by Helen Wells
Cherry and Bunce strained their ears.
“Other planes?”
“I think so.”
“Gosh, I hope they’re ours.”
“Aren’t we nearly there yet?”
Bunce and Cherry kept watch at the window in the tail. Presently she pointed:
“Isn’t that a camouflaged air strip?”
“But it’s smack where they must be fighting! You can hear the guns real plain!”
Nevertheless, that was where Wade circled and started to go down. Cherry watched but saw no signal flags, nothing. Apparently all this had been arranged beforehand. There was nothing impromptu in the sure way their pilot set the plane down on this rough, mile-long strip, right in the middle of nowhere.
A few men in uniform came running down the air strip. Cherry could see no holding station, only a muddy clearing and clumps of broken trees. Planes and guns rumbled all around them. She distinctly saw flashes of fire, and smoke rising in the frosty air.
The infantrymen poured out of the plane. Cherry heard someone shouting “Nurse!” She located a doctor on the ground, waving to attract her attention.
“Nurse! There’s no time to classify the wounded! You’ll just have to pack ’em in as I send ’em to you. There’re too many German planes around here!”
“Who’s going to load, sir?” she yelled back.
“No trained teams here. We’ll take anybody we can get!”
Hastily Cherry turned back into the plane with Bunce. While the last of the airborne infantry were still running out of the plane, she and Bunce started frantically to convert the plane to an ambulance ship. They snapped the benches back against the walls, pulled down the four litter straps to hold the tiers of stretchers, and opened the medical kit and hung it inside the plane door.
“Ready!” Cherry yelled to the Army field doctor, one minute later.
“Ready!” he relayed.
From the largest clump of bare trees, four soldiers picked up the first litter with its wounded man. They struggled through the wind and the gluey mud. Cherry held her breath lest they slip and drop the suffering man.
“Hurry!” the doctor urged them. Four more soldiers straightened up from the trees, bearing a second litter.
“Hurry, but be careful!” Cherry shouted to them.
There was an ominous roar far off in the sky. She looked up, saw nothing; looked back anxiously to the trees and saw walking wounded staggering toward the hospital plane. She bent over the first litter as it was carried up the rough gangplank to the open plane door. The man’s tag read concussion and mental shock.
“Bunce! Have this case put up front where it’s smooth riding. Here, fellow, take my hand,” she said to an approaching ambulatory soldier with a bandaged head. “Go sit down. The sergeant will take care of you. All right, let’s have that second litter! Hurry—but be careful! Don’t jolt him!”
Litter-bearers and walking wounded struggled toward her through the mud. Above the pitiful procession, enemy planes soared into view. The Army doctor stared skyward anxiously, then shrugged and turned.
“Get that broken back case!” he yelled over the pounding of guns. “And this boy—” he ran to the trees.
Cherry classified the wounded as they came aboard, alone, without the doctor’s help. She hoped he would give her a few instructions about them.
“Any special medicines I should get for these cases?” Bunce asked her.
“Where would you get medicine in this place?”
Suddenly a terrific crash broke out behind them. The whole sky seemed to darken with smoke. One of the soldiers carrying litters told Cherry:
“They’re bombing our airfield half a mile away.”
Cherry asked evenly, “We may be next?”
“We may.”
“Put this hemorrhage case in a middle tier, where I can put a better tourniquet on him.”
Wade suddenly appeared below the plane door, looking harassed.
“Where’ve you been?” Cherry called down. “Can you help load?”
“Sorry. Some of that flak just grazed us. We’re still checking her over. What altitudes do you want?”
“Try to keep it eight thousand, not over. We have some bad head and chest cases that can’t take it any higher. Wade! We’re overloading. The doctor’s making us take fourteen litters and seating all the ambulatories we can squeeze in, in the aisle.”
“All right, throw out the men’s baggage. But let’s get upstairs before we get strafed.”
As Wade turned away he collided with a man in torn civilian clothes. The man’s sleeve was bloody.
“Sorry, old man,” Wade apologized.
“Okay,” the man said, in a passable American accent.
Cherry started. It was Mark Grainger!
Wade, completely unaware of the man’s identity, ran back to the engines.
Mark Grainger boldly went up the ramp, as if to enter the plane.
“Just a minute,” said Cherry, in a voice like steel. She blocked his way. “Let me see your medical tag.”
If Mark Grainger recognized her, he showed not the faintest sign of recognition.
“I have no medical tag, but it’s quite all right.”
“Your credentials, then,” Cherry challenged him. It hurt her to be hard with Muriel’s father, with a man who was obviously wounded and suffering. But she was accountable for all patients who went aboard her plane.
Mark Grainger fumbled in his pockets as two more ambulatory patients climbed up the ramp leaning on the doctor.
“Hurry up! Get in!” the doctor warned. “Don’t you hear those planes?”
The zoom of enemy planes was frighteningly closer now. Cherry waited a second until the doctor disappeared into the cabin, then turned again to Mark Grainger. He was holding out to her a sweat-stained visa.
The name on it was “Georges Lasalle.” It bore a Belgian imprint.
“This won’t do,” Cherry said.
“You often take civilians,” Mark Grainger countered.
They stared at each other, measuring each other, silently struggling.
“See here, your name is not Lasalle.”
He looked worried and, in a dazed way, puzzled. Perhaps he did not recognize her, after all. Her face was smudged—he had seen her only once—he was dazed now from his wound—Cherry was so sorry for the injured man that, although each precious second counted, she gave him a hint.
“I know your little girl.”
He hesitated. Cherry, her eyes fixed on his face, heard the roar of enemy planes in her eardrums. His expression was stony. Then his face cleared.
“You were at my house!”
“Yes.”
He said low and rapidly, “I feel I can trust you. You must repeat this to no one, no one, you understand? I must get back to England. I don’t care about my wound. I have a very important message that cannot be entrusted to the regular channels. You must fly me home!”
“Nurse!” said the exasperated doctor at her elbow. “You’re holding things up. Come in here quickly while I give you instructions about these—Who’s this man?”
“A casualty, sir.”
“Where’d he come from? Has he a clearance? Or a priority?”
“He has a visa.”
“You can’t take an unknown civilian aboard simply because he has a visa!” Suddenly he shouted, “Come in here!”
But Cherry did not get under cover fast enough. German planes came swooping down, their guns firing, spitting hot steel; their shells whistling, bursting, crashing, making an inferno all around the planeful of wounded. Cherry looked straight ahead in horror. Four soldiers had just emerged from the trees with the last litter, to cross that muddy stretch of sudden death.
“Lie flat!” she screamed to them. “Lie flat!”
Mark Grainger seized her and pulled her inside the plane. The wounded were cowering, some crying from sheer excess of horror. Whistling bullets ripped into the mud all about the C-47, clipping one wing. Som
ething up forward was on fire. Cherry tried to shout reassurance to her patients, but she could not make herself heard above the din.
The clamor suddenly grew deafening. The doctor cried, “Ours! Ours!”
Allied planes were driving the enemy planes away! U.S. Army ack-ack guns were opening up too.
Cherry stared around at the suffering men and shook with fury. To do this to helpless wounded! What an abomination that they had to suffer more terror before their initial agony could be relieved!
Bunce ran out into the smoke and noise and mud to the litter. He motioned to her joyously. All five men were all right. It was almost a miracle. Gently the wounded man was carried up the gangplank.
“The danger isn’t over yet,” the white-faced doctor said to Cherry. “You won’t be safe anywhere over this area. Now, are they all in? Oh—that unknown civilian.”
“I know him.” Cherry said it in spite of herself. Mark Grainger was standing beside her and she felt him tremble. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“He’s badly wounded,” the Army doctor admitted. “But without clearance, you can’t take him aboard. Besides, you’re already overloaded.”
“Sir, I’ll assume full responsibility for taking him without permission,” Cherry fought back.
The Army doctor frowned. “You’re taking a long risk. You’re doing it against regulations. Can’t stand here arguing, though. I’ll turn in a report on this man and you’ll have to try to square yourself later. All right, now, watch that chest case for oxygen need, and give the amputation case blood plasma. Good luck!”
The doctor jumped down. Cherry had a sinking feeling of uncertainty as she watched Bunce pull the plane doors shut. If her faith in Muriel’s father were misplaced, she would be in serious trouble.
Mark Grainger knew it, too. “Thanks,” he whispered. “I’m sorry you re—”
Cherry flashed him a strange look. “Better sit down and strap in, now,” she whispered quickly, as the plane started to roar. Then she took a deep breath and addressed the patients. “Men, we’re going to go up now. You’ll feel your ears cracking. I want you to keep swallowing. I’ll be with you as soon as we level off.”
The heavily crowded plane raced down the runway. Cherry and Bunce held their breaths, as if that somehow might make the plane lighter. Then they were off, rising steeply. Cherry breathed again. Only two fighter planes escorted them today. Couldn’t more planes be spared?
She hurriedly picked her way along the jammed aisle. There were badly wounded men on those tiers of litters—facial wounds, a third degree burn, a broken back, a nerve injury, a nineteen-year-old boy whose feet had been frozen black and shriveled. Cherry worked as fast as she could with each one, cleansing, bandaging, giving strengthening blood plasma, germ-killing sulfa. She watched for oxygen need as their plane rose steadily higher. Why couldn’t Wade stay around eight thousand feet? She motioned Bunce to give oxygen to two fainting men, and turned to treat the men seated on bucket seats and on the plane floor.
It was so crowded that when Wade bent to come through the cockpit door, he had to remain in the doorway. Cherry was surprised that he came at all, considering the danger of enemy planes.
Wade introduced himself to the patients and made his usual brief speech of reassurance. “Yes, sir, I’ve flown in tougher spots than this—Alaska, for example—”
In spite of her worry, Cherry had to grin. “Say, Captain,” she called down the aisle, “I understand you flew in China? And Russia? And North Africa? And now in Alaska too?”
“That’s right,” Wade called back blandly. “Well, fellows, keep a stiff upper lip. We’ll get you through safely. Nurse, come up here a second.”
Cherry worked her way up to him. Wade drew her for a moment into the cockpit, out of the patients’ hearing.
“What was that argument with the doctor? Anything wrong?”
“I took a wounded civilian aboard without full clearance.”
“Who? What national?”
“I—it’s sort of confidential—doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“I’m commander of this plane! Who is it?”
“All right, Wade. It’s . . . it’s Mark Grainger.”
Wade was so shocked he could only lean back against the closed cockpit door and stare at her.
“Holy cats! Now you have done it! A fine jam you’ve got yourself into! Suppose he’s a—”
Cherry’s hand flew up to Wade’s lips, silencing him. “And suppose he isn’t? You and I agree he might not be. Besides, what harm can he do aloft?”
“He could eavesdrop on what the wounded men are saying and pick up a lot of valuable information.”
“Very well, Captain, I’ll put him back in the tail all by himself.”
“That’s better. And when we land, you’ll turn him right over to the authorities—just in case. Agreed?”
“Agreed, sir!”
Wade gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder, and Cherry went back to her patients. She immediately ordered her sergeant to place “that civilian” way back in the tail, alone, and give him first aid. She herself returned to the most severe casualties.
As always, the wounded followed her about with their eyes. One man on a top litter turned his head to whisper to their nurse:
“You’re so pretty. You’re the first pretty thing I’ve seen in months of ugliness.”
“Thanks, soldier.” Cherry stood on tiptoe. “I’ll bet you have a pretty wife!”
“A lovely wife. Name’s Ruth.”
“Well, Ruth will be seeing you before long. Now I’ll give you a sedative. I want you to try to sleep.”
“All right.” He swallowed the tablet, and obediently closed his eyes.
Cherry peered into a lower stretcher. A man with a burned, torn face stared back at her. He could talk, but did not want to talk. Cherry spoke gently to him, and carefully cleansed and swathed his face. She tucked the blanket around him. “Better now?”
He still did not reply but looked up at her tragically.
“Soldier …”
“I don’t want to live,” he muttered. “I’m deformed.”
“Soldier,” Cherry said, “you do want to live. Plastic surgeons are going to restore your face. They will work from pre-war photographs of you. They’ll turn you out as good as ever.”
“You’re not kidding me?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
His lidless eyes filled with tears. “Okay.”
“Do you believe me now?”
“Yes.”
Right above him lay a young GI who had lost his right arm. He managed a smile for Cherry as she adjusted his pillow.
“Imagine finding a pretty girl here! Won’t you stay and hold my hand?”
Cherry swallowed hard. That took courage—to flirt when he had just lost his arm. She took his left hand.
“You’re quite a flirt, aren’t you?” she smiled back. “You handsome boys always are.”
“I—I was nice-looking before—until—”
“You’re still mighty cute.” Cherry swabbed the grime and sweat off his face. “You probably have three or four sweethearts.”
“Nurse—Do you think girls will—will go out with me now?”
Cherry patted the soldier’s cheek. “You’re still you. That’s what counts. How would you like some cool fruit juice?”
“Gee, Nurse, you make me feel lots better.”
Most of the other patients were too badly hurt, or too dazed and faraway, to talk. Cherry went from one to another. Although she was thinking hard about the medical problem involved in each case, she noticed now that she heard only their own plane’s engines. The fighter escort must have withdrawn. She noticed, too, as the air in here grew colder, thinner, harder to breathe, that their transport must be climbing again. Cherry hoped fervently it was not because there were enemy planes to avoid. This higher altitude aggravated certain cases. The usual nursing techniques did not work properly up this high. Cherry improvised as she went alo
ng, and also kept a sharp lookout to see which men needed more oxygen. Some of the sitting cases looked as if they might be airsick, though this was less important than their wounds. Cherry and Bunce tried to make them as comfortable as possible.
But her key job was to reassure these helpless men—particularly when, in back of them, came a roar, which steadily grew closer. Cherry counted. One—two—three—it sounded like three planes closing in on them.
Suddenly over the interphone came the copilot’s voice:
“Three Messerschmitts at eleven o’clock! Came out of that cloud bank!”
Cherry picked up her own interphone and whispered into it furiously, “Turn off that radio back here! Do you want the men to hear?”
There was some buzzing and some talk back and forth. Wade’s voice came over, “It’s jammed.”
The wounded men were alert and listening now.
Dick Greenberg, radioman and navigator, spoke next:
“S O S. S O S. C-47 hauling wounded—approaching Cologne. Want fighter protection. Over.”
Up front a gun went off with a terrific bang. The Germans were trying to get the pilot or the C-47’s engines. The suffering men in the litters were pale and sweating, their eyes distended.
“S O S. C-47 approaching Cologne. Fighter protection. Urgent.”
Their ship lurched and rolled sideways. Everyone not taped into litters was thrown. Cherry got to her feet, feeling a pain in her back, but with her attention fixed on a casualty who was growing hysterical. She gave him a hypodermic. Now, if ever, was the time to keep her head. Bullets whistled, and engines roared outside the plane.
“S O S—C-47 hauling wounded—fighters, fighters. Come in!”
The noise outside nearly split their eardrums.
“S O S—fighters—”
Then a strange voice asked, “What the heck do you think we are?” Past the rear window flew a group of Allied fighter planes.
A distinctly British voice said, “Cheer up, chickens, we have you.”
The wounded cheered. Some wept, and Cherry all but wept too. They could hear the air battle shrieking outside.
American Mustangs and British Spitfires fought off the Messerschmitts. They drove them away quickly. Wade rode steady through it all.
Then, flying lower and slower, the fighters mothered the big transport across France, and all the way to the Channel.
