Thigh: Rifle: Straight Through

The round clipped the great vessel and cracked the femur on its way out, and now the leg is doing two dying things at once. A tourniquet goes on above the wound, a splint below, and the doctor talks in the low voice they save for next of kin.

• Tourniquet and splint together; moved only on a stretcher or a door taken off its hinges
• Bedridden 7 days, the first two touch-and-go, pale, cold, drifting
• No standing at all; the bone shifts if you try and the bleeding starts fresh
• /me lies on the table white as the sheet, one leg splinted and strapped, breath coming shallow.

Recovery 7 days flat on your back under a doctor who sleeps in the next room; alone, the leg or the life goes first.·Doctor, urgently

The entry is a neat blue hole; the exit is a blown-open crater you could set a fist in, meat turned inside out where the round left at full speed. The doctor packs it by the yard and stops counting sutures somewhere past thirty.

• Exit packed and bound thigh-round; dressing soaks through twice daily for 4 days
• Crutch for 6 days, the ruined muscle will not hold your weight
• Light-headed from blood loss the first day; no standing without a shoulder to lean on

Recovery 6 days with a doctor repacking the crater daily, 7-plus and proud flesh if it's left to a bar rag.·Doctor, urgently

The round plowed a furrow along the thigh bone itself before exiting, and you heard it, a sound like a boot heel dragged across slate, felt in your teeth. The bone holds, barely, but it screams under any weight.

• Splinted thigh; no weight on the leg for 5 days, crutch through day 7
• Deep bone-ache that laudanum only argues with, worst at night
• Any fall or twist risks finishing the crack, no horses, no stairs without help

Recovery 7 days splinted with a doctor minding the bone; walk on it early and you'll hear that slate sound again.·Doctor, urgently

The round's passing shocked the muscle a full inch beyond the channel, and over two days that meat dies quietly and starts to smell like it. The doctor trims the gray away with scissors at each dressing, chasing the living edge, muttering about gangrene like a prayer said backwards.

• Daily debridement for 5 days, the scissors hurt worse than the bullet did
• Low fever and a foul sweet smell off the dressing until day 3
• Heavy limp for 7 days; the thigh is losing meat it will take months to rebuild
• /me holds dead still, jaw set, while the doctor snips gray flesh from the wound by lamplight.

Recovery 6 days if the trimming stays ahead of the rot, else the word amputation enters the room.·Doctor, urgently

The channel through the muscle is honest enough, but the exit tore wide as the round left, a ragged star of skin and meat. It takes the doctor an hour of silk sutures to fold the star closed, and the map of it will read on your thigh forever.

• Exit stitched in a star; hard flexing tears it, so stiff-legged walking for 5 days
• Crutch for 3 days, cane for 2 more
• A puckered star-shaped scar coming, big as a poker chip

Recovery 5 days if a doctor set the sutures, 7 if it was laced up like a boot by a friend.·Doctor required

The round went through clean, but its passing slapped the whole thigh like a thunderclap in the meat, by morning the leg is one black-purple bruise from hip to knee and swollen tight against the trouser seam. The holes are the least of it.

• Thigh swollen drum-tight; trouser leg split or cut to fit for 3 days
• Leg lifts slow and weak, mounting a horse is a two-hand, two-friend job for 4 days
• No running or jumping for 6 days; the bruised muscle tears easy

Recovery 5 days with rest and hot cloths, 7 working through it and wincing every step.·Doctor required

The round passed a hair from the big nerve and the shock of it struck the whole trunk line dumb. The wound itself behaves, but your foot drags and slaps the boards when you walk, and it will not lift its toes on command for days.

• Dropped foot, toe catches on thresholds and stirrups; walk with a cane for 4 days
• Numb stripe down the shin; check the boot for stones you cannot feel
• No rooflines, ladders or narrow planks for 5 days
• /me walks with a slow hitching slap of one boot, watching the ground like it owes an explanation.

Recovery Feeling and command crawl back over 4 days resting, 6 if you keep forcing the leg.·Doctor required

Two big holes and a fast round make for fast bleeding, and you left a quart of yourself on the ground before anyone got a bandage cinched. Nothing vital is cut; there's just a good deal less of you than there was at breakfast.

• Dizzy on standing for 2 days, the room swims and your ears ring
• Doctor's orders: beef, liver, stout and iron tonic; no exertion for 3 days
• Both holes bound tight; limp for 5 days

Recovery 4 days of red meat and rest with a tonic, 6 on trail coffee and stubbornness.·Doctor required

Straight through the outer thigh, missing bone and vessel, but a rifle makes a bigger tunnel than any pistol, and the doctor can pass a wick of gauze clean through and see lamplight moving behind the meat. Kind, by rifle standards. Only by rifle standards.

• Channel wicked with carbolic gauze, drawn and changed daily for 4 days
• Pronounced limp for 4 days; no running
• Both holes leave proper scars, entry a dot, exit a thumbprint

Recovery 4 days doctored, 6 without and a fever scare in the middle.·Doctor required

You heard the crack and were on the ground before the pain arrived, the round went through so fast the meat hardly knew to bleed at first. The channel is narrow and true, though the exit still needed four stitches to hold a civil shape.

• Delayed deep ache sets in by nightfall and stays 3 days
• Four stitches at the exit; no hard riding for 3 days
• /me looks down at the two holes in the trouser leg, still working out the order events happened in.

Recovery 3 days with a carbolic wash, 5 without.·Doctor advised

The channel runs through the front of the thigh, square through the muscle that straightens the knee. Standing is fine, walking passes, but kneeling or squatting pulls the channel end to end like a rope through a fresh burn.

• No kneeling, squatting or crouching behind cover for 4 days
• Stairs taken one at a time, good leg first, like an old man at church
• Stitches at both holes; check them after any hard day for 3 days

Recovery 4 days if you keep off your knees, 6 if your work won't let you.·Doctor advised

The round hit so fast it drove the trouser cloth clean through the channel and spat it out the far side stuck to the exit, the doctor finds the plug of wool hanging in the wound's mouth like a cork half-pulled. Ugly to look at, but the channel came out cleaner for it.

• Both holes washed and plugged; dressing changed daily for 3 days
• Moderate limp for 3 days; saddle at a walk only
• The exit scar will carry a story about the cleanest dirty wound the doctor ever saw

Recovery 3 days doctored, 5 on your own, better odds than most rifle holes deserve.·Doctor advised

The round missed the femur by a whisker, but its shock wave didn't, the bone took the knock like a struck bell and aches all the way through. Every step lands like a hammer swung from inside the leg.

• Deep bone-ache on every step for 4 days; cane recommended
• Weight-bearing hurts most first thing in the morning and last at night
• No jumping down from wagons, fences or horses for 4 days

Recovery 4 days with rest and willow-bark tea, 5 regardless, bones keep their own calendar.·Doctor advised

Fired from far enough that the round had shed its worst manners, it passed through the outer meat and out again without the usual rifle spite. Two holes, one clean channel, and a doctor who almost looks disappointed.

• Slight limp for 2 days
• Both holes plastered; keep them dry for 3 days

Recovery 2 days with a wash, 4 without.·No doctor needed

It caught the outer rim of the thigh muscle, in and out through two inches of meat at the very edge of you. It burned going through like a poker laid flat, and that was the whole performance.

• Stings on every long stride for 2 days; barely a limp
• Two small scars to come, an inch apart, neat as buttonholes
• /me favors the outside of one leg, the wince showing only on the long steps.

Recovery 2 days, doctored or not.·No doctor needed

The round was tumbling when it arrived, it ripped a keyhole-shaped gouge through the shallow meat and wobbled off somewhere less lucky. Looks like the devil's own work, sits shallower than a bad shave.

• Ugly ragged gouge that photographs worse than it feels; dressed for 3 days
• Tender to the touch for 3 days; no trouble walking by the second

Recovery 3 days for the ragged edges to knit, 4 without a wash.·Doctor advised

The round took a finger's width of flesh off the side of your thigh, through and gone before the sound caught up. It bled enough to look heroic and did nothing that a bandage and two days won't answer.

• Shallow furrow bound with a strip of clean cloth; change it once a day for 2 days
• A thin straight scar coming, like a ruled pencil line

Recovery 2 days, and you'll forget which leg by the fourth.·No doctor needed

The round passed clean along the seam between the muscle groups, parting them like a comb through hair without cutting either, missing bone and vessel by the width of a bootlace. The doctor probes it twice and then just laughs.

• Stiff and bruised along one line of the thigh for a day
• Two small holes and a medical anecdote the doctor will dine out on longer than you will

Recovery A day of stiffness, sound the morning after.·No doctor needed

The round took the loose cloth of your trouser and a pinch of skin with it, through and gone. There's a burn line across your outer thigh like a lash mark and a hole in the wool you could whistle through.

• Stinging welt for a day; sitting in a hot bath will remind you
• /me pokes two fingers through the bullet holes in the trouser leg and wiggles them at the room.

Recovery A day, and the trousers are past praying for.·No doctor needed

The round passed through a pinched fold of skin at a dead sprint and buried itself in the canteen slung against your hip, which burst like a shot bird. Everyone saw you soaked dark and falling and swore you were killed, you stood up dripping water, not blood, holding the holed canteen over your head.

• A stinging pinch-track across the thigh, two scabs and no limp at all
• One murdered canteen with entry and no exit, the round still rattles inside it
• /me shakes the canteen next to a doubter's ear so the rifle round rattles like a dime in a church plate.

Recovery By morning it's just an itch; the canteen hangs on the wall for good.·No doctor needed