*Track 3 (continued)

Stuart couldn’t remember seeing a Word Search, certainly he hadn’t completed one, for a third of a century or more. Whoever was setting these ‘Challenges’, he conjectured, must have been a fan of the same ‘Puzzler’ quiz magazine that his Mum used to buy from Woolies in the seventies. He made a mental note to track down a copy (if it was still published), it might just give him a few forward pointers.

The first quandary posed today was the number of the new ‘Challenge’, seven rather than the anticipated six. After three ‘Challenges’ these had now been labelled 2, 4, and 7. Was there an emerging sequence here and, if so, what did it mean? Probably a question to work on later, Stuart thought, it might be a red herring anyway and the main job at hand here, presumably, was to uncover a solution from within this Word Search that matched the clue below it and, “find a leader from on high.” At least this final part appeared to stray back onto welcome crossword territory.

From experience to date Stuart gauged he probably had hours, rather than just minutes, to work through this latest instalment, even if the successful ‘Challenger’ limit had dropped again to 5,500. That itself was becoming another apparently random sequence it may be worth exploring later.

Chastened by last month’s tactical struggle, which he had characterised afterwards as taking a Comsat Angels approach, simply ‘Waiting for a Miracle’, Stuart had vowed to better use the time available today, to employ a more scientific approach. It might take a while to work through the grid of letters methodically, in a logical pattern, but doing so should result in a complete list of potential answers from which he could then select the one that best matched the clue. He also needed to resist any temptation to jump to a quick conclusion in case, as with September, there were multiple possible solutions.

The search sequence he chose to follow was:

-      Horizontally, line by line, from the top, forwards then backwards (he had already found Jesus!),

-      Vertically, from the left, downwards then upwards,

-      Diagonally (which was the part of these puzzles he remembered hating) from the top left, up then down, and finally,

-      The opposite diagonal run from the top right, again in both directions.

This did, as predicted, take some time (and deep concentration to make sure you didn’t miss anything) but Stuart was soon making steady progress. Twenty minutes in, about halfway through his search pattern, just as letters were starting to blur into each other, like stars in a misty night sky, he heard a familiar ping from his phone and decided that checking the message might provide some well needed relief.

There were two WhatsApp messages waiting, his hyper attention level obviously having blanked out an earlier one. The first had been from Joe, away at university in America. It was probably about their impending visit or alternatively, Stuart reflected ironically, he just needs more money. He would read and reply to that one later, once the ‘Challenge’ was completed. The second was from Anne, and simply read, “On a break, tried logging on, thought you might need help, but multiple logins not allowed. Good luck, keep me posted xx”.

There could be little remaining doubt Anne had caught the ‘Challenge’ bug, though she hadn’t revealed her plan to join in from work. Stuart hadn’t even been aware she knew his password for the site, but given it was one he habitually (if inadvisably) used elsewhere it would, he guessed, have proven eminently guessable. Interesting though that a one logon per ‘Challenger’ restriction had been imposed, it was a good job he had got into the site before her.

A quarter of an hour later, hopeful if not entirely certain he hadn’t missed any, Stuart had compiled a list of eighty-two possible Word Search solutions. He now reviewed these, written out on a single sheet in the order he’d uncovered them:

AMUSING, MUSING, USING, SING, ROAD, MOP, JESUS, INDEX, AIR, DEN, CUP, JUG, SUM, ORE, CAR, CARR, CARRY, SUN, SHOT, HOT, TALL, ON, TALLON, ELK, EMPEROR, PER, TAT, RUE, OAR, CHURCH, CHURCHILL, CHILL, HILL, ILL, GROUND, ROUND, DEXTER, DEXTEROUS, ORE, STATION, STATIONERY, ION. ONE, UP, HAM, HAME, AMEN, MEN, LO, ERR, ME, RAJ, PAL, SELL, DUN, DUNE, TIE, CAD, PUT, TEA, RE, TO, JAR, COG, LAP, SIR, TUP, LED, LO, CRANE, STEEP, NIT, ROE, ARC, SHAM, SLAIN, LAIN, PEE, CHEF, PALATINE, TINE, JIP.

Relieved to have finally reached the end of the first stage (feeling uncommonly diagonally challenged) Stuart’s next planned step was to work his way through these to compile a shortlist of options that could feasibly match the clue to, “find a leader from on high.” Unless he had missed something, trusting that his cryptic skills remained finely tuned, this exercise brought his wider word tally down to six potential answers:

JESUS, TALLON, EMPEROR, CHURCH, CHURCHILL, and PALATINE.

Still a problematically prolonged list. Painfully aware of the three-attempt limit, realising more sifting was required, Stuart next jotted down a quick ‘pros and cons’ summary for each of his suggested solutions:

JESUS: Putting aside his own atheism, Jesus could certainly be regarded as a leader, and with ‘on high’ potentially translatable to either ‘in heaven’ or ‘in authority’ this seemed a strong possibility. Somehow though it felt a little too obvious.

TALLON: A genuine cryptic, anagrammatic possibility (with tall replacing high), but surely it wasn’t a real word. There was only one L in talon. Google uncovered a stationery company in Coventry called Tallon (providing a nagging link to one of the Word Search entries he had dismissed) but this was surely way too obscure.

EMPEROR: Another obvious leader link, but this one seemed weak regarding the ‘on high’ element, unless this was a reference to Rome being built on seven hills (it was of course ‘Challenge 7’).

CHURCH: Overall the weakest candidate on Stuart’s shortlist. He had probably only kept it on there because of the religious connotations of ‘on high’. On reflection he felt comfortable ruling this one out.

CHURCHILL: Few historical figures have more often been defined by their leadership credentials than Churchill, and with both constituent parts of his surname having an ‘on high’ relevance Stuart was leaning towards this as his favourite.

PALATINE: Collins defined this as, “a lord possessing royal prerogatives in a territory,” which firmly qualified it as a leader, and its Roman derivation came from the actual name of one of the city’s seven hills, placing this ahead of EMPEROR in Stuart’s pecking order. Another strong contender.

Taking all these considerations into account, two hours into the task, Stuart felt he had arrived at a sensible, supportable prioritisation of his options:

1st=) CHURCHILL & PALATINE

3rd) JESUS

4th) EMPEROR

5th) TALLON

6th) CHURCH

Employing his now habitual log off/on tactic, Stuart established October’s successful ‘Challenger’ count was already above 700. Clearly his opponents (interestingly the first time he had defined them that way) were similarly conscious of a constant need to accelerate their efforts.

Stuart chose to take another half an hour though, judging time was still available, to rerun the Word Search. Having satisfied himself he hadn’t overlooked any further potential answers it was time to bite the bullet. With three opportunities to get the correct solution Stuart felt reasonably, if nervously, comfortable that his bottom three were all sufficiently unlikely, but he really hoped (having forsaken the option to pray!) that his stress level wouldn’t need to ascend as high as submitting JESUS in third spot.

How though should he best decide between the two equally defendable answers he had placed in joint first? Eschewing a coin toss, Stuart looked again at the positioning of these two words on the letter grid. CHURCHILL was written vertically downwards, simple to spot, while PALATINE was positioned diagonally upwards, from right to left, like sloppily scribed Syriac scripture, making it much easier to miss. His instinct telling him the better hidden option would be the more likely solution, Stuart typed PALATINE into the answer box and, mentally crossing his fingers, hit Enter.

“I’d have gone for Churchill,” Anne advised later, when she got home.

“Oh yes,” Stuart replied in his best bulldog tone, an attempt at humour hopelessly lost by the time he was forced into explaining it.

###

(‘Track 4’ will follow on 10th October at 10am. In the meantime, please add a comment below with any feedback on ‘Track 3’.)