Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20

by Helen Wells

  “It’s like this,” Bob began. “When I finished my internship at St. Luke’s, the hospital offered me a residency. And I was about to take it when I ran into a fellow I had gone to med school with. He was with the Abercrombie Foundation, and he gave me a tremendous pitch about all the good work they are doing all over the world among underprivileged people.”

  “The Abercrombie Foundation? That’s a privately endowed organization, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Bob said. “Old Mr. Abercrombie made his millions in chemicals. And when he died, about ten years ago, he left the bulk of his estate for the establishment of a medical foundation to help people who can’t help themselves. You know, just as Carnegie left his money to establish libraries.”

  Cherry nodded. She knew about the Abercrombie Foundation, of course, but had never had occasion to come into actual contact with it.

  “Anyhow,” Bob went on, “I liked the idea of working with an outfit like that, so the upshot was that I applied for the next vacancy on their staff. And after an interview or two, I was accepted, and assigned to their Washington hospital. That was just a year ago.”

  Bob took a sip of his tea.

  “I said this was a long story, but I’m going to try to cut it as short as I can. You may not remember, but I was always sort of a nut on tropical diseases, and at the Foundation Hospital we saw plenty—mostly civilian workers coming back from duty in Asia and Africa. I began to study up on them, and finally decided to make it my specialty.

  “Now comes the reason I’m here in London. About a month ago we got an SOS from the Foundation representative in Kenya, East Africa. It appears that a fairly serious epidemic of trypanosomiasis has broken out among the Kikuyu natives in a little village”—he stopped a moment to remember—“called Ngogo, if I’m pronouncing it correctly. It’s down near the Tanganyika border.”

  Cherry recognized the medical term. “Sleeping sickness! But I thought that had been pretty well wiped out in Africa!”

  “Well,” Bob said thoughtfully, “it had. As you know, it’s caused by the bite of the tsetse fly, and in the old days it was a dread killer of cattle and humans alike. Then the British Health Service moved in and got it under control by destroying the breeding places of the tsetse. But a few years ago Kenya became an independent nation, and the British hygienic teams gradually began pulling out of the country.”

  Cherry frowned. “And left those poor people without any help at all?”

  “It’s not quite as simple as that,” Bob explained. “About nine-tenths of the whole African continent has become independent in recent years. And the Africans are a very proud people. Kenya had quite a few English-trained native doctors, but not nearly enough to take care of five or six million people—mostly pretty primitive by our standards—and scattered over nearly a quarter of a million square miles of bush and hill country. When this epidemic struck, it was a much bigger thing than the native Kenyan medical organization could handle, so the government in Nairobi asked us for help.”

  The waiter came by with a fresh pot of tea. After he had freshened their cups, Bob went on.

  “As you know,” he said, “the Abercrombie Foundation operates wherever help is needed, especially in the newly developing countries. So since I happened to be something of a specialist in tropical diseases, I got tagged for this African assignment.”

  Cherry’s eyes lighted up. “Africa! What an opportunity for a doctor—a nurse! Think of what you could do for people, and learn! I almost wish I was going with you.”

  “That’s what I was coming to,” Bob said seriously. “I brought a nurse with me from the States. But last evening, only a few hours after we had arrived, she got a cable to the effect that her mother back in Virginia had suffered a stroke. That meant she had to take the next flight home, which sort of left me in the lurch. I burned up the wires to Washington this morning; but assigning a replacement for her, going through all that organizational red tape, and getting her over here takes more time than I can afford. So I went sightseeing this afternoon to take my mind off my troubles. Then when I saw you in the Tower, it seemed as though the answer had been sent to me like a gift from Heaven.”

  Cherry’s dark eyes widened. “Me?”

  “Yes—you, Cherry. I want you to replace my nurse and come to Kenya with me. When I was at St. Luke’s, I had a chance to see how you worked, and I’d much rather have you than some nurse out of the replacement pool that I’ve never even met. Besides, it will save a lot of time.” He grinned. “Well, what do you say?”

  Cherry’s mouth hung open. “Why—why, Bob,” she said, hesitating, “you really sweep a girl off her feet.” Then she thought awhile and shook her head. “No—no, I don’t see how I can. I’m due back at Hilton, and they really need me there. The supervisor of nurses is expecting me the end of this week.”

  “See here, my girl,” Bob said earnestly. “They don’t need you half as much back in Illinois as those poor Kikuyus out in Kenya do. I can fix it up in two shakes of the Atlantic cable. I’ll wire your supervisor and tell her about the emergency. Then I’ll buzz Washington for official approval. And I’ll bet you King Henry’s two suits of armor that both O.K.’s come through in no time.”

  Cherry’s pretty head was spinning. The idea of going to such a strange, faraway place as Africa was making her heart beat fast.

  “I don’t know, Bob,” she said slowly. “You could wait for your substitute nurse from Washington, and…”

  But by the hesitant tone of her voice, young Dr. Robert Barton knew that he had won.

  “No, I can’t, Cherry,” he assured her. “You know how I work, and I know how you work.” Bob took her hand in his. “We’d make a terrific team, Cherry. And if you think it was a challenge working with junior volunteers back in America, just think how much more satisfaction you’ll get training native nurses out in Kenya.”

  “Take me back to my hotel,” Cherry said, “and I’ll think it over.”

  “That’s a deal,” Bob said, grinning. “We’ll grab a taxi and you can be thinking it over on the way. By the time we reach the hotel, you will have made up your mind to come to Africa. Then I’ll get those cables going.” His voice grew more serious. “The thing is, Cherry, we don’t have any time to waste. This Kenya business is urgent.”

  Cherry smiled, and her eyes twinkled.

  “All right, Bob,” she said. “You’re the doctor.”

  CHAPTER II

  Jet to Africa

  TWO AFTERNOONS LATER, CHERRY AND BOB BARTON SAT in the big waiting room at London Airport, looking out through the large observation window. They watched the flowing tendrils of fog that had settled down once more over the city.

  Yesterday and this morning had been hectic. First, Cherry had seen Mrs. Logan off on her return flight to the States, pleased that the writer had now recovered sufficiently to be able to travel alone. Then she had gone to the African consulate and obtained a visa for Africa. And her arm still ached a little from the shots she had taken as a precaution against tropical diseases.

  Back at her hotel, she at once cabled her family about her sudden change of plans, and followed it with a long airmail letter spelling out all the details. Next, she wrote an even longer letter to the other nurses back at the Spencer Club in New York. She was sure that Josie, Mai Lee, Bertha, and all the other girls would be absolutely green with envy at the idea of her exploring such a faraway place as Africa. She knew that when they had read the letter they would be buzzing about it among themselves for weeks. She must remember, she decided, to send them regular reports.

  While Cherry was busy with her own correspondence, Bob had gotten off his cables to the States. He had wired the supervisor of nurses at Hilton Hospital, who promptly extended Cherry’s leave of absence “in a good cause,” as she put it. Then he received a cable from the Abercrombie Foundation in Washington giving Bob carte blanche in choosing an assistant for his Kenya assignment.

  Cherry wondered about what additional clothes o
r uniforms she should buy.

  “Forget it,” Bob advised her. “We’re going back into some pretty rough country, so we’ll be wearing bush clothes practically all the time. I’m afraid there’ll be no place in Ngogo for nurses’ pretty, white uniforms. There are Arab tailors in Nairobi who can fix us up in a jiffy. Each one of them has a staff of about twenty people who measure their customers in the morning, and have all the outfits they want ready for them that same afternoon.” He smiled. “And the amazing thing is that they fit almost as well as if you’d had them made on Fifth Avenue in New York.”

  The African trip, Cherry thought to herself, was sounding more exciting every moment.

  But now, as Cherry gazed out over the fogged-in airstrip, she sighed. “Do you suppose we’re going to be held up all day?”

  “Oh, no,” Bob told her. “Some of the flights for the States may be grounded pending weather reports over the Atlantic. But the skies are pretty sure to be bright and blue over the Channel and northern France. So we ought to take off on schedule.”

  All over the big room, people were milling around, asking endless questions at the information desks, and checking their watches impatiently with the big clock on the wall. Ranged around the big clock were smaller clocks that told the time at that moment in New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Cairo, Bombay, and half a dozen other important cities throughout the world.

  Cherry found herself glancing at her own watch too. Now that she had gotten used to the idea of going to Africa, she couldn’t wait to be on her way.

  Suddenly the loudspeaker overhead began to squawk.

  “Attention, please! Attention, please!” The voice sounded like that of a mechanical man. “East African Airways Flight 14, bound for Cairo, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Capetown, now loading at Portal Five. Repeat. East African Airways…”

  Cherry jumped up. “Come on,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “That’s us. Let’s go.”

  Bob took her arm and the two made their way out of the waiting room through the bustling crowd to the loading ramp.

  “Let’s get on early,” Bob suggested, “and grab a seat up forward, where we can get a view—if there is any view to get. These jets fly too high to see much of anything, but at least you may be able to catch a glimpse of the Alps if there isn’t too much low cloud cover.”

  The big jet sat silently on the runway, shrouded in gray fog, as the two found their way to a pair of forward seats and settled into them. The tip of the long wing behind them disappeared into the mist, and all Cherry could see of the terminal building were rows of dim lights, blurred by the haze.

  “Br-r!” Cherry said, with a mock shiver. “It’s a little spooky taking off like this when you can’t see where you’re going.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bob said. “Taking off in a fog is no problem. It’s landing that can be a real problem. The fact that we’re ready to go on time means that the weather is clear over the Channel.”

  Cherry looked around at the passengers entering the plane. There was a smattering of people who were unmistakably Americans. Then two Indians, in army uniforms, with white turbans on their heads and heavy black beards, took seats directly behind them. A number of dark-skinned Africans, wearing European clothes and carrying briefcases, filed up the aisle. One African, who looked as if he might be an official of one of the new governments, wore a brightly colored robe and carried an ornate fly whisk under his arm, in much the same manner as a London businessman carries his umbrella.

  Then Cherry heard the plane’s doors being closed, and almost at once the jet engines, one by one, began their curious whine. Slowly the plane began to move forward through the fog. In an instant the dim lights of the terminal building were gone, and up ahead Cherry could see the rows of runway markers, turned by the murk from bright red to pale pink. Then the shrill engine whine grew louder as the jet gathered speed, and Cherry could feel it lift off the ground. Instantly the whine of the engines was gone, and the ship slid silently through the foggy air.

  For about ten minutes the big jetliner continued to climb. Then suddenly it shot out of the fog and into dazzling sunlight. Below her, Cherry could see the neat fields of England, ending abruptly in high white cliffs, and beyond them the sparkling waters of the English Channel.

  “See,” Bob said, “I told you we’d have good flying weather.”

  As the jet climbed higher, the outlines of the waves below grew more indistinct. They flew over the coast of France, and the villages beneath them showed up as not much more than brown spots on the green landscape. A few stray clouds passed under their wings, soon solidifying into a white carpet, thousands of feet below, that obscured all sight of the earth.

  Cherry turned from the window and looked at Bob. “Tell me about this place we’re going to,” she said.

  “I don’t know anything about Ngogo itself,” he said, “but if it’s typical of the other Kikuyu villages I’ve seen, you aren’t going to like it very much at first sight. Native Africa takes a little bit of getting used to.”

  “Then you’ve been in Africa before?” Cherry was surprised.

  “Yes,” Bob replied. “Five years ago Dad took me on a two-month hunting safari in Kenya and Tanganyika as a graduation present when I finished med school. We traveled light—just the two of us, with one hunter, three boys, a Land Rover, and a lorry—and we covered just about all the territory between the Northern Highlands and the Mountains of the Moon. And by the time we got back, we had enough trophies to cover all four walls of Dad’s den.”

  Cherry wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I like the idea,” she said, “of killing wild animals just to mount their heads or skins on a wall.”

  “In those days,” Bob explained seriously, “it was necessary to hold the animal population down to an even level so they wouldn’t overrun the native farms. The British game commissioners issued just enough hunting licenses to keep the game herds under control.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “But today it’s a different story. With most of the British control officers gone, it’s hard for the natives to understand why they shouldn’t kill all the animals in sight. They even set snares and traps. And a lot of the species are already in danger of becoming extinct. I guess it’s just one of the problems involved in teaching an essentially undeveloped people how to learn to govern themselves.”

  “But they are learning, aren’t they?” Cherry asked.

  “Yes,” Bob agreed, “they’re learning. But it’s a long, slow process. And that is the main reason why we are going to Kenya. To help them learn faster.”

  He nodded his head to indicate something behind them. “Don’t look now,” he said, “but did you see that tall fellow, dressed in a chieftain’s robe who is carrying a fly whisk?”

  “Yes,” Cherry said. “What’s it for?”

  “It’s a symbol of dignity,” Bob explained. “It’s made out of a giraffe’s tail.”

  “A what?”

  “The tip of a giraffe’s tail. Native hunters kill a giraffe, cut off the end of its tail, and leave the rest to the hyenas and buzzards.”

  Cherry shuddered. “That sounds dreadful.”

  “To our way of thinking, it is,” Bob agreed. “But the natives claim that if it’s all right for a white man to kill an animal for its head or its horns or its ivory, it’s just as all right for them to kill one for its tail.”

  Cherry forced a weak smile. “How did we get on this awful subject?”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Cherry,” Bob said softly. “But you’re going into the real Africa, the bush country. And you might as well have an idea of the problems you’re going to have to face. And as to how we got on this subject, you asked me about Ngogo.”

  “That’s better,” Cherry said, brightening. “What will it be like?”

  “Well, since I’ve never seen it, I can only tell you what it will probably look like.” Bob scratched his chin as he tried to conjure up a picture in his mind. “Ngogo will be a cluster
of mud-and-stick huts set down in a clearing in the bush. There will be no telephones—no paved roads—not much civilization at all. The huts will be thatched with coarse, heavy elephant grass, which will undoubtedly be alive with bugs and flies. That’s going to be one of our first problems in sanitation, getting rid of the insect population. And when we’ve done that, we’ll have won half the battle in curing the human population.”

  “I can’t wait to get started,” Cherry said, excitement in her voice.

  “It won’t be a Sunday-school picnic,” Bob cautioned. “In fact, it’ll be rugged. Even though the Abercrombie Foundation is loaded with money, its work is so widespread that you and I are going to have to rely pretty much on ourselves. But headquarters in Washington has promised me a couple of young engineers to help us get started.”

  Suddenly he pointed out the plane window. “Look! There are the Alps!”

  Thousands of feet beneath their wings, jutting out of a layer of white clouds, were half a dozen jagged peaks of bare stone, their tips covered with snow like the icing on a cake.

  “They’re wonderful!” Cherry breathed. “I’ve never seen anything so lovely in my life!”

  “Wait till you see Mount Kilimanjaro,” Bob told her. “It’s the most beautiful mountain on earth. It rises straight up out of an African plain that is level for hundreds of miles around. And even though it sits almost squarely on the equator, it is snowcapped all the year round just like those peaks you see down there.

  “So,” he went on, “in spite of the fact that Ngogo is apt to be pretty grim, Africa as a whole is delightful. Along with plenty of work, you’ll have a lot of fun. I’ll take you on as many side trips as we have time for—and once we get things under control, we’ll make a short safari. But we’ll be armed with cameras instead of guns.”

  The Alps had slid quickly out of sight, and the view below became once more an unbroken carpet of clouds, tinted pink by the brilliant rays of the afternoon sun. As the jet sliced silently and effortlessly through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the motionless feeling of sitting still in space became a sort of soundless lullaby.