Jack Rainbow's Final Amputation Operation

Jack Rainbow’s final amputation operation turns Dorrigo Evans’s medical skill into a contest against the severe shortages of the prisoner-of-war camp. Dorrigo makes one last attempt to save Jack, but the operation’s brief success cannot reverse the damage already done.

Background and Emergency

Jack is brought to the ulcer hut three weeks after Dorrigo amputated higher up his leg because gangrene had developed around an earlier stump. The infection has returned, and Dorrigo concludes that the stitches closing the femoral artery have failed. He orders a tourniquet, then realizes the hut has no such equipment. Instead, he removes his own belt and tightens it around Jack’s thigh, slowing the bleeding enough to begin another operation. The improvised measure establishes the conditions of the attempt: Dorrigo must make urgent decisions without the equipment normally required to carry them out.

The Decision to Operate

Dorrigo decides that another amputation is Jack’s only chance, though the infection has advanced so far that he proposes removing the leg at the hip. Squizzy Taylor challenges the judgment: even in a modern hospital, he says, the procedure would be unlikely to succeed, and the camp’s limited resources make the prospect worse. The disagreement is not over the danger but over whether any chance remains. Dorrigo insists that without an attempt Jack will die, and the men consider what anaesthetic they have available.

The operation depends on improvised methods and a narrow hope of controlling the bleeding. Dorrigo reasons that a tightened tourniquet might slow the flow enough for him to remove the remaining part of the leg, clamp the arteries, and close the wound; he knows Jack will continue to lose blood, but believes the procedure could keep that loss from becoming fatal. Squizzy assists, while Jimmy Bigelow and the orderlies help manage the work. The plan makes Dorrigo’s decision a precarious calculation rather than a confident promise of recovery.

Improvised Technique and Temporary Success

Dorrigo reshapes the remaining tissue to cover the wound and works to prepare the leg for a shorter, more viable stump. With a kitchen meat saw, he carefully removes a small section of bone; to close the femoral artery, he uses coarse gut twine made from pig intestine casings that had been repeatedly cleaned and boiled. The work depends on substitutes assembled in the camp, and on exactness under difficult conditions. When the bleeding finally stops, Dorrigo believes he has succeeded and that Jack will live. He turns to preparing the skin and muscle to cover the bone, then asks Squizzy Taylor to continue cleaning the ulcers gently.

The reprieve does not hold. Blood soon seeps through the wound again, and the stitched tissue swells as the bleeding becomes persistent. Squizzy identifies the possibility Dorrigo does not want to face: the artery stitches may have failed. Dorrigo freezes briefly, then calls for the spoon, returning to the work in an effort to regain control. The operation has shifted from a carefully staged attempt at repair to a renewed emergency, and its first apparent success proves temporary.

The Second Crisis and Its Outcome

The initial control of the bleeding proves short-lived. When blood begins to seep through the wound again and then continues despite the bandaging, Wat Cooney looks to Dorrigo, while Squizzy Taylor identifies the likely cause: the stitches around the femoral artery have given way. Dorrigo pauses, then orders the spoon and returns to the operation. Jimmy Bigelow and Wat Cooney help hold Jack steady as the team tries to manage the renewed bleeding and give Dorrigo access to the artery.

The conditions that had made the procedure precarious now make repair increasingly difficult. Dorrigo struggles to find tissue that can hold another stitch; each attempt fails to secure the artery, and the fading light further complicates the work. Squizzy tries to apply pressure while Dorrigo searches for a way to stop the bleeding. Jack’s movements eventually subside, and he speaks briefly to Dorrigo, saying that he is cold. Dorrigo continues working, still trying to find a point where the artery can be secured.

At last Dorrigo manages to suture the artery. The technical task is completed, but the outcome has already become irreversible: when he lifts his head, he understands that Jack has been dead for several minutes, and that the others had not known how to tell him. The episode ends not with a failure of effort or a lack of resolve, but with the gap between completing a procedure and saving the person for whom it was undertaken. The brief earlier success had offered Dorrigo a reason to hope; the final repair cannot undo the delay and repeated loss of blood that preceded it.