CHAPTER SEVENTEEN   THE GUNNER’S STORY

The systematic routine of nursing, in which Nancy and her fellow workers had been so carefully trained, had to be forgotten in the trying days that followed. Although the nurses went on duty at stated intervals, theoretically to work for eight hours, few ever stopped before reaching the point of exhaustion. Even with their large and well-balanced unit there were not half enough to meet the need.

“If the nurses back home could fly out here for one night—just to see how badly we need help,” said Nancy, “they couldn’t get into the ANC fast enough.”

“Don’t you worry—I’m going to tell ’em a few things in my next letters home,” Mabel assured her.

Mabel was beginning to look something like a guinea egg, for the hot sun and constant glare had peppered her fair face with freckles. She wore her hair pinned up tightly under her kerchief, as most of the others did. Wind blew almost constantly across the island, and without some protection hair would always be in their faces.

Nancy had burned badly on their last sea voyage, and was now beginning to peel. “There’s one consolation,” she remarked to Mabel. “Everybody looks about as bad as everybody else.”

“And who gives a hang?” Mabel wanted to know. “There’re really more important things to think about. It’s what you can do and hold up under that counts these days.”

It took some time for Nancy to condition herself to that constant rumble of artillery. At first each reverberation that shook their tent poles set her aquiver. She knew that every blast only increased the number of dead and wounded.

Life on Koshu was as complicated as a three-ring circus. Besides the continual rumble of artillery, as the Americans pushed north across the island, there was the constant drone of planes overhead. At first Nancy had the impulse to run out and look up to discover whether they were Japs or Americans, but she soon learned to trust their sirens to give her warning of danger. She had her job to do. If she was to keep fit for it she must concentrate on her own part of the great task.

By the third day the hospital was full to overflowing. Nancy and her quartette offered their private tent to give shelter to more wounded. Other nurses followed their example. The negro camp helpers built the nurses a long shelter, roofed with palm fronds. Some of the island natives, dubbed “Fuzzy Wuzzies” because of their bushy heads, directed the construction. The nurses called their new quarters the fresh-air dormitory. Though there was plenty of fresh air there was certainly little privacy.

“Who has time for privacy these days?” Nancy wanted to know.

Their new quarters proved to be much cooler than the tents. Mosquito bars were hung from the palm-trunk rafters. By the time the nurses were able to crawl under their nets they were so exhausted they missed none of the luxuries of normal life. To be able to stretch out and sleep awhile on a canvas cot seemed luxury enough.

The little area which each nurse’s cot covered was her small kingdom. Her gas mask and helmet hung from the head of the bed when she was not on duty. Her packed musette bag was at the foot. Beneath the cot was her suitcase and other possessions.

The day after they moved into their fresh-air dormitory Nancy found a snake reposing in the cool shadows under her cot. He was the harmless sort, so with a long stick she prodded him until he decided to seek more peaceful quarters on the path leading to the stream.

Next morning Nancy stuck her foot into her shoe to find a lizard had spent the night there. She tossed the inhabited G.I. away with such a screech all her neighbors lifted sleepy heads to see if the Japs had labeled a bomb for her.

Though Nancy made light of the small difficulties of their quarters her heart was often heavy as she anxiously watched and prayed for Vernon Goodwin’s recovery. During the first twenty-four hours after they placed him in the tent it seemed that life would flicker out at any moment. The news got round that Vernon had been one of Tommy Dale’s bomber crew, and the entire staff concentrated their efforts toward his recovery. Lieutenant Herbert York, in charge of his ward, gave him every treatment that modern science had discovered for restoring life to a starved body. To her great satisfaction, they transferred Nancy to his ward.

On the fourth day Vernon showed the first real promise of recovery. An hour after daylight Nancy was scheduled to go off duty, but she didn’t want to leave Vernon. He had roused and his lids had fluttered open several times. To the watching nurse’s delight his look of confusion had vanished.

“Wouldn’t you like something to eat?” she asked hopefully. “Lieutenant York said you could have something this morning.”

He turned his head and looked at her a long time. “You’re an American nurse,” he whispered as if he could scarcely believe the wonderful truth.

She nodded and smiled. Then she took a grip on herself to keep from saying anything that would shock him.

“I suppose I don’t look very much like one in this seersucker suit and with my head tied up. But you’re safe in an American hospital, Vernon, and you’re going to get well,” she assured him.

“I never thought it could happen,” he whispered. He turned his head slowly as if looking for someone. “Did they bring the others out?” he asked after an interval.

“Who?” she asked. “The rest of the bomber crew?”

A shadow darkened his eyes.

“Was Tommy with them?” she asked. Then she was frightened for fear his answer would bring an end to all her hopes.

“No.”

“No?” she repeated in an agony of suspense.

“He wouldn’t come back with us.”

“Wouldn’t come back?”

“From that island where we went ashore.”

“You—you mean Tommy really got safely ashore somewhere?”

“Yes. Three of us did.” Suddenly Vernon stopped and fixed his gaze on her. “Did you know Tommy?”

“He’s my brother.”

The ill man showed no shock or surprise at this. But he stared at her for some time before he continued, “I think I knew that anyhow.” His tone grew more puzzled. “Don’t know how, unless it was because you kept pulling me back from the grave—you wouldn’t let me die.”

“Maybe you realized some of the things we said around you while you were so desperately ill,” Nancy told him. “Do you feel able to tell me more about Tommy? Was he injured when he jumped?”

“Tommy Made Us Leave Him There.”

“All of us were one way or another. Tommy got his in here somewhere.” The emaciated hand lying on the sheet, indicated his stomach. “He made Jim and me start off in our rubber boat. We had picked up some valuable information from the Japs that called for counteraction right away.”

“And he made you leave him there?”

“Hardest thing I ever had to do, but he was our captain and we had to obey. ‘Getting through with that information may save thousands of lives,’ Tommy told us. He was like that, Tommy was. By staying we might’ve saved him, but he wouldn’t hear of it when so much was at stake.”

“But couldn’t you have brought him away with you?” she wailed.

“He was too ill to sit up. That burning sun would have finished him in a few hours, even if the Japs hadn’t got us.”

“Oh—then they did get you before you came through with the information?”

He was silent a moment as if gathering strength for the awful memories.

“Picked us up at sea,” he said finally. “We had water, food and navigation instruments and might have made it all right.”

She feared the thoughts of what followed would be too harrowing, and stopped him there. “I’ll go get you some milk,” she said. “Then you must rest before you talk any more.”

Nancy dared not weary Vernon with more questioning just then, so was silent while she fed him the milk through a tube. The information he had already given was broken at intervals for him to gather strength for the effort.

“You must sleep some more,” she suggested when he had taken the nourishment, “and I’ll come back to see you again this afternoon.”

For the first time in many weeks Nancy found it impossible to sleep when she was finally stretched on her cot. She often used a blinder across her eyes to shut out the glare when she had difficulty sleeping in the day, but this time it did no good at all. She could not stop the working of her troubled mind, even though her tired body cried out for rest. Nor did she like to take anything to make herself sleep, for she knew, under the present stress, how easy it would be to get into such a habit.

After tossing from side to side for a couple of hours she finally got up and went down to the spring to do her washing. Soon her undies and seersucker suits were flapping on a line between two palm trees near their shelter. Then she took a bath in the wash hole at the stream, which they had made private by an arrangement of palm leaf screens.

When Nancy was coming back up the path from the stream she met Major Reed. Since they had landed on the island there had been little thought or time for military formalities. The entire unit, from the highest officers to the youngest shavetails, had become a harmonious working whole. However, Nancy saluted now as she came face to face with the major on the path.

He was about to pass on when suddenly he paused and said, “Nancy, there’s no need of killing yourself. You look all washed up.”

“Maybe I look pale because I just had a bath,” she told him. “A rare luxury!”

He chuckled and admitted, “You do look mighty clean!” Then almost immediately he was serious again. “I’ve just come from your ward and York told me you worked long beyond your time this morning.”

“More were coming in than the nurses on duty could handle,” she explained. Then for fear she would be given more credit than she deserved Nancy hastened to add, “And Vernon Goodwin was so much better I thought he might rouse at any moment and be able to tell me something.”

“And did he?”

“Yes he did, Major. He told me a little about Tommy. He wasn’t able to talk much.” Briefly Nancy repeated what she had learned from Vernon.

“Did he know the name of the island where they came down?”

“No—or rather I didn’t ask him. I was afraid to let him talk too much. His life still hangs by a thin thread.”

“How long since you talked with him?”

Nancy glanced at her watch. “Nearly three hours.”

“Want to try again?”

“Oh, yes, if you don’t think it would be too much strain on him.”

They went to the ward and made their way down through the long rows of cots. They were a pitiful lot, those wounded men with bandages of every sort. But they wanted no pity, for they called themselves the lucky guys for having so much comfort and attention. Some were able to be propped up for the noon meal, while others must be patiently fed a liquid diet.

Shorty Warner was feeding Vernon a thin broth through a tube when Major Reed and Nancy paused by his bed. The ghost of a smile flickered to the gunner’s face when he recognized Nancy.

“He asked for you as soon as he woke,” Shorty explained.

“Feel like talking a bit, old chap?” asked the major, touching the prematurely white head and giving it a friendly pat.

“Think so, Major. I know Miss Nancy is anxious to hear all about Tom.”

“So he was alive when you left him?”

“He was, sir. But I fear he was mortally wounded. Think he had a spatter of lead in his stomach—must have got it when they killed our co-pilot.”

Though Vernon’s voice was very weak Nancy saw that talking was less effort than it had been earlier.

“Can you give us an idea of the location of that island?” the major asked.

“Not too accurate, I fear,” Vernon admitted. “I’ve been through such horrible things since. I’d say it’s not more than a day’s journey by water from here.”

At this information Nancy’s heart leaped up once more with hope.

“You took that fatal flight, you know, long before we started cleaning up this area,” Major Reed reminded him.

“So the nurse was just telling me. I’ve sort of lost track of time.”

“Was it a large island?” asked Nancy.

“Big enough for a man to get lost in its jungles—entirely surrounded by reefs. No large boat could get in close to its shores.”

“Plenty like that in this region,” said Major Reed.

“Jim and I passed no others in our life boat as we came south. Then those devils picked us up.”

“What about Jim?” Nancy asked.

“He had a nasty wound in his hip. Gangrene ended his misery two days after they put us in the prison camp. I’ve wished a thousand times it could have been me, too.”

Looking down on this wreck of a man, Nancy wondered how he had lived through the ordeal.

“Any Japs on the island where you three got ashore?” asked the major.

“No village there, or camp, nor any sign there’d ever been any. The place was a solid jungle, except for a narrow fringe of beach. But we did find a Jap plane wrecked on the reef. Her crew had evidently all been wiped out by our fire.”

“Was that where you got the information Captain Dale wanted you to bring back to us?”

Vernon nodded. “I brought the Jap papers away in the lining of my coat. Later when they were found on me those fiends stripped me of every rag for fear I might have more of their information hidden in my clothes.” Vernon managed a rueful smile. “That’s why you found me in only a loin cloth.”

“Did Tommy have water and food with him?” Nancy asked.

“You bet. There was a good spring close by. He didn’t need water, but we left him most of our food and medicine, and the supplies we took from the Zero. We put everything right to hand. Poor Tommy was already too miserable to crawl more than a few feet from where we left him.”

Tears were streaming down Nancy’s face, but she stubbornly held to her hopes. She couldn’t give Tommy up now, even after hearing the worst.

“It’s not likely he could be living still. But don’t feel too badly about it, Miss Nancy,” Vernon said kindly. “There’s plenty of things worse than death in this war.”

“I’m afraid we’ve let you talk too much this time,” said Major Reed. “Sleep some more now and we’ll see you again.”

When Nancy and the major were outside she said, “Oh, Major, do you think there’s anything we could do about it? Would they be willing to send a searching plane out to look for Tommy?”

“Of course they would, my dear. But Goodwin’s information is rather vague about some things. We’ll wait till tomorrow. Maybe with the aid of a map he’ll be able to give us more accurate directions.”

“Oh, Major, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You don’t have to, young lady. Captain Dale is about as important to the Air Forces as he is to you. We don’t give up such men without a struggle.” They walked on a few steps before he added, “Now you must go back and get some rest. We can’t afford to have any sick nurses on our hands.”