“Exactly. ‘You must be patient. Your recovery will take time,’ utterly failing to comprehend that the one thing I don’t have—”
“—is time.”
“Exactly. A man after my own heart.” He grinned. “And because you are, I’ve a proposition for you. I can see you want the same thing I do—to get back in the war.”
You’re wrong, Mike thought. I want to get out of it. Before I do any more damage.
“The last time I was caught trying to hasten my recovery,” Tensing went on, “I was denied sunroom privileges for three weeks, all because I lacked an adequate warning system. I therefore propose a partnership.”
A partnership, Mike thought grimly. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, let alone helping you “hasten your recovery.” What if you get back in the war a month earlier than you would have, thanks to me, and kill somebody you’re not supposed to and change the outcome of the war?
“I propose,” Tensing was saying, “that one of us guard the door while the other walks, and give a warning if someone comes in. It won’t require any effort. They’ll glance in the door and see you reading or—what were you doing just now?”
“Working a crossword puzzle.”
“They’ll see you solving a crossword and assume all’s quiet on the western front and go away again.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then you’ll call out a warning, and I’ll sink into the nearest chair and give an excellent imitation of a patient napping. And then as soon as they’re gone, we’ll switch places, and I’ll stand guard while you walk, and we’ll both be recovered and out of here in no time. What do you say?”
No, Mike thought, I can’t risk it.
On the other hand, the sooner he got out of this hospital and this century, the better, for him and the century. “All right,” he said, “but how do we arrange to both be here at the same time?”
“Leave that to me. I think half past ten’s best. Earlier than that and Colonel Walton’s likely to be in here reading the Guardian. Shall I make the rounds first, or would you rather?”
“No, you go. I can only manage a few minutes at a time,” Mike said and began hobbling back to his wheelchair. “What should our code be? ‘The dog barks at midnight’? Isn’t that what spies always use?”
Tensing didn’t answer.
Mike looked back, wondering if he’d already walked off to the other side of the room and couldn’t hear him, but he was still sitting in the wicker chair, frowning. “Tensing? I said—”
“Yes. Sorry. I was trying to think of an appropriate code. Just call out one of your crossword clues. Tell me when you reach your chair.”
“I’m there,” Mike said, lowering himself into it. He picked up his crossword, rolled himself over by the door, and then looked over at Tensing beginning his circuit. Tensing didn’t have to hold on to the furniture, but twice he had to stop, his hands tightening into white-knuckled fists.
What if he has internal injuries, Mike worried, and has no business doing this? What if my helping him walk makes his injury worse?
Tensing made two halting trips around the edges of the room and then said, “Your turn,” and took his place at the door while Mike worked his way over to the windows and back.
“How did you come to take up crosswords?” he asked as Mike grabbed for a bookcase. “I thought Americans preferred baseball.”
“They wouldn’t let me have the newspaper otherwise, and I wanted to read the war news,” Mike said, reaching for a chair back. “I’m not really very good at your crosswords.”
“Most Americans can’t solve them at all.” There was a silence and then he said, “Six across: barrage.”
“What?” Mike said, stopping.
“Nightly gunfire full of anger.”
“Is that the code? Do you hear someone coming?”
“No, it’s the answer to six across.”
“Oh,” Mike said, limping over to the potted palm.
“‘Rage’ is a synonym for ‘anger.’”
“Is that the code?”
“No, sorry. Perhaps we’d better go with ‘the dog barks at midnight’ after all. I was explaining the clue. ‘Rage’ is a synonym for ‘anger,’ and ‘full of’ means one word inside another. ‘Going the wrong way’ means it’s an anagram, and so does ‘muddled.’” His voice changed. “Thirty-eight down: caught in the act.”
That had to be the code. Mike pushed off violently from the bookcase to the potted palm, clamping his jaw against the pain, and flung himself into his wheelchair. “Go,” he said, propelling his chair rapidly