Cherry Ames 04 Chief Nurse by Helen Wells

swelled up so with happiness that she thought she would burst! Charlie saw her; he touched his cap and looked at his sister with grave, glowing blue eyes. Cherry tried to rush forward to him, to the ladder the ground crewmen were lugging to the wide plane door. But she was pushed aside in the commotion.

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    Men were bringing a stretcher and a first-aid kit, and close on their heels came the Flight Surgeon. Other men followed with coffee and cups and a can of purified water. Ground crew boys in grease-smudged coveralls and ball player’s caps were already swarming around the plane and climbing up on the great wings, squinting as they explored the fuselage for bullet or shell holes.
    Charlie had disappeared back into the cabin again with the stretcher-bearers. Cherry anxiously pushed forward a second time, when someone took a firm grip on her elbow. It was the Intelligence Officer, looking at her with piercing eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
    Cherry explained. Captain May said, “All right, but you had better wait over here until the ambulance arrives.
    Now the first members of the crew were climbing down, Charlie among them, and they were lifting the stretcher gently out of the plane. The wounded soldier struggled, reared back his head, then lay still again.
    The crewmen watched him, deep concern on their faces, saying under their breaths, “Watch his head.”
    “All right, now?” They lifted him tenderly to the ground. The wounded man blinked in the glaring sunshine and weakly threw one arm across his eyes.
    Someone who had picked up his cap put it, with a gesture of respect, on the foot of the stretcher. Charlie A P L A N E A R R I V E S
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    was looking down at the wounded man, his face working with emotion.
    Cherry, forgetting Captain May’s admonition, again tried to go forward, eager to help the injured flier, anxious to see her brother. But the Intelligence Officer put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Stand back, Lieutenant, you can’t talk to anyone yet,” he said tersely. Cherry did not understand.
    Now a woman in an Army nurse’s uniform was being helped down out of the plane. Cherry realized she must be the unit’s new anaesthetist. This woman, too, was prevented from talking to any of the other island people.
    An ambulance clanged up on the beach, crunching and rocking along on the sand, and ground to a stop near the plane. Cherry ran over to it. She spoke to the corpsman who was driving and to Captain Willard who had come along.
    “I don’t know what the man’s condition is, Captain Willard,” Cherry said, in response to the doctor’s question. “He is weak but conscious, he still has a little muscular control, he did not talk—that’s all I could observe,” she reported.
    Captain Willard nodded his gray head and clambered down. “I’ll have a look. See, Jack,” he explained to the young corpsman who followed him, “the Intelligence Officer is going to hold an interrogation. G–2 tries to 84
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    find out exactly what happened, while it’s still fresh in the fliers’ minds. In that way, Intelligence gets a line on what the enemy is doing.” He added to Cherry, “You’d better come along with us, Lieutenant Ames.” They knelt beside the patient. As Cherry knelt, her brother patted her head.
    “Hello, Sis,” he said, his smile very broad and warm.
    “Hello, sweetie,” Cherry smiled up, pressing his hand. “Be with you in a minute.” Then she turned to the patient. Both Captain Willard and the Flight Surgeon were bent over the flier.
    Charlie squatted on his heels beside her. “Cherry, isn’t there something funny here? Look, he’s conscious but he won’t talk. Or can’t he talk?” Cherry watched Captain Willard quickly examine the man, especially his head. She saw no mouth wound, no overt sign of a brain wound. Only his shoulder was bleeding a little where a first-aid bandage