Cherry Ames 05 Flight Nurse (3 page)

Flying would cause one patient to need a stimulant, but another patient a sedative. What impressed Cherry was that she must treat each case as a special problem and keep constant watch over each one of them!

During these six weeks, Cherry and her classmates were up at six, at work by seven, and working until six or seven at night—Sundays too. Cherry felt as if she were performing in a three-ring circus, but she thrived on it. Gwen declared good-naturedly that this school was “a concentration camp on our side.” 16

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Cherry was more surprised than frightened when she was marched to the top of a thirty-foot tower, shown how to jump, fall, and to “hit the silk”—use a parachute.

She was goggle-eyed when the nurses, in full uniform with pistols and medical kits, were ordered to clamber out of a floating “forced-down” plane in the post’s vast swimming pool, and to keep themselves and their husky

“patients” afloat.

She found herself swimming through burning gasoline and oil, finally to emerge scared but unharmed.

She struggled through a hair-raising simulated plane accident which was casually listed as “crash procedure.”

“Home was never like this,” said Cherry.

Then Cherry took eleven examinations.

Finally, she put on her good flying suit, which was slacks and blouse of blue-gray gabardine, and her garri-son cap, carefully packed her parachute, and went trav-eling in a C-47 across the United States. She served as an aide to the flight nurse in charge, on an actual air evacuation mission. Two days later, Cherry got off the plane at Randolph Field. She was dirty and dead-tired but sure now that she knew her job.

“Now,” thought Cherry. “Now!” At last the gruelling six weeks training was over—and now she was going to receive her wings and to see Dr. Joe.

Somewhere in Britain

only

twenty-four

hours

lay

between

cherry’s

graduation and her departure for overseas. Rumors flew among the fifty flight nurses in the two new squadrons. “We’re going to England.” “No, we’re slated for Alaska.” “At least we’re not going to the Pacific theater, we’ve already served there.” “They’ve issued us flying suits for a moderate climate, so it’s England for sure!”

As Cherry packed in her airy little barracks room, and wrote her last letters home, she wondered what her destination would be. Somehow she felt that her squadron would be stationed in Britain. The breath-takingly hard job that lay ahead troubled her. She had trained hard and well, had passed her examinations, but when it came to the real thing, the ultimate ordeal—

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“I’ll just have to call upon every resource I have, body, mind, and soul,” Cherry thought. “I won’t think of myself; I won’t listen to these doubts. I’ll think of the boys I’m there to help. That, if anything, will carry me through.”

The evening before graduation day, Cherry took a bus into San Antonio, to the railroad station. When Dr.

Fortune stepped off the train, he looked the same as ever. Cherry ran happily to the vague-minded little man, with the lock of gray hair falling boyishly over one eye.

“Dr. Joe! Oh, I’m so glad to see someone from home!”

“Bless your heart, Cherry. I’m glad to see you, too,” and he kissed her on the forehead.

Cherry laughed happily. Then the realization that Lex had not come along flashed through her mind. It gave her a little pang.

“You look tired, Dr. Joe, too tired,” Cherry said concernedly.

“I’m fine—fine.” But his seamed face and thoughtful eyes betrayed signs of fatigue and worry. He made an effort to brighten up. “Midge instructed me to send you her ’most profound regards.’ Lex did the same, and I have a box of vitamins for you. I also brought you an identification bracelet as a graduation gift, but you may not have it until tomorrow.”

Having recollected all he was supposed to say, Dr.

Joe fell silent. He stood on the station platform rather helplessly, holding his hat.

Cherry smiled. “Thank you, sir, but come along now!

We’ll take a bus back to post, then I’ll get you installed in the guest house, and feed you some dinner.”

“I want to talk with you, Cherry,” he said seriously.

That evening, in a quiet corner of the Officers’ Club, they talked in low tones.

“I have a friend in England who is in trouble,” Dr. Joe began, in his deep, slow voice. “I can’t make out from the censored letters exactly what the trouble is.” He explained that some years ago, through his university contacts, he had met and come to be friends with an English family. The son-in-law, Mark Grainger, was an engineer and had come to the United States to attend graduate engineering school. With Mark Grainger had come his lovely young wife, Lucia, and Lucia’s mother, Mark’s mother-in-law, widowed Mrs. Eldredge.

“They were fine people. I liked them, particularly the spirited old lady, though she can be difficult to deal with. It’s she who has been writing to me—about Mark.”

“What has Mark done?”

“Let me tell you the whole story first.” The English family had returned to Britain when it looked as if their country might be attacked. Mark joined the British Army and was stationed in England.

The next thing Dr. Joe heard was that Mark and Lucia had had a baby girl. Then the Germans bombed London. Dr. Joe wrote and wrote, wondering if his friends 20

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were still alive. At last came a heartbroken letter from Mrs. Eldredge. Her daughter Lucia had died, when her house was struck by a bomb and she had been buried in the cave-in. The baby girl, then a year or two old, was rescued from the burning ruins.

“What’s the baby’s name?” Cherry asked breath-lessly.

“I don’t recall. At any rate, she’s not a baby now. She must be about six—six or seven.” Cherry found herself thinking not of the adults but of the little girl, who had been so miraculously saved.

That child could not remember her mother, had never known anything but the terror and privation of war.

Poor little tyke!

“Do you know where your friends are now, Dr.

Joe?”

“The grandmother and the little girl are living in a country village a couple of hours’ ride north of London.

You know, they evacuated the children from the cities, to safer country places. Fortunately Mrs. Eldredge and the youngster were not separated—as so many families were.”

“And Mark Grainger?”

Dr. Joe pushed back his lock of gray hair. “That’s the curious thing. That’s what Mrs. Eldredge is suspicious about.”

“Suspicious—of her own son-in-law? Of that child’s father?”

Dr. Joe shrugged. “I find it hard to believe anything wrong of Mark Grainger. Besides, Mrs. Eldredge doesn’t dare write about all this in any detail. All I know is that he is no longer in the British Army, and that Mrs.

Eldredge is very much disturbed about something.”

“It is odd,” Cherry agreed. But her thoughts strayed back to the little girl.

“Now this is what I want you to do, Cherry, if you will.

There is an American Army air base north of London, very near the village where Mrs. Eldredge and the little Grainger girl live. It’s likely that you may be stationed there, from what I know. If you are, and if you have the chance, find out what you can. Do what you can to help those people. But—” Dr. Joe hesitated, then looked at her quizzically, “be discreet.”

“Discreet? Oh, yes, Dr. Joe, I’ll be the soul of discre-tion,” Cherry promised. “But why. . . ?”

“Cherry, child,” Dr. Joe got to his feet, “that is all I know. Just promise me you’ll help if you can.” Cherry tossed back her black curls and rose too. “As if I’d ever say ’No’ to you! Of course I promise, Dr. Joe.”

“Now off to sleep! Tomorrow is going to be your big day.”

Graduation was hurried but inspiring. The new flight nurses filed into the lovely little chapel, knowing this was their great and perilous beginning. The chaplain’s prayer for their safekeeping sank deep into their hearts.

Cherry heard the school’s Commandant praise their 22

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courage. He reminded them that they were not only nurses, but also soldiers with wings.

Then, in a simple ceremony, each bright-eyed nurse stood at attention while the Colonel presented diplo-mas and pinned miniature Flight Surgeon’s wings—of silver, with the superimposed N—on each girl’s slate-blue jacket. Cherry cherished her silver wings as the proudest possession of her entire life. She saw that Ann and Gwen, even the experienced ex-stewardess, Agnes Gray, felt the same solemn happiness. Together, they all renewed their nurse’s pledge, and sang the stirring song of the flight nurses.

The Commandant said, “I am sorry there is no time for celebrations. You will be assigned at once.” Immediately upon leaving the chapel, the two new squadrons were staged. Cherry did not even have time to say good-bye to Dr. Joe, nor to telephone her mother long-distance, nor to hunt up Wade or Bunce. Cherry had expected this. She calmly accepted her sealed orders and as calmly boarded a northbound train, that night.

The nurses were whisked through New York next day to a pier, and promptly sent up the gangplank of a troop transport. Once a luxury liner, this huge steamer was crowded, deck upon deck, from stem to stern, with young men in Army uniform. Some of the fellows hanging over the deck rail whistled at the nurses. The nurses smiled at them and waved friendly hellos.

The nurses waited in the ship’s lounge, amid bright electric lights and piles of luggage, for cabin assignments. An officer came up and started reading off their names.

“Ames, Evans, Gray, Hortas, Jones, Wiegand—

you’re Flight Three—Cabin 27 on B deck.” Cherry and Ann and Gwen exchanged glances.

These other three were to be not only their bunkmates for the voyage, but also their permanent mates in their flight group of six nurses! Cherry was pleased that the one-time stewardess, Agnes Gray, was in her flight.

Lieutenant Gray was pleasant, and she was the calm veteran of seventeen hundred hours flying time. Gwen went to find the other two. Elsie Wiegand was tall and fair and looked like a good scout. Margaret Hortas, a small, dark girl, seemed to be perishing of shyness. They had seen one another at Randolph Field, but there had been no time there for real acquaintance.

Cherry tried to break the ice by saying, “Elsie. . .

Agnes. . . Margaret . . . Let’s see. That would make you Aggie and Maggie.”

Everyone laughed. Lieutenant Wiegand whispered,

“Look over there! Inside that soldier-musician’s French horn. He’s smuggling a dog aboard inside the horn!” They made their way through the ship’s narrow corridors and found Cabin 27—a room originally intended for three. Now there were three regular beds, one of them a second-story bunk, and three Army cots in the 24

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room. Cherry was relieved to see that not one nurse in her flight made a selfish dash for a bed instead of a cot.

They good-humoredly flipped coins to see who would sleep where. Cherry drew a cot, and was perfectly satisfied.

All six nurses of Flight Three sat down on their respective beds (except Margaret, who was small and refused offers to be hoisted to her second-story bunk) and proceeded to play Truth. Cherry started it off.

“I’m from a small town in Illinois, went to Spencer Nursing School, and nursed in the Army Nurse Corps in Panama and in the Pacific.”

“Ditto for me,” said Ann Evans. “I—I have a fianc é in the Army.”

“Ditto for me,” said Gwen, nodding her red head, “except no fianc é and I come from a Pennsylvania mining town where my father is the town doctor. I guess that’s not so ditto after all!”

Lieutenant Wiegand’s light eyes danced. “I’m from Minnesota, up north in the wheat country. I trained in St. Paul, and I nearly melted away in the heat when the Army sent me to nurse in Brazil.”

“Brazil!” they all exclaimed.

“The Pacific!” the tall fair-haired girl exclaimed right back at them. “Now Aggie and Maggie.” The small, dark nurse needed urging. “I’m from Cal-ifornia, the San Joachim valley. I trained in the Cadet Nurse Corps—on a scholarship, you know—and I’ve
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nursed only in Army camps in the United States.” Lieutenant Hortas said hesitantly, “I’ve never been overseas.” She hesitated again, and a gnomish grin spread over her face. “I’m really lots more capable than I look.”

“You’re probably a pint-sized dynamo,” Lieutenant Agnes Gray said generously. She was a little older than the rest, very poised, very pretty and trim, with neat brown hair and brown eyes. “Aggie” was a New Englander. She had flown on one of the civil transconti-nental airlines for several years, before she became an Army nurse, and had been through three major crashes without a scratch. The other girls, though, like Cherry, were new to flying.

They joked about Aggie’s broad A, and Ann’s and Cherry’s twangy Midwest accent, their assorted names, and whether any of them snored. Agnes asked hopefully if anyone played bridge. Ann offered to lend any and all comers her tiny iron and board. Cherry passed around seasick tablets. They all debated whether a steward would bring a ladder for the upper bunk or whether they would have to hoist Maggie up and down. By the time the bell rang—for what they hoped was noon-day dinner—and they went above, the nurses of Flight Three were friends.

In the lounge, Cherry saw their Chief Nurse, Captain Betty Ryan. She was a smiling, curly-haired young woman in flight nurse uniform, a flier herself, small and very feminine—and very businesslike.

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“Hello, Flight Three!” she greeted them. “Do you all know each other by now? All settled in your cabin?” She looked excited. “I’ve just found three old friends—