Convicted Innocent(17)

Their captors left them alone after locking up David and his friend again. The room was a different one, and light flickering through a small, oblong hole in one of the walls broke up the darkness.

Though it took the priest a few moments to get his bearings, he lurched to Lewis’s side as quickly as he could.

All night long David kept a dogged vigil over him.

Lew only woke a few times, each time muttering apologies his friend was quick to silence, before lapsing back into unconsciousness. The sergeant’s slumber was fitful – marked by labored breathing, bouts of coughing, and an occasional low groan – and David feared what that meant for his friend’s health.

As dawn’s hazy fingers crept through the high, dirty windows and he was just steeling himself to make a thorough examination of Lew’s injuries, the door to the room crashed open.

The priest’s heart stuttered a beat, but someone only plunked a sloshing bucket and a loaf of bread inside the door. He then retreated before David had finished rising stiffly to his feet.

As the bolt slid home again, the priest crossed the ground to the door and discovered a pail of water (brackish smelling, but water nonetheless) in addition to the stale bread.

Bread. Water. Despite everything, David’s empty stomach panged and growled with the thought of food, and the pain of his parched throat became instantly more acute with relief so near. But, no: he would hold until he saw to his friend.

He was just mustering his courage to do so when the sound of a sigh reached his ears. The priest spun on his heel and peered hopefully through the gloom in Lew’s direction, but the man was still out cold.

A yawn sounded behind David and he turned again. What he’d mistaken for a pile of rubbish in the far corner was in fact a young man with lank brown hair and a round, moon-like face with a dimpled chin and wide-set eyes; the fellow was now sitting up and stretching. A ratty blanket fell away as he stood.

“‘llo,” the other murmured through another gaping yawn.

David nodded a wary greeting. “Who are you?”

“I’s is ‘nnocent.”

“Pardon?”

Though languages were David Powell’s forte, he had the hardest time deciphering what the other fellow was saying at first, and he couldn’t tell if the young chap just had a thick accent or a speech impediment.

After a few repetitions, however, the clergyman understood the other’s name was Innocent and that he was as much a newcomer as they were. David gave him his name.

“Who’s ‘at?”

Innocent pointed at the sergeant.

“My best mate, Lew.”

Finally mustering his nerve, David knelt down again next to his friend. Lewis lay curled on his side as he had been much of the night, arms drawn tightly across his middle, and his face, under rusty streaks of dried blood, was grayish and pinched.

“‘E s-s-sick?” Innocent stuttered. To the priest’s surprise, the young man crouched down beside him also.

“Sorely injured.”

Innocent cocked his head and nodded.

“‘Urt b-b-bad.”

Between the two of them, they maneuvered the sergeant onto his back, pried his arms away, and removed the remnants of his uniform tunic. The last fight had reduced the dark wool to little more than ribbons, and the shirt Lew wore underneath was hardly better, though it still (at least) had the appearance of a shirt.

David was at first glad to see that the blood staining his friend’s front appeared to have come entirely from injuries to his face – a nose possibly broken afresh, a gashed chin – rather than anything like a knife wound. But the way Lew was rasping, wheezing with every breath made the priest rip the fellow’s shirt open as well.