Cherry Ames 04 Chief Nurse (6 page)

“Something drastic, please,” Ann said. “The only thing you can say for our palatial abode is that you can’t get lonesome in here.”

For besides sixty nurses, the small shed was jammed with footlockers, framed photographs and piles of uniforms. Shelves overflowed with cold cream jars, shoes, and water buckets. Everything was draped with that troublesome mosquito netting. The girls constantly tripped over things and one another. Cherry appointed a Housekeeping Committee.

“First,” said Bertha Larsen, “we’ll give our Ritz Stables a good cleaning.”

There was no soap to spare. Marie Swift confessed she had been hoarding some scented soap. So they moved cots and footlockers and clothing out into the sun, and scrubbed the walls and shelves and rafters with Marie’s best “Blue Carnation.” The hose, extra buckets, and broom were tactfully stolen from the G.I.’s by Gwen, and later returned. On their off-duty hours, all the nurses pitched in to cover the dirt floor with bamboo, over which they laid fresh-smelling eucalyptus bark.

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Many of the girls had brought colorful, sturdy bedspreads with them. Cherry devised black-out curtains—

they had been groping around in the dark at night, and stout curtains meant they could have lights indoors, even with distant guns rumbling. Cherry persuaded two dozen nurses to contribute spare bath towels, including her own, cut them down to uniform size, and then Bertha tinted them green, with a home-made grass dye she knew how to brew. Pictures, and one particularly nice bedspread went up on the rough wood walls. Ann, who had green fingers, gathered flame flowers and transplanted them beside the door and path. The Ritz Stables fully deserved its name.

But most satisfying of all was the nursing. So far, the original forty patients had swelled only to fifty. Cherry assigned nurses to these patients, and the rest of the girls completed setting up the hospital. It was strange to see nurses on the crude wards, not in the usual crisp white, or even Army seersucker, but wearing their olive drab trousers, blouses and helmets. To the sick men, they looked wonderful. “Gosh!” the soldiers said.

“White sheets and American girls!” When Cherry marched her nurses past the rows of soldiers’ tent barracks, the men would come out and stand at smiling attention to honor them.

“As long as we’re playing house,” Cherry said briskly to her nurses, soon after they had fixed up the Ritz
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Stables, “what about fixing up the spare shed next to Mess Hall for a clubroom for the others?” This time she was careful to secure Colonel Pillsbee’s permission first.

They gave that shed, too, a good scrubbing, a floor, and curtains. By that time, word had spread, and soldiers, doctors, and corpsmen all showed up in their free hours, eager to help. The officers were very willing to let their men take part. Half the job here was waiting, with its inevitable boredom. The officers even granted extra free hours, when it was possible, for the men to work on the clubroom.

The soldiers built tables, bookshelves, and chairs of a sort, out of boxes. The departing Seabees presented them with some leftover yellow paint, which promptly went on the clubroom walls and furniture. The girls added all the wild flowers they could find. “It doesn’t look bad at all,” Major Pierce said, as he hammered away cheerfully at a half-finished ping-pong table.

Somebody put up a large poster:
Buy War Bonds!
Finally, the nurses contributed books and magazines, and Cherry lent her radio for the general welfare. The men, not to be outdone, brought to the recreation room more reading matter, games of all sorts, even a small portable victrola and records. Soldier-patients, eager to get up and see it, sent cherished belongings. The clubroom was a real success. The sign painter painted “Seventh Heaven” above the door.

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Colonel Pillsbee stepped in once, commented,

“There will be no nurses permitted in here, except at special hours for ladies exclusively,” and departed. But as long as Colonel Pillsbee was permitting them to have their party, no one minded.

They could have had the party now, for all the essential work was done. But Cherry’s homemaking impulse had spread, and everyone wanted to make the island as livable as possible. Cherry was touched at the love of home these men evinced. The Engineers had laid down rough roads, and now the men turned these and the hospital lanes into neat streets. In their spare time, they made narrow borders of coral, leading to the tents, and signs: “Victory Avenue,” “World’s End Boulevard,” and—

to Cherry’s surprise and pleasure—“Cherry Square.” Many of the streets were named after nurses. Major Pierce had a popular idea: he detailed some of the corpsmen to lay out a baseball field. “It will be good exercise for healing muscles,” he told his Chief Nurse,

“and besides, I pitch a pretty mean ball myself!” Ann had a good idea, too. One of her patients had received packets of seeds from home, so Ann encouraged her ambulatory patients to plant and tend a garden. They planted marigolds, poppies, morning-glory vines, as well as vegetables, to add to their tinned and dried rations.

Now Cherry began to think about providing the ice cream and entertainment she had promised.

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“Refreshments first!” the girls voted. Cherry went to consult the mess officer.

“Ice cream?” Captain Wilson echoed, and looked at Cherry as if she had gone mad. “Why, there’s no ice here, no churn or vacuum. Impossible.” Cherry frowned worriedly. But she was determined to find a way to keep her promise and supply the ice cream. It was amazing how much the men craved ice cream, more than any other food except candy.

“Cheer up,” the nurses told her, “we’ll all chip in our candy bars.”

“That’s not much for all these men,” Cherry worried.

Josie Franklin piped up. “Why don’t you see Miltie Fruitcake?”

Cherry found her way to a private called Milton who did indeed have several fruitcakes.

“Yes, ma’am, you’ve very welcome to them,” he said.

“That’s the only kind of cake my wife can send me that will keep, and she certainly keeps on sending them.

Five pounds at a time. Several other men have wives like mine. In fact, Lieutenant Ames, this island is going to sink some day under the weight of fruitcakes. If you like, I could collect them for you.” Private Milton contributed his own three fruitcakes, and collected thirty-three more for Cherry. That made nearly two hundred pounds of fruitcake. Ann suggested a cool drink made of coconut milk and chocolate
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malt—there was an excess supply of chocolate malt on hand, for some reason. Bertha, out of her farm experience, suggested a sort of fruitade made from the berries and sweet fruits that grew lushly here. They could chill it all the day before in the deep stream. And the mess officer turned up with two gross boxes of candy bars and some exciting news.

A lone fighter plane, belonging to an aircraft carrier, had made a forced landing on their half-finished air base. Unable to radio either his carrier or Island 14 in advance, because the enemy might hear his radio message, the fighter pilot had simply landed. He would have to stay here a few days, Captain Wilson said, and told Cherry, “So now you will have your ice cream.”

“I don’t see the connection between a stranded fighter plane and making ice cream,” Cherry puzzled.

“Simple,” Captain Wilson assured her, laughing.

“Fighter planes go up almost into the stratosphere, thirty thousand feet up, where the temperature is far below zero. Why, up there, you can freeze ice cream in half an hour!”

“But—but—you can’t load a fighter plane with
ice
cream
,” Cherry sputtered.

“If you can load it with four hundred pounds of ammunition, you could just as easily load it with four hundred quarts of ice cream. Let’s see, you’ll need about eight hundred quarts—that’s two half-hour trips——”
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“But what officer is ever going to authorize such a thing?” Cherry asked unbelievingly.

“The morale officer has already convinced Colonel Pillsbee to authorize it,” Captain Wilson replied with a broad grin.

“And you convinced the morale officer, first! Captain Wilson, you—you’re a real friend!” The young Texan touched his cap in salute and turned away, calling back over his shoulder, “Remember to give me a double portion, won’t you?” As for finding the promised entertainment, Cherry had no trouble. So many would-be entertainers deluged her with offers that she had to appoint an Entertainment Committee to hold tryouts and rehearsals. Finally a worn but satisfied Committee notified Cherry they had selected: a very funny mimic who had been a professional actor, a trio of singers with a guitarist, a former artist who promised to do lightning charcoal portraits, the “Iron Man” of the Infantry Division who would do feats of strength, and a good amateur magician. Besides, two nurses, sisters, offered songs and tap dances, and Mai Lee was coaxed to promise some Chinese cere-monial dances in her beautiful robe, which she had brought in her footlocker. Major Pierce was arranging to have a baseball game and a ping-pong match.

Everything was ready now. Cherry went up the hill to see Colonel Pillsbee.

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His yellow thatch of hair reminded Cherry more than ever of a bird’s topknot, as she cautiously outlined the party’s program. But the topnot nodded at each item Cherry named. When she finished, there was not a single thing the Commanding Officer had objected to.

“He must have resigned himself,” Cherry thought in amazement. Or perhaps Major Pierce, or the other officers, had persuaded him that this “sentimenal nonsense” was really a morale builder.

Colonel Pillsbee said primly, “Very well, Lieutenant Ames. Here are my orders. For reasons of security, this must be a daylight party. Not more than twenty per cent of any detail, including your nurses, and except-ing yourself, may leave duty for the party at the same time. That is, you all will attend the party in relays for an hour at a time. Your party will therefore run from twelve noon to five P.M. All the men must be back in their own areas in time for five-thirty mess. Is that clear?”

Cherry wanted to ask, “What about the entertainers?

And the baseball teams?” But Colonel Pillsbee had issued an order. She would simply have to hurry up and find more entertainers, more baseball players.

Cherry also wanted to say to Colonel Pillsbee, who after all was permitting them to have a party, “I hope you’ll come to our party too, sir.” But she was not sure lieutenants could issue invitations to colonels. He would
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probably come anyway, “to make sure we aren’t too frivolous,” Cherry thought, as he dismissed her.

When the great day dawned, the nurses worked like beavers. They rushed about their hospital duties, finished last-minute party arrangements, and got ready every patient who could be moved to attend the party too.

At noon, the first soldiers marched into the hospital yard, exactly on time. They were laughing and joking so much Cherry whispered to Ann, “They’re in such good spirits that, even if the entertainment goes sour and our refreshments don’t quite go around, they’ll have fun anyhow!”

But the entertainment was wildly acclaimed, and the supply of ice cream, cake, candy and cool drinks promised to hold out. When the first guests departed, singing, and the next swarm of soldiers marched in under the broiling one o’clock sun, all smiles, Cherry breathed easier. The party was a success!

By late that afternoon, she was limping with fatigue, and her head spun with the talk and laughter, the continuous entertainment on a big table under a tree which served as the stage, victrola records playing in the clubroom, the click of ping-pong balls, and shouts from the baseball diamond. But the whole island had come to the nurses’ party! Even Captain May, the Intelligence Officer, and several of his men had come over from Island 13. And Cherry glimpsed Colonel Pillsbee,
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between Major Pierce and white-haired Captain Jonas, obviously enjoying his portion of ice cream.

That night, after the debris of the party had been cleaned up and all evening ward duty had been completed, the girls collapsed on their cots.

“Wow!” said Gwen, painfully rubbing sunburn lotion on her bright red face. “We sure did have a fine time, all of us!”

“It was worth the work,” Ann said faintly, as she and Vivian soaked their aching feet in a bucket of hot water.

“It was a gorgeous party!”

Cherry, limp on her cot, opened two drowsy black eyes and grinned at the exhausted nurses. “Well, kids, we’ve fixed up the hospital, we’ve made some little civilization on this South Sea island, we gave a get-acquainted party, so now—I guess—Pacific Island 14 is home! And—” she yawned hugely but fought to get out the rest, “—and if we can do this, we can do
anything!
”
c h a p t e r i v

Troubles

by the middle of february, spencer unit’s evacuation hospital was in full swing. Almost any blazing morning you could find Cherry, wearing Army overalls, in the tent she shared with Major Pierce, seated at her crude table with the folding legs, a folding file and a field telephone in its leather case at her side, her helmet flung on the dirt floor, her black curls tumbled as she worked.

This morning the Chief Nurse was mapping out new ward schedules for her nurses. With at least one nurse, and several corpsmen, needed for each twenty patients, and with their sick list growing, Cherry found there simply were not enough nurses. Where to put whom?

And when? Besides, Josie Franklin and Bertha had voluntarily been on night duty ever since they arrived in
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the jungle, and Cherry could not ask them to go through another month of it. Worse, Marie Swift and two other girls were sick, leaving them three nurses short. “The only solution,” Cherry scowled, “is to load each girl with forty patients or get more nurses. But there
aren’t
more nurses! And there aren’t going to be more nurses until more girls become student nurses! Oh-h!” She labored over the schedules, between interrup-tions, and turned in despair to the day reports and night reports from the various wards. Then she went on to her duties in the Receiving tent.