"Have to get them out ... out of the city ... air raids ... no food. Two men have died in our ambulance. We picked up an American, he speaks French ... Have to find gasoline. On the train we had food..." Windows and plasma and click of wheels, windows and plasma, a doctor bending over, when was this, where? Someone had fed him. The clicking of wheels bugged him. The man with the beaked nose and dirty eyeglasses brought Dennison a glass of pineapple juice--astonishingly good! As the man held the glass and straw the ambulance motor coughed, the juice spilled, the beaked nose swayed and almost fell. "What a lousy road!" Dennison tried to raise his right arm ... yes, the right arm, the arm in the sling ... they were moving again. Pain closed in. In mid-morning, Dennison bumped out of the ambulance into a windy sun. Within seconds someone spread additional blankets over him. He was babied by someone tall and grey eyed. Rubber wheels hissed. The sky swayed. Other Sisters-of-Charity appeared: the gurney tilted, the sky tilted: door after door whirled by. Very soon he realized he was inside a room: its all-around whiteness assured him: he shut his eyes, longing for a sense of stability. Morning moved into afternoon. Afternoon moved into pain. The probing of the arm began: two doctors, a surgeon, two nurses--a Sister Blanche attended Orville; his mind screwed up to a pitch and then blacked out. There were x-rays, painful shiftings of the body: his brain shut down again and again: then, the radiologist began talking; he had to have time for his pipe; then Dr. Pierre Phelan, the surgeon, spoke through his gauze mask. In Dennison’s eyes Phelan’s eyes were the eyes of cruelty, eyes inside a mask. Phelan outlined techniques for the two doctors. Now they were in surgery. Phelan was talking to a British medic. The Britisher was having a miserable time with his French. Egged on by pain, Dennison attacked Phelan, accusing him of carelessness, army bungling, come-easy-victims, goddamn sadism. "I’ve been a surgeon for twenty-odd years, my boy. I’ve a sort of built-in skill. Not easy to shake that skill. Besides, let’s skip that. You see, Dennison, there is no alternative! You’ve lost nerve ends. The brachi- and pronator teres and humerus are badly damaged..." "I want to see my arm," Dennison objected. "Lie still." "Get me a mirror!" He was hollering. He tried to control his voice: he was being womanish. "Give me a mirror, damn you ... I want to see my arm." "If I thought it would help you I’d let you see your arm. My boy, you can’t tell one bone from another, one muscle from another. Even our radiographs can’t help you." The Britisher, a tall young man, a Londoner, was sympathetic: putting his hand on Orville’s good arm he begged him to trust Phelan: