Now and in the Hour of Our Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’d get. Davy’d time enough to serve. Even if they caught him with the chisel he was trying to steal, he’d lose his remission time and his woodworking privileges, and probably have more years added.
    Davy started sanding again.
    He knew it was stupid of him to have agreed to get the bloody tool. Eamon had asked as a friend. Even then Davy had tried to refuse, but when Eamon had begged Davy for help, not for the Cause but because Eamon was desperate to see his girl, Erin, the poor bugger had been nearly in tears. How could Davy have refused? He’d seen the pleading in the eyes of a man who wouldn’t ask the devil for a glass of water. They’d grown close over three years in the same cell. Davy told himself he was an ould softie. He should have had more sense. And yet here he stood, the steel of the chisel cold against his calf. All he had to do now was get it back to his cell.
    He put the sanding block down and picked up another blade from the bench, slashed it across the palm of his left hand and let a roar out of him like a banshee. “Fuck it. Jesus. Aaaaw.”
    Pa and one of the screws rushed over. “What’s up, Davy?” Pa asked.
    â€œI’m bleeding like a stuck pig.” He thrust his hand under the guard’s nose.
    â€œJesus. I can’t stand the sight of blood.”
    Davy saw the man’s face turn ashen. “Do something. Make a tourniquet.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGet a bit of rope or … Here, gimme your tie.”
    The guard fumbled with the knot.
    â€œHurry up, for God’s sake.” Davy’s hand throbbed and burned. Blood dripped onto the pile of shavings where the chisel had been hidden. Pa hovered in the background making sympathetic noises.
    â€œHere y’are.” The guard turned his face away.
    Davy grabbed the tie in his right hand, draped it over his left wrist, and tried one-handedly to make a knot. “Look, could you maybe tie that?”
    The guard fumbled but managed to make a loop and tighten it. The flow of blood was reduced to a trickle, warm on Davy’s fingers.
    â€œAh, Jesus, you’ve blood all over my tunic.” The guard took a deep breath. “Come on to hell out of this. We’ll need to get you to the infirmary.” And to Davy’s delight, the guard tugged him toward the back door of the workshop, not the front where the security equipment stood. And in the infirmary? It would be his hand they’d be looking at. Not his ankle.
    *   *   *
    â€œBe more careful the next time, McCutcheon.” The prison doctor, a young man Davy reckoned was still wet behind the ears, was obviously unhappy with having had his day interrupted. He finished bandaging Davy’s left hand. “See the nurse in a week and get the stitches out.” He spoke to the guard. “Take him back to his cell.”
    â€œYes, sir. Come on, you.”
    Davy rose. “Do I not get any painkillers?”
    â€œWhat?” The doctor stopped in the doorway.
    â€œIt’s throbbing like hell, so it is.”
    â€œThe local anaesthetic should still be working.”
    â€œIt never worked in the first place.” Each of the six stitches had bitten his hand as it went in and came out. “And you’re telling me to be careful?” Davy shook his head. “You were in too much of a bloody rush.”
    â€œDon’t speak to me like that or…” The doctor reddened.
    â€œOr what? You’ll have me locked up?” Davy’s smile was sardonic. He could hear the guard sniggering.
    â€œI don’t have to stand for this.” The physician stormed out.
    The guard said, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. I’d not have taken a wheen of stitches if I could feel them.”
    â€œI’ve had worse.” Like a shattered leg after the bomb explosion and no medical help but Jimmy Ferguson.
    â€œI near took the rickets, so I did,