The pain increases. The bandages burn like fire. We drink and drink, one glass of water after another.

“How far above the knee am I hit?” asks Kropp.

“At least four inches, Albert,” I answer. Actually it is perhaps one.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he says after a while, “if they take off my leg, I’ll put an end to it. I won’t go through life as a cripple.”

So we lie there with our thoughts and wait.

In the evening we are hauled on to the chopping-block. I am frightened and think quickly what I ought to do; for everyone knows that the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightest provocation. Under the great business that is much simpler than complicated patching. I think of Kemmerich. Whatever happens I will not let them chloroform me, even if I have to crack a couple of their skulls.