The convoy in which they moved out into the Pacific again was quite
different from that in which they had come across. There were beach
landing boats of many kinds in the great fleet. Though this indicated
that they were to go ashore on some beach, Nancy’s unit had no idea
what island that would be. To most it was a matter of indifference, but
to Nancy it was immensely important in which direction their convoy
moved.
In her musette bag she had tucked away the little map Bruce had drawn
for her, with the names of Tommy’s bomber crew. She would never give up
hope of learning more from some of them as to Tommy’s fate.
The crowded transport on which they traveled could not supply all with
sleeping quarters. Nancy and Mabel were among the women who volunteered
to sleep on deck the first night. The second night they took a turn
below, but found it so crowded, and the air so bad they preferred their
bed rolls on deck. Bathing was practically taboo, as their water supply
had to be conserved for drinking. The second day out Jap fliers
discovered them, so that helmets and Mae Wests were their inseparable
companions. Their voyage across from home seemed like a pleasure cruise
by comparison.
“I’ll surely have more sympathy with the dirty men we have to clean up
hereafter,” said Mabel, trying to reach under her “Mae West” to do a
bit of scratching.
“I’ve been wondering if I’ve gotten fleas or something,” said Nancy. “I
remind myself of old Bozo back home. He’s always clawing at some part
of his anatomy.”
When the Jap planes came over they had their first real chance to
discover of what stuff they were made. To Nancy’s consternation she was
almost paralysed with fear. She glanced at the few possessions she had
with her, wondering which she ought to take to the lifeboat. It was
awful to see those busters sending up great waterspouts where they
fell, and never to know if the next would land in their midst. What a
relief it was when their own planes went into action, and the Japs
turned tail.
But the aggravating Zeros came over again in the night. Decks had been
cleared and Nancy and Mabel huddled side by side on a bunk, listening
to attackers and defenders roaring overhead. Nancy had been in a
Florida hurricane once that made her feel like this. All night long the
oncoming gusts of wind had threatened to level the beach cottage. She
wondered how she had ever survived that night when almost momentarily
she had expected death. But tonight she lived the horrible experience
all over again. No one could tell as a plane zoomed low over their ship
whether it was a Jap or American. Time and again they braced themselves
for the explosion they were certain must come. She and Mabel clutched
each other’s hands till their fingers ached.
“It’s beginning to look as though Major Reed has over-estimated my
courage,” she whispered ruefully to Mabel.
“I never before realized how wicked I am,” groaned Mabel. “All my sins
seem rising up to slap me in the face now.”
Suddenly Nancy laughed hysterically, “You’re the limit, Mabel.”
Mabel giggled and their tension was broken. “Let’s put on our helmets
and go out in the hall where we can keep up with what’s happening,”
Mabel suggested. “I always feel better in a thunderstorm when I’m
standing where I can see the lightning strike.”
They went out to the passage nearest their lifeboat, and felt more
comfortable. Almost immediately after they stationed themselves there,
however, the attackers were driven off and peace descended once more on
the dark flotilla.
Not until next morning did they learn that a ship some distance behind
them had been struck and sent to the bottom. She was a tanker, and only
about half her crew were picked up by neighboring vessels.
“But for the grace of God that might have been us,” said Nancy sadly.
When they were approaching the end of their dangerous voyage, the
nurses learned some details of the situation they were to face. Their
destination was Koshu Island, half of which had already been taken from
the Japs. The prolonged struggle to gain complete possession of the
area had caused many casualties, making a hospital unit imperative.
There would be many more casualties they knew from this reinforcing
armada of which they were a part, to replace those being sent out from
the island by plane.
Excitement rippled over the transport when the troops and nurses
sighted their destination, a fluted outline of ragged palms silhouetted
against a white-hot tropical sky. The beach-head which they were to
occupy had been taken weeks ago, so the landing would not be as
dangerous as it had been for the earlier force.
About a mile offshore the flotilla came to anchor. All morning Nancy
and her companions watched the landing craft of many types push in
close against the beach, putting men and munitions ashore. Much of the
infantry had come all the way from Australia aboard the larger landing
craft. When these boats had discharged their passengers they returned
to the transports, and filled up again. On one of these landing craft
for infantry, Nancy’s unit went ashore.
While they waited their turn, watching the maneuvers over the wide
theater of action, Major Reed proffered Nancy his field glasses. She
shared them with Mabel, who stood at her side.
“Do look yonder,” she said, pointing to the eastern end of the island.
Mabel whistled softly when she adjusted the glasses. “That must have
been where they took the beach-head!” she said. “Our artillery surely
did riddle that piece of coconut jungle.”
Most of the trees had been topped, and reminded Nancy of blackened
chimneys she had seen once when several city blocks burned. The open
beach lying between the jungle and the sea was strewn with the wreckage
of a campsite.
No nurse had been allowed to bring more than she could carry in her own
hands, so Nancy’s suitcase and musette bag were packed to heavy
tightness. For two hours they waited with their baggage around them.
But at last they went aboard the landing craft. Nancy was relieved when
finally the boat moved toward shore to see that they were not headed
for that battle-scarred point to the east. Buzzards still circled above
it, and she surmised they had not yet completed their ghastly task of
cleaning up the remains of battle.
It was exciting to see landing ramps go down on each side of the
craft’s bow, like stairs descending into the shallow surf. The nurses
watched while the first men went ashore, their helmets on, their bodies
padded with their packs, their guns held high above the lapping waves.
Then a line of men formed from the long ramps to the sandy beach as
guard while the women went ashore. Nancy, Mabel and fifty others, took
off their G.I. shoes, stuffed their stockings inside, tied their shoes
together by the laces and hung them around their necks. They rolled the
legs of their coveralls high above their knees, and with many excited
squeals and giggles hurried down the ramps and into the cool water
breaking on the shore.
As soon as she reached the beach Nancy sat down to put on her shoes for
the sands were burning hot. Before she rose she paused to say a silent
prayer of thanksgiving that at last she was on one of the Pacific
islands, the goal of her dreams these many months.
“Surely looks as though we’re in for tropical living here,” remarked
Mabel, glancing at the jungle wall not far from the lapping tide.
“Look farther down the beach,” Nancy pointed out. “Isn’t that a
marvelous sight?”
As far as they could see along the beach, landing craft of every sort
were pushing up to shore. The one next their own infantry craft was a
huge affair, and even while they looked its large doors opened toward
land. A tank rumbled forth into shallow water, and rolled up to dry
land. It was followed by several others.
“Gosh, doesn’t it thrill you to think how fast and efficiently our
country works,” said Mabel. “They tell me it wasn’t till the fall of
1942 that the first models of these landing ships were made—and look
at this already.”
“Surely the Japs can’t beat a country like ours!” said Nancy proudly.
But even while she spoke there came a rumbling of heavy guns far beyond
that jungle wall. Mabel had taken off her helmet to let the wind play
through her red hair, that was like a nimbus around her face in the
sunshine. Suddenly at the sound of firing she slapped the helmet back
on her head.
“Say, but that doesn’t sound as if it’s going to be so easy to whip
them!” she groaned.
Farther out in the deep water they could see troops still being
transferred from the great transports to the landing craft. Another
landing boat pushed up to the beach close to where they stood. It
didn’t look to be longer than about a hundred feet. When its ramp was
lowered it disgorged so many trucks and small tanks they wondered how
they had all been stored inside.
As far as they could see along the beach, troops, equipment and boxes
of supplies filled almost every available foot of space. The earlier
invading army had cleared a road with tractors through the heart of the
jungle. The leveled trees had been used on the most swampy ground to
make corduroy roads. But the hospital unit was not to follow the
marching troops into the interior.
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[Illustration: _Landing Craft Pushed up to Shore_]
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A small detachment of men set up camp east of the road, while the
western side was cleared for the hospital site. A small stream
meandered through the grounds to supply them with water for bathing and
laundry. They had brought their own drinking water against the
possibility of not finding pure water.
A squad of negroes cleared underbrush from under the towering palms,
cut a few trees here and there, and with almost magic swiftness the
tent hospital went up. Those men took care of the long tents that were
to serve as hospital wards and mess hall, but the nurses put up their
own sleeping quarters.
The first night they had to sleep on their bedding rolls on the beach,
for their campsite had not been entirely cleared. Before the second
night, however, Nancy, Mabel, Shorty and Ida were prepared to sleep in
their own tent.
“I never dreamed we could be so cozily settled in so short a time,”
said Nancy.
Even their mosquito bars were up, and they had the prospect of a decent
night’s sleep, for the previous one had been a nightmare. Only by
covering up completely could they be free of the torturing pricks of
mosquitoes, and then they sweltered.
At intervals during the first twenty-four hours there had come the
rumble of heavy firing in the distance, like an approaching
thunderstorm. No doubt those troops and tanks that had moved on beyond
the jungle wall were already in the thick of the fight.
An hour before sunset of their second day ashore the thundering
reverberations were increased ten-fold. Before dark, their tent
hospital, not yet ready for patients, was precipitated into action.
Ambulances began rolling in from the north. Those first patients had to
be stretchered on the sands of the beach. To Nancy’s amazement she
found that some were not bloody, wounded men.
In reply to her inquiry about them Captain Crawford said, “They tell me
they’re prisoners—our men, freed when they took over a native village.”
Some had evidently been in line of the attacking fire Nancy discovered
as she bent over a chap with a shredded arm.
“Were you a prisoner of the Japs?” she asked.
“Not me.”
Even as he replied Nancy realized from his well-fed look that he must
have been one of the attackers.
“I got this as we took the village. Those poor creatures in that
ambulance yonder were prisoners.”
“Many of them?” asked Nancy, wishing she could look after them.
“A dozen or so, I suppose. More had been there, but had passed beyond
our help.”
“Who are they? Did you hear any of their names?”
“Sister, we didn’t stop for that. They were Americans and that was
enough for us.”
Nancy had been cutting away the boy’s bloody shirt as she talked, and
now she began to clean his wound. Captain Crawford came to probe for
lead. Nancy gave the soldier a hypo and the doctor went back to his
first patient while it took effect.
“You nurses and doctors got here just in time,” said the young corporal
gratefully.
“Then you were here before?” she asked.
“Three weeks we’ve been driving ’em north.”
“You were lucky to escape so far.”
“Glad they waited till you got here,” he said, beginning to look drowsy.
A few minutes later the boy was sleeping, his wound dressed, and Nancy
rose to go to the next cot. She sent a fleeting glance along the beach
and under the towering palms where men with all manner of wounds were
lying. Here was work enough for a hundred nurses. She saw there would
be no sleep for any of the fifty who were here tonight. A doctor near
by was amputating an arm, working fast while the daylight lasted.
Mabel worked with the released prisoners. She was giving plasma to one,
evidently at the point of death. Nancy paused to give her a hand. She
was amazed to see that the man’s hair was snow white.
“Wonder how anyone this old got into the service?” she whispered to
Mabel.
The man’s face was brown and creased as cracked leather. Only a loin
cloth hung about his waist, while every rib could be counted in his
shriveled body. His limbs were mere skin-covered bones, making the
joints seem abnormally large. In spite of all this they could see he
had once been a powerful, tall man.
“He looks too dark to be an American,” said Nancy dubiously.
“This sun can cook anybody’s skin that brown. Look, his dog tag’s still
on. That gives his data,” said Mabel, for she had already referred to
it to get his blood type.
The man was in a coma. There seemed slight chance they could bring him
around, yet there was life still in his pulse, and they did everything
which modern science knew to strengthen that feeble spark.
Nancy picked up the tag from the bony chest and read, “Vernon Goodwin.”
“Yep. I noticed that when I looked for his blood type,” said Mabel.
“Nearest relative, V. P. Goodwin, Graceville, S. C. Not only an
American, but a southerner!” exclaimed Nancy. “Protestant religion.
Vernon Goodwin—Vernon Goodwin,” she repeated softly.
To her surprise the sick man’s eyelids fluttered, and Nancy thought the
light of consciousness welled up as he looked at her a moment. The lips
tried to move, but no words came.
“There’s something familiar in that name, Mabel.”
“Common enough name back home—Goodwin.”
“Could he be one of Tommy’s bomber crew?”
Again the eyelids fluttered, and again the lips tried to move.
“Mabel, I’ve got to know!” exclaimed Nancy. “I’m going to run up to our
tent to get that list Bruce wrote for me.”
Nancy was back in five minutes, but Mabel had moved to the next man.
Her face was shining with an inner light when she went up to her friend
and said, “It is one of them, Mabel. Vernon Goodwin, Tommy’s gunner.”
“Well of all things!” burst forth Mabel. “It’s a little world after
all.”
“But he may die, poor soul!”
“He has only a slim chance I’d say, even to realize he’s been rescued,
much less to tell you about the disaster.”
“But Mabel, we’ve got to bring him through—somehow! Surely he can tell
us about Tommy. Why Tommy may even be among these prisoners.”
As the idea seized her Nancy hurried off to search the faces of those
prisoners. She looked at each emaciated face with hope, only to turn
away with a heavy heart. Then the idea came to her that Tommy’s
suffering might have changed him beyond recognition, so she went back
among the prisoners, this time examining their dog tags.
When she passed Mabel a second time her friend gave her a sharp look
and said, “Snap out of it, Nancy! You’d better get back on the job or
they’ll be jacking you up for shirking duty.”
Nancy flushed and came to herself with a start. She had never received
a reprimand of that sort and would have felt disgraced to merit it in
this first real testing hour.
Several times during the night, however, she returned to see about
Vernon Goodwin. At last as she turned her light on his face to watch
his breathing she thought she saw a faint color in his dry lips. He
must live, he must! She kept saying the words to herself. If he died
she might never know what had really become of Tommy. Vernon seemed her
last hope of gaining some clue that might lead to rescuing him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------