Esther's Innocence by Benjamin Boswell

Author:Benjamin Boswell [Boswell, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-01-04T07:00:00+00:00

- - -

After Oluchi had left, Esther got up and descended the companionway to the deck where her living quarters were. She figured dinner would be served soon and she wanted to change and get cleaned up. She couldn’t very well show up to dinner in her sweat stained dress. She had just stepped off the companionway and was making her way to the aft hallway when she heard someone call after her.

She turned and saw Geoffrey coming up the companionway. “Oh, hi Geoffrey.”

“Hi,” he said, stepping over to her, “I saw you on the companionway and thought I’d catch up with you real quick. I’ve spent most of the afternoon down in sick bay, talking with their ship’s surgeon and surgeon’s mate. This ship is so big, they need a surgeon’s mate, can you believe it?”

Esther smiled as they continued walking. “Sounds fascinating,” she said, “Did you learn anything new?”

“Oh yes. I’ve written them all here in this notebook that they gave me,” Geoffrey said, holding it up for her to see, “I’m dying to try out this new type of material they use for thread when stitching up their patients. I think it will significantly decrease infections. What about you?” he asked, looking down at her clothes. He must have noticed how disheveled and grungy she looked. “What have you been up to? You look like you’ve spent all day doing manual labor in the sun. And is that a bruise on your cheek?!”

Esther raised her hand to her face. It felt a bit sensitive. It must’ve gotten bruised when Ikenna struck the side of her head.

“My heavens, Esther! What in the world happened to you?”

“Well, I was participating with the keobere-osote—”

“The what?”

“The keobere-osote. They are equivalent to midshipmen—anyway, do you remember how Captain Amadi said I could continue working with them to learn how to use the sword? Well, I let my guard down…” She shrugged.

He grabbed her arm and stopped them in the hallway. “You mean that they actually allowed you to fight? And you did?!” he asked incredulously.

“I, uh…kind of insisted,” Esther said, looking down at the deck.

“Oh boy, Mac is not going to be happy with you,” he said. “Here, let me take a look at it. Where were you hit exactly?”

“Right here,” said Esther, turning her head and pointing to the right side of her face, just in front of her ear.

He held her chin and jaw with his fingers, then said, “I’m going to need better light, and I think we should take you down to sick bay. I want to check to see if you may have a cerebral concussion.”

“What’s that?” she asked, turning to look at him.

“Well, some call it ‘commotion of the brain’. Basically, it’s when your brain gets shaken around in your head. When you were hit, did you to fall unconscious?”

“No,” replied Esther, “I tried to roll with the punch and throw myself out of the way, but I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Someone punched you? I thought you were using practice swords?” asked Geoffrey.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.