Nancy excused herself before Mabel and her friends had finished eating,
and left the mess hall. She found Major Reed alone this time, sitting
at his desk. She was not unmindful of the brightening of his face when
he saw her. He was such a large man he seemed older than he really was.
Nancy had at first thought he was about thirty, but now he seemed
nearer twenty-five. He had gone far for one so young.
“Come in, Miss Nancy,” he said cordially. He jumped up and placed a
chair for her, then closed the door. “You have more information?”
“It may or may not be important,” she told him a little sadly.
“Frankly, Major Reed, I don’t like this business of reporting on a
fellow student—yet I dare not hide what I hear.”
“I fully appreciate the awkwardness of the situation,” he said with
understanding, “but these are really times that try men’s souls. We
have to do many things differently now.”
“I’ll say,” she agreed.
“I was just reading here,” said the major, indicating a magazine he had
put down at her entrance, “that our vice-president says the time is
past when we must see no evil, hear no evil, and tell no evil. We must
do all three until evil is wiped out. Right now you are in a peculiar
position and the only one on whom I can rely.”
“I’ll try not to betray your trust,” she said. “I learned just now that
Tini’s friend had been staying at Hotel Carlton over in the city. I’m
afraid he’s already left there. He wrote her he had to leave
unexpectedly.”
Suddenly the major’s hearty laughter filled the little room. “So he got
wise to the fact that he was being watched!”
“Oh—so you already knew he was staying there?”
Major Reed became wary. “We had a line on him.”
“But how?” asked Nancy. “Tini did come in on that next bus the other
night. Nobody here had time to get into the village and follow him
after he put Tini on the bus.”
“I acted on your information promptly. There’s such a thing as the
telephone,” he reminded Nancy.
He made this unsatisfactory explanation with a finality that told her
she must inquire no further into his end of the business.
“Have you learned anything else?” he asked.
“Yes. Tini told us she met him in Charleston. He’s a traveling
salesman, uses the trains instead of a car. He suggested that Tini join
the Army Nurse Corps.”
“So!” Major Reed’s dark eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Mabel Larsen took nurse’s training in the same hospital with her. She
said Tini went into it originally because she was crazy about one of
the internes. But that may be only gossip, for it does sound mean. I’m
afraid Tini isn’t very well liked.”
Major Reed was abstractedly making crosses on a scrap of paper. Finally
his pencil stopped, and he looked squarely across at Nancy.
“Has Miss Hoffman done anything to make you feel she has gotten on the
inside merely to supply information to our enemies?”
“That’s a stiff question, Major.”
“I know it is. But you’re in a better position to judge of such things
than any of the instructors.”
“Tini gripes a lot about regulations and the hardships of the military
training, but Mabel said she was always complaining during her nurse’s
training. She’s an only child. Her family has plenty of money, and
she’s rather spoiled. All those things have to be taken into
consideration.”
Nancy saw the ghost of a smile flicker around the major’s nice lips.
Then he said, “But you’ve evaded my question.”
“Oh, no. I’m not trying to evade, because I honestly don’t think Tini
has the makings of a spy. I think she’s motivated entirely by
selfishness. She would be horribly bored here without dates—she’ll go
with most anybody rather than be dateless.”
“I suppose with a little flattery a man could wheedle a good bit out of
her.”
“You may be right,” Nancy conceded.
She rose to leave and he stood up.
“All this has been a great help,” he told her. “But keep in mind it’s
still between us two.”
She was almost at the door when he added, “And by the way—a notice has
just been put on the bulletin board that will interest you.”
“Oh, are we going to be sent overseas soon?”
He laughed again. “You’re optimistic! Some nurses have been waiting to
go over for a year or more, and here you’re expecting to go in a few
weeks.”
“It has been done,” Nancy came back promptly. “Oh, Major Reed, if
they’d only send me to the South Pacific in a hurry! I have a brother
out there who’s almost finished his flying missions. If I get there
before he comes back, I may have a chance to see him.”
“Just keep your shirt on,” he told her. “You’ll probably get into the
thick of it before it’s all over. I’m afraid there’s more than we
dreamed of ahead. That notice out there says you’re to get a taste of
tent life, starting Monday.”
“Oh, that’s really to my liking!” exclaimed Nancy. She hurried away to
find Mabel and tell her the news.
On Sunday just before supper Nancy and Mabel were packed to start off
by army truck at dawn next morning. It was exciting to put into
practice their instructions about packing compactly for travel, for
they were to move on now as if they were going into a combat area.
“Seems like the real thing,” said Mabel eagerly.
They had had their supper and were ready for bed early when they heard
a knock on their door. It proved to be Lieutenant Hauser.
“Long-distance call for you, Miss Dale,” she said when they opened the
door.
Nancy stood stunned for a moment. Her arrangement with the folks back
home was that she would call them every Sunday at two o’clock, as long
as phone calls of that kind were permissible. She had talked with her
mother and father only a few hours ago, though she had not been able to
tell them she was moving on to another address. They would have to be
informed about that later when the unit had arrived safely. To have
them call back like this alarmed her. She knew no one else who would
call her by long-distance telephone here.
“She said you had a long-distance call,” Mabel repeated, when Nancy
still stood where she had received the message.
“But why would they be calling back?” Nancy wanted to know.
“Oh come on, gal!” exclaimed Mabel, wrapping her housecoat around her
and taking Nancy’s arm. “How will you ever face all those bombs if you
get so scared over a little telephone bell ringing?”
Nancy could think only that something terrible must have happened to
her parents. She let Mabel lead her like a sleep-walker to the phone in
Lieutenant Hauser’s office.
“Hello! Yes—this is Nancy. Oh Dad, that you? I was afraid something
was wrong with you or Mom.”
Mabel could hear Mr. Dale’s deep voice as she stood close to Nancy:
“No, we’re all right, but we had upsetting news just now from the
government—”
“From the government—you—you mean about Tommy?” asked Nancy.
“They report he’s been missing in action over enemy territory since the
second of March.”
“Oh Dad!” wailed Nancy. “It can’t be true! It just can’t! God wouldn’t
let anything happen to our Tommy.”
“Not if our prayers can keep it from happening, darling,” came the firm
voice confidently over the wire. “You just keep on praying like we’ve
been doing all along, and he’ll be taken care of.”
“Oh Dad, how I wish I could be there with you and Mom right now! How is
she?”
“Just the same brave saint she’s always been. She’s writing you a
letter now to hearten you.”
“Kiss her for me,” said Nancy. “And tell her I’ll pray harder than
ever.”
Nancy put down the phone and faced Mabel.
“I could hear what he said,” her friend told her gently. “Don’t give up
hope, Nancy. Lots of times they turn up after they’re reported missing.
Maybe he’s not dead.”
“Oh, no, he’s not!” Nancy asserted firmly. “I’m not going to think of
it for a minute. He wrote me in that last letter he could feel our
prayers helping protect him, and he’s going to feel it more than ever
now.”
From sunrise till mid-afternoon the following day the convoy rolled
smoothly west along the paved highway. At noon they stopped in a large
city to eat a lunch the canteen girls had prepared. It was good to get
out and stretch their legs after sitting on the hard truck seats all
morning. No one knew where they were going, or how long they would be
on their way, so the nurses made the best of their hour’s rest. They
took turns in the canteen dressing room, freshening up to continue
their journey.
While they rested Nancy slipped her brother’s last letter from her
pocket and re-read it. Mabel caught her at it and tried to cheer her.
“Come on now,” she said, “it does no good grieving.”
“I’m not grieving. It—it makes me feel more certain he’s going to come
out all right when I re-read his letter.”
“Let’s take a sprint around the block,” suggested Mabel. “We have a few
minutes before we take off.”
“Not a bad idea. A little exercise will do us good.”
“We may never get a peep at this burg again. I sure don’t mean to miss
anything on the way.”
Other girls were out pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the
canteen, but Nancy and Mabel wanted to see more. They were in the heart
of town, and the street back of the canteen had many attractive shop
windows. Nancy kept glancing at her watch as they paused to admire the
pretty dresses.
“Do you feel like someone who’s renounced the world when you look at
those dresses?” asked Mabel.
“Oh, well, it won’t be forever,” Nancy said consolingly. “At least we
can still wear evening dresses for dances on the post, Miss Hauser
said.”
“Yeah! That will be a slight morale booster.”
“I never felt more smartly dressed than I do in this uniform,”
continued Nancy.
“I must admit they do look rather stunning,” Mabel agreed.
The next store carried drugs, and they were about to pass by when Nancy
seized Mabel’s arm. “Say, that looks like Tini in there!”
Mabel stepped back and looked in. “Sure is! Come on, I’ll get some
dental floss and see what she’s up to.”
As they went in, Tini’s back was toward them. She sat on a stool at the
soda counter, drinking a coke. Why had she come here for a coke when
they had all the cold drinks they wanted back at the canteen? Tini was
leaning across the counter, turning her charm on the soda jerker who
was at least five years her junior. What was she up to now, Nancy
wondered?
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