At the hospital I was told they’d have to take them out.
CHAPTER IX
Anchored in Sick Bay
I WAS told I’d be operated on in an Australian hospital. It was crowded with patients at the time and, since I was only a minor case, I waited. The Wolf remained in port several weeks and sailed on another mission more than a week before I went on the operating table. When I knew she was gone, I felt lower than I’d been in weeks. I don’t think I realized until then how much that steel hulk and the officers and men inside her meant to me. I saw pictures in my mind of the Wolf cruising along on the surface. I could hear the order, “Clear the bridge!” I saw the Skipper maneuvering for the kill. I knew then that nothing the Japs could do, save sending us to the bottom, could be as bad as being on the beach while my own ship was out to sea.
I was finally admitted to the hospital. It was a magnificent modern institution, the acme of medical efficiency. After I’d been divested of my clothes, had taken a shower, and put on a pair of roomy pajamas, I was given a bed. I was ready to drop off to sleep when a nurse came in with tray and a hypodermic.
“What’s that for?” I asked, a little alarmed.
“You’re due at the operating theater in about an hour and a half. We’re just getting you ready,” she said.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get it over with.”
She bent over me, swabbed my left arm, and stuck the hypo in.
“Now you just take it easy,” she said.
I looked at her. “What was that shot you gave me?” I asked.
“Why, that’s morphine, to relax you,” she said.
Uh, oh, I thought. I’d had previous experience with morphine. I knew how I reacted to it. It might relax other people. It knocked me out for hours.
“Did you say they wanted me up there in about an hour and a half?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Why?”
“Well, miss,” I said, “I hope that was a weak shot of morphine you gave me. Just wait and see,” I said. I lay there, and it was just as I expected. My feet fell asleep. Then my hands and arms became numb. Just about this time two of the largest men I’ve ever seen in my life came to my bunk and without as much as a “How do you do?” picked me up as though I were a child, set me into a wheel chair, and started wheeling me away. I felt as though I were floating. I don’t remember arriving at the “theater.” It seems the operating room was in use when the two Aussies brought me there, so they left me outside the door. That’s the last I remember.
I was told later that the doctor who was going to assist the surgeon came out, looked at me, shook me, got no result, called for the surgeon. He took a good look at me and sent for the two giant orderlies to come and get me. They wheeled me back to my bunk and dumped me there. I woke up twelve hours later. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark. I thought, Well, that wasn’t bad. I didn’t even feel them take out my tonsils. These Aussie medics are O.K. I knew that after a tonsillectomy your throat feels sore, so I took a chance and swallowed. My throat felt swell. I attributed this to the fact that I was so rugged. I even smoked a cigarette, and it tasted fine.
I was lying there comfortably, congratulating myself, when a night nurse came by.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said, grinning at her. “There was nothing to it.”
“No,” she said, “that’s right. There wasn’t anything to it.” I thought I detected a sarcastic note in her voice, but I overlooked it because I felt so good.
“When can I leave here?” I asked. “I feel swell. No use staying any longer than I have to.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “That all depends on when they take your tonsils out.”
“When they— What!” I must have shouted it, because heads started popping up all around the ward.
“I said,” she repeated quietly, “when they take your tonsils out. You blacked out yesterday morning. Why didn’t you let us know you were allergic to morphine?”
I was angry. “Why didn’t you let me know you were going to use morphine?” I demanded. “How do I know what you’re going to use in a place like this? For all I know it might be anything from dog blood to brain juice you’re sticking into me!”
“Well,” she said coldly, “there’s no doubt that you’ve had both those injections. Now, will you please be quiet?” And she walked away.
I was burning mad. I got up and sneaked into the kitchen and robbed the refrigerator of two pounds of assorted foods. I gulped them down. Then, smug and self-satisfied, I got back into bed.
The next morning about 10 o’clock a Dr. Smith came around. He was young and pleasant.
“Well, chief,” he said, “how do you feel?”
“Fine,” I said. “When are we going to get this over with?”
“Oh, let’s see,” he said. “Today’s Tuesday. Let’s make it tomorrow morning, shall we?”
“The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “I’ve already had them out once—or so I thought.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “I heard about it from the head nurse. What did you do? She’s all up in the air about the way you talked to one of her nurses.”
“Listen, doctor,” I said. “I came out number two in that conversation and there were only two of us here. You don’t have to worry about any repetition.”
“All right, chief,” he said. “I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Not many of the people here realize that you submarine men hate hospitals.”
“Well, I’m afraid I blew up, but I thought you’d taken my tonsils and I had just finished complimenting myself on how tough a guy I was.”
Dr. Smith burst out laughing. “Well, chief,” he said, still laughing, “you might have to be pretty tough at that, seeing as how we can’t dope you.”
With that, he walked off. I didn’t feel too good the rest of the day, and all the nurses and fellow patients had satisfied smirks on their faces. I read a bit—there were magazines about—and waited. There wasn’t anything else I could do. The next morning I woke up, took another shower, and was sitting on my bunk when word was passed for me to “proceed to the theater.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “No escorts? No wheelchair?” They didn’t think I needed it, they said. That was all right with me. I got up and walked out of the ward, sweating a little, and made my way up to the theater. As luck had it, I met a wheelchair coming back. There was a patient in it. He looked pretty bloody.
“What happened to him?” I asked the orderly wheeling him.
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Just had ‘is bloomin’ tonsils out.”
A little shaky, I walked into the theater, and there was Doctor Smith.
“Good morning, chief,” he said cheerily. “Are you all set? Here, sit down.”
I sat down.
“Now, Eckberg,” he said, “let me talk to you. You see this big needle? Well, I’m going to put cocaine in and around your tonsils. Then we’re going to wait until you hit the drooling stage before we go to work. Now, these needles are going to hurt more than the actual cutting. I want to tell you that.”
I nodded.
“Now, if you’re ready, here’s what I want you to do. I’m going to sit on this chair directly in front of you. You put your knees inside of mine. Now, when these needles go in, if you feel like fighting them, grab my legs here.” He indicated a point just above his knees. “Grab them and hang on. Are you ready?”
“Let ’er fly, doc,” I quavered.
I opened my mouth and grabbed his legs. He was right. The needles did hurt. I did hang on. It was over in a couple of minutes, though.
“O.K., chief,” he said. “You did fine on that. You really are tough. Now, just try and relax until that cocaine starts working.”