Suddenly Kemmerich groans and begins to gurgle.

I jump up, stumble outside and demand: “Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?”

As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold of it: “Come quick, Franz Kemmerich is dying.”

He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: “Which will that be?”

He says: “Bed 26, amputated thigh.”

He sniffs: “How should I know anything about it, I’ve amputated five legs today”; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly, “You see to it,” and hurries off to the operating room.

I tremble with rage as I go along with the orderly. The man looks at me and says: “One operation after another since five o’clock this morning. You know, today alone there have been sixteen deaths⁠—yours is the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether⁠—”