Elise cleared her throat as she prepared to lean forward and touch the leg. “Good idea. Get the broom, it’ll be the straightest length of timber we have.”

Elise looked at Harry, hoping he would give her more instructions. She didn’t usually like being told what to do, but in this case she was as good as blind.

“Give him the alcohol first,” Harry said. “Before you touch him again.”

She leaned forward and cupped the back of his head, but his arms started to flail around then and she only just ducked out of the way before he connected with her, his fists flying.

“I need to surrender! Let me go!” he cried.

It was the liveliest he’d been, and Elise had no idea what to do with a violent patient—or any patient for that matter.

Harry was by her side almost immediately, gripping the table with both hands as he inched forward. She didn’t even know what his injuries were, but she wasn’t about to scold him for moving when she needed his help.

“Peter, that’s enough!” he said, grabbing hold of his friend’s arm as it flailed once again. “She’s trying to help you!”

“Should I just start?” Elise asked, not even sure what to start with.

“Pass me the bottle,” he said. “We need to get a good few slugs of this into him first, to help with the pain.”

“Surrender! I surrender!” Peter cried, and Elise was tempted to slap her hand over his face to keep him quiet, worried that if there was anyone lurking outside they’d hear him. What if they thought she was the one stopping him from surrendering to the Nazis?

“You need to find a way to stop him from yelling,” she said.

“You want me to knock him out?”

Elise didn’t reply. Instead, she took a deep breath and placed her hands on Peter’s leg, surprised at how little blood there was despite such a gory break. She did her best to straighten it, hating how flimsy and weak the limb felt, when it should have been so strong.

“Argh!” The yell was loud and fast, and then suddenly there was silence.

She looked up and into Harry’s eyes.

“Well, look at that. You knocked him out all by yourself,” he said.

Elise’s stomach turned as she touched the bone, wanting to work fast now that he was unconscious, hating that she’d caused him so much pain he’d blacked out. When he woke up, he was possibly going to be in even more pain than before, though, and she didn’t want to still be working on him.