CHAPTER TWELVE
A DREAM
Though there had been no one to bid them farewell there was plenty ofwelcome awaiting the Army Nurses on reaching Sydney. Australian RedCross workers greeted the young women when they had marched down thelong gangplanks. Cars were ready to drive them to the beautiful house,set amid lovely trees and flowers, where they were to stay temporarily.
The nurses had so long been accustomed to the motion of the ship thatthey now felt a little giddy and unsteady on their feet.
"I'll surely be glad to get my legs adjusted to earth once more," saidNancy.
"Feel as though I couldn't walk straight," Mabel complained. "Say, butisn't this a swell joint," she added, glancing around the lovely roomto which she and Nancy had been assigned. There was everything fortheir comfort. The pretty curtains and bedspreads were a joy after thebareness of their ship cabin. The bath had a real tub in which theycould compensate for weeks of indifferent bathing.
They had left late spring at home, but found approaching winter ontheir arrival in the southern hemisphere. Their heavy coats were inorder on all excursions outdoors.
"Funny, but I had the idea we'd have to go round out here half dressed,drinking ices and waving fans," said Mabel.
"Tommy prepared me for this," said Nancy a little wistfully. "He lefthome last fall and found spring when he got here. Strange, but he seemsso much closer now that I'm here."
"Gee, Nancy, wouldn't it be wonderful if he did turn up!"
"Oh, he must! He will, Mabel! Yet sometimes I think it's sort ofselfish of me to--to think he may be spared when such terrible thingshave happened to other people."
"I guess it's natural for us all to have such feelings--that thesehorrible things can't happen to us."
"I suppose we'll have to get into the thick of it before we fullyrealize how terrible it really is," said Nancy, sensing that theirfirst real tests were not far off.
That evening after dinner Lieutenant Hauser called them together andsaid, "We'll have several days here in Sydney. We don't know exactlyhow long before we'll be moved out to an evacuation hospital. You'veall earned a little vacation. Take this time to see the city and enjoyyourselves to the full. Our real work is not far in the future."
Eyes sparkled, while happy laughter and comments filled the room.
"The only restrictions," continued Lieutenant Hauser, "are to guardyour tongue and be back in your rooms by eleven at night. The Red Crossvolunteers have planned many things for you, but you're free to do asyou like. Have a good time, for you'll need pleasant memories when youget into the thick of things."
"I'm going to phone Miss Anna Darien," Nancy told Mabel at once. "MaybeI can go over to see her tomorrow."
"Oh, you mean your mother's friend who wrote you about seeing Tommy?"
"Yes. I can hardly wait to hear what she has to say about him. Don'tyou want to come with me?"
"Sure! But won't she be surprised when she hears your voice over thephone?"
"She lives somewhere on the harbor. It will all be sightseeing just thesame," explained Nancy.
"I never dreamed Sydney was such a huge place. They say it's as largeas some of our biggest American cities."
"It's surely nice to be in a foreign city where people speak English,"said Nancy.
"Does make it seem more homelike," admitted Mabel, "even if they doexpress things a little differently."
Marian Albans, a Red Cross volunteer, helped Nancy get in touch withMiss Darien in a distant section of the city. Miss Anna was asdelighted to hear Nancy's voice, as Nancy was to hear a familiar, lovedfriend, speaking in a strange land. Even slight bonds grow strongerwhen mere acquaintances meet in a strange land, and those bonds thatare already strong are drawn much closer. Nancy felt almost as happy asif she were going to see her own mother.
"I hope this phone call isn't all, my dear," said Miss Anna over thewire. "We must have time for a visit with each other."
"That's what I called for," explained Nancy. "We have several days todo just as we please. I want to come out there to see you."
"Just fine! But it's not easy to get here, my dear. You'll have to comeearly in the morning on the ferry that crosses the harbor to takeworkers from here over to the city. There isn't another ferry until itcomes to bring the workers home. Our manpower is very much rationedhere."
"Then I'll come early and stay late," Nancy said with a laugh.
When she put down the phone Marian Albans said, "I'll be glad to seeyou to the ferry. It would be rather complicated to give you directionsfor going there."
"That's awfully nice of you," said Nancy gratefully. "That will make iteasier, and you can point out the sights as we go."
When Mabel learned she would have to spend the entire day she decidedto go only to the ferry with Nancy, so she could do more sight-seeingin the city.
When they went out early next morning a stormy wind was blowing, whichMarian Albans called a "Southerly Buster."
"Feels as if it's right off the South Pole," she said as the twoAmericans and the Australian went out into the street bundled inovercoats and mufflers.
They caught a tram, as the Australians called their street cars, for along ride through the fascinating streets of the strange city. By thetime they reached the quay where Nancy was to take a ferry across theharbor a driving rain cut off their view. Wind whipped the water intowhitecaps, and the crossing promised to be rough.
"Do I have to walk very far after I leave the ferry?" Nancy asked.
"I've only been over there once myself--to a place near your friend'saddress. But you take a tram on the other side, up the bluff, and getoff at Military Road," explained Marian.
Marian was a very English-looking girl, who told them her parents hadcome out to Australia a few years before her birth. She had a fair,aristocratic face and the natural bloom in her cheeks of which so manyEnglish girls may well be proud.
"Maybe Miss Anna will come to meet me," said Nancy hopefully.
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_Nancy Was Delighted to Hear a Familiar Voice_]
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"I hope so," said Marian, "for there's a half-mile walk through thebush after you get off the tram on the other side."
"The bush?" repeated Nancy.
Marian laughed. "I believe you'd call it the woods."
They put Nancy aboard the almost empty ferry, and started back to thetram in the storm. It was some time before the ferry moved out acrossthe harbor in the pelting, chill rain. Nancy thought it was too bad tohave such a miserable day for her excursion, for the rain cut off mostof her view as the ferry finally moved slowly away from the dock.
This was the first time since she had left home that Nancy had reallybeen alone. Suddenly she felt loosened and detached from all her recentexperiences, and viewed her training as through a telescope. Though thetime had not been long since she left home, she felt as different as ifactual years had been required for her preparation.
The fact that her brother had been on this very ferry on his last visitto Sydney brought him still closer to her. He had constantly been inthe back of her mind during her trip at sea, and today she felt morestrongly than ever that he was really alive. She thought how lucky shewas to be sent into his field of operations. It seemed prophetic to herthat somehow, somewhere they were going to meet again.
The ferry staggered through the gale around a point of land and sooncame into sight of the woods on the other shore. Nancy was thrilled tofind Miss Anna waiting for her, bracing herself as the wind whipped ather raincape. Her face was damp with the mist as she caught Nancy toher and gave her a hearty kiss.
"How good to see a little bit of America!" she said. "And how stunningyou look in that uniform!"
She held Nancy off at arm's length to inspect her, regardless of therain beating down on them. And Nancy fel
t almost as happy as if shewere being welcomed by her own mother.
"We'll be wet as rats by the time we get up to the house," said MissAnna, "but it'll be cozy and warm inside."
They caught a tram promptly and were soon on the path through thedripping bush. It swung back toward the water and presently Nancycaught a glimpse of the large community building in which Miss Annamade her home with many other workers of various sorts. The house stoodon a hundred-foot bluff overlooking the water.
"What a heavenly place!" exclaimed Nancy, looking around delightedly.
"So it is," agreed Miss Anna, her small brown eyes twinkling. Theystepped inside the door and she threw back her raincape.
Nancy followed her upstairs after taking off her galoshes and drippingcap and overcoat. The home-cooked breakfast they sat down to a fewminutes later was a feast indeed to one who had eaten camp and shipfare so long. There were peaches covered with thick cream to startwith, scrambled eggs, delicious hot muffins and golden butter such asNancy had not seen in a long time.
"We have our own cows and chickens here," explained Miss Anna by way ofapology for the excellent items on which others were so closelyrationed. "I had some coffee made especially for you. Most everyone outhere, you know, drinks tea."
"And it is really good coffee," said Nancy gratefully.
Most of the other residents of the house had hurried off to catch theferry back to the city, so Nancy and her friend were not disturbedwhile at their breakfast. Nancy told of her training and her voyage,and answered numerous questions about mutual friends back home.
Finally she burst forth, "I can hardly wait to hear about Tommy--how helooked, what he said when you last saw him."
"He looked really marvelous in his uniform, but he was a littlenervous, and I'm afraid his visit here wasn't very relaxing."
"Why? What happened?"
"The very night he was here they caught some Jap subs in the harbor."
"Really! Seems I do remember hearing something about the nervy littleNips slipping into Sydney harbor."
"And we had a box seat for the whole performance," Miss Anna went on.
"You mean it was really near enough to see what happened?"
Miss Anna nodded, her alert eyes flashing. "During the night I wasawakened by the most infernal noise--sounded as though it came from thevery bowels of the earth--something you might imagine being aforerunner of a volcanic eruption. But it really came from under thewater out in the harbor, the sub's torpedoes."
"Heavens! You must have been terrified to be so close."
"That was only the beginning. Then came our big guns roaring from theforts over on St. George's Heights. The reverberations shook somepictures off my wall."
"It must have been like an earthquake," put in Nancy.
"Then for a half hour there was peace, and by that time it was almostdaylight. Then the commotion broke loose again. I got into my clothesand went out to find Tommy looking from the hall window. It was reallythe sight of a lifetime. There were four little corvettes droppingdepth bombs as they careened around the harbor in wide circles."
"Oh boy, I'll bet Tommy was excited!" Nancy exclaimed.
"He kept saying, 'Oh, Miss Anna, if I were only in my plane wouldn't mybombardier like to drop a few? We'd soon blow those subs to bits.' Butthe corvettes were doing a good job. Every time they dropped a depthcharge a huge waterspout burst high in the air--and such a terrificnoise!"
"I think I should have been yelling--worse than at a football game."
"We were too tense and frightened. But those corvettes did get thatsub."
"What happened then?"
"A huge dredge boat came out with cranes, and sat over the spot wherethe sub lay on the bottom. But it was three days before they could getit to the surface."
"And by that time Tommy was gone," said Nancy wistfully.
"He was really disappointed not to be able to wait and see it broughtto the top, but he had to go back on duty. I wrote him all about it,though. The dredge finally brought the sub up vertically, and it wastowed across to Sharpe Island."
"What an experience that must have been--seeing all that."
"She had been about sixty-five feet long, but the rear end had beenblown away. What crafty creatures those Japs are! You know the front ofthat sub looked like the mandibles of a beetle. It was equipped withcutting apparatus to tear through the harbor nettings."
"Gives me the shivers to think how close they came," said Nancy.
"They say one of the subs got caught in the nets at the harborentrance."
"How many dead Japs were there?" asked Nancy.
"Six. Their bodies were burned, according to Japanese custom, and theirashes were buried with military honors."
"They didn't deserve it!" exclaimed Nancy bitterly.
Miss Anna looked at her with an odd expression. "We must not becomebitter or intolerant, even toward our enemies," she said with gentlepersuasiveness. "We would appreciate our dead being given honorableburial, wouldn't we?"
"Oh, yes, of course!" exclaimed Nancy, thinking at once of her brother,and how she had prayed that the enemy would treat him humanely if hehad fallen into their hands. But she had seen too many pictures ofscores of people thrown into common graves to credit the enemy withever treating any as considerately as these men from the Japanese subhad been treated.
"If by treating their prisoners fairly it will make life easier foreven a few of ours in their prison camps it will be worth the effort,"said Miss Anna.
"But it makes me positively ill when I think that Tommy may have falleninto their hands," said Nancy.
"It would be better a thousand times if he were dead," Miss Anna toldher with conviction. "Tommy had nothing to fear in death, but horriblethings to endure if he's a prisoner of the Japs."
"I'm sure you're right," Nancy said. "But I simply can't believe he'sdead--I can't."
"Don't let wishful thinking keep you from facing reality, my dear.There're many things worse than death in this war."
"I'm sure of that. But Tommy isn't dead! I--I just know it!"
Suddenly Miss Anna's palm stroked Nancy's cheek caressingly. "I hopeyou're right, my dear. I must admit I, too, have a feeling that Tommyis alive somewhere and needs help."
Nancy glanced at her friend's strong, kindly face, and asked, "Whatmakes you think that way, Miss Anna?"
"I've never lost the feeling since I first learned his plane had gonedown over enemy territory. Then the other night I had such a vividdream."
"A dream?" Suddenly Nancy recalled that one of Miss Anna's lectures hadbeen on the significance and meaning of dreams. She added her ownilluminating interpretation to what the psychologists had learned onthe subject.
"I thought I was moving through the jungle, trying to locate a voicethat was calling me. Then as I went nearer I recognized it as Tommy's.He was burning with fever and I brought him water from a spring. I wasso distressed because the water didn't quench his thirst. Then I wokesuddenly with his words ringing in my ears, 'Thank you just the same,Miss Anna.' I've hoped all along that Tommy survived a forced landing.Since that dream I've felt certain that he is alive."
Tears were shining in Nancy's eyes as she said, "You really are acomfort, Miss Anna."
Her friend went to a near-by bookcase and took out a small volume ofpoetry. "Here are some verses written by Anna Bright, a friend of minewho lost her son in the last war. Instead of grieving, she used hergenius to give comfort to those who had had similar sorrows. Listen tothis:
"'Were he dead, could I weep For one who gladly bore A cross that I might sleep In peace? Could I shed tears For one who died for duty; Who laid aside his fears That I might see the beauty Of a brave soul; who went Undaunted to the fray Nor cared though he be rent In twain?'"
"That is real
ly the way most of them go," said Nancy. "Not only ourTommy, but thousands of others."
"Not only our men, but our women, too, in this war," said Miss Anna. "Ionly wish I were young enough to do more. You're a privileged girl,Nancy, to be prepared to do so much."
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Nancy Dale, Army Nurse Page 13