by Helen Wells
“We’ll need it,” Cherry said fervently. “Thanks a lot.”
Lieutenant Mason saluted Cherry, nodded to Bunce, and started to go. He turned around awkwardly to say over the noise:
“Listen, kids. Take it from an old-time combat flier. Don’t get too romantic about this mission. It’s just a job to do—a job of muddy, hard work.” Then he went up forward and disappeared behind the cockpit door.
Cherry and Bunce looked soberly at each other, then set to work. They made their preparations well—checked oxygen masks, got the sterilizer in the corner working, laid out coffee in the galley kit, put tubing on the blood plasma bottles. Cherry was too busy preparing for her soldier patients to be frightened, or to think at all. She saw the south of England floating by below, fields and towns turning from gray to their natural colors as the first rosy light of dawn crept over them. Then they were high over London, the Thames a silver thread below, the antique towers and domes and the myriad roofs turned to gold in the sun. But to Cherry, busy with her preparations, these were only brief, disconnected pictures. Until she happened to look down and see dark, churning water, she hardly realized they were well over the Channel. They must be within an hour of their destination. Time to clear with the pilot. Cherry made her way up forward.
“Captain—”
Wade did not turn. “Yes?” He was watching his course, as Ann’s plane’ veered out of formation to the east. They were all flying east now, east and slightly to the south.
“Captain,” Cherry said loudly over the engine noise, “would you call the holding station and notify them we are a C-47 ready for eighteen litter cases.”
“Right.” Wade spoke into his interphone. “Dick? E.T.A. [Estimated Time of Arrival] Now 08 hours.”
Cherry went back to the cabin.
“We’re over enemy-held territory now,” Bunce reminded her. “I sure wish we had a Red Cross painted on our plane.”
Cherry saw the last two huge transports of their squadron veer off. They were flying alone now.
But not for long. She heard a different timbre, a different beat of engine roar, and looked out. Four small planes climbed up beside them, two on either side. They bristled with guns but—thank heavens!—on their side was painted the white star of American combat forces.
Wade’s voice came through the interphone. “Don’t be frightened, you two babies back there! Those are our own fighters—P-47’s. They’re escorting us up to the front.”
Bunce mopped his brow. “That means we’re within six miles of the holding station. Gosh, Miss Cherry—”
“Steady, Bunce.” Cherry herself did not feel any too steady. She felt better, though, when she looked up and saw the four small, sturdy fighter planes flying above them.
Almost immediately they felt Wade circle and feel for a landing. Looking down, they saw a little hut or tent, and tiny figures running along a crude air strip.
“Here we are!” the pilot cried over the interphone. “We’re going down! Cross your fingers.”
Wade started down, circling, spiraling. Bunce muttered that this was a very tricky field on which to make a landing. The strip was a mile long but narrow and extremely crude. A figure below was motioning with a signal flag. Wade lifted the heavy aircraft, tried again. Down, down, down it went. The wheels touched the ground, the C-47 bounced—and had Cherry and Bunce not been strapped in, they would have been violently thrown. The plane skidded to a stop.
“All out!” Cherry cried. She and Bunce ran to open the doors.
The haggard face of an Army doctor peered in. Behind him, men on the field came running to the ambulance plane, crowding around.
“Hello, anybody home?” called the doctor in stained khaki. “I’m Major Wright.”
“Lieutenant Ames, sir! Sergeant Smith.”
“I certainly am glad to see you! You’ll have to work fast.”
Cherry and Bunce reached for outlifted hands and jumped to the ground. She heard one man exclaim, “A woman!”
“No nurses here, Major?”
“No, Lieutenant. Wish there were. We could use a few. But this is a holding station.”
Cherry knew then that they were close to the front, as nurses stayed at least four miles back of the fighting. There was a sudden burst of artillery fire right in back of them, then more and more pounding away. They were not just close to the fighting front, Cherry thought, they were virtually in the middle of the battlefield! There was an urgent ring in the Major’s voice. “We don’t dare keep the wounded lying in a holding station more than half an hour. This place can be strafed any minute.”
A captain came running up, with Wade behind him. He was the Evacuation Officer, who found the sites for the holding stations. Then the troops set down some kind of air strip.
“This working out all right with you, Lieutenant?” the Captain asked.
“Fine, fine,” Cherry said and hurried after the Major. He led her into a tent, fixed up like a rough field hospital, for temporary care. Here, on litters on the ground, lay the pitiful men she had come for.
The Major briefly pointed out each casualty to Cherry and her technician. A stomach wound—a head wound—a back injury—some men were more seriously wounded. Among the eighteen wounded men they would take, only six absolutely helpless cases could go—no nurse could handle more.
“Sergeant, round up the loaders and you get back in the plane,” Cherry directed.
The Major interrupted. “Wait, son. We have only two corpsmen who know how to load. Our other corpsmen are wounded—one killed. We’ll have to use any able-bodied soldier who’s around. We have an improvised ramp.”
“You can count on me and my two crewmen to load,” said Wade, right behind them. Cherry had not seen the pilot follow them. His face was pale and drawn.
“All right, Captain,” Cherry said. “Start with this boy. Easy does it, soldier.” She knelt beside a dirty-faced lad whose teeth were clenched in pain. His tag read internal injuries. “We’re taking you home,” Cherry said quickly. “You’re going to be all right.”
When he opened glazed eyes, and saw a nurse, he tried to smile.
Dick, Bill, Wade, and a corpsman from the holding station gently but quickly picked up his litter and carried him up the ramp. Cherry said to Bunce in a low voice, “Put him up forward and give him a shot of morphine. And hurry!”
The haggard doctor led Cherry among the litters, deciding which ones should go. One man, covered with mud and blood, fingered the edge of Cherry’s trouser leg. He whispered, “Clean….”
“Compound fracture of the tibia, will have to operate,” the Army doctor was classifying them. “This one lost a lot of blood. Incipient peritonitis, here.”
But to Cherry they were not abstract cases. “They’re just tired, dirty kids who’ve been shot up,” she thought.
Bunce reported back to her. She drew him aside and told him what special medicines to get from the holding station for the trip.
There were too many wounded for them all to go on this trip. And still, over the rim of a little hill, from the sound of firing, came more ambulances loaded with wounded. The strings of ambulances jolted and bumped through the mud. Cherry thought of what even so small a thing as a rifle bullet can do to the human body, and was grateful for planes instead of those slow, jolting ambulances.
Cherry, with one eye on her watch, supervised the loading and placing of the litter cases, and hopped in the plane for a moment herself. The men were suffering but calm. They asked for nothing but water. Each time Cherry gave a man a drink, he smiled or tried to, and could not thank her enough. Cherry left the plane again—as the sixteenth litter was being carried up.
“I want you to take these two walking wounded,” the doctor called to her.
Cherry turned. She saw one of the bravest and most pathetic sights she had yet seen in war. Limping, stumbling, leaning against each other, came two dazed boys, one with his arm flung about the other’s neck. Their heads drooped under their heavy metal he
lmets, their breeches were split to the knee and bandages showed through. One boy all but fainted in Bunce’s arms. The other boy protested:
“I only got a scratch! I don’t want to go to the hospital! Let me go back to my outfit! I’m not quittin’! I have to get back to my outfit!”
Cherry saw that the back of his leather jacket was blood-soaked. They lifted him in, still protesting.
The casualties were all in now. Wade had gone up forward. The copilot already had the propellers spinning. The Army doctor hopped aboard to give last-minute instructions to Cherry.
“That internal injuries case.” He rubbed his unshaven jaw. “I wish I could come along to look after him.”
“Can’t you, sir?”
The doctor looked back at Cherry from hollow eyes.
“I’m the only doctor here . . . I’ll notify England now that you’re on your way. Well, good luck!”
Bunce slammed the doors shut. He had the patients all strapped in.
Wade strode in hurriedly but with a big smile on his face.
“Men, I’m your pilot. Name’s Wade Cooper. I’ll have you in England, in a real hospital, in a jiffy.” His voice trembled. “Just take yourselves a good nap. Nurse Ames here, and the sergeant, will be looking out for you every minute.”
Cherry took another precious moment to reassure the men. Their stricken faces showed they were listening. “Fellows, even if you’ve never been up before, don’t worry. Captain Cooper is a crackerjack pilot. He’s been in combat and—”
“I flew in North Africa in the old days,” Wade said.
“Yes, sir, North Africa and around the Mediterranean—”
Cherry whispered hastily, “Before, you said China and Russia.”
“Explain later. Altitudes?” They moved aside to talk altitudes for a moment. “Just relax, boys. You’ve earned it!” Wade half ran up the aisle of litters. Cherry saw relief in some of the faces as he passed, and climbed through the cockpit door.
Cherry sat down in the tail and strapped in. The plane started to vibrate. She happened to look out the low window, and nearly leaped out of her seat.
There, on this restricted military airfield, stood Mark Grainger! He wore shabby civilian clothes, an old hat pulled furtively over his smudged face. But it was Mark Grainger and no mistake! He was hovering around a plane which was evidently a special plane. What was Mark Grainger—and obviously in disguise, too—doing here? All Cherry’s suspicions were aroused. What if he were a spy . . . Cherry’s hands turned cold. She ought to warn someone—She could still stop the take-off—
But they were taxiing now. Too late.
Cherry sat back in the bucket seat feeling sick. Then she tore herself out of her strappings and threw herself flat beside the low window. Maybe she could get another glimpse—maybe when their ship circled and rose—Yes! There he was! She looked down to see Mark Grainger, a diminishing figure now, slipping away from the plane. Only now he carried a big shapeless bundle!
“Miss Cherry,” Bunce asked anxiously, “are you sick?”
Cherry turned, and tried to pull herself together. These wounded men needed attention—Wade could not turn back now. Maybe Dick could radio a message. But what? No, it was too late.
“Miss Cherry! Miss Cherry!” Bunce put firm hands on her shoulders. “Here, drink this.”
Automatically she swallowed an airsickness capsule in a little water. Sheer will, not the capsule, cleared her head. Her intense fright receded into calm. Seeing Mark Grainger here had been a shock. Well, she must put it out of her mind now. Her patients came first. She would ask Wade about that special-looking plane when they got home. Cherry went to her patients.
Their great aircraft had gained height and leveled off low, around six thousand feet. That was not a safe height but she was afraid some of the wounded could not stand higher altitudes. Four fighter planes rode at their sides. Some of the prone men were smiling with delight. “Going back,” one whispered. They were going back to safety, to recovery, to life.
Now Cherry’s real work began. She kept constant watch for oxygen need, as she moved from tier to tier. These soldiers were so grateful for the least little thing she did for them. They even thanked her for the clean, comfortable blankets. Not one complained.
Cherry gave blood plasma to the weakest—morphine to relieve one man’s excruciating pain—told a depressed boy, “We’ll fish that shell out of you and make it into a medal.” She was shaken at the awful human waste of war. She could not give definitive care: she could only keep these men from getting worse, give a little comfort, until she got them to a hospital and surgeons. These wounded were extra-special patients.
“Nurse, my leg aches. The splint presses.”
“Please, Nurse—water—”
“Why is it so dark?”
The wounded followed Cherry around with weary eyes. One shocked boy stared into space. Cherry gave him a sedative to induce sleep.
“Nurse, you really here? I ain’t dreamin’?”
“Mm, your perfume. Smells like the stuff my girl uses.”
A boy with a gunshot wound in his abdomen became delirious. In his thoughts he was still at the battlefield. Cherry gave him a hypodermic, quieted him, kept her cool hand on his forehead. He cried out, “Mother! Mother! I knew you’d come!” Cherry held him in her arms, as his mother would have done, until his wrenching pain gave way to drugged sleep.
She cleaned a bad chest wound, bound up a smashed hand, gave oxygen to a fainting man with a head injury. One boy clutched at her ankle as she passed. She knelt beside his bottom tier.
“How’re you doing, soldier?”
He started to cry.
“Please don’t. You’ll be all right. I’ll bring you some hot coffee.” She smiled and patted his shoulder. “Sound good to you?”
“Yes.” He dragged his hand across his tear-wet face.
“Coffee. Thank you.”
Cherry and Bunce were so busy that they hardly noticed their fighter escort was gone now and the riding was bumpy. The copilot came back with a message.
“We’re going to have to climb, Nurse.”
“But we can’t climb! My men can’t stand it—I don’t want to give them oxygen!”
“Have to go up. Don’t ask me why.”
They climbed, and Cherry sent Bunce to put the oxygen masks on the patients. It was getting chilly and it was hard to breathe. Cherry was uneasy. She ran up to see the pilot, getting out her own mask.
“What’s the matter?” she cried.
“Radio advises enemy planes spotted. Go back and keep those men calm.”
Up and up they went. The medicine chest was torn out of its brace. Wade was trying to dodge the enemy planes by climbing, by straining the engines to utmost speed. Some of the wounded began to ask questions.
Cherry struggled to hold a plasma bottle steady and said in a loud, confident voice, “It’s nothing, fellows, nothing! We just make better time a little higher up. All right, Sergeant, hand me the needle. Steady now, boy, this’ll make you stronger—No, it’s nothing to worry about! I promise!”
The men were scared. Cherry was scared, too, but she dared not let them see it. Eighteen helpless men looked to her for courage. She was actress now—actress, leader, mother—as well as nurse.
“Feels funny, this place where my leg used to be. My ex-leg.”
“The doctors will fix you up. You—” the plane lurched but Cherry steadied herself and went on talking, “—you’ll be able to walk again, as you always did. Bunce, strap this corporal down good and comfortable.”
She ran to the tail and looked out. They were over the Channel. Good! Maybe they were leaving the German planes behind. Maybe they’d meet no Messerschmitts over the Channel. Wade must have outraced them—pulled this precious cargo through!
Then they were dropping. Through the clouds, Cherry saw faintly the cliffs of England.
Another hour of intense work, of terrific strain, while Cherry drew on her every ounce of trai
ning and common sense and tact and physical strength. She was exhausted now, but she kept on doing her best for her planeful of wounded, until they were over the trees of their own neighborhood. They were going down, gently, down, and circling.
Wade put them down as if laying a baby in its cradle. Cherry and Bunce spoke encouragement to their patients, and opened the doors.
Ambulances were waiting, and the unloading teams were ready. Major Thorne, the Flight Surgeon, entered the plane immediately. Cherry stayed in the plane door watching the blinded boy, the man with a wound in his abdomen, and the patient with a chest wound, gently being lifted out. The men’s faces were too exhausted to show much emotion. Some of them lifted their eyes to Cherry’s as they passed, some murmured good-bye. She said warmly to all of them, “Good luck to you!”
The men were unloaded quickly and rushed to the hospital. Cherry made her report to Major Thorne, while Wade reported to base operations, and came back for her.
Captain Betty Ryan appeared too, smiling. “Good for you, Lieutenant Ames! Are you all right? You show signs of flying fatigue. I don’t like that, Cherry. I want you to take a twenty-four hour rest, starting now. It’s for your own good, Cherry.”
“I could use a rest,” Cherry admitted wearily to Wade, as they walked across home field unloosening their heavy jackets.
“I could use some food,” Wade said. “Come on, honey. Let’s see what grub we can find in the Fliers’ Club.”
At the deserted club, the two of them sank down onto a sofa. A waitress brought them bowls of steaming, reviving soup. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon, but Cherry felt she had lived through a week, since she got out of the shower that morning.
After she and Wade had relaxed for a while, Cherry asked:
“Well, Captain? Are you more reconciled to your job now?”
He curled his hand over hers. “Quite a job, isn’t it? But, Cherry, you were magnificent.” He lifted her hand and kissed it.
“Now, don’t get romantic.”
“Why not?” he asked. “Is there someone else?”