World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
The hospital was in a tent where I reclined with forty other patients,
and directly opposite our tent was another in which were confined under
guard a number of patients who were subject to fits, some of a very
serious nature. Lying in bed, my leg encased in its plaster-of-paris
cast, about ten o'clock one night, when just dozing off, I was
frightened into wakefulness by a scream. A man, who turned out to be an
escaped epileptic, was standing in the doorway screaming, his eyes
bulging out of his head. He had escaped by striking the sentry over the
head with the fire brazier, used to keep the sentry warm. Staring wildly
about the room for a couple of seconds, he made a leap for the nearest
man and bit him in the arm; he then jumped at the next patient, biting
him; I was the following recipient of his devotions, getting a bite on
the wrist. Utterly unable to help or defend myself, as I was bound down
in my plaster-of-paris cast, I had to content myself with landing a
couple of punches on his mad mug, but he didn't seem to mind them in the
least,--rather enjoyed them, I fancy.
By way of diversion he then took hold of the beds and started upsetting
them, rolling the patients out on to the floor, causing a tremendous
amount of excitement, as well as pain and suffering to the men upset
who, some of them, like myself, had casts on their limbs. In the midst
of his mad capers the guard and orderlies rushed in, but before he was
subdued he managed to fasten his molars in the arm of a guard.
A bite from a man in his condition is no laughing matter and the doctors
took no chances; every man who was bitten had the wound immediately and
thoroughly cauterized and was inoculated.
My other adventure was the honor and pleasure of receiving a handshake
from their Majesties, the King and Queen of England, who were on a visit
of inspection to the camp. The visit of their Majesties was concluded by
a splendid little speech from Queen Alexandra in which she complimented
us and thanked us for our loyalty.
After my release from the hospital due to the effects of the accident at
Plymouth, I set to work looking after our horses and performing general
battery work. After my narrow escape from the gun wheel, the fall into
the hold of the vessel and the close shave I had had on the dock, I was
commencing to wonder whether I was destined ever to get to France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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