They followed Gladys, Sally, and Edith to the foyer of the operating tent, where sinks had been set up for the nurses and surgeons to scrub up. Following the nurses’ instructions, Ruby washed her hands and forearms with carbolic soap so strong that it made her eyes water, and held them in front of her, still wet, as she’d been told.
Gladys, who had already scrubbed up, dried Ruby’s hands and forearms with a clean towel, then carefully opened a fresh gown from a neatly folded stack and directed her to slide her arms into the sleeves. After fastening the gown, she slid gloves onto Ruby’s hands, covered her hair with a cap, and placed a surgical mask over her nose and mouth.
“Stand right there and don’t touch anything,” Gladys warned. “If you do, we have to start from the beginning. I need to wash my hands again and get Mr. Mazur gowned, then Mr. Gossage.”
Gladys repeated the procedure for Dan and Frank and then, after washing her hands yet again, she swabbed down Frank’s camera and tripod with cotton lint dipped in rubbing alcohol. He would be standing at a distance, so his camera might come into the operating room; but Ruby and Dan, who were going to be much closer to the patient, would have to work without their notebooks.
“Can’t sterilize paper,” Gladys explained, “and pencils and pens are just filthy. Mr. Gossage, remember that you need to stay well clear of the surgeons.”
“I’ll remember. No point in coming closer, anyways. The censors will never let us use anything that shows blood and guts.”
“Good. Now wait here while I scrub up for surgery.”
The three of them stood like statues as Gladys went through the routine of washing her hands and gowning herself with the help of another nurse. She was joined at the sinks by Major Ewing, one of the hospital’s surgeons, and the man they’d be watching today.
“Major Ewing, sir, these are the journalists who are joining us. Ruby Sutton and Frank Gossage from Picture Weekly, and Dan Mazur from The American.”
“Welcome. I believe Captain Kaye has read you the riot act?”
“Yes, sir,” Ruby answered promptly.
“Then let’s get started.” They followed him into the operating tent, which was large enough to hold four tables at a decent distance from one another. Doctors and nurses were already busy at three of the tables.
“Here we are,” Major Ewing said as he approached the nearest table. Another surgeon was waiting at the table, and an anesthesiologist was seated on a stool by the patient’s head. Gladys, who was assisting, took up her position at the major’s side. “Miss Sutton, Mr. Mazur, you can come and stand at my patient’s feet. A little ways back—yes, that’s good.”
The patient, who was already asleep, was covered with sheets that left only his right leg exposed from the knee down. Thick pads of gauze covered an area from a few inches below his knee to just above his ankle. His foot was so close to Ruby that she could see the fine, fair hairs on his toes.
“What happened to him?” she asked softly, not sure if Major Ewing would mind her asking questions.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have a better idea once I get a good look under these dressings.”
“Did the medics give you any notes?”
“Not that I can read. He’s German.”
Dan made a strange sort of choking noise. “You’re operating on a kraut? When American soldiers are waiting for their turn on the table?”
“I don’t give a fuck what country he fights for—pardon my French, Miss Sutton, Captain Kaye. All I see is a man, a boy, really, who needs our care as much as anyone else.”
“He looks young,” Ruby said.
“They all do. I doubt he’s more than eighteen years old. Now, let’s see what we can do about this leg. Just give me a moment to dig in and I’ll let you know what I find.”
He removed the dressings, layer by layer, dropping them onto a metal tray that Gladys held out. A foul smell rose from the wound, like blue cheese but far stronger, and for a terrible moment Ruby was afraid she might be sick.
“Breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose,” Gladys advised. “That should help.”
The wound, once revealed, was every bit as awful as Ruby had feared. It was deep and wide, and amid the torn flesh and oozing blood she could see flashes of white. The bones of his leg, she realized, one of them sticking out of the wound at a disconcerting angle.
Major Ewing was talking softly with the other surgeon, and as they talked they prodded gently at the wound with metal instruments that looked like large pairs of tweezers.
“Can you see inside the wound well enough?” Major Ewing asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Ruby replied. All too well, she thought.
“I’m guessing a shell fragment was the culprit here, given the size and irregular shape of the injury to this man’s leg. See, here, how the fibula is shattered? And the tibia, too, although that break is cleaner. What a goddamn mess.”
“What is that smell?” Ruby asked. “Is that normal?”
“It’s a sign of infection. Have you ever smelled meat when it goes off? This is what human beings smell like when their flesh is rotting. And that is a problem, a very serious one. On top of that, his foot is ischemic—see how the skin has gone gray and cold? Not a good sign. And then . . . oh, boy. Here’s another complication. Evidently the wound was left to fester rather longer than we thought. Just look at this. These fellows don’t hatch overnight.”
He held up the surgical instrument he’d been using to probe the wound. Caught between its tips, wriggling feebly, was a small, gray-white something.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Dan muttered. “Is that a maggot?”
“Yes. Not uncommon in wounds that have been left untreated for a few days. I could spend hours on this leg, and even then I doubt I’d be able to save it. Better, I think, to take it off.”
Ruby stole a look at Dan. He was pale under his tan, and drops of sweat were sliding down his forehead. She looked back at Major Ewing. “So you’re going to amputate his leg?”
“Yes. You don’t have to stay, but if you feel up to watching the procedure, I think you’ll find it interesting. I should be able to keep the knee, which will make all the difference for this man later on. Much easier to fit prosthetics.”
“Ah,” Ruby said. The lights shining on the table were so very hot, and the smell was inescapable, no matter how carefully she breathed in through her mouth and out through her nose. How did the nurses and doctors stand it?
She heard a low groan, followed by a heavy thud as a body hit the ground. Turning, she saw that Dan had passed out.
“Major Ewing . . . ?”
“I know. Marked him for a fainter the minute he walked in. He’ll be fine there for a minute or two. Now—tell me about your time in England. I lived in London before the war, you know. Worked at a hospital in the East End. Some of the stuff I saw there would turn your hair white . . .”
By concentrating on her conversation with Major Ewing, and by studiously looking over his shoulder and not letting her gaze drop to the operating table, Ruby was able to stay on her feet—just. It was a near thing, especially when the mangled mess of the boy’s leg was bundled away, leaving an empty space where a healthy limb had once been, but she summoned up every ounce of willpower she possessed and did not embarrass herself by collapsing as Dan had done.
“Right. I think we’re nearly done,” Major Ewing finally announced. “We’ll leave the wound open for a few days, since it’s easier to monitor for infection that way. I’m off to the canteen for some lunch. Would you care to join me? Miss Sutton? Mr. Gossage?”
Frank shook his head; he, too, was looking pretty green around the gills. “Thanks for the invitation, but I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
“Miss Sutton?”
“I’d be delighted to join you. Although I don’t think I’ll be eating anything.”
As soon as they were out of the operating tent, and away from the terrible odors and heat, Ruby began to feel better, though not well enough to dig into a full meal as Major Ewing was doing.
He reminded her a little of Bennett, though his hair was receding at the temples and streaked through with silver. Like Bennett he was far too thin, and looked as if he hadn’t slept properly in years. The lines of weariness engraved around his mouth and eyes had nothing to do with how old he was, she suspected. Here was a man who had probably aged a decade since the beginning of June.
“Do you mind if I take notes while we talk? I’ll check everything with you before including it in any of my pieces.”
“Go right ahead,” he said, trying and failing to stifle a yawn.
“Are you as tired as I think you are?”
“More,” he said, and smiled a little. “Our first two weeks in France we had something like three thousand men come through this hospital. About nine out of ten needed surgery. It got to the point where I couldn’t sleep. I’d just drink another cup of coffee and keep going.”
“Where was the hospital when you first landed?”
“Boutteville. About six miles in from Utah beach. An awful place. Rained all through the last part of June, and then, about five minutes after each storm, the dust clouds would roll in. Coated everything. And then there were those damned orchards. No one around to tend them, so there were rotting apples everywhere. And the flies—my God, the flies. Not a surprise, since this entire region is carpeted with the bodies of men and livestock.” He looked down at his plate and pushed it away. “I’ll never forget all those flies.”
“How has it been since you moved here?”
“Better, on the whole. Although last week and the week before, when they were closing up the Falaise pocket, were rough. I’m just hoping this lull lasts for a while. We all are.”
“How long have you been a doctor?”
“I finished medical school fifteen years ago. Worked in Boston for a while, doing general and thoracic surgery at one of the big hospitals there. Then I got it in my head that I wanted to see more of the world, so I came to London for a few years. It’s a long story, but I ended up at the London Hospital in Whitechapel. Have you heard of it?”
“I have, and it’s a fine hospital. Their staff should all have received medals for the work they did during the Blitz. I only wonder . . . why did you go there? I can think of half a dozen other hospitals in London with far more modern facilities and equipment.”
“There are, but I wanted to work with their head of general surgery. I’d been reading his papers in medical journals and wanted to learn from him.”
“And did you? Learn from him, I mean.”
“Oh, yes. He’s one of the finest men I’ve ever known. He was a combat surgeon on the Western Front during the last war, and although he didn’t talk about it often, he did say that medicine had advanced a great deal since those days—in part because of what he and other surgeons had learned during the war.”
“What was his name?”
“Robert Fraser. I’ve been thinking of him a lot since we got here. Thinking of what he must have seen and done and endured. And every day I count myself fortunate that doctors like him paved the way for doctors like me.”
Dispatches from London
by Miss Ruby Sutton
August 24, 1944
. . . The wounded soldiers I’ve met at the 128th Evac Hospital are men, some by virtue of age, but most by virtue of what they have seen and done in the months and years since they left civilian life behind. Some are so young they have down on their cheeks and they blush when I speak with them. But they are all men now, their boyhood stripped away, and they will fight and die as men in this foreign land . . .
AT BREAKFAST THE next day, the hospital was abuzz with news from Paris: at dawn that morning, Free French and Allied troops had entered the city, and had encountered next to no resistance. Liberation day had come at last.
Ruby was thrilled for the people of Paris, and more than a little excited at the prospect of reporting from the freed capital, but she and Frank still had no way of getting to the city.
“I don’t know what to do,” she complained to Gladys. “I can’t ask Colonel Wiley for a jeep, and short of walking out to the main road and trying to hitch a—”
“I’ll give you a ride.” Dan had come over to stand behind her as she was talking. She was so annoyed at him that at first she didn’t realize what he was offering.
“You do want a ride, don’t you?” he pressed.
“I do, of course I do. Thanks so much.”
“Well, you helped me out when I first came to London, and then, the other day, you could have scored some points off me. But you didn’t. So that’s why I’m offering.”
“By ‘the other day,’ do you mean when you fainted in the OR?” Gladys asked.
“Yes. That. Thanks for saying it straight up. Makes me feel so much better.”
“When do you want to leave?” Ruby asked. “Frank and I can be ready in a few minutes.”
“My jeep and driver are arriving sometime this evening. Sorry it isn’t sooner.”
“We’ll be ready. And thanks again, Dan. I owe you one.”
As soon as he was out of earshot, Gladys began to laugh. “Well, he certainly redeemed himself just now. Although I do think he’s a bit of an ass all the same.”
“He can be,” Ruby agreed. “But he can be the biggest jackass in the world and I won’t complain. Just as long as he gets me to Paris.”