Hornblower 05 - Hornblower And The Atropos - Plot & Excerpts
“A few minutes” had been Eisenbeiss's estimate of the time necessary for the operation. It was necessary, Hornblower knew, to work as quickly as possible, so as to minimize the shock to the patient. “In the old Hannibal, sir,” said the sickberth attendant whom Hornblower had questioned regarding his experience, “we took off eleven legs in half an hour. That was at Algeciras, sir.” But amputations were relatively simple. A full half of all amputation cases survived — Nelson himself had lost an arm, amputated on a dark night in a moderate storm at sea, and he had lived until a musket bullet killed him at Trafalgar. This was not an amputation. It was something which would be worse than useless if Eisenbeiss's diagnosis was incorrect and which could easily fail in any case. The ship was very still and quiet. Hornblower knew that all his crew were taking a morbid interest in the fate of the “poor gentleman”.
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