When she took the thermometer out she read it and then shook it.
“What’s the temperature?”
“You’re not supposed to know that.”
“Tell me what it is.”
“It’s almost normal.”
“I never have any fever. My legs are full of old iron too.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re full of trench-mortar fragments, old screws and bed-springs and things.”
She shook her head and smiled.
“If you had any foreign bodies in your legs they would set up an inflammation and you’d have fever.”