by Helen Wells
Cherry had soothed her patients by this time, and helped the worst shocked over their violent reactions.
There was order and quiet in the ambulance plane once more, so now Cherry could relax a little. She noticed that her back pained and that she was limping, but she went right on cauterizing a bad wound, happy in the thought that they would soon be home. At last, they were safely over the Channel! Below them, in the waning sunlight, stood the cliffs of England!
Only an hour more, in safe skies. Cherry checked their Estimated Time of Arrival, sent radio notification of the number of wounded aboard and asked to have extra ambulances waiting. Only an hour more, but it was still a long, hard pull. Cherry realized now that their aircraft was shot up and that Wade was bringing them in largely on sheer skill and will power. Wade sent back a message by Bill Mason.
“We’re a mess of holes, but tell the boys ‘Papa’s going to take you home.’ ”
And he did. They flew low over their home base at dusk. She looked down on the field to see the ambulances and unloading crews and ground crews waiting. The entire complement of the field, and a crowd of pilots and flight nurses, were standing all over the field, looking up for their C-47! Cherry thought of all the times she had sweated in overdue or imperiled planes. Now she was being sweated in herself! The radioman must have notified home base of the air battle over Germany.
They circled past the control tower, and skimmed lower and lower over the runway. Cherry could see the uplifted faces clearly, now, in the January twilight. They were strained and anxious. She and Bunce prepared the wounded to be moved, then strapped them down firmly for the landing. She kept an eye on Mark Grainger as their wheels touched the air strip. Mark Grainger was to be turned over to the military police immediately.
As they skidded perilously to a stop, ground crewmen swarmed to the transport. The ambulances waiting at the runway backed up to the plane doors. Major Thorne tugged them open as Cherry and Bunce pushed from inside, and the cold air poured in. They were home—safe and out of danger. They were home! Cherry saw the American flag fluttering down from the hospital flagpole. Nothing had ever before looked so good to her as that familiar red, white, and blue.
“Lieutenant Ames! Are you all right?” demanded the Flight Surgeon. She nodded, and he asked, “What cases have you brought?”
Cherry rapidly led him through the plane, and also handed him a brief report on each patient. She signaled the unloading crew to come aboard. Promptly, under her supervision and with Bunce’s help, they lifted two litters at a time onto the hydraulic elevator. More loaders on the ground swiftly put the men on stretchers into the ambulances. The Flight Surgeon was already detailing the worst injured for immediate operations.
Wade called from the ground, “All right, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Captain. Are you?”
“Yes.” Wade nodded in an exhausted way. He was too tense, too full of battle, to talk yet. He strode off to direct the mechanics, who had waited weary anxious hours for their endangered plane. Then Cherry saw him go off toward the base operations hut.
She was helping the walking wounded off the plane when Captain Betty Ryan ran up beside her.
“Lieutenant Ames, I’ve been so worried about you! Why, you’re limping!”
The Flight Surgeon turned to look. “It’s your back, isn’t it?”
“I was thrown,” Cherry confessed. “It’s nothing. Was everyone taken care of all right, sir?”
“You did a magnificent job,” Major Thorne said. “I’m officially going to commend you for what you did on this combat flight! Don’t you think she deserves it, Captain Ryan?”
“Lieutenant Ames fully deserves it,” the Chief Nurse said warmly. “Thank heavens those Mustangs and Spitfires showed up!”
Cherry glowed. She felt her tiredness draining away, and in its place, a deep well-earned satisfaction. She honestly felt that on this terrible flight—this great test—she had fully lived up to her nurse’s idealism. She had brought the wounded home and given them care, in spite of all odds. Suddenly Cherry remembered Mark Grainger. She would have serious explanations to make! She had broken military regulations.
“Excuse me,” she said to her two superior officers, “I have to go back to the plane.”
“Just a minute.” Plump Major Thorne wiggled his finger at her. “I want you to report to the hospital and have that back looked at.”
“In fact,” said Captain Ryan slowly, “I think you’d better have a complete physical checkup. I’ve had my eye on you for some time, Lieutenant Ames, and I’m not at all pleased with that tired look of yours. I even thought we ought to ship you home one of these days for a good, long rest.”
“Oh, no!” Cherry wailed. “You can’t do that to me! Why, these big battles are just starting—you need every flight nurse—oh, no! I don’t want to miss anything!” Then suddenly she remembered Mark Grainger again.
“If you’ll excuse me—”
She limped back to the tail. Mark Grainger was not there. She hunted furiously through the plane. He was not there. Out on the field, she searched frantically among the ambulances. She saw no one in civilian clothes. She questioned the loaders. No one remembered seeing a civilian. She ran, despite her twinging back, a little distance around the plane, then up the runway. In the gathering dusk, only figures in khaki or in blue fatigues came to meet her.
Mark Grainger had disappeared! Slipped away!
“Now I am in for it! If he’s a spy—and I’ve let him get away after I’ve illegally brought him into the country—Oh, my heavens, what have I done!”
She thought of something else. Mark was wounded. Bunce had given him only first aid. If he were a spy—and would not dare call a doctor—infection, worst danger of any wound, might set in.
He might easily be found at Mrs. Eldredge’s. He might call a local doctor. But that did not remove Cherry’s guilt. Catching a criminal does not clear an accessory to the crime.
Cherry stood still on the busy, darkening field. She pressed both hands to her throbbing temples.
“So I’m in danger of going home for a rest, am I? I only wish it were merely that! Spy or not—when the military police learn what I’ve done, I’ll be sent home, all right—dishonorably discharged!”
Frightened, but determined to face the consequences, Cherry went to General Headquarters and reported in detail to the Commanding Officer. She was warned not to talk about the situation to anyone. In the meantime, she was to go on with her duties until further notice.
CHAPTER IX
The Mystery Explained
CHERRY WAS NOW SOMETHING OF A HEROINE. THE OTHER Flight Three nurses had had their adventures, too, but none so hair-raising as Cherry’s. Upon this they agreed.
Later that week, as the six girls rested in their barracks room, Lieutenant Gray said, “Imagine coming face to face with an enemy plane! How I would have loved that!”
“You would not,” Gwen contradicted her. “Sounds thrilling to hear about, but boy, I’ll take my thrills on a roller coaster, or something nice and safe!”
“Weren’t you thrilled, Cherry?” the energetic New Englander insisted.
Cherry ruefully shook her black curls. “I was scared to a jelly. I shook like a jelly too.”
Ann poked her here and there with one finger. “You seem to have hardened into your normal consistency again.”
“She still looks as if she saw a ghost!” Elsie Wiegand declared.
“Well, she has a right to look like a jelly or a ghost or anything!” little Maggie defended her. “Cherry did one of the bravest—”
“Hear, hear!” Cherry waved a handkerchief over her head like a flag. “Good heavens, kids, can’t we talk about something else? The weather, for instance?”
“Well, you are a heroine. And,” Ann pointed out, “you brought it on yourself.”
Cherry thought, “If you only knew what else I’ve really brought down on my head!” She fully and soberly expected the military police to summ
on her any minute. Wouldn’t the girls be disappointed in their ‘heroine’ then?
Cherry’s reaction to her narrow escape in the air surprised her. She found that she was writing long letters home—thinking of home in a new, homesick way. Like all soldiers, Cherry and the other nurses constantly talked and thought of home. Yet they would not have gone home if Headquarters had told them they could. Now home seemed to Cherry more real than the nightmare she had just lived through. Her mother, Midge, their big gray house in Hilton, seemed closer and more real than the Army people and English countryside which Cherry could reach out and touch. It comforted her to talk with them by writing letters. She was careful, though, to omit any mention of her fatigue and her strained back.
Cherry reported to the hospital for her checkup. When the doctor and the attending nurse saw her bright eyes and cherry-red cheeks, they declared:
“You sick? We don’t believe it.”
“I’m out of order,” Cherry insisted. “But not much.”
After they had examined her, the doctor and nurse laughingly told her they had to apologize. “You are out of order, at that.”
“May I see my health report?” Cherry requested.
But they refused. Cherry was puzzled, and a little uneasy, about that. However, it could not be helped, and what good was worrying? So she dismissed the matter. Besides, she felt very much better now. Even her limp was wearing off.
“Too bad,” she joked to the other girls. “That limp was so picturesque!”
“We could toss you down a flight of stairs, if you’d like,” Gwen offered. “Always co-operative.”
Cherry refused with thanks.
Flight Three was having a sort of holiday. Under orders to rest, the girls’ only obligations, temporarily, were drill and calisthenics and road marches. Cherry had time now to stand out on the windy airfield with Wade Cooper and wait for their pilot friends to come roaring home. If the sound of outgoing bombers and fighters had haunted her before, they very nearly stopped her breathing now. For she herself had been through an air battle. She knew vividly what those young men went out to face, and what they would—or would never—return from. When Shep or Tiny or Bob came down wide open and screaming to “buzz” the field, nearly sweeping the ground, or joyously did roll-overs, Cherry really shared their elation now.
“Wade,” Cherry asked, “how can those pilots keep going right back into combat?”
“I did it,” he said indignantly, “until they made a nursemaid out of me!”
Cherry chuckled. “Still griping! But seriously, do you mean to say that, after the dose we had the other day, you want more of the same?”
“Sure. That’s my job. Not this namby-pamby—”
“We know, we know,” Cherry said hastily. “But haven’t you any fear? Any nerves? The other boys do. What are you made of, anyway, Wade Cooper?”
Wade grinned. “ ‘Snails and nails and puppy dogs’ tails,’ ” he quoted the old rhyme. “Why, I was mortified the other day! There I was without a gun, and some fighters had to rescue me. Rescue me—as if I were an old lady!”
Cherry looked into his lively brown eyes with real curiosity. “You mean to stand there and blithely tell me you weren’t scared when those Messerschmitts came to call?”
“Shucks, no! I wasn’t scared. I was mad. All I could think was, ‘If a bullet breaks the plexiglass nose and lets the below-zero air rush in, I’m going to be one mad pilot!’ ”
“Well, I was scared,” Cherry announced.
“Well, you’re a sissy,” Wade, joking, glanced at her sideways, then put his arm about her shoulders. “Cherry, I’ll tell you something. I’m asking for a transfer back to combat flying.”
For a moment Cherry could not speak. She hated to think of Wade going back into combat. But he looked so eager, he wanted her approval so much.
“That’s fine, Wade,” she made herself say cheerfully. “I hope you get it.”
“Spoken like a real sport! Cherry, pal, if and when I get a nice new bomber, I’m going to name it after you. Going to paint your picture on the side—black eyes, black curls, red cheeks, and all.” He squinted at her appreciatively. “Maybe I’ll have ’em paint a bunch of red cherries in your hair.”
“That’ll be great, just great,” Cherry said weakly.
Well, she had not convinced Wade that flying the ambulances was for him. Apparently it was really not for him, or he would not have had this persistent urge to return to combat flying. If that was what he really had his heart set on, then Cherry, too, wished for his transfer to come through.
They talked about it at the dance that night, which the Red Cross was giving in the recreation hall. Some black soldiers, just returned from fighting in Italy, volunteered to supply the dance music. Those soldiers were just about the hottest band Cherry had ever heard, beating it out with their whole hearts. It was the first real swing heard at this base in England, and everybody perked up. Cherry was having a wonderful time dancing with the pilots. She was in no mood to talk seriously, or talk at all, with that trumpet wailing plaintively and the drums flirting with the rippling piano.
But Wade wanted to talk. Besides, Wade kept stepping on her feet. Captain Cooper was a better pilot than dancer. Out of courtesy to him, and also out of regard for her feet, Cherry suggested they sit this number out. They perched on a table beside the band.
Wade was full of hope for transfer back to combat flying. But he was worried about one thing. He was worried about what might happen to Cherry for arranging Mark Grainger’s passage.
“Have you heard anything, Cherry?”
“No, I’m waiting—waiting pretty anxiously.”
“You still feel this man may be innocent?”
Cherry said stubbornly, “In spite of everything—yes.”
“Well, heaven help you if he isn’t innocent.”
Perhaps the music lightened her worry. Or perhaps that faith she had clung to all these months came to her rescue now. At any rate, Cherry laughed and said, “Heaven isn’t going to rescue me! This is one time when I’ll have to clear myself, by myself. Or would you care to rescue me, Captain Cooper?”
“I’d do most anything for you, and you know it. Jeepers, Cherry, if I do get transferred out of this work, I’m going to be mighty sorry to say ‘so long’ to you. Maybe we could—maybe we—uh—”
The dauntless pilot, faced with making a romantic speech, crimsoned and stuttered.
“Yes, yes, go on,” Cherry teased him.
“I—uh—That is—you and I—We’ve been good pals. So maybe—” Wade broke down altogether. “How’d you like a Coke?” he asked desperately.
Cherry, frankly laughing by this time, settled for a Coke.
Cherry did not feel lighthearted next day when she received word to go to Mrs. Eldredge’s house. Elsie had taken the message for her over the phone. Cherry cross-questioned her: who had called? what sort of voice was it? exactly what was said? where had the call been made from?
“I don’t know all that,” Elsie said rather impatiently. “It was a man’s voice, and he said would you please be at that address this evening. Gracious, Cherry, from the fuss you’re making, you’d think it was Scotland Yard calling you, or something!”
Cherry found that a pretty grim joke, under the circumstances. She immediately secured time off for that evening, from the Chief Flight Nurse, and worried herself through an endless day of debating whether she should report the mysterious phone call to Headquarters at once, or whether she should still follow her intuitive belief in Mark. Perhaps this visit tonight would disclose his innocence. By the time evening and the hour for her visit had arrived, she was badly upset. But she had made up her mind not to report it. She had a strong feeling that tonight she would learn the truth.
All the way over to the village, bouncing in an Army truck, Cherry’s anxiety mounted. What would this evening bring? Would she learn whether her faith in little Muriel’s father was or was not justified?
The sol
dier-driver let her out on blacked-out High Street, and she hurried through the darkened lanes alone. At Mrs. Eldredge’s garden gate, she paused. The icy bushes and trees looked like fantastic figures threatening her. But Muriel’s voice beyond the heavily curtained windows reassured her. Cherry went up the path and knocked on the blue door.
Mrs. Eldredge admitted her without a word, then bolted the door. A curious silence fell as Cherry entered. Here was the familiar, lovely room, with a warm fire leaping in the fireplace. Here were the India cups on the sideboard—the inviting chairs—the clock ticking—everything was the same. Then why was the atmosphere so changed?
Mark Grainger, wrapped in blankets, and with his arm in a sling, was sitting beside the fire. On a little footstool beside him, sat Muriel, adoration in her thin face. Even Lilac, at her feet, was still. Cherry looked around in dread for other people—military police, British Intelligence, or American Army officials. But there were only the four friends in this quiet room.
Mark broke the uncanny silence. “Come in, Miss Ames, and sit down. You sit down too, please, Mother Eldredge. I have a great many things to say to you both.”
Muriel whispered loudly to her father, “May I say hello to Aunt Cherry now?”
Mark whispered back loudly, with a smile. “Yes, but not too much noise. This is a confidential meeting, remember.”
Muriel leaped off her footstool and landed in Cherry’s lap. Lilac also clambered all over her.
“My father’s home! Isn’t that wonderful? Even Lilac is glad.”
“I’m glad for you, too,” Cherry said. “Are you taking good care of your father’s arm?”
“Oh, yes.” Muriel nodded gravely. “I’m a nurse, aren’t I? You know what? The doll Saint Nicholas gave me—she’s going to be a nurse, too, when she gets big enough.”
“How is your doll?”
“She’s well, thank you, except for a slight sniffle. Lilac licked off her complexion.”
They were all smiling now. Mrs. Eldredge walked over to Muriel and held out her hand. “Time for sleep, dear.”