Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20

by Helen Wells

  When a voice at the other end of the ether waves answered, Bob said, “Tell Mr. Gikingu that Dr. Barton will be in his office the day after tomorrow.”

  “Very well, Dr. Barton,” the voice said, and a click ended the connection. “Now,” Bob said, “I suggest that we all hit the sack. We’ve got a big job ahead of us tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER V

  Diamonds Again

  CHERRY WAS AWAKENED BY A CHORUS OF BIRDSONG JUST as the early sun was filtering in through the screening of her little room. She quickly dressed and went outdoors. Tomi, the cook, already had a breakfast fire going on the outdoor grill, and the tantalizing smell of fresh hot coffee hovered pleasantly in the crisp morning air.

  Jeff Jordan and Chuck Warner were sitting at the table with steaming mugs in their hands.

  “Morning,” Jeff said, pouring her a cup of coffee from the big pot bubbling on the grill. “The bacon and eggs are coming right up.”

  “By tomorrow,” Chuck said, “we’ll have a shower rigged for you. It won’t be fancy, but it will be the best one this side of Nairobi.”

  Cherry was digging into the big breakfast that Tomi had put before her when Dr. Bob joined the group. “Well,” he said as he reached for some coffee, “everybody’s up with the chickens!”

  “Chuck and I will have the hot water working in two or three hours,” Jeff told him.

  “Fine! Fine! Then we can start in with our patients, Cherry. Your two helpers are already making sure that the cots have proper bedding. They look like bright, efficient girls.”

  “Yes, they are,” said Cherry. “I found they have good basic, but limited, nursing training. Kavarondi learns a little more quickly than Sara. But Sara has great sympathy and humor—the patients love her already.”

  By noon Cherry and the two student nurses had all the fifty cots in the clinic made up. They set up a supply closet, a sterilizer, and stocked a first-aid chest. As Jeff had promised, the lighting and water systems were in operation. A stove for heating water and foods was being installed. Still to be completed was a treatment room, where Bob would also have equipment for minor surgery.

  Cherry went into the small lab where Bob had laid out his medicines and equipment.

  “The hardest part of this job is going to come first,” Bob explained, “because once this parasite gets into a victim’s bloodstream, it usually takes a long time to get rid of it. After we have succeeded in moving all the patients in, making them comfortable and starting their treatments, it will be pretty much routine hospital procedure from then on. So we’ll start by bringing the worst cases in first. You see to it that each one gets a good hot bath and is as comfortable as possible. Then I’ll start making blood tests and get ready to administer the initial medication.”

  It was hot, tiring work and it went on all afternoon. Jeff, Chuck, and a pair of their native workmen carried the patients into the clinic on stretchers that Tom Gikingu had provided along with the cots. Under Cherry’s supervision, Sara and Kavarondi bathed each of them in turn in a large canvas tub, dried them off thoroughly with heavy towels, and tucked them into bed. Cherry instructed the girls to sponge-bathe the cases who were in a coma. Cherry herself prepared treatment trays, and made out charts to affix beside each patient’s cot. Then, as each patient was put to bed, Bob took a sample of blood that he sealed carefully in a test tube. Kavarondi wrote each patient’s name—and a number—on a double-backed strip of white adhesive tape that she fastened around his wrist like a bracelet. Cherry put the number on each tube of blood for identification.

  When the evening shadows had lengthened and the overhead lights turned on, the drudgery was over. Thirty-one cases had been processed—twelve women, ten men, and nine children. Cherry suddenly discovered that she was so tired she could hardly stand on her feet.

  Bob smiled wearily. “Well, that’s the lot of them,” he said. “Come on and let’s have some coffee.”

  The hot, fragrant coffee put new life into Cherry. She leaned back in the camp chair and breathed a long sigh of relief.

  “I don’t see how we could have done it,” she said at last, “without Sara, Kavarondi, and the boys.”

  “It would have been a long haul if we’d been working alone, as I was afraid we would have to do in the beginning. There’s no getting around it, we’ve had all the breaks. I’m going to see that Tom Gikingu gets credit for a bang-up job of preparation when I make my first report to the Foundation.”

  “I’ll arrange a night-nursing schedule with the girls,” Cherry suggested. “We’ll each take an eight-hour tour of duty.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bob said. “But as your doctor I recommend that you let the girls be on duty tonight. You’ve had a pretty rough few days. My prescription for you is an early dinner, and early to bed. Then tomorrow you can organize all you like.”

  Cherry stretched her tired muscles. “Well, I’ve checked the urgent cases—that infected eye, and the boy with the acute stomach ache—and they’re not so urgent now. On the other cases, Doctor, there is nothing the girls can’t handle for a few hours. So I give in.”

  “Good,” Bob said. ‘’Now here are my plans for the next couple of days. After dinner I’m going to run those blood tests, then…”

  “In that case you’ll need some help.”

  Bob shook his head. “I can do it in no time. I know what I’m going to find, but I want to check just to satisfy myself before I administer any drugs. Then, tomorrow morning, you and I will give our patients their first medication. And after lunch I’ll take off for Nairobi to keep my date with Gikingu.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I had probably better refresh you about this trypanosomiasis bug. As you know, it’s a parasite that’s introduced into the body by the bite of a tsetse fly. The definite diagnosis is made by finding the parasite in the blood. That’s what I’m going to do tonight—even though it’s easy enough to recognize the symptoms. The cure is effected by intramuscular injections of Tryparsamide over a period of several weeks. But first, of course, we have to get rid of the flies. That’s one thing I’m going to arrange tomorrow.”

  “A spray plane?”

  “Right. I’ll see how fast Gikingu can arrange for one. Then we’ll do hand spraying too—disinfect every hut in this compound. I’ll also get some lime in town and have the workmen whitewash them all inside. I think I brought plenty of drugs with me, but I’ll order more sent out from Washington, just to be safe.”

  “It looks,” Cherry said, “as if you’ll have a busy day.”

  “More likely a busy two or three days,” Bob said. “Another thing I want to do is arrange for blood specimens to be sent to our labs in Washington. As the cures progress, I’m going to need a more hairline analysis than I am equipped to do in our little lab here. And that goes especially for the samples we’ll take from the people who haven’t shown any symptoms so far. I can probably arrange to have the test tubes shipped out of Nairobi, on MATS—you know, United States Military Air Transport Service planes, direct to Washington. That will be the fastest and least complicated way.”

  As they talked, Jeff Jordan strolled up to the fire.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “You’ve got a real hospital going here.”

  “We wouldn’t have had anything but a load of grief on our shoulders if it hadn’t been for what you and Chuck did before we got here,” Bob told him. “You’re the ones who deserve to take the bows.”

  Jeff shrugged. “We were just doing a job of work.”

  “Well,” Cherry said, “so were we.”

  After lunch the next day Bob climbed into his Land Rover, ready to start the long, bumpy ride to Nairobi.

  “Our patients looked O.K. this morning when we gave them their shots,” he said to Cherry who was leaning against the car with both hands on the door. “But don’t expect to see any immediate improvement. Curing this thing is a long pull. Keep an eye on temperatures, but don’t worry if you fin
d a little fever now and then. As I told you, it will come and go. Just try to make the patients as comfortable as possible.”

  “Oh, I forgot to mention,” Cherry said, “I don’t think they should have regular morning bed baths, right?”

  “No. As you doubtlessly found out yesterday for yourself, these people aren’t used to daily bathing the way Americans are. In this climate, their natural skin oils are their best protection. And it would do more harm than good to keep them washed away.”

  He stepped on the starter. “Well, take care. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  Cherry thought of something. “I wonder if you could pick up some packages of flower seeds in Nairobi.”

  “Flower seeds? What kind?”

  “Oh, just any kind. The pretty flowers that your mother used to plant in her garden at home. I have an idea.”

  “Will do,” Bob said. “Flower seeds it is.”

  And the car pulled away trailing a thin cloud of dust.

  Cherry had a busy afternoon. She organized her little nursing staff into three eight-hour shifts, so that either she, Kavarondi, or Sara would be on duty in the clinic around the clock. She arranged for Tomi to keep plenty of antelope stew cooked up, so that her patients could have three light meals a day. Jeff, in turn, arranged for three of his Kikuyu workmen to serve the food, although Cherry or one of the girls had to spoon-feed broth to the cases that were in the worst condition.

  About three, Jeff and Chuck went off with the rifle and shotgun they had borrowed from Dr. Bob, and returned to Ngogo just before sundown with two haunches of gazelle and two brace of fat sand grouse. Tomi broiled the grouse for their dinner.

  Sitting around the fire after the sun went down, Jeff turned on the radio again to get the news.

  Cherry’s ears pricked up when she heard the announcer say:

  “As a sequel to the attempted diamond smuggling of last week, authorities are investigating rumors of an illegal diamond-mining operation in Northern Rhodesia. We will have more information on this rather startling development as further news is released from Government House.”

  There it was again! Illicit diamonds! All the questions that had been buzzing through Cherry’s head a few days before began to stir around once more.

  “What,” she asked Jeff, “makes diamond mining unlawful?”

  “A lot of things,” he replied. “First, diamond mining is pretty much of a state-controlled monopoly throughout all of Africa. Not only does the government take a whopping big cut, but it regulates the amount of stones that can be sold each year. That’s to keep the market price up. Then anywhere you send them—to Europe or the States—the import duty can run up to half the value of the stones. So, you see, if you can locate a secret diamond diggings without notifying the authorities, and then smuggle your stones out of the country without paying any duty, you’ve got your fortune made overnight.”

  “And wherever there’s the smell of money,” Chuck added, “you’ll always find enough crooks who try to make it the easy way.”

  When Cherry fell asleep that night she dreamed about diamonds. Diamond rings—diamond bracelets—whole bushel baskets filled to the brim with the glistening fire-flashing stones.

  CHAPTER VI

  Kandi

  BOB RETURNED TO NGOGO ON THE SECOND EVENING after he had left.

  “Well,” he said with a tired but happy grin, “everything went fine. That Tom Gikingu is a real go-getter. It took him just one telephone call to arrange for a spray plane. It will be here tomorrow to disinfect the whole area. Then it will make two more trips before the week is out—and that ought to do the job.

  “Then I made another phone call, to the MATS commander at Eastleigh Field. A regular cargo plane comes in every day and we can ship out our samples overnight direct to Washington any time we want to. I also brought along half a dozen cases of pressurized spray bombs, and we’ll start working on the insides of the huts in the morning.”

  “Good,” Cherry said. “We’ve already begun on that. Sara and Kavarondi—bless their hearts, they’re lifesavers! They have already organized a platoon of women to sweep out all the huts. I put a scarf over my head—just like Mother and I used to do at spring-cleaning time back home—and went in to meet the women. Our two student nurses stayed with the patients, of course.”

  “Now don’t overdo it, Cherry. You’re much more valuable as a nurse than as a cleaning woman.”

  “I know, I know. But I did want to meet the women and especially I wanted to teach them how to clean correctly. After all, part of a nurse’s job is to keep things clean and sanitary and prevent the spread of infection. Besides, it was fun!”

  “Have it your own way,” Bob said. “Now let’s take a turn through the wards.”

  They went first to the men’s ward, since Kavarondi—anxious for the doctor’s visit—had not yet given the men their supper. On Sara’s ward, with fewer and milder cases at this time, women patients were just being served; Cherry checked.

  The doctor was pleased at the way Cherry had the hospital running. He stopped beside each patient, to examine him and visit with him briefly, sometimes asking Cherry a question. Bob gave an injection to one man, prescribed a medicine for a second, ordered a treatment for a third. Cherry wrote these instructions on the patients’ charts. Kavarondi was on duty, and she walked behind them, observing medical procedures and listening to every word—trying her best, Cherry thought, to learn to be a good nurse.

  “Kavarondi, you’re doing nice work,” Dr. Bob said. The girl glowed at his praise. “You might profitably read an advanced nursing textbook—if Cherry happened to bring one.”

  “I did, and my two nurses are already studying it.” Cherry patted Kavarondi’s arm. “I give them surprise quizzes—orals—and they’re very good.”

  When Bob and Cherry reached the end of the row of men’s cots, they went on to the women’s ward, at the other side of the building. Supper was over, and some of the women patients’ children had come to visit them. Bob, Cherry, and Sara—grinning with pride in her patients’ good recoveries—made the cot-to-cot tour surrounded by small children. In this ward, as he checked over Sara’s patients, Bob decided one woman would need minor surgery and he gave Cherry a few instructions for preparing the woman tomorrow. A skinny, fussy woman who had a harmless rash, and was sure she was terribly sick, was being medicated with bicarbonate tablets and allowed to stay in Sara’s care—since Dr. Bob said the woman could do with a rest overnight. Sara managed to keep a straight face about that “medication.”

  Now Bob and Cherry were through for a few hours, barring emergencies. They went down the steps on the far side of the building; these steps led to Tomi’s grill. Bob sniffed the evening breeze.

  “That smell of cooking reminds me—I’m hungry enough to eat a horse,” he said.

  What was cooking was another brace of grouse that Jeff had bagged that morning. Tomi was roasting them slowly on a spit over the coals. Jeff and Chuck were already at the table, and the four of them ate with the ravenous appetites of healthy young people.

  When Tomi had finally cleared the table and replaced the empty plates with tall glasses of iced tea, Bob said to Chuck:

  “Would you mind taking the truck into town in the morning and picking up the whitewash lime I ordered? I didn’t have room for it in the car.”

  “I was going in, anyway,” Chuck replied. “Jeff and I need some more parts for the electric system.”

  Cherry suddenly remembered. “Bob, did you get my flower seeds?”

  Bob snapped his fingers. “Oh, gosh! I forgot all about them. But Chuck can pick them up for you. And by the way, Cherry, I saw our friend Ed Smith in town. You remember him, the photographer. He said he’d be out here in a few days to start doing his story.”

  Cherry remembered Ed Smith, all right—and the disturbing impression she’d had of him. But it was too pleasant an evening to puzzle over things that Bob had laughed off as being foolish fancies.

 
Instead, she said, “Why don’t you get your guitar, Chuck, and give us some of those hillbilly songs that you did last night?”

  The next week was an exciting and hectic one for Cherry.

  Dozens of men, women, and children from nearby villages, who had heard about the new hospital in Ngogo, came in every day for treatment. They had a variety of problems—ranging all the way from broken bones to scratches and skin sores. There were also a few expectant mothers—and of course a few who complained of imaginary ailments as an excuse to see the wonderful “white magic” that the Americans were making. When this word was mentioned, Kavarondi explained that “white magic” was good magic, as opposed to “black magic,” which was bad magic. And so, almost from the first day, Cherry and Bob found that they were running a regular day clinic in addition to their primary job of fighting the sleeping-sickness epidemic.

  Cherry hoped that the government in Nairobi would keep the Ngogo hospital going permanently after the job that she and Bob had come to do was completed.

  The spray plane came over on schedule and showered Ngogo, and all the surrounding bush for miles around, with a fine rain of cloudy mist. It was an old-fashioned biplane—an amphibian that could take off and land on water as well as on an airstrip—and was painted a glaring orange color. It made four or five passes over the village, squirting the thin stream of spray from under its lower wing. The spray stung Cherry’s eyes and made her cough.

  Alarmed, she asked Bob, “Won’t this be harmful to the patients?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “A little bit of this won’t hurt a human. But it will get rid of the tsetse flies. That’s what’s important.”

  After his last pass, the pilot of the plane zoomed up, waggled his wings as if to say so long, and disappeared in the direction of Nairobi.