Cherry Ames 05 Flight Nurse (2 page)

After that, Cherry had lived in Army pup tents, or handsome Army post buildings; in a white marble Castilian castle in Panama, and in rude shacks in the embattled Pacific jungle. For the last six months, awaiting reas-signment to volunteer air duty, she had been working in a station hospital in the United States. And now, for a few brief weeks, she occupied this airy little room.

Then on to—who knew where? To England, with luck!

“To wherever our wounded soldiers need me,” Cherry thought soberly. “To wherever I can keep a man from dying.”

Wherever people needed a girl with love in her heart and healing in her hands, that was where Cherry belonged. She wanted to serve, she had trained to serve.

Sympathy or vague good intentions—these were not enough for her. Only a nurse, Cherry knew, could bring so much help and comfort and hope to others, who sorely needed her. Only a nurse could experience such broad human adventure, such profound 6

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inner reward. She thought for a moment of the other girls who had trained with her at Spencer—Vivian, Bertha, Mai Lee and Josie. “Yes, they’re the finest, highest type girls, all of them,” Cherry thought. “And they’re all Army nurses!” They were now at another camp in the United States, waiting to go overseas again as ground nurses. Cherry crossed her fingers about where her MAE—Medical Air Evacuation—

Squadron of twenty-five nurses (divided into four

“flights” and a Chief Nurse) might be sent. There were two squadrons, fifty nurses, training together here at Randolph.

Cherry buttoned the final button on her coveralls.

She was all ready now for work.

She raced out to the field to find her pilot. He was standing at the plane, talking with the ground crewmen.

Cherry liked Captain Wade Cooper. This tall, laughing, sunburned young flier was fun.

“Here comes my nurse!” he hailed her. He left the mechanics, and drew Cherry under the wing. “We’re early today. Stick around and talk to me, Lieutenant Ames.”

“What’ll we talk about?” Cherry teased. She leaned against the huge plane wheel.

“We-ell. What should I say to a nurse?” He grinned candidly. “You know, this is the first time I ever was teamed up with a nurse. We pilots think flight nurses are pretty special.”

“Thank you, Captain. I’m proud to be in the Air Forces. And I’m glad to have drawn you for my superior officer.”

“Well, I’m glad too. Now can we drop the formalities?”

They laughed, and Cherry caught a gleam of deviltry in his bright brown eyes.

“When the Chief Nurse introduced us, she said you have quite a famous record. What are you famous for, Captain Cooper?” Cherry asked.

Wade Cooper made a face.

“I’m famous for doing things in a plane that no one in his right mind should do.”

“Come on now, tell me.

“Look, Cherry, I’ll send you a memo in the morning.

Read all about it—Cooper’s cutups—only five cents a copy—the twentieth part of a dollah!” But Cherry teased and coaxed. Captain Cooper had to give in with a grin. When he grinned, Cherry noted, he looked like a happy six-year-old.

It turned out that Wade Cooper, when he was in the bomber command, one day took up a bomber—which normally carries a crew of six or seven—all by himself.

Without permission, at reckless risk to his life and to the costly plane, he made a one-man attack on a Japanese base. His instruments and lights were shot out by an-tiaircraft fire, he was caught in a tropic storm, but he brought the giant plane home, anyhow, singlehanded.

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This was an heroic accomplishment, but against orders.

He had already been warned, time and again, about taking crazy chances—for fun.

“I guess I was something of a smart aleck. Jeepers, what a time I had for myself! When you fly one of those high-powered bombers, why, you’re just sitting there with a thousand horses in your lap and a feather in your tail!”

“Why did they put you, of all people, in an ambulance plane? That’s one place where you’ll have to fly safe and sane.”

“That was the general idea. They transferred me to the aerial ambulances to teach me a lesson—to
make
me fly safely.” He groaned.

“You’re not very enthusiastic about being here.”

“Might as well hitch a race horse to a grocery wagon.”

“Maybe I can make you see that flying the patients is mighty exciting work too.”

“Well, having you aboard my plane, Lieutenant Cherry, is going to make up for a lot!” Now Cherry asked a favor which she had had on her mind for some days—ever since she heard a certain pleasant piece of news. She explained to her pilot that a very fine medical technician she knew was training at Randolph Field. His name was Bunce Smith. He was not yet assigned to a team, and Cherry wondered if Captain Cooper would ask for the young technician.

“Sure thing. I’ll go right over and request to have him placed in my crew. You wait here.” In ten minutes, the flier returned with Bunce. Bunce was still a tall, lanky, gangling youngster, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Miss Cherry! Jehosophat, I’m glad to see you!”

“Bunce, this is wonderful!”

He shook her hand so long and hard he nearly pumped off her arm. Cherry looked delightedly at her former corpsman. Bunce had grown up some, though not much. His clothes no longer hung perilously on him; his uniform fit neatly and there were now sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve. However, his hands and feet were still outsize and still in his way, and his light brown hair still had a cowlick that would not lie down. His blue eyes beamed at Cherry.

“Look, I’m still wearing that Indian ring you gave me.”

“Wearing sergeant’s stripes, too, I see. Want to be on my team?”

“Do I? Wow! When do we start?” Captain Cooper grinned at both of them. “Seems you know each other from way back when.” Bunce offered solemnly, “Miss Cherry reformed me once, sir. It was a pleasure.” The flier shoved his hands in his pockets. “Ma’am, I see where you’re going to reform me, if I’m not careful.” They all laughed. Cherry asked her corpsman: 10

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“What’s been happening to you, anyway? And what’s this ribbon on your shirt? Are you a hero, Bunce?”

“Shucks, no, Miss Cherry. When I was a litter-bearer in the field, I just went out and got some beat-up fellows and they gave me this fruit salad.”

“You mean you rescued the wounded under fire.”

“Well—sort of—yes. Three or four times.” Cherry turned to Captain Cooper, who had whistled softly. “Did you hear that modest account, Captain?”

“Wait till I tell my crew about this pill roller.” Two young AAF men joined them. They all exchanged cordial hellos, and Cherry introduced her medical technician. The copilot, Wade’s assistant, was Lieutenant William Mason, a sunburned young man with the sharp eyes of a flier. Lieutenant Richard Greenberg, radioman and navigator, was a quiet, gray-eyed boy who looked efficient. His job was to transmit messages and to keep the plane on the right course.

Wade, Bill, Dick, Bunce made up Cherry’s flight team. That ended the informality. Once at work, they were Captain, Lieutenant, and Sergeant.

The plane thrilled Cherry. The muddy-colored giant had four motors and a wingspread of nearly a block on each side. This Douglas C-47, called the Skytrain and

“work horse of the air,” was a transport cargo plane.

In peace, it had carried passengers or freight; in war, the Army had converted it to carry jeeps and tanks and troops—or patients. When Cherry’s team flew to battle
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areas to pick up the wounded, they would never fly an empty plane but would haul troops or vital cargo.

With such military cargo, they would have no right to the protection of a Red Cross painted on their aircraft.

Instead, the white star of American combat forces was painted on its broad dark side.

“We’ll be a fair target for the enemy,” Cherry realized.

Up in the plane’s side, in the middle, were huge, double bay doors. Pushed up to them was a portable ramp. There was also a tractor-elevator which lifted two stretchers at a time up to the doors.

Inside, up forward in the nose, and closed off by a door, was the pilot’s cockpit and just off this, the radio compartment. In the rear compartment, through a door leading into the tail, was a space for medical supplies, and a tiny galley. They would always take along fruit juice, water and coffee in their sky kitchen.

The long body of the plane comprised the cabin. It had arching, ribbed, steel walls and a corrugated floor.

In the low roof were flat ceiling lights. It was like being inside a tunnel or in a narrow steel freight car. Yet Cherry learned fascinatedly that this long cabin could be made into a temporary hospital ward.

The walls were partitioned off, on either side, into three sections. In each section, stowed away in canvas containers on the walls, were four webbing-strap litter supports, at four different heights. These strong straps were pulled down, and a litter or stretcher was 12

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placed across them, parallel to the plane wall. The four litters went one above the other, bunk or Pull-man fashion, from the floor to the ceiling. This left an aisle down the middle of the plane. There were additional straps to keep the patients from falling out of their stretchers.

In case Cherry flew ambulatory patients, that is, patients who could walk and sit up, she would break down a section of litters and put up four bucket seats instead.

These, too, pulled down from the wall. She would always reserve one seat for herself and one for the medical technician, because on take-offs or landings, everyone must sit down and strap in. Cherry was warned never to take off her safety belt until the plane had leveled off.

Cherry’s chief pride was her nurse’s medicine chest in the rear compartment. This big seventy-two pound metal suitcase contained enough supplies for a small hospital. In addition to all the usual medicines for relief of pain, stimulants, sedatives, bandages, splints, there was also blood plasma, whole-blood units and equipment for intravenous medication.

Cherry also carried an eighteen pound medical kit.

She could zip it open and hang it on the cargo door of the plane, so that everything was within easy reach.

“Besides the standard supplies,” Cherry told Bunce,

“I’ll decide what special supplies we’ll need for particular patients on each trip. After I have a look at the
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wounded men we’re going to fly, I’ll ask you to get those supplies for me from the doctor. We’ll do that while we’re loading the patients aboard.” Cherry also had a talk with Wade Cooper. Some of the wounded would be apprehensive about flying. It would reassure them if the pilot made a little speech before the take-off.

Wade fretted. “I’m a pilot—not a nursemaid! Besides, what’ll I say?”

“Oh, just say—” Cherry assumed the deepest, gruffest voice she could “—‘Men, I’m your pilot. Don’t worry, because I’ve had plenty of flying experience. For instance, I’ve flown in—uh—in—’ ”

“In China and over the Hump,” Wade supplied casually.

“Oh! Did you really? Well, then,
I’ll
say, ‘Fellows, besides being experienced, Captain Cooper is a particularly careful flier. Isn’t that so, Captain Cooper?’” Cherry tried hard to keep a straight face.

Wade gave her an exasperated look out of the corner of his eye. “Then I’ll say, ‘I’ll try to be particularly careful.’ ” He grunted.

“Cautious. No recklessness. Responsible. Safe and sane,” Cherry persisted gleefully. “That’s Captain Cooper all over. Isn’t it, Captain?”

“A fine thing! A fine thing they’re doing to me! Me—

a bomber pilot! Telling me to be careful, be cautious, everything but stop for a cow to cross the road!” 14

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With her crew and a reluctant pilot, Cherry practiced loading and unloading perfectly healthy GI’s. She had classroom lectures, too.

A Flight Surgeon, their commanding officer at Randolph, was one of the nurses’ several instructors. Major La Rosa talked quietly but forcefully.

“Air evacuation is a modern miracle—a fusion of medicine and aviation. Now, you Army nurses already know how to care for your patients on the ground. But take a sick or wounded person up into thin air, and his condition changes. A man with a chest or abdominal wound could rapidly get worse, even die, above eight thousand feet. You may have to fly very high, to avoid bad weather or the enemy. So you must have special knowledge to treat sick and wounded at various altitudes.”

Cherry listened, fascinated, as a new world—a world of high, empty thin air—was born in her imagination.

A world of wind and empty space, one or two or three miles above the earth, so high up there was nothing at all, nothing but the sun or the moon. In that nothing-ness, a plane would be streaking along, with its precious cargo of wounded, suffering soldiers, and a nurse to keep watch over them.

“You, the flight nurse, will be in complete medical charge on the trip,” Major La Rosa said. “From the time you pick up the wounded in the combat zone, until you unload them at the base hospital, you alone are
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responsible for the lives of eighteen wounded soldiers.

Of course, you will have your medical or flight technician to assist you. With the pilot and his crew of two to fly the plane, you’ll all work together as a team. The Flight Surgeon will help you, but only when the plane is on the ground.”

So Cherry had to learn to manage everything by herself, once the flying ambulance was in the air.

Cherry already knew how to arrest hemorrhage, dress wounds, adjust splints, set fractures temporarily, administer blood plasma and give shock treatment. Now she learned how to do all these things, never easy, under the difficult and special conditions of flight. She learned that patients with head injuries must be flown at as low an altitude as possible—that chest injuries require oxygen at any altitude—that certain medicines must be adjusted to certain altitudes—and she learned when to substitute the rules with her own good sense.