Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

can slip on a rainy day, knock yourself out, and drown in three inches of rain

water. And there is just as unlikely a way to hit the jackpot in taking artificial

pneumothorax. If the needle goes a little too far, penetrates the lung, and if an

air bubble then happens to be forced into a blood vessel and manages to travel all

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the way back to the heart without being absorbed, it is possible though extremely

unlikely to get a sort of vapor lock in the valves of your heart-air embolism, the

doctors call it. Given all these improbable events, you can die.

We never heard the end of Saunders’ dirty joke. He konked out on the table.

The young doc did everything possible for him and sent for help while he was

doing it. They tried this and that, used all the tricks, but the upshot was that

they brought in the meat basket and carted him off to the morgue.

Three of us were still standing there, not saying a word-me, reswallowing my

breakfast and thanking my stars that I was through with it, an ex-field-clerk named

Josephs who was next up, and Colonel Hostetter who was last in line. The surgeon

turned and looked at us. He was sweating and looked bad-may have been the first

patient he had ever lost; he was still a kid. Then he turned to Dr. Armand who had

come in from the next ward. I don’t know whether he was going to ask the older man

to finish it for him or whether he was going to put it off for a day, but it was

clear from his face that he did not intend to go ahead right then.

Whatever it was, he didn’t get a chance to say it. Josephs stood up, threw

off his bathrobe and climbed up on the table. He had just lighted a cigarette; he

passed it to a hospital orderly and said, “Hold this for me, Jack, while Doctor”-he

named our own surgeon-“pumps me up.” With that he peels up his pajama coat.

You know the old business about sending a student pilot right back up after

his first crack up. That was the shape our young doctor was in-he had to get right

back to it and prove to himself that it was just bad luck and not because he was a

butcher. But he couldn’t send himself back in; Josephs had to do it for him. Josephs

could have ruined him professionally that moment, by backing out and giving him time

to work up a real case of nerves-but instead Josephs forced his hand, made him do

it.

Josephs died on the table.

The needle went in and everything seemed all right, then Josephs gave a

little sigh and died. Dr. Armand was on hand this time and took charge, but it did

no good. It was like seeing the same horror movie twice. The same four men arrived

to move the body over to the morgue-probably the same basket.

Our doctor now looked like a corpse himself. Dr. Armand took over. “You two

get back to bed,” he said to

Colonel Hostetter and me. “Colonel, come over to my ward this afternoon; I’ll take

care of your treatment.”

But Hostetter shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said crisply, “My ward

surgeon takes care of my needs.” He took off his robe. The young fellow didn’t move.

The Colonel went up to him and shook his arm. “Come, now Doctor-you’ll make us both

late for lunch.” With that he climbed up on the table and exposed his ribs.

A few moments later he climbed off again, the job done, and our ward surgeon

was looking human again, although still covered with sweat.

I stopped to catch my breath. Jones nodded soberly and said, “I see what you

mean. To do what Colonel Hostetter did takes a kind of cold courage way beyond the

courage needed to fight.”

“He doesn’t mean anything of the sort,” Arkwright objected. “He wasn’t

talking about Hostetter; he meant the intern. The doctor had to steady down and do a

job-not once but twice. Hostetter just had to hold still and let him do it.”