King Rat

The next day Peter Marlowe joined the swarm of men waiting outside the hospital. It was after lunch and the sun tormented the air and the earth and the creatures of the earth. Even the flies were somnambulant. He found a patch of shade and squatted heavily in the dust and began to wait. The throb of his arm had worsened.

It was after dusk when his turn came.

Dr. Kennedy nodded briefly to Peter Marlowe and indicated for him to sit. “How’re you today?” he said absently.

“Not too bad, thank you.”

Dr. Kennedy leaned forward and touched the bandage. Peter Marlowe screamed.

“What the devil’s the matter?” Dr. Kennedy said angrily. “I hardly touched you, for God’s sake!”

“I don’t know. The slightest touch hurts like bloody hell.”

Dr. Kennedy stuck a thermometer in Peter Marlowe’s mouth and then set the metronome clicking and took his pulse. Abnormal, pulse rate ninety. Bad. Temperature normal, and that was also bad. He lifted the arm and sniffed the bandage. It had a distinct mousy odor. Bad.

“All right,” he said. “I’m going to take the bandage off. Here.” He gave Peter Marlowe a small piece of tire rubber which he picked out of the sterilizing fluid with a pair of surgical tongs. “Bite on this. I can’t help hurting you.”

He waited until Peter Marlowe had put the rubber between his teeth, then, as gently as he could, he began unwinding the bandage. But it was clotted to the wound and now part of the wound and the only thing to do was rip, and he was not as deft as he should be and once was.

Peter Marlowe had known a lot of pain. And when you know a thing, intimately, you know its limitations and its color and its moods. With practice—and courage—you can let yourself slip into pain and then the pain is not bad, only a welling, controllable. Sometimes it is even good.

But this pain was beyond agony.

“Oh God,” Peter Marlowe whimpered through the rubber bite-piece, tears streaming, his breathing sporadic.

“It’s over now,” Dr. Kennedy said, knowing that it was not. But there was nothing more he could do, nothing. Not here. Certainly the patient should have morphine, any fool knows that, but I can’t afford a shot. “Now let’s have a look.”

He studied the open wound carefully. It was puffy and swollen and there were shades of yellow hue with purple patches. Mucused.

“Hum,” he said speculatively and leaned back and played with his fingers, making a steeple and looking away from the wound to the steeple. “Well,” he said at length, “we have three alternatives.” He got up and began pacing, stoop-shouldered, and then said monotonously, as though delivering a lecture, “The wound has now taken on other attributes. Clostridial myositis. Or, to put it more simply, the wound is gangrenous. Gas gangrenous. I can lay open the wound and excise the infected tissue, but I don’t think that will do, for the infection is deep. So I would have to take out part of the forearm muscles and then the hand won’t be of use anyway. The best solution would be to amputate—”

“What!”

“Assuredly.” Dr. Kennedy was not talking to a patient, he was only giving a lecture in the sterile classroom of his mind. “I propose a high guillotine amputation. Immediately. Then perhaps we can save the elbow joint—”

Peter Marlowe burst out desperately, “It’s just a flesh wound. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just a flesh wound!”

The fear of his voice brought Dr. Kennedy back, and he looked at the white face a moment. “It is a flesh wound, but very deep. And you’ve got toxemia. Look, my boy, it’s quite simple. If I had serum I could give it to you, but I haven’t got any. If I had sulfonamides I could put them on the wound, but I haven’t got any. The only thing I can do is amputate—”

“You must be out of your mind!” Peter Marlowe shouted at him. “You talk about amputating my arm when I’ve only got a flesh wound.”

The doctor’s hand snaked out and Peter Marlowe shrieked as the fingers held his arm far above the wound.

“There, you see! That’s not just a flesh wound. You’ve toxemia and it’ll spread up your arm and into your system. If you want to live we’ll have to cut it off. At least it’ll save your life!”

“You’re not cutting off my arm!”

“Please yourself. It’s that or—” The doctor stopped and sat down wearily. “I suppose it is your privilege if you want to die. Can’t say I blame you. But my God, boy, don’t you realize what I’m trying to tell you? You will die if we don’t amputate.”

“You’re not going to touch me!” Peter Marlowe’s lips were drawn from his teeth and he knew he’d kill the doctor if he touched him again. “You’re out of your mind!” he shouted. “It’s a flesh wound.”

“All right. Don’t believe me. We’ll ask another doctor.”