“Your mos’ obedient servant, madam.” Sergeant Jackson didn’t rise, but rolled heavily up on one elbow and bowed as deeply as possible to me, eyes wary. He had quite an odd accent: English, but with something softer mixed in.
“How nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson,” I said, looking him over. The reason for his immobility was obvious: his right leg was broken and he was pale as suet. It was a nasty-looking compound fracture, with the jagged end of his tibia protruding through his woolen stocking. Someone had taken his boot off.
“How long ago did this happen?” I asked Jamie, taking hold of the sergeant’s ankle and feeling for the fibula just above the joint. There was bleeding from the torn flesh, but it was only oozing now; the stocking was soaked with blood, but it was rusty at the edges; not that fresh.
Jamie glanced out the window; the clouds were beginning to part, and a sullen red glow lit their edges.
“Maybe two hours. I gave him whisky,” he added, with a nod at the empty cup near the corporal’s hand. “For the shock, aye?”
“I thank you, sir,” the sergeant said. “It was mos’ helpful.” He was gray as a ghost and his face was slick with sweat, but he was awake and alert. His eyes fixed on my hands, one moving slowly up his shin, the other feeling his calf gently. His breath jerked as I touched a spot on his calf an inch or two below the level of the protruding tibia.
“Your fibula’s fractured as well,” I informed him. “Hand me those scissors, will you, Jamie? And give him another tot, but mixed half and half with water. How did this happen, Corporal?”
He didn’t relax as I cut the stocking off—he was thin and rangy, and I could see the muscles in his leg clenched tight—but he took in a little more air, and nodded thanks to Jamie for the fresh tot.
“Fell off my horse, madam,” he said. “’Twas frightened by a … pig.”
I looked up at him, surprised at the hesitation. He saw my look, grimaced, and amplified his answer.
“A right big pig. Nevah have I seen one so big.”
“’Twas,” Jamie agreed. “Not the White Sow herself, but one of her spawn for sure; a boar. It’s in the smoke shed,” he added, with a jerk of his head toward the back of the house. “No a wasted journey,” he added. His eyes were resting on Corporal Jackson’s face, his own expression calm, but I could feel the calculation going on behind those eyes.
I rather thought the corporal could, too; I hadn’t started doing anything overtly painful to his leg, but the hand not holding the whisky cup was clenched in a loose fist, and the wary look with which he’d greeted me hadn’t changed by a hair.
“Is Fanny in the house?” I said to Jamie. “I’ll need help to set and bandage this leg.”
“I’ll help ye, Sassenach,” he said, rising and turning toward my cupboards. “Tell me what ye need.”
I gave him a narrow look and he looked straight back, calmly implacable. He wasn’t leaving me alone with a man who was technically an enemy, no matter how incapacitated.
I was torn between minor irritation and an undeniable sense of relief. It was the relief that bothered me.
“Fine,” I said shortly, and he smiled. Then I paused, a question striking me.
“Jamie—will you come with me for a moment? You’ll be all right here, Mr. Jackson. Don’t move too much.” Corporal Jackson lifted sketchy eyebrows at me, but nodded.
I took Jamie back into the kitchen, closing the baize door that separated it from the front of the house.
“What are you planning to do with him?” I asked bluntly. “I mean—is he your prisoner?” I’d been planning to set the leg, bandage it, and then do what was called in this time the Basra method—augmented by my own small innovations. In essence, light—though fragile—plaster-of-Paris-soaked bandages wound over a stocking and padding （dried moss was all I had at the moment that would answer, but it worked well enough） that would immobilize the limb but let the corporal move about, with a cane and some care. But if Jamie needed him to be immobilized, I would just realign the bones, dress the wounds, and splint the limb.
“No,” he said slowly, frowning in thought. “I canna easily keep him prisoner, and there’s nay purpose in it. I ken well enough what Ulysses means to do, because he told me himself. Holding his man wouldna sway him an inch.”
“Will he come back for Mr. Jackson, do you think? I mean—he’s a British army officer now.”