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.Nulli Secundus -
'Second to None'
by Terence Cardwell
Chapter
Thirty Six - Foret de Mormal
Karl Schumann hated what he was doing. Only four weeks
ago he had been one of the most promising medical
interns at the Dusseldorf Hospital. His future was
assured, and he had planned to specialise in internal
medicine when he had completed his medical training in
two years’ time. He enjoyed his work and gained great
satisfaction in healing the sick, trying to heal those
who suffered terrible pains from an alien disease or
infection. He believed there was still a long way to go
in medical research, and continually ended up with more
questions than answers as he struggled to find causes of
his patients’ ailments. His reward was in healing them,
watching them walk out of the hospital improved in
health and spirit.
Cleanliness was a major factor in many illnesses, which
were caused by unclean or dirty habits and surroundings.
The more he studied, the more he knew that medical
research was what he wanted to do. Not only to heal
people, but also to find more answers and cures for the
diseases that plagued the people of the world.
The easiest to fix were patients with broken bones and
cuts. It was obvious what the problem was, and most
cases required only limited medical skills to tend the
wounds or injuries. He held scant regard for these
cases. He much preferred wrestling with the problem of
some hidden disease that required all his skills to find
the cause and cure.
Four weeks ago the army had come to the hospital and
conscripted every young intern or doctor. The only
exceptions were those who were very old or the newest
medical trainees.
They gave Carl a uniform, showed him how a rifle
worked, and sent him to the battlefront as a medical
attendant to care for the injured and dying.
A recent battle had occurred on the edge of the Forest
of Mormal. The troops had moved forward, following the
retreating British soldiers. It had been a hard and
bitter battle with great losses on both sides. Thousands
of soldiers had been killed or injured in the last week
alone, and Carl felt as if he had attended to them all.
Day after day he sorted through the carnage, separating
the dead, dying and wounded men and trying to help them
where he could with the limited resources available to
him.
Some of the wounds were horrendous: limbs blown off,
stomachs torn open. Some men were still alive but with
one side of their face missing. Men had one or both
hands or feet missing. Horrible wounds, almost
impossible to heal, confronted him hourly. He treated
them as best he could, bandaging the wounds and sending
the men behind lines to be treated by surgeons and
doctors with more skill and time than he had.
The sounds of the men suffering and dying tore at his
sanity, and he knew that sooner or later he would break.
He had seen men walking like robots, their minds shut
down by the horrors they had seen. He felt that sooner
or later he would snap, and join their ranks. The sounds
of the suffering and dying seemed to follow him
everywhere. The moans of the wounded, the screaming, the
piteous begging to be shot because they could no longer
bear the agony of their wounds. Even at night in the
quiet of his quarters he could hear the cries of anguish
in his head.
His most used drug was laudanum, which he shared among
the wounded and dying, easing their pain and trying to
make their deaths less painful with its use. But he had
only a limited supply and could only give it to the most
needy.
Carl became adept at amputating shattered legs or arms
and sewing up the stumps, being careful to clean them as
much as possible. His was a relatively new belief in
sanitation, whereas many of his colleagues assumed the
body was dirty anyway, so its cleanliness did not
matter. The less critically injured he patched up and
sent to the field hospital, some three miles behind the
front. Some walked, often helping a friend. Others, more
seriously wounded, rode in old carts or wagons that had
been pressed into service.
Karl did not care whether his patients where German,
French or British. They were all the same to him. He did
not believe for one moment that this war was necessary;
he saw it as just a game played by monarchs, governments
and generals. No one had attacked or threatened Germany,
‘So why the hell are we at war?’ he continually asked,
but no one could give him an intelligent answer.
‘If those mongrels in charge could only come here and
see what I see every day, they would change their minds
about war,’ he said to anyone who would listen, and he
cursed the Kaiser. ‘But then, those bastards are so
arrogant they couldn’t give a damn what happened to the
soldiers. As long as they get what they want,
glorification of themselves! Mongrels,’ he muttered
repeatedly.
He stopped at a German soldier lying face down in a pool
of blood, and rolled him over on his back. The man lay
with eyes open, staring but seeing nothing. His skin was
a pallid grey and cold to the touch. Carl felt for his
pulse, but there was none. The soldier was obviously
dead, so he moved on to another, his eyes also open,
with a surprised look on his face. The body was unmarked
except for a hole above the right eye. Karl moved the
head and saw the gaping hole at the back where the
bullet had exited. He lowered the soldier, shaking his
head in disappointment, and continued searching for more
wounded. He didn’t worry about the dead: a special
platoon of soldiers would pick up the dead and pile them
on top of each other on an old flat top cart. There was
little respect for the corpses. The soldiers said, ‘They
can’t feel anything, they’ve long left this earth.’
Karl searched looking for another twenty yards and found
a soldier lying near a tall tree. This one was British,
in a brown uniform and khaki webbing and wearing a
greatcoat. He was covered in dirt and lying on his back
with his eyes closed. The side of his greatcoat and his
left sleeve were covered in blood; and, looking closer,
Carl saw his skin was not the grey of the dead but a
light pinkish hue.
He knelt down and felt for a pulse. It was weak but
definite. He lifted the man’s eyelids and they responded
to the light, the soldier moving his head slightly as if
in response. He unfastened the soldier’s greatcoat, his
uniform jacket and shirt. He cut the left sleeve of the
jacket with his knife and saw the savage wound to the
side of the man’s chest. The wound was still open where
the bayonet had entered. Luckily for the soldier,
whoever had bayoneted him had not twisted it, as they
had been taught to do.
The wound was open and still slowly bleeding.
The arm also had a severe stab wound. That could leave
the man with an unusable and useless arm, but only time
would tell.
Karl treated and bandaged the wounds, and eased some
Laudanum down the soldier’s unresisting mouth. He saw a
cord hanging around his neck and pulled it to find a
round aluminium disc on the end of it. It was the
soldier’s dog tag and he read it in the morning light:
Pte
J. Cardwell. Coldstream Guards. CoE. 8520.
‘Well, Private Cardwell 8520. It looks like you are one
of the lucky ones. There’s not too many of them around
here,’ Karl said softly. He stood and called two
soldiers from a group with stretchers. ‘Over here. We’ve
got a live one. One of their boys. He won’t be taking
part in this war any more. Be careful, his wounds are
very serious.’
The first aiders lifted Jack carefully onto the
stretcher and hurried away. Like Carl, they treated all
the soldiers the same, whether British or German. Most
of them did not believe in all the killing, and also
hated the war.
Even in the relatively short time their country had been
at war they had seen slaughter of human beings on a
massive scale, almost every day of late. They retched
and vomited repeatedly at the sight of the carnage, and
underneath it wore away at the fabric of their sanity.
They trotted as fast as they could to the waiting truck
that was loading injured soldiers in tiers on both
sides. When it was full it slowly drove off, careful
not to jolt the injured soldiers too much, heading for
the field hospital.
Karl returned to the forest and continued searching. He
felt a little better for possibly saving at least one
extra life today.
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