Stone Cradle by Louise Doughty

from one ear, down to the chin, then up to the next ear, just on the edge of the face like, with no moustache, so’s it looked like his beard was a strap that was holding the rest of his hair atop his head. He took us down a narrow corridor and into a little room that was the warders’ room. One wall of it was shelved and on the shelves was jars of beer. In the other corner was a barrel, with two other warders sat either side.
    The two other warders were reading a newspaper and looked up at us, unfriendly like. Normally, I would’ve stared back, but I dropped my gaze, as I knew how important it was that we were on good terms with them so that we could find out what had happened to Dei.
    Dadus was staring at the jars, and said to the bearded one, ‘D’you not lay your jars on the side, on account of the sediment?’ I realised he was being friendly too, for the same reason.
    ‘The shelves are not deep enough,’ the warder replied.
    ‘That’s a fine load of beer, anyroad,’ Dadus said, ‘You fellas must have a fine time in here,’ and the seated men’s faces cracked into smiles.
    The one with the beard explained how’s they were allowed to brew the beer that got sold to the prisoners, and how it was only the most trustworthy of them did such a thing. He made it sound like an honour, but one of the seated ones gave the game away by saying, ‘We wouldn’t be able to keep our rent up, otherwise, not on what the County give us, you know. You’d be amazed if we told you how little it was.’ Later, Dadus explained to me how the men were paid very bad and that was accounting for how they were often the lowest sort and behaved in an evil way towards the prisoners sometimes, but I still don’t think it makes it right.
    Then, the two seated fellas stood up and put on their top hats and buttoned their jackets as to leave, and the bearded one said, ‘Bateman, should I get the nurse to take these two down?’ and the other said, ‘She’ll not be allowed to leave the sickroom, you’d best do it yourself, but not just yet as she’ll still be attending to them.’
    Third one said, ‘Best leave it ’til she’s done.’ And two of them went out.
    At the mention of a nurse, I saw Dadus go pale and I felt myself start to sweat and I took the liberty of sitting down where one of the other wardens had been sitting – luckily the bearded fella didn’t seem to mind.
    ‘Can you tell me what has happened to my wife?’ Dadus asked the question as casual as if he was asking the hour of day.
    Bearded fella looks surprised. ‘Did they not say?’
    Dadus shakes his head.
    I was glad I was sitting down then, for what the fella said was so horrible I think my knees would have given had I been standing.
    There had been an accident. Both her legs were broken. It happened on the tread-wheel, the second week she was here. The first week of hard labour was always shot drill, the fella said. There was never enough room for all the hard labourers on the tread-wheel, so everyone got put on shot drill for a bit when they first arrived.
    ‘What is shot drill?’ my Dadus asked, and I could hardly believe how he could keep his voice so steady.
    So the bearded fella told us and afterwards I wished he hadn’t.
    Shot drill was where you took a cannon ball from a pile in the yard, stacked up against a wall, and you carried it over to make another pile, and it was a pyramid, and there had to be ninety-one cannon balls in each pyramid. And if there weren’t you did it again.
    I imagined my tiny, little Dei counting as she staggered across the yard in the bitter cold, ‘ Axis … nevis … tay … enin …’ I imagined her counting to stop herself from thinking of the pain of it.
    I thought of how she must have been relieved when they told her a place was found for her on the tread-wheel.
    It was on account of the water, the warder told us, that the accident had happened. He didn’t agree with the use of water on tread-wheels. He had been a