Nancy stood on the steps of the train and waved at a misty-eyed couple,
a man and woman of middle years. Strange how she could be so close to
tears, yet so buoyantly happy all in the same moment.
The train began to move slowly and Nancy called back, “Be sure to
forward all Tommy’s letters, Mom!”
Her mother nodded and smiled, while her father lifted his hat in that
courtly way he had. Nancy could scarcely believe that at last she was
on her way to becoming a member of the great Army Nurse Corps. In fact
she was one now, for she had already taken her oath of allegiance. This
slowly moving train marked the beginning of a wonderful journey that
might take her anywhere in the whole world—Africa, Italy, India, the
Arctic or the South Pacific.
She had been praying ever since she joined that it would be the South
Pacific, not only because her brother was there flying a bomber over
the tropical blue waters, but because the tropics had always seemed
fascinating. But little did she dream what she must go through before
she saw again that beloved couple she had just left.
As she turned back into the Pullman she suddenly felt empty, with that
awful, hollow, going-away feeling. She thought how lucky she had been
to get her nurse’s training right in her own home town. She had never
known the feeling of homesickness, for her few brief trips had all been
for pleasure. But this was different and far more exciting, yet she
knew suddenly now that it would also have its heartaches.
From her seat in the car she caught one more glimpse of her parents.
How lonesome they would be with both their children in the service! For
a few minutes, as the train crawled out of the city, Nancy could think
of nothing but the two she was leaving behind.
How concerned poor Mom had been when she said, “Do be careful, darling,
about getting wet. You know how easily you take cold when your feet are
wet.”
Nancy had promised to be as careful as possible, but didn’t fret her
mother by saying she was afraid there would often be days on end when
her feet would always be wet, if her experiences were anything like the
overseas nurses she heard from in Italy and New Guinea.
Not until the last house of her beloved town had vanished beyond the
green hills did Nancy turn her gaze to the inside of the Pullman. She
noticed now that practically everyone was in uniform, both men and
women. There were two WACs across from her, and an ANC captain a little
farther up.
She thought it would have been more fun had someone been going with
her. This trip to the capital was always so slow and boring, then there
would be a tiresome wait before she took the sleeper for Alabama. She
tried to read but was too keyed up to concentrate. She could think of
nothing but the great adventure into which she was going. Settling her
head against the cushion she faced the window, watching the rolling
hills. Suddenly she realized she was tired after all the excitement of
farewell parties and packing. How grand everyone had been to her! Since
she was the only volunteer in her class, she had been given a dance at
the Nurse’s Home. How could anyone stay behind, she wondered, when the
fighting men needed so many nurses?
Drowsiness was creeping over her when she caught the low tones of two
men behind her. The fact that they were speaking in a foreign tongue
pricked her to alertness. She leaned closer to the window and
concentrated. They were talking almost in whispers, but she heard the
gutteral syllables of several German words. She had studied a little
German in her high school days in order to sing some selections from
the Wagnerian operas. Now she caught the words, _ute Abend_ and _acht
Kusches_.
“Tonight ... eight cars,” she translated.
The Pullman conductor came down the aisle, and the men fell silent. If
they hadn’t become so abruptly silent at his approach, Nancy might have
thought little of the whispered conversation. Though she tried to
dismiss her suspicions, attributing her sensitiveness to the fact that
she had just entered the service, she could not forget the two men
speaking German fluently who sat behind her.
After an interval Nancy decided to take a look at the pair. She started
down the aisle under pretense of getting a drink of water. The man
nearest the aisle had the broad face and blond complexion of a typical
German, though he wore the uniform of an American soldier. The other
was in civilian clothes, and wore a small mustache. All Nancy could
glean in her hasty inspection was that he had a lean countenance, dark
coloring, and wore dark-rimmed glasses. On her return she noticed that
the blond had a corporal’s stripes on his sleeve.
If he was a spy, surely the army would have detected it before making
him a corporal, she thought, and promptly tried to dismiss her
suspicions. Not until eleven o’clock that night when she was hurrying
with the crowd to go aboard the west-bound train, did she again think
of those words spoken in German behind her. Her Pullman was at the end
of a very long train. Soldiers were filing into the front coaches. She
counted eight cars ahead of hers.
Suddenly she recalled the words she had heard behind her at the
beginning of her journey, _acht Kusches_. And here they were, eight
coaches of service men. Again she thought of their words, _ute Abend_.
Tonight! Could there possibly be any connection between those words and
this troop train?
Nancy followed the redcap to her Pullman seat with a feeling of
uneasiness. She knew that spies all over the country were busy trying
to get information about the movements of troop trains and transports.
She pressed her eyes to the window and looked out at the milling crowd.
Then suddenly she saw the blond corporal. He did not get aboard the
train, but watched the troops marching down the paved walk between the
tracks. Then he turned sharply and hurried back toward the station. The
man in civilian clothes was not with him.
Nancy tried to shake off the nagging uneasiness that haunted her even
after she was comfortably stretched in her berth, and the train was
rushing out across the red Georgia hills. But her interest in what lay
ahead was too keen for her to remain depressed. Several times she
raised the shade to peep out when the train slowed at small towns where
street lights twinkled sleepily, but at last the hum of the wheels
lulled her to sleep.
Then suddenly, several hours before dawn, there came a terrific crash
and jolt. Nancy caught wildly at the clothes hammock to keep from being
hurled into the aisle, as the Pullman crashed to a stop and toppled
slightly to the right. Screams and moans were heard above the grinding
noises.
Nancy clung to the hammock a moment, too stunned to move. She expected
the tilting coach to crash to earth any moment. Lights had vanished
beyond the cracks of her curtain. With shaking hands she found her
flashlight in the zipper bag left at the foot of her berth. She opened
the curtain and turned the light up and down the aisle. Several who
hadn’t been thrown from their berths were climbing out, wanting to know
what had happened. Groans, curses and cries only added to the confusion.
Then with the speed of a fireman preparing to answer a call to duty,
Nancy put on her clothes. Some sure instinct warned her that in a few
minutes there would be no time to think of herself. At last her long
legs swung down from the berth. Her flashlight showed some people still
lying where they had fallen in the aisle. Some actually climbed over
them in their frantic haste to get out of the leaning Pullman.
She turned her light on the nearest injured person. It was a
gray-haired lady, moaning that her arm was broken. A big man, clad only
in his undershirt and army trousers, emerged from his berth.
“Here, give me a hand,” ordered Nancy. “This lady has a broken arm.”
The soldier, who was of powerful build, braced himself against the
berth on the lower side, and lifted the stunned old lady to his
shoulder. Nancy held her flashlight so he could see as they made their
way toward the exit. She snatched a sheet to use for bandages from one
of the berths as she went.
On reaching the platform they found the Pullman was leaning
precariously against a clay cut on one side, while the steps on the
other were high in air. Flares had already been lighted beside the
track, and eager hands reached up to help with the injured woman. Nancy
never remembered how she got down herself. Her one idea was to help the
little old lady whose wavy gray hair was so like her own mother’s.
“Do you have a pocket knife?” she asked the service man as he was
stretching the woman on the ground.
He dug in his trouser pocket and produced one.
“Cut me a splint off some bush or tree,” she ordered. “I’ll have to
protect this broken arm till it can be X-rayed and properly set.”
She took off her coat to cushion the gray head. While she waited for
the splint she saw that injured people were being brought from the
three rear coaches. Just beyond the clay bank which had saved their car
from greater damage, she saw that several coaches had overturned and
telescoped into a horrible mass of wreckage.
The soldier came back promptly with a good splint from which he was
deftly peeling the bark. To Nancy’s surprise he knelt on the ground,
and in the light of her flash began to manipulate the broken bone into
position. One glance at those skillful fingers and Nancy exclaimed,
“Oh, you’re a doctor!”
“Yes,” was all he said as he proceeded to the business of the moment.
“Thank God,” she said earnestly, and began to tear the sheet into
bandages.
As she had done numberless times before in the emergency room, Nancy
helped bind up the broken arm.
“I see you’ve at least had first aid,” he said as they worked.
“I’m a nurse,” she retorted as tersely as he had informed her he was a
doctor.
“There’ll be plenty for us to do tonight,” he told her.
When the arm was set, he lifted the frail woman and carried her out of
the cut.
“Wait here with her,” the doctor ordered. “I’ll go back for my bag. She
should have a hypo. You can help.”
Someone had placed some boxes for steps at the rear entrance to the
coach and he returned that way. They were still hauling people out and
stretching them beside the end coach, which by some miracle had not
overturned. To Nancy’s surprise she recognized the ANC captain she had
noticed on the train yesterday afternoon. She was trying to stop the
bleeding in a leg wound of a man next to Nancy’s old lady.
“Please, someone try to find a doctor,” she said to no one in
particular.
“One was here just now,” Nancy told her. “He’ll be back in a moment. He
went for his bag.”
Nancy bent to help the captain make a tourniquet below the injured
man’s knee. She had just secured the knot with a stick when she saw the
doctor returning. The ANC captain straightened and saluted.
“This man will have to have some stitches, Major,” she said.
“I’ll look after him.”
To Nancy’s consternation she saw that the soldier she had just been
ordering around, had put on his coat. His gold leaf indicated him a
major, and the caduceus that he was a member of the medical corps. She
felt terribly embarrassed at her mistake.
He seemed to think nothing of it, however, for he explained to the
captain, “I’ll keep this young lady to help me. She says she’s a nurse.”
“Then I’ll go look after some of the others,” said the captain, alertly.
Major Reed was stooping to give attention to the injured man, and asked
as he did so, “Where did you graduate?”
“Stanford Hospital. I’m Nancy Dale. I just joined the Army Nurse Corps
and am on my way for basic training.”
This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to the major. He set his bag
on the ground and pulled the zipper. “Give the lady there a hypo. We’ll
need one here, too. Tell Captain Lewis to get what she needs from my
bag.”
Until the sun rose over the red clay hills Nancy worked beside Major
Reed, setting bones, sewing up cuts and giving sedatives to the
hysterical. Several automobiles had gathered and focused their
headlights upon the scene. Though Nancy had never faced such an
emergency, she did not lose her head, nor did her hands shake as she
worked to relieve the injured.
Only once did she feel an inward tremor and that was when she thought
of how she had ordered Major Reed around. But there was no time to
dwell on that in the busy hours before the arrival of nurses, doctors
and ambulances from the nearest town.
“Someone to relieve us at last,” said Captain Mary Lewis, who now
looked as weary as Nancy felt.
“I phoned the camp for a car to be sent for us,” Major Reed told them.
“There’ll be plenty of room for the three of us and our baggage.”
Nancy glanced from one officer to the other in astonishment. “Oh, are
we really within driving distance of the camp?”
“Only about fifty miles,” replied Major Reed.
“And you’re both going there?”
Captain Lewis nodded and smiled. “I’ve been on a tour of inspection,
and Major Reed has been assigned work there.”
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[Illustration: _“I’m Nancy Dale,” Nancy Told the Major_]
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“Then I can get there almost as soon as scheduled,” said Nancy in
relief. “I was worrying over being off schedule.”
“Young lady, if you ever had a good excuse for being late you have it
this time,” said the major. He looked down at her a moment and smiled
whimsically. “I’d say she’s made of good fighting stuff, wouldn’t you,
Miss Lewis?”
“I’ll say,” agreed Miss Lewis. “She’s had a fine try-out tonight.”
Nancy’s face flushed, then she burst forth impulsively, “Oh, I hope
they’ll think me good enough to send to the South Pacific.”
“That’s something we have to leave to our Uncle Samuel, young lady.”
Nancy was silent a moment, then looked up at the major shyly out of the
corner of her eye. “I owe you an apology, sir.”
“How’s that?”
“For ordering you about—demanding that you cut me a splint. But how
could I know you were a major?”
He broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, Miss Dale, I can’t see that an
officer is due any respect when he goes around in his undershirt. You
did what any nurse should have done.”
“That must be your car over there, Major,” said Miss Lewis.
“So ’tis. Let’s get our baggage and be off.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------