He had been chasing a criminal and called back to me to hurry up. It had been this unfortunate moment that Holmes had tripped over a pile of spare wood. His foot became caught in between the logs and, though his body continued moving, his leg remained quite firmly in place. I heard the deafening "Snap!" of a breaking bone and the yell of pain as I watched, mere feet behind Holmes. I managed to catch him as he crumpled to the ground.
I hollered over my shoulder at the police to continue after the criminal. As one of the lads passed, I told him to call a cab with room for Holmes's leg. I looked at my friend and saw that his face had gone from pale to colourless. He was going into shock! I gently rolled up his pant leg only to see the offending bone protruding from his shin. It was a nasty break, a clean one, thankfully, though what I had to do next would undoubtedly cause Holmes to lose consciousness. I decided to wait until we returned to Baker Street to snap the bone back into alignment.
Holmes was whimpering, huffing and puffing. "It's all right, old boy. You just squeeze my hand now. The pain will get better soon, I promise." It was a lie, but it was all I could offer, at the moment. I looked over my shoulder and asked what was taking so long. Not long after, a large cab pulled up. I motioned to the officer to help me with Holmes, who, though quite thin, was taller than me, and at the moment, a dead weight.
I looked over at my friend. He was breathing quite shallowly, now. Definitely in shock, I thought. I looked him in the eye, "All right, Holmes, we have to get you bake to Baker Street. I can't do anything for you here. Now, this might be…uncomfortable, but it is necessary."
I glanced at the young man beside me, Officer Filmen, read his nameplate. "We need to get him into that cab. On the count of three, you're going to get his left side, and for God's sake, make sure he doesn't have ANY weight on his left leg. Okay?"
The man nodded and I counted to three. Together, we lifted Holmes up. He gasped, briefly spasmed from the pain, and passed out. Well, this might be for the best, I thought. Filmen and I got Holmes to the safety of the cabbie and I instructed the driver to head towards 221B Baker Street, double time.
We arrived twenty minutes later with Holmes beginning to swim towards consciousness. I called Mrs. Hudson and we helped him in. We set him in the basket chair. I told Mrs. Hudson to light a fire, get some blankets, and fetch some kind of strong alcohol. While she was gone, I fished Holmes's injection kit from his jacket pocket and filled the syringe with morphine. Though I did not approve of his recreational use of the drug, in this case, it could do little harm. I jabbed his shoulder with the needle just as our landlady returned with the previously mentioned items. She set a glass of brandy on the mantle, laid the blankets on the floor near me, and proceeded to light a fire.
"Is there anything else I can do, Doctor?" she asked in a concerned voice.
"No, I think not, Mrs. Hudson." As she turned to leave, I suddenly remembered. "Oh, could you possible find a piece of old cloth? He'll need something to bite on when I set the bone." She shuddered, but nodded.
When she returned, Holmes had come back round. I looked at him sorrowfully, knowing that this would be most excruciatingly painful. I told him that his leg was plainly broken and needed to be set, else he have a crooked leg for the rest of his life. He did not react, so I knew that he did not comprehend. I took the piece of cloth that Mrs. Hudson had left on the floor and put in his mouth, telling him to bite down, hard. I told him to take deep breathes through his nose and to relax as much as possible. He did and I grasped his leg firmly above and below the break and Holmes shuddered, violently. Without warning, I pulled with all my might and felt the bone slide back into its natural position. As I did so, Holmes screamed a bloodcurdling cry of agony.
Once again passed out, I began sewing up the wound left by the previously protruding bone. Now set, the bone could wait a few minutes before I would have to begin the plastering process. I finished the stitching and returned the medical tools to my bag. I walked to the washroom for smelling salts, returned, and held them under my poor friend's nose. He coughed and came to, though reluctantly. He immediately grimaced and reached for his broken leg. I slapped his hand and said "Ah Ah, Holmes. I've set it and now I need to cast it now."
He groaned, replaced the cloth in his mouth, and shifted to a more comfortable position. I had a cast kit in my medical bag thankfully. I removed it and placed it beside me, on the floor; I carefully rolled up Holmes's pant leg and removed his shoe and sock. I set them aside and then began to lightly rape his leg in the plaster. I told him to let me know if it became too tight. He grunted his acknowledgement and winced. I wrapped upwards, from his toes to just below his knee. Eventually, It became satisfactorily thick and I let it alone to harden over the next three days. I told Holmes "Now, no poking and prodding it, no bathing, and, for God's sake, I do not, under ANY circumstance, want to see you walking. Do I make myself plain?"
"Crystal," he responded, curtly. I sighed, and called our landlady in to make sure that Holmes followed my instructions. Before I left to get a few things, I pulled Mrs. Hudson aside and said "Now, he is to either be in a chair, or in bed. Until I can obtain some crutches, you will need to help him move between the two. He will probably sleep for the remainder of the day, but with him, you can never be sure. Make sure he eats something and wake him every few hours to drink. If he is in too much pain, give him a shot of morphine, the container is on the mantel. Give him 1cc. I should be back for supper. Have someone get me if something happens; I'll be at the hospital."