CHAPTER FIFTEENPARTING
The nurses made quite a festive occasion out of the Fourth of July. Although it was midwinter, Northern Australia was close enough to the equator for the weather to be like midsummer at home. Nancy as chairman of the program committee, started weeks ahead trying to collect flags and bunting to decorate the wards. Miss Anna Darien and the Red Cross workers back in Sydney sent her boxes that were real gold mines for her purpose.
Their hospital was not far from a camp of negro soldiers from the states. These colored men were primarily employed in pushing convoys through northern Australia. Nancy, knowing how beautifully some of them sang, suggested that Major Reed invite a group over to entertain the wounded on their American holiday.
Nancy feared rain might spoil their program, which was to be outdoors, but she took chances on having the bandstand arranged in the middle of the street within view of most of the buildings. Though they had sloshed through enough rain to float a transport the last weeks, the sky actually cleared a fewhours before time for their program.
For a change the nurses all donned their white uniforms, and in spite of the heat the medical officers put on coats and ties. The convalescents, still in pajamas, were supplied with benches around the bandstand. Everyone seemed excited at the prospect of a little diversion.
“Say, but you look like an angel in that white uniform,” Bruce exclaimed when he saw Nancy.
He could walk almost erect now, without bending to the pain in his side. He had been given new clothes, which he wore for the first time that day, and Nancy thought him even more handsome than ever in his lieutenant’s uniform.
“You’re not bad-looking yourself,” she told him.
“For the forty-ninth time, do I look good enough to be your husband?”
“Now, Bruce,” she began severely, “I have to keep my mind on this program and can’t think of the future just now.”
“All right! All right!” he said and grinned impishly. “I won’t ask you again today, but I make no promises for tomorrow.”
“I have a surprise for you,” she said, when she was about to leave him on one of the seats. “Hope you’ll like it.”
“I like anything you do,” he assured her.
“I’m not so sure,” she retorted. “Remember, I’m from Georgia and you from New York state.”
“I can’t imagine what difference that would ever make.”
“Just wait and see.”
The convalescents’ band led off withThe Star Spangled Banner. Though Nancy had stood at attention a thousand times or more she still thrilled to the stirring music, and her heart swelled with pride that she was now an essential part of these great armies, intent upon keeping their own flags waving over all the lands of the free and homes of the brave.
After the national anthem Lieutenant Hauser led the nurses in singingAmerica the Beautiful. Then the negro chorus stepped forward to give them a program of spirituals in sonorous, harmonizing voices. First they chantedI’m Goin’ Down De River o’ Jordan. Then their choir leader sang a solo with a group behind him humming an accompaniment, soft and sweet as any deep-toned organ. They finished off their first group withSwing Low, Sweet Chariot, which brought such storms of applause the spiritual had to be repeated.
When the hospital band struck up a march a group of nurses stepped out, bearing flags of the Allied Nations, and took a snappy turn around the flagpole. Every spectator, down to the last crippled convalescent, sprang to his feet and stood at salute. Then suddenly Sousa’s march blended into the lilting strains ofDixie. As the gallant music rang through the Australian bush, Nancy, who carried the Americanflag in the center of the group of nations, suddenly unfurled a small Confederate flag beneath the Stars and Stripes.
Bruce Williams and Pat Walden, standing on the sidelines, were the first to notice the battle-scarred Stars and Bars, and started cheering. The colored troops caught their enthusiasm and began to sing with the band. A moment later every spectator was singing the old song with all the zest possible. When the band crashed out the last notes the marching group broke up amid much clapping and cheers.
“You made a real hit with that, Nancy,” said Major Reed when Nancy went back to the grandstand where he sat.
The Major gave a brief talk on the cause for which they were fighting. He praised the fine courage of the men who had already paid so great a price, and spoke words of commendation for the nurses and doctors who were serving them so faithfully.
After the outdoor program Nancy and Miss Hauser went into the wards with the negro chorus which was glad to sing the familiar songs over and over so that all might hear.
When they had finished Nancy and Miss Hauser were thanking the singers when Nancy said to Sam Turner, leader of the chorus, “There’s surely something very familiar about your face, Sam.”
Sam’s wide mouth spread in a grin, “Reckon so. Plenty people seen dis mug, Miss. I used to be porteron de Dixie Flyer—dat special ’tween New York and Miami.”
“Oh, then maybe I’ve seen you there. I used to catch that train north sometimes.”
“Dem wus de days,” said Sam, rolling his eyes. “Many’s de time I pick up fifty dollar in tips on de way down.” He grinned knowingly. “Dey wus neber quite so flush comin’ back from Florida in de spring.”
“That’s all a thing of the past now, Sam—till we get this big job done,” said Nancy.
“Yas’m, sho is, Miss. I’se mighty glad to see y’all folks from down home he’pin’ wid it.”
When the singers had driven away, Nancy’s superior officer turned to her and said, “We have you to thank for a wonderful program, Nancy. I had no idea you could get up anything so nice.”
“Thanks,” said Nancy happily. “It really went off more smoothly than I expected. But I never could have done it without Miss Anna Darien, and the Red Cross back in Sydney. They got me the colors for decorations, and the flags of the different countries.”
“Not the confederate flag?” questioned Lieutenant Hauser, and smiled reminiscently at the hurrah it had created.
Nancy lowered her eyes self-consciously. “I was a little nervous as to how they might receive that,” she admitted.
“You made quite a hit. I’m sure I never felt such a wave of enthusiasm as they put intoDixie.”
“There’s Something Familiar About Your Face, Sam.”
“There’s Something Familiar About Your Face, Sam.”
“There’s Something Familiar About Your Face, Sam.”
“So many of the boys here at the hospital are southern boys,” Nancy explained. “And I knew the negroes would love it.”
“But where did you get the flag?” persisted Miss Hauser.
“I brought it over with me,” Nancy confessed. “You see it’s the same little flag that my great-grandfather Dale carried all through the Civil War. Dad gave it to me just before I left. He said it had brought Grand-dad through his campaigns safely, and he thought it might bring me good luck.”
“I suppose there’s still a lot of sentiment in the south about that old flag,” said Miss Hauser.
“Yes, there is. It would be hard for anyone else to understand how we feel about the lost cause. Not that we would change things as they are now. But we have a lot of respect and love for those old fellows who fought and suffered so much for what they thought was right. There were some marvelous military leaders among them, you know.”
“Indeed there were,” agreed Lieutenant Hauser. “Our men study the military tactics of Lee, Jackson and the others.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Nancy, “but I’m glad to hear it.”
When they were about to separate, Miss Hauser said, “Oh, I almost forgot—Major Reed has asked to see you when your work is finished.”
Nancy lifted her eyebrows slightly, wonderingwhat was brewing. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll go now.”
She found Major Reed in his office. He had already discarded his coat and tie and was drinking a coke.
“I’ll have one sent in for you,” he said, as he motioned Nancy to a chair beside his desk. Chairs were luxuries and Nancy sat down gratefully, for she suddenly felt very tired.
“A fresh supply just came in from the States,” Major Reed explained as he opened her bottle.
“My, that tastes like the corner drugstore at home,” said Nancy.
He studied her a moment, then asked, “Homesick?”
“Oh, no. I’m having a wonderful time.”
His face relaxed. “I was afraid you were homesick.”
“Of course I’d like better than anything else to see Mom and Dad, and have a peep at all the folks back home, but I’d want to be right here the next day.”
“You wouldn’t mind going even deeper into it?” he asked.
She sent him a speculative glance. “Oh, Major Reed, are we going to get out to the islands?”
“You guessed right.”
For a moment Nancy felt as uplifted as she had been on the night she took her Florence Nightingale pledge so long ago. Major Reed was opening the door to the goal for which she had worked so long.
“You’ve been such a good scout, Nancy, and put on such a splendid program today this was the onlyreward I could offer you right now—to tell you a little ahead of the others that we’re soon going out into the Pacific. I fear the work here will seem like play compared with what we’ll meet there.”
“I’m ready and eager to go,” she assured him. “When do we leave?”
“Shortly. But you are not to mention it until it’s officially announced.”
The general announcement was made sooner than Nancy dared hope—three evenings later. They had to be ready to leave the following morning. The new nursing unit was expected in that night to take over.
Before Nancy started packing she went to find Bruce Williams and tell him good-bye. He was genuinely distressed.
“I was afraid it was too much good luck, having you here even this long,” he said.
“But you won’t be here much longer either,” she told him. She leaned across the table in the recreation room where he had been reading. “I’ll tell you something if you won’t mention it.”
“Oh, jimminy! Nancy, are you really going to marry me?”
“Don’t be silly!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got a war to win first. I was going to tell you that you’re going to be sent home with the next bunch that goes out from here.”
“Say, but thatisgreat!”
“See, if I hadn’t been sent out first, I’d be the oneleft behind.”
“Seems as if it can’t be true—going home at last. For so long I gave up hopes of ever seeing the folks, as you call them down south.”
He caught her hand and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “But Nancy, when you come home, too, will you promise to think seriously about what I’ve been asking you every day?”
For the first time she took him seriously and said, “I surely will, Bruce. And you won’t forget to pray that somehow Tommy will get back to us?”
“You bet I won’t, Nancy.”
When she stood up to leave he started to rise also, but she pressed her hand on his shoulder, holding him down firmly, for it was still difficult for him to get up and down.
“Don’t stand,” she said. “I must run along.”
Suddenly she bent and kissed him lightly on the forehead, then hurried away before he could come after her, making their parting harder. Nancy found that the most trying aspect of her work was making friends, then having to leave them behind.
CHAPTER SIXTEENBEACH LANDING
The convoy in which they moved out into the Pacific again was quite different from that in which they had come across. There were beach landing boats of many kinds in the great fleet. Though this indicated that they were to go ashore on some beach, Nancy’s unit had no idea what island that would be. To most it was a matter of indifference, but to Nancy it was immensely important in which direction their convoy moved.
In her musette bag she had tucked away the little map Bruce had drawn for her, with the names of Tommy’s bomber crew. She would never give up hope of learning more from some of them as to Tommy’s fate.
The crowded transport on which they traveled could not supply all with sleeping quarters. Nancy and Mabel were among the women who volunteered to sleep on deck the first night. The second night they took a turn below, but found it so crowded, and the air so bad they preferred their bed rolls on deck. Bathing was practically taboo, as their water supply had to be conserved for drinking. The second dayout Jap fliers discovered them, so that helmets and Mae Wests were their inseparable companions. Their voyage across from home seemed like a pleasure cruise by comparison.
“I’ll surely have more sympathy with the dirty men we have to clean up hereafter,” said Mabel, trying to reach under her “Mae West” to do a bit of scratching.
“I’ve been wondering if I’ve gotten fleas or something,” said Nancy. “I remind myself of old Bozo back home. He’s always clawing at some part of his anatomy.”
When the Jap planes came over they had their first real chance to discover of what stuff they were made. To Nancy’s consternation she was almost paralysed with fear. She glanced at the few possessions she had with her, wondering which she ought to take to the lifeboat. It was awful to see those busters sending up great waterspouts where they fell, and never to know if the next would land in their midst. What a relief it was when their own planes went into action, and the Japs turned tail.
But the aggravating Zeros came over again in the night. Decks had been cleared and Nancy and Mabel huddled side by side on a bunk, listening to attackers and defenders roaring overhead. Nancy had been in a Florida hurricane once that made her feel like this. All night long the oncoming gusts of wind had threatened to level the beach cottage. She wondered how she had ever survived that night when almostmomentarily she had expected death. But tonight she lived the horrible experience all over again. No one could tell as a plane zoomed low over their ship whether it was a Jap or American. Time and again they braced themselves for the explosion they were certain must come. She and Mabel clutched each other’s hands till their fingers ached.
“It’s beginning to look as though Major Reed has over-estimated my courage,” she whispered ruefully to Mabel.
“I never before realized how wicked I am,” groaned Mabel. “All my sins seem rising up to slap me in the face now.”
Suddenly Nancy laughed hysterically, “You’re the limit, Mabel.”
Mabel giggled and their tension was broken. “Let’s put on our helmets and go out in the hall where we can keep up with what’s happening,” Mabel suggested. “I always feel better in a thunderstorm when I’m standing where I can see the lightning strike.”
They went out to the passage nearest their lifeboat, and felt more comfortable. Almost immediately after they stationed themselves there, however, the attackers were driven off and peace descended once more on the dark flotilla.
Not until next morning did they learn that a ship some distance behind them had been struck and sent to the bottom. She was a tanker, and only about half her crew were picked up by neighboring vessels.
“But for the grace of God that might have been us,” said Nancy sadly.
When they were approaching the end of their dangerous voyage, the nurses learned some details of the situation they were to face. Their destination was Koshu Island, half of which had already been taken from the Japs. The prolonged struggle to gain complete possession of the area had caused many casualties, making a hospital unit imperative.
There would be many more casualties they knew from this reinforcing armada of which they were a part, to replace those being sent out from the island by plane.
Excitement rippled over the transport when the troops and nurses sighted their destination, a fluted outline of ragged palms silhouetted against a white-hot tropical sky. The beach-head which they were to occupy had been taken weeks ago, so the landing would not be as dangerous as it had been for the earlier force.
About a mile offshore the flotilla came to anchor. All morning Nancy and her companions watched the landing craft of many types push in close against the beach, putting men and munitions ashore. Much of the infantry had come all the way from Australia aboard the larger landing craft. When these boats had discharged their passengers they returned to the transports, and filled up again. On one of these landing craft for infantry, Nancy’s unit went ashore.
While they waited their turn, watching the maneuvers over the wide theater of action, Major Reed proffered Nancy his field glasses. She shared them with Mabel, who stood at her side.
“Do look yonder,” she said, pointing to the eastern end of the island.
Mabel whistled softly when she adjusted the glasses. “That must have been where they took the beach-head!” she said. “Our artillery surely did riddle that piece of coconut jungle.”
Most of the trees had been topped, and reminded Nancy of blackened chimneys she had seen once when several city blocks burned. The open beach lying between the jungle and the sea was strewn with the wreckage of a campsite.
No nurse had been allowed to bring more than she could carry in her own hands, so Nancy’s suitcase and musette bag were packed to heavy tightness. For two hours they waited with their baggage around them. But at last they went aboard the landing craft. Nancy was relieved when finally the boat moved toward shore to see that they were not headed for that battle-scarred point to the east. Buzzards still circled above it, and she surmised they had not yet completed their ghastly task of cleaning up the remains of battle.
It was exciting to see landing ramps go down on each side of the craft’s bow, like stairs descending into the shallow surf. The nurses watched while the firstmen went ashore, their helmets on, their bodies padded with their packs, their guns held high above the lapping waves.
Then a line of men formed from the long ramps to the sandy beach as guard while the women went ashore. Nancy, Mabel and fifty others, took off their G.I. shoes, stuffed their stockings inside, tied their shoes together by the laces and hung them around their necks. They rolled the legs of their coveralls high above their knees, and with many excited squeals and giggles hurried down the ramps and into the cool water breaking on the shore.
As soon as she reached the beach Nancy sat down to put on her shoes for the sands were burning hot. Before she rose she paused to say a silent prayer of thanksgiving that at last she was on one of the Pacific islands, the goal of her dreams these many months.
“Surely looks as though we’re in for tropical living here,” remarked Mabel, glancing at the jungle wall not far from the lapping tide.
“Look farther down the beach,” Nancy pointed out. “Isn’t that a marvelous sight?”
As far as they could see along the beach, landing craft of every sort were pushing up to shore. The one next their own infantry craft was a huge affair, and even while they looked its large doors opened toward land. A tank rumbled forth into shallow water, and rolled up to dry land. It was followed by several others.
“Gosh, doesn’t it thrill you to think how fast and efficiently our country works,” said Mabel. “They tell me it wasn’t till the fall of 1942 that the first models of these landing ships were made—and look at this already.”
“Surely the Japs can’t beat a country like ours!” said Nancy proudly.
But even while she spoke there came a rumbling of heavy guns far beyond that jungle wall. Mabel had taken off her helmet to let the wind play through her red hair, that was like a nimbus around her face in the sunshine. Suddenly at the sound of firing she slapped the helmet back on her head.
“Say, but that doesn’t sound as if it’s going to be so easy to whip them!” she groaned.
Farther out in the deep water they could see troops still being transferred from the great transports to the landing craft. Another landing boat pushed up to the beach close to where they stood. It didn’t look to be longer than about a hundred feet. When its ramp was lowered it disgorged so many trucks and small tanks they wondered how they had all been stored inside.
As far as they could see along the beach, troops, equipment and boxes of supplies filled almost every available foot of space. The earlier invading army had cleared a road with tractors through the heart of the jungle. The leveled trees had been used on the most swampy ground to make corduroy roads. But the hospital unit was not to follow the marching troops into the interior.
Landing Craft Pushed up to Shore
Landing Craft Pushed up to Shore
Landing Craft Pushed up to Shore
A small detachment of men set up camp east of the road, while the western side was cleared for the hospital site. A small stream meandered through the grounds to supply them with water for bathing and laundry. They had brought their own drinking water against the possibility of not finding pure water.
A squad of negroes cleared underbrush from under the towering palms, cut a few trees here and there, and with almost magic swiftness the tent hospital went up. Those men took care of the long tents that were to serve as hospital wards and mess hall, but the nurses put up their own sleeping quarters.
The first night they had to sleep on their bedding rolls on the beach, for their campsite had not been entirely cleared. Before the second night, however, Nancy, Mabel, Shorty and Ida were prepared to sleep in their own tent.
“I never dreamed we could be so cozily settled in so short a time,” said Nancy.
Even their mosquito bars were up, and they had the prospect of a decent night’s sleep, for the previous one had been a nightmare. Only by covering up completely could they be free of the torturing pricks of mosquitoes, and then they sweltered.
At intervals during the first twenty-four hours there had come the rumble of heavy firing in the distance, like an approaching thunderstorm. Nodoubt those troops and tanks that had moved on beyond the jungle wall were already in the thick of the fight.
An hour before sunset of their second day ashore the thundering reverberations were increased ten-fold. Before dark, their tent hospital, not yet ready for patients, was precipitated into action. Ambulances began rolling in from the north. Those first patients had to be stretchered on the sands of the beach. To Nancy’s amazement she found that some were not bloody, wounded men.
In reply to her inquiry about them Captain Crawford said, “They tell me they’re prisoners—our men, freed when they took over a native village.”
Some had evidently been in line of the attacking fire Nancy discovered as she bent over a chap with a shredded arm.
“Were you a prisoner of the Japs?” she asked.
“Not me.”
Even as he replied Nancy realized from his well-fed look that he must have been one of the attackers.
“I got this as we took the village. Those poor creatures in that ambulance yonder were prisoners.”
“Many of them?” asked Nancy, wishing she could look after them.
“A dozen or so, I suppose. More had been there, but had passed beyond our help.”
“Who are they? Did you hear any of their names?”
“Sister, we didn’t stop for that. They were Americansand that was enough for us.”
Nancy had been cutting away the boy’s bloody shirt as she talked, and now she began to clean his wound. Captain Crawford came to probe for lead. Nancy gave the soldier a hypo and the doctor went back to his first patient while it took effect.
“You nurses and doctors got here just in time,” said the young corporal gratefully.
“Then you were here before?” she asked.
“Three weeks we’ve been driving ’em north.”
“You were lucky to escape so far.”
“Glad they waited till you got here,” he said, beginning to look drowsy.
A few minutes later the boy was sleeping, his wound dressed, and Nancy rose to go to the next cot. She sent a fleeting glance along the beach and under the towering palms where men with all manner of wounds were lying. Here was work enough for a hundred nurses. She saw there would be no sleep for any of the fifty who were here tonight. A doctor near by was amputating an arm, working fast while the daylight lasted.
Mabel worked with the released prisoners. She was giving plasma to one, evidently at the point of death. Nancy paused to give her a hand. She was amazed to see that the man’s hair was snow white.
“Wonder how anyone this old got into the service?” she whispered to Mabel.
The man’s face was brown and creased as crackedleather. Only a loin cloth hung about his waist, while every rib could be counted in his shriveled body. His limbs were mere skin-covered bones, making the joints seem abnormally large. In spite of all this they could see he had once been a powerful, tall man.
“He looks too dark to be an American,” said Nancy dubiously.
“This sun can cook anybody’s skin that brown. Look, his dog tag’s still on. That gives his data,” said Mabel, for she had already referred to it to get his blood type.
The man was in a coma. There seemed slight chance they could bring him around, yet there was life still in his pulse, and they did everything which modern science knew to strengthen that feeble spark.
Nancy picked up the tag from the bony chest and read, “Vernon Goodwin.”
“Yep. I noticed that when I looked for his blood type,” said Mabel.
“Nearest relative, V. P. Goodwin, Graceville, S. C. Not only an American, but a southerner!” exclaimed Nancy. “Protestant religion. Vernon Goodwin—Vernon Goodwin,” she repeated softly.
To her surprise the sick man’s eyelids fluttered, and Nancy thought the light of consciousness welled up as he looked at her a moment. The lips tried to move, but no words came.
“There’s something familiar in that name, Mabel.”
“Common enough name back home—Goodwin.”
“Could he be one of Tommy’s bomber crew?”
Again the eyelids fluttered, and again the lips tried to move.
“Mabel, I’ve got to know!” exclaimed Nancy. “I’m going to run up to our tent to get that list Bruce wrote for me.”
Nancy was back in five minutes, but Mabel had moved to the next man. Her face was shining with an inner light when she went up to her friend and said, “It is one of them, Mabel. Vernon Goodwin, Tommy’s gunner.”
“Well of all things!” burst forth Mabel. “It’s a little world after all.”
“But he may die, poor soul!”
“He has only a slim chance I’d say, even to realize he’s been rescued, much less to tell you about the disaster.”
“But Mabel, we’ve got to bring him through—somehow! Surely he can tell us about Tommy. Why Tommy may even be among these prisoners.”
As the idea seized her Nancy hurried off to search the faces of those prisoners. She looked at each emaciated face with hope, only to turn away with a heavy heart. Then the idea came to her that Tommy’s suffering might have changed him beyond recognition, so she went back among the prisoners, this time examining their dog tags.
When she passed Mabel a second time her friend gave her a sharp look and said, “Snap out of it, Nancy!You’d better get back on the job or they’ll be jacking you up for shirking duty.”
Nancy flushed and came to herself with a start. She had never received a reprimand of that sort and would have felt disgraced to merit it in this first real testing hour.
Several times during the night, however, she returned to see about Vernon Goodwin. At last as she turned her light on his face to watch his breathing she thought she saw a faint color in his dry lips. He must live, he must! She kept saying the words to herself. If he died she might never know what had really become of Tommy. Vernon seemed her last hope of gaining some clue that might lead to rescuing him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTHE GUNNER’S STORY
The systematic routine of nursing, in which Nancy and her fellow workers had been so carefully trained, had to be forgotten in the trying days that followed. Although the nurses went on duty at stated intervals, theoretically to work for eight hours, few ever stopped before reaching the point of exhaustion. Even with their large and well-balanced unit there were not half enough to meet the need.
“If the nurses back home could fly out here for one night—just to see how badly we need help,” said Nancy, “they couldn’t get into the ANC fast enough.”
“Don’t you worry—I’m going to tell ’em a few things in my next letters home,” Mabel assured her.
Mabel was beginning to look something like a guinea egg, for the hot sun and constant glare had peppered her fair face with freckles. She wore her hair pinned up tightly under her kerchief, as most of the others did. Wind blew almost constantly across the island, and without some protection hair would always be in their faces.
Nancy had burned badly on their last sea voyage, and was now beginning to peel. “There’s one consolation,”she remarked to Mabel. “Everybody looks about as bad as everybody else.”
“And who gives a hang?” Mabel wanted to know. “There’re really more important things to think about. It’s what you can do and hold up under that counts these days.”
It took some time for Nancy to condition herself to that constant rumble of artillery. At first each reverberation that shook their tent poles set her aquiver. She knew that every blast only increased the number of dead and wounded.
Life on Koshu was as complicated as a three-ring circus. Besides the continual rumble of artillery, as the Americans pushed north across the island, there was the constant drone of planes overhead. At first Nancy had the impulse to run out and look up to discover whether they were Japs or Americans, but she soon learned to trust their sirens to give her warning of danger. She had her job to do. If she was to keep fit for it she must concentrate on her own part of the great task.
By the third day the hospital was full to overflowing. Nancy and her quartette offered their private tent to give shelter to more wounded. Other nurses followed their example. The negro camp helpers built the nurses a long shelter, roofed with palm fronds. Some of the island natives, dubbed “Fuzzy Wuzzies” because of their bushy heads, directed the construction. The nurses called their new quartersthe fresh-air dormitory. Though there was plenty of fresh air there was certainly little privacy.
“Who has time for privacy these days?” Nancy wanted to know.
Their new quarters proved to be much cooler than the tents. Mosquito bars were hung from the palm-trunk rafters. By the time the nurses were able to crawl under their nets they were so exhausted they missed none of the luxuries of normal life. To be able to stretch out and sleep awhile on a canvas cot seemed luxury enough.
The little area which each nurse’s cot covered was her small kingdom. Her gas mask and helmet hung from the head of the bed when she was not on duty. Her packed musette bag was at the foot. Beneath the cot was her suitcase and other possessions.
The day after they moved into their fresh-air dormitory Nancy found a snake reposing in the cool shadows under her cot. He was the harmless sort, so with a long stick she prodded him until he decided to seek more peaceful quarters on the path leading to the stream.
Next morning Nancy stuck her foot into her shoe to find a lizard had spent the night there. She tossed the inhabited G.I. away with such a screech all her neighbors lifted sleepy heads to see if the Japs had labeled a bomb for her.
Though Nancy made light of the small difficulties of their quarters her heart was often heavy as she anxiouslywatched and prayed for Vernon Goodwin’s recovery. During the first twenty-four hours after they placed him in the tent it seemed that life would flicker out at any moment. The news got round that Vernon had been one of Tommy Dale’s bomber crew, and the entire staff concentrated their efforts toward his recovery. Lieutenant Herbert York, in charge of his ward, gave him every treatment that modern science had discovered for restoring life to a starved body. To her great satisfaction, they transferred Nancy to his ward.
On the fourth day Vernon showed the first real promise of recovery. An hour after daylight Nancy was scheduled to go off duty, but she didn’t want to leave Vernon. He had roused and his lids had fluttered open several times. To the watching nurse’s delight his look of confusion had vanished.
“Wouldn’t you like something to eat?” she asked hopefully. “Lieutenant York said you could have something this morning.”
He turned his head and looked at her a long time. “You’re an American nurse,” he whispered as if he could scarcely believe the wonderful truth.
She nodded and smiled. Then she took a grip on herself to keep from saying anything that would shock him.
“I suppose I don’t look very much like one in this seersucker suit and with my head tied up. But you’re safe in an American hospital, Vernon, and you’re goingto get well,” she assured him.
“I never thought it could happen,” he whispered. He turned his head slowly as if looking for someone. “Did they bring the others out?” he asked after an interval.
“Who?” she asked. “The rest of the bomber crew?”
A shadow darkened his eyes.
“Was Tommy with them?” she asked. Then she was frightened for fear his answer would bring an end to all her hopes.
“No.”
“No?” she repeated in an agony of suspense.
“He wouldn’t come back with us.”
“Wouldn’t come back?”
“From that island where we went ashore.”
“You—you mean Tommy really got safely ashore somewhere?”
“Yes. Three of us did.” Suddenly Vernon stopped and fixed his gaze on her. “Did you know Tommy?”
“He’s my brother.”
The ill man showed no shock or surprise at this. But he stared at her for some time before he continued, “I think I knew that anyhow.” His tone grew more puzzled. “Don’t know how, unless it was because you kept pulling me back from the grave—you wouldn’t let me die.”
“Maybe you realized some of the things we said around you while you were so desperately ill,” Nancy told him. “Do you feel able to tell me more about Tommy? Was he injured when he jumped?”
“Tommy Made Us Leave Him There.”
“Tommy Made Us Leave Him There.”
“Tommy Made Us Leave Him There.”
“All of us were one way or another. Tommy got his in here somewhere.” The emaciated hand lying on the sheet, indicated his stomach. “He made Jim and me start off in our rubber boat. We had picked up some valuable information from the Japs that called for counteraction right away.”
“And he made you leave him there?”
“Hardest thing I ever had to do, but he was our captain and we had to obey. ‘Getting through with that information may save thousands of lives,’ Tommy told us. He was like that, Tommy was. By staying we might’ve saved him, but he wouldn’t hear of it when so much was at stake.”
“But couldn’t you have brought him away with you?” she wailed.
“He was too ill to sit up. That burning sun would have finished him in a few hours, even if the Japs hadn’t got us.”
“Oh—then they did get you before you came through with the information?”
He was silent a moment as if gathering strength for the awful memories.
“Picked us up at sea,” he said finally. “We had water, food and navigation instruments and might have made it all right.”
She feared the thoughts of what followed would be too harrowing, and stopped him there. “I’ll go get you some milk,” she said. “Then you must restbefore you talk any more.”
Nancy dared not weary Vernon with more questioning just then, so was silent while she fed him the milk through a tube. The information he had already given was broken at intervals for him to gather strength for the effort.
“You must sleep some more,” she suggested when he had taken the nourishment, “and I’ll come back to see you again this afternoon.”
For the first time in many weeks Nancy found it impossible to sleep when she was finally stretched on her cot. She often used a blinder across her eyes to shut out the glare when she had difficulty sleeping in the day, but this time it did no good at all. She could not stop the working of her troubled mind, even though her tired body cried out for rest. Nor did she like to take anything to make herself sleep, for she knew, under the present stress, how easy it would be to get into such a habit.
After tossing from side to side for a couple of hours she finally got up and went down to the spring to do her washing. Soon her undies and seersucker suits were flapping on a line between two palm trees near their shelter. Then she took a bath in the wash hole at the stream, which they had made private by an arrangement of palm leaf screens.
When Nancy was coming back up the path from the stream she met Major Reed. Since they had landed on the island there had been little thought ortime for military formalities. The entire unit, from the highest officers to the youngest shavetails, had become a harmonious working whole. However, Nancy saluted now as she came face to face with the major on the path.
He was about to pass on when suddenly he paused and said, “Nancy, there’s no need of killing yourself. You look all washed up.”
“Maybe I look pale because I just had a bath,” she told him. “A rare luxury!”
He chuckled and admitted, “You do look mighty clean!” Then almost immediately he was serious again. “I’ve just come from your ward and York told me you worked long beyond your time this morning.”
“More were coming in than the nurses on duty could handle,” she explained. Then for fear she would be given more credit than she deserved Nancy hastened to add, “And Vernon Goodwin was so much better I thought he might rouse at any moment and be able to tell me something.”
“And did he?”
“Yes he did, Major. He told me a little about Tommy. He wasn’t able to talk much.” Briefly Nancy repeated what she had learned from Vernon.
“Did he know the name of the island where they came down?”
“No—or rather I didn’t ask him. I was afraid to let him talk too much. His life still hangs by a thin thread.”
“How long since you talked with him?”
Nancy glanced at her watch. “Nearly three hours.”
“Want to try again?”
“Oh, yes, if you don’t think it would be too much strain on him.”
They went to the ward and made their way down through the long rows of cots. They were a pitiful lot, those wounded men with bandages of every sort. But they wanted no pity, for they called themselves the lucky guys for having so much comfort and attention. Some were able to be propped up for the noon meal, while others must be patiently fed a liquid diet.
Shorty Warner was feeding Vernon a thin broth through a tube when Major Reed and Nancy paused by his bed. The ghost of a smile flickered to the gunner’s face when he recognized Nancy.
“He asked for you as soon as he woke,” Shorty explained.
“Feel like talking a bit, old chap?” asked the major, touching the prematurely white head and giving it a friendly pat.
“Think so, Major. I know Miss Nancy is anxious to hear all about Tom.”
“So he was alive when you left him?”
“He was, sir. But I fear he was mortally wounded. Think he had a spatter of lead in his stomach—must have got it when they killed our co-pilot.”
Though Vernon’s voice was very weak Nancy sawthat talking was less effort than it had been earlier.
“Can you give us an idea of the location of that island?” the major asked.
“Not too accurate, I fear,” Vernon admitted. “I’ve been through such horrible things since. I’d say it’s not more than a day’s journey by water from here.”
At this information Nancy’s heart leaped up once more with hope.
“You took that fatal flight, you know, long before we started cleaning up this area,” Major Reed reminded him.
“So the nurse was just telling me. I’ve sort of lost track of time.”
“Was it a large island?” asked Nancy.
“Big enough for a man to get lost in its jungles—entirely surrounded by reefs. No large boat could get in close to its shores.”
“Plenty like that in this region,” said Major Reed.
“Jim and I passed no others in our life boat as we came south. Then those devils picked us up.”
“What about Jim?” Nancy asked.
“He had a nasty wound in his hip. Gangrene ended his misery two days after they put us in the prison camp. I’ve wished a thousand times it could have been me, too.”
Looking down on this wreck of a man, Nancy wondered how he had lived through the ordeal.
“Any Japs on the island where you three got ashore?” asked the major.
“No village there, or camp, nor any sign there’d ever been any. The place was a solid jungle, except for a narrow fringe of beach. But we did find a Jap plane wrecked on the reef. Her crew had evidently all been wiped out by our fire.”
“Was that where you got the information Captain Dale wanted you to bring back to us?”
Vernon nodded. “I brought the Jap papers away in the lining of my coat. Later when they were found on me those fiends stripped me of every rag for fear I might have more of their information hidden in my clothes.” Vernon managed a rueful smile. “That’s why you found me in only a loin cloth.”
“Did Tommy have water and food with him?” Nancy asked.
“You bet. There was a good spring close by. He didn’t need water, but we left him most of our food and medicine, and the supplies we took from the Zero. We put everything right to hand. Poor Tommy was already too miserable to crawl more than a few feet from where we left him.”
Tears were streaming down Nancy’s face, but she stubbornly held to her hopes. She couldn’t give Tommy up now, even after hearing the worst.
“It’s not likely he could be living still. But don’t feel too badly about it, Miss Nancy,” Vernon said kindly. “There’s plenty of things worse than death in this war.”
“I’m afraid we’ve let you talk too much this time,”said Major Reed. “Sleep some more now and we’ll see you again.”
When Nancy and the major were outside she said, “Oh, Major, do you think there’s anything we could do about it? Would they be willing to send a searching plane out to look for Tommy?”
“Of course they would, my dear. But Goodwin’s information is rather vague about some things. We’ll wait till tomorrow. Maybe with the aid of a map he’ll be able to give us more accurate directions.”
“Oh, Major, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to, young lady. Captain Dale is about as important to the Air Forces as he is to you. We don’t give up such men without a struggle.” They walked on a few steps before he added, “Now you must go back and get some rest. We can’t afford to have any sick nurses on our hands.”