by Helen Wells
Well, that seemed to take care of refreshments. Cherry went to see if she could help with the decorations. The girls were just starting.
“Oh, sure,” they said. “We need a good climber to fix up the tree.”
So Cherry stood on a ladder and festooned the fir tree with strings of hard candy, in variegated colors. It looked festive and, besides, small guests always preferred decorations they could eventually pop into small mouths. Then Cherry sprinkled salts on the pine branches, carefully avoiding the candy. The tree emerged with a crystal-like sparkle.
Little Maggie was earnestly cutting out a Merry Christmas sign from red cardboard. Cherry sprinkled some more of their homemade “snow” on it. Then they put it at the foot of the tree and rigged up two big flashlights so that their beams played on the sign.
There was mistletoe, too, and colored crepe paper fished from somebody’s trunk. The mess sergeant had had red- and green-iced doughnuts baked. There were flowers, sent from somebody’s hothouse near by. The Red Cross people had lent games for the older children: ping pong, checkers, a book of guessing games.
“Not bad,” the nurses agreed. “Not bad at all.”
“Here’s hoping the youngsters like it!”
“Now our last big job and then we’d better have lunch—”
The last job was wrapping the dozens and dozens of inexpensive little gifts which the nurses, pilots, and corpsmen had chipped in to buy for their small guests. The girls’ gifts were wrapped in green paper, the boys’ in red. The gifts were pitifully small—a roll of candy, a tiny doll, a toy watch. They were all that could be found in village shops, packages from home, foot lockers, and pockets.
The nurses and pilots, rather than disturb the party decorations, ate their lunch in the lounge, perched on the window sills and sitting on the floor.
Wade, next to Cherry, told her that the corpsmen would be hosts to the children during the first part of the afternoon. Then the nurses and pilots would have their turn.
Cherry went back to the barracks and took a nap until it was time for the party. Most of the flight nurses followed suit. No one had any shame any more in admitting how severely nursing aloft tired them.
Toward the end of her nap, Cherry could have sworn someone was running a feather up and down her chin. She awoke to find the smallest flight nurse in captivity giggling beside her bed.
“Sleepyhead!”
“Lieutenant Grainger! How did you get here? You must have flown over in your C-47! Bring any patients?”
Muriel dimpled. “Mrs. Jaynes cycled me over. Merry Christmas! Here.” She brought her hands from behind her back.
The other girls crowded around to see what Muriel had brought Cherry. It was one of Mrs. Eldredge’s curious India cups. Cherry hardly felt she had a right to take it. But Muriel showed such dangerous signs of weeping that Cherry said hastily:
“Thank you very, very much! Whenever I drink out of it, I’ll think ‘Muriel gave me this!’ ”
The storm clouds disappeared from the small face. The child seemed to be waiting for something. She waited not only while Cherry changed into a fresh uniform, but she also kept silent until the last of the Flight Three nurses had departed.
She came over to Cherry, now that they were alone.
“Want to see my father’s Christmas gift to me?”
“I’d love to!” Cherry exclaimed. “But when was your father home?” she asked sharply.
“Mm—” Muriel had to stop and think. “It wasn’t yesterday, nor the day before. Was it last week? Oh, yes, I remember. It was the day Lilac ate the worm.”
Cherry said gravely, “Do show me your father’s present.”
Muriel hung back. “He said it is a very special secret present. And he said I have to wear it inside my dress, where no one can see it. Or else the charm won’t work.”
“Yes?”
“It’s a lucky charm. And he said I mustn’t show it to anyone.”
“Then you must not show it to me.”
Muriel looked disappointed. “But you’re not just anyone. You’re special too, just like this secret. Look!”
The little girl fumbled at the collar of her military blouse and drew out a ribbon. On it hung a sort of silver locket or medal. It was rather bent and nicked. A rose was outlined within a chased circle. On the back of the medal was stamped in Gothic script: “Berlin.”
“What was the name of that song your father taught you?”
“Röslein. All about the lovely rose.”
Lovely roses and lovely—spies! Cherry felt a little sick. She tucked the medal back in the child’s blouse. “You’d better not show this to anyone else, dear, even though it is such a lovely present. To no one at all.” In her excitement she had tensely grasped Muriel by the shoulders.
Muriel, sensitive to Cherry’s troubled feelings, burst out:
“Do you think that my father is bad like the neighbors say?”
Here was the issue, and no evading it was possible.
Muriel looked up at her American aunt anxiously. Cherry drew the child onto her lap. “I think,” she said slowly and deliberately, “that your father is a good man or he could not have such a lovely little daughter.” She added silently, “And I believe that medal can be explained.”
Maybe she was mad to think that, or sentimental. At any rate, there was no other attitude she could take with this bewildered little child.
“Don’t show that medal to anyone,” she warned Muriel once again. “It’s very pretty, but keep your father’s gift a secret. You promised him, remember. And now, let’s go off to the party and enjoy ourselves!”
“Oh, let’s enjoy ourselves!” Muriel cried eagerly.
Going in, they met Bunce coming out. He wore the broadest smile Cherry had ever seen on his blithe face. Hanging on to both his hands were half a dozen small boys. His effort to salute Cherry was futile.
“We’re goin’ to see the plane!” Bunce said. “Yes, sir, these men are going to climb all over it.”
“These men” were in too great a hurry to stop and chat. They tugged Bunce along, with small cries of “Going up, men!” and “Pip pip!”
“Have fun!” Cherry called to Bunce. He tucked two of the smallest boys under either arm and ambled off with the others trotting at his heels.
Muriel sniffed. “I don’t like boys. They’re dirty and they make too much noise.”
“You’ll feel differently when you’re older,” Cherry assured her. “Besides, don’t you like Captain Wade?” she asked as she saw him coming. A small boy was riding on his shoulder.
But just then Muriel caught sight of the Christmas tree. She forgot herself, squeaked, and ran over to the tree, then wiggled her way through the group of excited children, closer to the tree. She dropped to her knees and gazed up at it rapturously.
“Is that candy?” she pointed hopefully at the decorations. A piece popped into her mouth completed her bliss.
Wade came over and knelt down, too, beside the tree. His small masculine passenger slid off the Captain’s shoulder, made a horrible face at Muriel, and galloped off shouting.
Cherry looked through the pile of packages heaped at the foot of the Christmas tree, for something for the mascot. The mound of gifts had already grown smaller. Santa Claus Thorne appeared from behind the tree at that moment. Muriel’s eyes popped.
“Saint Nicholas!” she whispered. “He did come!”
The jolly Santa leaned down to shake her hand and boom, “Merry Christmas!”
“Santa,” Cherry said, “Muriel has been a very good girl, all this year. Have you a present for her, Santa?”
“Why, of course!” Santa enlarged upon all the gifts he and his trusty reindeer had brought. Cherry whispered to Muriel:
“What do you want?”
The small flight nurse was covered with confusion.
“Come on, tell us,” Wade whispered.
“What I want—no. I’m a soldier now.”
“I know what she wants, Santa,” Cher
ry said. “A doll! Isn’t that right?”
Muriel nodded. Cherry and Wade pinched and poked around in the packages until they found her a doll. It was only a rag doll but Muriel cradled it in her arms and pronounced it “beautiful.” She thanked Santa, who turned to the next eager visitor.
“Captain Wade, I have another present,” Muriel started, and her fingers strayed to the neck of her blouse. She caught Cherry’s eye. Guiltily the small hand came down and awkwardly patted the doll.
“Don’t I get to see your present?” Wade asked.
“This is a secret present,” Cherry explained.
The thought of that medal, stamped Berlin, hanging around Muriel’s baby neck, interfered with Cherry’s enjoyment of the party. She helped organize a game of Going To Jerusalem, and took her turn at ladling out eggnog. But she was so absent-minded that several of her friends commented on it.
“You’ll have to do better than this,” Ann whispered to her. “After all, Lex’s marriage surely couldn’t hurt you so much!”
“It isn’t—oh! Yes, Annie, you’re right,” Cherry evaded. “By the way, would you tell Gwen for me?”
Gwen, notified, came over to shake Cherry’s hand.
“I never liked him,” the redhead said flatly. “Whew! It’s a relief to admit it.”
“Kind of a relief to me too.” Cherry grinned and wondered now why she had wept so hard this morning.
What an odd Christmas-birthday she was having. Other years, Cherry had been completely, light heartedly happy. This year, in England, came news from America—and hints of news from Berlin—that left her troubled.
“Hello, sobersides,” said Wade, and yanked her black curls. “Cheer up. Don’t you know this is your birthday party? Don’t you know you’re the glamour girl of this outfit? And don’t you know your pal Muriel has suddenly become the guest of honor?”
A chorus of wobbly treble voices started to sing. Muriel’s thin piping rose above the rest. Behind the children’s carol, came the full-throated notes of a small portable organ, which one of the pilots had brought. Someone lit candles now. A hush came over the rest of the excited children as the little chorus sang. Then the organ pealed out familiar tunes, and everyone was singing. The voices, deep and high, blended and swelled, until the paper star atop the Christmas tree quivered.
Then Santa Claus read them The Night Before Christmas and Dickens’ Christmas Carol. The small guests were half asleep, the smallest ones soundly asleep, by the time he finished. It was time to go home.
Cherry and Wade had assumed responsibility for taking home a dozen children in Muriel’s village. Amid much confusion, they found the right coats, hats, scarfs, mittens and boots, and after a struggle, got each child buttoned and ready. Then into a jeep they went, tucked warmly under Army blankets. One little girl kept repeating sleepily, “Not even a mouse. Not even a mouse!”
The roads and lanes were pitch-black. Wade drove along carefully, this time, in the black-out. It seemed sad to Cherry that Christmas, most joyous of holidays, should ever have to be celebrated in the black shadows of war.
The last child but Muriel was taken home, and their jeep drew up before Mrs. Eldredge’s wintry garden.
Muriel piped up, “Look! Someone left a light shining!”
Cherry and Wade followed the child’s sleepy gaze. Yes, up there shone one bright light in the black-out. They had better black it out.
They climbed up a little hill, Wade and Cherry hand in hand, with the child tagging after them. They ran to turn the bright light out, running up and up to the very top of the hill.
The light, they found, was a star. It never could be blacked-out.
CHAPTER VIII
Under Fire
ONE AFTERNOON IN JANUARY, CHERRY WAS UNEXPECT-edly called off hospital duty. Her name had not yet come up again, in the nurses’ rotating roster of flight assignments. But she knew something was afoot. Across the field, a stockade of airborne infantry had been waiting restlessly for days, in one spot. They appeared to be alerted. High-ranking staff cars had been seen rolling around this Troop Carrier Command base. Whatever action was planned, it had been kept so secret there were not even rumors. Anyway, an emergency could hardly surprise Cherry any more.
She reported, as instructed, to a flight nurse from Flight One who was Captain Betty Ryan’s assistant.
“Captain Ryan went out on a flight this morning,” the nurse told Cherry. “I’ll have to assign you myself.
This is an emergency mission. We’re alerting a lot of our flight nurses. Don’t discuss this order with anyone, please. Be down on the line in half an hour.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” Cherry saluted. “Any flight plan to give me? Any information as to where we’re going?”
“You’ll learn that once you’re up,” the nurse said grimly. “Good luck.”
Cherry raced over to the barracks and found every other girl in her flight—except Gwen, who was already out on a flight—alerted for the same mysterious mission. They pulled on their heaviest flying clothes—furlined jackets with parka hoods, heavy trousers, sheep-lined ankle boots—in tense silence. There was no time or use to speculate. Whatever was coming, it was something big and rough. The girls strapped on their pistols along with their musette bags.
At base operations hut, Cherry’s flight team arrived just as she did. Wade made his clearances and the team headed for their aircraft. Cherry was amazed to see closely ranged inside the enormous hangar, great numbers of planes of all types, and even greater numbers of gliders.
“Wade, wh-what?—” she stammered in her excitement.
“Those are to carry infantrymen, and also tanks and field guns. They aren’t starting for a few hours yet—not until we’ve gotten things ready for ’em.”
“We? Oh, you mean we’re hauling cargo to the front as usual.”
“Just take a look at the cargo we’re hauling today,” Wade said grimly, as they approached their plane.
The doors of their enormous C-47 stood open. But instead of ammunition or gasoline or medical supplies being loaded aboard, soldiers were marching aboard. They were grave-faced, heavily armed infantrymen. In eleven other C-47’s, more airborne infantry were filing aboard.
“Captain,” Cherry asked, “aren’t we going to pick up wounded today?”
“Certainly. But we’re going to drop these men first. Aboard, please!”
Cherry, with Bunce right behind her, ran up the ramp into the plane. They slammed the doors shut, squeezed in, in the tail behind the soldiers, and strapped in. The plane’s four motors roared, the aircraft vibrated, strained to lift. Cherry looked around curiously. The men, seated on the pull-down wall benches, were silent, tense. The very plane itself looked different. All her hospital equipment was stowed back close against the walls to make room for these men and their bulky tommy guns, parachutes, and field packs. It was evident they were going to be landed in enemy territory. Enemy territory! Cherry realized she was going to be in the thick of things today!
Their ship gave a terrific pull. The motors beat hard. Then they were taxiing, then swiftly taking-off. They gained altitude quickly. Before and behind them roared the other C-47’s. Cherry looked out the low rear window. They were flying in two formations of six and six: each six spread out like two mutually protecting triangles.
“I’ve never seen this formation before,” Cherry said to Bunce.
A soldier on her other side told her, “It’s a combat formation, Lieutenant.”
Cherry would have talked to this man, and those around him, but they were not communicative. Two or three of them had brief words of praise for a girl who would brave this work. One very young man said, with a grin, “Ma’am, when you get off this plane, the GI’s just won’t believe it. There’ll even be wiseacres who’ll point to your pants and say, ‘No woman could possibly come here!’ ” Another said, “We’re willing to dare anything so long as we know you medical people are near by.”
A few words like these, and the men
lapsed into silence. If they talked at all, they murmured to one another about fighting techniques, or about their families, or made grim jokes. One boy was reading his Bible. They were going into battle—going to be landed for a surprise attack to soften up the enemy, and open up the way for the other infantrymen who would follow. No wonder, Cherry thought, that these young men sat grave and silent in the roaring plane.
She found it a long, tedious, nerve-racking trip. In these two hours, there were so many preparations she and Bunce needed to make for the wounded they were flying to pick up. But with the airborne GI’s crowded aboard, it was impossible to pull down the web straps to hold litters, or get oxygen tanks or the sterilizer ready. Cherry and her medical technician did what they could in the tail, preparing medicines, bandages, and hot drinks. For the rest, they would simply have to wait till they landed, and then convert the transport from a carrier to a hospital plane at breakneck speed.
The south of England floated by below, gray and seemingly peaceful in the thin winter sunshine. Then their two formations were pounding over the Channel. Twenty minutes’ hazardous flying over water, with an eye out for enemy planes, and then the coast of France hove into view. Here possibility of enemy attack, by planes and by flak from ground-based anti-aircraft guns, became very real. Here, too, their formation gradually split up and Cherry’s plane flew alone. Now Wade gunned the motors to top speed.
Afternoon shadows were growing longer, over this unknown countryside. The soldiers glanced at their watches. Cherry began to recognize a few landmarks below, for this was her fifth combat mission. But they flew beyond the landmarks she knew, deep into fighting areas.
“Scared, Miss Cherry?” Bunce whispered.
“Who, me?” Then Cherry grinned. “Yes, plenty scared.”
“I’m shakin’ like a leaf.”
“Never mind, we’ll both put on a confidence act for our wounded.”
She began to hear the rumble of heavy guns, louder and louder, as they streaked ahead. Sharp ack-ack sounded. A cloud of fiery spray shattered past their wing. Flak! Wade outflew that danger, got away fast from the German lines.
