Cherry Ames Boxed Set 1-4

by Helen Wells

  Long after the other girls in the Ritz Stables were asleep, and the blacked-out island was quiet, Cherry tossed restlessly on her cot. At last she fell into a fitful doze, only to waken with a start. She thought—she dreamed—she heard planes! Not guns—she was used to that—but planes!

  She staggered out of bed and tiptoed to the door. She had not dreamed that dull hum, it was real! Closer and closer the high-up drone sounded. Enemy planes? Our own? No warning siren roused the island: our own. A swarm of tiny black planes passed distinctly across the face of the moon. One by one, they plunged again into darkness, roared over the island, and were swallowed up in huge night clouds.

  Cherry stared until her eyes ached, listened until her ears echoed. But there remained only the man in the moon, winking down at her.

  CHAPTER V

  A Plane Arrives

  THE FIRST OF MARCH WAS A BURNING, GLARING DAY. Cherry was at work that morning in the Medical Headquarters tent. She was thinking nothing more urgent than that a raw, cold March wind would be welcome here in the tropics. She was completely surprised when, without warning, Major Pierce said to her from the next desk:

  “Lieutenant Ames, I nearly forgot to tell you. The Flight Surgeon arrived a couple of days ago at the air base on this island. I met him, and I think you ought to go over and meet him. Now, if it’s convenient. Tell him we’re sending him the insect spray by jeep. And find out while you’re there if there’s anything else he wants.”

  Cherry was delighted. A chance to see the new air base! She jumped up at once to go.

  Major Pierce grinned at her excitement. “Take my jeep. Get someone to take your place for an hour or so. And give the Flight Surgeon my respects. Verify the spray order, will you?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Cherry ran to the supply tent and checked that the spray was being sent. She hailed a passing corpsman and scribbled Ann a note, asking her to take over and listing the duties. Ann’s ward did not have many patients this week; the nurse assigned with Ann could handle the ward alone.

  Then Cherry jumped into Major Pierce’s jeep, and the corpsman driver started off at top speed. She remembered, as the jeep drove northwards, aiming for the tip of the island, that on the day of their arrival Captain May had described the base as only a bare beach. Her black curls whipped against her brilliant red cheeks, her khaki coveralls flapped, and Cherry’s curiosity about the base mounted.

  They bounced to a stop at the air base, and Cherry clambered out of the jeep, wondering where to find the Flight Surgeon. There were no planes in the sky. But she walked along the beach in amazement.

  Here on a wild jungle beach, partly disguised with camouflage nets and movable palm trees, there had sprung up a solid asphalt runway, a strip wide and long enough for the biggest four-engined ships to land on. There were, half-hidden, huge gasoline drums for refueling; a barracks and mess for the crews and the ground maintenance men; repair shops. Here was a miracle in a month. The Seabees and Engineers had departed long since, so Cherry knew that the Army Air Forces men themselves had built this complete base. In view of all this preparation, it certainly looked as if a big military drive from here was being planned. AAF young men were everywhere, but Cherry headed for the hut with the medical Red Cross painted on its roof.

  The Flight Surgeon turned out to be a delightful man, crisp and humorous in manner. Cherry delivered Major Pierce’s message, and in a few minutes her business here was completed. Her driver was waiting in the jeep, but Cherry could not resist having a look around before she drove back again. Her lively black eyes fell on some signalmen. She knew one of them slightly, and wandered over to their three-walled hut.

  The three signalmen, wearing their heavy helmets for protection against the tropical sun, crouched over the same kind of telephone switchboard Cherry had seen at the Infantry installation. They also worked with a small, heavy, many-dialed instrument which she supposed was a radio for communicating with planes.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant West,” she said.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Ames. Want to see something interesting? Stick around about five minutes and see a Flying Freighter come in!”

  “What kind of plane is that?” Cherry inquired.

  One of the other young men looked up from the intricate instrument panel and grinned. “A converted, civilian DC–3, only we call it a C–47 in the Army. A transport, one of those big babies that looks as long as a battleship.” Cherry’s black eyes widened. “Hey, what’s that?” the soldier hastily adjusted his headphones and listened. He scowled, and nudged the man next to him. “Bill, I can’t make this out. See if you can.”

  Bill listened, too, but shook his head. Very clearly and deliberately, he spoke landing instructions into a small microphone. Then a tiny hum sounded in their ears, grew louder. They looked up and out over the blue sea, straining their eyes. A speck came into view, disappeared momentarily, then emerged larger and lower than before, and presently became distinguishable as a great, graceful flying ship.

  Suddenly a ball of fire dropped from the ship, was swept sideways by the wind, blazed downwards to the water, and was extinguished. The three men beside Cherry shouted, and one seized her elbow.

  “A flare! That’s a signal there’s a wounded man aboard!”

  Bill snatched up the field telephone. “Flight Surgeon! Wounded man coming in, sir! We need a stretcher!” He switched connections, meanwhile asking Cherry rapidly, “Can you medics send us an ambulance? We haven’t much equipment, didn’t want to duplicate yours–—”

  At Cherry’s nod, he handed the headphones to her. She found herself talking to Major Pierce, asking for an ambulance at once. He asked no questions, but promised that one would be sent immediately.

  Bill took the headphones from Cherry. “G–2, G–2,” he signaled. “Intelligence Officer, please … Hello, this is the air base. You’d better come over here as fast you can, sir. You’ll want to make an interrogation.”

  The huge brown ship was roaring nearer and nearer. Now they could see its twin propellers lazily spinning, the skimming shadow the plane cast upon the water, the fliers’ tiny heads silhouetted against sunny plane windows and blue sky.

  “Do you think the man is badly wounded? What happened?” Cherry asked.

  One of the young men shook his head. “Don’t know what happened, but a supply plane is unarmed, you know.”

  Bill said absently, “Flight Surgeon will have the first look at him,” and ran off toward a hut. Cherry, with her professional nurse’s readiness to serve, hoped she would be allowed to help, and kept her eyes on the transport.

  Now the plane swooped down straight at them, barely clearing the treetops, roaring and throbbing for a moment over their heads. Cherry saw its lowered wheels. It flew lower and lower over the broad runway. Its wheels lightly, unerringly, touched the asphalt, as the pilot carefully set the plane down. The two men beside Cherry sighed with relief. The ship skimmed along the strip, gradually slowed, turned, and slowly taxied back to a white circle painted on the strip, then stopped, its nose facing them. Everyone on the field ran toward the plane.

  Running, Cherry happened to glance up into the cabin. Her heart gave a wild leap and she stopped in her tracks. For a moment she could not see, as tears stung her eyes. There, smiling out of a window amidships, was her brother Charlie! Oh, it was too good to be true! Out of the several young men moving inside the plane, dressed identically in sheepskin-lined leather windbreakers and khaki trousers and the jaunty soft-visored cap, Cherry picked out her twin brother! She swelled up so with happiness that she thought she would burst! Charlie saw her; he touched his cap and looked at his sister with grave, glowing blue eyes. Cherry tried to rush forward to him, to the ladder the ground crewmen were lugging to the wide plane door. But she was pushed aside in the commotion.

  Men were bringing a stretcher and a first-aid kit, and close on their heels came the Flight Surgeon. Other men followed with coffee and cups and a can of purified water. Ground crew bo
ys in grease-smudged coveralls and ball player’s caps were already swarming around the plane and climbing up on the great wings, squinting as they explored the fuselage for bullet or shell holes. Charlie had disappeared back into the cabin again with the stretcher-bearers. Cherry anxiously pushed forward a second time, when someone took a firm grip on her elbow. It was the Intelligence Officer, looking at her with piercing eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Cherry explained. Captain May said, “All right, but you had better wait over here until the ambulance arrives.

  Now the first members of the crew were climbing down, Charlie among them, and they were lifting the stretcher gently out of the plane. The wounded soldier struggled, reared back his head, then lay still again. The crewmen watched him, deep concern on their faces, saying under their breaths, “Watch his head.” “All right, now?” They lifted him tenderly to the ground. The wounded man blinked in the glaring sunshine and weakly threw one arm across his eyes. Someone who had picked up his cap put it, with a gesture of respect, on the foot of the stretcher. Charlie was looking down at the wounded man, his face working with emotion.

  Cherry, forgetting Captain May’s admonition, again tried to go forward, eager to help the injured flier, anxious to see her brother. But the Intelligence Officer put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Stand back, Lieutenant, you can’t talk to anyone yet,” he said tersely. Cherry did not understand.

  Now a woman in an Army nurse’s uniform was being helped down out of the plane. Cherry realized she must be the unit’s new anaesthetist. This woman, too, was prevented from talking to any of the other island people.

  An ambulance clanged up on the beach, crunching and rocking along on the sand, and ground to a stop near the plane. Cherry ran over to it. She spoke to the corpsman who was driving and to Captain Willard who had come along.

  “I don’t know what the man’s condition is, Captain Willard,” Cherry said, in response to the doctor’s question. “He is weak but conscious, he still has a little muscular control, he did not talk—that’s all I could observe,” she reported.

  Captain Willard nodded his gray head and clambered down. “I’ll have a look. See, Jack,” he explained to the young corpsman who followed him, “the Intelligence Officer is going to hold an interrogation. G–2 tries to find out exactly what happened, while it’s still fresh in the fliers’ minds. In that way, Intelligence gets a line on what the enemy is doing.” He added to Cherry, “You’d better come along with us, Lieutenant Ames.”

  They knelt beside the patient. As Cherry knelt, her brother patted her head.

  “Hello, Sis,” he said, his smile very broad and warm.

  “Hello, sweetie,” Cherry smiled up, pressing his hand. “Be with you in a minute.” Then she turned to the patient. Both Captain Willard and the Flight Surgeon were bent over the flier.

  Charlie squatted on his heels beside her. “Cherry, isn’t there something funny here? Look, he’s conscious but he won’t talk. Or can’t he talk?”

  Cherry watched Captain Willard quickly examine the man, especially his head. She saw no mouth wound, no overt sign of a brain wound. Only his shoulder was bleeding a little where a first-aid bandage covered it. The man was exhausted but his eyes were alert and responsive.

  “I should think,” Cherry answered Charlie slowly, “that he can talk. He—he seems sicker than you would expect from that shoulder.”

  Charlie frowned. “It’s strange that he won’t talk to any of us.”

  Suddenly Cherry felt the wounded man’s dark blue eyes staring at her. She turned, and from his expression, she knew that he had heard and understood perfectly everything they were saying. There was almost a look of reproach in those eyes. Cherry felt a pang. What was wrong with him?

  “All right,” said Captain Willard, standing up. “We’ll put him in the ambulance right away. Jack——”

  The corpsman bent for the stretcher. Charlie sprang to help him, and two other crewmen took the other two handles. Cherry saw that her brother, and the whole crew, was deeply devoted to the wounded man.

  “Captain Willard,” Cherry asked anxiously, “what’s wrong?”

  The doctor’s honest gray eyes looked back at her. “It’s hard to tell, until we have made a complete examination. For now, I’d say the man is exhausted—at the end of his rope both physically and emotionally. I’m surprised that he isn’t in shock, he may be within a few minutes. I think that for a while he should have plenty of rest and good food, to build him up. Right now he’s in no condition for an operation, if we should find that we have to operate.”

  “I see,” said Cherry. “What can I do, sir?”

  The doctor smiled at her. “We’ll just put him to bed for a while. So if you want to stay here to see your brother, Lieutenant Ames, you needn’t feel you must rush right back with the ambulance.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Cherry said gratefully. “I do want to see my brother. By the way, there’s a private room just off Ward M–2, which I fixed up last month for a patient who’s discharged now. It’s quiet, we could put this flier in there, sir.” Captain Willard nodded and turned to go.

  Cherry suddenly remembered the new nurse, who was standing around looking rather lost and extremely hot. “And will you take the new nurse back with you, Captain Willard?”

  She hurried over to the nurse, who was fanning herself vigorously. “Please forgive me for not meeting you at once,” Cherry smiled. “You’re the new nurse-anaesthetist for Spencer unit’s evacuation hospital, aren’t you? I’m Lieutenant Cherry Ames.”

  The new nurse, although her snug uniform stuck to her and her face was bright red in this tropic heat, returned Cherry’s smile with a wide grin. She was a tall, heavily built woman. She had a likable face, fine fair skin, very blue eyes. Her brown hair stuck to her neck in damp ringlets.

  “Yes, I’m the anaesthetist,” she replied pleasantly. “I’m Mrs. Bessie Flanders, from Albany. Great day! we surely had a time getting here! I never flew before. Guess they thought I’d sink the ship.” A gleam of humor lighted up her face as she made mention of her rather vast size. “Well, we got here! Tell me, Lieutenant, who’s the Chief Nurse out here?”

  “I am,” said Cherry. “And I certainly am glad you came. We need you, Lieutenant Flanders. I’ll try to make you at home in our rather rough Nurses’ Quarters.”

  “How do, boss,” Mrs. Flanders laughed. “Well, I’m all ready to take orders and get to work. Only one thing that bothers me. I hope you won’t try to put me on one of those little bitty cots. Those cots just weren’t built for Bessie Flanders!”

  “Well—” Cherry saw what Bessie meant. “We’ll all do our best to make you comfortable. Now if you’re ready, the ambulance is starting and it will take you to the hospital grounds. Lieutenant Ann Evans will help you get settled in Nurses’ Quarters.”

  As she helped Mrs. Bessie Flanders into the ambulance, Cherry had a hilarious picture of her crowding into, and probably crowding everyone else out of, the already jammed quarters. She wished that she could be at the Ritz Stables to see the astonished looks on the girls’ faces when this veritable Amazon moved in on them. “But right now the real fun—the important fun—is that brother of mine.”

  Cherry hoped that now, at last, she could turn to Charlie. But the Intelligence Officer was herding the men from the plane into a tight little knot, and waving everyone else away. Cherry went up the beach with several AAF men, and drifted away from them. She looked back at the group around the plane.

  The Intelligence Officer was talking earnestly, searching their faces, and everyone from the plane was staring at him in the deepest concentration. The airmen were talking too, consulting one another, visibly making efforts to think, to remember. Charlie held up both arms and described an arc, then a plunge. Captain May was taking notes.

  Finally the interrogation was over. Charlie promptly made a dash for his sister. Cherry ran too. They met in a joyous bear hug.

  Cherry
stepped back and took a good, long, satisfying look at her twin brother. Charlie had the same pert, lively face as Cherry’s, in a firmer masculine version. His eyes were intensely blue, with the keen gaze of focusing on far distances. His short, rumpled hair was fair, and burned even lighter by the sun. He was tall and broad-shouldered, thinner than when Cherry had last seen him, at home, in September. Secretly she thought that his young face looked a little worn. But he had his old, easy, breezy manner, with the seriousness hidden underneath.

  “You’re as brown as an Indian!” he laughed at her. “But too thin.”

  “You’re too thin yourself,” she retorted. “Seen the parents since I did?”

  “No, but they’re all right. Here’s a letter from Mother that you can read later.”

  “Where’ve you been?” Cherry demanded, stuffing the letter in the pocket of her coveralls.

  “You’re as bad as the Intelligence Officer! Well, I’ve been mostly on the banana route, from Panama. Just missed you there, pal. This trip is a five-day supply route, but we go in relays and rest at each stop. We started from outside Miami, went to South America, dropped supplies in India, dropped supplies in China, and finally drop supplies here. So if I look tired after this trip,” Charlie grinned shrewdly, “don’t scold me, Nurse. I’ll rest up.”

  Cherry linked her arm through his, and the Ames twins hung on to each other, beaming.

  “You old lug,” Cherry said affectionately.

  “The same to you! Brought you a lovely new portable X-ray for a present. Also some strychnine and quinine, Say, do you know what else we were ferrying when we were shot at today? Gasoline and ammunition. We’d have gone up like confetti if the Japs’ aim had been better.”

  Cherry looked at the huge supply transport, being unloaded now, and shivered. She looked back thankfully at her brother, and suddenly noticed the new silver bar on his shoulder.

  “Why, congratulations! I certainly am slow! You’re a first lieutenant now—we both are!”