PAGE 4, CADRE, NOV. 24 
     
    
   
   
    
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     The following manuscript was written by Nor- 
     
     man Bethune shortly before his death from blood 
     
     poisoning in November 1939. Together with a 
     
     short list of instructions for his replacement it was 
     
     the only document Bethune asked to be passed 
     
     on. 
     
    

    
     “Everything I have to say," he assured those 
     
     close to him, “isin them.” 
     
    
   
   
    
     W 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     X; 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     ——_. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The kerosene lamp overhead makes a steady 
     
     ouzzing sound like an incandesCent hix’Ie of bees. 
     
     Mud walls. Mud floor, Mud bed. White paper win- 
     
     dows. Smell of blood and chloroform. Cold. Three 
     
     o’clock in the morning, 1 December, North China, 
     
     near Lin Chu, with‘the Eighth Route Army. 
     
    

    
     _ Men with wounds. 
     
    

    
     Wounds like little dried pools, caked with black- 
     
     brown earth; wouhds with torn edges frilled with 
     
     black gangrene; neat wounds, concealing beneath 
     
     the abscess in their depths, burrowing into and 
     
     around the great firm muscles like a dammed-back 
     
     river, running around and between the muscles 
     
     like a hot stream; wounds, expanding outward, 
     
     decaying orchids or crushed carnations, terrible 
     
     floWers of flesh; wounds from which the dark 
     
     blood is spewed out in clots, mixed with the omin- 
     
     ous gas bubbles, floating on the fresh flood of the 
     
     still-continuing secondary haemorrhage. 
     
    

    
     Old filthy bandages stuck to the skin with blood- 
     
     glue. Careful. Better moisten first. Through the 
     
     thigh. Pick the leg up. Why it’s like a big, loose, 
     
     red stocking. What kind of stocking? A Christmas 
     
     stocking. Where’s that fine, strong rod of bone 
     
     now? In a dozen pieces. Pick them out with your 
     
     fingers; white as dog's teeth, sharp and jagged. 
     
     Now feel. Any more left? Yes, here. All? Yes. No. 
     
     Here’s another piece. Is this muscle dead? Pinch 
     
     it. Yes, it’s dead. Cut it out. How can that heal? 
     
     How can these muscles, once so strong, now so 
     
     torn, so devastated, soruined, resume their proud 
     
     tension? Pull, relax. Pull, relax. What fun it was! 
     
     Now that is finished. Now that’s done. Now We 
     
     are destroyed. Now what‘will we do with our- 
     
     selves? » 
     
    

    
     Next. What an infant! Seventeen. Shot through» 
     
     the belly. Chloroform. Ready? Gas rushes out of 
     
     the opened peritoneal cavity. Odour of faeces. Pink 
     
     coils of distended intestine. Four perforations. 
     
     Close them. Purse string suture. Sponge out the 
     
     pelvis. Tube. Three tubes. Hard to ,close. Keep him 
     
     warm. How? Dip those bricks into hot water. 
     
    

    
     , Gangrene is a cunning, creeping fellow.AIs this 
     
     one alive? Yes, he lives. Technically speaking, he 
     
     is alive. Give him saline intravenously. Perhaps 
     
     the innumerable, tiny cells , of his body will 
     
     remember They may remember the hot, salty sea, 
     
    
   
   
    
     8 
     
    
   
   
    
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