired as I was, and they carried the wounded onto the table one by one while I was doing my best. Before dawn, she was gone. The girl was gone. I didn't I saw her coming, but I didn't see her leaving."
"There was a break before sunrise. The number of stretchers coming in through the arches dwindled and finally stopped. I had time to wash my hands and count among the wounded those who died during the night so that burials could be arranged."
"How many people died?"
"No."
"No?"
"No one died. No one died that night, and no one died when the sun came up on the first of July morning. There were three Algerians in the corner over there with wounds to the chest and abdomen, and one man with comminuted fractures in both legs. I They were operated on in the middle of the night. They were strong men, lying still on their backs, perhaps recalling their separate lives among the desolate and dry hills of the Maghreb before they came here to fight and die for France. life. They knew they were going to die and were waiting for God to call them. But they didn't die."
"Where your wife was sitting, there was a lad from Austin, Texas. When he was brought in, he was holding his stomach with his hands folded. I broke his hands away. He was trying to stuff his intestines back into the bed. Torn stomach. All I could do was put the intestines back in place and sew up the abdomen. He lost a lot of blood, but I didn't have plasma to transfuse him."
"At dawn, I heard him crying and calling for his mother. I figured he would last until noon, but he was not dead. After dawn, the temperature had risen even though the sun hadn't come in directly from the roof. When the sun With direct fire this place will be a furnace. I managed to move that operating table into the shade under the colonnade, but there's no hope for those outside. They can survive the blood loss and coma, but they can't deal with the vicious sunshine."
"Those people down the corridor were lucky. There were three Englishmen there, all from Nottingham. One of them asked me for cigarettes. My English was poor at the time, but the word cigarette is used all over the world. I told him that lungs Cigarettes are never to be smoked if they are torn by shrapnel. He laughed and told me that when General Alexander came he could at least offer him a cigarette. Crazy British humor. Still, they were brave and knew their Never going home, but still joking around."
"I kept three when the stretcher-bearers returned from the field. They were exhausted and rough, but thankfully traditional German discipline worked. They took over the job, the original three orderlies in the corner Curled up and fell asleep right away."
"How did you spend your day?" the visitor asked.
"This is how the day was spent. I ordered the new helpers to search the surrounding premises for rope, straps and more sheets. We pulled up the ropes at both ends of the yard, draped the sheets over and held them with clothespins, forming a small Little shade. But the temperature is still rising. Water is the key. The sick and wounded whine for water, and the orderly fetches water from the well in pails, puts it in the yard, and delivers it cup by cup. German, French Both the Chinese and the British thank you in their own language."
"I was praying for a cool breeze or for the sun to go down quickly. There was no cool breeze, but after twelve hours of exposure, the sun went down and the temperature dropped. At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, Liemerson's men A young captain in the yard unexpectedly walked into the yard. He stopped, stared, made the sign of the sign of the cross on his chest, uttered 'My God' and ran away. I ran after him, shouting 'I need Help'. He came back and said 'I'll try my best', but I never saw him again."
"But maybe he did do something. An hour later the medics from the Fourteenth Army came with a cartful of medicines. There were hemostatic kits, morphine, sulfa drugs, and so on. The last of the wounded arrived after the sun went down. , this time it was all German soldiers, about 20 people, including them, the total number of our wounded here reached 220. In the dark, she came back."
"The girl? The strange girl?"
"Yes. She appeared, as she did the night before. Outside the walls, the gunfire seems to have finally stopped. I guess the Confederates are preparing for their final breakthrough attack to destroy Siena's defenses. I pray we are spared Difficult, with little hope. In the end, the yard was quiet except for the groans, cries and occasional screams of the wounded in pain."
"I heard the sizzle of her gown as it approached me as I was operating on a Panzergrenadier from Stuttgart who had lost half of his jaw. I turned and there she was, putting the The towel was soaked in the clear water in the barrel. She smiled and walked among the wounded lying on the ground, knelt beside them, wiped their foreheads, and touched their wounds softly. I told her not to touch the dressing, but She didn't understand."
"Is that the same girl?" asked the American.
"It's the same girl. No one else. But this time, I noticed a detail I hadn't noticed the night before. Instead of a cotton shirt, she was wearing some sort of religious rank dress, a novice's dress. Then I She must have come from a convent in the city of Siena, I realized. And there was a pattern on the dress, dark gray over light gray, the cross of Christ, but a little different. One of the bars of the cross was broken and dangling down, forming a forty-five-degree angle."
Another cheer from the Grand Place came over the rooftops.The flag bearers had finished their performance, and the ten horses that had been locked up in the courtyard of the mayor's palace were released and came to the sandy track.Because this is bareback racing, they have bridles on them, but no saddles.The Jockey Club flag was hoisted in front of the umpire's stand, and there was a louder cheer from the crowd.
In the yard, the tourist's wife stood up and tried her injured ankle.
"I feel like I can walk slowly like this," she said.
"Wait a little longer, sweetheart," said her husband, "and then I swear we'll make it to the show. What about the second night?"
"I operated on the last twenty, the last German wounded, and then I went on to further treat the wounded from the previous night with newly arrived equipment and medicines. I now have morphine and antibiotics for the most painful Critically wounded, I can at least help them walk calmly."
"Did anyone die?"
"No. They were dying, but no one died. Not that night. All night, the young nun walked among them, without saying a word, smiling, and wiped with cool well water." Their faces, touching their wounds. They thanked her, tried to grab her hand, but she smiled and walked away."
"I chew amphetamines round-the-clock to keep me awake, but in the second half of the night, when the medicine runs out, I have nothing to do and the orderlies have fallen asleep by the wall. My smock, hands and face are covered with other young Human blood, I sat with my head on my arms and fell asleep on the operating table where the residents of Siena used to eat. When the sun came up, I was pushed awake by an orderly. He had been looking for food , brought back a can full of real Italian coffee, which must have been stored away from the beginning of the war. It was the best coffee I've ever had in my life."
"Where's the girl, the young nun?"
"she left."
"And what about the wounded?"
"I quickly went around the yard, leaning over every fighter. They were all alive."
"You must be very happy."
"I'm so happy, unbelievably happy. This is simply impossible. The facilities are so rudimentary, the conditions here are so difficult, the soldiers' injuries are so serious, and my experience is so little."
"Isn't it July 2nd? Liberation Day?"
"right."
"So the Confederates finally came in?"
"Wrong. They didn't attack Siena. Have you heard of Field Marshal Kesselring?"
"No."
"He was, in my opinion, one of the most underrated commanders of the Second World War. He received the field marshal's baton in 1940, but at the time any German general could have won on the Western Front .and it is more difficult to retreat while fighting a superior enemy force when you are losing ground."
"There is a class of generals who can take advantage of a victory and advance, and another class of generals who can plan to retreat while fighting. Rommel belongs to the first type, and Kesselring belongs to the second type. He retreated while fighting, from Sicily to Austria. To In 1944, with absolute air superiority, advanced tanks, endless fuel and supplies, and the support of the local people, the Allied forces should have swept across Italy by midsummer. It was Kesselring who let them Walking hard."
"But unlike some, Kesselring was not a savage. He was cultured and loved Italy. Hitler ordered him to blow up the bridges in the city of Rome across the Tiber. They were architectural gems. Kesselring refused. order, which helped the Confederate forces advance."
"While I was sitting in the courtyard with my cup of coffee that morning, Field Marshal Kesselring ordered Admiral Schramm to withdraw the entire German 1st Airborne Corps from Siena without firing a single shot. Nothing was damaged or Destruction. What I don't know yet is that Charles de Gaulle was asked not to destroy the city while his Free French troops were ordered to take it. Whether there was a secret agreement between Limerson and Juin, we will never know Know. None of them admitted it, and all are dead now, but they all had the same order: keep Siena."
"Not one shot? Not one shot? Not one bomb dropped?"
"No. Our paratroopers started withdrawing before noon. They were withdrawing all day long. About three o'clock in the afternoon there was a sound of boots in the alley outside, and the medic of the Fourteenth Army appeared. Von Ster Surgeon General Gölitz was a well-known orthopedic surgeon before the war. At the General Hospital he had been operating for days on end, and he was exhausted."
"He stood under the archway, staring around in wonder. I was with six orderlies, two of whom were fetching water. He looked at my bloodstained white coat and the paper which had been put back in the light. at the kitchen table. He surveyed the smelly mass of limbs in the corner: palms, arms and legs, some with leather boots."
"'This place looks like a mortuary,' said he. 'Are you alone here, Captain?'"
"'Yes, sir.'"
"'How many wounded?'"
"'About two hundred and twenty, General.'"
"'Country of Citizenship?'"
"'One hundred and twenty our countrymen, and about a hundred Confederates, sir.'"
"'How many died?'"
"'So far, none, sir.'"
"He stared at me intently and said loudly: 'Unm·glich'."
"What does this German word mean?" asked the American.
"It means 'impossible'. Then he walked towards a row of bedding. He could tell the type of injury, the severity, and the probability of survival without asking, just by looking at it. The chaplain who followed him knelt there, praying for those The dying wounded prayed before the sun rose. The chief medical officer returned to his original position after his rounds. He stared at me for a long time. I was a mess: tired, bloody, smelly, and I haven't eaten for two days and two nights."
"'You are a marvelous young man,' he said at last, 'and what you have accomplished here is unimaginable. Do you know that we are withdrawing?' I said I did. Word spread widely among the defeated quick."
"He gave orders to the troops behind him. A troop of stretchers came in through the alley. Only the Germans were taken, he told them, leaving the Confederates with the Confederates. He wandered among the German wounded, picking only those who could withstand the bumpy journey , the wounded who crossed the Chianti hills to Milan, where they received the best of everything. Those Germans who were considered to be utterly hopeless, he had them kept on stretchers. After his order, seven Ten German wounded were carried away. So there were fifty Germans left, plus Confederate wounded. Then he came back to me. The sun was behind the house and it was going down. The air was slowly changing Cool. He doesn't act rude anymore, he just looks old and weak."
"'Somebody gotta stay. Be with them.'"
"'I'd like to stay,' I said."
"'That meant being a prisoner of war.'"
"'I know, sir.' I said."
"'Well, the war is short for you after all. When we return home, I hope we can meet again.'"
"There wasn't much else to say. He went into the doorway and turned around and gave me a military salute. Can you imagine? The general saluted the captain. I didn't have a cap on so I couldn't return the salute. And then He went away. I never saw him again. Six months later he died in an air raid bombing. I am left here alone with one hundred and fifty wounded, and if help does not come soon, some of them Most were doomed. The sun went down, night fell, and my lamps had run out of oil. But the moon rose, and I began to distribute water to the wounded. When I turned around, she was back."
At this time, there were continuous shouts from the field square.The ten jockeys are all short and lean professionals. They have already stepped on their horses, and they all hold short-handled whips. This whip is not only used to beat their own mounts, but also to beat other horses and jockeys who get too close. .Wrecking is part of the Jockey Club, and it's not an activity for the faint of heart.It doesn't matter what the stakes are, winning is the most exciting thing, and once you step on the sandy track, everything will be out of the blue.
There are ten horses behind a thick rope that serves as the starting line, and they are arranged in the order drawn by lot.Each jockey is dressed in brightly colored costumes representing his parish, with a helmet on his head, a whip in his hand, and a tight rein.The horses came to their respective positions behind the ropes in advance.When the last horse is in place, the starter looks up at the magistrate, waits for his nod, and drops the rope to start the race.The crowd roared loudly like lions on the prairie.
"She's back? The third night?"
"The third and last night. We work together, like a team. Sometimes I talk, of course in German, but she obviously doesn't understand. She smiles, but doesn't say a word , even in Italian. We never had physical contact. She tended the wounded. I fetched more well water and changed the medicine a few times. The Surgeon General left me new medicines and dressings. By dawn, The supplies are all gone."
"On the third night, I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. She was a pretty girl, but in the moonlight I saw a large black spot on the back of each of her hands, about the size of a dollar coin. Big. I didn't think about it until years later. When I turned around before dawn, she was gone."
"Did you never see her again?"
"No, never again. When the sun came up, I saw flags flying from all the high windows over there, no Third Reich eagle, never again. The Sienese sewed the Confederates Army flags, especially the French tricolor. They fly all over the city. About seven o'clock I heard footsteps approaching in the alley outside. I was frightened. I never saw Confederate soldiers with live ammunition, But Hitler told us they were all murderers."
"After a while, five soldiers appeared in the doorway. They were dark-skinned, and their uniforms were covered with dust and sweat. It was difficult to tell what army they came from. Then I saw the Cross of Lorraine. It was French. Only, They are Algerians."
"They shouted a few words at me, but I couldn't understand them. I didn't understand French or Arabic, so I just smiled and shrugged. I wore a bloodstained smock over a Wehrmacht shirt and trousers, but they must have I saw the leather boots under the smock, very conspicuous Wehrmacht boots. They suffered heavy casualties south of Siena, and here and now I am their enemy. They went into the courtyard and shouted, in my Dangling their rifles in front of me. I thought they were going to shoot me. Then one of the wounded Algerians in the corner called out softly. The soldiers went and listened to him. When they came back, The tone changed. They pulled out a bad-smelling cigarette and forced me to light it as a token of friendship."
"By nine o'clock, the town was full of French people. Frantic Italian residents lined the streets to welcome them, and the girls gave them kisses. And I stayed here with my captors."
"Then a French major turned up. He spoke a little English, and so did I. I explained that I was a German surgeon and stayed to take care of the wounded, some of them French, mostly Confederate troops He questioned the soldiers lying on the ground and learned that there were twenty of his countrymen among them, as well as Englishmen and Americans. So he ran into the alley and shouted for help. In less than an hour, all the wounded were killed. Transferred to the now almost empty General Hospital. I went with them."
"I was detained in the matron's office, guarded by a soldier with a gun. Meanwhile, a French colonel examined the wounded one by one. This time, they were all lying on beds covered with clean white sheets. , cared for by Italian nurses in shifts, scrubbing their bodies and feeding them the nutrients they can eat."
"In the afternoon, the Colonel Surgeon came to the matron's office. With him was a French general named Montsabel, who spoke English.' My colleague told me that half of these people would have died, ’ He said, ‘How do you treat them?’ I explained that I was just doing my best with the equipment and medicines I had.”
"They were talking in French. Then the general said: 'We have to keep records for the next of kin. Those who died, no matter what nationality, where are their identification tags?' I explained that none of the wounded brought into the yard died without ID tags. .”
"They talked a little more, the colonel medic shrugging now and then. Then the general said: 'Please swear to me that you will not escape and stay and assist my colleagues. There is a lot of work to be done.' Of course I obeyed. I Where can I escape? The Germans are retreating faster than I can walk. If I run into the country, the partisans will kill me. After that, due to lack of food and sleep, I lie down and fall asleep .”
"After a day and night of twenty hours' sleep, a bath, and a meal, I have enough energy to work again. During the past ten days, all the French wounded treated by the French have been transferred to the South Perugia, Assisi, and Rome. Almost all the wounded in this hospital in Siena were transferred from the courtyard.”
"The broken bones of the wounded had to be put in place and plastered; the sutures had to be undone and the damage inside repaired. Yet the wound, which would have been inflamed and thus fatal, was surprisingly clean. Torn The ruptured artery seems to have healed itself; the bleeding has been stopped. The colonel is a famous doctor from Lyons in France; he performed the operation and I was his assistant. We operated day and night without stopping No one died."
"The tide of war was coming to the north. I was allowed to live with the colonel surgeon. Colonel Juan came to visit the hospital and thanked me for what I had done for the wounded soldiers of France. After that I was sent to look after fifty The German wounded. A month later, we were all evacuated to Rome in the south. None of the German soldiers wanted to fight again, and they were sent home through the arrangement of the Red Cross.”
"Did they go home?" asked the American.
"They've all gone home," said the surgeon. "The U.S. Army Medical Corps has shipped their lads from Ostia back to America. The Virginians are back in the Shenandoah Valley. The Texans are back in the Lone Star State. The guy from Austin who was crying for his mom came back to Texas with his guts still inside and his abdominal wall healed."
"After France was liberated, the French also took their wounded home. The British took their own people and me. The British general Alexander visited the hospitals in Rome and heard that in Siena This yard thing. He said that if I swore not to flee again, I could go to work in a British hospital and continue to take care of these German wounded until the end of the war. So I made a promise. After all, Germany was defeated. 1945 Germany finally capitulated, peace came, and I was allowed to return to my homeland, which had been battered by bombs, Hamburg, Germany."
"So, what are you doing here thirty years from now?" the American tourist asked.
A clear scream came from the field square.One horse fell, breaking a leg, and the jockey fell unconscious on the ground, while the remaining nine horses raced on.Despite the sand, the pebbles below still hurt the bones, and the horses raced at a frantic pace, and flips were common.
The man shrugged his shoulders and looked around slowly.
"What happened in that yard in those three days I believe was a miracle. But it had nothing to do with me. I was just a young eager surgeon, that's all. It was about the girl."
"There will be more after the Jockey Club," said the tourist. "Tell me about the girl."
"Okay. I was sent back to Germany in the autumn of 1945. Hamburg was under British occupation. At first I worked in a large British hospital, then transferred to the Hamburg General Hospital. 1949 In 2010, we established our own non-Nazi country, the Federal Republic of Germany, and I also transferred to a private clinic. After the clinic grew, I became a partner. I married a local girl, and we had two children. Life got better, and Germany became prosperous and strong. After that, I opened a clinic myself, used wealth to create new wealth, and became rich. But I will never forget this yard, and I will never forget wearing The girl in the nun's robe."
"In 1965, after fifteen years of marriage, my marriage was over. The children were teenagers; they were suffering, of course, but understanding. I had my own money and my own freedom. .In 1968, I decided to come back here to see her, just to say thank you."
"So have you found her?"
"Found it in a sense. It's been twenty-four years, and I guess she's in her forties, about my age. I'm assuming she's still a nun, or, if she's a layman, she should be A married middle-aged woman with a child of her own. So I came here in the summer of 1968, rented a room in Patrizia, and started looking for her."
"First I went to all the convents I could find. There were three of them, all of different religious groups. I hired an interpreter and visited each convent. I asked the Mother Abbess there. Two of them The first one existed during the war, and the third was built later. When I described the novice I was looking for, they all shook their heads in ignorance. They also got the oldest nun in the courtyard. Mammy, but I don’t know there is such a nun, I’ve never seen one before.”
"What was special was the kind of gown she was wearing: light gray with a dark gray cross stitched on the chest. Nobody recognized it. None of these convents had light gray gowns."
"I cast the net wider. Perhaps she was from a religious community outside of Siena, where she was visiting family and friends during the last week of the German occupation in 1944. I was in Tuscany. wandered around the area, looking for the convent she was in, but found nothing. After my translator lost patience, I researched the attire of various nun communities, past and present. There were several light gray gowns, but no one had seen a A cross with a broken horizontal bar."
"After six weeks, I realized there was little hope. No one had heard of her, let alone seen her. Twenty-four years ago, she walked into this compound three nights in a row. She wiped the dying The faces of the soldiers, and comforted them. She touched their wounds, and they didn't die. Maybe she was born with the ability to heal wounds by touch, but she disappeared in war-torn Italy, and no one was there anymore. I've seen her. I wish her well wherever she is, but I know I'll never find her."
"But just now you said that you have found it." The American reminded.
"I said 'in a sense,'" the surgeon corrected. "I packed my bags to leave, but made a last attempt. There are two newspapers in the city, the Siena Express and the Siena newspaper. I published a quarter-page notice in each of the two newspapers. There was also a picture in the newspapers, which was the pattern I drew of the cotton coat she wore, The sketch was published along with the text. The notice also promised rewards for providing relevant clues. The notice was in the newspaper the morning I was preparing to leave."
"I was packing in my room when the desk rang and said someone was looking for me. I went downstairs with my luggage and the taxi I had booked would arrive in an hour and I didn't need that taxi anymore. I missed my flight that day too."
"Waiting in the hall was a little old man with short silver hair, dressed as a monk, in a dark gray robe, with a belt around his waist, and sandals on his feet. He held a copy of the "Siena Gazette", Turn over the page with my announcement. We moved to the lobby cafe and sat down. He can speak English."
"He asked me who I was and why I had put that ad. I told him I had been looking for a young lady in Siena who had helped me almost a quarter of a century ago. He told me he His name was Fra Domenico, and he belonged to a religious order that believed in fasting, prayer, and study. The subject of his own lifelong research was the history of Siena and the various religious orders within it."
“He looked nervous and excited and asked me to tell him exactly how I met a young lady in Siena with this particular pattern on her gown. It was a long story, I told him. We had plenty of time and he said, 'Please tell me everything', so I told him."
When a racehorse crossed the finish line with a half-length advantage, the square erupted into enthusiastic cheers.Nine parishioners moaned in despair, while a tenth parishioner known as "Porcupine" burst into shrieks of joy.That evening the nine guilds who lost the game would inevitably have a few drinks in their respective mansions, accompanied by dejected head shakes and melancholy fantasies; while in Porcupine's guild the celebration would be a carnival.
"Go on," urged the American, "what did you say to him?"
"I told him everything. That's what he wanted to know, what he insisted on knowing. From beginning to end, all the details, I told him over and over again. The taxi came and I ignored it. But I forgot One detail I didn't remember until the end. Those hands, the girl's hands. Finally I told him the specifics of the black spot on the back of the girl's hand I saw under the moonlight."
"The monk's face became as white as his hair, and he began to twirl his rosary with his fingers, his eyes closed, his lips moving silently. I was a Lutheran then, but converted. I asked him What is this doing?"
"'I am praying, my child,' he replied. 'Why, brother?' I asked. 'For my immortal soul, and yours,' he said, 'because I believe, you have seen Acts of God.' Then I asked him to tell me what he knew, and he told me the story of Mercy Catherine."
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