Cherry Ames 05 Flight Nurse (13 page)

C H E R R Y A M E S , F L I G H T N U R S E

Johnny reluctantly grinned. “You’re not so bad. Okay, it’s a bet.”

She let him win. They parted good friends, but with Johnny as stubborn as ever.

The next afternoon, over another furious game of checkers, Cherry tried another tack.

“I spent the whole morning writing letters,” she mentioned casually. “Do you write home often to your folks?”

“Naw. Never write at all.”

“Tough guy, aren’t you?”

Johnny suddenly looked his age. He bluffed, “Sure, I’m tough. How could I write my folks? If my ma knew where I was, she’d get me home faster’n—well, too fast.

Naw. I just don’t write at all.” Cherry jumped his king with her single. He was exasperated but impressed. Johnny did not enjoy losing.

She seized his little discomfiture to make her next words sink in.

“Your mother must be awfully worried about you.”

“Aw, she knows I can take care of myself.” Cherry did not press the point but chatted instead of other things. She exerted herself to win that game, and the next. Her winning weakened Johnny’s aggres-siveness a little, made him vulnerable to Cherry’s next words. She aimed them carefully.

“I’m glad I’m not your mother. I guess she’s half out of her mind with worry about you.”
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This time Johnny’s round eyes showed concern.

“Honestly? I never thought about that. I wouldn’t want to—to make her feel bad, or nuthin’. Ma’s swell.”

Cherry sharply changed her tactics. “You know, Johnny,” she said again, casually, “I admire you a lot.

As a soldier, you’re really a grown man.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“But you ought to grow up.”

“Grow up!” Johnny sat up, indignant and excited.

“Didn’t you just say I’m a good soldier?”

“Ssh! I mean, grow up in the sense that you face reality.”

“Foxholes are real enough!”

“And another reality is that a fourteen-year-old boy is illegally in the Army. If you were really a good soldier, you wouldn’t want to break the regulations.”

“Yeah.” Johnny lay back on his pillow, thoughtful.

“I’ll come around tomorrow,” Cherry said, rising from her chair. “If you feel like writing letters tomorrow, I’ll be glad to write ’em for you.”

“So long,” said Johnny shortly. Cherry left him with plenty to think about.

On her third visit, there was no checker game. Just talk—and a letter to Johnny’s mother. Cherry sat at the boy’s bedside with paper and pen.

“What’ll I say?” he demanded. “You got me into this!

Now tell me what to say.”

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“Well, tell her you’re in the Army. In a hospital, but not too badly hurt,” Cherry suggested.

“In a hospital! You think I want to
worry
Ma?” Cherry smothered a laugh. “Well, how about this?

You’re undoubtedly going to get some sort of recognition for saving those men in your company—a Purple Heart, at least. Your mother would be proud to know that.”

“I should say not! She’d think I was beat-up for sure.

Sure, it was machine-gun bullets, and I bled a little, but I’m not really hurt. And what can you do with a medal anyway?”

“Well, tell her you’ll probably be seeing her soon.” Johnny’s freckled face grew mournful. “They’re really going to send me back?”

“It looks like it.”

“And then I’ll have to go back to school. ‘Discharged for bein’ too young!’ What a reason! Me, a fightin’ man, saying, ’Yes, ma’am’ to the teacher!” Cherry nearly laughed at this schoolboy patriot, but she sympathized with him. While Johnny muttered that he was “strictly GI” and “they can’t do this to me,” Cherry wrote a very creditable letter to his mother.

Johnny finally approved it and Cherry tucked it in her pocket to mail.

Well, she had won half her point. The other half—

Johnny’s reconciliation to being mustered out—was still to be managed, somehow.

Cherry did not manage it. A General did.

The Commanding General came into the ward an afternoon later. Cherry happened to be at the bedside of the intractable Johnny. An electric thrill went through the ward. The convalescing soldiers, even those in bed, tried to come to attention.

“At ease!” the General said. He was smiling. He was dressed in the same simple windbreaker and trousers.

and trench cap as infantrymen wear, except for the stars on his shoulder. He said, “I’m glad to see you’re all improving. “I’ve been reading reports about you men.

Fine reports.”

He beckoned to the two aides behind him who were carrying typed papers and a small box.

The General stepped over to the first bed and bent down to greet the sergeant who had been on Cherry’s top tier. “Sergeant Jerry Kowolwicz, for bravery in action,” he read from his report. “Sergeant, the Army wants to award you this decoration. Fine work, sir!

Hope you’ll be up and out of here soon.” They shook hands.

“Thank you, General,” said the sergeant as the whole ward applauded.

From bed to bed went the General. Cherry tingled with excitement as he told in ringing tones what these Americans had done. She moved back into the aisle as she saw that the General was coming to Johnny’s bed!

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Johnny, sitting up, was pale with excitement. Each freckle stood out plainly and his eyes were round as a puppy’s. The General marched up to his bedside and smiled at the boy.

“Well, Private Kane, you’re a little younger than I expected—from such a record!” He read for the whole ward to hear, “Private John Kane, for extraordinary courage under fire and selfless devotion to his comrades!” The ward broke into applause for Johnny, even before the General bent to pin a medal on Johnny’s pajama top.

“Wait just a moment, sir?” Johnny remonstrated re-spectfully.

He hopped out of bed on his one good leg, and stood at attention.

“—award you the very high decoration—the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism!” The applause was deafening. The General applauded too. Cherry clapped her hands till they burned. When it had quieted down a bit, the General said,

“Tell me, son. How old are you?” There was silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

All the men were poker-faced. Cherry watched Johnny hard.

He gulped. “I’m fourteen and a half, sir,” he admitted.

“Well, I’ll be—!” The General shook the boy’s hand and he himself helped Johnny back into bed. “You little rascal!”

Johnny held out until after the General had made all the awards, and left. Then he pulled the covers up over his face. Cherry went and peeked underneath. The boy was sobbing into his pillow.

She stroked his hair. He seized her hand and held on tight.

“I—I did the right thing, though!” he choked out.

“You certainly did and it took courage. I’m awfully proud of you! Your mother will be thrilled!” He sniffed loudly. “Well, anyhow, I won’t mind so much—goin’ back to school—with a D. S. C. pinned on me! I’m satisfied to go now. You were right, at that, even if you are a girl. You—you win!” The last Cherry ever saw of Johnny, he was smiling, and waving good-bye to her from his bed.

Christmas Party

cherry’s

christmas started at six a.m. when the bugle notes of reveille echoed around the hills. She climbed out of bed eagerly. Today was not only Christmas but her birthday. Though her birthday was really December twenty-fourth, Cherry was celebrating it today. She looked out the barracks window hoping to see snow. A light powder of frost lay on the British earth and trees.

“Back home,” she thought, “in the good old U.S.A., and especially in Hilton, Illinois, I’ll bet the snow’s knee-deep—trees groaning with the weight of it!” It was going to be lonely, not being able to spend her Christmas-birthday at home, with her family. Perhaps there would be letters from home for her today.

There should be. Cherry was a little disappointed that 128

no Christmas packages had arrived as yet. Where were they?

The girls were waking up, lazing a little this holiday morning. Only Elsie and Agnes had flight orders today. They were disappointed, because all the flight nurses were giving a Christmas party for the children of the near-by villages. It was Bunce’s idea, originally.

Everybody was pitching in, though, to make the party a success.

“First, I absolutely must get my mail!” Cherry declared.

Gwen and Ann grinned at each other. “We have your mail, dear. We’ve had it hidden away for three days.”

“You wretches!”

“Oh, we know you! We know you could never hold out till your birthday to open your presents!”

“Give them to me right away!” Cherry implored.

Gwen said solicitously, “Not on an empty stomach?” Cherry shrieked. “Yes, before breakfast! Come on now—hand them over!”

Flight Three was enjoying the joke hugely. Ann and Gwen dug Cherry’s packages out of their foot lockers.

The whole flight looked on appreciatively as Cherry unwrapped her birthday-Christmas gifts. There was food from Cherry’s mother—which by unspoken Army agreement was community property—a tiny camera and some precious rolls of film from Cherry’s father.

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Midge sent impractical, lace-edged, crepe underthings, but Cherry was glad to see “something civilized” again.

Dr. Joe sent a book; he always sent that. For the first time in Cherry’s life, there was no present from her twin brother, Charlie, though she had sent him one, months before. She was disappointed but realized the Army Air Forces must be sending Charlie to places where there were no knickknacks to buy. There was no present from Lex, either, though Cherry really did not expect one.

“A very respectable haul,” Gwen declared loyally.

“My vote goes for the pretties Midge sent.”

“There isn’t much you can give someone in service,” Ann said. “However, Gwen and I did find you these.”

“These” were a beautifully tooled leather writing case, and a quaint old silver powder box. Cherry was really pleased with these typically English souvenirs.

She had presents for her two old friends, too. “Don’t know how you’ll ever get these home, but here they are.” It was Cherry’s turn to dig puppy-fashion in her foot locker. She handed Ann a blue Wedgwood teapot,

“to match your eyes, Annie.” And for Gwen she had a pair of tawny tortoise-shell combs.

So everyone was completely happy.

“Mail for you, too, Cherry,” Gwen confessed. She took a handful of letters from her seemingly bottomless foot locker.

The girls began to troop out to breakfast. “Coming, Cherry?”

“What, with all these letters to feast on!”

“I’ll bring you some coffee,” Ann promised, patting Cherry’s black curls. “Happy birthday!” Cherry curled up on her bed, in the deserted barracks room. Six letters to read and enjoy—from her mother, her dad, Charlie, Dr. Joe, Midge Fortune, and finally Lex. Cherry stacked them in that order and eagerly started to read.

Mrs. Ames wrote a good, satisfying letter about home. It was full of little details about the house, the neighbors, and the antics of Midge who was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Ames while her father, Dr. Fortune, was in the Army Medical Corps. “I miss you, Cherry,” her mother wrote. “Frankly, I worry about you. I would be just as well satisfied if the Army Nurse Corps would send you back to the United States.”

“I wouldn’t be satisfied, Mother,” Cherry replied silently. “What an odd idea for you to think up! Never mind, I’ll write you a long, newsy letter soon.” Her father was not much of a hand at letter writing, leaving that chore to Mrs. Ames. Nevertheless, when Cherry opened his V-mail, she burst into giggles. Reproduced on the tiny page was a tiny airplane and a girl—labeled C. A.—hanging onto the tail. Her father’s drawing was so bad, and his idea of her job 132

C H E R R Y A M E S , F L I G H T N U R S E

so strange, that Cherry sat and shook with laughter.

“This bee-you-tee-ful picture from your loving Dad,” he wrote.

Charlie had sent a V-mail also, two of them in fact.

Cherry bent over his close typing.

“Congratulate me. I am,” he wrote, “a hero by mistake. I was flying down a mountain pass here in—– and came to two passes that looked exactly alike. I mean they—–. I was flying by map. Just when I was getting good and worried, I saw a field with a dozen—– so I went down in a surprise dive and set them afire. When I got back, it took my commander and me two hours of studying our maps to figure out what field I’d shot up so neatly. Seems I’d been two hundred miles north of where I had intended to be! No medals for this, either!

It’s a gyp.”

Cherry grinned. She’d have to show Wade this letter, even if it started him wishing for combat flying again. Wade and Charlie certainly would understand each other. Cherry puzzled over the blanks in her twin’s letter. It sounded as if Charlie were somewhere in the Orient, possibly Burma.

“I’d give a nickel, pal, to see you right now,” Cherry thought. No doubt her brother felt the same way on this, their mutual birthday.

Dr. Joe’s letter was all about his work, in general.

Not a word about the Mark Grainger matter except at the very end. “Mrs. Eldredge has written me that you
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came to call on her. She said she finds you ‘helpful.’ I trust you will discover nothing serious, Cherry.”

“I hope not!” Cherry thought. But at the moment Midge’s fat, bursting envelope was clamoring to be read.

“Dearest Duck (that’s an English expression), I think about you all the time up there in your
romantic
airplane. I’ll bet all your patients fall in love with you.” Cherry smiled but shook her curly head. Midge had a blissfully ignorant idea of those flights as joy rides.