Foot: Rifle: Straight Through

The rifle round hit your midfoot square and the shock did the rest, metatarsals blown to gravel, the exit through the sole wide as a fist, the arch collapsed into the wreck. The doctor looks a long time by lamplight and says there is nothing in there left to splint.

• Bedridden 7 days on morphine, the foot a splinted ruin that soaks its dressings daily
• /me stares at the ceiling beams while the doctor mutters over what is left to save
• Whatever is saved never bears full weight again, peg, crutch or a built-up boot for life

Recovery 7 days between laudanum and the lamp with a surgeon; without one, gangrene finishes the round's work·Doctor, urgently

In through the top of the foot no wider than a dime, out through the sole in a crater you could set a fist in. The high round shocked the meat around the channel dead-white, and the doctor trims the edges like spoiled bacon before he dares pack it.

• No weight on the foot for 6 days; the sole wound tears open at any pressure
• Packing pulled and replaced daily, the worst minute of every day
• A puckered crater scar in the sole that changes how the foot lands

Recovery 7 days under a doctor's packing and carbolic, and it does not close at all without one·Doctor, urgently

The round cracked a metatarsal in passing and drove slivers of your own bone out through the exit ahead of it. The doctor works the channel with forceps by feel, drawing bone splinters one by one and laying them in a row on the table like lucifer matches.

• Foot splinted to a board; no weight for 5 days
• Splinters keep surfacing in the wound for 2 days after
• /me counts the row of bone slivers on the table so they will not have to look at the foot

Recovery 6 days splinted with a doctor's care, 12 crooked and festering without·Doctor, urgently

The holes looked clean, too clean. The high round shocks the meat beyond its path, and on the second day the flesh around the channel goes grey and quiet, and the doctor must cut back to bleeding red before the rot can settle in.

• Two trips to the table: the wound, then the trimming
• Off the foot for 5 days; wound left open to drain
• A wide, sunken scar where the dead flesh was cut away

Recovery 6 days with a doctor watching it daily, and a gangrene deathwatch if nobody does·Doctor, urgently

The round drilled your instep top to sole, missing every bone by the grace of a flexed foot. Clean holes both sides, but the shock of it bruised the whole foot black to the ankle, and it swells like bread dough by evening.

• Crutch or cane for 4 days; the foot fits no boot
• Foot propped high each night to beat the swelling down
• Bruising in colors you have no names for, ankle to toes

Recovery 4 days elevated and tended, 8 swollen and limping if not·Doctor required

The round never touched the bone, it did not have to. The crack of its passing split a metatarsal like a dry branch, and the doctor finds the break with two fingers while the bullet holes themselves are barely worth his silk.

• Foot splinted flat for 5 days; walking on the heel only, with a cane
• The holes heal in days; the crack aches for the week
• /me eases the splinted foot toward the stirrup and thinks better of it

Recovery 5 days splinted with care, 9 and a crooked heal without·Doctor required

The exit blew the sole half off your boot and took a strip of your own sole's skin with it. The channel through the foot's edge is clean, but the doctor flushes carbolic through it end to end, and the raw sole underneath makes every step a bargain.

• Walk on the heel and outside edge for 4 days
• Raw skin on the sole weeps through its dressing for 2 days
• Boot beyond saving; its sole flaps like a landed fish

Recovery 4 days dressed daily, 7 hobbling if you tough it out·Doctor required

The round passed through and the shock of it struck the nerves dumb, below the ankle your foot is a wooden thing that belongs to somebody else. Feeling crawls back next day as pins and needles, then as fire, and you almost miss the numbness.

• A full day walking on a foot you cannot feel, turned ankles come easy
• 2 days of burning pins and needles as the nerves wake
• /me stamps the numb foot on the boards, frowning, feeling nothing at all

Recovery 3 days for feeling to settle with a doctor's say-so, 6 uneasy days without·Doctor required

Through the meat at the edge of your arch, in and out, no bone in its road. But a rifle round leaves a toll even where it misses, deep bruising blooms along the whole arch by morning, black as a hoofprint.

• Limp on a cane for 3 days; arch too bruised for a stirrup
• Holes plugged with carbolic lint, changed daily

Recovery 3 days tended, 6 favoring it without·Doctor advised

The round bored through the meat of your heel, quick and hot, missing the bone within a straw's width. Two neat holes and a heel that refuses all weight for days, as if it knows how close it came.

• Tiptoe and cane for 3 days; heel bandaged in a fat wad
• A deep heel ache every cold morning this week

Recovery 3 days off the heel with care, 5 without·Doctor advised

Through the outer meat of the foot at full speed, so fast and true the channel is straight as a drilled plank, its walls half-seared by the round's own heat. The doctor runs a carbolic swab through, nods once, and says he has paid money for worse work.

• A steady limp for 2 days; no running or rough ground
• /me shows off the matching holes to anyone who will buy the next round

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's swab, 4 if you keep it clean yourself·Doctor advised

A shallow channel through the foot's edge, in and out in a blink, but a rifle round bruises what it does not touch. By next noon the whole top of your foot is one green-black stain, alarming to look at and duller to live with.

• Boot laced loose over the swelling for 2 days
• The bruise draws more comment than the bullet holes do

Recovery 2 days rested, 4 if you keep it in a tight boot·Doctor advised

It caught your foot at a steep slant and left in a hurry, a short channel through the outside edge, in and out inside two inches. It burns like a brand, bleeds like a nosebleed, and mends like neither.

• A light limp for 2 days, worse on stairs and slopes
• Two scabs a hand's width apart that pull with every step

Recovery 2 days dressed, 3 alone·Doctor advised

The round dove under the skin on top of your foot and surfaced two inches on, fast as a fish, leaving a raised welt of shocked skin between two small holes. It looks weeks old by the second day.

• Tender under the bootlaces for 2 days
• The welted track peels like sunburn as it heals

Recovery 2 days with salve, 3 without·No doctor needed

Through the flesh just behind your little toe, a passage so quick the round's own heat half-sealed it. A sting, a trickle, and a small stiff spot where a bullet went through and hardly signed its name.

• Outside of the foot tender for a day; boots pinch a little
• Little toe drags a bruise for 3 days

Recovery A day or 2, washed and wrapped·No doctor needed

In and out through the rim of your foot so fast that both holes are small, scorched and nearly bloodless, two coin-sized burns more than wounds. The doctor would charge you more for the chair than the treatment.

• Scorched skin around each hole flakes for 2 days
• A scab by supper, a shrug by breakfast

Recovery A day of smart, little more·No doctor needed

The round clipped through the shallowest rind of flesh at your foot's edge, gone before the pain arrived. When it did arrive it was a hornet's worth, no more, and the bleeding gave up before the shouting stopped.

• A plaster over the graze-tunnel for a day
• Sock ruined; step barely changed

Recovery A day, if that·No doctor needed

Your foot was flexed on the ground when the round passed clean through the hollow under your arch, through the gap, brushing skin at both edges, leaving a red weal you can trace with a finger. An inch of flatter footing and it would have been bone.

• A stinging red stripe under the arch for a day
• You flex the foot and grin every time you retell it

Recovery Hours, the mark fades before the story does·No doctor needed

The round split your boot sole lengthwise like a plow through sod and passed on, leaving a hot red line across the bottom of your foot and a boot that talks when you walk. The skin never broke.

• A welt across the sole, tender on gravel for a day
• /me lifts the boot to show daylight through the split sole

Recovery Nothing to heal but the leather·No doctor needed

The round punched through both walls of your boot a whisker ahead of your toes and never touched you, you feel the tug, hear the leather crack, and count all ten toes twice by the fire that night. You wiggle your bare toes through the two holes for the crowd, and nobody buys their own drinks.

• Not a mark on you; the boot wears both medals
• A tale that gets an inch closer to your toes each telling
• /me pokes two toes out through the bullet holes and waggles them at the doubters

Recovery No wound at all, just cobbler's fees and glory·No doctor needed