The soldiers carried him, arms clasped under Bertie’s legs and back, like a human sedan chair. When they finally reached the cottage, the soldiers placed him on the sofa. Susan called for the doctor. The soldiers glanced at each other and slipped outside, driven by Bertie’s reprimands for carrying him against his will or, more likely, when he somehow mustered the strength to snatch his walking stick and attempted to give them a swat. By the time Doctor Collins arrived, Bertie was insisting that he needed to get back to work, despite his inability to stand on his own.

Doctor Collins, a plump man with thick spectacles and small, childlike hands, cleaned the cut on Bertie’s head with a swab and alcohol. He plucked a stethoscope from his bag and listened to Bertie’s chest.

“The bump is here,” Bertie said, pointing to the protuberance on his forehead.

Doctor Collins continued listening to Bertie’s chest, front and back, then removed the stethoscope from his ears. “You may have a concussion.” He coiled up his instrument and looked at Bertie. “And your heart sounds enlarged.”

Susan took a deep breath.

“Nonsense,” Bertie said. “I merely fell and hit my noggin.”

Susan looked at Bertie, his skin still pallid, his clothes stiff with dried mud.

“Were you dizzy before you fell?” the doctor asked.

“No,” he said.

“Light-headed?”

Bertie shook his head.

“I want you to rest,” the doctor said.

“I’ve got work to do,” Bertie said.

Susan stepped to her grandfather. She looked at the doctor, the same physician who had delivered her into the world. When she was a child, he had mended her back to health from an acute case of the whooping cough. “Shouldn’t we go to the hospital?”

Doctor Collins sighed. “Recovering at St. Margaret’s isn’t an option, I’m afraid. The beds are full. More casualties are coming from London every day.”

“I don’t need to go to the bloody hospital,” Bertie said.

The doctor retrieved a bottle from his bag and set it on a stand beside the sofa. “I want you to place one of these under your tongue if you have any chest pain.”

“My heart’s fine.” He tapped the doctor’s leather bag. “But if you have anything in there for dodgy knees, I’ll take it.”

The doctor looked at him. “Hope our boys in the fight have as much tenacity as you, Bertie.”

Susan glanced at the brown bottle with a cork top. It contained minuscule white tablets, like aspirin cut in quarters.

“Nitroglycerin,” Dr. Collins said. “It’s for angina.”

Susan nodded.

“I don’t have angina,” Bertie said. “Nor do I have an enlarged heart. I stepped in a bloody rabbit hole, for God’s sake. If anything, I have wonky legs and a blasted headache from that psychopathic dictator dropping his bombs.”

Doctor Collins placed a hand on Bertie’s shoulder. “Rest.”