CHAPTER SIXCAMOUFLAGE
Nancy was not too surprised when she found Tini having a whispered conversation with the soda jerker in the strange town. Tini seemed always involved in some undercurrent.
She glanced at her watch and saw they had only five minutes before the transport was due to move on. “We’ve got to beat it,” she told Mabel.
“Better come along, Tini, or you’ll be left behind!” warned Mabel as they went toward the door.
Tini threw her money on the counter and overtook the girls.
“Don’t see why you wanted a coke ’round here when we had plenty of free ones at the Canteen,” Mabel said.
“Oh, just an excuse to talk to the clerk. I wanted to ask him if Carl Benton had been here lately.”
“Carl Benton,” repeated Nancy as they almost ran toward their trucks. “You mean that fellow you dated back yonder?”
“Sure. He sells soda-fountain supplies. Said he came through here often.”
“Did that chap know him?” asked Nancy.
“Dumb bloke—no! He’s only had that job a few days.”
“Surely you’ve heard from him since he left,” said Mabel, not without an acid flavor in her tone.
“You bet! But I thought if he was around this way I might get a chance to see him again.”
“May as well put him out of your mind,” Nancy suggested.
“Gal, if my hunch is right we won’t be doing any dating till we get through some maneuvers ahead of us,” said Mabel.
Toward sunset it began to look as though Mabel’s hunch had some material foundation. They turned off the paved highway and bumped for five miles over a rutted clay road before they entered a swamp made shadowy by the Spanish moss that hung from the oaks, cypress and sweet gum trees. Though the nurses were tired after their long day’s travel, Nancy and Mabel exchanged satisfied glances.
“Say, gal,” whispered Mabel. “Looks like they’re preparing us for the real thing.”
“We’ll sure have to sleep under nets down here or there won’t be any snoozing,” said Nancy.
The sun had already gone down, leaving a red glow in the west, when the convoy circled a clearing in the swamp where there was a small tent village already set up. The passengers climbed out gratefully, each nurse loaded with her personal baggage.
Lieutenant Hauser called the roll and assignedfour girls to each tent. The tents were numbered, so the nurses hurried off to see what their new homes were like.
“Four cots and that’s all!” exclaimed Mabel, the first to reach number four, their new habitation.
Nancy’s heart had taken a dive when she learned that Tini and her former room-mate, Ida Hall, were to share the tent with Mabel and herself. Had this been prearranged by Major Reed, she wondered? She certainly had no desire to continue serving as a day and night watchman for Tini Hoffman.
“Must think we’re made of cast iron,” complained Tini when she tried out her cot.
“But here are mattress cases,” said Nancy. “We can stuff ’em with Spanish moss from the trees and make grand mattresses. We used to do that when Dad took us fishing in the river swamp.”
“Not a bad idea,” agreed Ida.
They took their casings and hurried off under the trees to fill them before dark. The suggestion spread, and soon the swamp was alive with nurses preparing for a comfortable night’s sleep.
Their mess hall was a long tent in the center of the camp. They ate by lantern light. The food was all from cans, and cold, but the nurses were too hungry that night to be critical.
“Say, this is going to be real fun,” said Mabel, as they made their way back to their tents by G.I. flashlights.
Though it was spring the swampy air had a penetrating chill, which, however, did not discourage the mosquitoes at all.
“When we used to go camping we drove away the pests with a big campfire,” said Nancy, thinking sadly of the good times she had had with her dad, Tommy and their friends at their swamp shack.
“No fires here,” said Ida. “I heard Lieutenant Hauser say we must live just as if we were in range of enemy fire.”
Each tent had one lantern that hung from the center pole. Under it Nancy nailed a puny mirror, which had to serve all of them in turn. They transformed canned goods packing boxes into chairs. Their individual toilet articles had to be fished out from their musette bags every time they were used.
As neither Mabel nor Tini had ever been camping, they had their initiation that night in sleeping under mosquito nets.
“Gosh, feels like a prison in here!” exclaimed Mabel.
“A prison you’ll be glad to stay in,” Nancy informed her, “when you hear how those mosquitoes sing outside it.”
Long before day, however, each of the nurses was rolled in a blanket under her net and the discouraged pests had returned to their swamp muck.
The Nurses Washed Their Clothes in the River
The Nurses Washed Their Clothes in the River
The Nurses Washed Their Clothes in the River
In the days that followed the nurses discovered what it meant to do all their bathing and clothes washing in the shallows along the river shore. With only a compass to guide them, they learned to cut their way through the dense undergrowth of the river swamp. More than one rattler had to be killed in the process. But many others they left alone, as they had been given careful instructions about poisonous snakes and insects in various parts of the world. They crossed streams and lagoons in high boots, and several times ate from their mess kits the food they prepared for themselves on all-day hikes.
All nursing work was suspended while they were put through these physical fitness tests. To Nancy’s amazement, Tini Hoffman stood hers along with the others, for she seemed to understand its significance. Tini became another person when there were no men around on whom to turn her charms.
They had been camping on the river shore only three days when at breakfast one morning they were given orders to be prepared to leave by noon.
“I’m surely ready to go,” said Tini, who sat next to Nancy on the long bench at the table. “It’s been an eternity since we had any mail.”
They seemed so remote from civilization here that it seemed ages to Nancy also since she had heard what was going on in the rest of the world. But their high hopes proved premature as they were not yet scheduled for city lights.
Lieutenant Hauser gave the orders. “Every group is to take down its own tent, roll and pack it, accordingto previous instructions.”
Buzzing with talk and excitement the nurses scattered to their various quarters. Nancy had left her washing on a bush over night, so snatched it up as she hurried back to begin packing. Ten minutes before twelve all tents had been cleared to the last tent peg, and the nurses began to pack their belongings into the trucks in which they had arrived. It was thrilling and exciting business, for none of the trainees knew where the next stop would be.
To their surprise the convoy did not move out by the way it had come. Instead it turned toward the river. The nurses had discovered no bridges in all their hikes up and down the small stream, so they were not surprised when the trucks had to cross the stream at a shallow ford. For the first time they had a sample of what it would be like to travel where there were no paved roads and bridges.
After leaving the river the trucks moved on to higher ground. They left the gray-bearded trees behind and plowed through sand-rutted roads winding through a pine forest. At noon they stopped to eat from tins under the sighing pines. Then they learned they were not on their way back to their original training center.
“In about two hours we will pitch our tents again,” explained Lieutenant Hauser. “Some of your most difficult work is just ahead. Our camp will have a public highway on one side, but I warn you to talkto no one outside our unit, or give out any information about the tests you’re going through.”
“You mean we can’t even write our friends about what we’ve been doing on this trip?” asked Mabel.
“Certainly not! Too many times spies have deduced from the nature of a group’s training what its overseas destination might be.”
A surprised murmur swept over the semicircle of young women sitting on the carpet of brown pine needles. Nancy wondered about the letters Tini had written every day while they were in camp. She herself had written long descriptions of their camping life to her parents, but she realized now those letters she had been hoping to mail would have to be torn up.
But Miss Hauser was continuing, “This period is a try-out for actual overseas duty. We must conform to all restrictions we would have there.”
“Overseas duty!” Those were the magic words they had long wanted to hear. They brought a joyous outburst from the eager nurses, that ended in clapping.
“Aren’t we the lucky blokes!” exclaimed Mabel.
“And say, it looks as though it’s going to be in the tropics,” Nancy whispered.
When they rose to go back to the trucks Tini began to complain. “It’s utterly silly not letting us tell anything about what we’ve been doing in the swamp.”
“Ah, gee, who minds that?” asked Mabel. “Afterall, we agreed to submit ourselves to this rigorous training.”
“Of course we did,” said Nancy. “I’m sure they have good reasons for all these restrictions. You can never tell what spies may make of the smallest bit of information that may leak out.”
When they were rolling along again in their trucks, Nancy recalled how Tini had spent all her spare time back on the river shore, writing letters. Every night she had pushed her cot close to the lantern and sat under her mosquito bar to finish her writing. With her usual lack of consideration for others she kept the light burning till the tent swarmed with mosquitoes, moths and other insects.
“I bet she’ll try to mail those letters in spite of what Lieutenant Hauser said,” Nancy thought with disgust.
For the next twenty-four hours, however, there was no time to dwell on her tent mate’s tendency to insubordination. The nurses had thought they had stiff training in the swamp, but they truly got a taste of real training when their journey ended in the pine thicket at three that afternoon. No sooner were the ropes tied to the last tent peg than they were ordered to a near-by field.
They found several soldiers with guns in the bushy cover on the edge of the field. When the nurses came up in their coveralls and G.I. shoes, Sergeant Tanner gave them instructions.
“We’re going to let you find out what it feels like to be fleeing with the enemy firing behind you,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his brown eyes. “You’re to start across the field, and every time a blast of firing comes you’re to fall on your faces.”
“We won’t need any second invitation to do that,” said Mabel with a giggle.
“When the whistle blows that’s your order to advance again,” continued the sergeant.
Nancy looked at the guns with some apprehension. She would be truly glad when this was over. Shorty was all a-jitter again.
“Nancy, I’ll run close to you,” she said.
“Sure,” agreed Nancy, recalling their trying time at the gas chamber.
“Somehow I always feel safer when you’re around.”
At the signal they were off across the corn stubble left from last year’s harvest. As a child, Nancy had read how that other Nancy—Nancy Hart, and other women of Georgia, advancing in a field of corn stubble had taken part in the battle of Kettle Creek, and driven the British from upper Georgia during the Revolution. How little she had dreamed that she, another Nancy, six generations later, would be rehearsing for battle in a war for liberty that encircled the globe in just such a field.
The nurses had run only about a hundred feet when there came a roar of gunfire behind and faroverhead. Almost everyone wondered if her neighbor had been struck as she saw her dive for the earth.
“Golly Moses!” groaned Mabel. “I’m scared stiff!”
Nancy giggled nervously as she turned to see her pal’s forehead smeared with dirt where she had tried to go through the corn furrow.
“Exciting, but awful!” she agreed.
At the sound of the whistle they were off again. Over and over the gruelling performance was repeated. Then they had to turn and come back across the field in the face of the fire. Nancy found this easier. At least they could see that the shots were going far above their heads.
Most of them came in across the goal line triumphantly, though some were slightly hysterical between laughter and fear. Only two or three staggered back, tense and shaken.
During the rest of the afternoon their men instructors gave them illustrations of jungle camouflage. In the densely wooded section below the pine thicket and bordering a creek, they had to try to locate a half dozen men whose helmets and garments had been camouflaged.
“Hide and seek when we were kids was never half as thrilling as this,” said Nancy, as she and Mabel started off on the search.
Next morning Nancy, Mabel and Ida Hall were among the dozen nurses instructed to camouflage themselves and hide in the woods for the others tolocate. Nancy had dabbled at painting in school, and did a fairly good imitation of bay leaves across Mabel’s face and coveralls. Then before their small mirror she touched up her own countenance to look like woods’ shadows. A net was secured over her helmet and in it she twisted pieces of jasmine vines and bay leaves, leaving some of the vines to trail down across her face.
They were given ten minutes to hide before the others of their unit were sent in search of them. Nancy found a spot of dense growth not far from the highway where a scuppernong vine trailed over some low bushes, and a near-by jasmine crowned an old stump with yellow blossoms. She stretched flat under the scuppernong, and stuck her head among the yellow blossoms. Certainly she could not have found a more fragrant hiding place.
She heard the shot fired for the search to begin, then came faint sounds of the cautious searchers. In spite of orders, whoops and little screeches escaped the nurses when anyone was discovered. Several passed close enough for Nancy to touch them, but still she wasn’t noticed. Like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand, Nancy closed her eyes at each approach, feeling somehow that she was better hidden that way. Someone was coming near almost at a run when the shot was fired to end the race. Nancy was thrilled to know she was among those who had missed being found.
She was about to crawl out of her hiding place when she saw that the approaching girl was Tini Hoffman. Tini seemed to have no interest in the search, however, but was intent on reaching the highway. While Nancy had crouched under the bushes she had heard several cars go by. Cautiously she lifted her head as Tini passed and saw some letters sticking from her coverall pocket. Suspicion stirred. No doubt Tini was intent on mailing those letters she had written in the swamp describing their activities.
Instantly Nancy had a hunch that she meant to stop some passing car and get the driver to put her letters into the nearest post office. But she couldn’t run out there and accuse her of such an intention. There was nothing to do but watch her.
She saw Tini running, and in the distance a farmer’s truck coming down the hill. Nancy crawled from her hiding place and hurried from tree to bush on Tini’s trail. The car was quite close now and Tini jumped a ditch and ran to the pavement. So intent was she on attracting the driver’s attention, she was completely unaware of Nancy’s approach.
Tini waved her letters and the driver slowed. When he stopped, she called out, “Will you drop these letters at the nearest post office for me?”
“Sure, lady,” agreed the farmer at the wheel. “Glad to ’comodate you, miss.”
With a leap across the ditch Nancy was at Tini’sside. She reached for the letters as Tini extended them toward the man.
“You know you shouldn’t do that, Tini!” she burst forth.
The farmer gaped in amazement at this strange creature draped in leaves and covered with splotches of paint.
“How dare you?” burst forth Tini. “I’ve a perfect right—”
“You have not!”
“Give me my letters.”
“I will not! And if you try to take them I’ll report the whole business to Lieutenant Hauser.”
“Reckon I’ll be moving on,” said the farmer uneasily, looking at both of them as if he thought they had just escaped from an asylum. He chugged his motor into action, but before he rolled off he glanced at them compassionately and said, “Y’all better be good now and go back to the ’sylum, so Doc can take care o’ you.”
CHAPTER SEVENLETTERS
As the farmer’s truck rolled away Tini glared at Nancy. She stomped her G.I. shoes on the pavement and burst forth, “How dare you? Hand me my letters!”
Laughing suddenly Nancy handed them to her. “He thought we had escaped from the asylum across the hill,” she chuckled.
“You look like a lunatic!”
“And you act like one!”
Tini turned and stalked back into the pine thicket. Nancy took off her be-decked helmet, mopped her hot face with her sleeve and followed.
She finally overtook Tini and asked, “Why did you do that, Tini?”
“I have a right to mail letters if I like.”
“Then why didn’t you send them through the regular channels at the camp?”
“Who wants somebody pawing over your letters, looking at addresses?” asked Tini.
“I don’t believe anybody pries into who our letters are sent to.”
“And what business is it of yours?” Tini stoppedsuddenly and turned on Nancy.
“Any regulations given to this unit concern us all,” stated Nancy firmly.
“Zat so!” Tini’s tone was biting with sarcasm.
“And if I broke the regulations it would be your business to jack me up.” Suddenly Nancy’s tone became pleading. “Tini, can’t you see that all these rules are for our own good, and the safety of the boys out yonder we’re offering our lives to save?”
“I understand what we’re going into the same as you, Nancy Dale. But some of the restrictions are utterly silly.”
“We’ve got to trust the judgment of our superiors about that. They understand the whole situation better than we do.”
“I see no reason why we can’t tell our family and friends what we’ve been doing. I didn’t let out any military secrets in those letters.”
“The other night under the net you asked me how to spell camouflage. You were evidently telling them about our instructions in camouflage.”
Tini’s fair face flushed. “Well, what of it?” she snapped. “It’s no secret that our men use camouflage.”
“You shouldn’t write about it for the simple reason that Lieutenant Hauser ordered us to say nothing of the things we’ve been doing on this trip. Those are orders. The very fact that you tried to get somebody outside to post your letters proves you have a guilty conscience about the whole business.”
“And where did you get the right to jack me up about anything I do?”
“I have only the right that every American should use—to try to see that information about our military activities doesn’t get into the hands of our enemies.”
“So you’re implying that my family and friends are enemies!” Tini’s eyes were flashing fire now.
“Oh, Tini, this is so absurd,” mourned Nancy.
“Of course it’s absurd your trying to stop my sending mail out.”
Suddenly Nancy lost all patience. She stopped short and by her very manner forced Tini to stop. “You have no reason in you, Tini!” she exclaimed. “Now I’ll give you two choices—you either hand those letters to Lieutenant Hauser to be mailed, or burn them.”
“So! Since when have I had to take orders from you?”
Nancy ignored the question and continued, “You know perfectly well that the rest of us tore up the letters we wrote in the swamp before we knew we were not to write descriptions of what we had been doing. Those letters you have must have been written back there. You’ve had no time for writing since we came on here.”
Tini ignored the plain truth with which she had been faced and started on toward camp. Nancy caught up with her, saying, “If you don’t do one or the other you’ll place me in the embarrassing positionof having to report what just happened to Lieutenant Hauser.”
“So you’re one of the spying, little tattletales!”
Nancy’s brown eyes were full of fire now as she said, “Tini Hoffman, this is no schoolgirl business we’re in. Thousands of lives may sometime be at stake because some thoughtless person like you has seen no sense in certain censorship restrictions. If we don’t conform to those regulations now, it’ll be too late to learn how when we get over there. I’m taking no chances, Tini, no matter what you or anyone else may call me.”
With this statement Nancy swung away from Tini and took the nearest path back to camp. Before the tent tops were in sight, however, Tini overtook her.
“All right,” she said in a peevish tone, “if it’ll ease your pain I’ll burn the dern letters.”
“That’s the sensible thing, Tini.”
They stalked on under the sighing pines in silence. Nancy felt quite wretched over the whole situation, not only at Tini’s persistent disregard of the regulations, but at the awkwardness of her own position in discovering her at it, time and again.
However, she was determined to see that Tini did burn the letters, and said as they came in sight of the cook’s fire, “You could burn the letters there, Tini, and have it over with.”
Sullenly Tini stuck her four letters into the flames. Nancy paused a moment beside her to see that theyreally burned. While they waited a group of nurses had come in with a camouflaged captive.
“Oh, there’s Tini!” one of them called. “Did you catch Nancy?”
“Me catch Nancy!” exclaimed Tini with mock humility. “It’s Nancy who catches me always!”
“What do you mean?” asked Ida Hall, who was in the group. She glanced from one to the other, sensing that something was very wrong between them.
“Nancy’s much too good for me to catch her at anything,” continued Tini, unmindful of how her sarcasm might be taken.
When she stalked off alone Nancy spoke to Ida wearily, “I was still hiding when the gun was fired.”
“Then you and Janice Williams were the only two who weren’t caught,” Lieutenant Hauser told her a few minutes later. “You’ll have the honor of presiding at supper and serving the ice cream and cake.”
This brought exclamations of delight, which only subsided when Lieutenant Hauser lifted her hand for silence. “But I have something that I think will be even more welcome,” she said.
“Hope it’s mail from home,” said Nancy. During the past week she had longed for that letter her mother had been writing on the night she heard about Tommy.
“Exactly what it is,” said Miss Hauser.
As the mail was dug from the big mail pouch and handed to the nurses, happy exclamations went up.One by one the girls went to their own quarters to enjoy their letters in the privacy of their cots. Nancy kicked off her muddy shoes, and discarded her dirty, painted coveralls and sat cross-legged under her mosquito net. She ripped open her mother’s oldest letter. She couldn’t keep back the tears as she read the brave words, written while her own heart must have been so heavy.
“We must not let ourselves think for a moment that our Tommy is dead,” her mother wrote. “If he is a prisoner of the Japs he will need all the prayers and helpful thoughts we can send him. Only last week at church Philip Brinkley, who was shot down over Germany and made a prisoner, told us a little about his escape. But the thing that impressed me most was what he said about our prayers. He said he could actually feel the prayers we sent up for him at our mid-week meeting. You know that’s when we especially hold thoughts for those who have gone over. We must make Tommy feel our support and God’s that way, too, darling.”
Tears were swimming in Nancy’s eyes when she finished the letter, not because she feared Tommy was really dead, but for the beautiful bravery of her mother’s letter. She dried her eyes finally and picked up the rest of her mail. Two were from girl friends back home, another from an old beau.
Then her heart skipped a beat when she saw the last was from Australia. It wasn’t Tommy’s writing,though the script was slightly familiar. When she ripped open the letter she saw it was from her mother’s friend, Miss Anna Darien, in Sydney. Miss Anna and her mother had been in college together. Instead of marrying, Miss Anna had specialized in philosophy and was now a lecturer of international repute. The war had caught her in Australia, and there she must stay for the duration.
When Nancy read the prized letter she called across to Mabel on the next cot, “Say, listen to this—Miss Anna Darien, a friend of ours in Australia, saw Tommy recently.”
“Not really! What does she say about him?” Mabel asked, dropping her own letters to listen to Nancy.
“Here—I’ll read it to you. She says, ‘You can imagine my surprise when Tommy, on a brief furlough, came to call on me. It was hard to believe that anyone could mature so fast in three years, since I saw him back in the states.’”
“When was that written?” asked Mabel.
Nancy glanced at the date. “Oh my goodness—two months ago. Took a long time to come. They used to reach us in a month.”
“Quite a while before your brother took that fatal flight.”
“Yes. But it’s wonderful to hear from somebody who’s seen him that recently.”
“Go on. What else did she say?” urged Mabel.
“‘He asked me to write you’,” continued Nancy.“‘He knew you would be delighted to hear from someone who’s seen him over here. You’d really be proud of this brother of yours, Nancy. What a responsibility it is to be a pilot on a bomber! Already his chest is gay with decorations, but to me he’s the same dear boy he used to be when I visited your home. He told me to tell you not to worry about him, that if the Nips get on his trail he’ll play the same trick on them he used to play on you. He said you’d remember his childhood prank that always brought you to tears.’”
By this time all four nurses in the tent were listening and Ida Hall asked, “What was that, Nancy?”
Nancy was trembling between tears and laughter as she explained, “He used to play dead! And he trained our old dog, Bozo, to do it, too. I used to tag him around something awful, and just to get even he’d sometimes sprawl on the ground, looking dead as Hector. And Bozo would be near by, his old legs flopped over. Many times I thought Tommy wasn’t breathing. I’d shake him and begin to cry, then he’d jump up and grab me. Then I’d be mad sure enough!”
“Not a bad idea—that playing dead,” commented Mabel. “One of the fellows we had in the hospital back yonder said he tried it once, and the Japs just passed right over him in the field. If he’d batted an eyelash they would have jabbed one of their awful bayonets right through his vitals.”
Nancy Couldn’t Keep Back the Tears
Nancy Couldn’t Keep Back the Tears
Nancy Couldn’t Keep Back the Tears
Before Nancy had a chance to read all her letters the warning bell sounded for them to prepare for chow. She had only time for a face and hands washing, using her helmet as a basin. A clean pair of coveralls was the extent of her dress-up for the honored place beside Janice Williams at the table.
Every one was in a high mood. They all made merry over the best dessert they had had since they left their original camp. Through the hilarity Nancy felt an undercurrent of expectancy, as if some important news were about to break through. Even Lieutenant Hauser seemed in a buoyant mood.
When all had been served ice cream and cake Janice leaned closer to Nancy and said, “I hear that Major Reed came out on the truck that brought the treat from the Canteen.”
“When?”
“While we were out on camouflage.”
“Something must be cooking,” Nancy said with anticipation.
“Nell Streets cut her foot so didn’t go on the hunt. She saw the major and Lieutenant Hauser having a long confab.”
“Wonder what’s up?”
“Nell has a hunch we’re going to be alerted before so long.”
“They’ve really been putting us through the paces. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they sent us to the South Pacific?”
Tini Hoffman sat next to Janice, and Nancy suddenly became aware that she was listening to theirconversation.
“I can fully understand now why Lieutenant Hauser insists that we say nothing about the nature of our training,” continued Janice. “It surely indicates the tropics. That information in a spy’s hands might place a few bombs in our path.”
“That’s exactly why we can’t be too careful,” said Nancy.
She glanced at Tini, and saw that she actually had the conscience to flush under the memory of what she had been about to do. Later as they returned to their tents in the twilight Tini overtook Nancy.
“I’m glad you made me burn those letters, Nancy,” she said. “It was thoughtless of me to try to send them.”
“I’m glad you realize it, Tini. Of course it’s not easy for any of us to submit to so many restrictions, but we have to submit if we expect to be of any use.”
“I was afraid my best beau would think I didn’t care, it’s been so long since I sent him a letter. But I had two from him just now. He says he knows there’ll often be long intervals when we can’t hear from each other. He’s so understanding,” murmured Tini.
“We’ve got to think of the good of our unit and our boys over yonder, Tini,” said Nancy, “and ourselves last.” But she wasn’t so certain, even as she spoke, that the spoiled Tini would think of anything but her own wishes next time she was tempted to break the regulations.
CHAPTER EIGHTPORT OF EMBARKATION
At breakfast the following morning Lieutenant Hauser rapped for attention with her knife. Expectant faces turned quickly toward her, for the feeling that important changes were just ahead had swept the camp like a tidal wave.
“I have good news for you,” said Lieutenant Hauser.
The nurses waited for no more. Their eager exclamations swelled into cheers that swept the mess tent.
An odd expression tightened their commanding officer’s face a moment before she continued, “I see our enemies are not the only ones who get a foresight of our movements.”
This brought an alarmed silence. But Miss Hauser quickly relieved their tension by smiling as she said, “Naturally you’ve been looking forward to, and preparing for this news. We have been ordered to a port of embarkation.”
This really brought cheers that rang through the pine woods.
“When? Where?” Two thoughtless ones askedeagerly.
“Those are sealed orders,” replied Lieutenant Hauser. “We’ll know where only when we get there. My immediate orders are to tell you to be ready to roll out of this camp in an hour.”
Those who had not eaten all their breakfast forgot to finish, as they hurried off to pack and roll up their tents.
“Just a minute,” she called after the too-eager ones. “The orders I have already given about writing of our activities are more binding than ever. If you must write home merely say you’re well and busy. There was one train wreck not so long ago when someone let it slip about troop movements. You don’t want to invite any such disaster again.”
For the first time Nancy felt a gulf widening between herself and the two loved ones back home. This was really her first great test.
Someone had asked Miss Hauser a question Nancy had not heard, but now she listened while their First Lieutenant said, “I think it might be safer just to send out cards. Then you’ll be more careful not to say on them anything that might betray our movements.”
At noon that day their convoy drew up at the rear of a hotel in a city so large it had taken them a half hour to reach its busy center. They were herded into a long room where a hotel clerk assigned them their quarters. There were to be only two to a room once more, so Nancy and Mabel managed to get togetheragain.
When Nancy found there was a bath with shower she was exuberant. “Won’t it be wonderful to get really clean all over once more!”
She was peeling off her coveralls as she talked.
“We’d better enjoy the clean-up while we can get it,” Mabel warned. “I figure we’ve got a long train journey ahead no matter whether we embark on the Atlantic or the Pacific.”
The changes were swift from then on. They had lunch and an elaborate dinner that evening in a private dining room. To Nancy’s delight Major Reed had lunch with them. Before leaving the dining room Captain Lewis, who had arrived with him, gave them a talk, praising their diligence and cooperation during the training period.
Just before she finished she said, “I would suggest that you stay in your rooms and rest as you must be on your way again during the night.” That was all. No one knew what would be their method of transportation or where their destination.
“Might as well be a prisoner,” complained Tini, when she packed into the elevator beside Nancy. “I wanted to get my hair set. I look a fright.”
Nancy nudged her and whispered, “Be quiet! Elevator boys have ears, too.”
The nurses found the hall of the floor they had taken over jammed with baggage brought over from their basic training camp. Nancy’s and Mabel’s footlockers had already been placed in their room.
“Everything seems to run smooth as magic,” said Mabel. “Wish they’d let us go to the stores to get a few things.”
“I imagine we’ll be given time to get the last-minute necessities at the port of embarkation,” said Nancy. “I hear we have to take more shots and physical exams after we get there. That takes time.”
At eleven o’clock that night they marched aboard their Pullman, as Nancy had seen those soldiers file into the fatal eight cars less than six weeks earlier. It seemed incredible that she had learned so much in such a short time.
Though Nancy was generally ready for sleep she felt wide awake that night. She had no patience to wait till morning to learn whether they were traveling east or west.
Two nurses had been assigned to each lower berth and one to the upper. Nancy, Mabel and Tini had one section, so Nancy quickly volunteered to sleep in the lower with Mabel.
“You’re larger than either of us,” she said to Tini. “You’ll need more stretching room.”
“Thanks,” said Tini, accepting the favor as if she were really more entitled to it than the others. “I never slept with anyone—know I wouldn’t get a wink.”
When the two friends packed into the lower Nancy whispered, “I can hardly wait till morning to seewhether we’re going east or west.”
“Would seem too good to be true to be sent to the South Pacific,” said Mabel.
“If training’s any indication they’ve certainly been preparing us for that.”
They turned out the light and after a while Mabel raised the shade a little. She lifted her head and peered out. After an interval she whispered, “Nancy, we really are heading west!”
“How can you tell?”
“By the stars. See—yonder’s the North Star, and the Big Dipper low on the horizon.”
Nancy remembered enough from her Girl Scout days to recognize the northern constellation at the left of the train. For several minutes she kept lifting her head to peer out, and assure herself that they were really keeping an even course into the west. Finally she settled back with a feeling of great satisfaction and tried to sleep.
The Pullman was silent now, except for the humming of the wheels beneath them. Nancy was almost asleep when she heard a peculiar sound overhead. She opened her eyes and saw through a crack at the edge of the berth that Tini’s light still burned. She concentrated her attention on the almost imperceptible sound. It was like the scratching of a pen on paper. Instantly she knew Tini was at her letter writing again.
“Do you hear something, Mabel?” she asked,nudging her friend.
Mabel lifted a sleepy head to listen. “Somebody writing with a scratchy pen. Must be Tini. Never would have thought she’d be careful enough to keep a diary.”
“Maybe it’s a letter.”
“But Miss Hauser asked us only to send cards.”
“I’m afraid Tini doesn’t give much heed to what Miss Hauser asks.”
“Well, it’s not my little red wagon,” said Mabel, and settled back on her pillow. Her regular breathing soon indicated that she slept.
Nancy stayed awake long after the pen scratching stopped, wondering uneasily about Tini. It seemed uncanny how the girl was always stuck right under her nose. Did her superior officers do it by deliberate intent? Before she finally slept she made up her mind to be more alert than ever where Tini was concerned.
The following two days, however, were so filled with the wonders of travel that Nancy temporarily forgot that Tini could be such a thorn in the flesh. She had never been west of the Mississippi. For the first time she saw the great western plains and thrilled when the mountain ranges beyond loomed on the horizon. She had never dreamed mere color could be so intoxicating until their long train crossed the first canyon. It was like a fantastic dream, yet a sight never to be forgotten.
The nurses had the best food the diner afforded.On their swaying journeys to and from the diner they discovered that the train contained many soldiers. None of the nurses lacked for diverting companionship then. But Tini couldn’t be satisfied with one, she must keep two or three buzzing around her all the time.
On the second day at noon Nancy and Mabel were in the diner when the train stopped longer than usual at a small-town station. Nancy, sitting next the window, glanced out to see Tini hurrying across the tracks, and into the waiting room. Nancy could have sworn her right pocket was bulky with something, letters no doubt. Tini was gone only a few minutes before she returned carrying a magazine, but Nancy was sure her pocket looked less bulky.
“Stubborn as a mule,” said Nancy to herself in disgust. “She was determined to send a letter to Carl Benton.”
In spite of the number of men available many of the nurses spent their time playing cards, or catching up on their magazine and book reading, for which there had been little chance during their weeks of training.
On the third day they de-trained at the city of embarkation. Army trucks were waiting to take them to another temporary abode. Again it was a large hotel, where an entire floor was assigned to them. Cots had been put in the double bedrooms, and again Nancy was packed in with the room-mates she hadhad in the tents. They had only an hour before they were to report in room three for instructions. Everyone was eager to hear about the next step, and the room was full before the hour was up.
“First and most important,” said Lieutenant Hauser, when she stood before them once more, “you are to hint to no one that we are preparing to embark. No nurse is to leave the hotel without signing the register when she goes out and when she returns. I prefer that you go shopping or to the theater in groups. There are plenty of Red Cross volunteers ready to show you around. You may want to buy many last minute items not included in government issues. Each of you may take one of these typed lists of suggestions, so you won’t forget something important you may need out there. Do all you want to do promptly, for when we are alerted no girl can leave the quarters.”
Lieutenant Hauser glanced at her notes and added, “Nor are you to have any guests in your rooms. And everyone must check in by eleven o’clock.”
Nancy was relieved that they would be allowed to go out and do some last-minute shopping.
“I understand the Red Cross has planned several social functions for you, which you must attend as a unit. There will be one dance here at the hotel at which you may wear evening clothes.” She smiled knowingly. “You may not have a chance to dress up again for a long time. I want you to enjoy yourselvesas much as you can here—go to the movies, see some good shows, but always be careful to observe strictly the rules I have laid down.”
The nurses found, however, that the evenings were about the only time they had for recreation, for there were numberless things to be done in preparation for departure. When Mabel read her list of instructions she fell back on her bed.
“I’ll never get my last-minute shopping done,” she groaned. “I’ll feel like a bug-house by the time we finish with all these inoculations—bubonic plague, cholera, typhus, yellow fever.”
Nancy scoffed. “You’re such a wind-bag, Mabel. You know we’ve already had lots of them. This final checkup won’t be so bad.”
“At least I’m already immunized to smallpox and have had my typhoid shots.”
“But say, doesn’t that list really spell the tropics to you?” Nancy asked happily. “Wouldn’t Dad and Mom be thrilled to know I’m headed in Tommy’s direction?”
“With present restrictions on mail it’ll be a long time before they hear that,” Mabel reminded her.
“Anybody heard when we’re sailing?” asked Tini.
“If you ask me I don’t want to know,” Ida Hall told her. “Too much responsibility to have such knowledge.”
“I figure it’ll take at least a week to unwind all this red tape,” said Mabel. “They even want us to makeour wills. Golly Moses, I haven’t anything to will anybody! Just a few pieces of cheap jewelry. Money’s never stuck to my fingers long enough for me to accumulate anything.”
“You’ll be getting more pay overseas,” Nancy reminded her. “And there won’t be any place to spend it, if we really get near the front lines.”
However, Mabel did make out a will of sorts. The two friends went together to attend to this bit of business. Nancy’s will was only a simple statement leaving all she had to her parents. As they left the office where their signatures had been witnessed Mabel said with rare seriousness, “I haven’t any near kin, Nancy, so I’m leaving all I have to you.”
“Oh, Mabel!” she exclaimed, her eyes suddenly blinded with tears.
“Not that I have anything much, but—but I’d just like you to know how you rate with me.”
Nancy squeezed her friend’s arm and said softly, “I’ve never had a friend like you, Mabel—so close I mean. You surely find out about people when you live as close to them as we have these last weeks.”
“Makes us seem we’ve already known each other a lifetime.”
Mabel, always afraid of seriousness and sentiments said with a laugh as they approached their room, “I wouldn’t have told you about it, if I’d had enough to make it worth your while to put a spider in my dumpling.”