by Helen Wells
“Oh, stop grumbling about Colonel Pillsbee! He’s a fine man and you should value him at his true worth. You youngsters have no right to be calling him The Pill, and such things. He—–”
“Pill is just a medical term,” Gwen assured her with a straight face.
“He’s a good, kind, responsible man,” Bessie scolded, as they listened in astonishment. “You’re all too young to understand his viewpoint.”
“Maybe so,” Gwen conceded, “but couldn’t we talk about something else now? Or—I’ll tell you what—let’s sing! Wa-ay down u-pon the Swa-NEE Ri-ver—–”
Several not very melodious voices warbled along with Gwen’s. Bessie beat her hands together for silence.
“If you can’t sing, don’t sing!” she said sourly. The girls stared. Good-humored Bessie—cranky!
“Whatever came over her?” Vivian whispered to Cherry.
“Never saw her like this before,” Ann murmured. “Something must be wrong.”
They watched Bessie paddle around the stable in her bare feet and old-fashioned cambric nightgown. She stumbled over big Bertha, who was washing her stockings in her helmet. She grunted as if Bertha had no right to be where she chose to stumble. “Besides, I should think nurses would have more consideration! Good night!”
In the darkness of the Ritz Stables, Cherry felt several hands nudge her and she was hastily escorted outside for a whispered conference.
“Boss, we’d better tell you. We’ve been working in the wards next to Bessie’s and we know what’s the matter with her.”
“She’s been cross like this for some time, only you haven’t been with her to see it.”
“Look here, Cherry, you must do something! We’ve tried and failed. Now, you’re the boss—you insist!”
“Cherry Ames, you must do something about poor Bessie immediately.”
Cherry whispered back frantically, “Do what, for goodness sake? What’s wrong?”
“Bessie is dieting—she’s not eating anything to speak of,” the girls told the Chief Nurse. “Bessie is cranky because she’s hungry!”
“So that’s it!” Cherry sighed with relief. “If that’s all, we’ll just feed her. You had me worried there! I thought Bessie was planning mutiny, or something.”
But it was not so simple to persuade Bessie to eat. The girls tried, in a group; Ann and Bertha tried, individually; Cherry tried. But Bessie persisted in staying away from Mess. The girls brought her trays of food, from Mess to the Ritz Stables. Bessie refused everything, except black coffee and green vegetables, which were not enough nourishment.
“From hippopotamus to sylph, by the easy road of starvation,” Bessie insisted, with a gleam of her old humor.
“You’ll be neither a hippo nor a sylph if you don’t eat,” Cherry warned her. “You’ll be sick.”
“Pooh! Me, sick? I’m as strong as a horse—but I’m tired of looking like a horse. No, boss. No, fellow nurses. Bessie diets!”
“I’ll tell Major Pierce on you!” Cherry threatened.
“Why, the Major himself teased me about being so big,” Bessie retorted. But her usual merry smile was missing. And now Cherry understood.
Bessie might joke about her size but she was sensitive about it all the same. Cherry wanted to talk to her sensibly about her wrong ideas of her appearance. But to do so in front of the assembled nurses would be tactless. She would have to do it the next day.
When the next day came, Cherry remembered excitedly that this was the day the wounded flier was to be brought in for an operation.
Cherry herself had scheduled this operation, at Captain Willard’s request. She assigned two of the gentlest corpsmen to carry the still-silent flier from his bed to Surgical, on a field stretcher mounted on bicycle wheels. Cherry herself was going to administer the anaesthetic.
In the little draped-off section that was the ether room, Cherry stood talking quietly to the silent airman. His eyes, fastened on her face, slowly closed as the preliminary morphine relaxed him. Cherry kept her hand on his pulse, from time to time lifting the flap to peer into the bigger room.
The Operating hut was in readiness. The inner wall, and even the outer wall, had been scrubbed. The high operating table under its powerful center lamps was draped with sterile sheets and blankets. A sterile (or germ-free) nurse, her face and hair masked with gauze, sterile rubber gloves on her hands, lifted from the sterilizers gauzes and sutures for the surgeon’s use. There were heaps of white gauze, white swabs, white sheeting, bandages, towels. Marie Swift came in quietly, also masked. Cherry had asked her to be operating nurse, for Marie was excellent, and Cherry, who wanted to be with the flier when he lost consciousness under ether, would not have time to scrub up to be operating nurse herself. A corpsman, and Bessie Flanders, masked too but in non-sterile garb, worked around the end of the hut as circulating nurse, adjusting lights and faucets and spraying antiseptic on the canvas-covered dirt floor. The air in here was hot and sweetish, smelling of soap and chemicals and ether. Cherry glanced down watchfully at the patient. The flier was almost asleep, breathing deeply, holding fast to her hand.
She heard Major Pierce and Captain Willard scrubbing up at the sinks. The other operating tables in the hut were unmade, their lights darkened. The surgeons were concentrating on this one operation. Cherry wondered why. The X-rays had shown shrapnel fragments embedded in his shoulder. Probing for these would be a painful and serious enough operation but not crucial. Did the surgeons expect to find something else wrong? Cherry glanced down at Gene’s sensitive, drawn face and felt a wave of pity.
It was almost time. The corpsman pulled a triple flap over the entrance and dropped a heavy mosquito bar over that. The air in here became stiflingly hot.
Now Major Pierce and Captain Willard came in, careful not to touch anything. While Marie slipped on their squeaking rubber gloves and sterile coats for them, and tightened their masks, Cherry and the corpsman wheeled in the sleeping flier. They half-lifted, half-rolled him onto the operating table. Three powerful lights shone down brilliantly on his face. The rest of the hut was darkened. Everyone but the two surgeons stepped back into the shadows. Marie stood close behind Major Pierce with the needed supplies. There was a hush of expectancy. Major Pierce nodded to Cherry.
Cherry, standing ready at the patient’s head, with the wheeled, balloonlike gas-oxygen machine, began to administer the anaesthetic. Presently she said, “The patient is under, sir.”
“Pulse?” Major Pierce asked under his breath.
Cherry murmured, “Pulse slow. Respiration shallow. Blood pressure low.” It was not an auspicious beginning. She glanced at the gas-oxygen machine’s reading, then at the oxygen tank, standing by in case of emergency. Marie was exposing the shoulder, cleaning it and swabbing it with iodine, and making a cradle of sterile sheets around it.
“X-rays,” Major Pierce ordered.
Bessie Flanders held the X-rays up to the powerful lights. The two surgeons frowned at them. The X-rays were, as everyone here knew from a previous look at them, puzzlingly unclear.
“Strange,” Captain Willard said to Major Pierce. “That flesh wound was never made by ordinary shrapnel balls.” He pointed with a scalpel close to the X-ray. “And those are no ordinary fragments that you can see close to the bone, either.”
“It’s darned funny,” Major Pierce muttered. “Well, we’ll have a look at the shoulder itself.”
Dr. Willard made the incision, a thin white line ran down the fleshy part of the flier’s shoulder close to the armpit. Quickly the veins were tied off so that there was no bleeding. The operating nurse handed Major Pierce retractors to hold the incision open while the surgeon worked. The operation had begun. Cherry as anaesthetist constantly kept checking her patient’s condition, ready to warn the surgeons of any drastic change.
The two surgeons probed and studied the shoulder. All the others respectfully stood by, silent, alert to assist, watching every move.
“Look at this!” Major Pierce
said suddenly, and lifted up his pronged instrument. Between the prongs glistened a tiny, jagged, silvery piece of metal. “I’ve never seen shrapnel balls that acted like this. Look here, Willard—–”
The two men excitedly bent their heads under the fiery bright lights, and as they intently removed the bit of metal, discussed something in rapid, low voices. Cherry could not quite hear them, nor see into the wound, for she of course kept her place in the shadows, a little beyond the patient’s head.
Major Pierce straightened up and said clearly, “All right, we’ll try that.”
The surgeons cleaned out the wound, and after a long time succeeded in removing all the dirt and more particles of metal. They packed the wound with sulfa. Now, Cherry thought, they will sew up the wound. But instead, the surgeons looked again at the surfaces of the shoulder. Pin-prick points were torn in the front of the shoulder, but at the back there was a gaping tear.
Suddenly Cherry remembered something. She said respectfully, “Major Pierce.” Both surgeons looked up. No subordinate ever spoke during an operation, except to say something urgent.
“Do you recall,” Cherry said hesitantly, “a directive you received from Washington recently? It asked all Army doctors to be on the lookout for strange wounds which might indicate new or strange enemy weapons.”
Major Pierce whistled under his breath, and Captain Willard said, “By George, that’s so!”
Major Pierce rapidly began to close the wound, speaking softly. “Right you are, there is something mysterious here, Lieutenant Ames. Captain Willard and I have a lot of doubts and questions about this case. We can’t understand those small holes in front on entering and the large tear at the back.” He worked in silence over the patient, then added, “We’ll report immediately to Colonel Pillsbee and turn the fragments over to him. Lieutenant Ames, see that these are placed in a container.”
“Yes, sir,” Cherry replied, keeping her eyes and hand on the flier. She nodded to Bessie who stepped forward and picked up the precious fragments. “The patient’s pulse is weak, sir,” Cherry informed the surgeon.
Major Pierce ordered adrenalin. Marie gave the hypodermic, and the wound was, with some difficulty, finally closed and dressed. The flier seemed in a fairly satisfactory condition as Dr. Willard and two corpsmen wheeled him back to the isolation tent. Ann was there; she and a corpsman would stay with him.
Only after the surgeons had left, and Cherry had dismissed Marie and the nurse and the corpsman, did she allow herself to think of the mystery here. Mrs. Flanders cleaned up the table, while Cherry sterilized and put away instruments. Bessie was crossly silent, so Cherry had a chance to think about the shattering discovery this might be.
“Not so fast,” Cherry warned herself. “We haven’t discovered anything yet. There’s only a suspicion. But a strange wound, plus strange fragments, plus Gene’s uncanny silence—it all begins to add up. It looks as if——”
Bessie softly groaned. Cherry was startled out of her thoughts. She dropped the instruments she was wiping, and ran around to the other side of the hut.
“Bessie! Bessie, what is it?”
The older woman’s face was wan and drawn. She was leaning weakly against the wall, her eyes almost closed. Cupped in her hand were two tiny pieces of metal. “Careless of me,” she started to say. Cherry, noticing that Bessie was on the verge of fainting, grasped the fragments and shoved them into her pocket. She led Bessie to a chair and made her sit down.
“Are you sick, Bessie?”
“No—not sick—–”
“I know what’s the matter with you,” Cherry said, trying to repress a giggle. “You’re hungry.”
Bessie weakly nodded. “So hungry I’m faint. Go on, scold me.”
“No, I’m not going to scold you. I’m going to feed you. Can you walk over to Mess with me? Here, lean on my arm, you—you dieter!”
Mess Hall was deserted. Cherry sat Bessie down at the long rough table, and wheedled some light, warm food from the cook. She brought it back, and sat beside her nurse while she ate. It was strange to see big Bessie so weak and pale. She confessed that she had eaten scarcely anything substantial for nearly two weeks now.
“I’m sorry I was—irritable,” she said as she finished her food. “But—you see—I’m so tired of people poking fun at me because I’m fat.”
“No one would have thought of you as fat, if you had not started it yourself,” Cherry pointed out. “You were never fat.”
“But I am fat! I’m huge—awkward—funny-looking—” Bessie could not laugh about it now. Real distress filled her blue eyes.
“You are very attractive and it’s about time you realized it,” Cherry said firmly.
“Wha-a-at!”
“Yes, you are. Why, Bessie, every girl has her own kind of good looks. Wouldn’t you agree that a brunette can be as beautiful as a blonde?”
“Ye-es,” Bessie agreed cautiously.
“Well, there’s no one standard for beauty, you see. There are all kinds of beauty. You happen to be tall and have a large frame to match your height. What’s wrong with that? It’s magnificent, in its own way.”
“But I—but I’m so big!”
“Then why don’t you make an asset of your liability?” Cherry suggested. “Queens are supposed to be tall, aren’t they? Those handsome models whose photographs you see in all the magazines—they’re as big and bigger than you. Our swimming stars and tennis stars, whom the whole United States admires, are mostly stunning Amazons of girls. If you’d only accept yourself, Bessie, and cultivate your own particular brand of good looks—Why, my heavens,” Cherry said, laughing, “every girl is sure that she, and she alone, has some awful flaw in her appearance. Ten to one, no one else ever noticed or even thought that feature was a flaw at all!”
Bessie thought for a moment. Then she said shyly, “My husband thought I was nice-looking. And—and some of my friends think so.”
“There, you see! If you’d stand up straight and be proud of your height, instead of stooping—and if you’d try not to bump into things, or take a little exercise—” Cherry stopped and laughed again. “Sometimes I think good looks is partly a state of mind. Now see, you called attention to your size, so everyone thought of you as fat. When you are not fat at all! If you thought of yourself as nice-looking, you’d convince other people that you are. And you really, truly are, you know.”
Bessie blinked hard, and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes. “I feel much happier about the whole thing,” she admitted.
“And no more dieting,” Cherry reminded her with a grin.
“No more dieting,” and Bessie added, as she rose with confidence from the mess table to her full, proud height, “because I don’t need to diet. I’m meant to be big!”
Cherry, walking down the coral-edged road to the Medical Headquarters tent, felt almost as much satisfaction in Bessie’s new self-confidence as Bessie herself.
CHAPTER VII
The Silent Flier
WITHOUT WARNING ONE NIGHT, CHARLIE CAME BACK.
Cherry was working alone, late, in the Medical Headquarters tent. She had been wondering when, if ever, her brother was going to return to Island 14. Suddenly there he was, filling the canvas doorway, his tall active figure, his keen blue eyes, his wind-blown hair, the very picture of air and speed and danger.
“Hi,” he said, as casually as if he had seen her yesterday and had not been risking his life in between times.
“Hi,” Cherry said faintly, in astonishment. “Well, well, Lieutenant A., where’ve you been?” She jumped up, smiling, trying to hide her relief. She formally offered him a chair, made of a crate, while he took a good tug at her black curls.
“Oh, here and there,” her brother teased her. He caught her frown as she sat down, and he sighed. “Oh, all right! My team’s been flying a lot or stuff—plane parts, heavy trucks, tires, blood plasma—and some more men. Something certainly is up. You all right, Sis?”
“I’m fine. I hav
en’t been flying at twenty-five thousand feet, above the Himalayas like you. How are you? Don’t you freeze up there?”
Charlie smoothed his light hair and grinned. “It’s cold, all right. But we have fur-lined flying suits. So I’m okay.”
“Any Japs up there in the clouds?” Cherry asked cautiously.
Charlie looked annoyed. Cherry knew he did not like her to worry about him—her doubts filtered doubts into his own courage. “No Japs this trip. We fly awfully high to avoid ’em. You know, we’re unarmed, transports always are. Say, tell me—” his face grew very serious—” how’s Gene?”
Cherry leaned her rosy cheek on her hand and looked squarely at her brother. “Not good, Charlie,” she said. “Not good at all. Oh, I don’t mean physically—physically, he’s coming along very nicely. But—he—I hate to tell you this about your friend—I think something has hurt his spirit.”
Charlie scowled. “You girls and your roundabout way of talking! What in thunder do you mean?”
“I mean,” Cherry said earnestly, “he won’t talk. He lies there and seems to be brooding about something and never says a word. It—it gives me the creeps.”
Charlie looked down at his hands, studied them with exaggerated care. “I can tell you something,” he said at last. “Matter of fact, it’s something you probably already know, at least in theory, only this is the first time you’ve run smack up against it. It’s this. A man can stand only so much strain, then he gets tired and nervous, and just—wilts, goes to pieces temporarily. It’s called combat fatigue, or nerve strain, what they used to call shell shock in World War I, only that’s an inaccurate word. And Gene has been flying and fighting too long. He had one of the most dangerous and nerve-racking jobs there are—tail gunner. Those boys are the ones who do the real fighting. It’s an awful emotional tension; I know. Gene’s been a pilot, too. Well, the Flight Surgeon wanted to ground him for a rest, because a person can take only so much. But Gene wouldn’t hear of being grounded. When the rest of us switched to the Air Transport Command, he insisted on coming right along. He was overtired when he started. Gene’s had too many harrowing hours in the air without rest. He’s exhausted, that’s all.”
