Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Take it easy turning around and then just head back to your chair. You’re on your own now.’

She bent under the bar and stood with the man. You shuffled around and noticed how clumsy I was when I wasn’t walking forward. I bumped into the right leg and then caught up against it. You were stuck on one foot, my toe trapped behind the pylon of the other leg. You couldn’t get me free.

‘Do you need a hand?’ she said.

‘I should be okay.’ Your lips were pursed. You looked down and tried to move me as if I was yours but couldn’t. I was odd and clumsy and you struggled to animate me, your brain sending signals to muscles that no longer existed, and I wouldn’t do what you wanted.

You pulled me free with an exaggerated jerk of your knee. I flicked out and swung around and you nearly fell but grabbed the parallel bars and breathed out with a whistle.

‘Well done,’ she said.

‘That was close,’ the man who had made me added. ‘You’re already getting the hang of it, though. It’s good stuff, Tom.’

We shuffled back along the bars to the chair and you carefully lowered yourself into it.

The man ducked back under the bars and pushed his Allen key into one of my bolts and you felt it twist through me. ‘I just want to turn your foot out a bit,’ he said and loosened a bolt and then another. He adjusted my foot.

‘Thanks,’ you said. ‘That looks better.’

‘How did everything else feel?’ he asked.

‘It slightly feels like I’m falling over the front of the foot, if that makes any sense?’

‘Okay, try this.’ He rotated another of my bolts and the toe of my foot dropped.

‘The above-knee side should be fine at the moment. We’ve got it on the most stable settings. As you get better we can make it a bit more dynamic.’

You stood again and they watched you walk slowly up and down the bars. She told you not to overdo it but you wanted to keep going. Once you didn’t lift me high enough and I scuffed the floor and nearly tripped you over. She told you to concentrate on taking evenly spaced steps, to keep your back straight and think about engaging the muscles in your bottom.

Your knee started to shake in me and you sweated as your back ached and you felt dizzy. You saw how red your face was in the mirror. The pain that had been masked by concentration started to swell and you collapsed in your chair and said you’d had enough.

She sat on a stool next to you. ‘Well done, Tom. A good start. When do you next go home?’

‘End of the week,’ you said, then pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to her.

‘Great, we’ve got three more sessions. Looks like you’re almost ready to come out of the bars. Then you can take them home and practise.’

‘It was great to be upright. It made me feel so much more human.’

You pulled off the other leg and then me and propped us against the wall. The relief from the pressure throbbed painfully and you rubbed your hand up and down your thigh and removed the foam insert from your stump. Underneath, the bottom of the sock was bright red against the white cloth.

‘Blimey,’ she said and looked down at the end of the stump as a drip of blood fell onto the carpet. ‘Did you feel that happening?’

‘Not a clue,’ you said. ‘I don’t have much feeling at the end of the stump.’

‘Take off the sock and let’s have a look. I’ll just get a bag.’

You peeled the sock off your knee and the sodden end flopped off your skin. Blood had flattened your hairs and squelched them up around the stump. ‘Shit. That’s not good, is it?’ you said.

‘Mike, you’d better come and look at this.’ She held out a plastic bag and you dropped the sock into it. She knelt in front and looked at your stump. ‘It’s bled quite a lot.’

‘What do you think?’ you said. ‘It’s the wound that’s taken ages to heal, but I thought it was nearly there. Seems to have opened up again. Will it stop me from walking?’

‘I’ll mark where it is on the inside of the socket,’ the man said, ‘and we’ll see if we can make a bit of room to accommodate the area.’

He picked me up and ran his hand down the inside of me, then took a ruler and measured the position of a dome of blood that was slowly forming into a new drip on the front of your stump. He held a ruler in me and drew a round circle with a blue marker. ‘It’s about there,’ he said. ‘I reckon if I make a space, it’ll allow more room for the scarring.’

He took me to the workshop again and ground down my surface to create a cavity that would keep me from pressing too hard against your wounds. And then he carried me back to you.

‘Don’t let it get you down, Tom,’ she was saying. ‘That’s pretty normal. These things take time, and a little bleeding can actually improve healing in the long term.’

‘So I can stay at it,’ you said.

‘Of course. We’ll keep an eye on it. You’ll need to be careful because you can’t feel it, but it’s only surface scarring that’s been damaged.’

‘I made some space in the socket,’ he said, handing me to you.

You ran your hand over my plastic and the new gap he’d carved out. ‘Thanks, Mike.’

‘Best get that seen to upstairs, Tom. One of the nurses will cover it for you.’

‘Thanks, Kat. See you tomorrow,’ you said.

*

I was left next to my pair, propped against the wall with all the other legs. You came back the next morning and sat on the bed and looked at me across the room. You were tired and ached. You felt around your stump at the scab that had formed over night. You’d been healing so well and I’d opened you up again to the elements and the chance of infection. You worried about regressing.

She walked in and rubbed alcohol gel on her hands from a dispenser on the wall. ‘Hi, Tom. How did you sleep?’

‘Bit stiff this morning. I can definitely feel it in my back.’

‘You’ve spent the last ten weeks in bed and a wheelchair, so your body will take some time to adjust,’ she said. ‘Right, let’s get them on.’

You pulled me on and hoped I wouldn’t damage you again. You walked me along the bars and managed a few steps without holding on. She handed you two black walking sticks that wobbled under the pressure you leant through them. She told you to come out of the bars and you shuffled a slow circuit of the room, concentrating all the time on controlling me. And then you felt a wetness in me and around the skin of your stump. It was cold and even though it didn’t hurt, you knew I was pressing in against the scab and making you bleed again. You tried to ignore it, shuffling on as she gave instructions.

*

They were pleased with how you’d united with me. The next weekend they let you take me home and told you to practise each day. You showed me to your family and described all my various parts. They were happy for you and saw your excitement. They said how amazing I was, but you didn’t put me on.

You lay on a bed that was downstairs and stared at me propped against the sofa, thinking how unfair it was that for you to progress, I had to damage you. You looked down at the scab that was so small on your stump but caused so much anxiety. What if it became infected and you had to go back to hospital? You couldn’t bear to be a broken body in hospital again with them all looking down at you. You rolled over and ignored me.

When you got back to the centre she asked how much you’d used me at home. You lied to her. She told you to put me on again and during the following weeks you improved. The feeling of achievement and progress started to overcome the anxiety. There were others at the centre and you wanted to be the best, measuring yourself against them and sacrificing your stump to be quicker and more nimble.