CHAPTER SEVEN   LETTERS

As the farmer’s truck rolled away Tini glared at Nancy. She stomped her G.I. shoes on the pavement and burst forth, “How dare you? Hand me my letters!”

Laughing suddenly Nancy handed them to her. “He thought we had escaped from the asylum across the hill,” she chuckled.

“You look like a lunatic!”

“And you act like one!”

Tini turned and stalked back into the pine thicket. Nancy took off her be-decked helmet, mopped her hot face with her sleeve and followed.

She finally overtook Tini and asked, “Why did you do that, Tini?”

“I have a right to mail letters if I like.”

“Then why didn’t you send them through the regular channels at the camp?”

“Who wants somebody pawing over your letters, looking at addresses?” asked Tini.

“I don’t believe anybody pries into who our letters are sent to.”

“And what business is it of yours?” Tini stopped suddenly and turned on Nancy.

“Any regulations given to this unit concern us all,” stated Nancy firmly.

“Zat so!” Tini’s tone was biting with sarcasm.

“And if I broke the regulations it would be your business to jack me up.” Suddenly Nancy’s tone became pleading. “Tini, can’t you see that all these rules are for our own good, and the safety of the boys out yonder we’re offering our lives to save?”

“I understand what we’re going into the same as you, Nancy Dale. But some of the restrictions are utterly silly.”

“We’ve got to trust the judgment of our superiors about that. They understand the whole situation better than we do.”

“I see no reason why we can’t tell our family and friends what we’ve been doing. I didn’t let out any military secrets in those letters.”

“The other night under the net you asked me how to spell camouflage. You were evidently telling them about our instructions in camouflage.”

Tini’s fair face flushed. “Well, what of it?” she snapped. “It’s no secret that our men use camouflage.”

“You shouldn’t write about it for the simple reason that Lieutenant Hauser ordered us to say nothing of the things we’ve been doing on this trip. Those are orders. The very fact that you tried to get somebody outside to post your letters proves you have a guilty conscience about the whole business.”

“And where did you get the right to jack me up about anything I do?”

“I have only the right that every American should use—to try to see that information about our military activities doesn’t get into the hands of our enemies.”

“So you’re implying that my family and friends are enemies!” Tini’s eyes were flashing fire now.

“Oh, Tini, this is so absurd,” mourned Nancy.

“Of course it’s absurd your trying to stop my sending mail out.”

Suddenly Nancy lost all patience. She stopped short and by her very manner forced Tini to stop. “You have no reason in you, Tini!” she exclaimed. “Now I’ll give you two choices—you either hand those letters to Lieutenant Hauser to be mailed, or burn them.”

“So! Since when have I had to take orders from you?”

Nancy ignored the question and continued, “You know perfectly well that the rest of us tore up the letters we wrote in the swamp before we knew we were not to write descriptions of what we had been doing. Those letters you have must have been written back there. You’ve had no time for writing since we came on here.”

Tini ignored the plain truth with which she had been faced and started on toward camp. Nancy caught up with her, saying, “If you don’t do one or the other you’ll place me in the embarrassing position of having to report what just happened to Lieutenant Hauser.”

“So you’re one of the spying, little tattletales!”

Nancy’s brown eyes were full of fire now as she said, “Tini Hoffman, this is no schoolgirl business we’re in. Thousands of lives may sometime be at stake because some thoughtless person like you has seen no sense in certain censorship restrictions. If we don’t conform to those regulations now, it’ll be too late to learn how when we get over there. I’m taking no chances, Tini, no matter what you or anyone else may call me.”

With this statement Nancy swung away from Tini and took the nearest path back to camp. Before the tent tops were in sight, however, Tini overtook her.

“All right,” she said in a peevish tone, “if it’ll ease your pain I’ll burn the dern letters.”

“That’s the sensible thing, Tini.”

They stalked on under the sighing pines in silence. Nancy felt quite wretched over the whole situation, not only at Tini’s persistent disregard of the regulations, but at the awkwardness of her own position in discovering her at it, time and again.

However, she was determined to see that Tini did burn the letters, and said as they came in sight of the cook’s fire, “You could burn the letters there, Tini, and have it over with.”

Sullenly Tini stuck her four letters into the flames. Nancy paused a moment beside her to see that they really burned. While they waited a group of nurses had come in with a camouflaged captive.

“Oh, there’s Tini!” one of them called. “Did you catch Nancy?”

“Me catch Nancy!” exclaimed Tini with mock humility. “It’s Nancy who catches me always!”

“What do you mean?” asked Ida Hall, who was in the group. She glanced from one to the other, sensing that something was very wrong between them.

“Nancy’s much too good for me to catch her at anything,” continued Tini, unmindful of how her sarcasm might be taken.

When she stalked off alone Nancy spoke to Ida wearily, “I was still hiding when the gun was fired.”

“Then you and Janice Williams were the only two who weren’t caught,” Lieutenant Hauser told her a few minutes later. “You’ll have the honor of presiding at supper and serving the ice cream and cake.”

This brought exclamations of delight, which only subsided when Lieutenant Hauser lifted her hand for silence. “But I have something that I think will be even more welcome,” she said.

“Hope it’s mail from home,” said Nancy. During the past week she had longed for that letter her mother had been writing on the night she heard about Tommy.

“Exactly what it is,” said Miss Hauser.

As the mail was dug from the big mail pouch and handed to the nurses, happy exclamations went up. One by one the girls went to their own quarters to enjoy their letters in the privacy of their cots. Nancy kicked off her muddy shoes, and discarded her dirty, painted coveralls and sat cross-legged under her mosquito net. She ripped open her mother’s oldest letter. She couldn’t keep back the tears as she read the brave words, written while her own heart must have been so heavy.

“We must not let ourselves think for a moment that our Tommy is dead,” her mother wrote. “If he is a prisoner of the Japs he will need all the prayers and helpful thoughts we can send him. Only last week at church Philip Brinkley, who was shot down over Germany and made a prisoner, told us a little about his escape. But the thing that impressed me most was what he said about our prayers. He said he could actually feel the prayers we sent up for him at our mid-week meeting. You know that’s when we especially hold thoughts for those who have gone over. We must make Tommy feel our support and God’s that way, too, darling.”

Tears were swimming in Nancy’s eyes when she finished the letter, not because she feared Tommy was really dead, but for the beautiful bravery of her mother’s letter. She dried her eyes finally and picked up the rest of her mail. Two were from girl friends back home, another from an old beau.

Then her heart skipped a beat when she saw the last was from Australia. It wasn’t Tommy’s writing, though the script was slightly familiar. When she ripped open the letter she saw it was from her mother’s friend, Miss Anna Darien, in Sydney. Miss Anna and her mother had been in college together. Instead of marrying, Miss Anna had specialized in philosophy and was now a lecturer of international repute. The war had caught her in Australia, and there she must stay for the duration.

When Nancy read the prized letter she called across to Mabel on the next cot, “Say, listen to this—Miss Anna Darien, a friend of ours in Australia, saw Tommy recently.”

“Not really! What does she say about him?” Mabel asked, dropping her own letters to listen to Nancy.

“Here—I’ll read it to you. She says, ‘You can imagine my surprise when Tommy, on a brief furlough, came to call on me. It was hard to believe that anyone could mature so fast in three years, since I saw him back in the states.’”

“When was that written?” asked Mabel.

Nancy glanced at the date. “Oh my goodness—two months ago. Took a long time to come. They used to reach us in a month.”

“Quite a while before your brother took that fatal flight.”

“Yes. But it’s wonderful to hear from somebody who’s seen him that recently.”

“Go on. What else did she say?” urged Mabel.

“‘He asked me to write you’,” continued Nancy. “‘He knew you would be delighted to hear from someone who’s seen him over here. You’d really be proud of this brother of yours, Nancy. What a responsibility it is to be a pilot on a bomber! Already his chest is gay with decorations, but to me he’s the same dear boy he used to be when I visited your home. He told me to tell you not to worry about him, that if the Nips get on his trail he’ll play the same trick on them he used to play on you. He said you’d remember his childhood prank that always brought you to tears.’”

By this time all four nurses in the tent were listening and Ida Hall asked, “What was that, Nancy?”

Nancy was trembling between tears and laughter as she explained, “He used to play dead! And he trained our old dog, Bozo, to do it, too. I used to tag him around something awful, and just to get even he’d sometimes sprawl on the ground, looking dead as Hector. And Bozo would be near by, his old legs flopped over. Many times I thought Tommy wasn’t breathing. I’d shake him and begin to cry, then he’d jump up and grab me. Then I’d be mad sure enough!”

“Not a bad idea—that playing dead,” commented Mabel. “One of the fellows we had in the hospital back yonder said he tried it once, and the Japs just passed right over him in the field. If he’d batted an eyelash they would have jabbed one of their awful bayonets right through his vitals.”

Nancy Couldn’t Keep Back the Tears

Before Nancy had a chance to read all her letters the warning bell sounded for them to prepare for chow. She had only time for a face and hands washing, using her helmet as a basin. A clean pair of coveralls was the extent of her dress-up for the honored place beside Janice Williams at the table.

Every one was in a high mood. They all made merry over the best dessert they had had since they left their original camp. Through the hilarity Nancy felt an undercurrent of expectancy, as if some important news were about to break through. Even Lieutenant Hauser seemed in a buoyant mood.

When all had been served ice cream and cake Janice leaned closer to Nancy and said, “I hear that Major Reed came out on the truck that brought the treat from the Canteen.”

“When?”

“While we were out on camouflage.”

“Something must be cooking,” Nancy said with anticipation.

“Nell Streets cut her foot so didn’t go on the hunt. She saw the major and Lieutenant Hauser having a long confab.”

“Wonder what’s up?”

“Nell has a hunch we’re going to be alerted before so long.”

“They’ve really been putting us through the paces. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they sent us to the South Pacific?”

Tini Hoffman sat next to Janice, and Nancy suddenly became aware that she was listening to their conversation.

“I can fully understand now why Lieutenant Hauser insists that we say nothing about the nature of our training,” continued Janice. “It surely indicates the tropics. That information in a spy’s hands might place a few bombs in our path.”

“That’s exactly why we can’t be too careful,” said Nancy.

She glanced at Tini, and saw that she actually had the conscience to flush under the memory of what she had been about to do. Later as they returned to their tents in the twilight Tini overtook Nancy.

“I’m glad you made me burn those letters, Nancy,” she said. “It was thoughtless of me to try to send them.”

“I’m glad you realize it, Tini. Of course it’s not easy for any of us to submit to so many restrictions, but we have to submit if we expect to be of any use.”

“I was afraid my best beau would think I didn’t care, it’s been so long since I sent him a letter. But I had two from him just now. He says he knows there’ll often be long intervals when we can’t hear from each other. He’s so understanding,” murmured Tini.

“We’ve got to think of the good of our unit and our boys over yonder, Tini,” said Nancy, “and ourselves last.” But she wasn’t so certain, even as she spoke, that the spoiled Tini would think of anything but her own wishes next time she was tempted to break the regulations.