The moment Nancy saw Tini step into the hall she knew she was intent on
making some secret contact with someone outside their unit. With
noiseless speed she jumped from her bed and followed through the door
in her stocking feet. In spite of her prompt action Tini had vanished
by the time she reached the dimly lighted hall.
She couldn’t have rung for the elevator and taken it in so short a
time. With swift insight Nancy surmised she was headed for her friend
on the seventh floor by way of the fire-escape stairs. How glad she was
she had made a point of asking Mrs. Webber’s room number at the desk
last night before dinner.
For an instant Nancy stood there in the silent hall in an agony of
indecision. What should she do? She was tortured between two
speculations—that Tini, herself, was a spy in their midst, or had
innocently, but foolhardily let herself be drawn into a net of spies.
No matter which she was it seemed obvious her intention was to let Mrs.
Webber know they were alerted.
She thought of Major Reed. Even had she known his room number she would
have hesitated to go to his room at this hour of the night. Lieutenant
Hauser was three doors down the hall. Even while Nancy was trying to
decide what she should do, she was on her way there.
To her relief she saw light under the crack of Miss Hauser’s door and
found her superior officer fully dressed. Nancy wasted no time in
preliminary explanations, but burst forth as soon as she was inside.
“Tini Hoffman has gone out—to Mrs. Webber’s room, 705,” she said.
“She’s Carl Benton’s sister. They’ll find out we’re alerted.”
“Thanks, Nancy. This is not unexpected,” Lieutenant Hauser said, and
acted promptly, picking up the phone. “Connect me with Major Reed, room
829,” she told the operator.
A moment later she was saying into the phone, “This is Blanche Hauser.
Nancy has reported the expected. Set off the action—705.”
She was as cool as a veteran under fire when she put the phone back in
its cradle. “We’re not surprised, Nancy,” she said, seeing the girl’s
puzzled look. “We have the trap set, and had to let things go this far
in order to spring it.”
Nancy’s brown eyes were wide with wonder as she asked, “Then Tini _is_
a spy?”
“I think not—just a fool in the hands of spies!”
Nancy wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let her superior officer see her
give way in this crisis.
Miss Hauser came to where Nancy had dropped limply on the foot of the
bed. She placed her hand affectionately on her shoulder and said, “Of
course I know all that’s happened before, through Major Reed. You’ve
been wonderful, Nancy—dependable as old Plymouth Rock. Without such as
you our national freedom would long since have been undermined.”
“It hasn’t been an easy position,” Nancy admitted.
“We’ve been fully aware of that. But when you stop to realize you’ve
probably saved our convoy from some horrible disaster what does any of
that matter?”
“Are you sure it’s not too late?”
“I hope so. Your prompt action has always been taken just in time.
You’d better go back to your room now, or your other roommates may
rouse and be curious.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never sleep, not knowing what’s happening.”
“You deserve a full explanation, Nancy, but it probably won’t come
before sailing. I’m not at liberty to say more. Major Reed will have to
do that.”
With what composure she could command, Nancy went back to her room and
crept to her cot without rousing the others. She strained her ears at
the sound of the elevator gliding up and down several times, but it
told her nothing of the stark drama being enacted on the floor below.
Never before had she felt so like a small cog in a gigantic machine.
She must perform her function efficiently, leaving to a greater mind
the finished product that the machine turned out. Toward dawn she
finally went to sleep and didn’t rouse till her two friends were ready
for breakfast.
“Tini must be hungry this morning,” said Ida Hall. “She’s already gone
down.”
“But she left her coat and cap,” Mabel observed.
Nancy said not a word as she touched up her lips. When they returned to
their room an hour later all the things Tini had left on her bed,
musette bag, pistol belt, canteen, short coat and overcoat, were gone.
When Ida Hall commented on this, Mabel observed, “Her foot locker and
suitcase, too. Something’s gone wrong, girls—wonder what?”
Nancy could only remain silent, feeling miserable and deceitful, even
while she wondered what had actually become of Tini. When nothing more
was seen of their blond roommate by lunchtime, Mabel confronted Miss
Hauser with a question about her in the dining room.
Miss Hauser’s manner was as casual as could be when she replied. “Miss
Hoffman didn’t pass all the tests,” she said. “Some do fail to get over
at the last minute, you know.”
Silently the trio went back to their room. Each sat on the side of her
bed, staring into space. After an interval Mabel said, “She didn’t fail
on her physicals, I can bet you that. Tini’s strong as a mule.”
“And just as stubborn about having her own way,” Ida asserted.
Nancy offered no opinion, for fear she would betray more than she
should. The afternoon dragged by. Nancy brought Shorty in to be a
fourth at a table of bridge, and they played until time to go down for
dinner.
“I didn’t think units were held over, after alert, more than
twenty-four hours,” complained Mabel. “Sure wish we’d get on the move.”
“Maybe the convoy is delayed somehow,” suggested Ida.
Nancy wondered if Tini had anything to do with the delay. She tried to
forget the unpleasant incident. When they were in the dining room that
evening she suggested, “You girls had better lay in a good meal. This
may be the last you’ll get before you’re too seasick to eat.”
They took her advice and put in full orders. A few in the crowded
dining room had started eating and Nancy had taken only one bite from
the breast of a chicken when Major Reed came in. His face told all who
turned toward him that the moment had come.
“This is it!” he said, when he rapped for attention. “You will file out
immediately to the room across the hall and wait further orders. Your
room baggage will be taken care of.”
Now they understood why they had been told to come to meals, prepared
for marching orders. They filed into a drawing-room across the hall.
Some did not even sit down, expecting to be on their way to the docks
at once. However, when an hour passed and marching orders had not yet
come, they lit more cigarettes and hunted seats. Nancy, Mabel, Ida and
Shorty huddled together on a window seat.
“Why in heck didn’t they let us finish our dinner?” Mabel wanted to
know. “I’ll see that wasted, juicy steak to my dying day.”
“I’d be glad for even a drink of water,” said Shorty.
“No law against drinking from your canteen,” Nancy told her. “I guess
this situation rates as an emergency.”
The time dragged into an eternity. Everyone wondered what had happened.
Would they be sent back to their rooms for another night’s sleep? Then
at long last Major Reed appeared to give them the final alert. Nancy
glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes of twelve. They had been
waiting in this room over four hours. She wondered what was back of the
delay.
They were packed into trucks waiting in the alley at the back of the
hotel. Then by dark, back streets, their convoy approached the dock.
When the nurses were lined up beside a long warehouse Nancy’s heart
swelled with pride that she was one of this brave, snappy unit. Every
nurse wore her dress uniform and carried her overcoat over one arm. Her
musette bag, filled with a score of oddments she might need in an
emergency, was slung over her shoulder. In her pistol belt was a
first-aid kit, and on her left hip was a freshly filled canteen.
With a rhythmic shush, shush of many feet they passed by the long
warehouse, and went across the dock to the great ship rising like a
giant from the water. To Nancy it seemed incredible that anything so
large could remain afloat. She had taken only two ocean trips in her
life, and those were on small, coast-wise steamers between Charleston
and New York in the good old days when no subs darkened the waters, nor
death wings roared overhead.
They marched up the long gangplank and were directed to their quarters.
Everything moved with oiled smoothness. The staterooms had been turned
into bunk rooms. Some of the larger ones, that had once been luxury
suites, had as many as sixteen bunks lining the walls, three tiers deep
with a double bunk to each tier. Fortunately Nancy, Mabel, Ida and
Shorty got together once more in a small four-bunk cabin. Each nurse
would have to use her bunk for lying, dressing and sitting, for all
floor space was filled with the hand luggage.
Each nurse hung her helmet on the head of the bunk, close to her life
preserver and well-filled canteen. In her musette bag Nancy had crammed
what she thought she might need in case they had to take to lifeboats.
She had a small flashlight, some milk chocolate, a change of undies, an
extra pair of dark glasses, cleansing tissues, a small comb, two tins
of concentrated food, and many other odds and ends.
An hour after going aboard the nurses slipped off their coats and caps
and stretched out on the bunks, prepared to jump up the moment there
was any indication of leaving the dock. But for hours longer there came
that steady tramp, tramp of soldiers’ feet as the transport was packed
to sardine-tin tightness.
It was still dark, however, when Mabel shook Nancy out of a sound sleep
to say, “I think we’re moving!”
The other two girls were already pulling on their overcoats to go on
deck, and together they rushed out. Faint streaks of dawn were in the
sky. Hawsers had already been released and the giant ship was being
eased out of the harbor by tugs that looked like midgets in comparison.
The first light of day was striking glints from the water when they
slipped through the submarine net at the mouth of the harbor. The
net-tender waved at them, and Nancy thought a little wistfully that
this was the only farewell they had had. She watched the shoreline of
our country recede, not without a feeling of sadness dulling her joy.
But her sadness was more for those she left behind than any fear of
what might be ahead. She was young and strong and eager to do her
share, fully aware of the privilege and responsibility of being part of
this great task force.
Her group, huddled close together, had fallen silent when suddenly the
loud speaker began to bellow, “Life jackets—all personnel must wear
life jackets.”
There was a general exodus to individual quarters to don the
uncomfortable rig, which they dubbed their “Mae Wests.” Not until their
journey ended, weeks hence, could they be separated from them again.
Nancy couldn’t sit still after she was safely girded in her life
jacket. She kept popping her head up to the porthole to see what was
happening outside. One of the others filled the spot every time she
vacated it.
They had orders to line up for breakfast at seven. The nurses were
scheduled to eat first. It was an hour, however, before they had been
served and could finish eating.
When they reached the deck again Nancy burst forth, “Look, girls, this
is the real thing!”
They joined her at the rail to see that their transport was now one of
a great convoy of vessels of all sorts, moving steadily into the
southwest.
“Breath-taking, isn’t it?” said Shorty.
“I can hardly believe we’re really on our way at last,” said Nancy
happily.
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