by Helen Wells
“Colonel Wylie wants you to report to his office at once.”
Cherry dragged herself downstairs really shaking with fear. This lateness—or the Chief Nurse might count it as an absence—alone could ruin her chances of promotion. “Promotion, indeed!” Cherry thought dejectedly. “When Colonel Wylie disciplines me as I deserve, I’ll be lucky if I’m not thrown out of the Army Nurse Corps!” She numbly entered Colonel Wylie’s office to face the anger and punishment she had brought down on her own head.
Captain Endicott and Major Fortune were both there, Dr. Joe and Colonel Wylie were in excited conversation. She blinked at them in the glare of the hanging light fixture. Colonel Wylie was coldly furious, threateningly still, as he looked up at Cherry. What could she possibly say to him? She had violated Army regulations.
“Lieutenant Ames,” Colonel Wylie bit out, “what is this blackwater fever situation? Have the goodness to explain in full detail.”
Cherry’s throat was dry and tight. She told Colonel Wylie exactly what had happened, and that all her thoughts had been for saving the sick man and giving Dr. Joe a chance to prove his new serum. “Please forgive me, Dr. Wylie, but …” Cherry stood there, her eyes stinging with tears. She simply could not bring herself to look at either Colonel Wylie or Major Fortune.
Colonel Wylie’s expression had not changed during Cherry’s recital. After a moment of dreadful silence, Colonel Wylie started to talk: “Lieutenant Ames, you have broken Army regulations. You realize the seriousness of that charge.” Just then Colonel Wylie’s technician-secretary entered the room to report the arrival of the men from the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Wylie had lost no time in reporting the case, Cherry thought.
Colonel Wylie asked to have them ushered in immediately. He gave the agents a rapid outline of the circumstances, then turning to Cherry he said, “This is Lieutenant Ames. She discovered the case. Perhaps you wish to question Lieutenant Ames?”
The agents asked the specific location of the house. Cherry told them and also reported the condition of the cistern.
The senior agent addressing Colonel Wylie said, “You know what this means, Colonel. We’ve got to inspect the house at once, get a full report on the immigrant Indian’s true condition, and if there is any doubt about what particular fever or variant he has contracted, the water supply will be turned off and all outgoing ships will have to be inspected. Glad you reported this at once. Now, sir, may we see the patient for examination and our report?”
Colonel Wylie summoned his secretary, who, upon being informed by Cherry where the patient was quarantined, led them off.
Captain Endicott stepped forward. His face was pale with rage, further angered because his carefully laid plans for loaded ships ready to sail would be upset. He burst out, “This isn’t the only outrageous thing Lieutenant Ames has done! It’s time that someone reported Lieutenant Ames. She is inefficient. When I was checking up on the wards the other day”—Cherry caught her breath—“Corpsman Smith failed to do his duty and both Ames and Upham failed in their supervisory duties either to correct or report him!”
Cherry looked back at him, horrified. Colonel Wylie sharply addressed Cherry, “Well, Lieutenant Ames, have you anything to say to this charge?”
“It is a distorted account of what actually happened,” she replied faintly.
“Certainly it is true!” Paul Endicott stated. “Lieutenant Ames is inefficient. I’ve witnessed her inefficiency. She——”
Major Fortune interrupted softly, “I think you have said enough for the moment, Captain Endicott.” Paul deferred to the older man with ill grace. Dr. Joe looked unhappily at Cherry.
“There is no question that you did wrong, Cherry. But I appreciate that you were trying to do the right thing, even trying to help me where my new serum is involved. I know you’ve done this for me as much as for the soldiers. And I appreciate your loyalty,” he encouraged her. She looked at her old friend with gratitude. “But Army discipline comes first. It must. And if it means that my serum isn’t going to get a chance, well, that’s part of the Army picture. You did break discipline, but it was with the best and most humane of motives.”
Paul Endicott broke in angrily, “You should also know, Colonel Wylie, that Private Bunce Smith is just as responsible and involved in this as Lieutenant Ames. He is just as unfit—–”
Colonel Wylie said suddenly, “That will do, Captain Endicott! Good evening, sir!”
Paul hesitated. Then he sullenly turned and stalked out of Colonel Wylie’s office.
Colonel Wylie turned toward Cherry. His hawk face, his steely eyes, were as stern as Justice itself as he pronounced judgment on her in a cold voice. “You were trying to do the right thing, Lieutenant Ames, your motives were admirable. But you broke the rules. That cannot be tolerated. You are in the Army and we are at war. You must be disciplined.”
There was silence. Cherry was thoroughly crushed by this time. Dr. Joe was such a pathetic figure as he looked at her with his warm gentle eyes full of sympathy that Cherry straightened up a little with the comforting thought: “I did do wrong, but at least Dr. Joe has a chance now to use his serum. Dr. Wylie has been so stubborn about it … he’d have sent the Indian to the civilian hospital … he’d never have brought the Indian here, where Dr. Joe can have his chance to prove his serum!”
She stood up a little straighter, bravely waiting for Colonel Wylie to name her punishment.
The surgeon was studying her, considering her case. His long pause made her nervous. Dr. Joe’s face was anxious, too. Finally Colonel Wylie said:
“From now on, Lieutenant Ames, you, and Corpsman Smith, also, are on probation. You no longer enjoy full standing in the Army Nurse Corps. If you wish to remain in the Corps, you will have to prove yourself.”
Cherry listened, too numb and stricken to move. Colonel Wylie opened the door. “You may go back to your ward now, Lieutenant Ames.”
Cherry crept out, no longer caring what happened to her.
CHAPTER IX
Emergency!
THE LOW-SHADED NIGHT LIGHT CAST ITS GLOW ALONG the sleeping ward. It was a week since Cherry had been demoted to probation, but no new facts about the Indian had been uncovered. She tried not to think, as she wretchedly folded gauze sponges, of what a spot Captain Endicott had put her in. Lex knew of her trouble, but he was unable to help her.
A patient stirred and called. Cherry tiptoed over to him. He complained of pain, accepted a sedative gratefully. Cherry flashed her light on other beds as she returned to the night nurse’s desk. Rita was on watch somewhere down at the other end of this spread-out ward. Bunce and the other corpsmen were working in the utility room.
Half past one. A flashlight blinked in the darkened doorway. Johnny Mae Cowan walked in. She sized up the ward first, then spoke to Cherry.
“Everything all right, Lieutenant Ames? Keeping your eye on Lazlas?”
“Yes, Captain Cowan.”
The Chief Nurse lowered her voice. “You haven’t been an Army nurse long enough to see an emergency, have you? War means casualties. Prepare yourself to face that fact. And be sure that everything is ready … complete in every detail … in case.”
Cherry said in a somewhat shaken voice, “Everything is ready, ma’am. I hope … I hope we won’t have to use our emergency preparations.”
The Chief Nurse smiled grimly and looked at the empty beds with brooding eyes. Then she pulled herself up a little straighter, and said crisply, “Be prepared, Lieutenant Ames, practically and psychologically.”
But as Rita reminded Cherry on the following long, tiresome nights, “There may be no emergency for us. Men wounded in battle are sent to hospitals nearer the battle areas. We can only wait.”
Wait, wait! How hard it was for restless Cherry to wait! She was impatient to be sent to an active front. While they waited, the nurses prepared. In the afternoons, they had regular drill and a refresher course in some of the maneuvers Cherry had learned at Herold. Also, without w
arning, the nurses were now being taught field surgery. Cherry could guess only too well what that meant. One of these days her unit would be going right up to the edge of the battle areas, where surgeons operated instantly in tents on the most badly wounded. The nurses would have to know how to help the surgeons under these difficult, hazardous conditions. The girls wondered among themselves to what far and strange land they would go, and when. But there was no hint. On other afternoons, the Spencer nurses visited the Panama hospital of San Tomás, and invited the staff there to visit them in return. For as nurses, they were eager to become part of the community in which they worked.
Rita Martinez was very proud of Panama City’s hospital. It was a low white palace building, set amid gardens facing the blue Pacific. She told Cherry about it on the long nights on ward duty. “You know we in Central and South America haven’t nearly enough nurses or nursing services, like clinics, for good health,” Rita said. Cherry nodded. “When you look at me,” Rita continued, laughing and sticking her little nose in the air, “you are looking at a pioneer! Hospital San Tomás has one of the few nursing schools in Latin America. When I won my R.N., there were only twenty-one girls being graduated. They came from Panama and Colombia and Ecuador and Nicaragua and Peru and Chile, and all over. So you see our girls down here are beginning to study nursing and to do something about neglected health. Thank goodness our hospital gives scholarships. Like your Cadet Nurse Corps.”
Cherry grinned at the pretty little pioneer. “Good for you!” she said. She thought about the Yankee nurses who went south of the border to teach and to help set up nursing schools. That was something Cherry would like to do some day.
Rita Martinez was a darling, Cherry thought, as Rita talked gaily to her these long nights. She realized that Rita talked partly in order to distract Cherry from her troubles. For Cherry was worrying.
On her half day off, Lex unexpectedly came for Cherry at Nurses’ Quarters. She had not seen him since she had met him, for five minutes, to tell him of that terrible scene in Colonel Wylie’s office. She was extremely glad and relieved now to have him turn up.
“Hello, you rock of strength,” she greeted him, as they started off down the street together. “Where are we going?”
“To my office, where we can talk!” They arrived and shut the door. Cherry was anxious to know how the U.S. Public Health Service was making out with the case. Was it blackwater fever? Had they found out where the man came from and how and where he had traveled? And did they find the source of infection yet?
“This is how things stand,” and young Dr. Upham told her the facts, which she as a nurse did not have access to. No one had been able to diagnose the Indian’s disease, except that it was some obscure form of malaria. Therefore no one knew just how to treat it. Dr. Joe’s new serum had been tried, but since malaria requires at least one to two months’ treatment, it was too soon to know if Dr. Joe’s was the right serum. The Indian, though very sick, fortunately held his own. “Probably,” Lex said, “because he has lived most of his life outdoors and has a naturally strong constitution.”
He added after musing a moment, “If we could only find out where this man has been! Then we’d have a good chance to learn what the disease really is, and how to treat it. He’s still too ill to question, even if we could find someone who speaks his dialect. It’s too bad,” he continued, “an examination of his clothes before they were burned didn’t reveal a single clue to his identity. Not a thing. There wasn’t even a ring, which is strange because they go in for jewelry in this part of the world.”
Cherry suddenly grabbed Lex’s arm, and stared at him, wide-eyed with shock.
“What on earth is wrong with you, Cherry?” he demanded.
She did not answer him, but was frantically digging around among the contents of her purse and came up with a ring and a dog-eared snapshot, which she held before Lex. She swallowed hard, her heart was racing and her hand was trembling as dumbly she held both articles up for Lex to see.
“What are these and where did you get them?” Lex fairly shouted at her. Cherry explained how she had been studying them that day in the house and how in all the ensuing excitement she had stuffed them into her purse and had forgotten completely about them.
“Of all the silly girls—” He ran his hand through his stubborn light hair.
“Don’t you call me names!” Cherry’s already red cheeks flamed.
“I’m fond enough of you to call you names!” Lex shouted.
Cherry burst out laughing. In a moment, Lex was laughing too. “Just like old times,” Cherry gasped.
But they both sobered very quickly when they realized how much precious time had been lost and that it might even make things worse for Cherry and Bunce—and even Lex who was involved with the two.
Lex studied the snapshot for a moment. “Mm!” he said, “a young Indian with an American soldier. It may mean that he’s stationed at the Panama jungle base.”
“Oh, Lex, that’s a thought!” cried Cherry. “Do you think he is the old man’s son?”
“He may be,” replied Lex thoughtfully.
“What will we do, Lex?” Cherry cried in despair.
“That, young lady, will require some planning.” Lex had to leave then, but promised Cherry he would let her know as soon as he mapped out a plan.
Cherry only wished she knew how to find the missing answers to the important questions and so help lighten the black cloud hanging over their heads.
Her own half day off rolled around again. Cherry was worried as she and Vivian, who had the same afternoon off, were upstairs in Nurses’ Quarters, talking soberly about Cherry’s difficulties. Ever since Vivian had learned how Paul Endicott had behaved, she had been appalled. This afternoon Cherry and Vivian were going over and over the stubborn facts for the dozenth time, hoping for an answer, when the phone rang.
It was for Vivian. From the troubled way she said hello, Cherry knew it was Paul Endicott, calling her on the house phone in the lobby downstairs. Cherry picked up her hat and purse, preparing to leave. She did not want to overhear, and she did not want to see that hurt look come into Vivian’s sensitive face. She knew Vivian’s allegiance was painfully torn between Paul and herself these days.
“No, no really,” Vivian was saying to Paul on the phone. “I’m sorry, I can’t see you today. I … I’m busy all day.”
Cherry went out and down the stairs feeling embarrassed. Vivian was perfectly free to see Paul. Vivian was turning Paul down out of her loyalty to Cherry.
As Cherry came down the stairs into the lobby, Paul was just hanging up the receiver. Defeat and fury left an ugly, even nasty, look on his face. Cherry started to turn back until he had left. But his cold eyes held her on the bottom step.
“So you’re the reason why Vivian is busy!” he said bitterly. That was all Endicott said before he turned away, but there was no mistaking the recriminatory note in Paul’s voice.
For days, she thought about it with apprehension. Vivian was so unhappy that it made Cherry even more mournful. Cherry’s additional worry about the Indian, even though good, capable Lex was working on it, made her a very miserable girl.
Suddenly all these worries, and everything else, were wiped out in a night of terror. About the middle of December, Cherry was on ward duty when she became aware of suppressed excitement and activity down in the moonlit hospital yard. She ran to the ward window. Every ambulance the Army hospital owned and several ordinary cars were speeding in, parking, racing out again, down a street which led to the docks. In the dark below, Cherry made out corpsmen carefully lifting litter after litter out of the ambulances. Long still forms under blankets filled those litters. Her ward phone was ringing like mad. Cherry dashed to answer it.
“We are getting three hundred new cases!” the Chief Nurse’s voice said. Behind her voice, Cherry heard other excited voices, hurrying footsteps. “It’s one of those freak things nobody thought could happen! American troops were just leaving Panama whe
n an enemy submarine torpedoed a transport. Just off the coast! There was a terrible explosion … the ship limped back to port … there will be more casualties … these are only the first … what? Yes! Hold on, Lieutenant Ames!” Johnny Mae Cowan’s voice receded, talking to someone else, then returned to the phone. “Now listen carefully! The injured already have had emergency first-aid care. You and Lieutenant Martinez are getting ninety-six of them.” Ninety-six additional men to care for instantly! Cherry’s hand tightened around the receiver. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everything is ready.”
“Good! Give the men a hot meal right away. The kitchens will be working all night. If they are too badly hurt to eat or drink, give them intravenous infusions. You’ll have to manage it without a doctor, all the doctors will be operating. You’ll have a lot of shock cases. Have the corpsmen get warm blankets and hot water bottles ready, and get ready to give blood transfusions. Understand? I’ll be up as soon as I can.” The Chief Nurse hung up.
Cherry got hold of Rita, summoned her nine corpsmen, and rapidly told them the news. They had to turn on the lights in the ward, and some of the boys in the beds woke up and realized what was happening. About a dozen of the boys who were convalescing struggled out of bed and into their bathrobes.
“We’re going to help!” they said. “Besides, you haven’t got enough beds up here. You give them our beds. We’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You can’t!” Cherry said. “You’re sick yourselves!”
“We know what it means to be wounded,” they told her. “We’ll help … you’ll need us!”
The litter cases started pouring in. The stretcher-bearers and the corpsmen and the volunteering patients eased the suffering young men into the beds. Cherry and Rita worked over the worst patients as fast as they could. Cherry prayed that the plasma supply would hold out. Hot food had come up from the kitchen, but there was no one to serve it. What Cherry would not have given for a few student nurses to help! There was no one to prepare special shock beds either. Cherry dropped her own work for a few minutes to get the corpsmen started on that. Bunce understood, he quickly organized the corpsmen. Cherry sent the shaky but determined old patients to serve food trays under Bunce’s direction. Meanwhile, the litters kept coming. Rita was still struggling with the worst of the shock cases. Cherry thought desperately, “Someone ought to treat and rebandage those wounds!” She herself raced to the severest cases with the dressing cart. Oh, Lord, there weren’t nearly enough of them to help these men! No orderlies, no nurses’ aides, worst of all, no student nurses … she ran to the phone. She tried to reach the Chief Nurse by phone but got the floor supervisor instead.
