by Helen Wells
“I’ve got to have help!”
She dropped the phone and stared appalled at the crowded huge three rooms. Beds were pushed close together, every bed was full, and now they were bringing in sitting cases. There were no more beds! Boys among the fifty old patients who should not have been on their feet were weakly pushing themselves out of their beds, giving them up to their more seriously wounded comrades. And then those beds were quickly filled, and still more wounded poured in! They were getting the overflow from Surgical! Someone would have to get extra cots from the basement and set them up.
Johnny Mae Cowan sent up Red Cross workers, the unit’s physiotherapist, the dietitian, and clerical workers. She promised that Panamanian Girl Scouts would come tomorrow. Everyone pitched in with a will. Cherry and Rita set them to finding more beds, blankets, hot water bottles, making up medical records, wheeling out the patients’ clothes, running errands. Cherry herself ran from bed to bed, picking out the most desperate cases. She remembered to smile and talk to each exhausted man, as her flying fingers examined and treated pain-racked bodies. The soldiers looked up at her with heavy eyes, and seemed to relax when she patted their shoulders.
The men were heroic. Cherry lost all track of time as she labored over one case after another. Not one of them complained, every one of them said, “I’m not so badly off … take care of my buddy first.”
Somewhere around daybreak, Lex and Dr. “Ding” Jackson and Dr. Freeman came in. Their faces were haggard and unshaven, but they all worked with Cherry and Rita until the sun stood high in the sky. Cherry herself would admit no fatigue. A terrible urgency to keep going drove her on … especially as she saw once more how completely and urgently the doctor relies on the nurse. At one moment she found Rita leaning against the wall, her hands pressed to her temples.
“No, no,” Rita brushed Cherry aside. “I’m not really tired. I’ll be all right in a minute.” And she went on.
Bunce was white with exhaustion, as he directed the other corpsmen and was in a dozen places at once. Efficient, levelheaded, almost tender with the wounded men, Bunce was wonderful this terrible night. Cherry took time to think, “He deserves a promotion, not probation!” The day nurses, Vivian and Bertha, came on at seven A.M. Johnny Mae Cowan came in to say that the night staff could go home or at least take a rest period and have some food now. But not one of them would leave the ward. For two hours more, they worked on through blinding fatigue. Suddenly exhaustion struck Cherry, and she crumpled up in the utility room.
Lex picked her up. “Go home,” he said roughly, “and sleep.” He half-led, half-carried Cherry downstairs, and put her on the hospital bus that ran to Nurses’ Quarters. “Keep an eye on this girl,” he said to the driver, and went back to his work.
Cherry voluntarily hurried back to the hospital three hours before it was time for her to go on duty. Vivian and Bertha were still on the ward, half-desperate for lack of student nurses, but trying to keep cheerful to comfort the men. “Everything all right?” Cherry said to Vivian.
“Yes.” Vivian picked up a bottle of plasma and some rubber tubing, then turned her face away. Tears stood in her eyes.
“Steady now,” Cherry whispered, and pressed Vivian’s hand. “Here, I’ll help you.”
“Thanks, pal,” Vivian whispered back. “I … I can’t … those poor boys!”
“Thank God we are nurses!” Cherry replied sturdily. “Our pity means something! Come on, let’s get to work.” And they translated their pity into practical help.
That night and even the less turbulent nights that followed tested Cherry’s idealism and her worthiness to be an Army nurse to the utmost. For all the tragic things she saw, there was no horror … she only felt, more strongly than ever before, the glory, the beauty almost, of the service she could give. That heartened her. But something else worried, almost frightened, Cherry. As the war deepened, and there were more and greater battles, more and still more nurses were going to be needed … if thousands of men were to be healed and returned to battle … if we were to win. Cherry wished she could cry out to other girls, and her voice carry beyond this crowded pitiful room, far across the Caribbean and all over the United States, how desperately nurses were needed.
Everyone was struggling through extra emergency duty. She saw Rita come in, then Bunce.
“Hóla, ¿qué tál?” Rita sang out cheerfully, but her eyes were anxious.
Cherry shook her curly head. Bunce managed to grin in the teeth of everything.
“Anyhow, you sure reformed me,” he said. “Between that crazy house and these last few nights, I guess I’ll stay reformed this time.”
“I reformed you,” Cherry replied, “by getting you put on probation! It’s I, not you, who needs reforming.”
Things gradually began to calm down. At least there were no more new admissions. Cherry and Rita got things under control in the overcrowded ward and running with as much smoothness as so few of them could achieve. The Chief Nurse had not given Cherry one single word of approbation for all her efforts during the terrible emergency, although she had publicly praised Rita. A little encouragement would have meant a great deal to Cherry as, under the strain of probation and waiting and worry, her self-confidence sank to a dangerously low ebb. Of course, Lex always had a bracing word for her. Ann and Gwen and her other friends tried to reassure her. But they could not help her solve the mystery. Now Cherry had time to worry once more about the mystery of the Indian. Something had to be done and done soon. Too much time had elapsed as it was! She wanted desperately to get Bunce cleared and into Medical Technicians’ School.
Bunce did not reform entirely, and it probably was to the benefit of the soldier patients that he did not. He came into the ward, in the third week in December, with a black eye. Grinning, he boasted how he had got it. There had been some sort of pre-Christmas fiesta, and Bunce had tactlessly won all the prizes, for marksmanship, foot racing, and boxing. As if this was not enough to enrage the local boys, all the girls had admiringly trooped after Bunce. The soldiers, weak on their pillows, were delighted with Bunce’s black eye.
Almost Christmas! Cherry had not realized it. Almost her birthday, too, on the day before Christmas. The Indian had been lying in the hospital, sick and silent, for close to a month now. And still no one knew how to cure him, nor what the danger of an epidemic was.
One afternoon several of the girls were in Nurses’ Quarters, wrapping up little Christmas gifts to put under the ward Christmas trees for their soldier patients. Bull sessions among the nurses were frequent. Today the girls sat cross-legged on their double-decker beds, before piles of candy and cigarettes and small books and red tissue paper, and discussed everything from hair styles to the latest medical discovery. Ann, as usual, was a little apart, her gifts were already wrapped and she was studying for the promotional exams. Cherry once had studied too. But in her despair, she had given it up as a doomed effort. The girls’ chatter turned to the subject of boys.
“By the way, Cherry,” redheaded Gwen said, licking a silver paper star, “your friend, Captain Endicott, has had an awful lot to say lately.”
“What is he saying?” Cherry looked up startled from the package she was tying. “And to whom?”
“Oh, he’s all over the place, making a great row, spreading unfriendly gossip about Bunce, and about you … and griping because of the fuss everyone is making over the Indian you found,”
“And that’s not all!” Vivian stood in the doorway. They all looked up. She was panting, as if she had been running. “Paul Endicott is in Colonel Wylie’s office right this minute, trying to make an appointment for next week to see the ANC officials to … to bring charges against you and Bunce and maybe Lex! He’s angry about those ships of his … and he hates you. Cherry! He’s charging inefficiency and … and … He’s going to try to get you all dishonorably discharged!” Vivian fought back tears. “Oh, Cherry, Cherry! I never want to see Paul Endicott again!” She dropped onto her bed, pulling off her hat
and crying.
Bringing charges! Against all three of them! Dishonorably discharged! Cherry jumped to her feet. What a spiteful, conniving, rotten way for Endicott to behave!
Suddenly Cherry jammed her hat over her black curls and snatched up her purse. She ran back to say to Vivian, “Oh, Vivian, don’t take it so hard.” But Vivian was crying uncontrollably. Cherry tried to soothe her. There was nothing she could say that helped. Ann came over, and motioned Cherry to leave.
Cherry ran out of Nurses’ Quarters and headed for Lex’s office. They had to solve the mystery of the Indian before Paul complicated things even more.
Fortunately Lex was in. “Ding” was in, too, but tactfully manufactured an errand, leaving them alone to talk together.
“Do you know what Endicott is doing?” Cherry demanded of Lex. She told him what Vivian had reported. His eyes grew dark with anger and worry. Cherry ripped off her hat.
“Here, sit down, Cherry. I’ve got things to tell you. I looked up those decorations on his ring. Those are Mayan historical symbols on the ring. But they apply to almost any part of the Andes mountains, whose branches range through many Central and South American countries. So what we need is an interpreter. I took some people who speak South American dialects in to see him. After a lot of trouble, we got the Indian to say a few words. But the interpreters couldn’t understand him. They thought he spoke Mayan, a separate language. Yesterday, I had some luck. I met a man here in town who keeps a bookshop. He’s quite an expert on languages. He’s coming here today to see if he can do the interpreting job and if not, he’s promised to find us an interpreter.”
“I see,” exclaimed Cherry. “The interpreter will be able to tell us whether the young man in the snapshot is his son and whether he’s stationed at the Army jungle base.”
“Bright child!” teased Lex. “Then we can arrange for the son to come here. His son can tell us exactly where the old man came from and by what route. Then we could figure out the source of infection and make our report to the authorities.”
Cherry nodded vigorously. “And the young man might even recognize the disease. He might have seen it before!”
“Right, Cherry. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that our bookman does a swell interpreting job. Then we’ll move fast.”
“Oh, Lex,” wailed Cherry, “we’ve got to before Endicott has a chance to make those charges!”
Lex put his arm around her shoulder. “And then, with luck, you and Bunce and I would be out of this mess. And I hope even Vivian will cheer up. Well, Cherry, the picture looks brighter now!”
Cherry said warmly, “Thanks, you old … old friend in need!”
Once Cherry and Lex got things moving, they did move fast. Lex phoned Cherry that night to tell her the great news. The Indian had talked a little. Yes, the young man in the snapshot was his son. He had heard that the boy was injured, and had made the long trek through the Andes Mountains to see his boy. And yes, the son was stationed, or had recently been stationed, at the Panama jungle base! Lex dispatched a letter instantly to the Army base, enclosing a copy of the snapshot and a sketch of the ring to identify the young Indian.
Cherry was in Lex’s office the following day when he received a long-distance phone call. From Lex’s end of the conversation, she gathered that the call came from the Commanding Officer of the jungle base. He had the young man there and he was granting him a leave for this emergency.
“Thank you, sir. We won’t keep your man long,” Lex promised.
The next day, a quiet young Indian arrived at the hospital. He was tall, slim, straight, with coppery skin and straight blue-black hair. He seemed almost American, with his tan sports suit and woven black and white shoes. He spoke English. He had been, since his teens, a ranch and plantation hand in Texas and sometimes in Mexico. When the war broke out, he had volunteered his special Indian knowledge of the mountains and the jungle. They asked him his name. “Eef I tell, you cannot pronounce,” he replied gravely. “Jos’ call me Joe.”
Joe, and Lex, Major Fortune, and Cherry all entered the older Indian’s sickroom. The patient was asleep. Cherry gently roused him.
The little old man looked up and saw his son. His beady black eyes blinked.
Joe said something in the strange tongue. The old man closed his eyes in assent. There was no outward sign of affection. Joe talked, questioned, waited. The old man, with an effort, replied. The son nodded, looking satisfied. Cherry gave the old man a drink of water, and Lex gave him back the original snapshot and the ring. The Indian spoke to his son, handing him the ring. Then his own nurse came in, and the visitors left.
Once outside the door, Joe relaxed. But the others remained tense until he finished telling them the facts for which Cherry had been waiting so long.
The old Indian had started from his obscure home in the jungle. He had traveled by foot for six days. Four days before he reached Panama City, he had pushed through a wild, primitive lowlands, alongside a river. Lex was following what Joe said on a pocket map. “Then the source of infection would be about here!” Joe verified the location. Most important of all, the young man had seen this disease many times before, and recognized his father’s illness as a specific form of blackwater fever.
Cherry was thrilled. The Indian would be cured now. Dr. Joe’s serum and new Diesel oil sprays could be used with sure knowledge, instead of just experimentally … the U.S. Public Health Service could notify the Indian’s native country of the place of infection … the danger of epidemic was averted … the problems were solved! And Cherry and Bunce were cleared!
Her spirits lifted for the first time in a long month. Cherry turned to Joe and said, “I don’t know how to thank you for coming!”
The young man replied, “I thank you, mees, for I get to see my father. And he thank you—” he pressed the strange and beautiful ring into her hand “—for saving hees life.”
Cherry accepted the ring with thanks and good-bys.
“I have to thank you too, Cherry,” Major Fortune said. Such relief was in his seamed face! “I’m going to see Colonel Wylie immediately!”
Lex and Cherry were left alone.
“How are you feeling, Lieutenant Ames?” he inquired politely.
“I am feeling very, very much relieved!” she replied. “In fact, Captain, now that the truth is beginning to dawn on me, I am beginning to feel wonderful!”
“Hold on, Cherry my girl. We’ve got another very important part of our job to do and it may be very unpleasant. Were you forgetting that Lieutenant Ames and Captain Upham must report their findings to their Commanding Officer, Colonel Wylie, at once?” Lex tried desperately to lend his question a light touch, but he could not keep a note of apprehension from creeping into his voice. Seeing Cherry shrink, he tossed off lightly, “Here’s a talisman for luck, Cherry. We’ll both need it.” He kissed her gently on her forehead. “Ready?” he asked. Cherry straightened up. “Ready!” she said. They hurried to Colonel Wylie’s headquarters, anxious to get the unpleasant task over.
Colonel Wylie listened to Lex’s report and refrained from making any comment during the entire report. When Lex had finished, Colonel Wylie immediately reached for a telephone and called up the Public Health Service to relay the important information on to them. These were the findings of Lieutenant Ames and Captain Upham of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, he said into the phone. There were several moments of silence in the room while Colonel Wylie listened to the voice at the other end of the wire. A very faint metallic sentence: “These two people are to be congratulated, Colonel Wylie,” came drifting into the room. “Harumph!” exclaimed Colonel Wylie as he hung up.
Colonel Wylie fixed his steely gray eyes on both Cherry and Lex. “In addition to the other charges, you now have charged against you the suppression and withholding of important clues. You may leave now. You will hear further in due time.”
Lex and Cherry, on exchanging notes after leaving Colonel Wylie’s office, both agreed he had not sounded too
gruff.
They walked back to Lex’s office. Lex had something more to tell Cherry. When the door was closed behind them, Lex asked Cherry to let him look at the Indian’s ring again. With a puzzled frown Cherry handed it to him.
“You know what that ring is? It’s a birthday present,” Lex reminded her.
“Gosh, today is my birthday! I’d entirely forgotten!”
“The day before Christmas,” Lex confirmed, “I have a birthday present for you, too, if you’ll accept it.”
Lex’s present was a ring, too. An engagement ring. An old-fashioned gold and opal ring which was a family heirloom.
Cherry gasped and admired it. Then she looked dazedly and affectionately at Lex. “You … you can’t propose to me in a hospital office! And anyhow, even though Army nurses are permitted to marry, I don’t know what to say! I don’t even know,” she wailed, “if I want to get married yet!”
Lex smiled gamely. “All right, Cherry, you think it over. I know you’ve been out of school only a few months, and I don’t want to rush you. I … I suppose I ought to make a romantic speech about love, but I’m not very good at that kind of stuff. Anyway, you already know how I feel about you.”
Cherry seized his hands and held them tight in her own. “Lex, you’re the best fellow I ever knew, or ever hope to know,” she said softly.