by Helen Wells
“But what about our patient?” Cherry asked. “I didn’t like leaving him alone with that boy while he was still anesthetized. But,” she finished, her eyes twinkling as she quoted Rule 9 word for word:
“When in doubt the ship’s nurse is always to be guided by the ship’s surgeon. She receives her orders directly from him, and must never assume any responsibility except at his direction.”
The young physician laughed. “That’s right, Miss Cherry Ames. I’m your boss. And Rick is completely trustworthy. He’s had some orderly experience in different hospitals in New York and during the war he was a corpsman with the Marines.”
“I know,” Cherry said, “but still—”
“Relax, Nurse,” Dr. Monroe interrupted, pretending to be stern. “I looked in on Bill before I came to invite you to lunch. He’s conscious and quite comfortable, reading a comic book, believe it or not. The bell beside his bunk rings in the purser’s office, as well as in yours and mine. Ziggy and Rick will take turns keeping an eye on him from now on. Except for routine checks of his temperature, pulse, and respiration, you can pretty much dismiss that patient from your mind. We’ll run into seasickness tonight as we approach Hatteras. There’s a storm brewing and if the seas are very rough you may not get much sleep. As a precaution, I’d like you to take a nap this afternoon and rest and relax as much as possible in-between times. A tired nurse is apt to be cranky, and one of the best cures for seasickness is a calm, cheerful attitude.”
Cherry nodded. “Outside of being calm and cheerful, what do I do for seasick passengers?”
For answer Dr. Monroe reached into his pocket and produced a small package bearing the label of a well-known pharmaceutical house. He dumped two tiny pieces of chewing gum on the tablecloth. “These contain mostly atropine to relieve the spasms and phenobarbital to quiet the nerves.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Let’s go and tour the ship.”
The grill where the staff was served meals was right off the main dining room on the promenade deck. Cherry stared in wonder at the tall columns and wide casement windows.
“That dome,” Dr. Monroe said, pointing to the high ceiling, “rolls back, opening to the sky. All very al fresco.”
“And glamorous,” Cherry said, awed.
They wandered aft to the little night club that opened onto the veranda above the beach deck and the pool. Cherry saw that the colorful murals on the walls were scenes of foreign places they would visit en route. An orchestra was tuning up for tea dancing on the highly polished floor.
Out on the breeze-swept veranda they looked down at the blue-tiled pool. “Tomorrow night,” Dr. Monroe said, “it’ll be good and warm. Then they’ll turn on this flood-light and the underwater lights. A lot of the passengers spend most of their time in and around the pool.”
“I don’t blame them,” Cherry sighed. “I understand it’s off bounds for us.”
“It certainly is,” Dr. Monroe told her with mock severity. “And don’t ever let me catch you out of uniform except when you’re on shore leave. The Old Man’s very strict about all the proprieties. He has an attack of apoplexy at the slightest breach of shipboard etiquette. But,” he finished with a twinkle in his long gray eyes, “I imagine your experience as an Army nurse will make it easy for you to conform.”
Cherry told him then about some of her experiences. It turned out that they had both been stationed in the Pacific at the same time, but with different units. It was fun to talk shop with another veteran as they absorbed the quiet, restful charm of the paneled library, the cool informality of the pleasant lounges, the spacious beauty of the Georgian living room. This salon, which ran forward from port to starboard, had tall French windows that led to a palm-flanked solarium.
While they were standing there, a petty officer came up to them. “Passenger calling for you, Doctor,” he said. “Mrs. Crane, Suite 141-143, B deck. Her little boy came aboard with a cold. She thinks he may be running a fever.”
“There goes my nap,” Cherry thought. Colds at this time of the year were not to be treated lightly. They were often forerunners of influenza, laryngitis, croup, and even pneumonia.
The young surgeon’s manner was so professional now that he might just as well have been wearing his white hospital coat. “No need for you to accompany me, Nurse,” he told Cherry, striding across the living room. “I’ll send for you if I need your help.”
“But I’d like to come, Doctor,” she said, trotting along beside him. “I’m pretty good with sick little boys, if I do say so myself.”
They were out in the corridor now and whatever the ship’s surgeon’s reply might have been was drowned in the loud-speaker’s blare:
“Calling Dr. Monroe … Dr. Mon—roe. Calling Dr. Monroe …”
So Cherry went along anyway. In a few minutes a small, fragile-looking woman was admitting them to the luxurious living room of Suite 141-143.
“Oh, Doctor,” she said worriedly, “I’m so glad you came right away. Timmy’s been coughing quite a lot for the past few days, but otherwise he seemed to be completely over his cold. But now he sounds so hoarse and looks so feverish.” She led them into the adjoining bedroom. “He got away from me for a few minutes after lunch. I found him out on that windy veranda above the pool.”
Cherry’s heart went out to the curly-haired little boy who was propped up against pillows in one of the twin beds. His face was flushed and his eyes were slightly glazed, indicating an above-normal temperature.
Dr. Monroe smiled down at him reassuringly before making an examination. “Hello, Timmy. I’m Dr. Monroe and this nice nurse is Miss Cherry Ames.”
Timmy’s round face puckered into a grin. “Cherry!” he hooted in a hoarse voice. “That’s not a girl’s name. A cherry is something you eat with pits in it. I swallowed a pit once,” he said proudly. “And I didn’t even have a tummy-ache. I’ve swallowed lots of orange pits,” he went on, boasting. “But Mummy doesn’t know that I swallowed a great big cherry pit once.”
Dr. Monroe laughed. “When I was a little boy I swallowed an olive seed. My mother said if I ever did it again olive branches would grow right out of my mouth.”
“Mothers are fussy, aren’t they?” Timmy said in very man-to-man aside.
The young surgeon cocked an eyebrow quizzically. “But kind of nice, too, aren’t they, Timmy?”
Timmy wriggled in mischievous glee, knowing perfectly well his mother could hear every word of the conversation. “We-ell,” he admitted with pretended reluctance, “that ’pends. It ’pends on how many chapters they read when they put you to bed. It ’pends on how many times they make you wash your hands.”
While they were talking, Dr. Monroe was opening the kit he had picked up on his way to the suite. “That reminds me,” he told Timmy. “Miss Ames and I have to wash our hands too. May we use your bathroom?”
“Sure,” Timmy said with a magnanimous wave of his pudgy little hand. It was obviously beyond him why anybody would want to wash unless ordered to by his mother.
After they had scrubbed, Dr. Monroe shook down his sterile thermometer. “How old are you, Timmy?” he asked in his quiet, friendly voice. “Eight? Nine?”
Timmy howled with laughter. “Naw. I’m six. And I’m in the second grade and I can read and write and sometimes I get the right answers in ’rithmetic.”
Mrs. Crane hovered nearer. “Stop talking, Timmy. It just makes your throat worse.”
Cherry bit her lip. She knew Dr. Monroe was encouraging Timmy to relax while he was taking the rectal temperature and she took the little boy’s pulse and respiration. Was pretty, young Mrs. Crane going to be one of those interfering mothers?
Dr. Monroe glanced at the thermometer and then handed it to Cherry. The mercury had stopped at 101°. Nothing much for a six-year-old but an indication of an infection that should be checked. Now Dr. Monroe was listening to Timmy’s heart and lungs. “Breathe deeply, Timmy,” he said. “In and out, in and out, that’s fine.”
The lit
tle boy was seized with a coughing spasm. Dr. Monroe bent his head lower, frowning in concentration. Then he turned Timmy on his stomach and began thumping his back. At last he raised his head and hung his stethoscope around his neck. He examined the child carefully from head to foot and stood up to speak to Mrs. Crane.
Cherry helped Timmy slip back into his pajamas and listened. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, Mrs. Crane, but we don’t want him to go into croup. So we’ll keep him warm and quiet, and Miss Ames will give him half an aspirin and an inhalation every four hours. She will also take his temperature at that time. It may well go up this evening, but don’t be alarmed. If it seems indicated, we’ll start him at once on sulfa.”
He turned to Cherry. “You will, of course, force fluids and keep this young man quiet.” He repacked his bag and started for the door. “Perhaps, Miss Ames, it would be advisable for you to instruct Mrs. Crane in the care of the patient. You may be needed elsewhere tonight and I do not wish his treatment interrupted.”
When he had gone, Mrs. Crane looked at Cherry with frightened eyes. “Oh, dear,” she moaned, “I’m helpless with sick people. I don’t even know how to read a thermometer. Timmy has a nurse, you see, but I didn’t think I’d need her on such a short cruise. I thought it would be fun to have Timmy all to myself.”
She sank down on the foot of the boy’s bed and Cherry saw with amazement that she was actually trembling. How could she teach this panicky little woman how to care for her child? Patiently, Cherry began with the thermometer which she would have to sterilize before returning it to the doctor’s kit. But she met with little success.
Mrs. Crane could barely read the numbers and she could not see the mercury at all. Timmy thought it was all very funny and insisted upon being shown the silver line himself. To his mother’s chagrin, he located it at once.
“It’s stopped at 101,” he chortled smugly.
Cherry shook it down to 96°. Timmy found it again without too much difficulty. Mrs. Crane tried again but without much hope. She twirled the glass instrument over and over in her slim, beringed fingers.
“It’s no use,” she said after a moment. “I’m just one of those people who can’t read thermometers.”
Cherry gave up. She hurried to the dispensary for aspirin and the inhalation equipment. Back in the bedroom she plugged in the electric vaporizer. “You fill the jar about two-thirds full of water,” she told Mrs. Crane, “to allow for bubbling over. Add a scant pinch of salt. That makes the water boil more quickly. The medication, a teaspoon of tincture of benzoin, goes in this little trap under the lid. Simple, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Crane moaned. “I didn’t take in a word you said.”
Cherry sighed inwardly but kept her face placid with her most professional smile. “Now we’ll make a tent. Have you an umbrella?”
Mrs. Crane produced one from the closet, pathetically pleased to find there was one task she could perform.
As Cherry opened the dainty white silk umbrella, Timmy let out a yell. “That’s bad luck. Close it up quickly, Cherry. Opening a ‘brella indoors is worse luck than walking under a ladder.”
“Don’t be silly, Timmy,” Mrs. Crane said. “And don’t call the nurse Cherry. Her name is Miss Ames.”
Cherry laughed. “I like to be called Cherry by nice young patients.” She added to Timmy: “The only bad luck you can get by walking under a ladder is if it happens to fall on you. That’s why it’s smart to walk around them. And as for an umbrella, you just have to be careful not to poke anybody in the eye. Here, you hold the handle and keep it steady for me.”
Timmy looked up at her round-eyed, but he had a firm grip on the curved handle. “What are you going to do to me now?” he demanded suspiciously.
“I’m going to cover you all up in a tent,” Cherry said, shaking the folds out of a clean sheet. “I’m going to drape this over your umbrella, and you’ve got to help by telling me when you’re tucked inside your tent as snug as a bug in a rug.”
Timmy giggled, no longer suspicious. “I’ll pe-tend I’m the Talking Cricket,” he said. “Like the one in Pinocchio.”
Steam, fragrant with the aroma of resin, was pouring from the spout of the vaporizer. Cherry set it on a low table beside Timmy’s head. Then she draped the sheet over the umbrella.
“All covered, Timmy? Not a tiny breath of the delicious steam must be allowed to get out of your tent.”
“All covered,” came his muffled reply.
“Don’t touch the vaporizer,” Cherry cautioned. “It’s as hot as anything. Just lie back as quietly as you can and breathe in and out, in and out.”
“Okay,” Timmy agreed, “but you’ve got to read to me. I can’t keep still less somebody reads to me.”
Cherry glanced at her wrist watch. In a few minutes it would be four o’clock, time for her to go down to sick bay and take Bill’s T.P.R. Surely she could leave the little boy alone with his mother for a few minutes.
Mrs. Crane, reading Cherry’s thoughts, picked up a bright-jacketed book. “I’ll read, Timmy,” she offered. “Miss Cherry is too busy. She has other patients, you know.”
A threatening silence from the other side of the sheet told Cherry this proposal was not being met with enthusiasm. Finally he said in a fretful voice:
“Oh, all right. But you come right back, Cherry, or I’ll punch a hole in this tent.”
Cherry, laughing, whispered to Mrs. Crane, “I won’t be gone more than a few minutes.” Timmy’s mother looked as though she were sure the vaporizer was going to explode any second and blow Timmy, tent and all, right up to the boat deck.
Then Cherry, moving silently on her rubber-soled shoes, tiptoed across the thick bedroom carpet to the door leading to the main corridor. Quietly she turned the knob and slipped out. On the other side of the door she again collided with tall, young Jan Paulding!
The slim girl shrank back and seemed to be completely at a loss for words.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Cherry gasped. But deep down inside her she couldn’t help wondering: “Why was she standing just outside Timmy’s bedroom? Because that’s what she must have been doing! But why? Eavesdropping? Ridiculous! Nothing of interest except to the parties concerned has been said for the past half-hour.”
Cherry started down the corridor thinking, “What interest could a young society subdeb possibly have in Stateroom 141?” She muttered to herself, “Keep your apron on, Ames. Just because you’ve nose-dived into some mysteries before is no reason there has to be one on a vacation cruise!”
CHAPTER V
Mr. Rough Diamond
FOR SOME REASON, CHERRY TURNED AROUND HALFWAY down the corridor. She came back to the obviously still embarrassed young girl.
“Forgive me, Jan,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. Have you a little magnet in your pocket that makes me keep on running smack into you every time we meet?”
Jan, unsmiling, backed away tautly. Her slim fingers went up to her thick, coiled braids. “I—I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered. “I b-beg your p-pardon.”
Cherry grinned. “It was as much my fault as yours. I sneaked out of that room purposely, but not for the purpose of knocking the breath out of you. I’ve a fretful little patient in there. A six-year-old boy who will very probably go into croup sometime this evening.”
“Oh?” Jan’s pale eyebrows shot up into little inverted V’s of interest. “A little boy? Sick?”
“That’s right.” Cherry started to move away again.
“How sick?” Jan’s voice was very tense. You might have thought the little boy was her own brother. “Croup? Does that mean he’ll be wakeful at night?”
“No, indeed,” Cherry said, a trifle impatiently, wishing she hadn’t mentioned Timmy at all. It had been a mild violation of professional ethics—discussing her little patient with an outsider. And now as punishment she had got herself involved in a conversation that would delay her all along the line. Here I go again, she thought ruefully: The l
ate Miss Ames! Aloud she said crisply, “Sorry to be rude, but I must run along. See you again.”
She could feel Jan’s hazel eyes following her all the way down the corridor until she turned into the narrow passageway that ended in the stairs leading down to C deck. Someone was coming up the stairs with a tray of tea and little cakes. Cherry saw that it was her unfriendly steward.
“Oh, Waidler,” she said, trying hard to sound cordial and professional at once, “I’m glad to have run into you. Would you please bring a large glass of pineapple juice and a small dish of applesauce to 141? I’ve a sick little boy in there.”
Waidler glowered at her. “Since when do I start taking orders from you? Get that stuff yourself. This is teatime. Trays. Trays. Trays. Pineapple juice and applesauce, my eye!”
He started up the steps past her. Cherry caught her lower lip between her teeth and mentally counted ten.
“I’m sorry,” she said firmly, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to insist. Just this once. I have two patients in need of attention at the same time. Dr. Monroe ordered fluids and aspirin for the little Crane boy. I need the applesauce to disguise the bitter taste of the aspirin.”
Two red spots appeared on Waidler’s prominent cheekbones. He hesitated.
Cherry said quickly: “On your next trip to B deck from the galley you can easily add my order to a tea tray. I’m sorry I seem to be a nuisance, but it won’t happen again. At my first free moment I shall give you a list of items, such as juices and fruit, which I shall wish to keep in the refrigerator in the purser’s office. I shall also want some bouillon cubes, a jar of instant coffee, a pot of jam, and some packaged Melba toast. Once my shelves are stocked I shall not need to trouble you again.”
Waidler’s heavy brows were knitted into a dark frown. “You don’t want much, do you?” he sneered. He went on up the stairs grumbling, “Make out a requisition and I’ll see what I can do. Purser’s got to sign the requisition. I ain’t going to get into trouble for any red-faced bossy little nurse.”