He sat. He took the shirt off. She cut the old dressing away and looked underneath it, and her face went very flat.
"You've torn it open. You've torn the whole thing open. You had *three stitches* in that and you've torn every one of them." She got a clean pair of gloves on and a tray from the trolley beside her. "I told you. I told you on the road. I *told* you."
"I know you did."
"Then why—"
She stopped. She looked past him at the other stretchers in the barn, the ones still waiting. She did not finish it. She got the tray onto her knee and started cleaning the wound, quickly, without saying anything else.
James and Finn stood behind her.
"Are you two going to stand there all night?" said Ruth, not turning round. "Because I've enough people in here already who need me and you're not one of them. Go and be useful. Somewhere else."
Finn laughed and went.
James went with him.
---
On the way out of the barn he looked at the faces.
