by Helen Wells
“We’ve been in some strange places together,” she started, “but now we are going into the strangest and most dangerous place so far—into the jungle.” Then she told them all she had learned those two hard-working weeks from Major Pierce. “It sounds exciting, but it’s going to be the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
The girls’ eyes sparkled, listening. Even quiet Mai Lee’s little ivory face was excited. Only Josie Franklin, shrinking behind her glasses, looked doubtful. When Cherry said, “We’ll take care of seven hundred to a thousand soldier patients,” delighted rueful groans and “Whee! Us! Imagine!” came from all over the room.
“I guess that covers all the facts,” Cherry finished. “And now there’s something else I want to say.” The girls waited expectantly. “It’s about—well—the Chief Nurse might have been any of you just as well as me,” Cherry said modestly. “And if it seems funny to you to have me for a Chief Nurse, it seems even funnier to me. After all, we’ve been partners in plenty of scrapes, and now I’m supposed to discipline you!” She grinned uncertainly, and the girls grinned back. “A Chief Nurse is supposed to be a stonyhearted slave driver. You needn’t worry about that, but of course we must have discipline, for the sake of the work we’re going to do. I am asking you,” Cherry said gravely, “to give me your cooperation, not so much to me personally, as to the authority of the Chief Nurse’s job.” She looked appealingly into the familiar, listening faces.
“Gosh, I don’t have to make any speeches to you. We’ve all always worked together beautifully. All we have to do is keep up our same good teamwork. We’re nurses, we all know we have most urgent business ahead of us. We nurses are the only women who go right up front with the soldiers. If we weren’t serious, we wouldn’t have taken the Army oath, or the Florence Nightingale pledge, in the first place. I don’t have to remind you,” Cherry said with some difficulty, and her voice dropped, “that we are here to dedicate our lives so that others may live.”
There was a deep silence in the room. The girls looked so shaken that Cherry tried for a lighter tone.
“Frankly, I’ve got a humdinger of a responsibility. You all have to help me by cooperating like mad!”
Voices came from all sides of the room. “Okay, we will!” “Don’t worry, Cherry, we’re with you!” “You can count on us!” And then, she realized, that wave of sound was—of all things—applause!
It was all right. It was wonderful. The girls were with her completely—even if Colonel Pillsbee was not.
CHAPTER II
Leapfrog
AN AWFUL CATERWAULING BROKE THE DAWN STILLNESS. Out of the door of the Commanding Officer’s hut, Colonel Pillsbee’s head emerged. He blinked in the early greenish light and shouted above the howling harmonies:
“Who is making those unearthly noises?”
The song, such as it was, petered out. There stood the nurses, ready to go, dressed in their stout olive drab trousers and blouses, complete with leggings, high field shoes, helmets, and packs on backs.
“It’s a serenade, sir,” came a muffled voice from the rear. The girls’ sleepy faces were perfectly innocent—except Cherry’s. Fortunately, she thought, Colonel Pillsbee did not yet know Gwen Jones’s voice. Unfortunately, he would blame any pranks of the nurses on the Chief Nurse.
“I don’t care to be serenaded,” Colonel Pillsbee snapped.
Another uncertain voice came from the ranks. “We were serenading Major Pierce, sir. Today is his birthday.”
Colonel Pillsbee stared at them icily, then stated, “In future, have some respect for rank! There will be no more of these undignified demonstrations! Be ready to stand inspection! We start in an hour,” and retreated into his hut.
And then, to their chagrin, an aide told them that Major Pierce had been at the other end of camp for the past hour.
Cherry scolded her nurses as they held out their mess gear for breakfast, on line at the cook tent.
“It’s your own fault,” Ann Evans said. Her dark blue eyes and smooth brown hair were as unruffled as herself. “You made us get up an hour too early.”
Plump, comfortable Bertha Larsen declared, “Colonel Pillsbee was not very nice; he just hasn’t a sense of humor.”
“We-ell,” said Gwen. She grinned, and even her short red hair and the sprinkling of freckles on her merry face seemed to laugh too. “If you had just let us sleep, boss——”
Cherry, who was so often late herself, had taken no chances on having her nurses late this all-important morning. For today the unit started out for Pacific Island 14. For four days, the newly arrived nurses had lived in a tented staging area, while they received special instruction for jungle duty. The diligent new Chief Nurse had seen to it that every girl had full equipment, and was properly warned to expect mosquitoes, mud, and no desserts.
They were going to march by a special plan, which Cherry called “leapfrog.” Colonel Pillsbee thought that, as long as the unit would be passing through lonely outposts on its long march across Janeway Island, they should stop and treat the soldiers stationed en route. Because these soldiers en route were in small temporary groups, as work battalions, and were moved around so often, no field hospital was set up for them. But they did need care. On the other hand, since the evacuation unit was too huge to act as a field hospital for these small groups of soldiers, the whole unit would not be needed at any one outpost. Chief Nurse Ames had thereupon invented her system of “leapfrog.” Cherry suggested that the medical unit start out together but split into three sections on the way. Each section would stop at only one outpost, then catch up with the others. Thus they could save time and still wind up the march together. It should take them three days, two days to march, one day to set up medical tents and work. Colonel Pillsbee gave Cherry the first approving look she had had from him, and adopted her “leapfrog” plan.
“Why couldn’t we sail around the island,” Vivian Warren wanted to know, “instead of hiking across it?”
Marie Swift sniffed. “Did you see those coral reefs around the island? You can’t sail anywhere near the island. And how’d you like to sail in open sea, with Jap fighter planes taking pot shots at you?”
“Besides,” Cherry added, “the men in Janeway jungle need our medical care.”
So on this cloudy morning, a long column of doctors, corpsmen, and nurses, all in olive drab work suits and helmets, were leaving civilization to start their long trek through the jungle.
The evacuation unit still lacked another X-ray man, another dentist, and—what worried Cherry—a specialized nurse-anaesthetist. The anaesthetist was the most important of the three, and Major Pierce had told Cherry that this special nurse would be flown to the jungle as soon as possible. The other two would follow the unit whenever Army guides next made this trip.
They started marching. Soon the roads and huts of Port Janeway were behind them, then the bare dirt plateau was left behind. One by one, in single file, following the Army men who guided them, the brown-clad figures slid down a crumbling coral hill and entered the thick tangle of jungle.
It was almost dark in here, damp and sweetish, with tropical trees and vines so thickly overgrown that the sun never penetrated. Cherry led the column of nurses. They moved down a narrow trail, advancing with painful slowness, pushing aside huge fantastic leaves, clinging to tough roots while they slid down the bank of a stream, crouching to avoid a bush which turned out to be only a strange pattern of shadows. There was a deathly hush. It was a relief to know that at least there were no Jap snipers in these palms. But birds and animals and snakes hid in this undergrowth, watching, listening.
Cherry looked back at her nurses. The girls’ faces, mottled in the dim greenish half-light, were frightened.
“This is it!” she called out cheerfully. “We’re really on our way to what we’ve been training for!” Her voice echoed and died in the tense stillness.
Behind her came Vivian Warren’s plaintive voice. “Nursing in the jungle—it’s an impossible ass
ignment! How can we ever do it? How can we ever get through this maze to set up our hospital?” Other discouraged voices echoed her.
“We’ll do it,” Cherry called grimly. “We have to, and we will. Come on!”
The trail rose abruptly and they struggled, single file, up a muddy incline. Far back on the line, Cherry heard a splash. Word was relayed up to her, “Josie Franklin fell in the stream.” The girls could not help giggling.
“Anyone else dunked?” Cherry called out, sounding gay. “Will you kindly count noses?”
The giggles spread down the line. The report “All noses are accounted for!” was quickly relayed to Cherry, and she led them off again.
At midday they paused for food and rest. Then they wormed their way still deeper into the jungle. That night they bivouacked and slept on bedrolls beside a river.
Late the next morning they came to a clearing. Smoke from fires, then tents and an American flag, hove into view. Cherry felt a great tug of happiness. The first outpost! Those young infantrymen in worn green fatigues—gaunt, bearded, toughened young soldiers—were the ones she had trained to help, and now she had actually reached them!
“Girls!” the young men cried in disbelief. “Never mind the pants and helmets—they’re American girls! What are you girls doing wandering around in the jungle?”
“We’re nurses!” Cherry replied proudly. And the young men cheered them.
Cherry was so busy getting her own section set up here that she only half-noticed the other two sections of the medical unit march away, after a brief rest, under the commands of Major Pierce and of Colonel Pillsbee’s aide. Colonel Pillsbee himself remained with Cherry’s section. The medical tents and equipment were quickly unpacked by corpsmen. The tents, big and little, went up so fast it reminded Cherry of a traveling circus playing a one-day stand back home.
Then both sick and well soldiers slowly filtered into the medical tents. They were young men, but their faces showed the strain of war. Most of them had seen battle action. Now they had been sent back here, temporarily, to do some much-needed work. Cherry saw various equipment—they might have been building an air strip, or manning long-range artillery and antiaircraft, or clearing the jungle for transportation later on, or doing communications work. But whatever it was, many of these men showed exhaustion. Some wore bandages, where their own medical officer had given first aid.
As Cherry went from tent to tent, supervising her nurses and seeing that the doctors had everything they needed, the soldiers were stoically silent. Not one complained. A few had old, aching battle wounds. Twice as many had ordinary medical conditions, cuts and infections, and tropical ailments. All bore marks of a terrible struggle with the jungle.
“They not only have to fight the Japs,” Cherry reflected, “they have to fight this wild, disease-laden jungle as well! But, at least, we can help them!” When she remembered that these uncomplaining young men had said good-by to their families, given up promising careers in midstream, left safe comfortable homes to protect the rest of us, she thought, “Why, if we weren’t here to help them, it would be like—like abandoning them!”
None of the nurses complained, as they worked hard and long in those tents. Cherry worked hard, too, keeping things running smoothly, doing a difficult dressing when Mai Lee asked for help, bringing in medicines and vitamin capsules to leave behind for these men.
Another person who was everywhere, poking his nose into everything, was Commanding Officer Pillsbee. He stalked about on his short legs like a sawed-off stork, not adding a bit to Cherry’s self-confidence. She was already shaky about this brand-new executive duty. The stern realities of this camp certainly constituted her first test.
“I’m darned if I’m going to get grim about it,” Cherry told herself. “A good laugh never hurt anyone.”
All day she remembered to smile, to give her nurses not only instructions but a cheering word, and to brace the men by joking with them. The soldiers wanted sympathy but they would have been offended if Cherry had said, “You poor boy, let me take care of that arm,” or, “My, I’m sorry. You’re wonderfully brave.” But Cherry said, “Come over here, hero, let’s see if you’re brave enough to have that burn cleaned and dressed,” and they loved it.
“You medics are always pestering us,” the soldiers grouched good-naturedly, as Cherry lined them up before the doctors’ tent for a quick checkup.
“You’re next, soldier,” Cherry teased in another tent. “Now let the nurse hold your hand,” as a smiling Ann came up to take a fever-ridden soldier’s pulse and respiration. The soldier smiled wanly and almost affectionately in reply.
“You’re going to be fine and dandy,” Cherry told a hollow-eyed youngster, and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Honestly you are.” He looked so comforted that Cherry could have cried.
There was no doubt about it, the girls’ friendly smiles and warm-hearted encouragement were doing these tense, strained, half-forgotten infantrymen as much good as the medicines and treatments. Even the unit doctors commented on it.
Only Colonel Pillsbee disagreed. At suppertime when Cherry reported to headquarters, he raised his small, beady eyes from a map, and said:
“Lieutenant Ames, I would suggest that your nurses behave with a little more—er—formality. A little less, shall I say, a little less levity.”
Cherry’s mouth fell open. “The nurses are only being kind and friendly, sir!”
“I don’t understand what all the laughing is about,” Colonel Pillsbee puzzled.
“No,” Cherry thought in sudden realization, “you don’t understand laughter, do you? You understand responsibility and duty, luckily for the rest of us, but not laughter.” She was almost sorry for him. Aloud she said, “We’re trying to make the patients laugh and feel cheerful, sir. We feel it helps them to get well.”
He blinked his eyes at her. “Ah, yes. Of course I approve of your helping your patients to recover.” But Colonel Pillsbee was inflexible. “Aren’t your nurses being a bit—er—forward? Couldn’t their cheerfulness be a trifle more restrained?”
Cherry sighed hopelessly. “Yes, sir.” Colonel Pillsbee was a good and well-meaning man, she saw, but he was an iron-clad disciplinarian of the old school. Youth and high spirits had no place in the stiffly conscientious rules he lived by.
“As for your own behavior,” Colonel Pillsbee cocked his head at Cherry in his birdlike fashion, “you are the leader and your behavior should be exemplary.”
“But, sir, what did I do that was wrong?” Cherry felt her cheeks flaming redder than ever.
Colonel Pillsbee said disapprovingly, “Your laughter sounded to me—I believe the right words are, a little too flippant. A little more dignity and formality, Lieutenant Ames.”
“Yes, sir,” she muttered. It was useless to try to explain to him. “Here is my report of the day’s work, sir. We plan to work tonight, also. Will that be all, Colonel Pillsbee?”
“Yes, thank you, Lieutenant Ames. Have your nurses on the road at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, with all equipment packed. And I do not mean eight-thirty-one.”
“Yes, sir.” He dismissed Cherry, and she left, shaking her head.
Several of the girls were waiting for her under a tree. They had saved her her supper from the cook tent, and were keeping it warm under a helmet. When they saw Cherry’s dismayed face, they demanded:
“What did The Pill say to you?”
“You mean Mr. Sourpuss!”
“I guess we mean Colonel Icicle.”
Cherry sat down cross-legged beside them, and reached for her mess gear. “Never mind, little pitchers. You kids have outsize ears.” She was not going to relay Colonel Pillsbee’s “formality” order until she discussed it with the unit director. Cherry was reasonably sure that Major Pierce would not give them any such misguided order.
The tropical sky burned and suddenly darkened, as the girls spent their supper hour under the tree. Their talk turned to home.
“Boy,
when this war is over,” Gwen declared, “I’m never going any farther than the corner drugstore! I’ll just stay in our mining town, where my Dad’s the doctor, and be his nurse.”
“You know what I’m homesick for?” Marie Swift said thoughtfully. Marie was a small, blonde girl, who found nursing more thrilling than anything her wealth had ever bought her. “I miss Spencer most of all!”
The girls’ thoughts turned to the great white hospital where they had had their nurses’ training. “Golly, we had fun there,” Vivian Warren said, laughing reminiscently. “Wonder if the student nurses there now have such a picnic?”
“Did you ever hear of a student nurse who didn’t have fun?” Cherry countered. “What I’m wondering is how many smart girls are taking advantage of that nursing education provided by the Government.”
“I just love the gray Cadet uniform,” Mai Lee said dreamily.
“I just love—” Cherry said, and started to fish in her big patch pockets. She always carried her letters with her. “You kids remember Mildred Burnham, the probationer I ‘adopted.’ Well, she’s a senior now. She’d only be a junior, except that she transferred to the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps in the middle of her training.”
“Huh!” said Bertha. “Instead of three years in nursing school, only two and a half years in school, and six months’ real practical experience with some Federal agency! That’s something!”
“It’s funny,” Cherry mused. “Mildred is a very good but not spectacular student, and her parents could afford to pay for her training. But here the Government is paying her whole nursing school tuition, plus her living expenses, plus an allowance, plus—”she grinned at Mai Lee “—that stunning gray uniform. If Mildred can qualify for the Cadet Nurse Corps, I should think lots of other smart girls could, too. They could even enter training direct from high school. Well, anyhow, here’s Mildred’s letter.”
