TCD MS 10247/1/841 folio 2 recto
[3 June 1917] talked to the doctor telling him not to <try to> patch it up but make a clean job. I was still awake when he came back and recovered consciousness – poor fellow he was frightfully sick & must have been in great pain – but still he was cheerful & talked away saying he was real glad they’d taken the leg off as it still left his knee. Next day he was as cheerful & gay as anything. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. He had a wonderful escape – he was in the R.F.C. – one of our own shell hit his engine and blew it right out of the frame – shattering his leg absolutely to pulp. Still by a miracle the machine wasn’t set on fire and he managed to land all right in our own lines. He crawled away as of course the Hun immediately opened fire on the machine – he managed to get to a H.Q. where he got a stretcher – of course the minute the Hun saw him carried on the stretcher they opened fire on him – but luckily he got through all right. The Hun can’t play a straight game – it makes me savage to see him make a special point of stretcher bearers who of course can’t run or duck. – <stretcher bearers> certainly of all people have a rotten time and they can’t even hit back. I thought this Flying man a particularly nice man. It was so funny he was saying how irritating it was when his