The apotheosis of the war in the South Pacific

Charles Crary gets a friendly fire wound and a free ticket home:

We reached the portable hospital, but I had to wait. I was given plasma. I vaguely remember my arm taped to a board so I wouldn't disturb the IV. The mosquitoes saw my arm as a "free lunch" counter. It was black with them. Because of the shock and heavy sedation I just lay there and watched them. During this time my clothing was removed and burned. It had been worn unwashed for about three months. Eventually I went into surgery... I woke and discovered my leg in a cast that let my toes peek out and came two-thirds the way up my thigh. I felt really great. I'm sure that much of my feeling was euphoria that I was out of immediate danger of being shot at. On the second day a crew of twelve porters was assigned to take me to the airstrip at Wau.

On the way we chattered and joked in pidgin. But around 9:30 am I began to feel sick. It started with a knot in the pit of my stomach, but gradually grew into a pain that restricted my breathing. It wasn't too long before I began to think I was going to die. My crew began to run with me. We arrived at a way station that had a doctor. He diagnosed my problem as secondary shock and overmedication of morphine. Relieved, all I wanted to do was sleep. Sometime during the night I was awakened by a sharp pain in one of my toes. It felt as though it were being cut with a knife. I couldn't move the leg because of the cast and weakness. I called out and finally someone came. They found a huge jungle rat trying to eat my toes!