Page 7 of For This We Are Soldiers
Colm stared in surprise at the huge voice that boomed from an older man of somewhat ordinary dimensions. He wore a suit that could be called flashy—odd in a man of obvious mature years. Colm looked closer. The man’s cravat was a strident shade of green that would give a statue a headache. Stuck through it was a cravat pin in the shape of tragedy and comedy masks.
“Lysander Locke, the Lysander Locke, awaiting your good offices, sir!” the man boomed again. “I do believe I have broken my leg.”
“I … well … let me look.” Colm moved farther into the ambulance.
Colm felt the leg. The man was entirely correct. Lysander Locke’s tibia appeared to be at odds with the world. To his relief, the skin was still intact.
Lysander Locke watched Colm’s gentle prodding with a real air of detachment, even as he sucked in his breath. “Say it isn’t serious and that I can be on my way to Deadwood, where an engagement awaits to performKing Learin three days.”
Colm smiled; he couldn’t help himself. The man spoke in such theatrical tones, with a certain flourish. He was worlds braver than the avulsed ankle resting in the hospital.
“It is most certainly a broken leg, so Shakespeare will have to wait a few weeks.”
Lysander Locke put the back of his hand to his forehead, and closed his eyes. “Young man, the show must go on!”
“Not in the next three days.”
His hand still on the broken leg, Colm took a good look at his patient, doubting that Fort Laramie had ever seen such a man. “Otherwise, how are you?”
“A little shaken, my good man, but none the worse for it,” the man announced. “I am Lysander Locke, late of Drury Lane and Covent Gardens, and a noted tragedian.”
Not one to hide your light under a bushel, Colm thought, amused.
Lysander Locke had an accent, but Colm didn’t think he would have placed it so close to England. But never mind. Here was a man with a broken leg, even though Captain Dilworth had assured him that nothing would happen while he was in Omaha.
The medical department does not pay me enough, Colm thought as he scribbled another note to Ozzie.
“Let’s get up the hill,” he told the driver as he crouched next to his newest patient.
With a passing private’s help, Colm loaded the corpse onto a stretcher and left him in the solitude of the dead house, located behind the hospital and next to his own little quarters. The same stretcher moved Lysander Locke into the hospital’s operating bay, if Colm could call such a place where no one had operated in recent memory.
Thank goodness Ozzie arrived so promptly. Without a word, Colm handed her one of his own aprons, which circled her waist and then some.
“Are you game, Ozzie?” he asked when she stood outside the operating bay, looking indecisive. “We’ll need to cut away his trousers and smallclothes. I don’t want to shock you or anything …”
Maybe this was a stupid idea. Holding patients’ hands was one thing, but asking her to assist an operation quite another. “Or maybe I should do this myself.”
“I’m no shrinking violet, Suh,” was all she said as she crooked her arm through his and towed him into the operating bay.
Indeed she was not. Ozzie did everything he asked, all the while delicately covering the actor with a sheet. Praise all the Saints and the Almighty that the fracture was a simple one. Just the right amount of chloroform on a square of gauze put him out so Colm could go to work, rotating and straightening, comparing the two legs, tinkering until he was satisfied.
“You’re as good as Captain Dilworth,” Ozzie said, holding the leg still while he splinted it. “Probably better. You’ve done a lot of this, haven’t you?”
Maybe he was feeling cocky because the whole matter went so smoothly. Whatever the reason, he told Ozzie about the night on the battlefield five years ago at White Mountain. He had assisted Captain Sternberg, who operated by feel in the dark, because Nez Perce sharpshooters kept targeting their kerosene lamp. “We both worked on that man and saved him, all in the dark,” he concluded, as he finished splinting. Plaster would come later.
“You’re a hero, Suh.”
“Just a hospital steward. Pull him toward you a bit.”
When he finished, they rolled the table into the wardroom. The avulsed ankle and burned forearm watched with some interest as the two of them gently lowered the actor into a bed.
“I’ll sit with him until he comes around,” Colm said. “The matron promised to return with food for him, but I have my doubts.” He looked at the lovely woman beside him, who was watching the actor. “Ozzie, I do need you.”
“Then you have me, Suh,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Chambers will manage.”
“It’ll be more than a night or two,” he said, doubtful again.
“She’ll manage,” she replied so softly, touched his shoulder, and left the ward.
