Mills looked at Tim with a faint familiar humor in his face. “I could never make a trip like that, you know.” He measured the thickness of his thigh with his bony hands. “I have nothing in reserve.”
“You can make it in the spring,” Tim said.
Mills gave no sign of having heard. “I’ll miss you boys.” Dawson’s figure appeared in the doorway and he managed a thin, one-sided smile. He looked toward Mills. “You promised to teach me chess. Remember, Mills?”
Mills perked up a little. “Why sure I will.”
Red had a gold-plated watch. Until a week or so ago he had lost the habit of winding it. Keeping track of time had only made the hours drag. Now he kept it wound and fussed if it was slow or fast. He set it by a watch that Devil carried.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch and twiddled with the chain. “I wish we had something to do. Curse all our early preparations.”
Frazer snickered. “Never dreamed I’d see Kelly in a state like this.”
Red looked at his watch and put it back again. “I just remembered I’m to be on slop duty today. I never thought I’d look forward to washing out those pails.”
Tim said, “Don’t get into trouble out there.”
At ten o’clock Addison came up with three other guards. He asked for a couple of extra men to go down to the yard for wood. Tim almost leaped to his feet but he restrained himself. “I’ll go, Corporal,” he said in what he hoped would pass for a casual tone. “Do you want to come, Allen? Do you feel like toting some wood?”