Monday 17 November 2014

He kept looking for that piece of artery

"Dorrigo Evans kept steadily working on Jack's stump, his bare feet ankle-deep in the bloody mud below the makeshift bamboo operating table, his outer calm a strange thing he knew he preserved at the moments of greatest inner turmoil. He kept looking for that piece of artery, trying to find something in his work to hold on to, unconsciously clawing at the mud with his toes.
And finally he had it, and he worked with the utmost care and delicacy to make sure his work would hold and Jack lives, and when he was done and he lifted his head, he knew Jack had been dead for some minutes and no one had known how to tell him". 
- Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

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