by Helen Wells
“Maybe you won’t catch any,” Jim suggested. He was slowly, swayingly, walking around the grass on his new steel-and-leather leg. He used no cane or crutches, either. Hy Leader said all Jim needed was a parasol to look like a tightrope walker. “Go climb a tree,” Jim told Hy pleasantly. “I’ll be on the soft ball team before you are.”
Cherry asked, “Are you going to join the Sod Busters or the Ruptured Ten?”
“Lady,” said Ralph Pernatelli, “the Ruptured Ten is a very fine outfit. I would join them myself if I didn’t have better things to do with my healing arm.” For Ralph’s arm was now out of the cast and he had made a discovery. In Occupational Therapy, Ralph had progressed from molding clay to the finer work of molding delicate silver wire into jewelry. His healing hand produced things of such beauty that Ralph was elated. “I’d like to make this my lifework,” he had told Cherry. “I used to be an insurance salesman, but that job never seemed to have anything to do with me. But designing and making jewelry—well, I’ve found my work!”
So Cherry had taken him to the Educational Reconditioning people here at the Army hospital. They were giving Ralph professional training. Ralph was sitting here on the grass with Cherry and his ward-mates reluctantly, and only because the silversmithy was closed for the day. Cherry felt very proud of him, and proud of the progress all “her” men had made.
“Loo-tenant Ay-yums!” A lanky figure in a seersucker dress came loping toward them. It was Sal Steen, and she filched a cookie on her way. “Hi, fellows. My compliments, Nurse. Is there a mechanic in your midst? A typewriter in the main office broke down and they can’t find anyone to fix it.”
Jim looked eagerly at Cherry. “I believe I could repair it. Miss Cherry. It’s quite a long walk for my empty foot, but I see you brought my crutches just in case—”
“Certainly, go ahead, Sergeant,” Cherry said. For Jim to work with his hands was good therapy. And for him to help someone else would further strengthen his growing self-confidence. “Do you know where it is?”
“Sure, the star-shaped building.” He went off alone, quite proudly.
Sal said aside to Cherry, “What’s doing on your ward?”
“Oh, penicillin, dressings. Have some new arrivals.” Cherry said softly, “They are almost breaking my heart. Just as these boys did at the beginning.”
“I know. The best part is seeing the patients get well, the worst part is seeing the helplessness of the fellows.” Sal dipped into the cookies again and called, “Don’t let Ames boss you around too much. Well, so long, kids.”
“Well, so long, kids,” Hy Leader mimicked her, and started hopping away.
“And where are you off to?” Cherry demanded. “Gosh, if I didn’t boss you, you rascals would run off with the hospital.”
Hy explained that he was going to rehearsal. “ ’Course, Public Relations is bringing in a Broadway show but the GIs love my act.”
“Wait a minute, Iron Man, I’m not staying around here with these cripples.” Bailey Matthews vigorously wheeled his chair after Hy. He looked more like a half-back than an invalid. “I’m going over to The Goldbrick office to get a copy of our local talent magazine.”
Hy and Matty went down the path together, helping each other along. Cherry turned to George and Ralph, and grinned.
“That leaves only us. Would you mind going back to the ward now? One of the new fellows is coming down from O.R. and I promised him I’d be there when he wakes up.”
Cherry had been back on the ward only long enough to take care of the operative case, and rig up a fork-holding wand for a soldier with badly burned, bandaged hands, when Jim returned.
Cherry had never seen Jim Travers like this. He was furiously angry. He hobbled rapidly past her to his own bed and hurled his crutches on the floor.
“For heaven’s sake, Jim! That man’s ill—be quiet!”
“Sorry.” Jim reached over and turned off a radio that was softly playing. “Sorry.” But his face was still taut with rage. He bit out, “Who is that woman named Heller?”
“Miss Heller? What about her?”
“Come out here in the hall.”
Cherry finished what she was doing and followed the tense patient to the corridor. He told her a curious story.
He arrived at the typing and file room to find that all the office staff had gone home for the day. Only Miss Heller, the office supervisor, was there. She had shown him the broken typewriter. Jim sat down, looked it over, worked on it a bit, and had said:
“I can’t fix it without tools. Have you a screw driver or a pair of pliers?”
Margaret Heller had looked at him with scorn. Then she sat down and fixed the typewriter herself—using nothing but her fingers.
Jim said to Cherry, “It was quite a feat. I’ll never forget her toollike fingers! Such a mousy little woman and she repaired that typewriter better than a man—you’d never expect it from the looks of her!”
Cherry asked curiously, “If she could fix it herself all along, why did she send for a repairman?”
“Beats me. If I were as expert as she is, I wouldn’t keep it a secret.”
“Hmm. It’s funny—But what are you sizzling about, Jim? Not jealous of her?”
“No, though I certainly admit she’s good. Well, when she finished fixing the typewriter—”
Margaret Heller had smugly sat there and looked Jim over from head to foot. She realized how amazed he was at what she had just accomplished. And she had sneered at him: “I don’t see why you couldn’t fix it, anyone could, it’s simple. You at least have two hands!”
“I won’t forget her in a hurry,” Jim said between his teeth to Cherry. “Not after a remark like that!” He hit the wall with his clenched fist. “Oh, why did she have to remind me I’m a cripple!”
“Jim, stop that!” Cherry said sharply.
“I hate that Margaret Heller,” Jim muttered. “That job wasn’t simple. I’ll never forget her.”
Cherry said nothing but she, too, bitterly resented what Margaret Heller had done to her patient. Of all the ugly, demoralizing things to say! To set a wounded man back!
In the days that followed Cherry was constantly on the alert for any warning signs of a second robbery of the storeroom, in spite of the many tasks to be done that crowded her days to the full! They were pleasant tasks: helping arrange an exhibit of the decorative metalwork, woodwork, printing, sculpture, painting, model ships and planes, radios, new inventions the men had made—prying Matty out of his cast and putting him temporarily into a leather halter which he declared made him feel like a saddled horse—assisting the ex-soldiers to arrange their souvenirs of Bank of France notes, German helmets, Sicilian pottery, Japanese battle flags, cathedral pictures from Casablanca, in good order to take home.
In addition, two wonderful men—almost wizards—came to the hospital. One was a famous teacher of ballroom dancing, who swore any of the legless boys could dance. They did not believe him at first. But he picked Jim Travers and, with some instruction and encouragement, Jim was dancing up and down the aisle of beds with Cherry, to the records the man had brought. All the men clamored for dancing lessons, then. Their visitor smiled and wrote out scholarships for all of them, at his dancing schools in or near their home cities.
The other man was smiling, stocky, and modest. He was known all over America as the finest make-up artist for Hollywood movie stars. “Now watch,” he told them. He took a handsome new arrival, easily the handsomest man in the whole hospital, and made him up as a gnome. He looked so ugly that Cherry and the others could hardly believe their eyes. “Now watch this,” said the make-up artist. He selected the Orphan, at whom no one had ever tossed an admiring glance. He combed the Orphan’s hair a different way, pasted on a slender mustache, tied a plaid muffler under his chin, and handed him a good-looking walking stick. Result: the Orphan’s limp became fascinating and the Orphan himself dashing!
“You see?” said the artist. “You can look well, every one of you. I�
�ll show you how.” And he convinced the wounded young men that it was possible to turn a liability into an asset.
Morale raisers like these cheered up Cherry, too. But the incident about Margaret Heller and Jim depressed her, and the worsening condition of Toby whom she could not get out of her mind.
Only today she had received a message from Mrs. Demarest. It was a cryptic message, in answer to a telephone inquiry Cherry had made about Toby. One of the corpsmen took it over the phone.
“Tell Miss Cherry Toby’s condition is worse, but that the doctor promises a quick improvement.”
Cherry had read that note on her ward with a hard-beating heart. Toby worse! And Dr. Orchard promising, actually, that he would show a quick improvement. This, then, was her warning moment! This said clearly that, if there were to be a second robbery, it would be soon. Now!
All that afternoon, Cherry worked on her ward with only part of her mind on her job. The rest of her thoughts were on her instant, reckless decision. She knew without thinking what she was going to do. She had no right to do it. It was properly no concern of hers. But she was going to stand watch tonight at the medical storeroom, and as many nights as necessary, during the still hours when few people were around.
There was a night watchman, of course, for the building which housed the storeroom. But he was an old man, and all alone in a large building. Cherry had heard that after the robbery, a special guard was posted at the storeroom. But there had been a subsequent whisper that the hospital authorities were relying on special locks more than on guards.
Whoever was posted there, whatever the circumstances, did not matter to Cherry. Not after this phone message from Mrs. Demarest! She would go! Alone, if necessary—for who would go with her? What could she tell anyone, anyway? She had no evidence, no proof, only suspicions. Was there anyone who shared her suspicions? She thought not.
The evening of Mrs. Demarest’s warning message, Cherry was in the village with Jim. They had come in after supper at the hospital, to search for a strip of special satiny wood to inlay a fine handkerchief box Jim was making. Cherry suspected the box was intended for herself. They found the wood in one of the shops, and since it was still light, went for a stroll. Cherry wanted Jim to have as much practice walking as possible. The leafy trees and gardens in yards invited them down residential side streets.
“Funny old Victorian houses,” Jim commented, as they slowly walked along.
“Funny old broken sidewalks,” Cherry countered. “How are you making out?”
“Perfectly all right. Say, look at that house with all the wooden curlicues around the roof. Gingerbread!”
“Look at that shabby one with all the doodads on the porch,” Cherry pointed out, and caught herself.
Margaret Heller was on that porch, standing before the closed door. Cherry preferred Jim not to see her: Heller could upset him. But Jim had seen, and stood there galvanized with hatred.
“Come on,” Cherry urged. “There’s an interesting house up farther.”
But still Jim did not move.
Margaret Heller, they saw, was fumbling in her handbag. Obviously this was her house, and just as obviously she had forgotten her key. She rang the doorbell and waited. Miss Heller rattled the doorknob. Then they saw her take a hairpin from her hair. She tinkered with the lock. In about half a minute she had the door open. She went in and disappeared.
“Jim!” Cherry whispered. “Jim! This rings a bell in my mind! She picked that lock—what was it? Wait—what?—”
Cherry bent her head and closed her eyes. Sal Steen’s voice floated back in her memory: “That lock was picked.”
Picked. The lock of the medical storeroom, from which the medicines had been stolen.
Cherry saw it all fit together now! Margaret Heller went all over the hospital quite naturally, delivering office directives, picking up reports. She could go anywhere in the hospital without question. She had keys, too—and Cherry remembered the outer door to the medical storeroom had been locked and opened by a key. That settled it!
“What’s wrong?” Jim demanded. He was looking very puzzled.
Cherry took a deep breath and decided to confide in him. Jim, after his experiences with Heller, would believe her. She would need help, for what she planned to do. Jim would willingly help her, and he could be trusted.
“Jim, you must have heard about the medicines being stolen—” She told him the entire story. “I checked and learned there is no special guard there—only the night watchman. But there are special locks! And if Heller can open locks—”
Cherry brought herself up short. She knew how serious it is, how dangerous, to accuse unjustly. She was determined to secure proof. “Jim, we have to do something! Tonight!”
As a staff nurse, and particularly as chief nurse of a ward, Cherry had the right to go to the medical storeroom. To keep watch there between ten and twelve—the likeliest hours that Heller would come—and to take a patient with her, was stretching her rights a bit. But the night watchman downstairs did not challenge her.
“This is dangerous going. Think it’s worth while?” Jim asked, as they climbed the stairs in the quiet, echoing building.
“Don’t you?”
“Yes. I surely would like to catch the thief in the act.”
It was ten o’clock. They took up posts in the darkened storeroom. The room was utterly black, the rooms leading into it were dark too. They sat on wooden chairs before the various metal compartments, within range of both the locked door and the locked compartment containing the amino acid medicines. Jim kept his hands deep in his pockets, so the glowing radium dial of his wrist watch would not gleam. They did not talk, and scarcely breathed, ears straining for every sound. After eleven o’clock, the voices on the paths and from the other buildings died down. All they heard occasionally was the watchman moving around downstairs in the lobby, now and then the ghostly snappings of beams and floor boards.
There was a faint scratching at the door. Cherry seized Jim’s arm. Nothing happened at the door. It might have been only a mouse.
The scratching started again, lasted the briefest moment. Then the faintest of clicks, recognizable as a key turning. The door softly opened, closed. A figure slid over the floor, soundless. No flashlight. Cherry and Jim literally held their breaths. The figure stopped before the amino acids compartment, within their hands’ grasp. It was so dark they could not see who it was—someone in a tightly buttoned coat, head muffled in the collar. It sickeningly struck Cherry that it might be a professional thief, and with a gun—not Heller at all!
Faint scratching started again. It stopped, started, scratched and grated softly. Then the figure’s hand went to its head and next they heard the pianissimo tap of metal on metal. A hairpin!
Cherry sprang up and switched on the lights.
Margaret Heller cowered there, the compartment door swung open, the packet of medicine in her hand.
“Watchman!” Cherry shouted. “Watchman!”
Margaret Heller broke toward the door but Jim seized her. He nearly fell down and Cherry joined the struggle. The two wooden chairs fell over.
“Let me go!” the prim woman panted. “Let me go!”
But Cherry had a strong grip on her.
“You can’t deny this!” she exclaimed. “Not with two witnesses!”
“It’s not my fault!” Margaret Heller gasped out. Her face was stark white, pinched with cowardice. “He made me do it!”
“He? Who?”
“Oh, I’m not going to protect him. Dr. Orchard—he’s the one—”
She tried suddenly to wrench away but Jim and Cherry held her.
“All right. All right.” Her face and voice were hateful. “Dr. Orchard wanted to try this medicine on the Demarest boy. He paid me to get it for him. I knew it was wrong but I—well, I like Dr. Orchard, he takes me out sometimes, we meet in the next town. I wanted him to like me—”
The watchman came running in, and Cherry was glad to see two of t
he doctors with him. One of them telephoned to the Principal Chief Nurse.
Jim had not said a word in all this time. There was no gloating or revenge in his face. He looked profoundly disgusted, and tired.
“So that,” he said clearly to Cherry, “is that. Now let’s get out of here.”
There was nothing Cherry could say, either. She felt only loathing, and was relieved to get away and into the cool, clean night air.
CHAPTER XIV
The Happiest Day
THE AFTERMATH OF CATCHING THE THIEF LEFT CHERRY with some oddly mixed reactions.
The best part of it was that, a few days later, Jim received a private citation for his part in the affair. What had taken place, that night, was not publicized around the hospital. Very few people knew there even had been a second, attempted theft. But at a quiet ceremony in the general’s office, Jim was congratulated on his courage and handed a letter from Washington, praising him and thanking him. The honor, and the exploit itself, put the crowning touch on Jim’s rebuilt confidence. Cherry was very happy about him.
Cherry too received a commendation. She was pleased, but much more concerned about Toby. Now that she had stopped Heller from supplying Dr. Orchard with the amino acid medicine, what would become of Toby? Cherry could and must do one thing.
Screwing up all her courage, Cherry went to see Colonel Brown after duty hours. The Principal Chief Nurse let her sit in the outer office long enough to get thoroughly jittery. Then she consented to receive her. The small white-haired colonel glared at Cherry as severely and impatiently as ever and said:
“Well? What is it?”
“It’s about the stolen medicine—well, in a way—it’s about Toby, the little boy Dr. Orchard was treating.”
“Toby!” the colonel almost snorted. “Lieutenant Ames, I’m concerned with military patients only. I have no time to discuss civilian cases,” she snapped, dismissing Cherry with a brusque wave of her hand.
“But, Colonel Brown, just one more moment,” Cherry begged.