Convicted Innocent(14)

“Sir?”

“Have you seen Sergeant Todd?”

* * * * *

In his younger years (well, he still wasn’t very old), David Powell had been quite the cricketer. While bowling was his preferred position, he’d also been a dab hand at batting.

Lewis encouraged him to play to his strengths as they attempted their escape, having outlined a rough plan earlier in the day; he now reminded the priest of this plan in hushed tones as the bolt scraped in the door.

The sergeant had broken a slat from one of the old crates for him. Holding the board like a cricket bat, David fell in behind his friend to one side of the door.

Inhale. Exhale.

David concentrated on the rhythm of his breathing – as Lew had whispered encouragingly to do – the drumming of his pulse loud in his head.

Inhale.

The door grated open a crack, and a wash of lamplight flooded in.

Exhale.

And then his friend charged forward. As if caught in his wake, David followed after.

The priest couldn’t tell whether their captors had expected them to burst from their prison; he didn’t have time to think about it. Instead, he busied himself with his bat.

There were easily as many men present now as there’d been before in the alley and, as before, the majority turned their attention on the sergeant. Which still left a few to try to pounce on David, but these he fended off with the crate slat.

All the while, Lew pressed forward, trying to break away down the corridor (what was this place? David found himself wondering, the bricked, catacomb-like hallway not at all what he’d expected). The noise of the fight rebounded in the closeness, grunts and shouts of effort and pain compounding in a furious cacophony. Though the melee was teeming chaos at its best, the navy-blue of Lewis’s uniform was easy to pick out since the others had doffed their costumes, and the priest kept close behind him.

Lew’s ferocity and David’s bat worked.

They broke away and began running, pelting down the passage away from the men they left hobbling and shouting and cursing behind them.

That was…easy, the priest thought fleetingly, glad their path was lighted by intermittent lamps fixed to the walls.

Though they didn’t really know which way was out – there were so many turns branching off, and David had not been able to keep track of the route on the way in – the two of them had settled upon a plan for this as well. If possible, they would hide themselves away somewhere in what was turning out to be a labyrinthine series of tunnels and wait for the tumult their escape created to die down. Then they would make their way out. Hopefully.

The sounds of their would-be captors hadn’t yet died away when Lewis dodged down a dark side passage abruptly, David following. The sergeant continued for several paces until he’d nearly disappeared into the shadows.

“You alright?” he murmured, panting.

Breathing as hard as he was, David could only nod, trusting his friend could see the movement despite the darkness.

“That was much too easy,” Lew muttered to himself, and then to David: “Did you notice they didn’t draw weapons to defend themselves?”

The priest didn’t want to think about it, but he’d noticed the same thing. Knives had stayed in belts, and only fists and grasping hands had been turned in their direction.

“Though I still don’t think they mean to let us go, perhaps they have other designs for us besides a quick death.”

While David didn’t understand his friend’s allusion, the man’s grimness made him think the unspoken alternatives weren’t happy ones.