FIGHTERS for FREEDOM Series

Nancy Waved to the Middle-Aged Couple

Nancy stood on the steps of the train and waved at
a misty-eyed couple, a man and woman of middle
years. Strange how she could be so close to tears, yet
so buoyantly happy all in the same moment.

The train began to move slowly and Nancy called
back, “Be sure to forward all Tommy’s letters, Mom!”

Her mother nodded and smiled, while her father
lifted his hat in that courtly way he had. Nancy could
scarcely believe that at last she was on her way to
becoming a member of the great Army Nurse Corps.
In fact she was one now, for she had already
taken her oath of allegiance. This slowly moving
train marked the beginning of a wonderful journey
that might take her anywhere in the whole world—Africa,
Italy, India, the Arctic or the South Pacific.

She had been praying ever since she joined that it
would be the South Pacific, not only because her
brother was there flying a bomber over the tropical
blue waters, but because the tropics had always
seemed fascinating. But little did she dream what
she must go through before she saw again that beloved
couple she had just left.

As she turned back into the Pullman she suddenly
felt empty, with that awful, hollow, going-away feeling.
She thought how lucky she had been to get her
nurse’s training right in her own home town. She had
never known the feeling of homesickness, for her few
brief trips had all been for pleasure. But this was different
and far more exciting, yet she knew suddenly
now that it would also have its heartaches.

From her seat in the car she caught one more
glimpse of her parents. How lonesome they would be
with both their children in the service! For a few
minutes, as the train crawled out of the city, Nancy
could think of nothing but the two she was leaving
behind.

How concerned poor Mom had been when she
said, “Do be careful, darling, about getting wet. You
know how easily you take cold when your feet are
wet.”

Nancy had promised to be as careful as possible,
but didn’t fret her mother by saying she was afraid
there would often be days on end when her feet
would always be wet, if her experiences were anything
like the overseas nurses she heard from in Italy
and New Guinea.

Not until the last house of her beloved town had
vanished beyond the green hills did Nancy turn her
gaze to the inside of the Pullman. She noticed now
that practically everyone was in uniform, both men
and women. There were two WACs across from her,
and an ANC captain a little farther up.

She thought it would have been more fun had
someone been going with her. This trip to the capital
was always so slow and boring, then there would be
a tiresome wait before she took the sleeper for Alabama.
She tried to read but was too keyed up to concentrate.
She could think of nothing but the great
adventure into which she was going. Settling her
head against the cushion she faced the window,
watching the rolling hills. Suddenly she realized she
was tired after all the excitement of farewell parties
and packing. How grand everyone had been to her!
Since she was the only volunteer in her class, she had
been given a dance at the Nurse’s Home. How could
anyone stay behind, she wondered, when the fighting
men needed so many nurses?

Drowsiness was creeping over her when she caught
the low tones of two men behind her. The fact that
they were speaking in a foreign tongue pricked her to
alertness. She leaned closer to the window and concentrated.
They were talking almost in whispers, but
she heard the gutteral syllables of several German
words. She had studied a little German in her high
school days in order to sing some selections from the
Wagnerian operas. Now she caught the words, ute
Abend and acht Kusches.

“Tonight … eight cars,” she translated.

The Pullman conductor came down the aisle, and
the men fell silent. If they hadn’t become so abruptly
silent at his approach, Nancy might have thought
little of the whispered conversation. Though she tried
to dismiss her suspicions, attributing her sensitiveness
to the fact that she had just entered the service,
she could not forget the two men speaking German
fluently who sat behind her.

After an interval Nancy decided to take a look at
the pair. She started down the aisle under pretense
of getting a drink of water. The man nearest the aisle
had the broad face and blond complexion of a typical
German, though he wore the uniform of an American
soldier. The other was in civilian clothes, and wore
a small mustache. All Nancy could glean in her hasty
inspection was that he had a lean countenance, dark
coloring, and wore dark-rimmed glasses. On her return
she noticed that the blond had a corporal’s
stripes on his sleeve.

If he was a spy, surely the army would have detected
it before making him a corporal, she thought,
and promptly tried to dismiss her suspicions. Not
until eleven o’clock that night when she was hurrying
with the crowd to go aboard the west-bound
train, did she again think of those words spoken in
German behind her. Her Pullman was at the end of
a very long train. Soldiers were filing into the front
coaches. She counted eight cars ahead of hers.

Suddenly she recalled the words she had heard
behind her at the beginning of her journey, acht
Kusches. And here they were, eight coaches of service
men. Again she thought of their words, ute Abend.
Tonight! Could there possibly be any connection between
those words and this troop train?

Nancy followed the redcap to her Pullman seat
with a feeling of uneasiness. She knew that spies all
over the country were busy trying to get information
about the movements of troop trains and transports.
She pressed her eyes to the window and looked out
at the milling crowd. Then suddenly she saw the
blond corporal. He did not get aboard the train, but
watched the troops marching down the paved walk
between the tracks. Then he turned sharply and hurried
back toward the station. The man in civilian
clothes was not with him.

Nancy tried to shake off the nagging uneasiness
that haunted her even after she was comfortably
stretched in her berth, and the train was rushing out
across the red Georgia hills. But her interest in what
lay ahead was too keen for her to remain depressed.
Several times she raised the shade to peep out when
the train slowed at small towns where street lights
twinkled sleepily, but at last the hum of the wheels
lulled her to sleep.

Then suddenly, several hours before dawn, there
came a terrific crash and jolt. Nancy caught wildly
at the clothes hammock to keep from being hurled
into the aisle, as the Pullman crashed to a stop and
toppled slightly to the right. Screams and moans were
heard above the grinding noises.

Nancy clung to the hammock a moment, too
stunned to move. She expected the tilting coach to
crash to earth any moment. Lights had vanished beyond
the cracks of her curtain. With shaking hands
she found her flashlight in the zipper bag left at the
foot of her berth. She opened the curtain and turned
the light up and down the aisle. Several who hadn’t
been thrown from their berths were climbing out,
wanting to know what had happened. Groans, curses
and cries only added to the confusion.

Then with the speed of a fireman preparing to answer
a call to duty, Nancy put on her clothes. Some
sure instinct warned her that in a few minutes there
would be no time to think of herself. At last her long
legs swung down from the berth. Her flashlight
showed some people still lying where they had fallen
in the aisle. Some actually climbed over them in their
frantic haste to get out of the leaning Pullman.

She turned her light on the nearest injured person.
It was a gray-haired lady, moaning that her arm was
broken. A big man, clad only in his undershirt and
army trousers, emerged from his berth.

“Here, give me a hand,” ordered Nancy. “This
lady has a broken arm.”

The soldier, who was of powerful build, braced
himself against the berth on the lower side, and lifted
the stunned old lady to his shoulder. Nancy held
her flashlight so he could see as they made their way
toward the exit. She snatched a sheet to use for bandages
from one of the berths as she went.

On reaching the platform they found the Pullman
was leaning precariously against a clay cut on one
side, while the steps on the other were high in air.
Flares had already been lighted beside the track, and
eager hands reached up to help with the injured
woman. Nancy never remembered how she got down
herself. Her one idea was to help the little old lady
whose wavy gray hair was so like her own mother’s.

“Do you have a pocket knife?” she asked the service
man as he was stretching the woman on the
ground.

He dug in his trouser pocket and produced one.

“Cut me a splint off some bush or tree,” she ordered.
“I’ll have to protect this broken arm till it
can be X-rayed and properly set.”

She took off her coat to cushion the gray head.
While she waited for the splint she saw that injured
people were being brought from the three rear
coaches. Just beyond the clay bank which had saved
their car from greater damage, she saw that several
coaches had overturned and telescoped into a horrible
mass of wreckage.

The soldier came back promptly with a good splint
from which he was deftly peeling the bark. To Nancy’s
surprise he knelt on the ground, and in the light
of her flash began to manipulate the broken bone into
position. One glance at those skillful fingers and
Nancy exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a doctor!”

“Yes,” was all he said as he proceeded to the business
of the moment.

“Thank God,” she said earnestly, and began to tear
the sheet into bandages.

As she had done numberless times before in the
emergency room, Nancy helped bind up the broken
arm.

“I see you’ve at least had first aid,” he said as they
worked.

“I’m a nurse,” she retorted as tersely as he had
informed her he was a doctor.

“There’ll be plenty for us to do tonight,” he told
her.

When the arm was set, he lifted the frail woman
and carried her out of the cut.

“Wait here with her,” the doctor ordered. “I’ll go
back for my bag. She should have a hypo. You can
help.”

Someone had placed some boxes for steps at the
rear entrance to the coach and he returned that way.
They were still hauling people out and stretching
them beside the end coach, which by some miracle
had not overturned. To Nancy’s surprise she recognized
the ANC captain she had noticed on the train
yesterday afternoon. She was trying to stop the bleeding
in a leg wound of a man next to Nancy’s old lady.

“Please, someone try to find a doctor,” she said to
no one in particular.

“One was here just now,” Nancy told her. “He’ll
be back in a moment. He went for his bag.”

Nancy bent to help the captain make a tourniquet
below the injured man’s knee. She had just secured
the knot with a stick when she saw the doctor returning.
The ANC captain straightened and saluted.

“This man will have to have some stitches, Major,”
she said.

“I’ll look after him.”

To Nancy’s consternation she saw that the soldier
she had just been ordering around, had put on his
coat. His gold leaf indicated him a major, and the
caduceus that he was a member of the medical corps.
She felt terribly embarrassed at her mistake.

He seemed to think nothing of it, however, for he
explained to the captain, “I’ll keep this young lady
to help me. She says she’s a nurse.”

“Then I’ll go look after some of the others,” said
the captain, alertly.

Major Reed was stooping to give attention to the
injured man, and asked as he did so, “Where did you
graduate?”

“Stanford Hospital. I’m Nancy Dale. I just joined
the Army Nurse Corps and am on my way for basic
training.”

This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to the
major. He set his bag on the ground and pulled the
zipper. “Give the lady there a hypo. We’ll need one
here, too. Tell Captain Lewis to get what she needs
from my bag.”

Until the sun rose over the red clay hills Nancy
worked beside Major Reed, setting bones, sewing up
cuts and giving sedatives to the hysterical. Several
automobiles had gathered and focused their headlights
upon the scene. Though Nancy had never faced
such an emergency, she did not lose her head, nor did
her hands shake as she worked to relieve the injured.

Only once did she feel an inward tremor and that
was when she thought of how she had ordered Major
Reed around. But there was no time to dwell on that
in the busy hours before the arrival of nurses, doctors
and ambulances from the nearest town.

“Someone to relieve us at last,” said Captain Mary
Lewis, who now looked as weary as Nancy felt.

“I phoned the camp for a car to be sent for us,”
Major Reed told them. “There’ll be plenty of room
for the three of us and our baggage.”

Nancy glanced from one officer to the other in
astonishment. “Oh, are we really within driving distance
of the camp?”

“Only about fifty miles,” replied Major Reed.

“And you’re both going there?”

Captain Lewis nodded and smiled. “I’ve been on
a tour of inspection, and Major Reed has been assigned
work there.”

“I’m Nancy Dale,” Nancy Told the Major

“Then I can get there almost as soon as scheduled,”
said Nancy in relief. “I was worrying over being off
schedule.”

“Young lady, if you ever had a good excuse for
being late you have it this time,” said the major. He
looked down at her a moment and smiled whimsically.
“I’d say she’s made of good fighting stuff, wouldn’t
you, Miss Lewis?”

“I’ll say,” agreed Miss Lewis. “She’s had a fine try-out
tonight.”

Nancy’s face flushed, then she burst forth impulsively,
“Oh, I hope they’ll think me good enough
to send to the South Pacific.”

“That’s something we have to leave to our Uncle
Samuel, young lady.”

Nancy was silent a moment, then looked up at the
major shyly out of the corner of her eye. “I owe you
an apology, sir.”

“How’s that?”

“For ordering you about—demanding that you cut
me a splint. But how could I know you were a major?”

He broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, Miss Dale, I
can’t see that an officer is due any respect when he
goes around in his undershirt. You did what any nurse
should have done.”

“That must be your car over there, Major,” said
Miss Lewis.

“So ’tis. Let’s get our baggage and be off.”

At Major Reed’s request a young private brought
Nancy’s baggage from the Pullman and packed it in
the car. The major gave the local doctor last minute
instructions about some of the injured, while Nancy
and Captain Mary Lewis waited for him. It was the
first five minutes Nancy had had since the accident
to think quietly about the catastrophe.

With a sudden inner jolt she recalled the two
German-speaking passengers who had sat behind
her the previous afternoon. Could there possibly be
any connection between their whispered conversation
and this tragedy? The demand for her services
during these last horrible hours had driven out all
other thoughts except the use of her skill in helping
the injured.

When the doctor returned to the car and started
to get in, Nancy said, “Major Reed, there’s something
I believe I should tell you before we leave here.”

He glanced at her, his foot lifted to the step, and
said absent-mindedly, “Yes?”

“This may or may not have any connection with
the wreck.”

“They’ve already found evidence that it’s the
work of saboteurs,” he told her frankly.

Nancy felt the blood drain from her cheeks. What
would they think of her not mentioning her suspicions
sooner? She had gone too far now to remain silent.
Briefly she gave an account of the German conversation
behind her the previous afternoon.

“I might have thought little of it,” she hastened to
add, on seeing the scowl on the major’s face, “but on
boarding the train last night I noticed there were
eight troop cars. Instantly I thought of what the two
men behind me had said. I also noticed the blond
corporal watching the entraining men. He stood at
the edge of the crowd outside my coach.”

“You should have reported him as a suspect,”
stated Captain Mary Lewis sharply.

Nancy flushed, and asked, “To whom should I
have reported him? They would only have laughed
at me. Nobody on that train knew who I was.”

“Never take a chance when it comes to anything
like that,” said Major Reed. “Where large numbers
of lives are involved it’s excusable to be suspicious
of your own brother, rather than take any chances.”

Nancy didn’t flare up in anger or burst into tears,
but looked the major squarely in the eyes. “I’m sure
you’re right. Had I been at a hospital, or in camp, I
would have reported my suspicions to the right authorities.
Under the circumstances, sir, what would
you have done?”

The major got suddenly into the car and slammed
the door. “I would probably have done exactly as
you did, young lady.”

Then Nancy did want to cry from sheer relief.
Their car crawled off through the traffic congestion at
the scene of the accident. The highway ran parallel
with the track for some distance. They had an appalling
view of the twisted mass of wreckage in the
forward part of the train. At a group of official-looking
cars, Major Reed had the driver stop. He got out to
talk to two men. A few minutes later he brought them
over to the car and had Nancy give a description of
the two suspects she had noticed on the train.

“You are to be commended, Miss Dale,” said Mr.
Nelson, the taller of the two strangers, “for at least
giving the suspects a looking over.”

“I had to see what they were like after I heard them
whispering in German!” exclaimed Nancy. “But
when I saw one was a corporal in the army I thought
perhaps I was being too suspicious.”

Mr. Nelson laughed bitterly. “We’ve picked up
several spies lately, disguised in soldier’s uniforms.
A man isn’t always to be trusted just because he wears
our colors.”

“I suppose it would be impossible now to locate
the pair,” said Nancy unhappily. “The blond could
be anywhere among the thousands back there at the
station, or hundreds of miles away by this time.”

The other plainclothes official said, “You underrate
our Secret Service, miss. The description you’ve
given is elaborate compared with some we get. We’ve
sometimes caught ’em on little more than a shoestring.”

He saluted respectfully and their car rolled out to
the open country, and across the red clay hills. They
were all too tired for conversation, even if they had
had the heart for it after such a depressing experience.
Captain Lewis did not seem inclined to conversation,
and Nancy was glad enough to ride in silence. She
snuggled deep into her corner, and was actually
asleep before they had left the wreck five miles behind.

Some time later she was startled by a gentle hand
shaking her shoulder. “Here we are, my dear,” Miss
Lewis was saying. Nancy opened her eyes.

She sat up with a start, wondering if there’d been
another wreck. To her amazement she found they
had stopped in front of a long, one-story building.
Some white-uniformed nurses were coming down
the steps. Across the lawn she saw another group in
coveralls.

“You mean we are actually there—at camp?” she
asked in amazement.

“You slept like a baby all the way,” said Captain
Lewis. “That ability to relax at once will stand you in
good stead when you get in the thick of things.”

Nancy was pleased. “Mother has always said if
anyone would give me a pillow I could go to sleep any
time, anywhere.”

“And this time you didn’t even have a pillow.”
Then suddenly Captain Lewis assumed her official
air. “Lieutenant Hauser will show you to your room
and help you get settled. Would you like to join me
at breakfast when you get cleaned up?”

“Oh yes, thanks. This brisk morning air has really
whipped up my appetite.”

Not until long afterward did Nancy discover what
an honor Captain Lewis had bestowed upon her. Too
many new and exciting things were happening just
then for her to appreciate the full significance of the
invitation.

Captain Lewis introduced her to Lieutenant
Hauser who was rather short and stocky and had a
ready smile. She gave Nancy the comfortable feeling
that there was really no difference in their positions,
even though Miss Hauser was already a first lieutenant.

“Your roommate is Mabel Larsen,” explained Miss
Hauser. “She got in yesterday and already knows
enough to show you the ropes.”

They went down a long, narrow hall. A moment
later Miss Hauser opened the door of a neat little
room with two beds, attractive cretonne drapes and
comfortable chairs and floor lamps.

An exclamation of delight escaped Nancy, “Oh, I
thought we’d be sleeping on army cots in tents!”

“You’ll get plenty of that later. Better enjoy these
comforts while you have them,” Lieutenant Hauser
warned her. “Mabel’s out on the obstacle course right
now. You’ll have a chance to do some unpacking and
clean up before she comes in.”

Miss Hauser pointed out a list of rules tacked on the
door, told Nancy where the dining room was and left
her to her own devices. An hour later when Nancy
came back from a hearty breakfast with Captain
Lewis she found Mabel Larsen stretched on her bed.

Mabel merely lifted her head when Nancy came in,
and greeted her casually. “Oh, hello! You’re the latest
shavetail, I suppose?”

“I’m Nancy Dale, and they tell me you’re Mabel
Larsen.”

“Glad you came. Sorry I can’t be very formal just
now, but I’m all in—got only fifteen minutes to get my
wind back.” She groaned softly. “Gosh, but my legs
ache!”

“What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“Oh, nothing that won’t be worse tomorrow! Just
wait till you try those hurdles!” Mabel turned over
cautiously and groaned again. “I might’ve been
pounded by Japs from the way these shanks feel.”

Nancy laughed in spite of herself. “You must’ve
been neglecting your daily dozen before you came
here.”

“I’ve never been one of those exercise addicts,”
stated Mabel. “I’ve always gotten enough floor work
in the wards without this one, two, three business.”
Mabel reached for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and
began to massage her rather plump legs.

“Wait, let me do it,” said Nancy.

Mabel lay back on the bed and gave herself up to
the enjoyment of the soothing touch of Nancy’s hands.

“You oughter been a masseuse,” she sighed. Then
after a moment she asked, “Why were you so late?
We thought you were coming on that early train.”

“There was a wreck,” said Nancy, reluctant to
recall her trying experience.

Mabel sat up suddenly. “You mean the train you
were on?”

Nancy nodded and gave her a hasty sketch of what
had happened, and their work with the injured.

“Well, if I’m not the daughter of a sloth!” burst
forth Mabel. “Here I am letting you give me an alcohol
rub when you’ve already been working like a
trooper for hours!”

“Oh, I got a bit of sleep coming over in the car, but
Miss Lewis suggested that I go to bed again till lunch
time. I had breakfast with her just now.”

“Not Captain Mary Lewis?” asked Mabel.

Nancy nodded as she began to take off her clothes.

“Well, aren’t you the lucky bloke!” exclaimed
Mabel. “Hobnobbing with the majors and captains
on the very day of your arrival.”

“It just happened that way.”

“Think of the chance you had to prove to ’em right
off the bat what stuff you’re made of. Some people do
have all the luck.”

Nancy didn’t know just what to make of this talkative
roommate, but she was too tired to care just
then. She found her rumpled pajamas in the zipper
bag and got them out. In the meantime Mabel was
painfully putting on her uniform to report to class.

“They’ll probably give you a bunch of this gear this
afternoon,” Mabel said. “I never had so many new
duds all at one time as they issued to me yesterday.”

“Miss Hauser said I’d get my uniforms this afternoon,
and be given my schedule, too. After that experience
this morning I’m rather glad I don’t have to
get down to business till tomorrow.”

Nancy crawled into bed and was thankful to find
it very comfortable. She watched her new friend
straighten her tie and set her new visor cap at a rakish
angle on her reddish curls.

“Boy, do I feel swell in this uniform,” boasted Mabel.
“It sure boosts your morale to feel you’re really
one of the bunch at last. I’ve been raring to get in
for months.”

“So have I,” Nancy told her. “But I only graduated
last month.”

“Shake, sister! You’re a gal after my own heart. I
just finished, too.” The irrepressible Mabel seized
Nancy’s hand that lay on the spread. “I believe we’re
gonner hit it off fine.”

“We’ll make a team to whip the Japs,” Nancy said,
entering into the spirit of her banter.

“Say, that’s swell! So you want to go down under,
too?”

“You bet! My brother’s flying a bomber there.”

“I’ve got a sweety out there, too. Yeah, we’ll make a
team—the long and short, the chestnut curls and the
strawberry-blond mop, your common sense and my
nonsense.”

Then they were both laughing and the ice was
completely broken.

Mabel glanced at her watch and bounded toward
the door. “Be seeing you later,” she called back.

Nancy felt as though a whirlwind had just passed,
and she settled into her pillow with a sigh of relief.
She felt certain she was going to like her new roommate.
Though most of her remarks were flippant, she
showed that there was the right sort of stuff underneath.

After a couple of hours’ sleep and a shower, Nancy
felt ready to tackle her new life. She spent the rest
of the afternoon being fitted for her clothes. She was
surprised to know the old blue uniforms were no
longer issued, and that she would wear olive drab
for dress.

“They found the Japs wearing blue sometimes in
the Pacific area. It proved confusing,” Lieutenant
Hauser told her. “White uniforms are not customarily
worn, either, by nurses at the front—too easily spotted
from the air. All these changes are the result of
practical experience.”

When Nancy went out to supper with her new
friend, Mabel remarked, “Leisure’s a scarce commodity
round here. We put in eight hours of hard
work every day, counting all the classes, ward work,
drills and stuff. Six days a week, too, sister!”

“I’m used to that,” Nancy told her.

Nancy’s real initiation came the next morning when
they were routed out before daylight for half an hour
of calisthenics. Mabel stuck close to give her a prod
or hint against doing things wrong. That morning
Nancy also noticed Tini Hoffman for the first time.
Unlike her nickname Tini was of a large build, and
she seemed not to have the slightest sense of rhythm
or coordination. She was constantly getting out of
step and throwing the line off.

“All right then I’ll step out!” snapped Tini, when
she had been reprimanded the third time. “I can’t do
anything to please you.”

“You’ll stay in ranks and keep trying till you do it
correctly,” Lieutenant Carson stated. “Or else!”

After that the girl stomped about like a spoiled
child, making the dust fly over those around her.
Nancy wondered why she was here at all if she had
not come in the spirit of cooperation with the training
program.

“Too much silly falderal,” she heard Tini say in
a low tone when the formation broke up. “I came
in to nurse the sick, not to do a lot of crazy drilling.”

That afternoon Tini was close to Mabel and Nancy
when they were jumping some hurdles. Nancy’s long
legs swung easily over the first two, but the last took
all the ability she had. Tini, however, didn’t even try
to go over the last, but quickly ducked under when
the instructor wasn’t looking.

“Go back, you cheat!” snapped Mabel. “We’re not
going to have any duckers-under in this unit.”

Mabel’s bluntness attracted the attention of Lieutenant
John Warren, who was putting them through
this phase of their training. He called out good-naturedly,
“Now, now, young lady! You have to take
it over the top, you know.”

Tini knocked down the bar twice before she finally
made that last hurdle. She scraped her chin the first
time she hit the gravel. When their instructor was
out of hearing she gave him some back talk, and continued
to grumble while she crawled parallel with
Nancy and Mabel under some lengths of chicken
wire.

Nancy was sure her palms had as much earth on
them as skin when she finally came triumphantly
through on the other side. “Boy, what an experience!”
she burst forth, when she got up to brush herself off.

“Just imagine how much faster we could do it, if
the Japs were using the soles of our G.I. shoes for
target practice,” Mabel reminded her.

“There’s just no sense in all this,” complained Tini,
wiping her gritty palms on her coveralls.

Nancy didn’t like this girl, nor her attitude, and
found she couldn’t keep silent any longer.

“Looks as though you’d better get out of this right
now,” she snapped. “If I understand the reason for
all this, it’s for our own good—to prepare us for real
trials to come if we’re sent into the fighting areas.”

“Mind your own business,” snapped Tini like a
spoiled child. “I’ve got a right to blow off if I want to.”

She stalked on to the next test. Here they were required
to swing by a rope down the side of a ravine.
Nancy and Mabel followed slowly, and Mabel said,
“If they keep her on she’ll get our unit into trouble,
sure as life.”

“I doubt if they keep her with such an attitude.”

“She griped like that all the way through nurse’s
training,” Mabel explained.

“Oh, was she in your class?”

“Yes. We came here together, too. You have to
hand it to Tini, though. She has a keen mind and
makes grand marks. They had no grounds for turning
her down, I suppose.”

“She makes me feel as uncomfortable as those suspects
on the train did.”

“Yeah!” agreed Mabel. “There’re more ways of
working against Uncle Sam than outright sabotage.”

In the busy days that followed, Nancy, with the
other girls of her unit, was plunged into the intensive
work of preparing for service in the fighting zones.
Fully alert to the importance of these instructions,
Nancy worked even harder than she had during her
nurse’s training. Here they must put the lectures and
discussions into practice at once.

The day after her arrival there were lectures on
military courtesy and customs of the service. They
were told how to wear their uniforms, and how to
recognize the various insignia of office.

In their room afterwards Nancy and Mabel had
lots of fun practicing the military salute.

“You’ve got to learn to do it automatically,” said
Mabel. “Your fingers should go to your forehead
when you see a superior officer as instinctively as
your foot goes to the car brake in an emergency.”

“And I suppose it will prove to be ‘a restriction’
emergency if you don’t,” Nancy came back with a
laugh.

For the next day or two they saluted every time
they passed each other in their room and had some
good laughs over their actions.

“Tini Hoffman says she hates to salute,” Mabel confided.
“She says it makes her feel inferior.”

“If Tini isn’t careful she’s going to get kicked out
of this training camp,” Nancy said. “I don’t like her
attitude one bit.”

“Neither do the instructors. But she’s got an uncle
who’s a colonel or something—anyhow he’s one of
the bigwigs in the training program.”

“I don’t imagine that will have any influence if she
doesn’t make the grade,” Nancy replied. “I’d hate to
think of the kind of army we’d have if it did.”

“You may be right,” Mabel conceded. “But what’s
more, I don’t even like her name. It’s much too German.”

“I think we ought to be careful about things like
that,” warned Nancy. “There’re plenty of good, loyal
Americans, you know, with foreign-sounding names.”

“Yes, of course. But when a foreign name goes
along with a rebellious attitude it makes you wonder.”

Something happened a week later to make the two
girls think more seriously than ever of Tini Hoffman
and her strange conduct. After their eight hours of
work, the nurses were free to seek recreation, go into
the village on shopping tours or to movies. And they
were usually ready for a change when their day’s
work was over.

One evening Nancy and Mabel had stopped in a
drugstore for a soda after going to the movies, and
they came unexpectedly upon Tini. The drugstore
they had entered was very narrow in the rear, with
little, private booths down each wall and an aisle
in between for serving. The girls slipped into one of
the booths to have their soda and chat about the picture.
Couples filled all the other seats and crowded
around the tables in front. Most of them were men
and women in uniform.

“We’re lucky to get seats,” said Mabel.

While waiting for their order to be filled, Nancy
said, “Oh, I meant to get some cleansing tissues.”

“I’ll get ’em for you,” offered Mabel. “I promised
to pick up a package here for Miss Hauser. She
phoned her order over.”

While Mabel was at the drug counter Nancy sat
idly gazing around at the chatting groups. Then suddenly
she noticed Tini Hoffman directly across the
aisle. Tini was so busy talking to a man in civilian
clothes that she hadn’t noticed her dormitory mates.
She sat with her elbows on the table, her hands folded
under her dimpled chin, while her blond countenance
beamed on her companion. Nancy felt sure Tini’s
hair was bleached, and wondered what it would look
like after several months in the Pacific islands. It was
too golden-blond to be natural. It proved amusing to
find Tini so pleased with her situation for once.

So fascinated was Nancy in watching Tini that
Mabel was returning before she gave the gentleman
opposite Tini a fleeting glance. Then suddenly her
eyes became fixed. Where had she seen that lean
profile before? She tried to hold herself under control
as her mind tied up the loose ends of memory. The
longer she stared, the more positive she became that
the horn-rimmed glasses and small mustache belonged
to the same man who had sat beside the blond
corporal the day she left her home town. Though
she had had only a hasty glance as she went down
the aisle of the train those faces had become indelibly
impressed upon her mind.

As Mabel came nearer, Nancy saw Tini’s companion
watching covertly. She couldn’t blame any
man for being attracted by Mabel, for she was really
worth looking at in her trimly fitting uniform with
her cap sitting jauntily on her golden curls. But the
man’s heavy-lidded glance had little admiration in
it, only a sort of cynical calculation.

Nancy felt she must know if he was really the blond
corporal’s train mate. Impulsively she said as Mabel
handed her the package she had bought, “Danke
schoen.”

She deliberately used the German word for “thank
you,” and spoke loud enough to be heard across the
aisle.

Her trick brought the expected result, for the man
turned sharply toward her. Mabel glided into the
seat opposite and glanced at her with a puzzled
frown. When it was too late for regrets, Nancy felt the
hot blood welling to her face. Others may have heard
her, too, and what would they think?

Nancy Discovered Tini Across the Aisle

There was even a chance that the man might recognize
her as the same girl who had sat in front of them
on the train, even though she had worn a green suit
then and was now clad in olive drab.

“At least,” she thought ruefully, “I could swear he’s
the same man. But what’s he doing here with Tini
Hoffman?”

Mabel had to speak to her twice before she heeded.

“They make grand sodas here, don’t they?”

“Sure do!” Nancy stuck a couple of straws in hers
so hard they bent double.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mabel under her breath.

Nancy glanced warily at the couple across the aisle,
nudged Mabel with her foot, and laid her finger
cautiously on her lips before she placed the fresh
straws in her glass.

Mabel wisely changed the subject, and remarked,
“Cleansing tissues are sure hard to get now. Guess
we’ll have to get all ours hereafter at the P.X.”

“We’ll need plenty to take across—if we get to go
over.”

“Yeah, my friend Lydia, in North Africa, wrote me
we’d better take along plenty of stuff like that.”

Suddenly Nancy was impatient to be through with
their sodas and out of the drugstore. She meant to
take no chances on suspects this time, but report
what she had seen to Captain Lewis. She finished
her soda in a hurry and reached to the back of the
table for her purse.

“Let’s get going,” she suggested.

“Not till I finish the last spoonful of this ice cream,”
Mabel said firmly. “I’d think about it regretfully every
time I’m marooned somewhere on a desert over
there.”

“Then I’ll go ahead and be paying.”

“What’s all the hurry?” Mabel wanted to know, an
edge in her tone.

Out of the corner of her eye Nancy saw that the
sleek gentleman across the aisle was watching them.
Then she noticed that Tini’s attention had wandered
sufficiently from her companion to recognize them.

“Hiya!” she said with a proud toss of her head,
which plainly showed her personal triumph over
their dateless condition.

Nancy returned the greeting and led the way out.
When they were on the street, Mabel slipped her arm
through Nancy’s and inquired, “What’s wrong? You
acted as though you were sitting on nettles.”

“Nettles would have been mild to the prickles I
felt.”

“What do you mean?”

“That man with Tini looked exactly like the one
who was with the blond corporal I told you about
on the train.”

“Oh! So that’s why you thanked me in German?”

“Of course. I wanted to see if I could get a reaction
out of him.”

“And did you?”

“I’ll say. He shot a glance at me as if I’d poked him
in the ribs.”

Mabel grunted. “Don’t see where that proves anything.
Anybody using German words in these times
should surely make people sit up and take notice.”

“But I could swear he’s the same, Mabel. Dark-rimmed
glasses, small mustache, lean face, and a very
immaculate, tailored look about his clothes.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“Go straight to Captain Lewis. I’m taking no
chances again, even if it gets Tini into trouble.”

“She may be working with him.”

“She’s certainly acted in a way to make us suspicious,”
agreed Nancy.

“Oh, she’s always acted like that—behind the
backs of those over her. I never paid much attention
to that. She’s an only child, very spoiled. Her parents
have oodles of money.”

“Then she didn’t have to take nurse’s training—for
a way to make a living.”

Mabel laughed significantly again. “At the time
she went in she was in love with one of the hospital
internes. It gave her a chance to be with him more.”

“Evidently she didn’t get him.”

“She sure didn’t. Soon after he got settled with his
practice, he married a real sweet girl. By that time
Tini was so nearly through her training she couldn’t
quit without causing lots of talk.”

“Strange for her to take on the hardships of the
Army Nurse Corps.”

“She wanted to get away from home and the catty
people who enjoyed her being jilted.”

“Too bad to have such an experience so young,”
said Nancy, suddenly feeling sorry for Tini.

“She surely was thrilled at having that new fellow
tonight.”

They were moving into the throng at the bus stop
now, and fell silent, for they had been warned about
too much talk within the hearing of others.

“Spies can find meaning in your most innocent remarks,”
Major Reed had warned them.

They couldn’t find seats together anyhow, so the
girls rode in silence back to the camp. Quite a number
of other nurses were coming back to the camp on the
same bus, but Nancy was glad not to sit with any of
them, for she wanted to think about what she would
say to Captain Lewis.

When she went straight on to their room with Mabel,
her friend said, “Thought you were going to report
what you saw to Cap’n Lewis.”

“I didn’t want any of the others to see me going
to her,” explained Nancy. “I’ll wait a few minutes
till they’re all in their rooms. This thing is best kept
under lid.”

“Sure. I agree with you.”

“Tini’s made enough enemies without adding suspicion
to her troubles.”

When the halls were empty Nancy slipped downstairs.
Miss Lewis’s bedroom was next to her office,
but to her consternation she found all the lights out.
She hesitated to wake her, yet didn’t want to wait till
morning to make her revelations.

Over and over again she had been haunted by the
idea that the train wreck might have been averted if
those German-speaking passengers had been apprehended
in time. Yet she still couldn’t see what she
might have done about it. But this time she did know
what to do, and she meant to do it.

She was still hesitating in the hall when she
noticed a light in an office farther down, and heard
men talking. Suddenly she recognized Major Reed’s
hearty laughter. The hours they had worked together
that night at the wreck had made him seem so human
and likeable to Nancy, that their difference in station
could never again be a barrier to understanding.

Eagerly she hurried toward his office. The door
stood open. She paused in the doorway till her eyes
came to rest on the major among the group of men.

“May I speak to you, Major Reed?” she asked.
He glanced at her, surprised, then asked, “Anything
wrong, Miss Dale?”

He crushed his cigarette into an ash tray before
he moved toward the door.

“I meant to talk to Captain Lewis, but her lights
were out,” Nancy explained, as she backed into the
hall, indicating that their conversation must be private.
“I must speak to someone.”

“Yes,” he said when they were outside and the
door was closed. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I just saw the man who was with the corporal
that day on the train.”

“Where?”

“In a drugstore in the village. I don’t want him to
get away as the blond man did.”

“The blond didn’t!” stated Major Reed with a
chuckle. “The FBI now have him in their possession.”

“Not really!” exclaimed Nancy, her face lighting.

“Yes. It will be some time before he’s in circulation
again, if ever. But this other—where’d you say you
saw him?”

Nancy gave a hurried report of her encounter with
the suspect and Tini in the drugstore. While she
talked the major stroked his chin and stared at the
floor.

“Uh-huh. I see. You say he was dating Miss Hoffman?”

“I haven’t any idea where she met him, of course.”

Major Reed glanced at his watch. “You came in on
the last bus?” he asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“Did Tini Hoffman come with you?”

“I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure. The bunch of
us came up from the bus stop together.”

“Then she’ll have to come on the next bus, or be
late checking in.” He was silent a moment, then
spoke again as if thinking aloud. “He would already
have put her on the camp bus before anyone could
make it to town in a car to follow him.”

Nancy admitted this was true. It seemed too late
to put anyone on his trail tonight. “Tini will probably
be dating him again,” she said. “She seemed tickled
pink with him.”

Major Reed dug his hands deep in his pockets
and admitted, “Yes, that seems the surest chance.
But I can’t ask you to act as a spy against one of your
fellow students.”

“Nor do I want any such position,” stated Nancy
frankly, “but where the welfare of our unit or our
country is involved, Major Reed, I fear we have no
choice.”

He looked her squarely in the eyes then with frank
admiration.

“You have a wise head on your shoulders, Miss
Dale. If anything else comes up let me know.”

They heard the last busload of girls out front long
after Mabel and Nancy were already in bed. It was
so much later than Nancy expected. Major Reed
might after all have reached the bus station in time
to see their suspect put Tini aboard. She wondered
what he had done about it.

The following morning a scheduled lecture on
military law was postponed for an impromptu talk
by Major Reed. Nancy’s heart skipped a beat when
Lieutenant Hauser introduced the major to the assembled
unit. Instinctively she felt his appearance
had something to do with what she had told him last
night. And she was right.

He talked to them for an hour on the subtle ways
in which the enemy succeeded in getting information.
He admonished the nurses about silence in
public places, and prohibited discussion outside the
camp grounds about what was going on inside. He
warned them against picking up conversations with
strange men who might craftily get information from
them. He finished his talk by giving a half-dozen actual
incidents where absolutely loyal men and women
had witlessly supplied the enemy with vital information.

“This is for your protection as well as for our boys
out there on the battlefronts,” he told them. “I warn
you to make no close contacts with strangers.”

As the girls filed out of the lecture room there was
awe in their whispered remarks. Most of them felt
more keenly than ever the responsibilities of the task
ahead.

As they went to the grounds for instructions in using
gas masks, Ida Hall and Tini Hoffman were close
to Nancy and Mabel.

“I noticed you had a mighty swell-looking date
last night,” Nancy heard Ida saying to Tini. “Where’d
you pick him up?”

“I didn’t pick him up,” retorted Tini. “I met him
in Charleston.”

“Recently?”

“When I was on vacation after finishing my nurse’s
training.”

“Oh, I see.” Ida’s manner showed she didn’t like
Tini any more than most of the others.

“You surely can’t accuse him of trying to pick me
up,” Tini flared, fully aware of the implications in
Ida’s remarks, following so close on that lecture. “He
encouraged me to come into the ANC. In fact he was
the very one who suggested it.”

“You must have made a hit with him,” put in
Nancy, “to have him come all the way over here to
see you.”

Tini looked pleased, and toyed with her blond
curls before she said, “Well, you see he’s a traveling
salesman and gets around.”

“Huh, he must be luckier than most if he can still
get gas to be a traveling salesman,” commented
Mabel.

“Oh, he uses the trains. His territory is too wide
for a car in these times.”

Nancy smiled disarmingly as she asked, trying to
seem casual, “Dating him tonight?”

“If he can arrange his business so he can be back
in the village.”

There was no more time for probing, for their instructor,
Sergeant Fuller, was calling them to attention
on the pine-clad hill where they had already received
their preliminary instruction in putting on
and taking off their gas masks. The structure of the
masks had been explained in detail, and a lecture
given on the various types of gas, and how to care
for gas casualties.

This morning, however, came their first really difficult
test. They had to go through the gas chamber,
as they called the little house on the hill where the
tests were made.

“Gosh, I’ll sure be glad when this is over,” moaned
a small, brown-eyed girl, Grace Warner, whom they
had dubbed “Shorty.”

Grace actually looked no more than sixteen and
wore her hair with a bang-bob which made her
round, childish face seem even more immature. Her
voice, too, had a thin, babyish quality. Though the
nurses teased her quite a bit, she was a general favorite.

Shorty was between Nancy and Mabel when they
lined up for the gas-chamber test. Her big brown
eyes were apprehensive as she looked at Nancy and
said, “If we could go through there once and have
it over with I wouldn’t mind so much. But three times—gosh!”

“The first won’t be so hard,” Nancy said consolingly.
“We just walk through the front door and out
the back—to be sure our masks don’t leak or anything.”

“Only tear gas, anyhow,” Mabel added. “It’s not
nearly so bad as the others.”

“That’s what you think,” said Shorty. “One of our
nurses back home said she got badly burned about
the neck and wrists when she took the test.”

“She probably wasn’t as snugly protected as we
are. That’s why they make our shirts now with the
extra protection flaps at the cuffs and front. No skin
exposed,” explained Mabel.

The nurses stood in line, their gas masks on. Already
they could hear laughter and nervous giggles
on the other side, as the first of the group marched
through and came out triumphantly to take off their
masks till time for the next test.

Nancy and her friends didn’t mind the first test
so much, though they were glad enough to hurry out
the back door. On the second trip they went in with
their gas masks on, took them off inside, then hurried
out.

“I’ll Be Glad When This Is Over,” Moaned Shorty

“Oh, boy, is this fresh air good!” exclaimed Nancy,
when she rushed out the back door.

“It was awful!” wailed Shorty. “My face is stinging
all over. I wouldn’t go in there again for anything!”

“But you have to!” stated Nancy. “The hardest test
is yet to come.”

“I can’t! I just can’t!” wailed Shorty, her cheeks
wet with tears that had not all been caused by the
stinging gas.

“If you don’t go through it you’ll never get overseas,”
Nancy warned her.

“I don’t see why they put us through all this misery,”
wailed Shorty. “We know how to put on gas
masks in case there’s any trouble over yonder. No
sense in torturing ourselves like this when we may
never have to put ’em on again.”

Nancy caught Shorty by the shoulders and shook
her slightly. “Now you cut out that kind of talk, or
they’ll not let you go down under with us.”

“Come on,” warned Mabel. “It’s our turn again.”

Nancy caught Shorty’s hand. “Come on, honey,”
she said in a wheedling tone. “We’ll go through together.”

Nancy, herself, had really dreaded this final ordeal,
but having to bolster Shorty’s confidence left her little
thought for her own fears. She shoved her little
friend through the door saying, “Now, put on the
mask—quick!”

Shorty already had her mask over her face when
Nancy followed through the door. In spite of their
speed their trembling hands fumbled a bit before the
masks could be put into place, and so they felt a bit
of stinging. When they were securely masked, however,
Nancy urged the excited girl toward the back
door.

“It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?” asked Nancy,
after she jerked her mask off and filled her lungs with
fresh air.

“Could’ve been worse. But I guess I never would
have got through at all, Nancy, if you hadn’t made
me,” Shorty admitted in a shamefaced manner.

“Hope we don’t ever have to use these for the real
thing,” Mabel said.

“I heard a major, just returned from overseas, tell
about how the Japs often cry ‘Wolf’ about gas,” said
Nancy, sitting on the brown pine carpet with the
others to rest a bit.

“What do you mean—cry wolf?” asked Shorty.

“When our men are coming ashore from the landing
craft the Japs often throw up a smoke-screen and
cry, ‘Gas’. They say there’s nothing breaks the men’s
morale easier than the fear of gas,” Nancy explained.

“That’s just too horrible to conceive of,” said Ida
Hall.

“At least it’s consoling to know it hasn’t been used
so far,” put in Mabel.

“No telling what they’ll do at the desperate end,”
Nancy warned them. “I don’t mean to miss a trick
in these gas-mask drills.”

“I heard we’ll have to go through the gas chamber
again at the port of embarkation,” Ida Hall informed
them.

“Good night!” flared Shorty. “As if three times
would not be enough.”

“These masks belong at the training center. They’ll
issue us new ones at the port. We have to test them
out,” Ida explained.

The weather had turned warm and Nancy was
glad to get back to their quarters and have a good
shower when the day’s classes and drills were over.

Mail came twice a day, and the nurses always
haunted their boxes right after breakfast and just before
the evening meal. Nancy talked with her parents
every Sunday over long-distance telephone and had
letters from them and friends back home almost
every day. Letters had never meant so much to her
in all her life. She could now appreciate how important
they were to Tommy and the other boys out
there.

That evening Nancy was thrilled to find a letter
from Tommy, which had been sent on from home.
“One from the South Pacific!” she cried, waving the
letter at Mabel, who was just opening her own box.

“And I have one from my Jake!” exclaimed Mabel.
“What a red-letter day for the long and short of our
unit!”

The girls moved out of the milling crowd at the
mail boxes and opened their letters near a window.

Nancy stopped in the midst of her reading to tell
Mabel joyfully, “He has only a few more missions
to fly and then he’ll be coming home. Now wouldn’t
that be something if I got sent out there while he
comes back!”

“Surely fate wouldn’t play you such a mean trick
as that, Nancy!”

“Is your sweetie all right?” asked Nancy.

“He is now, but the poor chap’s been in the hospital.
He didn’t say what for. Isn’t that just like a man?”

“Better watch out. He may fall for some of those
nurses.”

“If he’s that fickle I’d rather know it now,” Mabel
said with a toss of her head. “But really I’m not uneasy.
Jake’s sold on my red head. There aren’t so
many redheads, you know.”

“He’d better not go to Turkey then. They tell me
there’re plenty of red-headed dames there,” put in
one of the nurses near by, who had overheard their
conversation.

Nancy finished her letters and while waiting for
Mabel she noticed Tini standing not far from them.
There was a scowl on her face as she impatiently
tapped her fingers on the window ledge. A slit envelope
and an open letter were in her hands. Nancy
couldn’t help noticing the return address on the envelope,
“Hotel Carlton.”

“Bad news?” asked Nancy.

“My good-looking date had to leave unexpectedly,”
Tini replied. “Makes me sick!”

“You’ve been lucky to have him here at all,” Nancy
said. “Most of us have been dateless for three weeks.”

“Huh, I always have dates wherever I go.”

“Sure, you’re different,” Mabel said sarcastically.
Her long acquaintance with Tini left little patience
with her superior attitude. “The rest of us made up
our minds when we came into the Army Nurse Corps,
to give personal consideration second place for the
duration.”

“Zat so!” snapped Tini, rudely turning her back.

Nancy and Mabel exchanged significant glances
as they left for the mess hall. As Nancy ate her appetizing
dinner she thought over what she had just
learned. She felt actually sick at heart over this unpleasant
business of suspecting a fellow student.

She had no desire to be a spy. Yet when she recalled
the horrible scenes at that wreck, caused by
sabotage, she shivered. She would never forget the
dead and dying she had ministered to that awful
morning. As much as she hated the unpleasant position
into which circumstances had again thrust her,
Nancy was determined to let no squeamishness make
her keep silent. She had no choice but to report what
she had just learned about Tini’s date to Major Reed.
If the man was really an enemy spy, he must not be
allowed to escape again.

Nancy excused herself before Mabel and her
friends had finished eating, and left the mess hall. She
found Major Reed alone this time, sitting at his desk.
She was not unmindful of the brightening of his face
when he saw her. He was such a large man he seemed
older than he really was. Nancy had at first thought
he was about thirty, but now he seemed nearer
twenty-five. He had gone far for one so young.

“Come in, Miss Nancy,” he said cordially. He
jumped up and placed a chair for her, then closed the
door. “You have more information?”

“It may or may not be important,” she told him a
little sadly. “Frankly, Major Reed, I don’t like this
business of reporting on a fellow student—yet I dare
not hide what I hear.”

“I fully appreciate the awkwardness of the situation,”
he said with understanding, “but these are
really times that try men’s souls. We have to do
many things differently now.”

“I’ll say,” she agreed.

“I was just reading here,” said the major, indicating
a magazine he had put down at her entrance,
“that our vice-president says the time is past when
we must see no evil, hear no evil, and tell no evil. We
must do all three until evil is wiped out. Right now
you are in a peculiar position and the only one on
whom I can rely.”

“I’ll try not to betray your trust,” she said. “I
learned just now that Tini’s friend had been staying at
Hotel Carlton over in the city. I’m afraid he’s already
left there. He wrote her he had to leave unexpectedly.”

Suddenly the major’s hearty laughter filled the
little room. “So he got wise to the fact that he was
being watched!”

“Oh—so you already knew he was staying there?”

Major Reed became wary. “We had a line on him.”

“But how?” asked Nancy. “Tini did come in on
that next bus the other night. Nobody here had time
to get into the village and follow him after he put
Tini on the bus.”

“I acted on your information promptly. There’s
such a thing as the telephone,” he reminded Nancy.

He made this unsatisfactory explanation with a
finality that told her she must inquire no further into
his end of the business.

“Have you learned anything else?” he asked.

“Yes. Tini told us she met him in Charleston. He’s
a traveling salesman, uses the trains instead of a car.
He suggested that Tini join the Army Nurse Corps.”

“So!” Major Reed’s dark eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Mabel Larsen took nurse’s training in the same
hospital with her. She said Tini went into it originally
because she was crazy about one of the internes. But
that may be only gossip, for it does sound mean. I’m
afraid Tini isn’t very well liked.”

Major Reed was abstractedly making crosses on a
scrap of paper. Finally his pencil stopped, and he
looked squarely across at Nancy.

“Has Miss Hoffman done anything to make you
feel she has gotten on the inside merely to supply
information to our enemies?”

“That’s a stiff question, Major.”

“I know it is. But you’re in a better position to judge
of such things than any of the instructors.”

“Tini gripes a lot about regulations and the hardships
of the military training, but Mabel said she was
always complaining during her nurse’s training. She’s
an only child. Her family has plenty of money, and
she’s rather spoiled. All those things have to be taken
into consideration.”

Nancy saw the ghost of a smile flicker around the
major’s nice lips. Then he said, “But you’ve evaded
my question.”

“Oh, no. I’m not trying to evade, because I honestly
don’t think Tini has the makings of a spy. I think she’s
motivated entirely by selfishness. She would be horribly
bored here without dates—she’ll go with most
anybody rather than be dateless.”

“I suppose with a little flattery a man could
wheedle a good bit out of her.”

“You may be right,” Nancy conceded.

She rose to leave and he stood up.

“All this has been a great help,” he told her. “But
keep in mind it’s still between us two.”

She was almost at the door when he added, “And
by the way—a notice has just been put on the bulletin
board that will interest you.”

“Oh, are we going to be sent overseas soon?”

He laughed again. “You’re optimistic! Some nurses
have been waiting to go over for a year or more, and
here you’re expecting to go in a few weeks.”

“It has been done,” Nancy came back promptly.
“Oh, Major Reed, if they’d only send me to the South
Pacific in a hurry! I have a brother out there who’s
almost finished his flying missions. If I get there before
he comes back, I may have a chance to see him.”

“Just keep your shirt on,” he told her. “You’ll probably
get into the thick of it before it’s all over. I’m
afraid there’s more than we dreamed of ahead. That
notice out there says you’re to get a taste of tent life,
starting Monday.”

“Oh, that’s really to my liking!” exclaimed Nancy.
She hurried away to find Mabel and tell her the news.

On Sunday just before supper Nancy and Mabel
were packed to start off by army truck at dawn next
morning. It was exciting to put into practice their
instructions about packing compactly for travel, for
they were to move on now as if they were going into
a combat area.

“Seems like the real thing,” said Mabel eagerly.

They had had their supper and were ready for
bed early when they heard a knock on their door.
It proved to be Lieutenant Hauser.

“Long-distance call for you, Miss Dale,” she said
when they opened the door.

Nancy stood stunned for a moment. Her arrangement
with the folks back home was that she would
call them every Sunday at two o’clock, as long as
phone calls of that kind were permissible. She had
talked with her mother and father only a few hours
ago, though she had not been able to tell them she
was moving on to another address. They would have
to be informed about that later when the unit had
arrived safely. To have them call back like this
alarmed her. She knew no one else who would call
her by long-distance telephone here.

“She said you had a long-distance call,” Mabel
repeated, when Nancy still stood where she had received
the message.

“But why would they be calling back?” Nancy
wanted to know.

“Oh come on, gal!” exclaimed Mabel, wrapping her
housecoat around her and taking Nancy’s arm. “How
will you ever face all those bombs if you get so scared
over a little telephone bell ringing?”

Nancy could think only that something terrible
must have happened to her parents. She let Mabel
lead her like a sleep-walker to the phone in Lieutenant
Hauser’s office.

“Hello! Yes—this is Nancy. Oh Dad, that you? I
was afraid something was wrong with you or Mom.”

Mabel could hear Mr. Dale’s deep voice as she
stood close to Nancy: “No, we’re all right, but we had
upsetting news just now from the government—”

“From the government—you—you mean about
Tommy?” asked Nancy.

“They report he’s been missing in action over
enemy territory since the second of March.”

“Oh Dad!” wailed Nancy. “It can’t be true! It just
can’t! God wouldn’t let anything happen to our
Tommy.”

“Not if our prayers can keep it from happening,
darling,” came the firm voice confidently over the
wire. “You just keep on praying like we’ve been doing
all along, and he’ll be taken care of.”

“Oh Dad, how I wish I could be there with you
and Mom right now! How is she?”

“Just the same brave saint she’s always been. She’s
writing you a letter now to hearten you.”

“Kiss her for me,” said Nancy. “And tell her I’ll pray
harder than ever.”

Nancy put down the phone and faced Mabel.

“I could hear what he said,” her friend told her
gently. “Don’t give up hope, Nancy. Lots of times
they turn up after they’re reported missing. Maybe
he’s not dead.”

“Oh, no, he’s not!” Nancy asserted firmly. “I’m not
going to think of it for a minute. He wrote me in that
last letter he could feel our prayers helping protect
him, and he’s going to feel it more than ever now.”

From sunrise till mid-afternoon the following day
the convoy rolled smoothly west along the paved
highway. At noon they stopped in a large city to eat
a lunch the canteen girls had prepared. It was good
to get out and stretch their legs after sitting on the
hard truck seats all morning. No one knew where
they were going, or how long they would be on their
way, so the nurses made the best of their hour’s rest.
They took turns in the canteen dressing room, freshening
up to continue their journey.

While they rested Nancy slipped her brother’s last
letter from her pocket and re-read it. Mabel caught
her at it and tried to cheer her.

“Come on now,” she said, “it does no good grieving.”

“I’m not grieving. It—it makes me feel more certain
he’s going to come out all right when I re-read his
letter.”

“Let’s take a sprint around the block,” suggested
Mabel. “We have a few minutes before we take off.”

“Not a bad idea. A little exercise will do us good.”

“We may never get a peep at this burg again. I sure
don’t mean to miss anything on the way.”

Other girls were out pacing up and down the sidewalk
in front of the canteen, but Nancy and Mabel
wanted to see more. They were in the heart of town,
and the street back of the canteen had many attractive
shop windows. Nancy kept glancing at her watch
as they paused to admire the pretty dresses.

“Do you feel like someone who’s renounced the
world when you look at those dresses?” asked Mabel.

“Oh, well, it won’t be forever,” Nancy said consolingly.
“At least we can still wear evening dresses
for dances on the post, Miss Hauser said.”

“Yeah! That will be a slight morale booster.”

“I never felt more smartly dressed than I do in this
uniform,” continued Nancy.

“I must admit they do look rather stunning,” Mabel
agreed.

The next store carried drugs, and they were about
to pass by when Nancy seized Mabel’s arm. “Say,
that looks like Tini in there!”

Mabel stepped back and looked in. “Sure is! Come
on, I’ll get some dental floss and see what she’s up
to.”

As they went in, Tini’s back was toward them. She
sat on a stool at the soda counter, drinking a coke.
Why had she come here for a coke when they had all
the cold drinks they wanted back at the canteen?
Tini was leaning across the counter, turning her
charm on the soda jerker who was at least five years
her junior. What was she up to now, Nancy wondered?

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 assigned
four 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

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, according
to 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 talk
to 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. “After
all, 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 far
overhead. 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 to
locate. 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’s
side. 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.”

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 stopped
suddenly 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 position
of 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 they
really 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

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 their
conversation.

“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.

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 asked
eagerly.

“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 together
again.

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 foot
lockers 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 see
whether 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 had
had 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 yourselves
as 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 make
our 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.”

During those first busy days at the hotel Nancy
saw little of Tini. Though she managed to get in always
before eleven, and was at hand for breakfast,
she took most of her other meals out.

One noon when Nancy, Mabel and Shorty were
on a shopping expedition they came across Tini in
a swanky Chinese restaurant, sitting at a table with
a smart-looking woman, obviously about ten years
her senior.

Nancy’s trio, in a high mood, was having a final
fling. They had carefully checked over their funds
to be sure they would have enough for a meal in this
expensive restaurant. They were surprised and not
altogether pleased to find Tini ahead of them with
someone who would probably foot her bill.

“She hasn’t paid a particle of attention to what Miss
Hauser said about our going in groups,” Mabel
grumbled on seeing Tini.

“Has she ever paid attention to any regulations she
could break and get by with?” asked Shorty, whose
round, babyish eyes took in more than her guileless
face betrayed.

Nancy gave her attention to the menu card, but
when the other two were occupied with thoughts of
food she sent the woman sitting opposite Tini a critical
look. The stranger was a blonde like Tini, but her
chic hat and smart clothes could not hide the hard
sophistication in her face. A group of WACs came
into the dining room, and Nancy saw the woman’s
eyes follow them to their seats. Two army nurses, not
of their unit, entered a moment later and again she
trailed them. Nancy made up her mind to ask Tini
later about the woman, then tried to dismiss the unpleasant
subject, and enjoy this meal they had been
anticipating.

The chop suey and Chinese tea proved to be all
that had been anticipated. Though they dawdled long
over the food Tini and her companion were still at
their table when Nancy and her friends rose to go.

When they had left their tips and paid for their
food Mabel said in an impish tone, “I’ve gotter pass
by Tini’s table on the way out.”

“Now, Mabel, what are you up to?” asked Nancy.

Mabel made a face at her and retorted, “None of
your business!”

Tini’s back had been to them, but now she glanced
up and saw them, and Nancy noticed the flustered
look on her face.

“Hiya, Blondie!” burst forth Mabel. “Chow was
swell, wasn’t it?”

Tini nodded at them coolly.

At the door Mabel said, “Oh, boy, did she and her
high-brow friend snoot us!”

“High-brow, did you say?” asked Nancy in a
sarcastic tone.

“You shouldn’t tease her so, Mabel,” Shorty chided.
“Tini’s such a stickler for form.”

“Social form only,” added Nancy. “Not military
form.”

“Dumb bloke! That’s all the sense she has,” said
Mabel in disgust.

The girls spent another hour shopping, then were
too weary for any more that day, so returned to the
hotel. They stopped in the lobby for Mabel to get a
magazine, and Shorty some mints. Too tired to stand,
Nancy dropped into one of the large chairs in sight of
the elevator. She was sitting there in a fog of weariness
when she saw Tini and her luncheon companion
come in and ring for the elevator.

“So,” thought Nancy, “you’re either taking her up
to our room—which is against regulations, or she lives
in the hotel herself. In either case I mean to find out
where she goes.”

Nancy had no time to let Mabel and Shorty know
she was going up, but made a dive for the elevator as
the passengers crammed in. Their room was on the
eighth floor, but to her relief Tini’s friend got off at
the seventh.

Several other nurses got off at the next floor with
Nancy and Tini, but the two girls found themselves
side by side as they approached their own door.

“Mabel certainly embarrassed me in the restaurant
this noon,” said Tini in an ugly mood.

“Oh, you know Mabel!” exclaimed Nancy. She
slipped her key in the lock and opened the door.

“She’s very common and loud at times!” snapped
Tini.

“But with a heart of gold,” stated Nancy. “I’d trust
Mabel with my own soul.”

“Hump!” grunted Tini as she tossed her cap to the
bed.

Nancy sat down on her cot and slipped her aching
feet into her bedroom slippers.

“That was a beautifully dressed woman you were
with. Where’d you meet her?” asked Nancy.

“She’s Carl’s aunt, Mrs. Webber. He made me
promise to look her up if we got to the west coast.”

“He did. Does she live at this hotel? I noticed she
got off at the floor below.”

“Oh, no. She’s only visiting here—came to meet me.”

“I see. But how could she know you were here?”

“Carl wired her.”

“How did Carl know?”

Suddenly Tini flared. “And what business is it of
yours?”

“Oh, what a nettle you are!” said Nancy.

Mabel came in a few minutes later. “You really
got ahead of us,” she told Nancy. “Didn’t know you
were coming on up.” Then her gaze fell on Tini, and
she left the rest of her remark unfinished.

“Sure,” said Tini, sitting up suddenly, “she had to
come up and spy on me and my friend.”

“Why Tini Hoffman!” exclaimed Ida Hall, lifting
her head from the bed where she had been recovering
from the after-effects of some shots. “How can
you be so rude?”

Mabel went to the foot of Tini’s bed and fairly
shook it in her rage. “Let me tell you something, Tini
Hoffman. If you didn’t have a bad conscience about
the way you’ve broken the regulations ever since you
got into this unit, you wouldn’t make such a remark.”

“Mabel’s right,” Ida Hall agreed. “Anyone who
can’t stand up under watching by all the rest, has no
right to stay with us. This is serious business, Tini.
You can bet your bottom dollar none of us is going
to let anything crooked get by.”

Tini began turning the pages of a magazine to show
them how little importance she put on what they
said. A strained silence filled the room, and Nancy
was thankful when it was time to dress for dinner.
Mabel was a fast dresser and sat checking over the
list of necessities while she waited for the others.

“Well, I think I have everything mentioned on this
list that I want to take,” she concluded. “Do you gals
want me to read it over to see if you’ve forgotten
anything?”

“Good idea,” said Nancy, giving her auburn curls
a final touch. She had had her hair set early that
morning, and wondered when she would ever get
inside a hairdresser’s again.

“She’s Carl’s Aunt, Mrs. Webber,” Tini Told Nancy

“Bathrobe, bedroom slippers, brassieres, garters,
garter belt, girdle, handkerchiefs, money belt—”
Mabel began.

“For goodness’ sake!” burst forth Tini. “Can’t you
see I’m reading? I’ve checked that list a dozen times
and have everything on it.”

“If them’s orders, Shavetail Hoffman, I’ll desist!”
exclaimed Mabel, snapping to attention and giving
Tini a mocking salute. “Come on, girls, let’s beat it,”
she added, turning to Ida and Nancy. “I’m ready for
more chow.”

Though Mabel tried to dissipate the stormy atmosphere
by her light mood, Nancy could not shake
off her depression and a sense of foreboding. The
nurses and medical officers had a long, private dining
room at the rear of the first floor. Nancy noticed that
for a change everyone seemed to be on hand.

Major Reed was in a high mood as he sat with a
group of his medical officers. Nancy’s heart swelled
with pride when she glanced from one to the other
of their personnel. Here were medical men trained
in all branches of healing, and nurses with various
specializations for assisting them.

At the end of the meal, when Nancy was finishing
a piece of lemon chiffon pie, she glanced up to note
that the room had been cleared of waiters, and Sergeant
Bohler was standing at the rear door by which
they entered. Then all eyes were drawn, as if by some
strong attraction, toward Major Reed, now standing
by his table.

“I have the privilege of informing you,” he began,
“that we have been alerted. No member of this unit
will leave the hotel again, nor may you use any telephone,
send out any mail, or by any means communicate
with any person outside this room that we will
embark in a few hours. Everyone must be packed
and ready to leave at any moment. When you come
down to meals again come prepared to march to
your ship, if necessary. Everything in your rooms
must be ready for instant departure.”

No cheers greeted this long-anticipated order, for
any demonstration might bring information to alert
spies they knew were not far off. Sergeant Bohler
left the door, the waiters returned to clear off the
tables and the nurses and doctors went straight to
their quarters.

When their door was closed Mabel burst forth exuberantly,
“Boy, oh boy! To think we have sailing
orders at last!”

“I’ve got that hollow, going-away feeling for the
first time since I left home,” said Ida Hall a little wistfully.

“It surely does make you feel serious when you stop
to think what we may have to go through before we
get back to these shores,” said Nancy.

“But we’re going to see the world, gals, before we
get back!” Mabel was the only one who had no close
relatives to leave behind, so her adventure-loving
wings had no silken cords to bind them to home
shores.

“Wish they’d waited another day, dern it!” exclaimed
Tini. “Just my luck though. Wonder how
long we’ll have to wait.” It was the first time she had
spoken since they returned to the room.

“I imagine Major Reed doesn’t even know that,”
said Nancy. “We’ll just have to be ready to go at any
minute.” She was already gathering up her toilet articles
from the dresser as she spoke.

“I’ve heard they often go aboard ship about midnight,”
said Ida. “We’d better keep on most of our
clothes.”

It was about ten o’clock before they finished packing
and turned out the lights. Taking off only their
coats, the four nurses lay down on top of their beds.
Nancy dropped into a light sleep, but was roused by
an almost imperceptible movement near the door
well after midnight. Though the room was in total
darkness she knew someone was moving across the
carpet. A beam of light fell across Tini’s empty bed
as the door was opened with noiseless caution, and
Tini herself stepped into the hall.

The moment Nancy saw Tini step into the hall she
knew she was intent on making some secret contact
with someone outside their unit. With noiseless speed
she jumped from her bed and followed through the
door in her stocking feet. In spite of her prompt action
Tini had vanished by the time she reached the
dimly lighted hall.

She couldn’t have rung for the elevator and taken
it in so short a time. With swift insight Nancy surmised
she was headed for her friend on the seventh
floor by way of the fire-escape stairs. How glad she
was she had made a point of asking Mrs. Webber’s
room number at the desk last night before dinner.

For an instant Nancy stood there in the silent hall
in an agony of indecision. What should she do? She
was tortured between two speculations—that Tini,
herself, was a spy in their midst, or had innocently,
but foolhardily let herself be drawn into a net of
spies. No matter which she was it seemed obvious
her intention was to let Mrs. Webber know they were
alerted.

She thought of Major Reed. Even had she known
his room number she would have hesitated to go to
his room at this hour of the night. Lieutenant Hauser
was three doors down the hall. Even while Nancy
was trying to decide what she should do, she was on
her way there.

To her relief she saw light under the crack of Miss
Hauser’s door and found her superior officer fully
dressed. Nancy wasted no time in preliminary explanations,
but burst forth as soon as she was inside.
“Tini Hoffman has gone out—to Mrs. Webber’s room,
705,” she said. “She’s Carl Benton’s sister. They’ll
find out we’re alerted.”

“Thanks, Nancy. This is not unexpected,” Lieutenant
Hauser said, and acted promptly, picking up the
phone. “Connect me with Major Reed, room 829,”
she told the operator.

A moment later she was saying into the phone,
“This is Blanche Hauser. Nancy has reported the
expected. Set off the action—705.”

She was as cool as a veteran under fire when she
put the phone back in its cradle. “We’re not surprised,
Nancy,” she said, seeing the girl’s puzzled
look. “We have the trap set, and had to let things go
this far in order to spring it.”

Nancy’s brown eyes were wide with wonder as
she asked, “Then Tini is a spy?”

“I think not—just a fool in the hands of spies!”

Nancy wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let her
superior officer see her give way in this crisis.

Miss Hauser came to where Nancy had dropped
limply on the foot of the bed. She placed her hand
affectionately on her shoulder and said, “Of course
I know all that’s happened before, through Major
Reed. You’ve been wonderful, Nancy—dependable
as old Plymouth Rock. Without such as you our
national freedom would long since have been undermined.”

“It hasn’t been an easy position,” Nancy admitted.

“We’ve been fully aware of that. But when you
stop to realize you’ve probably saved our convoy
from some horrible disaster what does any of that
matter?”

“Are you sure it’s not too late?”

“I hope so. Your prompt action has always been
taken just in time. You’d better go back to your room
now, or your other roommates may rouse and be
curious.”

“I’m afraid I’ll never sleep, not knowing what’s
happening.”

“You deserve a full explanation, Nancy, but it
probably won’t come before sailing. I’m not at liberty
to say more. Major Reed will have to do that.”

With what composure she could command, Nancy
went back to her room and crept to her cot without
rousing the others. She strained her ears at the sound
of the elevator gliding up and down several times,
but it told her nothing of the stark drama being
enacted on the floor below. Never before had she
felt so like a small cog in a gigantic machine. She
must perform her function efficiently, leaving to a
greater mind the finished product that the machine
turned out. Toward dawn she finally went to sleep
and didn’t rouse till her two friends were ready for
breakfast.

“Tini must be hungry this morning,” said Ida Hall.
“She’s already gone down.”

“But she left her coat and cap,” Mabel observed.

Nancy said not a word as she touched up her lips.
When they returned to their room an hour later all
the things Tini had left on her bed, musette bag,
pistol belt, canteen, short coat and overcoat, were
gone.

When Ida Hall commented on this, Mabel observed,
“Her foot locker and suitcase, too. Something’s
gone wrong, girls—wonder what?”

Nancy could only remain silent, feeling miserable
and deceitful, even while she wondered what had
actually become of Tini. When nothing more was
seen of their blond roommate by lunchtime, Mabel
confronted Miss Hauser with a question about her
in the dining room.

Miss Hauser’s manner was as casual as could be
when she replied. “Miss Hoffman didn’t pass all the
tests,” she said. “Some do fail to get over at the last
minute, you know.”

Silently the trio went back to their room. Each sat
on the side of her bed, staring into space. After an
interval Mabel said, “She didn’t fail on her physicals,
I can bet you that. Tini’s strong as a mule.”

“And just as stubborn about having her own way,”
Ida asserted.

Nancy offered no opinion, for fear she would betray
more than she should. The afternoon dragged
by. Nancy brought Shorty in to be a fourth at a table
of bridge, and they played until time to go down for
dinner.

“I didn’t think units were held over, after alert,
more than twenty-four hours,” complained Mabel.
“Sure wish we’d get on the move.”

“Maybe the convoy is delayed somehow,” suggested
Ida.

Nancy wondered if Tini had anything to do with
the delay. She tried to forget the unpleasant incident.
When they were in the dining room that evening
she suggested, “You girls had better lay in a good
meal. This may be the last you’ll get before you’re
too seasick to eat.”

They took her advice and put in full orders. A few
in the crowded dining room had started eating and
Nancy had taken only one bite from the breast of a
chicken when Major Reed came in. His face told all
who turned toward him that the moment had come.

“This is it!” he said, when he rapped for attention.
“You will file out immediately to the room across the
hall and wait further orders. Your room baggage will
be taken care of.”

Now they understood why they had been told to
come to meals, prepared for marching orders. They
filed into a drawing-room across the hall. Some did
not even sit down, expecting to be on their way to
the docks at once. However, when an hour passed
and marching orders had not yet come, they lit more
cigarettes and hunted seats. Nancy, Mabel, Ida and
Shorty huddled together on a window seat.

“Why in heck didn’t they let us finish our dinner?”
Mabel wanted to know. “I’ll see that wasted, juicy
steak to my dying day.”

“I’d be glad for even a drink of water,” said Shorty.

“No law against drinking from your canteen,”
Nancy told her. “I guess this situation rates as an
emergency.”

The time dragged into an eternity. Everyone wondered
what had happened. Would they be sent back
to their rooms for another night’s sleep? Then at long
last Major Reed appeared to give them the final alert.
Nancy glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes of
twelve. They had been waiting in this room over four
hours. She wondered what was back of the delay.

They were packed into trucks waiting in the alley
at the back of the hotel. Then by dark, back streets,
their convoy approached the dock. When the nurses
were lined up beside a long warehouse Nancy’s
heart swelled with pride that she was one of this
brave, snappy unit. Every nurse wore her dress uniform
and carried her overcoat over one arm. Her musette
bag, filled with a score of oddments she might
need in an emergency, was slung over her shoulder.
In her pistol belt was a first-aid kit, and on her left
hip was a freshly filled canteen.

With a rhythmic shush, shush of many feet they
passed by the long warehouse, and went across the
dock to the great ship rising like a giant from the
water. To Nancy it seemed incredible that anything
so large could remain afloat. She had taken only two
ocean trips in her life, and those were on small, coast-wise
steamers between Charleston and New York in
the good old days when no subs darkened the waters,
nor death wings roared overhead.

They marched up the long gangplank and were
directed to their quarters. Everything moved with
oiled smoothness. The staterooms had been turned
into bunk rooms. Some of the larger ones, that had
once been luxury suites, had as many as sixteen bunks
lining the walls, three tiers deep with a double bunk
to each tier. Fortunately Nancy, Mabel, Ida and
Shorty got together once more in a small four-bunk
cabin. Each nurse would have to use her bunk for
lying, dressing and sitting, for all floor space was
filled with the hand luggage.

Each nurse hung her helmet on the head of the
bunk, close to her life preserver and well-filled canteen.
In her musette bag Nancy had crammed what
she thought she might need in case they had to take
to lifeboats. She had a small flashlight, some milk
chocolate, a change of undies, an extra pair of dark
glasses, cleansing tissues, a small comb, two tins of
concentrated food, and many other odds and ends.

An hour after going aboard the nurses slipped off
their coats and caps and stretched out on the bunks,
prepared to jump up the moment there was any indication
of leaving the dock. But for hours longer
there came that steady tramp, tramp of soldiers’ feet
as the transport was packed to sardine-tin tightness.

It was still dark, however, when Mabel shook
Nancy out of a sound sleep to say, “I think we’re
moving!”

The other two girls were already pulling on their
overcoats to go on deck, and together they rushed
out. Faint streaks of dawn were in the sky. Hawsers
had already been released and the giant ship was
being eased out of the harbor by tugs that looked like
midgets in comparison.

The first light of day was striking glints from the
water when they slipped through the submarine net
at the mouth of the harbor. The net-tender waved at
them, and Nancy thought a little wistfully that this
was the only farewell they had had. She watched the
shoreline of our country recede, not without a feeling
of sadness dulling her joy. But her sadness was
more for those she left behind than any fear of what
might be ahead. She was young and strong and eager
to do her share, fully aware of the privilege and responsibility
of being part of this great task force.

Her group, huddled close together, had fallen
silent when suddenly the loud speaker began to bellow,
“Life jackets—all personnel must wear life
jackets.”

There was a general exodus to individual quarters
to don the uncomfortable rig, which they dubbed
their “Mae Wests.” Not until their journey ended,
weeks hence, could they be separated from them
again.

Nancy couldn’t sit still after she was safely girded
in her life jacket. She kept popping her head up to
the porthole to see what was happening outside. One
of the others filled the spot every time she vacated it.

They had orders to line up for breakfast at seven.
The nurses were scheduled to eat first. It was an
hour, however, before they had been served and
could finish eating.

When they reached the deck again Nancy burst
forth, “Look, girls, this is the real thing!”

They joined her at the rail to see that their transport
was now one of a great convoy of vessels of all
sorts, moving steadily into the southwest.

“Breath-taking, isn’t it?” said Shorty.

“I can hardly believe we’re really on our way at
last,” said Nancy happily.

That journey across the Pacific was a never-to-be-forgotten
experience. Though the intensive training
of the last busy weeks was over there was still plenty
of routine in their lives. “Abandon ship” drills were
part of every day’s program. They never knew when
they were coming, nor whether, this time, it was the
real thing. Every nurse, swathed in her Mae West,
must be standing at attention by the lifeboat assigned
her when the Colonel passed for inspection. Nor did
his inspection stop there, but their quarters must
always be tidied so as to bear the scrutiny of those
piercing gray eyes.

The soldiers laughed at the women when they appeared
with the most unexpected items to be taken
along just in case this life drill was the real thing. Ida
Hall invariably came out wearing dark glasses while
Mabel always brought a rubber bathing cap.

“I’ve got to protect my permanent from the salt
water,” she explained, when a young sergeant asked
if she was going swimming. “I figure I won’t get another
wave any time soon.”

Nancy had a horror of being adrift without lights
and water, so always had her flashlight and a well-filled
canteen.

“If I forget everything else I hope I won’t leave my
knife behind,” said Janice. “I may need it to slay
sharks or cut up fish to eat.”

Though they got what fun they could from this
serious business, it gave Nancy a feeling of safety
to know that everything had been so carefully
planned for their welfare. She couldn’t help wondering
at times, however, if Tini’s wilfulness had really
supplied the enemy with information they sought
about the convoy. She had caught only occasional
glimpses of Major Reed, but at no time was there
opportunity to speak with him privately, so her curiosity
about the whole matter had to be stilled.

Every time she looked across at the great flotilla
of ships to port and starboard, fore and aft, her sense
of security grew stronger. She was never weary of
watching the sea and those other ships.

In spite of their drills and regulations they had
much real leisure, which was most welcome after so
many weeks of rigorous training. Most of the small
discomforts of the crowded transport could be endured,
but Nancy did feel the pinch of their limited
water supply. With so much water all about them it
seemed strange to be rationed on water, but on such
a packed ship the water supply was a real problem.

They had to line up for the bathroom, then each
nurse was allowed only a basin full of water for bathing
and clothes washing. The girls had to dodge
about their cabins to avoid the lines of clothes constantly
drying. However, most of them stayed in
their cabins only for sleeping and dressing, so could
make the best of what could not be helped.

For dinner the first evening they changed to their
summer beige suits, for there was to be dancing
afterward. There were numberless men for every
girl, so none lacked for partners. Nancy was surprised
about ten o’clock that first evening to glance around
and discover Major Reed asking her for the next
dance. This was the first time he had spoken to her
since Tini had vanished from their midst.

“Oh, you!” she exclaimed eagerly.

She gave him her hand and they moved on to the
floor, but the place was so packed it was like trying
to dance on a dime.

Nancy laughed and said, “It’s impossible!”

“And the air’s thick enough to slice,” he added.
“Why endure it when there’s so much grand fresh
air on deck?”

“Do let’s go outside,” agreed Nancy. “I’ve been
wondering what the stars are like out there.”

They escaped to the deck by a side door and finally
worked their way to the prow. The black-out on the
ship made the spangle of stars a thousand times more
brilliant than Nancy had ever seen them. They stood
at the rail a few minutes, watching the brilliant points
of light swim crazily in a dome of purple velvet.

“Abandon Ship” Drills Were Held Every Day

“I can hardly wait to see the southern cross,” said
Nancy.

“A wonderful sight,” he told her. “Two of the stars
point toward the south pole, as Polaris indicates the
north.”

“You’ve been down under before?” she asked
eagerly.

“I came out in the late spring, before Pearl Harbor,
a civilian then. I remember I was sight-seeing at Pago
Pago about the middle of May.”

“I’ve never been any farther than New York by
steamer,” Nancy confessed. “I didn’t dare hope I’d
really make it down here—right where I want most
to go.”

“Things do work out sometimes,” he said with
deep content. “They have for me.”

They fell silent a moment while they watched the
other darkened ships moving across the wide expanse.

After an interval he said in a low tone, “Miss Dale,
this is the first opportunity I’ve had to thank you for
your cooperation.”

“There was nothing else I could do.”

“Of course. But you did it more tactfully and successfully
than many others would have.”

“Naturally I’ve been curious to know what really
happened the other night when I went to Miss Hauser
about Tini.”

“It’s a long story that goes way back,” he began,
and glanced around once more to be sure no one
else was in hearing distance. “You’ve helped us trap
two of a ring we’ve been trailing a long time.”

“Oh, Major Reed, really?”

“Their specialty has been getting in with women
in the service, not only nurses, but WACs, WAVES,
and even Red Cross workers, to worm information
from them by subtle tricks at which they’re very
adept.”

“And Tini Hoffman’s temperament made her a
gold mine for them, I should think.”

“Exactly. We took some great chances letting her
stay as long as she did, but it proved to be worth it
in the end.”

“Then you did spring the trap Miss Hauser spoke
of?”

“Indeed we did. We had had a plainclothes man
watching Tini ever since we got to port, but without
you on the inside even he might have failed.”

“Oh!” breathed Nancy, just beginning to realize
fully how important had been her position.

“We had had an eye on this woman who posed under
the name of Mrs. Webber, before. She serves
as the sister of any of the ring who have girls coming
into the port.”

“I see,” said Nancy. “She looked capable of such
a post—a hard-looking sister!”

“Tini got in such a dither to see Mrs. Webber that
night, because Carl said he was flying out to see her
before she left. She was to meet him for lunch at the
Chinese restaurant next noon—then alert orders came
and she couldn’t get out, so she thought she had to
go to Mrs. Webber so Carl could understand why
she broke the date.”

“Then Tini was not really crooked—a spy,” said
Nancy in a tone of relief. She couldn’t bear to think
that, even of Tini.

“No—just foolish when it comes to a realization of
the danger she might have placed this convoy in.”

“Did that have anything to do with the delay in
our leaving?”

“I’m afraid it did.”

“But you haven’t told me just what did happen
down there in room 705.”

“We had placed a dictaphone in Mrs. Webber’s
room while she was out, and let Tini have her say,
to get the record, before we went in to take them both
into custody. Fortunately Tini mentioned the name
of the place she was to meet Carl next noon, and it
was a simple matter for the FBI to be there to pick
him up. He had shaved his small mustache, but
otherwise the description you first gave, served an
excellent purpose.”

“Well, what do you know about that?” Nancy said
in wonder.

How little she had dreamed when she went into
the service that she would become involved in such
a plot!

“I was so miserable over the whole business,” she
added after an interval, “but Tini was always placed
right under my nose. I couldn’t help knowing the
awful things she did.”

“We placed her close to you deliberately. We knew
you were entirely to be trusted,” he said.

She flushed in the darkness and after a moment
murmured, “Thank you, Major Reed. I’ll try never to
betray that trust.”

“Miss Hauser told me one of your roommates asked
about Miss Hoffman after she had been gone a half
day, so I presume you gave no hint of what you knew
to the others.”

“No, I didn’t. Tini had given herself a bad enough
name. There was no use making it worse.”

“You have a wise head on your shoulders, Nancy.”

Her pulse quickened as he called her by her first
name.

“No, Tini’s not really a traitor—just one of those
thoughtless, self-willed people, who can do as much
harm as a real spy,” said the major, “and you’d be
surprised, Nancy, to know how many of those are
crippling our war effort.”

Nancy sighed. “We really do walk a narrow plank
over dangerous waters, don’t we?”

“Indeed we do!” he agreed. “But for everyone who
would betray us there’s millions loyal to the core, like
you.”

“I appreciate your telling me just what happened.
Naturally I’ve been wondering, but hadn’t dared
ask.”

“You have a right to know if anyone does. Such
service as you’ve rendered never brings medals,
Nancy—we have to keep too quiet about these undercover
activities.”

“At least I’m glad it’s all over, and we don’t have
anyone else like Tini in our unit. They’re a grand
bunch—all of them.”

“Are you telling me!” he exclaimed.

Nancy lifted her head, feeling a wonderful sense
of freedom as she drank in great gulps of the clean,
fresh air. “My, it’s great to be here—on our way!” she
said.

“It really is,” he agreed. Then he hastened to ask,
“Say, Nancy, have you seen the sick bay?”

“You mean there’s a hospital aboard?”

“Almost inactive now. But it’ll be jammed on the
return trip.”

“How do you find it?”

“I’ll take you down and show you through right
after breakfast tomorrow,” he suggested.

“Oh, that would be swell!”

Nancy went to sleep that night with a feeling of
eager anticipation for the morning. Sleeping was a
tight squeeze amid all their possessions. Several times
during the night Nancy was vaguely aware of Mabel
giving her a shove and ordering, “Keep to your side,
gal!” But on the whole she got the best sleep she had
had in three nights.

When she remarked about resting so well Mabel
said, “Yeah, I believe you could sleep through storms,
fire and torpedoes.”

Nancy’s visit to the sick bay was really her first preview
of the seriousness of overseas life. Here were
careful preparations for looking after those who were
giving their blood in battle, and must be taken home
for recovery. The sick bay was really a miniature
hospital.

“They’ve thought of everything that might possibly
be needed to help our men,” explained Major
Reed to the nurses, for Nancy had asked to bring her
three roommates along. “This operating room alone
seems a miracle to me.”

“Looks about like any other to me,” said Nancy.

“It’s so built that any jolt or tilting is overcome
before it reaches the operator’s hand.”

“I’ve heard of such marvels,” said Nancy with
deep interest. “Much like the floating studios which
radio companies use to counteract sound.”

“Something of the same idea,” said Major Reed.

They were shown the laboratory, a small pharmacy
and some contagious wards. The double-deck bunks
were hung from stanchions. There were dental chairs
and protected sections for psycho-neurotic cases. In
fact, everything was there to make a miniature hospital.

“Maybe we’ll get a chance to work in one of these
on the way back,” said Shorty.

“This one will probably be in use before we get
over,” Major Reed told them. “Among so many passengers
there’ll no doubt be some who will need attention
on the way.”

“If you need help let us know,” said Nancy when
they thanked the young doctor who had shown them
through.

So the carefree days slipped by. The air was bracing;
the food excellent. Nancy felt her skirts grow a
bit tighter at the waist, and knew she was gaining
weight. She didn’t object, for she was sure much
hard work and a rationed diet would soon reduce her
to the old measurements.

There were games of all sorts, long walks along the
decks, new acquaintances to broaden life’s horizon,
and every night dancing for those who liked the
bright lights of indoors. Nancy and whoever she
happened to be with, generally chose the deck with
its stars and glimpses of their convoy. There was a
hilarious celebration when they crossed the equator
and another when they crossed the international date
line. They began to feel then that they were truly
in another sort of life. Before reaching port they had
left the budding summer of their own hemisphere
for the approaching winter of this strange southern
world.

Then one noon Nancy and Mabel stood at the rail
and saw their first flying fish.

“We’re approaching land!” Nancy exclaimed
eagerly.

“And look—there’re terns skimming the froth in our
wake,” Mabel noticed.

An hour later planes came out to meet them, circling
overhead, like guardian wings to watch them
safely into port. And then at last their first glimpse
of a foreign shore. Then a few minutes later the word
went round, identifying the harbor in which they
would land.

“It’s Sydney, they say, Mabel!” cried Nancy joyously.
“I can hardly believe we’ve really reached
Australia.”

Though there had been no one to bid them farewell
there was plenty of welcome awaiting the Army
Nurses on reaching Sydney. Australian Red Cross
workers greeted the young women when they had
marched down the long gangplanks. Cars were ready
to drive them to the beautiful house, set amid lovely
trees and flowers, where they were to stay temporarily.

The nurses had so long been accustomed to the
motion of the ship that they now felt a little giddy and
unsteady on their feet.

“I’ll surely be glad to get my legs adjusted to earth
once more,” said Nancy.

“Feel as though I couldn’t walk straight,” Mabel
complained. “Say, but isn’t this a swell joint,” she
added, glancing around the lovely room to which she
and Nancy had been assigned. There was everything
for their comfort. The pretty curtains and bedspreads
were a joy after the bareness of their ship cabin. The
bath had a real tub in which they could compensate
for weeks of indifferent bathing.

They had left late spring at home, but found approaching
winter on their arrival in the southern
hemisphere. Their heavy coats were in order on all
excursions outdoors.

“Funny, but I had the idea we’d have to go round
out here half dressed, drinking ices and waving fans,”
said Mabel.

“Tommy prepared me for this,” said Nancy a little
wistfully. “He left home last fall and found spring
when he got here. Strange, but he seems so much
closer now that I’m here.”

“Gee, Nancy, wouldn’t it be wonderful if he did
turn up!”

“Oh, he must! He will, Mabel! Yet sometimes I
think it’s sort of selfish of me to—to think he may be
spared when such terrible things have happened to
other people.”

“I guess it’s natural for us all to have such feelings—that
these horrible things can’t happen to us.”

“I suppose we’ll have to get into the thick of it
before we fully realize how terrible it really is,” said
Nancy, sensing that their first real tests were not
far off.

That evening after dinner Lieutenant Hauser
called them together and said, “We’ll have several
days here in Sydney. We don’t know exactly how
long before we’ll be moved out to an evacuation hospital.
You’ve all earned a little vacation. Take this
time to see the city and enjoy yourselves to the full.
Our real work is not far in the future.”

Eyes sparkled, while happy laughter and comments
filled the room.

“The only restrictions,” continued Lieutenant
Hauser, “are to guard your tongue and be back in
your rooms by eleven at night. The Red Cross volunteers
have planned many things for you, but you’re
free to do as you like. Have a good time, for you’ll
need pleasant memories when you get into the thick
of things.”

“I’m going to phone Miss Anna Darien,” Nancy
told Mabel at once. “Maybe I can go over to see her
tomorrow.”

“Oh, you mean your mother’s friend who wrote
you about seeing Tommy?”

“Yes. I can hardly wait to hear what she has to say
about him. Don’t you want to come with me?”

“Sure! But won’t she be surprised when she hears
your voice over the phone?”

“She lives somewhere on the harbor. It will all be
sightseeing just the same,” explained Nancy.

“I never dreamed Sydney was such a huge place.
They say it’s as large as some of our biggest American
cities.”

“It’s surely nice to be in a foreign city where people
speak English,” said Nancy.

“Does make it seem more homelike,” admitted
Mabel, “even if they do express things a little differently.”

Marian Albans, a Red Cross volunteer, helped
Nancy get in touch with Miss Darien in a distant section
of the city. Miss Anna was as delighted to hear
Nancy’s voice, as Nancy was to hear a familiar, loved
friend, speaking in a strange land. Even slight bonds
grow stronger when mere acquaintances meet in a
strange land, and those bonds that are already strong
are drawn much closer. Nancy felt almost as happy
as if she were going to see her own mother.

“I hope this phone call isn’t all, my dear,” said Miss
Anna over the wire. “We must have time for a visit
with each other.”

“That’s what I called for,” explained Nancy. “We
have several days to do just as we please. I want to
come out there to see you.”

“Just fine! But it’s not easy to get here, my dear.
You’ll have to come early in the morning on the ferry
that crosses the harbor to take workers from here
over to the city. There isn’t another ferry until it
comes to bring the workers home. Our manpower is
very much rationed here.”

“Then I’ll come early and stay late,” Nancy said
with a laugh.

When she put down the phone Marian Albans said,
“I’ll be glad to see you to the ferry. It would be rather
complicated to give you directions for going there.”

“That’s awfully nice of you,” said Nancy gratefully.
“That will make it easier, and you can point out the
sights as we go.”

When Mabel learned she would have to spend the
entire day she decided to go only to the ferry with
Nancy, so she could do more sight-seeing in the city.

When they went out early next morning a stormy
wind was blowing, which Marian Albans called a
“Southerly Buster.”

“Feels as if it’s right off the South Pole,” she said as
the two Americans and the Australian went out into
the street bundled in overcoats and mufflers.

They caught a tram, as the Australians called their
street cars, for a long ride through the fascinating
streets of the strange city. By the time they reached
the quay where Nancy was to take a ferry across the
harbor a driving rain cut off their view. Wind
whipped the water into whitecaps, and the crossing
promised to be rough.

“Do I have to walk very far after I leave the ferry?”
Nancy asked.

“I’ve only been over there once myself—to a place
near your friend’s address. But you take a tram on the
other side, up the bluff, and get off at Military Road,”
explained Marian.

Marian was a very English-looking girl, who told
them her parents had come out to Australia a few
years before her birth. She had a fair, aristocratic
face and the natural bloom in her cheeks of which so
many English girls may well be proud.

“Maybe Miss Anna will come to meet me,” said
Nancy hopefully.

Nancy Was Delighted to Hear a Familiar Voice

“I hope so,” said Marian, “for there’s a half-mile
walk through the bush after you get off the tram on
the other side.”

“The bush?” repeated Nancy.

Marian laughed. “I believe you’d call it the woods.”

They put Nancy aboard the almost empty ferry,
and started back to the tram in the storm. It was some
time before the ferry moved out across the harbor in
the pelting, chill rain. Nancy thought it was too bad
to have such a miserable day for her excursion, for
the rain cut off most of her view as the ferry finally
moved slowly away from the dock.

This was the first time since she had left home that
Nancy had really been alone. Suddenly she felt
loosened and detached from all her recent experiences,
and viewed her training as through a telescope.
Though the time had not been long since she left
home, she felt as different as if actual years had been
required for her preparation.

The fact that her brother had been on this very
ferry on his last visit to Sydney brought him still closer
to her. He had constantly been in the back of her
mind during her trip at sea, and today she felt more
strongly than ever that he was really alive. She
thought how lucky she was to be sent into his field of
operations. It seemed prophetic to her that somehow,
somewhere they were going to meet again.

The ferry staggered through the gale around a
point of land and soon came into sight of the woods
on the other shore. Nancy was thrilled to find Miss
Anna waiting for her, bracing herself as the wind
whipped at her raincape. Her face was damp with
the mist as she caught Nancy to her and gave her a
hearty kiss.

“How good to see a little bit of America!” she said.
“And how stunning you look in that uniform!”

She held Nancy off at arm’s length to inspect her,
regardless of the rain beating down on them. And
Nancy felt almost as happy as if she were being welcomed
by her own mother.

“We’ll be wet as rats by the time we get up to the
house,” said Miss Anna, “but it’ll be cozy and warm
inside.”

They caught a tram promptly and were soon on
the path through the dripping bush. It swung back
toward the water and presently Nancy caught a
glimpse of the large community building in which
Miss Anna made her home with many other workers
of various sorts. The house stood on a hundred-foot
bluff overlooking the water.

“What a heavenly place!” exclaimed Nancy, looking
around delightedly.

“So it is,” agreed Miss Anna, her small brown eyes
twinkling. They stepped inside the door and she
threw back her raincape.

Nancy followed her upstairs after taking off her
galoshes and dripping cap and overcoat. The home-cooked
breakfast they sat down to a few minutes
later was a feast indeed to one who had eaten camp
and ship fare so long. There were peaches covered
with thick cream to start with, scrambled eggs, delicious
hot muffins and golden butter such as Nancy
had not seen in a long time.

“We have our own cows and chickens here,” explained
Miss Anna by way of apology for the excellent
items on which others were so closely rationed.
“I had some coffee made especially for you. Most
everyone out here, you know, drinks tea.”

“And it is really good coffee,” said Nancy gratefully.

Most of the other residents of the house had hurried
off to catch the ferry back to the city, so Nancy
and her friend were not disturbed while at their
breakfast. Nancy told of her training and her voyage,
and answered numerous questions about mutual
friends back home.

Finally she burst forth, “I can hardly wait to hear
about Tommy—how he looked, what he said when
you last saw him.”

“He looked really marvelous in his uniform, but
he was a little nervous, and I’m afraid his visit here
wasn’t very relaxing.”

“Why? What happened?”

“The very night he was here they caught some
Jap subs in the harbor.”

“Really! Seems I do remember hearing something
about the nervy little Nips slipping into Sydney
harbor.”

“And we had a box seat for the whole performance,”
Miss Anna went on.

“You mean it was really near enough to see what
happened?”

Miss Anna nodded, her alert eyes flashing. “During
the night I was awakened by the most infernal noise—sounded
as though it came from the very bowels of the
earth—something you might imagine being a forerunner
of a volcanic eruption. But it really came from
under the water out in the harbor, the sub’s torpedoes.”

“Heavens! You must have been terrified to be so
close.”

“That was only the beginning. Then came our big
guns roaring from the forts over on St. George’s
Heights. The reverberations shook some pictures off
my wall.”

“It must have been like an earthquake,” put in
Nancy.

“Then for a half hour there was peace, and by that
time it was almost daylight. Then the commotion
broke loose again. I got into my clothes and went out
to find Tommy looking from the hall window. It was
really the sight of a lifetime. There were four little
corvettes dropping depth bombs as they careened
around the harbor in wide circles.”

“Oh boy, I’ll bet Tommy was excited!” Nancy
exclaimed.

“He kept saying, ‘Oh, Miss Anna, if I were only in
my plane wouldn’t my bombardier like to drop a
few? We’d soon blow those subs to bits.’ But the
corvettes were doing a good job. Every time they
dropped a depth charge a huge waterspout burst high
in the air—and such a terrific noise!”

“I think I should have been yelling—worse than
at a football game.”

“We were too tense and frightened. But those corvettes
did get that sub.”

“What happened then?”

“A huge dredge boat came out with cranes, and
sat over the spot where the sub lay on the bottom. But
it was three days before they could get it to the
surface.”

“And by that time Tommy was gone,” said Nancy
wistfully.

“He was really disappointed not to be able to wait
and see it brought to the top, but he had to go back
on duty. I wrote him all about it, though. The dredge
finally brought the sub up vertically, and it was
towed across to Sharpe Island.”

“What an experience that must have been—seeing
all that.”

“She had been about sixty-five feet long, but the
rear end had been blown away. What crafty creatures
those Japs are! You know the front of that sub looked
like the mandibles of a beetle. It was equipped with
cutting apparatus to tear through the harbor nettings.”

“Gives me the shivers to think how close they
came,” said Nancy.

“They say one of the subs got caught in the nets
at the harbor entrance.”

“How many dead Japs were there?” asked Nancy.

“Six. Their bodies were burned, according to
Japanese custom, and their ashes were buried with
military honors.”

“They didn’t deserve it!” exclaimed Nancy bitterly.

Miss Anna looked at her with an odd expression.
“We must not become bitter or intolerant, even toward
our enemies,” she said with gentle persuasiveness.
“We would appreciate our dead being given
honorable burial, wouldn’t we?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” exclaimed Nancy, thinking
at once of her brother, and how she had prayed that
the enemy would treat him humanely if he had fallen
into their hands. But she had seen too many pictures
of scores of people thrown into common graves to
credit the enemy with ever treating any as considerately
as these men from the Japanese sub had been
treated.

“If by treating their prisoners fairly it will make life
easier for even a few of ours in their prison camps it
will be worth the effort,” said Miss Anna.

“But it makes me positively ill when I think that
Tommy may have fallen into their hands,” said
Nancy.

“It would be better a thousand times if he were
dead,” Miss Anna told her with conviction. “Tommy
had nothing to fear in death, but horrible things to
endure if he’s a prisoner of the Japs.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Nancy said. “But I simply
can’t believe he’s dead—I can’t.”

“Don’t let wishful thinking keep you from facing
reality, my dear. There’re many things worse than
death in this war.”

“I’m sure of that. But Tommy isn’t dead! I—I just
know it!”

Suddenly Miss Anna’s palm stroked Nancy’s
cheek caressingly. “I hope you’re right, my dear. I
must admit I, too, have a feeling that Tommy is alive
somewhere and needs help.”

Nancy glanced at her friend’s strong, kindly face,
and asked, “What makes you think that way, Miss
Anna?”

“I’ve never lost the feeling since I first learned his
plane had gone down over enemy territory. Then the
other night I had such a vivid dream.”

“A dream?” Suddenly Nancy recalled that one of
Miss Anna’s lectures had been on the significance and
meaning of dreams. She added her own illuminating
interpretation to what the psychologists had learned
on the subject.

“I thought I was moving through the jungle, trying
to locate a voice that was calling me. Then as I went
nearer I recognized it as Tommy’s. He was burning
with fever and I brought him water from a spring. I
was so distressed because the water didn’t quench his
thirst. Then I woke suddenly with his words ringing
in my ears, ‘Thank you just the same, Miss Anna.’
I’ve hoped all along that Tommy survived a forced
landing. Since that dream I’ve felt certain that he is
alive.”

Tears were shining in Nancy’s eyes as she said,
“You really are a comfort, Miss Anna.”

Her friend went to a near-by bookcase and took
out a small volume of poetry. “Here are some verses
written by Anna Bright, a friend of mine who lost her
son in the last war. Instead of grieving, she used her
genius to give comfort to those who had had similar
sorrows. Listen to this:

“That is really the way most of them go,” said
Nancy. “Not only our Tommy, but thousands of
others.”

“Not only our men, but our women, too, in this
war,” said Miss Anna. “I only wish I were young
enough to do more. You’re a privileged girl, Nancy,
to be prepared to do so much.”

Nancy’s unit went into action in northern Australia.
The trip up to the new hospital was an exciting
experience to these nurses, most of whom had never
left the States before.

“Seems queer to find it so much warmer as we go
north,” said Nancy during their first day’s travel by
train.

“I feel as though I’m living upside down, or something,”
remarked Mabel. “When we’re asleep it’s
broad daylight at home. While it’s warm at home
we’re shivering here.”

Though it was late fall in the southern hemisphere,
flowers were still blooming in great profusion in
gardens and parks. Many of the flowers were unfamiliar,
but Nancy did recognize the hibiscus
bushes. The trees, too, were strangers to them and
had strange names. They saw the eucalyptus for the
first time. Another tree had needles like the pine back
home, but fewer branches, which made it less picturesque.

To many of the American girls this was like another
world. Yet when the train stopped at stations along
the way veterans of the various campaigns came up to
the windows of their carriage to greet them, speaking
English and asking about America. Most of them had
old-young faces, as if each year of fighting had been
like ten of ordinary life. Some were so newly returned
from the fighting they still had that fixed, dull look
in their eyes that was to become so familiar to the
nurses later, the look of men who had seen awful
things, never to be forgotten.

“I know your men will be glad to see you American
Sisters,” said a veteran of Dunkirk at one station.

They learned that the Australian nurses were always
called “Sisters.”

The hospital to which they were assigned proved to
be far more comfortable than they had anticipated.
Several blocks of bungalows in a small town had
been taken over for hospital use. These houses reminded
Nancy of farmhouses in her own southland,
for they were built high off the ground on stilts, so the
air could circulate under them. Like the American
houses also, they were surrounded by wide porches.

Again the nurses were packed four in a room, and
Nancy had the same congenial roommates she had
had on the boat. There was little chance to think of
their own comfort, however, for they were plunged
at once into work. For the first time since they left
California their foot lockers were brought to their
rooms, and once more they had all their baggage. It
seemed good to settle down and actually begin the
work for which they had trained and traveled halfway
around the world.

The girls had just started unpacking when news
spread that a convoy of patients, a day overdue, was
coming in. These were American boys who had been
given first treatments in field hospitals and had been
flown back from the front.

In a half-hour Nancy had donned her brown-and-white-striped
seersucker uniform and received her
first assignment from Lieutenant Hauser. The walls
had been torn out of the entire lower floor of several
bungalows to make wards about seventy-five feet in
length. Nancy’s heart went out in compassion when
she caught a glimpse of those long rows of beds and
the faces on those pillows—faces gray with weariness,
suffering and dirt.

Her first job, and that of many other nurses, was
to get the men cleaned up, and begin dressing their
wounds. The bandages had not been touched during
the trying convoy journey from the landing field.

“It’s glad I am to see ye,” said the first man to whom
Nancy ministered.

It must have taken courage to force that smile to
his round Irish face, for gangrene had taken hold of
his shrapnel-shattered leg, and Nancy knew it would
have to be taken off promptly.

“And glad I am to be here,” she told him cheerfully.

“How’s everything back home?” the next boy
wanted to know.

“Oh, just fine! We got here only ten days ago.”

“Haven’t had a scratch of mail in nearly four
months. I hear you all are having it pretty tough with
the rationing, and strikes and all.”

“We haven’t a thing to complain of as to food,”
Nancy retorted. “We’re still living like royalty.”

“So’re we,” agreed the man whose arm had been
shot off, “except once when we ran short of supplies—caught
on an island without reinforcements.”

“We’ll make that up to you here,” Nancy assured
him, and swallowed hard on the lump in her throat.
She wasn’t going to let any of this get her down, or
she couldn’t go on looking after them. “I’ll see you
get an extra helping of dessert this very day.”

“Say, if you get a whiff of apple pie please label a
hunk for me.” Suddenly the blue eyes above the
shaggy beard flashed. “You know it was a funny
thing. While I was lying out there on the beach when
they blew my arm into the sea I got to thinking about
Ma’s apple pies. Queer how a fellow can think of
such a thing at a time like that. Like a dumb bloke I
didn’t worry about the arm much, just thought, ‘Now
it would be just too bad if I never get to taste one o’
Ma’s apple pies again!’”

Nancy laughed in spite of her stinging tears. “I’ll
see that you get a whole pie if I have to make it myself,”
she promised him.

“How’s Everything Back Home?” the Boy Asked

And so she went down the line of beds, cheering
and joking with them while she looked after their
wounds. There were few complaints. But how eagerly
they welcomed the gentle hands that came to
minister to them. Most were ready with brave banter,
but some, too ill for speech, turned pleading eyes
that spoke volumes toward Nancy.

Nancy’s supper hour was forgotten. There were
too many who still needed attention. When her
period of duty was over she went back to her room,
feeling utterly spent. This first contact with those
fresh from the fighting zone had taken more out of
her than she had anticipated. In spite of the physical
weariness Nancy had a wonderful sense of well-being.
At the moment she felt certain there was no
greater work in the world than that of any army nurse.

Mabel and Shorty had already gone out on duty
when Nancy and Ida Hall returned to their room.
Nancy was relieved to see that Mabel had put her
clothes in order. The two nurses who had been off
duty had arranged hanging places for their garments.
Mabel had even put Nancy’s pajamas on the foot of
her bunk, and her bedroom slippers were near by.

“It’s really going to be very comfy here,” said Nancy
when she came in from a shower at the end of the
hall. However, she found that Ida Hall was already
asleep.

Nancy scarcely remembered getting into her
double decker before she, also, was asleep. That was
the beginning of a routine that lasted for several
weeks; eight hours’ work eight hours’ sleep, eight
hours for eating, bathing, washing clothes, and a bit
of recreation.

Even the southern hemisphere mid-winter which
came in June had but a slight cooling effect on them,
for they were too close to the equator. Nancy had
been almost two months in Australia before she had
her first letters from home. There were a round dozen
from her parents. Eagerly she climbed up under her
mosquito bar to enjoy them.

There was always the possibility that there might
be news that Tommy was found. So many of their
friends who had first been reported missing had later
returned. The fact that Miss Anna also had a hunch
that Tommy still lived, had boosted Nancy’s own
belief that he would eventually be returned to them.

With her usual orderliness Nancy arranged the
home letters according to date and opened the oldest
first. Each letter was filled with bits of news of home
and friends and encouraging words for herself. But
she read on and on without finding the longed-for
news about Tommy. She had just picked up a letter
from a friend when she heard Ida Hall exclaim, “Oh,
say, there comes more work!”

Nancy crawled down from her perch to look out
the window and saw a convoy rolling into the streets
between the hospital buildings. First there were
trucks packed with the wounded who were able to
sit up. These were followed by Red Cross ambulances
loaded with the seriously ill.

“They’ll more than fill the long tent they put up
back of ward three,” Nancy predicted.

She was right. They filled the tent to overflowing
and some had to be packed into the already crowded
bungalow wards. Nancy was now serving on night
duty. Orders came before she went on that evening to
report for duty in the tent where the new patients had
been put.

It was already dark when she took her G.I. flashlight,
dimmed with blue paper, and crossed the
street behind the buildings to go to her new assignment.
Bee Tarver, the nurse she was relieving, told
her the men had all been bathed, fed and their
wounds looked after. Night duty was easier of course,
though Nancy sometimes had to struggle to keep
awake. She was rather relieved to know there would
be plenty to do tonight, as Bee described the various
cases.

“Number three there may have to have another
hypo. He’s very disturbed,” she explained.

Some would have to have sulpha tablets, and others
must have attention at regular intervals. One poor
chap, who couldn’t move, must have his position
eased occasionally. Nancy went her rounds and
toward midnight sat down at the end of the long tent,
just inside the mosquito netting. This end of the tent
was close to the bush, and the sounds of many strange
insects was like a pulse beat in the night. Once she
heard planes droning far off under the star-studded
sky. Occasionally a groan escaped someone in the
tent.

Their new tent ward boasted no floor, and Nancy
had to keep on the alert for frogs and insects that
got under the netting in spite of all their precautions.
She finally decided the creatures must come up from
the earth.

She had just caught a green frog in a small box and
was taking him to the door when there came a prolonged
groan from cot three. She washed her hands
in the basin near the door, and hurried to the patient,
who had been sleeping ever since she came in. The
electric wiring had not even been finished, so she
picked up a lantern and hung it on the tent post above
the suffering patient.

She turned around and was moving closer when
the man on the bed lifted his head and stared at her
with wild eyes. Then a joyous expression broke over
the gaunt face as he cried, “Tommy, old boy! I knew
you’d get away from ’em.”

Nancy wore her seersucker trousers and shirt, and
had her head tied in a kerchief, a precaution against
the wind that blew eternally across their campsite.

If the patient had fired a gun at her, however, she
could not have been more shocked when he called
her “Tommy!” Could he possibly mean her Tommy,
her own lost brother?

When she recovered from the shock, she went
nearer the bed. The brown-bearded man, his face
haggard from suffering, fell back to the pillow in
disappointment.

“Aw-w,” he groaned, “I thought sure you were
Tommy.”

“Tommy?” she whispered softly, putting a soothing
hand on his forehead, and brushing back the
fever-wet hair. “Tommy who?”

“Tommy Dale of course. Never another pilot like
him.”

Nancy was so excited she scarcely knew what she
was saying as she asked, “You thought I was Tommy?”

“I could have sworn those were Tommy’s eyes. But
maybe they did get him. He made me jump first,” the
sick man rambled on. “But the plane was still in the
air when I saw it last.”

“And Tommy was in it?” she encouraged him
gently, fearing his memories might be so fragile the
least shock would shatter them.

“Tommy would stick it till everybody was safely
out.” He broke off as the feverish eyes came back to
the brown ones bending over him. “Your eyes are
enough like Tommy’s to belong to him. But maybe
I’m dying at last and you’re really Tommy come to
see me over.”

“I’m Tommy’s sister,” she said with bated breath.

He could only stare for a moment incredulously.
“No, it can’t be,” he finally burst forth. “Things like
that don’t happen.”

She pulled her dog tag from under her shirt, and
held her flash so he could read the inscription.

“Glory be to the saints!” he burst forth, seizing her
hand and pressing it to his lips.

Nancy put her flashlight on the foot of the cot for
she was trembling. She pulled a packing box closer
to the man and sat down from sheer inability to stand.

“Do you feel able to tell me what happened?” she
asked.

“Gosh yes,” he said emphatically. “I can get well
now! Who couldn’t with Tommy’s sister for nurse?
I know all about you,” he said, his eyes beginning to
have a more normal expression. “Tommy read me all
your letters.”

“Oh, then you’re Bruce Williams, his bombardier?”

“Sure! We were real buddies, Tom and I. No
crew ever had a finer pilot. He never gave me an
order I didn’t want to follow until that last command
to jump and leave him alone to his fate.”

“Do you think there’s any chance he may be
living?”

“We were over Jap-held territory. If he survived
the jump there’re nine chances out of ten he’s a
prisoner.”

“But they didn’t make you a prisoner!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes, they did! Three long months they held
me. That’s why I’m in this fix—I broke my leg in the
parachute landing and it never healed properly, and
we were all but starved to death. I hoped many a time
while I was a prisoner that Tommy was dead and out
of such misery.”

“Oh, no, don’t say that!” exclaimed Nancy, tears
starting to her eyes. “I’ve never felt that Tommy was
dead. He must come back to us, sometime, somehow.”

Bruce closed his eyes wearily and turned from her
a second. “I guess you haven’t seen enough, yet, Nancy.
The ones who get a clean ticket to the other side
are the lucky blokes!”

Nancy thought of the poem she had copied from
Miss Anna Darien’s book:

She took the sunburned hand lying on the sheet
and stroked it gently. Tommy’s friend brought her
brother so much closer to her.

“Did any more of Tommy’s crew come through
alive?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of. Two of us
were picked up by a Jap boat and taken to a prison
camp. Pete Crawford died of his injuries three days
after we got there.”

“I shouldn’t let you talk any more,” she said gently.
“You must sleep now.”

“I don’t want to sleep. It’s been so long since I
talked to anyone who cared.” He smiled diffidently,
then apologized, “That may sound nervy.”

“Oh, I do care—you know I do! It’s next best thing
to finding Tommy, having you here!”

“Thanks, Nancy. Thanks a lot—a fellow gets to
feeling awful sorry for himself when he’s sick out
here alone. Now it looks as if I’ve got something to
get well for.”

“But you won’t get well unless you obey my orders
and go to sleep,” she said with playful severity, as she
pulled the sheet up around his damp chest and tucked
him in. He caught her hand again and pressed it to his
lips before she turned away.

There were a thousand questions she wanted to
ask, but she dared not tax his frail strength further
tonight. Tomorrow, after he had slept, she would ask
him more about Tommy’s last flight.

During her off hours next day Nancy went back
to see Bruce. She found him propped up, having his
lunch.

“How much better you look!” she said.

He smiled at her brightly. “You gave me a new
lease on life last night.”

She laughed, and suddenly he glanced up from
his bowl of soup with an expression of appraisal.
“Say, but you’re pretty!” he said after his inspection.
“Much prettier than those pictures Tommy had.”

Nancy was glad she had left her hair unbound
and taken pains with her make-up. But she flushed
and said, “Don’t you dare hand me blarney, Bruce
Williams. I’m too tall to be pretty.”

“The idea! I hear that’s the kind they’re hunting
for the New York shows now—tall gals.”

“Tommy’s only one inch taller than I am, and our
coloring and eyes are so much alike—no wonder you
thought my eyes were his last night. Everyone says
we do look lots alike.”

“Sure do.”

“People used to take us for twins when we were
growing up.”

“It’s the eyes that are so much alike—something in
those Dale eyes that goes straight to your heart.”

She sat down on a packing box by his bed and said,
“I wanted to ask you last night how you finally got
away from those Japs.”

“I guess God just answered my prayers and sent
our own boys to Manka Island.”

“Oh, were you there when they took it?”

“That’s where they kept the ones who weren’t able
to work in their fields. I’d been better off if I could
have worked. They get more food I hear, and have a
better chance to store up supplies for escape.”

“We’ve had some accounts back home from those
who escape,” she told him. “But just how were you
freed?”

“Those Japs just cleared out and left us to our fate
when the firing got too warm. Some of our own men
were killed by the American firing. That’s how I got
the spatter of shrapnel in my side.”

“It must have been marvelous to see your own
countrymen coming ashore on that island,” she said.

“You’re tellin’ me!” he exclaimed. “Santa Claus
at Christmas when I was a kid, was never more welcome
than those khaki uniforms coming in through
the jungle.”

“Had you been on the same island all the time?”

He nodded as he finished his soup and pushed the
bowl to one side of the tray. “I haven’t a very clear
idea of the location,” he admitted. “I never paid
much attention to the directions. My job was to spill
those bombs at the right place. I didn’t worry about
the rest.”

He cleared a place on the tray and began to draw
an imaginary map with his finger. “See, it was something
like this. Here’s Australia, and over here’s New
Caledonia where we took off, and here’re the islands
we headed for.”

“Wait a minute,” said Nancy. “I’ll get a map, then
you can sketch me a more detailed plan of the area
you operated in.”

“Sure,” agreed Bruce. Then a shadow crossed his
face. “But what’s the use? We can’t go out there and
look for Tommy.”

“Who knows?” she asked, stubbornly clinging to
her hopes. “I may sometime get to the islands. I
want to hear every detail you can recall about the
location.”

“Of course, I’ll do the map for you.” Then he added
hastily, “But don’t go for paper now.”

“Sure. I’ll get that later. But right now I want you
to tell me everything you can remember about that
last trip with Tommy.”

“I could never forget any detail of it. Did you know
it was Tommy’s last mission before he would be free
to go home?”

Nancy’s heart almost stopped beating for a moment.
“No, I didn’t! He had written us he was almost
through, however, and would be coming home soon.”

“It’s that last flight that generally gives our pilots
the jitters,” Bruce explained. “And the last five or six
are no picnics.”

“I can well imagine that.”

“Naturally we had our bird tuned up and checked
down to the last bolt. She took off, singing as sweet
as any lark as we flew into the northwest. We had
spilled our load on some Jap oil tankers and were on
our way back when those nasty Zeros knocked one
of our engines out of commission.”

“How about the crew?”

“O.K. then, but the next hail of fire got our co-pilot,
Jack Turner. Tom kept his head until the other
engine began to sputter. For a while he tried to make
it closer to our own territory, but it was no go.”

Nancy was folding the hem of the sheet into tight
little creases while she listened tensely. “Then you
had to jump?” she asked.

Bruce nodded again. “Every man knew his job,
of course. We had done it time and again in practice.
I destroyed my bombsight. All our bombs
had already been spilled, but I saw that the bomb-bay
doors were tightly closed, ready for the plane
to hit the water.”

“What was the use of taking all those precautions
when you had to jump anyhow?”

“You know that bombsight, Nancy, is America’s
own prize possession. No bombardier leaves that for
anybody to investigate. St. Peter wouldn’t ever let
anybody through the pearly gates who had left that
little instrument intact behind him.”

Nancy smiled in spite of her heavy heart. “I don’t
see how you can keep up your joking like that.”

“Better to laugh than cry.”

Janice, who was on duty, came to take Bruce’s
tray away. When she had gone Nancy asked, “You
didn’t see Tommy jump after you hit the water?”

“No. I think he meant to ditch the plane after we
were out. He loved that bird like something human.
He meant to stick to her till the last minute.”

“Then you think he went down with her to the
bottom—like a captain with his ship?”

“Oh, no! If he landed on the water O.K. there’d be
a few minutes when he could get out and try to swim
to one of the rubber boats.”

“Oh, you had rubber boats?”

“Sure! Pete Crawford, our radio man, pulled the
levers to release the life boats just before he jumped.
You know, they inflate as they go down. Vernon
Goodwin, our top gunner, had filled them with water,
food supplies and navigation instruments.”

“Did you find one of them when you jumped?”

“We were lucky. Pete and I came down close together
and reached one of the boats. We might have
made it somewhere with the provisions we had, if
those Japs hadn’t picked us up before dark.”

“Did You See Tommy Jump?” Nancy Asked Bruce

“If you saw Tommy still in the air after you got
into the boat he must have been too far away to swim
to any of the other boats after he hit the water.”

“I’ve worried a lot about that,” Bruce told her.
“But it looked to me as though the plane was turned
back in our direction. There was a wooded island on
the horizon, and pretty soon our ship was so low we
lost sight of it behind those trees.”

“An island!” exclaimed Nancy. “Do you think
Tommy might have swum to it?”

“That was our only hope for Tommy and the
others. Some jumped after we did, and might have
come down nearer that island. Pete and I started
paddling in that direction, but we’d both been hurt
and the distances were deceiving. My cracked leg
had begun to swell, and any movement was agony.
Pete checked out clean for a spell, and I was afraid
he was gone. Before we realized what had happened
the island was nowhere to be seen.”

Nancy smoothed out his sheet, and sat silent.
After a moment she said, “Bruce, when you draw
that map of the islands write down the names of all
Tommy’s crew and the positions they held.”

“Now why do you want that?”

“I may run across some of the others somewhere.
Maybe someone was nearer Tommy when he ditched
and will know what became of him.”

“Now don’t you go getting your hopes up, Nancy.
There’s not a chance in a hundred that any of the
others will turn up.”

“You do what I ask anyhow,” persisted Nancy.
“When I get home I’ll write to the families of all the
crew and tell them what I know. Even though there
may be no hope, it’s some comfort to know the details.”

“I suppose that would give our relatives some satisfaction,”
Bruce admitted. “I’ve been so full of my
own woes since I got back I haven’t thought of the
folks back home wanting to hear about the others.”

“Who in your condition wouldn’t be preoccupied
with his own woes?” asked Nancy understandingly.
“But we’re going to have you on your feet again before
too long.”

Nancy did all in her power to speed Bruce’s recovery
in the weeks that followed. She felt a real personal
pride in his improvement. At last there came
a day when he was able to walk to the recreation
room with only the aid of a stick and her arm. The
nurses had fixed up this room for the use of convalescing
patients.

“I mustn’t get well too fast,” Bruce said with a
twinkle in his nice gray eyes, “or they’ll be sending
me away from here.”

Bruce was sitting opposite Nancy at a game of
bridge that day, and she thought how really handsome
he was, now that he had shaved off his beard,
and his gaunt cheeks were beginning to fill out.

Pat Walden, the one-armed chap, for whom
Nancy had finally made the apple pie, sat opposite
Mabel. Nancy had devised a rack with nails driven
through wood for Pat to stand his cards in while he
played with his one hand. Her mother had sent out
some magazines, published for the handicapped in
the states. Nancy and Pat had quite an interesting
time exploring the back issues in search of gadgets
to help the one-armed. The magazines had gone the
rounds of others who must begin life all over with
various handicaps. Pat had a way of making jokes
about his trouble, and Nancy had played the game
with him as he learned to do things with one hand.

Many of the boys, however, were sullen and sensitive
about their afflictions, and with these the nurses
had to pretend that their handicaps didn’t exist.
Though the wounds in Bruce’s side had been slow in
healing, and he would always limp from the improperly
knit leg bone, at least his body was whole, and
the doctors assured him he would be strong again.

At the moment the number of cases was slightly
reduced in number. Many of the earlier patients had
been sent to ports to be taken home on ships that
brought nurses and men over.

“I heard a rumor today,” said Mabel, “that we
may be moved soon—out to the islands.”

“Soon?” asked Nancy eagerly.

“Don’t know. I just got a whiff of a change.”

“Nothing would thrill me more.”

Bruce threw down a card with vigor and glanced
across at his fellow-sufferer. “That’s the way they
treat us, Pat. Eager to leave us to our fate.”

“You’ll be moving on yourselves before too long,”
Nancy assured him.

“Just when I’m beginning to enjoy life here,” said
Bruce, “Nancy looks forward to leaving me.”

Nancy flushed, seeing the other two at the table
figuratively cock their ears.

“Oh, you’ll soon be able to get along without any
nursing,” Nancy assured him.

“I can never get along again in this life without
you,” he told her, regardless of their audience.

“Say, what’s all this?” burst forth Mabel. “A public
proposal in broad open daylight?”

“Don’t be silly!” exclaimed Nancy.

Bruce laughed heartily at Nancy’s chagrin.
“Thanks a lot, Mabel, for helping me out. I’ve been
trying to figure out a good opening for a proposal for
the last week.”

“You’ll surely have to make an improvement before
I’ll accept you,” stated Nancy, triumphantly
trumping Bruce’s ace.

Bruce looked from Mabel to Pat Walden, and
said mischievously, “You’ll both stand witness that
she’s practically accepted me.”

“Stick to your card playing, Bruce,” said Nancy
pertly. “This is no time to settle down to marriage.
We have a war to win.”

“But it’s not too early to begin making plans for
the peace,” he retorted promptly.

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 few
hours 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 with The 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 singing America the Beautiful. Then the
negro chorus stepped forward to give them a program
of spirituals in sonorous, harmonizing voices.
First they chanted I’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 with Swing 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 of Dixie. As the gallant music rang through
the Australian bush, Nancy, who carried the American
flag 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 porter
on 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 into Dixie.”

“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, wondering
what 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 only
reward 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 that is great!”

“See, if I hadn’t been sent out first, I’d be the one
left 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.

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 day
out 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 almost
momentarily 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 first
men 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

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. No
doubt 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 Americans
and 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 cracked
leather. 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.

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 quarters
the 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 anxiously
watched 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 going
to 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.”

“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 rest
before 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 or
time 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 saw
that 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.”

Vernon Goodwin had a relapse that night, and for
the next few days Nancy feared they had learned
all from him they would ever know. In the meantime,
however, glorious news was brought back from the
fighting front. The great number of reinforcing
troops had finished the job for which they had come.
The last nest of “Yellow Jackets” had been cleaned
from the island.

This news called for such a celebration as the
nurses had not had since July Fourth, for their work
had lightened somewhat. Planes had taken some of
their serious cases back to hospitals in Australia.
Even when the wounded were brought in after the
final victory there were still some beds unoccupied,
so the nurses found a few hours out of every twenty-four
to give to personal needs once more, and a bit
of recreation.

But Nancy had little heart for amusement during
those trying days. She could think of nothing but
Vernon Goodwin lying at the point of death, and that
Tommy might be alive still, somewhere in that jungle
a day’s boat ride to the north.

“Ah, snap out of it, Nancy,” wheedled Mabel, the
afternoon before the party when she came upon her
pal sitting on her cot, staring into space. “We’ve all
decided to put on our whites for the shindig. It will
be good for the morale of the patients to see us looking
like real nurses for once.”

“We’ll only make ourselves targets for the Zeros
that come over.”

“Can’t you realize yet they’ve cleared out those
Yellow Jackets! We’ve got something to celebrate
over.”

“I’m really tired, Mabel,” said Nancy, stretching
out on her cot. “I honestly don’t feel like going up to
the mess hall to the party.”

“Oh, but honey, you can’t miss it! I’ll tell you something
as an inducement. We have a surprise. Some
of the Fuzzy Wuzzies are going to put on a special
ceremonial dance—the kind they use to celebrate
their own victories.”

These island natives had been most valuable in
bringing back the wounded from the fighting front.
Ned Holbrook, one of Nancy’s patients, who had a
broken back, had been brought out by them on a
litter.

“They were as careful with me as any mother,”
Ned told her. “They saved my life, Nancy, that’s sure!
I never could have stood the jolting of our ambulance
over those corduroy roads.”

Nancy had read many articles in the magazines
and papers of Australia about the Fuzzy Wuzzies,
and the help they had been to the Allies, but she had
to see them in action to appreciate their amazing
gentleness and value. It seemed incredible that these
dark-skinned men, who looked so savage, with their
bushy heads, and their bodies naked except for loin
cloths, could make such good hospital aides. She
had often wondered how they acted in their native
villages, and she knew the ceremonial dance would
be something to remember always.

“The last plane that came out from Australia,” explained
Mabel, “brought some packages from the
Red Cross for us to give the native helpers. We
opened one just to see what they contained. Boy,
will those Fuzzies be thrilled!”

“What’s in them?”

“Each one had a loin cloth and a new girdle, a
string of beads, a bracelet, an ornamental hair pin and
a package of cigarettes.” Mabel laughed. “I still can’t
get used to those men wearing fancy hair pins.”

“I’m sure they’re meant more for service than ornamentation,”
replied Nancy. “Yesterday a couple of
Fuzzies came in with a litter. As soon as we had the
wounded man on the bed they sat down on the
ground nearby and began scratching their woolly
heads with those pins.”

“When they start that I always give them a wide
berth. I don’t relish the idea of any of the inhabitants
of those bushy mops jumping on me.” Mabel
scratched her head at the very idea, then added,
“But it will be fun watching the dance and seeing
them get the packages.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to miss it,” said Nancy ruefully,
as she yawned and stretched on the cot.

Mabel pulled the mosquito net aside and wheedled,
“Ah, come on, lazy bones!”

She caught Nancy’s hand to pull her off the cot,
then stopped suddenly. “Your hand’s hot as fire!”
she exclaimed. “Nancy, you’re sick.”

“Not so loud. Somebody will hear. I’m afraid I
have malaria. I’ve already started taking quinine.
Think I had a chill on the ward just now.”

“And you stuck it out—you numskull?”

“Please, Mabel, don’t talk so loud. Somebody will
hear. They may even send me back if they find I have
malaria. I’m going to doctor myself and knock it out.”

“When that bug gets a grip on you it’s not so easy
as you think.”

“Please don’t tell anyone, Mabel. It would be awful
to be sent away right now, just as I’m about to get on
Tommy’s track.”

“Of course—if you don’t want me to. If you’re not
better in a day or two, though, you’ve got to see one
of the doctors.”

When the nurses, who shared their outdoor quarters,
started off to the mess hall in white Nancy said
wistfully, “It sure makes me think of home, seeing
you all in regulations.”

Mabel placed a glass of fruit juice on a box under
Nancy’s net before leaving, and ordered her to sleep.
The girls had been gone only a few minutes when
Nancy dropped into a feverish sleep. She was roused
some time later by sounds of the Fuzzy Wuzzies’
ceremonial drums. She went to sleep again with
them ringing in her ears, and didn’t rouse till dawn.
She was wet with perspiration and realized her fever
had burned itself out. Though she was weak and her
head ringing from quinine, she got into her clothes
and went on duty. She knew she would have forty-eight
hours before a chill gripped her again, if her
heavy doses of quinine were not sufficient yet to
knock it out.

How glad she was afterward that she did force
herself to go on duty. As she entered the ward to take
Shorty’s place, her little friend said, “Vernon woke
during the night and asked for you.”

“Why didn’t you send for me?”

“Mabel wouldn’t let me. She said you were all in.
But he’s much better this morning—ate some breakfast.”

Nancy waited for no more, but hurried to the gunner’s
bed. He was finishing some cereal, and gave
her a wan smile as she drew near.

“That’s the way you must eat,” commented Nancy,
taking his emptied mess kit. “You’ll get well now.”

“I believe I will, Miss Nancy. I may yet be able to
point out that island where we left Tom.”

“Oh, if you only could, Vernon!”

“I believe I could. Though a gunner doesn’t bother
his head with where he’s going—got enough to think
about to hit the targets, but I do remember something
about how that island looked from the air, and I sure
had to pay attention to directions when we were leaving
in that rubber boat.”

“Is it due north from here?” she asked.

“No, I’d say to the northeast.”

“Entirely surrounded by coral reefs?”

“As much as we saw. Passages here and there, large
enough for small boats.”

Though Vernon’s voice was still cracked and weak
Nancy could see he was able to coordinate his
thoughts more easily than during their earlier conversations.

“Major Reed said a searching plane would be sent,”
Nancy told him. “But of course we could do nothing
while you were so ill.”

“Has it been very long?”

“Almost a week—a sort of reaction I suppose from
our too vigorous efforts to bring you back. But you’re
going to make it this time,” she assured him.

“Sorry I delayed things,” he apologized. “Poor
Tom—if he’s still hanging on I guess he’s given up
hope. How long has it been? I’ve lost track of time.”

“The government notified us that Tommy was
missing in action on March second. This is September.”

Slowly Vernon Goodwin Gained Strength

“Lord!” Vernon groaned. “Miss Nancy, I don’t see
how he could have made it till now. There wasn’t
enough food.”

“But there would probably be fruits, coconuts, fish
like we have on this island. Tommy would find some
way to catch fish,” Nancy said, stubbornly clinging
to her little shreds of hope.

It took all the will power she had to keep on her
job that day, for she hadn’t realized how fever could
sap one’s vitality. When she started back to her quarters
in the late afternoon she stopped off to tell Major
Reed what Vernon had said. As she talked an odd
expression came into his face. She feared he had lost
interest and would not push the searching expedition.

“I’m afraid Vernon Goodwin won’t be well enough
to go with any searching party before we have to
leave here.” Major Reed finally revealed what was
on his mind.

Nancy’s pale face grew more wan. “Oh, Major
Reed!”

“Our job here is almost finished. Planes can clear
out the patients faster and faster now that Koshu has
been taken. We can expect orders for a change at any
time.”

Tired and ill as she was the news upset Nancy more
than anything had since she first heard Tommy was
missing. She took a grip on the tent pole to steady
her wobbly knees.

Major Reed was aware of her condition and said,
“You look actually ill, Nancy. Don’t drive yourself so
hard—ease up a bit.” He turned away a minute and
rummaged in a box of medicines. He found a bottle
of golden pills and handed them to her. “Take these
vitamins, two a day, till you get your pep back.”

Nancy thanked him and hesitated a moment, wondering
if she ought to confess about the chill yesterday.
She decided against it, however, feeling confident
she could take care of herself. She was to wonder
later if things might have been different had she
spoken then.

Nancy’s second chill struck her the next morning
before she was out of bed, and at the hour she should
have reported for duty she was burning with fever.
Mabel was scheduled to have the day off, so offered
to take Nancy’s place. She would report Nancy in
need of a day’s rest and otherwise keep silent. Their
other dormitory companions were also asked not to
betray her.

Nancy kept up her medicine and by dinner time
that evening was feeling somewhat better. Hoping to
evade too many inquiries she decided to appear at
the mess hall with Mabel, Shorty and Ida. Shorty
and Mabel were in high spirits and kept them laughing
with funny stories about the Fuzzy Wuzzies
throughout the meal, and Nancy’s morale mounted
several degrees.

The four friends, who had grown so companionable
during these months of service, little dreamed
that was the last meal they would have together on
the other side of the world. But their routine came to
an unexpected end just as they were leaving the mess
hall.

Lieutenant Hauser rapped on the table and called
out in her clear tone, “All nurses report for instructions
just outside the mess hall.”

“Somethin’ cookin’!” Mabel said with conviction.
“I’ve felt it all day.”

The nurses found Major Reed outside, standing
beside Lieutenant Hauser under the palms.

“Orders have come through,” began the major,
when he lifted his hand for attention.

Instantly the ripple of light talk ceased, and every
ear became alert for the coming change.

“Half of us are to move up to open a new hospital.
The rest will follow when this camp has been cleared
of patients. The situation is now so well in hand that
any on Koshu Island needing special treatment may
be quickly flown out to larger bases.”

Nancy caught Mabel’s hand at this dreaded news.
It threatened to shatter all her high hopes of an expedition
to search for Tommy.

Mabel, fully aware of the cause of Nancy’s concern,
whispered consolingly, “Maybe you’ll be allowed to
stay behind and see it through.”

“I’m afraid no one will push the expedition unless
I’m here,” she replied. “Especially if Vernon’s sent
back to a base hospital.”

“The moving unit will be prepared to leave at once.
The transport will stand by to pick us up at any hour
now,” explained Major Reed. “The following nurses
will leave for the new base.” He then proceeded to
read a list of about twenty-five names.

When he called Mabel’s name Nancy clutched at
her friend’s hand desperately. She had scarcely recovered
from that shock before her own name was
called. Weakened as she was with illness and fatigue
she had to take a grip on herself to keep back the tears.

“You’re too sick now to make a change,” Mabel
said, knowing how very much Nancy wanted to stay
here. “I’m going to tell them you’ve been having
chills.”

This was a real temptation to Nancy. A week or two
longer on Koshu might make all the difference in
the world where Tommy was concerned. But had she
any right to put her own personal considerations
ahead of this call to more dangerous service? They
might even think she was using her illness or Tommy’s
rescue as an excuse to cling to the safer work here
on Koshu Island.

Her thoughts moved swiftly, but her decision was
unshakable when she replied, “No, Mabel. I agreed
to give myself to this work. I’ll go wherever they
send me.”

Change had always been stimulating to Nancy,
but this time she found she could not shake off her
depression even after she was aboard ship. Koshu
Island was a safe haven she was reluctant to leave.
In total darkness they went aboard the transport and
in total darkness they moved out to sea again. This
ship had detached itself from the convoy to pick up
the nurses and several hundred troops. Perhaps by
daylight they would again be part of a great flotilla.

The air on deck was cold after the tropical nights
they had endured ashore. Nancy’s weakened condition
made her super-sensitive to chill. She buttoned
her overcoat tightly and turned up her collar, keeping
her Mae West slung over her shoulder. Immediately
on going aboard, and even before they were on the
move, they had an abandon ship drill and became
acquainted with the position of their lifeboats. Nancy’s
and Mabel’s boat was number four, not more
than fifty steps from the lounge where they were to
spend the night.

There was not a bunk left on the tightly packed
ship to assign to these last passengers. They were
merely super-cargo, picked up enroute to the ship’s
destination. Since they expected to go ashore some
time the following morning, their discomforts would
not be too prolonged.

“I surely hate to leave,” said Mabel as Koshu Island
became a dark smudge on the horizon. “Our life back
there will be something to remember forever.”

As usual leave-takings were hard for Nancy, too.
But most of all she had hated to say good-bye to
Vernon Goodwin. He had brought Tommy so close to
her once more. How she had hated to disturb him
with the news of her departure! She had urged him to
insist that they send out a searching plane as soon as
he was able to go.

“I’ve made Major Reed promise to see it through,”
Nancy told Vernon. “Now everything depends on
your speedy recovery.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “But I surely hate
to see you go.”

“No more than I hate to go—with so much at stake
here,” she replied. “But when you’re in the service
it’s Uncle Sam who gives the orders.”

Vernon’s bony hand took hers a moment. “If it
hadn’t been for you, Miss Nancy, I doubt if I would
have come through.”

“The whole staff was pulling for you,” she reminded
him.

He saw how frail and worried she looked, and tried
to speak consolingly. “You go on to your new duties
with an easy mind, Miss Nancy. I’ll give ’em no rest
till a plane goes looking for Tom. We’ll bring him
back if he’s still on that island.”

There were others, too, whom Nancy had left behind
with real regret—Miss Hauser, Major Reed, Ida
and Shorty were special favorites. Having Mabel with
her, however, meant more than any of the others
could have.

“They’ll be following pretty soon,” said Mabel, who
seemed able to drift more lightly through the changing
currents of their life than Nancy could.

“I know that’s the program now, but you never can
tell what will happen in this man’s war.”

They spoke almost in whispers for they had been
warned against loud speech on deck. The great ship
moved silently over the dark waters. So quiet was
everything aboard that the wash of the waves along
the hull was the only audible sound above the low
throb of the engines. Only once did they hear the
drone of a plane, low on the horizon. Their journey
promised to be as peaceful and uneventful as a summer
excursion up the Hudson.

Mabel, Janice and a couple of men officers made
up a bridge game toward midnight, but Nancy felt too
exhausted to play. With her musette bag and helmet
beside her, her Mae West dangling from one shoulder
she tried to get some sleep on a two-seated couch. By
drawing her knees up under her chin she was fairly
comfortable. The game near by was still going on
when she dozed.

At the sound of a terrific explosion, shaking the
ship from prow to stem, Nancy woke with a jolt to
find herself on the floor. Total darkness shut her in
like a pall, while pandemonium broke loose. She
clutched at her life-preserver, buckling it into place
as she called through the wild confusion, “Mabel,
where are you?”

Her friend must have been sleeping on the floor
near by, for she replied almost in Nancy’s ear, “Here!
So this is it!”

Even while she spoke there came the thunderous
voice of the captain through the loud speakers,
“Abandon ship! We have been struck! We are going
down!”

To Nancy’s surprise now that the crisis was upon
them, she felt calm and collected. All lights had gone
out with that first impact, but she had carefully
memorized the route from her couch to the lifeboat.
Clinging to Mabel with one hand, she felt around
for her musette bag and helmet. She couldn’t locate
her helmet, but she did find her bag.

“Got your bag?” she asked Mabel.

“Went to sleep on it.” Even as she spoke Mabel
fished out a flashlight, dimmed with blue paper.

Lights twinkled here and there as people hurried
by, some babbling hysterically, others silently intent
on reaching their boats. The deck listed with a sickening
lurch just as Nancy and Mabel got through the
door. They went sliding with alarming speed toward
the rail. Some, caught completely off their guard,
were plunged into the water.

“God help us,” moaned Mabel. “She’s going under
before we can get to our boat.”

“No, here it is!” exclaimed Nancy, swinging her
own light to a focus on number four.

It was one of the smaller boats, but three people
were already inside. A man gave them a hand.

A woman spoke as they climbed in, “Where are the
rest? There’re supposed to be many more.”

“I don’t know,” Mabel replied.

The woman’s voice was not that of any of their
own nurses.

“We can’t wait much longer,” said the man. “She’s
listing badly.”

“Why don’t they hurry?” wailed the woman.

“Don’t be frightened. Here’s someone now,” said
another man reassuringly.

“Is this number eight?” A man’s voice asked as he
stumbled toward the boat.

“No, but you get in,” said the man who had spoken
first. “No time to hunt yours. She’s going down any
minute.”

He gave the man’s arm a jerk and pulled him into
the boat. Another man, evidently a sailor, let the boat
into the water. The ship lurched dangerously and
oily spray drenched the boat. They were not a dozen
oar strokes away when acrid smoke billowed from
every opening as the ship suddenly burst into flames.
The oarsmen had a race to clear the area where
flames lapped at the oil-coated water.

It was awful to see that towering bulk become a
flaming carnival for some Jap, watching through the
periscope of the sub that had struck them. A few minutes
later the mighty ship went down with such an
explosive churning of water that those in the lifeboats
had to cling to the gunwale to keep from being swept
overboard. For some time after the flames were extinguished
they drifted in Stygian darkness. Nancy
couldn’t even see Mabel sitting next to her.

In those first stunned moments of escape Nancy
had been aware of other boats around them, and
people in the water. But when they found themselves
in calmer seas some time after the sinking they
seemed to be utterly alone.

“Where are the others?” the strange woman across
from them asked.

“God only knows,” replied her companion.

By the location of their voices Nancy surmised they
also were sitting side by side. There was some comfort
in feeling the physical nearness of another in that
vast, empty darkness.

“We’ll drop anchor and ride it out here till morning,”
the seaman decided. “We were due to be in sight
of the convoy by dawn. If they got our SOS somebody
should pick us up then.”

The last man they had taken aboard had not spoken
since their arrival. Nancy wondered if he had gone
overboard while the boat pitched so wildly after the
ship went down. But a few minutes later she realized
she was ankle deep in water. When she lifted her feet
she struck something in the bottom of the boat.

“Somebody’s lying in the bottom!” she exclaimed.
She found she had lost her flashlight in the scramble,
but Mabel had hers.

“Don’t use a flash!” warned the sailor. “Those yellow
devils can see one miles away.”

They could tell he was bending in the bottom of
the boat as he spoke. Then they could hear him
tugging at something. “It’s that last chap who came
aboard,” he said. “He must have been knocked out.”

“Lucky he is—not knowing he has anything to worry
about,” said the other man.

The sailor eased the man’s head to a higher level
and began bailing out the water. But the small boat
heaved and pulled on her anchor chain so they took
in almost as much as he cleared out. In another hour
the girl across from Nancy was violently sick. But it
was not long before Nancy, Mabel and the other man
were all agonizing over the side of the boat. Only the
sailor and the sleeping man in the bottom of the boat
kept steady stomachs.

For the first time in her life Nancy prayed for death
to relieve her suffering. Sick, cold and miserable as
she was, the struggle didn’t seem worth the effort.

From troubled dozing against Mabel’s shoulder
Nancy woke to find dawn breaking on a sea as empty
and placid as a mountain lake. No rescue ship, nor
even any lifeboat was visible on all that gray expanse.
How could she endure this awful plight that daylight
had revealed?

Nancy’s gaze came back from her futile search to
look around at her companions. The bluejacket sat on
the floor in the prow, his arms bent over the seat,
cradling his head. She discovered it was a young
corporal who had come aboard last. He still slept in
the bottom of the boat. The girl across from them
was a nurse of another unit. She lay on the seat. The
first class private who sat beside her couldn’t have
been more than nineteen Nancy thought, as she
studied the sleeping face.

Everyone was covered with an oily scum that had
swept over them from the sinking boat, and Nancy
knew she must look as repulsive as the rest. Even
before her inspection was finished the sailor roused
and dragged himself to the seat. He took one look
across the empty water.

“Well if that ain’t a way to do us!” he growled,
when the drowsy corporal sat up and wanted to know
what the row was about. “They all beat it off to safety
without ever waiting to see who else was here.”

“They may have gone under for all you know,”
said Mabel.

“Where’s the water?” asked the corporal. “I’m dry
as a desert.”

“You’ll get your share along with the rest,” stated
the bluejacket. He had the look of a seasoned seaman.
Nancy judged him to be well over thirty, the oldest
person aboard. Suddenly he seemed to accept the
situation with what grace he could. He glanced
around at his boat-mates and said, “Well, ladies and
gentlemen, looks like we’re in for it.”

Even while he spoke a brilliant red sun slowly became
a burning disk where sea and sky met. It seemed
a warning of what they had to endure.

“First thing in order,” said the sailor, “is to take
stock of all supplies—food and water.”

Nancy and Mabel reached into their musette bags
to bring out their bars of chocolate and the small
tins of concentrated food to add to the common stock.

Nancy noticed that the girl across from them had
her canteen, but no bag.

“I see the young ladies are good seamen and have
brought their canteens,” continued the sailor.

“I have mine, too,” said the private, putting his
hand to his hip.

“Looks like I forgot mine,” said the dazed corporal,
making a futile search for his canteen.

The bluejacket got out the boat’s supplies and
stored with them what Nancy and Mabel had contributed.
There was food and water enough surely to
last until they were picked up, and navigation instruments,
too, in case no help came.

The Corporal Reached for the Water Keg

“I want some water now,” demanded the complaining
corporal, reaching for the water keg between
the bluejacket’s feet.

“You’ll get your water when portions are dealt to
all alike,” stated the sailor.

“That’s what you think,” growled the corporal and
made a lunge for the water.

The young private sitting behind him swung out
a strong hand and drew the man back before he could
reach the sailor. It took some handling to get him
quiet in the stem of the boat, well away from the
frightened women.

“You’ll face court martial for this!” growled the
corporal. “I’m your superior officer. I’m in command
of this boat!”

“If anyone is put in command it must be one of
the nurses,” said the private promptly. “They are all
lieutenants.”

“That suits me fine,” said the bluejacket.

“We know nothing about what should be done
here,” Nancy told them miserably. “Or at least I don’t.
I’ll leave it up to Mabel or—” she paused to glance at
the other girl.

“Hilda Newton,” said the strange nurse. “But
heavens, I have no idea what we should do.”

“Neither have I,” stated Mabel. “If you’re all
agreed I move we put the bluejacket in command. He
probably knows more about this business than all of
us put together.”

This met with the hearty approval of all except the
surly, still befuddled corporal. The sailor introduced
himself as Olan Meyer, and the rest in turn told their
names.

A few minutes later Olan dealt out the morning’s
portion of food and water. And so began the monotonous
round of nights and days that were to stretch
on as endlessly as the sea on which they drifted.

At the end of the first week when there was still no
hope of rescue, nor any sight of land, their water had
to be reduced to one portion a day. Only by the
notches Olan Meyer cut on the stem seat, could they
tell how much time had passed. After the first few
sunrises, days and nights seemed a muddled succession
without hope of ending.

Once they saw a smudge of smoke on the horizon,
but it vanished swiftly. Another time Nancy thought
she heard the drone of a plane, but no moving speck
appeared in all the cloudless, blazing blue overhead.
She wondered if her mind was weakening and she
was beginning to hear sounds, as a wanderer in the
desert sees mirages.

On their second day afloat Nancy had had another
chill, then to her amazement, after the fever had
burned itself out, the attacks did not come back. Her
illness made her think of the small golden vitamins
Major Reed had given her. She found them still in
her musette bag. By dealing them out one a day to
each person there would be enough to last them two
weeks.

A sail had been hoisted after their conference the
first morning, and Olan Meyer steered toward what
he believed was their original destination. But the
wind soon died down, the sail fell slack, and it was
only useful as shade from the blazing sun.

The day after her fever cleared Nancy was sitting
beside Olan as he studied the Pacific map, which
had been placed in the lifeboat along with a book
of navigation instructions.

“Where is Koshu Island on this map?” she asked.

After a brief search he pointed it out with a grimy
finger.

“Do you know of any coral-surrounded islands
northeast of it?” she asked.

“Plenty. Why?”

“There was one—about a day by water from Koshu,
where they tell me my brother’s plane went down,”
Nancy explained. “His gunner was made a prisoner
by the Japs. He turned up at our hospital back there
on Koshu. Soon as he’s able he’s going to guide a
plane back to the island.”

“Got any more details?” asked Olan.

“Nothing, except that the island was covered with
a jungle. As far as Vernon knew there were no native
villages there.”

“And it was surrounded by coral reefs?”

“Entirely, so that no big boats could go close. But
he said there were passages where small boats could
enter the lagoons.”

“Twelve hours journey north of Koshu,” repeated
Olan, while making some mental calculations. “We
must have been somewhere in that neighborhood
when we were struck.”

“Oh, are we?” asked Nancy eagerly.

“We were,” he corrected. “Lord knows where we’re
at now. A fair wind for forty-eight hours took us in
the opposite direction.”

He pointed out where he surmised they had been
sunk, and indicated the approximate direction in
which the wind had taken them.

“I figure the group of reefs and islands you’re talking
about is somewhere back here.”

“And northeast of Koshu,” she observed. “Wouldn’t
it be safer to try to go back in that direction?”

“You’re optimistic, lady. Distances in a tub like
this take a hundred times longer to cover than on our
transport.”

“I know that. But we may as well be going somewhere
definitely as drifting like this. We might even
be able to locate the island where Tommy was marooned.”

“Any land, no matter what—a jungle would be a
thousand times better than this,” said Hilda Newton.

It was two days later, however, before another
breath of wind came to stiffen their sail. The heat was
almost unbearable by day while the cold penetrated
to their marrow at night. Nancy thanked her lucky
stars that she had been wearing her overcoat at the
time they were struck, and that Mabel had brought
hers along. Hilda had not been so fortunate.

When the breeze stirred at last Nancy sat beside
Olan, watching how he set the sail into the course he
desired. It made little difference to any of the others
what direction they took, so long as it brought an end
to their misery. The very fact that they were moving
boosted their morale.

But the fair wind was only a brief hope. It fell away
after a few hours, and the horrible pall of inaction
closed down on them again. Sometimes for an hour
or so they would recite poetry, tell jokes or ask riddles—anything
to keep their minds off reality. In this way
the first week dragged by. Not once during that time
was there a drop of rain to renew their diminishing
water supply. So far they had used only from the
lifeboat’s supply, saving the individual canteens for a
reserve.

The corporal, Ned Owens, showed little improvement
in disposition, even after his mind cleared. He
kept aloof from the others and seldom took part in
the nurses’ attempts to brighten their situation. The
first few days a fever kept him on fire with thirst, and
he was violently seasick. Knowing something of what
he must be enduring Nancy offered him her portion
of water at the end of an unusually hot day.

“You take it and I’ll knock your block off!” Olan
flared, when Ned hesitated at the offer.

Rather than precipitate a fight Nancy finally drank
the water herself. By the end of the first week the feud
between the two men, which started with selfishness
on one side and firmness on the other, had grown to
alarming proportions. Every time Olan dealt out the
water Ned accused him of giving him less than his
portion.

One evening after they had sat through the worst
heat they had yet endured, Ned demanded that Olan
give him his entire allotment of water and let him
drink it as he pleased.

“I won’t do it! You haven’t got the grit to restrain
yourself,” Olan stated.

Nancy had been surprised to find just before their
evening ritual of food and drink that Ned had moved
next to Olan on the boat seat.

Suddenly just as Olan was measuring out a portion
of water, Ned’s arm swung round and struck him in
the pit of his stomach. Caught unawares the keg
slipped from Olan’s hand to the bottom of the boat,
and the precious fluid gurgled out into the bilge
water. While the two men went into a grip, Nancy
grabbed the keg from under their feet, but she was
not quick enough to save more than half of the remaining
water.

She dragged the keg with her toward the prow as
the raging men grappled. Jim Benton and Hilda were
sitting in the prow, and the slack sail had at first cut
off their view of what was happening. The men were
already at each other’s throats before Jim realized
there was a row, and rushed to separate them.

Terrified, the women feared the struggle would
capsize the boat. They huddled together in the prow
to keep a balance. The corporal was a much larger
man than the bluejacket, and soon had him down on
the seat, his hands clawing at his throat. Jim could not
break their grip with his bare hands. Hilda had
snatched up one of the oars, as if to help. Suddenly
he seized it from her and cracked it down over Ned
Owens’s head. The corporal crumpled into the bottom
of the boat like a crushed egg.

The moment his hands relaxed their grip on Olan’s
throat, the half-conscious man rolled into the water
with a list of the boat. Without a moment’s hesitation
Jim Benton went in after him, shoes and all. The
shock of the cold water revived Olan’s faculties sufficiently
for him to get a death grip on Jim. In spite of
all the soldier could do to break the hold, Olan pulled
him down under the waves with him. The horrified
women stared, helpless to save either one.

Nancy was making a motion to get out of her
shoes, when Mabel held her back by main force.
“You’re insane!” she screamed. “You haven’t strength
to do anything for them.”

But it was already too late. Even while Mabel held
Nancy back the two men went down again, and they
saw them no more. Too stunned for speech they could
only stand and stare, hoping against hope that they
might come up again.

Then Hilda, the little blue-eyed girl, wavered, and
Mabel gently eased her to the bottom of the boat as
consciousness slipped from her. After bathing her
face with sea water Mabel and Nancy dragged her
up to the boat seat, and Nancy held her head in her
lap. For a long time they were too stunned for speech.

Mabel was the first to say anything as she stared
with fixed eyes at the bottom of the boat. “Now we’re
left to the mercy of that thing!” she moaned, pointing
to the corporal.

“It would be better if we were all dead,” said
Nancy in a hollow voice.

Mabel finally prodded Ned Owens with her foot,
turning him over. Blood flowed from the gash on the
back of his head made by the oar. Even though she
dreaded to see him regain consciousness, the instincts
of her profession would not be denied. She finally
squatted in the bilge water to do what she could for
his injuries. She cleaned the wound after a fashion and
dusted it with some sulfa drug from her first-aid kit,
then drew the edges together with some sticking
plaster. They feared he would roll into the sea if they
dragged him to the seat, so they pulled him into the
prow where only his feet were in the water.

When Hilda stirred again she sat up, her fixed eyes
turned across the waves that had swallowed the men.
She was like one under the influence of dope and
made no complaint, only sat there hour after hour as
if the life had gone from her, too.

Mabel took a last look at Ned in the twilight and
saw he was still breathing, though he showed no signs
of regaining consciousness. “If he’ll only stay that
way till morning,” she said. “I’ll feel much safer.”

For once Mabel’s wish was fulfilled. The first rays
of daylight revealed the corporal lying where she had
left him. She bent over him almost eagerly. Her shaking
fingers, that pressed his wrist, found no pulse.

“God is good,” she said fervently, looking up from
her knees at the other two. “No telling what we’ve
been spared.”

His passing was such a relief to them all, that even
Hilda found interest enough to help them heave the
body over into the sea.

When the lapping green water had swallowed him
up Nancy said, “Let’s recite the Twenty-third Psalm
for all our dead.”

She emphasized the all, for in spite of their relief
at this last death, she felt that none should be excluded
from their simple burial ritual.

With the knowledge of navigation that she had
picked up from Olan, Nancy steered a southeast
course with every fair wind that blew. Though their
number was now only half the original, she dared not
increase their water supply, as so much had been lost
when their keg overturned. By careful economy they
would have food and water for a few more days.

After the death of the three men they rarely spoke.
There seemed nothing left to say, and speech was
such an effort with rasping vocal chords and cracked
lips.

Once they sighted a smudge of smoke that promised
to be a boat on the horizon. Though there was always
the possibility it might be a Japanese boat, even
captivity seemed preferable to their present condition.
Nancy tacked to catch a bit of wind taking her
in that direction. But a nearer approach showed them
it was merely mist from spray breaking on a reef.
But the island was barren, with not a single palm to
pierce the burning sky.

Before night closed them in they saw other reefs,
but all were barren. They decided to lower their sail
and drop anchor for the night to keep the current
from sweeping them against some hidden reef.

Twice during that day Nancy had thought she
heard the drone of a distant plane. If any had passed
they had been hidden by fleecy clouds.

In mid-morning the following day they were becalmed
again under a cloudless sky. By crouching
in the bottom of the boat during the hottest hours
they could shade their heads under the boat seat,
making the heat slightly more endurable.

Nancy was lying there almost in a coma, when
there came the sound of a plane, clear and not too
far away. For a moment she did not stir, believing it
the sound she had imagined a score of times before.
Then suddenly Mabel called out, “Nancy it is a plane!
I can see it!”

“Coming this way,” Hilda added.

“Hoist the sail! They can see us easier with the sail
up!” cried Mabel, her last reserve of strength pouring
out into action.

The three of them tugged at the sail a moment,
then Mabel stopped to bend over her musette bag.
“I’m going to try flashing a mirror at them!” she explained.
She opened her compact, containing a mirror
almost as large as her palm. “I’ve heard of people
catching the sun’s rays in a mirror and attracting
planes that way.”

They had discussed this as one device for getting
the attention of fliers in the early days of their shipwreck.
Nancy and Hilda got the limp sail up, while
Mabel set the mirror to catch the sun’s rays and reflect
them toward the approaching plane. Then they
realized that the silver speck was not coming straight
over, but would pass well to the south.

“Oh, dear God, make it come on!” prayed Mabel.

Both the other nurses were praying, too, in a frenzy
of hope and despair. Mabel tried the mirror trick she
had practiced several times. Three long flashes from
the sun-touched mirror, then three short, then three
longs—SOS. Again and again she repeated the signal,
but the plane kept steadily on its course.

Nancy felt she couldn’t endure to see it go entirely
out of sight. Moaning she pressed her face into the
slack sail, and leaned against their mast, certain this
was their last hope.

“Oh, Mabel, they’re going on! They don’t see us,”
wailed Nancy when the plane dipped low on the
horizon.

Better a thousand times that they had never seen it
at all than to endure this agony of disappointment.
But Mabel was too intent upon her sun and mirror
trick to heed Nancy’s despair. She shifted her position
as the plane moved on, and continued flashing
the mirror into the sky.

Suddenly Hilda cried out, “Look—they’re turning!
They’ve seen us.”

Incredible as it seemed, the plane was swinging
back toward them, but it was still very high as it
came on.

“It may be a Jap Zero.” Hilda dropped the words
like a bomb into their midst.

They had been so obsessed with the hope of rescue
by their own people that their dulled minds had not
counted on that possibility.

“Too late now,” said Mabel. “They evidently saw
my light flashing.”

“Could any thing be worse than this?” asked Nancy.

Their bloodshot, sunken eyes watched in an agony
of suspense as the drone of the plane beat harder and
harder on their sensitive ears that were so long conditioned
to silence.

Suddenly Nancy’s straining eyes recognized the insignia
of her own Air Force, and she burst forth above
the roar of the plane that was now almost overhead,
“There’s our white star in the blue circle. It’s one of
our planes!”

They began waving frantically as the plane circled
high above them. The pilot was obviously taking no
chances that this might be some trick of the Japs.
From the burned color of their skins they could be
mistaken for Japs from above.

Then Nancy thought of the American flag she always
kept in her musette bag with the battered confederate
relic. It was rather small, but surely bright
enough to be distinguished from above. She was
trembling like a leaf in a gale when she found it and
waved it aloft. Almost immediately the plane dipped
lower.

“Why, it’s a hydro!” burst forth Mabel.

The great ship sped south again dipping nearer the
water. About a mile away she turned back, skimming
above the waves until she settled down with a great
splash and came gliding easily toward them. Then
the broad wings were at rest and the motor silent.

A hearty voice from the plane called out, “Can you
row closer?”

“We’ll try,” replied Nancy, but she feared her faint,
cracked voice did not cover the distance between
them.

The oars had not been touched since that horrible
day when the men had died. Mabel found one under
the seat. Two of them could scarcely handle it. They
could as well have used toothpicks for all the movement
their feeble efforts brought.

“We can’t make it!” wailed Nancy, and would have
wept had her eyes not been too burned out for tears.

“Never mind. We’ll come over,” replied a kindly
voice.

A rubber boat appeared under the plane wings,
and two men paddled it easily toward them. When
Hilda fell twice in trying to get over the gunwale one
of the fliers stepped aboard and took her wasted form
into his arms. Though Nancy and Mabel were both
weak and trembling with excitement they managed
to get into the rubber boat with the help of the second
man. The other man went back for their coats and
bags and soon they were under the shadow of the
great wings. Eager hands lifted them bodily into the
cabin.

Nancy could never recall afterward all that was
said and done as they were lifted inside. But she did
remember one man’s hushed voice as he said, “Three
army nurses.”

Eager Hands Lifted Them Bodily into the Cabin

Those men in their spotless clothes seemed like
angels to the shipwrecked women. They were put
into bunks and almost as if by magic someone was
handing Nancy a thermos top filled with hot tea.
These things couldn’t be real, she kept telling herself.
She had only hoped they would happen for so long
that now she believed they could not be true.

A doctor the fliers called Lieutenant Holmes,
questioned them about how much they had had to
eat and drink, then allowed them to have a small portion
of concentrated food from a tin, and gave them
a cup of water. But Nancy came back to her thermos
top of tea. It seemed heavenly to have something hot.
She could feel reviving strength flow to her very toes.

“Good thing we brought that hot thermos along,”
one of the men remarked.

“Thought Tom would appreciate it,” replied his
companion.

Nancy stared incredulously at the man. “Tom,” she
repeated. “I had a brother named Tom. He was lost,
too.”

She saw the men look at each other. “Tom Dale—your
brother?” asked the flier who had given her her
food.

She nodded.

“You can’t be—”

“Nancy Dale, Army Nurse,” she replied.

Suddenly a man in army clothes, turned sharply
from where he held a can of food for Hilda, and stared
at her. Then Nancy saw that the hair under his cap
was snow white. Her eyes, so long conditioned to the
glare, could see little when she was brought inside,
but now she stared at this man incredulously. Was
this another mirage? She brushed her hands across
her hollow eyes and looked again.

“Take it easy,” said the white-haired man with the
pale, thin face. “You’re going to be all right, Miss
Nancy. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“You can’t be Vernon,” she whispered.

“But I am,” he assured her. “You asked us to come
out and look for Tommy and here we are.”

“You’ve found him?”

“We’re on our way to pick him up now,” Vernon
explained. “But you’d better lie down now and keep
yourself quiet or you won’t be able to greet him when
we take him aboard.”

He forced her to lie down, and she glanced across
to see others looking after Mabel and Hilda.

“You may not find him,” she said wearily. “A person
can stand just so much.”

She felt it would not be so terrible after all if Tommy
were really dead. Those who had known bitter
depths of suffering had told her many times that there
were things worse than death, and in those awful
days adrift she had learned it was true. She had even
stopped praying that Tommy might live. How could
she have been so cruel all along as to try to hold him to
a life of such hardships?

“A plane has already been over the island,” Vernon
explained in answer to her doubts. “A man signaled
us from the beach. It must’ve been Tom.”

“When?” she asked.

“Yesterday.”

“We thought we heard a plane yesterday. Why
didn’t you rescue him then?”

“There was no place to land. Only a seaplane can
get near him.”

The great motors of the plane roared into action
again as Vernon finished speaking. He motioned her
to lie back and rest, for even his voice was not yet
strong enough to carry above that roar.

Nancy had a struggle to force her mind to any degree
of calmness. The swift changes of the last few
minutes and her renewed hope about Tommy
brought an enervating reaction.

Though the island where Tommy had been marooned
was the goal of their sailing from the time
Olan learned of it, Nancy could scarcely believe they
had actually come within reasonable range of it. That
the rescue expedition, which she had instigated back
on Koshu Island, would be the means of saving her
own life, too, seemed now almost uncanny. This war
had certainly woven some strange and incredible designs
into the tapestry of life.

So relieved was she to sink into the comfort of that
berth and know she would be taken back to safety,
that not even her suspense about Tommy kept off her
drowsiness as the plane gained height. She felt as
she once had when going under an anesthetic.

Some time later a gentle hand on her cheek roused
her. “We’re flying over the island,” Vernon said in
her ear.

She was confused for a moment, then asked, “Is
there a window where I can look out?”

He helped her down and over to a window from
where she could see the verdant blotch entirely surrounded
by a blue lagoon fringed with reefs on
which tumbling waves broke, an emerald set in sapphire
and pearls. The plane crossed the island at
great height, then circled and came back much lower,
just leaving a safe margin above the towering palms.

“He signaled from the western shore,” Vernon said.

Nancy saw the gunner’s hand tremble violently as
he steadied himself against the seat in front.

The great ship roared south, then north above the
western shore of the island.

“There he is! There he is!” cried Nancy, tears of
joy streaming down her thin cheeks.

There really was a man waving something white.
From the way he ran back and forth Nancy saw he
was not weak from hunger as she was.

A few minutes later the plane moved off a safe
distance from the reefs and taxied cautiously nearer
one of the inlets. A small rubber motorboat, manned
by three men, headed toward a passage in the barrier
reef. Nancy wondered if she could live through the
interval until she could know if the marooned man
was really Tommy. She and Vernon crossed to the
opposite window, which gave a view toward the
island, but the plane was too low for them to see beyond
the high waves pounding on the reef.

“I’m sure I look like a scarecrow,” said Nancy, suddenly
aware of her looks. “Could they spare me a
little water to try to scrub some of the grime off my
face and hands?”

Vernon put a bit of water in a helmet and took a
folded handkerchief from his pocket to use as a washcloth.
He even produced a small piece of soap.
Though Nancy scrubbed and scrubbed, and felt
slightly better for the performance, she decided that
nothing less than a day’s soaking in hot water would
produce satisfactory results.

She saw that Mabel and Hilda still slept, and she
left them in peace. Already she was beginning to
wonder when they would let her have more water
and another portion of food. But Lieutenant Holmes
had been very positive in dealing out the amount
they could have at first.

Vernon and Captain Crawford, the young blue-eyed
pilot, filled the seemingly interminable interval
by asking Nancy about the shipwreck. While she
gave them the horrible details Nancy’s gaze kept
turning toward that door through which the boatmen
would return.

“How long were you adrift?” asked Captain Crawford.

Nancy shook her head. “I’m not sure. Olan Meyer
made notches on the stern seat until he died—after
that it didn’t seem to matter. There’re seven notches
on the seat.”

“They left Koshu Island on October third,” Vernon
recalled. “This is the sixteenth.”

“Thirteen days,” said Nancy. “Seems more like
thirteen years.” She glanced toward the door again.
“Why don’t they come back? Could they have struck
a reef?”

The captain glanced at his watch. “Not quite time
yet.”

But even as he spoke the throb of the motorboat
beat on their ears again.

“They’re coming!” she cried, and staggered toward
the exit.

Minutes had never seemed so long to Nancy, but
eventually the boat came into range. Aquiver with
expectancy, she searched the faces of the boatmen.
Then her gaze came to rest on a sun-baked, nut-brown
man with a long brown beard. Sick with suspense,
for she could not believe that man was Tommy,
she wavered and the oncoming boat blurred. She
felt Vernon’s arm about her waist, steadying her.

Suspense, fear, then incredible joy followed in
swift succession, for Tommy was calling her name.
Her head was whirling so that he seemed very far
away. But there he was really stepping into the plane.
A moment later she was in his arms. Then all her
agony was dissolved in complete joy, for his arms
about her gave assurance that their suffering was
over.

“They told me you were here,” he said, when he
could command himself to speak, “and also about
the horrible things you’ve been through.”

“No more awful than yours—nor half so bad,” she
said, looking up into his eyes that had been so much
like hers before her own became so hollow.

“After the first month I didn’t fare so badly,” he
reassured her. “For a while I didn’t believe I’d make
it. Since my stomach healed, though, it’s been endurable.”

“You don’t look starved,” she said.

“A man can live a long time on fruit, roots, coconuts
and fish. But say, will I be glad to have a real
meal once more!”

“Then what are we waiting for, old scout!” exclaimed
Captain Crawford, slapping the rescued
man on the back. “We’ll take you straight back to
Koshu Island where there’s plenty of food and water,
and a few decorations for all of you who’ve shown so
much valor in action.”

Punctuation has been normalized. Variations
in hyphenation have been retained as they were in the
original publication. The following changes have been made:

The chapter entitled “Camouflage” on Page 65 is the second instance of
Chapter Five. It has been changed to “Chapter Six”, to agree with the
Table of Contents and its sequential position.

Too many times spies have {deducted —> deduced} from
the nature of a group’s training {P. 72}

by the time we finish with all these {innoculations —> inoculations} {P. 98}

a huge waterspout burst high in {the} air {P. 140}

“Don’t {knew —> know}. I just got a whiff of a change.” {P. 166}

Those first patients had to be {stretched —> stretchered}
on the sands of the beach. {P. 187}