Remove the dressings, please, nurse," the house doctor said to Miss Gage.
Miss Gage removed the dressings.
I looked down at the legs.
At the field hospital they had the look of not too freshly ground hamburger steak.
Now they were crusted and the knee was swollen and discolored and the calf sunken but there was no pus.
"Very clean," said the house doctor.
"Very clean and nice."
"Urn," said the doctor with the beard.
The third doctor looked over the house doctor's shoulder.
"Please move the knee," said the bearded doctor.
"I can't."
"Test the articulation?" the bearded doctor questioned.
He had a stripe beside the three stars on his sleeve.
That meant he was a first captain.
"Certainly," the house doctor said.
Two of them took hold of my right leg very gingerly and bent it.
"That hurts," I said.
"Yes. Yes.
A little further, doctor."
"That's enough.
That's as far as it goes," I said.
"Partial articulation," said the first captain.
He straightened up. "May I see the plates again, please, doctor?" The third doctor handed him one of the plates. "No.
The left leg, please."
"That is the left leg, doctor."
"You are right.
I was looking from a different angle." He returned the plate.
The other plate he examined for some time. "You see, doctor?" he pointed to one of the foreign bodies which showed spherical and clear against the light.
They examined the plate for some time.
"Only one thing I can say," the first captain with the beard said. "It is a question of time.
Three months, six months probably."
"Certainly the synovial fluid must re-form."
"Certainly.
It is a question of time.
I could not conscientiously open a knee like that before the projectile was encysted."
"I agree with you, doctor."
"Six months for what?" I asked.
"Six months for the projectile to encyst before the knee can be opened safely."
"I don't believe it," I said.
"Do you want to keep your knee, young man?"
"No," I said.
"What?"
"I want it cut off," I said, "so I can wear a hook on it."
"What do you mean?
A hook?"
"He is joking," said the house doctor. He patted my shoulder very delicately. "He wants to keep his knee.
This is a very brave young man.
He has been proposed for the silver medal of valor."
"All my felicitations," said the first captain.
He shook my hand. "I can only say that to be on the safe side you should wait at least six months before opening such a knee.