by Amy Stewart
“We prepared something special for you,” said Constance. “Has anyone seen Norma? She was supposed to be up here with the instructors.”
“She was in the mess hall at lunch,” Nurse Cartwright said.
Constance stood and looked around. The girls were all standing at attention, two hundred of them, in rows of twenty. They had wooden rifles at their sides, with the exception of those in the last row, who couldn’t be seen clearly by the audience. “I won’t keep them waiting,” Constance said. She handed her whistle to Mrs. Nash. “Would you do the honors?”
As Constance stepped down to take her place in front of her troops, Mrs. Nash hobbled to her feet and blew the whistle.
“Port, arms,” Constance called, and every rifle moved in unison.
“Order, arms.” It was a thrilling sight, to see their maneuvers performed with such precision. From behind her, Constance could hear Mrs. Nash applauding each successive move.
“Present, arms.”
Now it was time. The girls marched off to the sides, one row after another, and stood at attention once again. Only the last row remained. The girls in that row turned toward the woods, where the targets were arrayed.
When they were in position, Constance gave the order.
“Aim. Fire!”
It happened so fast that Maude Miner nearly fell out of her chair. General Murray was on his feet at once. Mrs. Nash merely stood, leaning on her crutch, watching Constance thoughtfully. Mothers and fathers gasped from the audience.
The first ten girls handed their rifles off to the next. Constance gave the order again.
“Aim. Fire!”
They were hitting their targets as well as any training class might be expected to do, and perhaps a little better. General Murray had forgotten his alarm and was now scrutinizing the women, and the bullet-holes in their targets, with a kind of professional curiosity.
Miss Miner jumped down from the platform and ran for Constance as the next line of women took their place. “Miss Kopp, I must ask that you put a stop to this immediately,” she said.
“You said yourself that the generals would need to form a picture in their minds of women at war before they’d consider it,” Constance said. “I’m helping General Murray to form a picture.”
Miss Miner had to shout over the next round of fire. “He’s forming a picture of disobedient women who can’t be trusted. Firearms training at these camps was most soundly rejected in Washington.”
Constance was only half listening. “Oh, there’s Norma. I should’ve known.”
Norma’s pigeon cart was rolling out from behind the barn, under the power of Hack’s automobile. Norma rode on the coachman’s bench atop the cart. They were driving straight toward the training field.
“Parade, rest,” Constance called.
The girls put down the butts of their rifles and watched Constance expectantly. When the cart came to a stop in the middle of the field, Norma hopped down and ran over.
“Have them shoot down the pigeons,” she said, a little out of breath from her exertions.
“Oh, Norma, I couldn’t,” Constance said.
“What I meant is for you to have them try. Of course they won’t hit one.”
“But what if they do?”
Norma looked stoically back at her cart. “It’s a war. There will be some losses.”
Constance had to fight a smile when she thought of Norma’s birds marching bravely off to war. “All right, if it’s what you want. Go and release them.”
Constance went over to her campers and showed them what she wanted them to do. “Come around to the side like this, and aim considerably higher,” she said. “That’s my sister in the cart, and Hack with her. I don’t want any chance of them getting hit. The birds are going to fly north, so you can aim your rifles well away from the cart and still put your fire directly in their path.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to shoot a bird,” Fern protested.
“You won’t,” Constance said. “They fly high and fast. Norma just wants you to make some noise.”
Without any more time for discussion—Miss Miner and General Murray were deep into a heated conversation by now—Constance gave the order. Norma released her birds, and the girls fired.
It made a remarkable spectacle, all those pigeons set free at once, climbing frantically higher into a clear blue sky to escape the gunfire. Constance ordered the girls to shoot again, and a third time, until the birds were so high and far away that they could hardly be seen. She felt a little wistful as she watched them settle into formation and set a path for home. They’d be back in Wyckoff tonight, snug in their roost. Having already decided that she couldn’t go back herself and sit out the war, Constance felt the first pang of a soldier’s longing for home.
There was a mighty round of applause for the pigeons. Norma waved at her admirers, and Hack drove the cart back to the barn. With the field cleared, the rest of the graduates came forward to finish their target exercises.
After everyone had their turn at the targets, five women gave a demonstration of the hand-to-hand moves they’d learned. They’d had far more than five volunteers, but Hack and Clarence protested that they couldn’t take much more of a beating. Another twenty paired up and demonstrated with each other, so that the air was full of grunts and thuds and shrieks of victory as each assailant was wrestled to the ground.
At the end—more for comic effect—one group of girls wheeled out the infirmary bed and gave a vigorous demonstration of scientific bed-making, while another group rolled bandages, and a third tapped frantically at a telegraphic machine. Even Miss Miner laughed at the speed and drama with which they performed their more feminine tasks.
Another order to march put the entire camp back into formation. Miss Miner smoothed her skirt and tried to compose herself enough to make a speech. The family members in the audience had settled down, too, after having been on their feet for the duration of the exercises.
It was unusually quiet now, after all the commotion. Even the birds that ordinarily chattered from the treetops had been shocked into silence following the gunfire. Miss Miner stood at the front of the platform and looked down at the rows of women before her.
“I have presided over a number of these graduation ceremonies,” she said, “but never one quite like this.”
That was greeted by laughter and some concerned rumblings from the parents.
“While you’ve been at camp, I’ve been in Washington, trying to make sure that the women of this country have a voice if we’re to send our boys overseas. Our only congresswoman voted against the war, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t see our duty. You girls have taken your obligations more seriously than anyone who has gone before you, and with good reason. I understand from the conversations I had at lunch that some of you intend to go to France yourselves. The rest of you will stay here and help in a hundred different ways. However, it’s entirely reasonable for each and every one of you to think that you might have to defend yourself, or to take up arms against an enemy. That’s true even if you don’t go to France. The Germans have shown us that an ocean is not such an insurmountable obstacle. We already know that we have German spies and saboteurs among us. They’ve come after our factories and our munition depots. They might yet come after us in our homes.
“There are some who would fault Miss Kopp for encouraging young ladies to behave like soldiers, but I have decided that I won’t be among them. I’ve never been prouder of this country’s daughters than I am right now. I wish you all well, and Godspeed.”
The applause was energetic and heartfelt, although Constance could still see quite a bit of whispering among the parents.
General Murray stood next. “My responsibility at a girls’ camp, ordinarily, is to stand here and thank you all for supporting our boys, and to hand you these medals for the completion of your training. This time, it’s a little different. First of all, Privates Hackbush and Piper are going to have quite a bit to explain to
their commander when this is all over. You couldn’t have done any of this without their co-operation.”
There came a ripple of protests from the graduates, who were all too eager to defend Hack and Clarence. The general waved them away, suggesting that he meant it only in jest.
“Second, I must have a word with that lady who brought the pigeons onto the field, because I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. If those birds can do that in France, they can sleep in my bunk on the way over.”
Norma very nearly turned purple with delight.
“But to each and every one of you, I say this. You’ve done something at this camp that you probably thought you never could. Some of you might’ve been afraid to try. There are men signing up for service all over the country today who don’t know if they’re equal to the task. Every one of them feels just the way you did when you started. I only wish they could all see you now, because it would give them courage.”
He paused for a moment, overcome. “We’re all going to need courage.”
With that he took his seat. Constance distributed the medals herself.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, as the tents were coming down and parents were collecting their daughters, Constance walked around the edge of the camp with Miss Miner. They strolled easily, as old friends.
“Your sister put on quite a show today,” Miss Miner said. “General Murray has been back there all afternoon going over every inch of that pigeon cart with her.”
“She’s been working on that cart for more than a year now. We’re never going to hear the end of it. She’ll be insufferable when she gets home.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’s going home,” Maude said. “General Murray wants her to leave directly for Fort Monmouth. The Army Signal Corps has a school there, and pigeons are going to be a part of it.”
“Is that right?” Constance glanced back at the barn, where Norma was engaged in an animated conversation with the general. “Then they already have a pigeon program?”
“A half-hearted one, he tells me, put into place mostly because the British have one, and we didn’t want to be outdone. I have a feeling it’s going to be an entirely different beast once Norma gets hold of it. If she’ll agree to go, that is.”
Constance was still watching Norma, who was walking around in a circle now, waving her arms, illustrating the birds’ flight patterns. “Oh, she’ll go,” she said.
“And what about your younger sister?” Maude asked.
“I’m not so sure about Fleurette,” Constance said. “She’s led us to believe that she’ll be sewing uniforms, but you know that she loves the stage. I suspect that she has plans to go around entertaining the troops, but she probably thinks she can’t tell us about that, especially after what happened with Mr. Bernstein.”
“What matters is what didn’t happen with Mr. Bernstein,” Miss Miner said. “I never did meet the girl involved. Did she apologize, and did the two of them reconcile?”
“A reconciliation was made,” Constance said carefully, having found no good reason to trouble Miss Miner about the real identity of the girl in question.
“Then I won’t ask anything more,” Miss Miner said. “But now we come to you. I promised you a position in Washington if you acquitted yourself well here.”
“I’m afraid this wasn’t at all what you expected of me,” Constance said.
“You did just fine. I’ll have a few parents complaining, but with a war on, they ought to be proud of their daughters for showing a little gumption, and I’ll put it to them like that. The trouble is, Washington is in worse disarray than I could’ve imagined. We haven’t the time nor the means to raise the Army we need. The Navy doesn’t have its ships. We have no aeroplanes to speak of. This is to say nothing of a thousand other problems, from rail lines that don’t connect to each other, to commanders who don’t speak French, to inadequate supplies and uniforms and everything else an army requires. And don’t think the French and British are making it easy for us. This is their war, and they have their own ideas about how it ought to be run.”
“Which is to say . . .” Constance put in.
“Which is to say that the idea of finding a few good positions for women is about number eight thousand, nine hundred, and forty-seven on their list of priorities. There will be Army camps all summer. I can put you as a matron in any one of them, but you’d be doing just what I was doing in Plattsburg last year—keeping the town girls away from the soldiers. I know it isn’t what you wanted. Take your choice of posts, though, and I’ll write as soon as I have more suitable work for you.”
They had just reached the stretch of fence that leaned slightly, where Constance had so often slipped between the posts and into the woods. She ran her hand along a gnarled board but didn’t say anything about it.
“I will accept your offer,” Constance said, “if I need it. But I already have an idea of the kind of work I’d like to do. I believe I’ll go along to Washington and put my application in.”
“Whatever is it?” Maude asked. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Don’t think I haven’t.”
“It isn’t a position that’s been advertised,” Constance said. From her pocket she withdrew the latest round of news clippings about Mr. Bielaski. “There’s a bureau in Washington out to catch German spies. They could use me. I’m going to go and tell them so.”
Maude smiled wearily at that. “It sounds like a life of intrigue, but it’s a lot of hanging around factories and listening in on dull conversations. Besides, what they really need are German speakers.” She stopped and stared at Constance. “Kopp. You’re not a German, are you?”
“Austrian, on my mother’s side. New Yorker by birth. All three of us grew up speaking German at home.”
“I had no idea! You told me you had some French, but—”
“But we’re supposed to pretend we don’t speak German. I’m not going to pretend anymore. I can conduct my affairs in three languages, I know my way around the law, I can outrun a man or fight him off, and I know the business end of a gun. I ought to be put to work as a spy.”
Maude couldn’t have looked more astonished at that. “There isn’t exactly an employment bureau for spies in Washington. Didn’t I just tell you that we don’t even have ships for our Navy?”
“But you have this man,” Constance said, pointing to the paper.
“Well, Mr. Bielaski is terribly busy as it is. He’s not going around knocking on doors to recruit lady spies.”
Constance said, “That’s why I intend to knock on his.”
Six Months Later
“I DON’T KNOW why you’re making such a fuss over a pork chop,” Beulah said.
Nurse Cartwright was standing behind her in the kitchen, looking over her shoulder. “I’ve just never seen you do anything but fry eggs before.”
“There’s potatoes, too, and green beans. Say, my grandmother used to like to put a little whiskey in the pan when she made chops.”
“Well, I don’t see the harm in that,” Nurse Cartwright said, reaching into the cupboard.
They made a contented pair that night around the kitchen table, with Beulah’s nursing school books pushed to one side and Nurse Cartwright’s magazines put away. The potatoes were only boiled, but there was plenty of butter and salt for them, and the green beans had baked in the oven with a little cream.
“Are you going to sew up an orange again tonight?” Nurse Cartwright asked as they ate.
“I’ll sew a dozen of them, if I have to,” Beulah said. “I don’t like to stitch a pair of trousers, much less an open wound. I might never graduate from fruit.”
“They’ll let you practice on pigs pretty soon,” the nurse said. “It’s the hardest thing to learn. You have to tell yourself it’s a piece of fabric, and go as quickly as you can.”
“I just don’t want to hurt anybody,” Beulah said.
“Oh, they’re already hurt by the time you have to stitch them up. Listen to me now. This is where girls always drop out.
Don’t you be one of them. Once you get past this, the rest won’t be so bad.”
Beulah remembered the day-old rolls she’d picked up at the bakery and brought them over. “Are you working on Saturday?”
“Only a half-day. I haven’t had a Saturday off in a month. Why?”
She felt a little embarrassed to ask after everything Nurse Cartwright had done for her, but she said, “They’re giving us units of measurement to study tomorrow. I didn’t learn my numbers any better than I learned my letters.”
“Oh, it’s the same thing,” the nurse said placidly. “You just take it slow and do one at a time. You know what happens eventually? You don’t even add the sums in your head, or divide them. You just remember them. The doctors ask for the same medicines every time. You’ll learn what they’re expecting, and it’ll all just fall into place. Don’t think too hard about it, that’s all.”
“Is that what you did when you set my nose? Didn’t think too hard about it? I can’t believe you took a hammer to me.”
Nurse Cartwright said, “It was only a little mallet. Believe me, you wanted that nose straightened back out again. Look at you now. You can hardly tell it was ever broken. It has a little bend to it, but it suits you.”
Beulah did like her nose the way it was now. It made her look a little different. Her hairstyle had changed again, too, this time into a shorter and more sensible cut that fit easily under a nurse’s cap. As time went on, she had less and less fear of ever being recognized.
“It’s funny the way they call you Nurse, even when you aren’t one and might never become one,” she said. They called her Nurse Powers at school now, and she hadn’t yet learned to answer to it.
It had taken longer than she’d expected to choose a new name for herself. For a while she held on to Roxie Collins, only because it had grown familiar, but she needed a legal name before she enrolled in nursing school. For a month they sat around the kitchen table and made lists. After tossing around the names of girls she remembered from New York, and names from popular songs of the day, and the names of birds and trees and French perfumes, Nurse Cartwright put the lists away one afternoon and told her that the right name would come to her of its own accord, when she was ready to accept it.