Wings for Nurse Bennett

by Adeline McElfresh

  The thin ice that, despite his letter, would have cracked a million different ways beneath her if George Jefferson had died—

  More keenly aware of that than ever—now that it was over—she drew into lungs that still felt tired and burning a deep, reassuring breath.

  With Deo adjuvante, Mr. Jefferson would be all right now, and as soon as they were out of here he could go to his Dr. Alexander—at least she hoped there was a Dr. Alexander.

  The thought shocked her. She had no reason to doubt Mr. Jefferson's word, and he had known a lot about what to expect from a perforated appendix.

  Still—

  Her glance strayed from the momentarily quiet figure on the crude bed to the fire Andy Stevanic and Mac McDavie had built as soon as she gave the word. She hadn't expected a passenger on Paul's plane to know French and Latin—and so many other things.

  Nor to be so uncommunicative without any of them in the least resenting it—

  That was the strangest part, she thought. Both Al and Mrs. Emlyn had met him before—he made frequent business trips to Fairbanks and sometimes flew APF—but neither of them seemed to think it strange that they didn't know what his business was.

  Alaska was like that, she guessed. As Mac McDavie had said about Mr. Elder, in Alaska you take people at face value.

  "Mr. Jefferson?" she said, when he began tossing and mumbling again, and smiled at the unintelligible answer.

  So far as emergence from anesthesia was concerned, Mr. Jefferson might be in a hospital in Dayton, Seattle or anywhere else. The same waves of gray-blackness were rolling over him, letting him fight upward just so far and then sweeping him from some far height to plunge down, down, down through layers of fog that eddied and swirled and then closed in.

  He had heard her, all right, probably he had answered her—but only in his mind, which still was in that oddly detached world that might belong in outer space…

  After a time Mac McDavie fixed up the fire and disappeared, saying something or other about seeing how Old Ram was coming along. Sarah nodded without actually being aware of his words. She was hungry-she supposed.

  But, oh! she was bone-tired!

  Leaning back, she closed her eyes. But only for a minute. Mr. Jefferson stirred again—was the mumble less unintelligible this time? she asked herself.

  He was stronger. His breathing was becoming good, his heart action had steadied, and as soon as he was conscious and there was no danger of his flouncing around too much and disrupting the stitches—

  "Easy, Mr. Jefferson," she said, springing to put firm hands on his shoulders when he tried to sit up.

  "You tell Doc Alex—"

  The rest of it went trailing off, lost in one of those rolling gray mists.

  She went to stand for minutes at the window. Darkness was settling into the valley, not the slow twilight that in October lingers along the stretches of the Miami between Dayton and Troy, but that quick night that is common in the far north.

  Watching it, watching the snow-covered mountains appear to retreat with the fading light, Sarah leaned her forehead against the cold pane.

  Thank God they hadn't waited, hoping. That appendix wouldn't have lasted out the night, and then—

  She turned when the door opened.

  "Al—"

  She hadn't seen him come, so he must have been in the clearing, readying the signal fire for another night.

  He glanced at their patient.

  "Doing all right?"

  "Much better. He's snapping out of anesthesia, I think."

  Al grinned, the relief that they all were feeling now that it was over edging it.

  "That's good." He came to stand beside her. "I keep thinking about Paul and Norstead."

  "I—know, Al."

  For a longish minute he didn't say anything. Then, "I'm wondering how long we can sit it out, Sarah. Jefferson, Mrs. Stevanic and the baby, Mrs. Emlyn… you, Sarah—"

  "Don't worry about me."

  He didn't look at her. "That's easy to say. Sarah, I—"

  Without quite knowing how it happened, she was in his arms, he was murmuring, "Sarah! Sarah— Oh, my darling!" against her lips. And then not murmuring as his mouth claimed hers and, oh, Al! Al! her heart cried out.

  "Al—" It was a whisper, a long time later, when his mouth let her. "Al—"

  "Now that," George Jefferson said weakly behind them, "is the kind of thing a man ought to see when he's coming to. Got to remember—tell Alexander—"

  He could feel Norstead slipping, Paul Fergis warned himself, and tightened his feeble grip on his companion. They had been stumbling along like this most of the day, leaning on each other, sometimes all but dragging each other forward, and there were times when Paul doubted that John Norstead was wholly conscious. He knew there had been times when he hadn't been, when he had kept moving because it was the only thing to do.

  Because to lie down, to rest for even a minute, meant not to get up again…

  He tried not to think how pleasant that would be. God, a man could will his legs to move only so long!

  And both he and Norstead had had it.

  They had had it ever since yesterday when he had made a pass at a sitting snowshoe and missed—

  Or had it been yesterday?

  He had lost all track of time. It seemed they had been following this damned river forever, following its wicked twisting and turning, losing it and straggling back, wasting precious time and yet not daring to not turn back to the river.

  A man could do that and not be found till next summer and by then his bones, what would be left of them after the wolves got through, would be bleached… they might not even find his bones.

  Many a man had been lost in the wild fastnesses that are Alaska's mountains and nobody'd ever found hide nor hair of him, although he used to wonder, sometimes, if plenty of those men hadn't gone into the mountains one man and come out another—it would be damned easy to do, if a man wanted to lose an identity—men like the Rands and Smith—

  He shook his head like a bull caribou getting set to charge. He couldn't think about the Rands and Smith now. They weren't slogging through thigh-deep snow, damn them.

  They weren't dragging themselves on feet that had been numb for two days, on legs whose flesh along the ankles and calves no longer felt even the icy stiffness of frozen pants legs.

  Frostbite…

  He knew it. Norstead knew it.

  Just as they both knew it was only a matter of time until one or the other of them went down—and the other wouldn't be able to get him up…

  Jenny, he thought. Jenny would understand. She'd know he'd had to make a try.

  That little mama, the other passengers—Jenny would understand—she—

  He felt Norstead stiffen, and in the same infinitesimal span of time heard the steady, distant thrum of the plane's motors.

  "John!" The shout came out cat-weak, hoarse. "Do you hear that?"

  "I—hear it—but I don't—believe it."

  Neither did he, Paul Fergis told himself.

  That other plane hadn't seen them, the hunter who had fired those shots hadn't heard their answering cries— Damn, but it was funny how everything came crystal-clear with the sound of those motors!

  Almost as if—as if—

  He saw the plane then, a twin-engine job not unlike his own, flying low, throttled down—searching?

  Oh Christ, is it looking for us?

  From somewhere strength spurted into his body, leaped through him like a spark igniting gasoline fumes.

  Releasing his grip on John Norstead he stripped off his coat and began waving it, and shouting—waving and jumping about like a madman.

  So was Norstead, though more unsteadily, having trouble with his coat, giving up to stand swinging his arms like some crude, almost inoperative windmill.

  The plane made a wide circle, came back, dropping cautiously lower as the pilot got his bearings on the cruel jagged peaks that rose to their left and then leaped skyward
again, across the river.

  "They see us!" Norstead shouted, his voice cracked but wildly joyous anyhow. "They see us!"

  Chapter 15

  "Andrea, honey—" Jan-Doreen Stevanic chided her nursing baby—"don't be such a pig!"

  Laughing, Sarah sat up. Spruce boughs might not be the perfect mattress, but last night it wouldn't have mattered. She had tumbled into bed, utterly exhausted, at perhaps two o'clock after sitting with George Jefferson until it became apparent that he was making normal after-anesthesia progress and then leaving him reluctantly even though Al and Andy Stevanic promised to call her if he so much as sighed.

  Mac McDavie hadn't slept either; all night, at intervals, the sound of his ax had rung through the moonlit dark. Mr. Jefferson's operation had interrupted his wood-chopping and while there was enough fuel for the fires in the cabins they all knew how imperative it was to keep that signal fire in the clearing leaping skyward…

  "Andrea isn't the only one who's hungry," she told Jan-Doreen and Mrs. Emlyn, who already had the iron pot on the crane and the remains of Old Ram simmering. "I'm famished."

  "I hope Al or Mr. McDavie can get another rabbit or a ptarmigan," Jan-Doreen worried. "There's no use to think Andy might. He's the worst marksman in the whole Air Force." A slow smile lighted her vivacious, pretty face. "I guess I'm glad. If he hadn't flunked that test for Gunnery School he might not have been sent to Ladd."

  "And you like Fairbanks," Sarah said.

  "Oh, maybe not Fairbanks. But Andy will be out next year and we're going to file on a homestead on the Kenai Peninsula, down close to Port Graham, I think. Or maybe Homer."

  She settled Andrea at the other breast. "My grandfather has a farm down close to Vincennes, and ohhhhh, Sarah! I love it on a farm!"

  But on a farm in Alaska? Sarah did not say it. Shivering, she moved nearer the fire.

  "It's colder."

  Mrs. Emlyn's mouth tightened as she nodded. Sarah knew what she was thinking. More weather, probably even more snow, and here they were—

  Oh, God. Paul—

  Grimly she closed her mind to Paul and John Norstead. She couldn't help them. Her responsibility was here, but how long could they manage?

  The specter still haunting her, she went outside.

  It was colder. A biting wind was whipping off the mountains across the river and somber dark gray clouds pressed down on the peaks. Oh, God, not more snow, she prayed silently.

  The fire in the clearing was burning itself out now that, in the dirty gray late daybreak, they didn't need it. The pile of charred embers would be their daytime signal, along with the SOS they had tramped in the snow and then outlined with spruce boughs… not that it had helped, she thought, too keenly aware of the fresh wave of discouragement that washed over her.

  Would a plane never come?

  If one didn't—and soon— Putting the nightmare from her, she pushed open the cabin door.

  "How's my patient?" she said when she saw that Mr. Jefferson was awake and looking wonderful.

  "Hungry. And not for that broth either."

  Laughing, Sarah said, "You'll get broth." Her eyes said Good morning, darling, I love you, to Al Malcolm. "If Mr. McDavie doesn't get another sheep we're all going to have broth after this morning. Thin broth."

  McDavie stirred on his spruce-bough pallet. "Spelled w-a-t-e-r?"

  She nodded. "Feel all right inside?" she asked Mr. Jefferson.

  "I guess so."

  Sarah smiled. "But as if you might spill. I know. So did I when I lost my appendix." She got out the fever thermometer and when George Jefferson groaned, "I thought I was through with that," shook her head.

  Any highish temperature now would indicate lingering infection… perhaps spreading inflammation— But she didn't—couldn't—tell him that.

  Not when she had none of the antiphlogistics they used at the hospital—nothing, that is, that she could inject or give orally—and rubbing wouldn't help—

  She retrieved the thermometer and was holding it to the light—a hundred point three… and should it be? —when Mac McDavie was out the door as if he'd been shot from the Magnum.

  "Al!"

  Al Malcolm and Andy Stevanic were at his heels, dashing for the clearing, by the time Sarah heard the throb of—not motors, she thought with some oddly detached commonsense part of her, but a motor!

  God, please!

  She saw it then, not a plane, but a helicopter, lifting gracefully over a cut in the jagged ridge— "Mr. Jefferson! It's a helicopter! He's landing—"

  She hadn't realized she could sob for sheer joy and relief, but she did.

  Oh, God—thank you, God—

  "Mr. Jefferson—"

  Suddenly a nurse again, she pressed him back. "You mustn't get up, Mr. Jefferson. Not yet—not now—"

  George Jefferson grinned. "Run on out there, Miss Bennett. And if there's a guy named Andersen on that whirlybird, tell him to get down on his knees when he speaks to you. You saved him a damned good operative."

  She might have been back in Dayton, the small, austere office lined with its medical books might have been Dr. Cal's instead of that of the surgeon to whom George Jefferson's Dr. Alexander had presented her as soon as she, Al Malcolm and Mr. Jefferson were out of the ambulance that had brought them from the airport. Thinking that—for the how many-th time? she asked herself—she breathed deeply, steadyingly. They were taking an awfully long time.

  Suppose they had found something wrong? Something she had left undone which accounted for that fever—

  She returned Al's reassuring smile. "Stop worrying, honey," he said. "I'm not. Not really. But—"

  "But you pulled it off."

  She didn't nod. She had, and Mr. Jefferson now was where almost anything could be coped with, but—

  Still that "but."

  Determinedly she thought about something else. She still could scarcely believe that George Jefferson was Federal Bureau of Investigation, that he had insinuated himself into Herman Thornton Elder's confidence… that he had known all along about those missile-base plans being in Elder's bag and that he was to have accompanied Elder to a rendezvous in Juneau—and then put the finger on the rest of the ring. That had been his "business" in Fairbanks, the reason why not even a flaring-up appendix could keep him in Seattle when there was a chance the appendix might give him more trouble. The groundwork was laid and no one else could follow through without exciting suspicion…

  "Sure, I'm disappointed, but, hell, Miss Bennett," he had burst out when they were talking about it on the flight down, "Elder, the Rings and Smith are a good haul, specially when we hadn't counted on the Rings and Smith. At least they're not going to cause any more trouble. The others may, but we'll get them. In time."

  Although the knowledge of what probably had happened to Mr. Elder made her slightly ill, they would, Sarah was sure…

  She let her eyes stray to the brilliance of Seattle sunshine beyond the window. It was good to see bright sun and know that it wasn't glinting on snow! She still didn't understand how Paul and John Norstead had stood the glare. It would have been worse than the cold, somehow. Blinding them, stabbing at their eyes, sending them stumbling, falling, when to stumble and fall—

  She shuddered. If that pilot hadn't seen them— Another night, and colder—

  She looked at her watch. Almost four and still sun. By four of an afternoon the long night already had been upon them… by four tomorrow the long Fairbanks night would be upon her again…

  She wasn't quite sure why she was flying back with Al. She could go home for a few days and still be back in Fairbanks before Alaska Passenger and Freight Airways resumed its flight schedule. Getting delivery on a new plane was going to take a little time.

  But by that time Paul would be able to fly… at least as co-pilot with Al, she thought. Thank God the frostbite wasn't too serious.

  At least they hadn't thought that it was when she and Al had left Fairbanks with Mr. Jefferson… She had telephoned ho
me as soon as they reached Fairbanks, her parents in Troy and Ralph in Dayton—she was going to have to tell Ralph, she thought, and how did you go about telling a man you didn't love him? That you didn't, honestly in your heart, think you ever had? That to love a man you had to respect him—

  No, she couldn't tell even Ralph that.

  Just that she didn't love him… not even that she thought she was falling in love with Al.

  You didn't fall in love with a man in five days—not even in the nine days that it had been since she had gotten off that plane in Juneau.

  Did you?

  She jumped when the solid oak door opened and the hospital's chief surgeon came in, followed by Dr. Alexander.

  "Miss Bennett," the surgeon thrust out a hand, "may I congratulate you? Charles McBurney would be proud of you."

  "Thank you."

  He didn't wait for her questions which he must know were burning her mind.

  "There still is some temperature, but penicillin will take care of that. A bit of infection. Otherwise everything seems to be coming along."

  "Then you're—not going to have to—operate?"

  "I see no reason to."

  A smile touched the lean, lined face. "I know what you're thinking, young lady. Sewing thread. Improper instruments." He shook his head. "As a surgical nurse you know a skilled hand compensates for a lot."

  She did, of course. But—

  What she saw in the surgeon's face vanquished that but.

  "Thank you, Doctor."

  "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm late for surgery. An embolectomy. I'll be pleased to have you observe if you don't have other plans." The smile included Al.

  Al grinned. "We do have, sir. Two of the biggest steaks in Seattle."

  "I suspected as much. Well—"

  He shook hands with both of them, and a few minutes later they were outside the hospital, basking in the sun that was pleasantly hot on the spacious lawn.

  "Al—"

  He took her arm. "Know something, honey? I've changed my mind about next summer. No Mrs. Emlyn. A man doesn't want a chaperone on his honeymoon."