ered my face with my hands. But they compelled me to drop them, and I received in the left eye a terrific blow. Five followed on the mouth, nose, and left eye. The right eye seemingly was purposely spared so that I could see to get away. Then my pockets were rifled. I happened to raise a hand to the left eye and felt just below where the eye ought to be a circular protuberance about the size of the eyeball. In my dazed condition I entreated: "Please, please, let this be enough! Don't you see you have already knocked one of my eyes out of its socket?"
They now commanded me to turn my back, apparently being convinced my face could stand no more sledge-hammer blows without a murder resulting. The corporal landed several on the skull, and being evidently a congenital criminal, would have probably kept on until I was dead. The sergeant ordered him to desist, but he would not. The sergeant now had to throw himself on the corporal and hold him from me, while he directed me to hurry off the reservation.[1]
Reaching a street, I appealed to some civilians, who assisted me to a hospital. For a half hour my face bled profusely and my clothing became soaked with blood. For weeks afterward blood exuded from the nose. My face was all discolored and swollen beyond recognition. As already stated, a former physician, whom I had met intimately several score of times, happened to be a visiting physician at this hospital, and was one of those who attended me as I lay in bed. But my extreme disfigure-
- ↑ Some years ago the newspapers told of the killing of an androgyne in Boston by soldier associates.
