592
LEO E. LITWAK
an elbow and looked toward Battle Village. The dynamite blasts had
stopped. The machine gun had stopped. I saw a GI running across
the fields, tumbling in shell holes, running with wild arms. He waved
to me. "AID MAN!" Raging, as though I'd done something terrible.
I shivered. I stood numb as he ran up to me. He shouted in my
face, "AID MAN!" He grabbed my shoulders, his mouth agape,
heaving air, his eyes big, his pupils dilated, his face grey, a trim
platoon Sergeant from C Company with a fox face, one of the
permanent cadre who had been to Ranger school and, it was said,
could jog fifteen miles without showing the strain.
"A man got his leg blowed off. Let's go."
I woke the ambulance driver. We drove across the field toward
Battle Village.
A squad leader had tripped into a hole just as a dynamite charge
exploded. The Sergeant said, "His leg's off."
"Off?"
"His foot's in the shoe."
The ambulance launched off ruts, slammed down on the field,
the carriage groaning. The ambulance driver, saucer-eyed behind
his
spectacles, his teeth clicking, hit every furrow and we bounced high.
My kits slammed my thighs. Men were clustered at the side of a
shell hole. We almost drove into them.
A lieutenant crouched over the screaming man who was covered
with a blanket. They stepped aside for me. I saw a shoe some dis–
tance away. I pulled back the blanket and looked. He reared and
bucked. Gone at the calf. The skin pulled back up the leg, showing
the shreds of flesh. A hot, shitty smell. The skin above was peppered.
A tourniquet was tied above the knee. I untied the tourniquet and
blood spurted on the blanket. I could see raw flesh, gristle, the artery
gulping, the veins pinched shut. I retied the tourniquet. No spurt of
blood now. A slow welling. The scissors came out and I cut away
the pant leg. The syrette came out. I thrust the plunger into the
hollow needle and broke the seal. I jammed the needle into his thigh
and squeezed it out like toothpaste. I bent down and got a good
smell of the stump. He was under my hand. I could feel the muscles
jumping. My hand was slimy where I'd touched the blanket.
We lifted him on a stretcher into the ambulance.
The ambulance driver went fast, hitting everything. I tried to
figure out how to cover the stump. When I raised the leg to get the
