Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Then they saw field ambulances scattered among the trucks.When they got closer, they saw dozens of stretcher cars, which had been unloaded from the trucks and placed in a mess on the floor.There was also a large patch of dirty green military uniforms and stained bandages.Groups of soldiers stood apart, drowsy and immobile, wrapped in filthy bandages like the gang of sick soldiers lying on the ground.A handyman was gathering rifles from the back of a truck.Twenty porters, nurses and doctors were making their way through the crowd.Five or six stretchers had been brought to the front of the hospital—clearly not enough.In an instant, both Briony and Fiona stopped, staring blankly, and then almost at the same time they reacted and started running.

In less than a minute, they had already come among the people.The fresh, cool air couldn't dispel the stench of motor oil and festering wounds.Darkened faces and hands, stubbled beards, disheveled hair, and bound with tags from the Wounded Reception Station, the soldiers looked identical, as if they were savages fleeing from a terrifying world.The wounded who were still standing there appeared to be asleep.More doctors and nurses poured through the gates.A senior consultant physician is in charge and a rough classification system is in place.Emergency patients have been carried onto stretchers.For the first time in her training, Briony found a doctor and a specialist resident calling the shots.She had never met the two.

"Come on, you go look up that head." The doctor lifted the other end of the stretcher himself.She had never carried a stretcher before, and after walking ten yards down the corridor past the exit, she knew that her left hand was no longer strong enough.She gripped the bottom of the stretcher legs.She counted the stripes on his uniform. The soldier was a sergeant.His boots were gone, and his bluish toes stank.The bandage wrapped around his head had been soaked black and red with blood.The military trousers on his thighs were torn, and even poked into the wound.She thought she could see the glistening white joints inside.Every step they took made him ache.He closed his eyes tightly, endured the pain and said nothing, only his lips moved.If she loses strength in her left hand, the stretcher will definitely fall down.After finally getting to the elevator, she walked in and placed the stretcher, but she almost let go of her hand and threw the stretcher to the ground.The elevator was slowly ascending, and the doctor checked the soldier's pulse, and then took a deep breath through his nose, so nervous that he completely forgot about Briony's existence.The second floor came into view, and all she could think about was the thirty yard distance from the elevator to the ward.Can she hold on? She is obliged to tell the doctor that she can't hold on.But when he opened the elevator door heavily with his back to her, he told her to lift her other end.In her mind, she put more strength on her left arm, hoping that the doctor could walk faster.If she fails even to do this, she can't afford to lose this person.The dark-faced patient kept opening and closing his mouth like chewing. His tongue was covered with white spots, and his black Adam's apple fell and fell.She allowed herself to focus on him.They folded into the ward, and she was thankful that an emergency bed was ready and placed by the door.Her fingers were already slipping.A head nurse and a regular nurse are waiting there.The stretcher was moved next to the bed.Briony's fingers were getting limp, and she couldn't control them at all.She lifted her left knee just in time to bear the weight.The leg slammed against the wooden handle.The stretcher was shaking, and the head nurse immediately leaned forward to stabilize it.The sergeant, who was seriously wounded, let out a suspicious sound from his lips, as if he never thought that the pain would be so heart-piercing.

"For God's sake, girl," the doctor muttered.They moved the patient slowly and carefully onto the bed. Briony waited to see if she still needed help.But at the moment the other three people are busy, forgetting that she is still standing aside.The nurse was removing the bandage from his head, and the head nurse was cutting off the soldier's trousers.The specialist intern turned away and carefully read in the light the brief scribbled on the tag that had been peeled off the soldier's shirt.Briony cleared her throat gently.The head nurse turned her head and was very annoyed to find her still there.

"Now, don't just stand there, Nurse Tallis. Get downstairs and help." At these words, Briony walked away in shame, feeling a sudden hollowness rush through her stomach.The first time she really came into contact with the war, the first time she encountered the pressure to bear, she lost.If she needs to carry a stretcher next time, she won't even be able to walk halfway to the elevator.But she wouldn't have the guts to say "no" if she was told to do so.If the stretcher really came out of her hands, she would have to leave quietly, pack her things in her room, put them in a suitcase, and go to farm in Scotland.This is good for everyone.She was hurrying down the corridor when she met Fiona, who was coming from the other direction, carrying the front end of the stretcher.She was much stronger than Briony.The wounded man she carried was covered with dressings, which wiped off his facial features, leaving only an oval black hole at the mouth.The two girls looked at each other, and they seemed to see a kind of shock and shame in each other's eyes.They could never have imagined that when they were laughing in the park, it would be such a scene here.

Briony came out of the hospital, relieved to see that the last stretchers had also been loaded onto trolleys, and the porters were waiting to roll them.A dozen or so official nurses stood by with suitcases.She recognized several people in the same ward as her.There was no time to ask where they would be transferred.It must be worse elsewhere.Now, the most important thing is to help those wounded who can still walk on their own. There are still more than two hundred people in total.A matron told her to take the fifteen wounded upstairs to Beatrice's ward.They followed her down the corridor in file, like children strolling in file at school.Some of them had their arms immobilized in slings, some had wounds on their heads or chests, three of them were on crutches, and none of them spoke.The area around the elevator was blocked.Some people have to push the carts down to the operating room in the basement, while others have to go up to the wards.She found an alcove for those on crutches and told them not to move while she led the other wounded up the stairs.They moved slowly, stopping at every landing.

"Almost there," she kept saying.But they didn't seem to be paying attention to what she was saying. Finally arrived at the destination.According to the rules, she should report to the head nurse, but the head nurse is not in the office.Briony turned to her schoolchildren.They had huddled self-consciously behind her.But they were not looking at her, but at the large, grand Victorian ward behind her, with its towering columns and potted palms, its neatly made beds and the clean sheets that draped over the sides. "You wait here," she said, "the head nurse will find a bed for each of you."

She hurried to the other end of the ward, where the head nurse and two nurses were taking care of a patient.The soles of shoes scraped against the floor behind Briony.The soldiers followed. Terrified, Briony waved at them. "Go back, listen to me, go back. Go back and wait." But they scattered throughout the ward on their own initiative, and everyone found a bed for themselves.They climbed onto the bed without being assigned, without taking off their boots, taking a bath, removing lice, or changing their hospital gowns.Their messy hair and dark faces were pressed against the pillows.At this time, the head nurse came hurriedly from the other end of the ward, and the sound of her heels hitting the floor echoed in this sacred hall.Talis walked to the head of one of the beds and tugged at the sleeve of a soldier who was sleeping on his back.She shook his arm, which had come free from the bandages, gently.As soon as he stretched his legs, he immediately brushed a line of oil on the blanket.What to do? It was all her fault.

"You have to get up," said the head nurse as she got closer and closer, Briony was so anxious that her whole body became weak, her voice was hoarse and weak. "We have procedures for doing things." "They need sleep. We'll talk about the rules later." The accent was Irish.The head nurse put a hand on her shoulder and told her to turn her head to see her nameplate. "Now go back to your room. Nurse Tallis. I think you might be needed there." The head nurse gave her a gentle nudge, and she went about her business.There is no need for someone like her to maintain order in the ward.The wounded were all asleep.Once again she proved herself to be an idiot.She also knew that what they needed most was sleep, of course she did.But she just wants to do what she thinks is her job.After all, she did not formulate these regulations.These things had been poured into her head over and over for the past few months.There are thousands of rules to follow when a new patient checks in.How did she know that those things didn't actually mean anything at all? She was angry with herself along the way, and when she was almost back in her ward, she remembered the wounded man on crutches who was still waiting downstairs for her to take upstairs .She hurried downstairs, but the alcove was empty, and there was no one in the corridor.If you asked the nurses and porters where they were going, everyone would know how incompetent she was.She didn't want to do that.Someone must have gathered the wounded and taken them upstairs.In the following days, she never saw them again.

Her own hospital room has been put to a new purpose—turned into an emergency room.But at first it didn't live up to its name at all.It is simply a transfer station for the wounded on the front line.Numerous head nurses and senior nurses were also brought in to help.Five or six doctors were dealing with the most urgent cases.Two chaplains were there, one sitting beside the sick man talking to him, the other praying to a figure under the blanket.All the nurses were wearing masks, and they rolled up their sleeves like the doctors.The head nurses shuttled back and forth between the beds, giving patients injections—most likely morphine—or using blood transfusion needles to infuse whole blood and plasma into the wounded—bottles of whole blood and pale yellow plasma are like a A strange exotic fruit hangs high on a movable shelf.Interns walked by with piles of hot water bottles in their arms.The ward was filled with soft echoes of people and the clanging of medical equipment, regularly mixed with moans and cries of pain.There were no more vacant beds in the ward, and the newly arrived wounded could only lie on stretchers, which were placed between the beds so that the infusion stand could be fully utilized.Two orderlies stand ready to carry away the dead patient.Numerous nurses were at the bedside removing soiled bandages.At this time, you always need to make a choice: whether to peel it off gently and slowly, or to pull it off gently, and it will be over after a while of pain.The nurses in this ward advocated a quick solution, so there were screams from time to time.The ward smelled of this and that—wet, sticky, sour fresh blood, dirty clothes, sweat, grease, disinfectant, and rubbing alcohol.But the most unbearable thing is the stench from the rotting wound.The two wounded who were transferred to the operating room had to have their limbs amputated.

As the senior nurses were temporarily transferred to distant hospital departments, and more and more patients were sent in, the regular nurses gave orders as they wished, and Briony and the same group of trainees were given new assignments. Responsibility.A nurse sent Briony to remove the bandages and wash the leg wounds of the corporal on the stretcher by the door.It was enough for her to do this, and she didn't need to bandage him until the doctor came to examine him.The corporal was lying face down, and he grimaced when Briony knelt down and spoke into his ear. "Don't mind if I yell," he said softly. "Clean it up for me, nurse. I don't want to lose it." The trouser legs have been cut off.The outer layer of bandages still looks new.She starts to untie it.Unable to get her hands under his legs, she cut the trousers open with scissors. "They bandaged me at Dover Docks." Now all that's left is a layer of muslin.Black blood clotted around the long gash from knee to ankle.There is no hair on the legs, and the color is also black and blue.She was terrified and panted with her mouth open. "So, how did you get hurt like this?" She deliberately pretended to be happy. "A bomb came flying and knocked me down on the corrugated tin fence." "Bad luck. Now, um, you know, I'm going to take it down." She lifted a corner slightly.The corporal twitched. He said, "Count with me. Like this. One, two, three. Be quick." The corporal clenched his fists.She pulled up the loose corner, squeezed it tightly between her forefinger and thumb, and jerked back.At this time, a well-known tablecloth trick at an afternoon birthday party in her childhood suddenly appeared in her mind.The gauze was lifted off with the screeching sound of peeling off the adhesive layer. "I'm going to throw up," said the corporal. She took a spittoon by the way.He retched a few times, but nothing came out.Beads of sweat stood in the creases at the back of his neck.The wound was eighteen feet long, perhaps more, and bent at the knee at the back of the leg.The stitches are rough and irregular.The cracked skin overlapped each other, exposing the fat layer inside, protruding from the seam like bunches of miniature red grapes. She said, "Be careful. I'm going to clean your wound now, but I'll be careful not to touch it." She didn't want to touch it yet.The skin on the legs was black and soft, like an overripe banana.She dipped the cotton wool in alcohol.Worried that the skin would come off, she just spread it lightly around his calf, two inches from the wound.Then she worked a little harder and wiped it again.The skin seemed firm, so she pressed on the cotton wool until he felt like pulling back in pain.She took her hand away and saw a piece of glistening white skin.The cotton wool is completely black.Not gangrene.She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.She even felt a constriction in her throat. He said, "Well, nurse? You tell me." He pushed himself up, trying to look over his shoulder.His voice couldn't hide the fear. She swallowed, trying not to show any emotion. "I think the wound is healing well." She took more cotton wool.There was oil, or grease, on his legs, mixed with beach sand, which was not easy to clean off.She moved back another six inches, dabbing around the wound. After doing this for a while, she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, and at the same time a woman's voice rang in her ears. "Very well, Nurse Tallis. But move faster." At this moment Briony was kneeling on the ground, leaning over the stretcher, pressed against a hospital bed, so it was not easy to turn around.When she turned around, she only saw a familiar figure from behind.By the time she started cleaning the stitches, the corporal had fallen asleep in a daze.He moved slightly, as if he wanted to pull his legs back, but he didn't wake up.Tiredness is the best narcotic.Finally packed up, she stretched her hands and feet.No sooner had the spittoon and all the used cotton wool been packed away than a doctor came and dismissed her. She washed her hands and was ready for another task.She actually completed the task by herself, although the task was trivial.Everything is different now.Now she wants to bring water to the soldiers who are tired and collapsed on the battlefield, and they must not be dehydrated.She had to move fast, or they were likely to become dehydrated.Come on, Pvt. Carter.Drink this and go back to sleep.Come on, sit up...she put her arms around them, let their terribly dirty hair rest on her apron, and held them in small white enamel cups.She shook them gently, like a mother holding a tall baby in her arms.She washed her hands thoroughly again, then went to empty the bedpan.She never dared to take it lightly.Next it was time to nurse a soldier with a wounded belly and a piece of his nose missing.She thought she could see his mouth and split tongue through his cartilage.She's going to clean his face.His face was also oily, with sand seeping into his skin.She guessed he was awake, but he never opened his eyes.Morphine had sedated him.He seemed to be rocking gently from side to side on the bed to the music in his head.As he wiped, his features gradually emerged from under the black dirt, and Briony remembered the smooth pages of her childhood, how she used a bald pencil to make the blank paper stand out. A painting is coming.She also thought about what if one of these people was Robbie.Without knowing his identity, she bandaged his wound and gently wiped his face with cotton wool until his familiar facial features gradually appeared.How gratefully he would have looked at her then, recognized who she was, and had taken her hand and squeezed it silently, then he would have forgiven her.Then he'd let her lull him to sleep.