The following morning a scheduled lecture on military law was postponed
for an impromptu talk by Major Reed. Nancy’s heart skipped a beat when
Lieutenant Hauser introduced the major to the assembled unit.
Instinctively she felt his appearance had something to do with what she
had told him last night. And she was right.
He talked to them for an hour on the subtle ways in which the enemy
succeeded in getting information. He admonished the nurses about
silence in public places, and prohibited discussion outside the camp
grounds about what was going on inside. He warned them against picking
up conversations with strange men who might craftily get information
from them. He finished his talk by giving a half-dozen actual incidents
where absolutely loyal men and women had witlessly supplied the enemy
with vital information.
“This is for your protection as well as for our boys out there on the
battlefronts,” he told them. “I warn you to make no close contacts with
strangers.”
As the girls filed out of the lecture room there was awe in their
whispered remarks. Most of them felt more keenly than ever the
responsibilities of the task ahead.
As they went to the grounds for instructions in using gas masks, Ida
Hall and Tini Hoffman were close to Nancy and Mabel.
“I noticed you had a mighty swell-looking date last night,” Nancy heard
Ida saying to Tini. “Where’d you pick him up?”
“I didn’t pick him up,” retorted Tini. “I met him in Charleston.”
“Recently?”
“When I was on vacation after finishing my nurse’s training.”
“Oh, I see.” Ida’s manner showed she didn’t like Tini any more than
most of the others.
“You surely can’t accuse him of trying to pick me up,” Tini flared,
fully aware of the implications in Ida’s remarks, following so close on
that lecture. “He encouraged me to come into the ANC. In fact he was
the very one who suggested it.”
“You must have made a hit with him,” put in Nancy, “to have him come
all the way over here to see you.”
Tini looked pleased, and toyed with her blond curls before she said,
“Well, you see he’s a traveling salesman and gets around.”
“Huh, he must be luckier than most if he can still get gas to be a
traveling salesman,” commented Mabel.
“Oh, he uses the trains. His territory is too wide for a car in these
times.”
Nancy smiled disarmingly as she asked, trying to seem casual, “Dating
him tonight?”
“If he can arrange his business so he can be back in the village.”
There was no more time for probing, for their instructor, Sergeant
Fuller, was calling them to attention on the pine-clad hill where they
had already received their preliminary instruction in putting on and
taking off their gas masks. The structure of the masks had been
explained in detail, and a lecture given on the various types of gas,
and how to care for gas casualties.
This morning, however, came their first really difficult test. They had
to go through the gas chamber, as they called the little house on the
hill where the tests were made.
“Gosh, I’ll sure be glad when this is over,” moaned a small, brown-eyed
girl, Grace Warner, whom they had dubbed “Shorty.”
Grace actually looked no more than sixteen and wore her hair with a
bang-bob which made her round, childish face seem even more immature.
Her voice, too, had a thin, babyish quality. Though the nurses teased
her quite a bit, she was a general favorite.
Shorty was between Nancy and Mabel when they lined up for the
gas-chamber test. Her big brown eyes were apprehensive as she looked at
Nancy and said, “If we could go through there once and have it over
with I wouldn’t mind so much. But three times—gosh!”
“The first won’t be so hard,” Nancy said consolingly. “We just walk
through the front door and out the back—to be sure our masks don’t
leak or anything.”
“Only tear gas, anyhow,” Mabel added. “It’s not nearly so bad as the
others.”
“That’s what you think,” said Shorty. “One of our nurses back home said
she got badly burned about the neck and wrists when she took the test.”
“She probably wasn’t as snugly protected as we are. That’s why they
make our shirts now with the extra protection flaps at the cuffs and
front. No skin exposed,” explained Mabel.
The nurses stood in line, their gas masks on. Already they could hear
laughter and nervous giggles on the other side, as the first of the
group marched through and came out triumphantly to take off their masks
till time for the next test.
Nancy and her friends didn’t mind the first test so much, though they
were glad enough to hurry out the back door. On the second trip they
went in with their gas masks on, took them off inside, then hurried out.
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[Illustration: _“I’ll Be Glad When This Is Over,” Moaned Shorty_]
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“Oh, boy, is this fresh air good!” exclaimed Nancy, when she rushed out
the back door.
“It was awful!” wailed Shorty. “My face is stinging all over. I
wouldn’t go in there again for anything!”
“But you have to!” stated Nancy. “The hardest test is yet to come.”
“I can’t! I just can’t!” wailed Shorty, her cheeks wet with tears that
had not all been caused by the stinging gas.
“If you don’t go through it you’ll never get overseas,” Nancy warned
her.
“I don’t see why they put us through all this misery,” wailed Shorty.
“We know how to put on gas masks in case there’s any trouble over
yonder. No sense in torturing ourselves like this when we may never
have to put ’em on again.”
Nancy caught Shorty by the shoulders and shook her slightly. “Now you
cut out that kind of talk, or they’ll not let you go down under with
us.”
“Come on,” warned Mabel. “It’s our turn again.”
Nancy caught Shorty’s hand. “Come on, honey,” she said in a wheedling
tone. “We’ll go through together.”
Nancy, herself, had really dreaded this final ordeal, but having to
bolster Shorty’s confidence left her little thought for her own fears.
She shoved her little friend through the door saying, “Now, put on the
mask—quick!”
Shorty already had her mask over her face when Nancy followed through
the door. In spite of their speed their trembling hands fumbled a bit
before the masks could be put into place, and so they felt a bit of
stinging. When they were securely masked, however, Nancy urged the
excited girl toward the back door.
“It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?” asked Nancy, after she jerked her
mask off and filled her lungs with fresh air.
“Could’ve been worse. But I guess I never would have got through at
all, Nancy, if you hadn’t made me,” Shorty admitted in a shamefaced
manner.
“Hope we don’t ever have to use these for the real thing,” Mabel said.
“I heard a major, just returned from overseas, tell about how the Japs
often cry ‘Wolf’ about gas,” said Nancy, sitting on the brown pine
carpet with the others to rest a bit.
“What do you mean—cry wolf?” asked Shorty.
“When our men are coming ashore from the landing craft the Japs often
throw up a smoke-screen and cry, ‘Gas’. They say there’s nothing breaks
the men’s morale easier than the fear of gas,” Nancy explained.
“That’s just too horrible to conceive of,” said Ida Hall.
“At least it’s consoling to know it hasn’t been used so far,” put in
Mabel.
“No telling what they’ll do at the desperate end,” Nancy warned them.
“I don’t mean to miss a trick in these gas-mask drills.”
“I heard we’ll have to go through the gas chamber again at the port of
embarkation,” Ida Hall informed them.
“Good night!” flared Shorty. “As if three times would not be enough.”
“These masks belong at the training center. They’ll issue us new ones
at the port. We have to test them out,” Ida explained.
The weather had turned warm and Nancy was glad to get back to their
quarters and have a good shower when the day’s classes and drills were
over.
Mail came twice a day, and the nurses always haunted their boxes right
after breakfast and just before the evening meal. Nancy talked with her
parents every Sunday over long-distance telephone and had letters from
them and friends back home almost every day. Letters had never meant so
much to her in all her life. She could now appreciate how important
they were to Tommy and the other boys out there.
That evening Nancy was thrilled to find a letter from Tommy, which had
been sent on from home. “One from the South Pacific!” she cried, waving
the letter at Mabel, who was just opening her own box.
“And I have one from my Jake!” exclaimed Mabel. “What a red-letter day
for the long and short of our unit!”
The girls moved out of the milling crowd at the mail boxes and opened
their letters near a window.
Nancy stopped in the midst of her reading to tell Mabel joyfully, “He
has only a few more missions to fly and then he’ll be coming home. Now
wouldn’t that be something if I got sent out there while he comes back!”
“Surely fate wouldn’t play you such a mean trick as that, Nancy!”
“Is your sweetie all right?” asked Nancy.
“He is now, but the poor chap’s been in the hospital. He didn’t say
what for. Isn’t that just like a man?”
“Better watch out. He may fall for some of those nurses.”
“If he’s that fickle I’d rather know it now,” Mabel said with a toss of
her head. “But really I’m not uneasy. Jake’s sold on my red head. There
aren’t so many redheads, you know.”
“He’d better not go to Turkey then. They tell me there’re plenty of
red-headed dames there,” put in one of the nurses near by, who had
overheard their conversation.
Nancy finished her letters and while waiting for Mabel she noticed Tini
standing not far from them. There was a scowl on her face as she
impatiently tapped her fingers on the window ledge. A slit envelope and
an open letter were in her hands. Nancy couldn’t help noticing the
return address on the envelope, “Hotel Carlton.”
“Bad news?” asked Nancy.
“My good-looking date had to leave unexpectedly,” Tini replied. “Makes
me sick!”
“You’ve been lucky to have him here at all,” Nancy said. “Most of us
have been dateless for three weeks.”
“Huh, I always have dates wherever I go.”
“Sure, you’re different,” Mabel said sarcastically. Her long
acquaintance with Tini left little patience with her superior attitude.
“The rest of us made up our minds when we came into the Army Nurse
Corps, to give personal consideration second place for the duration.”
“Zat so!” snapped Tini, rudely turning her back.
Nancy and Mabel exchanged significant glances as they left for the mess
hall. As Nancy ate her appetizing dinner she thought over what she had
just learned. She felt actually sick at heart over this unpleasant
business of suspecting a fellow student.
She had no desire to be a spy. Yet when she recalled the horrible
scenes at that wreck, caused by sabotage, she shivered. She would never
forget the dead and dying she had ministered to that awful morning. As
much as she hated the unpleasant position into which circumstances had
again thrust her, Nancy was determined to let no squeamishness make her
keep silent. She had no choice but to report what she had just learned
about Tini’s date to Major Reed. If the man was really an enemy spy, he
must not be allowed to escape again.
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