Apparently this room was reasonably private. He made a place for himself between a wall and big bags of linens, and went to sleep there. It was chancy, but he couldn’t think of a better place. And there was a window not four feet away. If he was discovered, he’d leave through it.
Several hours later he awoke hungry, and drew energy from the Web of the World. It didn’t help his grumpy stomach, but at least he wouldn’t get wobbly from hunger. While he’d slept, someone had dragged out the bag of linens he’d been bend. Obviously his cloak had persisted in his sleep.
Meanwhile he wasn’t sleepy any longer, so he meditated-it was the first time in years-and after a while, slept again.
Even so, it was a long day and evening. No more lovers came in, only orderlies a couple of times for linens. After 2200, everything was quiet, and he slipped down the corridor to the ward, where he wakened his friend and freed his leg from its cast. When Keith had dressed, Macurdy murmured to him not to worry about being seen. “Just hold on to the back of my shirt, walk softly and say nothing. I’ve got everything taken care of.” Keith frowned. Hold on to the back of your shirt? But he did, and Macurdy activated his cloak. There was no reaction from Keith; apparently the man still saw him as before. They walked together down the corridor, then left by the same window Macurdy had used the night previous.
As Macurdy went through the window, he deactivated his cloak, and Keith followed him. Then they walked together to the road. They’d gone a hundred yards or so before it really struck Keith that he was walking. When it did, he just stood there and laughed, guffawed, for about a minute.
After that, they talked while they walked. There’d been a big flap that morning when a nurse discovered Macurdy was missing. “The MPs arrived quicker than you’d ever imagine, and before lunch a guy from the CID showed up, with lots of questions. I told him I’d assumed the medics had moved you, but that I wasn’t surprised; those cocky bastards in the 509th would do anything.” Keith laughed again. “He told me you’d gone back to the 509th and gotten your jumpsuit, or someone had gotten it for you. The guy who’d been on CQ there said you’d walked in as if you’d never been hurt. The docs here said you couldn’t have walked anywhere, in or out, for three or four months. The CID guy thinks there was a conspiracy by your buddies to spring you, but where the hell they stashed you was a mystery. They’re probably checking all the whorehouses in Oujda. That’s where guys would hide somebody.”
Macurdy didn’t laugh. Keith had given him food for thought. He hoped no one got into serious trouble over this.
On the road back to camp, they’d thumbed a ride, in a jeep with two officers from the 504th, heading back to camp from a bout in a presumably better class of brothel. They’d drunk enough they weren’t worried about anything, and if they heard any strange stories the next morning, weren’t likely to remember the two sergeants, or at least wouldn’t volunteer it. They didn’t even ask Macurdy why he was in his jumpsuit, which in town was “out of uniform.”
Meanwhile Macurdy and Keith learned something from the officers: the 504th’s 1st Battalion was to ship out that morningthe officers didn’t say where to-and the rest of the division was sure to follow shortly.
They were let out at the 505th’s area, and went to Keith’s pup tent. Keith crawled inside, but Macurdy sat outside briefly, and with his pocket stiletto picked away at his 509th “Gingerbread Man” unit patch until he got it off. Then both lay waiting for sleep, each silently considering the morning to come. Belatedly, both felt ill at ease about it. Getting out of the hospital had been the easy part; if the MPs had been at the 509th so quickly after Macurdy’s disappearance, they’d be at the 505th by breakfast.
They should, Keith thought, have holed up somewhere for a day or two before coming here. Maybe they still should. But then he thought to hell with it; he’d stay and see what happened. Shitl Here he was, walking around. They wouldn’t hardly take him back to the hospital and put another cast on him, for chrissake. Even the army wasn’t that stupid. They might take him away, but he’d be back before the day was out.