The doctor looked at him incredulously. “Are you asking me to explain the inner workings of Bulldog Austin’s mind?” He went on to say that General Austin thought it would be better if Sergeant Clare were seen as unfit to fight, therefore he was to be fitted with a steel leg brace that went from his upper thigh down to his ankle. At the knee was
a four-inch round hinge that could be loosened or tightened with the use of an Allen wrench with an odd screw pattern.
Ten minutes later, David was on the table, and a medic was clamping the torturous brace onto his leg.
“Don’t lose this,” the medic said, holding up the little L-shaped tool. “Lose this and the only way that thing comes off is with a hacksaw.”
There was some padding between his skin and the steel of the brace, but the fabric was worn and frayed, the cotton batting sticking out in places. “You couldn’t find a worse one than this?” David asked. “Maybe something a little older, a little more beat up?”
“Naw,” the medic said, grinning, “that’s the worst one we had. It was left over from the last war.”
“Would that be the Civil War or the French and Indian?”
“War of the Roses,” said an English soldier passing through. “That thing was probably handmade over a forge. I bet there’s chain mail under there.”
“I’ll donate it to one of your museums,” David called out after the man. “One of them we’ve saved for you guys.”
The Englishman’s laugher floated back to him.
“All right,” the medic said, “let’s see how well you can walk in it.”
David turned on the table and gingerly put one foot on the floor, then the other. As he took a couple of steps in the brace, it was worse than he thought. It was heavy, confining, and the hinge moved only half as much as his knee did. “What the hell—!” David said as he lifted his leg. He could bend his knee only a few inches.
“Sorry about that,” the medic said, but he was smiling. No soldier felt sorry for the man who was going to get to spend two days with Miss Harcourt. The medic inserted the Allen key into three inset screws on the hinge and rotated them about a quarter of an inch. The hinge loosened and David could bend his knee.
“I hate this thing,” David said as he tried walking in it.
“Be glad you don’t need it for real,” said a voice behind him.
“Lord deliver me from do-gooders. You want to put this damned thing on—Oh! Sorry, Reverend,” David said. “I didn’t mean—” He didn’t know what to say.
The reverend was smiling. “I’ve been called worse than a ‘do gooder.’ I believe there’s a car waiting for you outside and a young lady you’re to pick up.”
“Yeah,” David muttered, wanting to curse the brace and especially General Austin for making him wear the damned thing. One of the men said it was a chastity belt, that David had to wear it to make sure he didn’t touch the general’s precious secretary.
They’d all waited for David to make a smart reply to that, something about his leg not being the part he planned to use, but David said nothing. He didn’t want anything bad he said to get back to Miss Harcourt.
It was impossible to wrestle himself into the trousers of his uniform, so the medic got him a pair that were two sizes larger. To hold them up, his belt made deep wrinkles in the waistband. So much for looking good to impress the most beautiful woman in the world, he thought.
David was further dismayed when he saw the car the general had sent for their use. It was an old Chrysler, and by the sound of the engine, worn out. He wondered if it was made the same year as the leg brace.
It took several tries to get the car started, and he wished he had half a day to work on the engine, but he didn’t. When he got it started, he found that even the steering was off. To make matters worse, the car was English right-hand drive, so that everything was on the opposite side of what he was used to. All in all, the car was a danger to drive.
She was waiting for him, standing on the curb, and he could feel the eyes of the men around them on him.
If possible, Miss Harcourt looked even more rigid than she usually did. Her dark hair was pulled back so tight it looked as though it were painted on, and her wool suit was stiff enough to have been carved out of wood. At her feet was a small brown suitcase, and from her shoulder hung her handbag and a black leather case that she was clasping as though it were a safe full of jewels.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it, Miss Harcourt?” he said as he opened the front passenger door for her.
When she opened the back door and got in, David heard the laughter of what sounded like a hundred men, but he didn’t look up.
It was hard to drive with the long brace on his leg. Pushing a clutch in as he shifted gears caused him pain at every move. Already, the padding had slipped to one side, and he could feel the steel rubbing his skin raw. If he had any sense, he’d pull the car to the side of the road and adjust the padding. But he glanced at Miss Harcourt in the rearview mirror, saw that her beautiful face was set, as though she knew he was about to do something awful, so he grit his teeth and tried to ignore the pain.
“I was told you know the way,” he said, glancing at her in the mirror.
She gave a brief nod, but that was her only acknowledgment that she heard him.
“Do you think you could share those directions with me?”