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Besides their strange assortment of necessary
articles, the nurses bought souvenirs for cheering up
their unknown patients, candy for the children who
were sure to be about, and had a final fling at the beauty
shops. The girls were comparatively free after official
business to go sight-seeing or to the theater, but actu-
ally this waiting was tedious. Cherry grew more and
more restless. She packed her white uniforms in her
bedding roll, put the heavier garments in the foot
locker, stowed just enough things for the voyage in her
small suitcase, and waited. Why didn t they get started?
Where was their ship? But another day, and still an-
other day, slipped by.
Cherry had a great deal of time to think. She
wondered where Lex was. She had known all along, of
124 CHERRY AMES, ARMY NURSE
course, that Captains Ding Jackson, and Hal Freeman,
and Colonel Wylie himself, had arrived with them and
were sailing with them. It was strange that there was
no word of Lex and of Dr. Joe. Inquiries, she knew, were
useless.
Most of all, Cherry thought poignantly of her family
in Hilton, and of the inspired adventure which was
taking her farther and farther away from them. She
reread their last letters, and longed to see them again.
Yet she was leaving them so that she might have a free
family and a safe home town to return to. She hoped
with all her heart that she would measure up to the
unknown responsibilities she had sworn to undertake.
Many lives hung in the balance. Searchingly, Cherry
asked herself, Am I not too young? Too inexperienced?
But many other Army nurses were as young and green
as she, yet they were doing a magnificent job all over the
world. I hope I m as good as they are, as brave and
skillful. If only I could be sure . . . But there was no
way to know except to test herself against the steely
reality. And that most serious of all tests still lay ahead.
Then one night they were roused out of their sleep,
told in whispers the moment had come. They dressed
swiftly and silently, snatched up their suitcases, left the
hotel, and were gone in the night.
At the dock, in the dark and the tense silence, Cherry
and her fellow nurses lined up beside, almost beneath,
SECRET JOURNEY 125
the swelling steel hulk of the great ship. She heard the
lapping of water, hurried footsteps, terse commands,
the low purr of engines. The girls were in uniform, with
gas mask, helmet, and canvas bag slung from their
shoulders. They stood in silence. Colonel Wylie and
Major Dorothy Deane and an unknown officer came
by with flashlights. Then the officer quietly called off
their names one by one Aarons . . . Ackland . . . Allen
. . . Ames . . .
Cherry responded by reciting her serial number. The
flashlights flared briefly on her face, and she groped her
way up the gangplank to the huge blacked-out trans-
port. She was aboard!
Cherry made out a milling but orderly crowd of
soldiers on the black decks of the troopship. In the half
dark, she saw Captain Ding Jackson and Captain
Freeman. Like everyone else, she leaned over the rail,
trying to see what was going on below. At one end of the
ship, under a small shielded light, supplies were being
loaded. Hope it s candy, she heard one soldier say.
Boy, what this boy wouldn t give for a chocolate bar
right now! came another voice with an unmistakable
Middle West twang. Or some good old rabbit stew out
of those rabbits I shot myself!
The first voice, amazed, said, Were you allowed . . .
Did the C.O. give you leave to go hunting? Cherry
began to listen with some attention.
126 CHERRY AMES, ARMY NURSE
Why, sure! The owner of the blithe voice straight-
ened up from the ship s rail and his tousled head
towered against the steam-clouded night sky. The C.O.
said to me, Doc, you ve been working too hard. You re
a mighty valuable man. Why don t you take the day off
and
Bunce! Cherry stopped him. It was part protest,
part greeting.
Land s sakes! Miss Cherry! And hot on my trail!
Cherry and her irrepressible corpsman practically
fell into each other s arms. She barely noticed that
cranes were lifting the gangplanks away, the engines
throbbed louder, and the whole ship started to vibrate
and slip away.
Bunce, Cherry shouted joyfully over the engine
noise and fumbled in her bag, here s three chocolate
bars for you and your hungry friends! And what s more,
now that I ve found you again, you certainly are going
to behave!
chapter vii
Señorita Cherry
blue skies, blue water, young faces on the sunny
decks . . . and now, on the watery horizon, rose a purple
silhouette of land. Cherry leaned against the ship s rail,
along with the crowds of soldiers, and stared. As their
ship plowed nearer, she excitedly made out beaches
fringed with palm trees, and blue mountains rising
sheerly out of the sand.
Cherry took a deep breath of the sweet, hot, ripe wind
from land. It even smells exotic, she thought. She could
almost imagine strange music, fiery mountains, and voices
clattering in a new tongue. But where are we?
A metallic voice presently rumbled out of the ship s
loud-speaker. We are approaching the Republic of
Panama. We stop briefly at the port of Cristobal, then
continue via the Panama Canal to Panama City.
127
128 CHERRY AMES, ARMY NURSE
The announcer makes it sound so prosaic, Cherry
mourned to Ding Jackson, who had pushed through
the crowd to her side.
The lanky New Englander grinned. Why, girl, Central
America is one of the most romantic little stretches of
land in the world! Look here! On the back of a
prescription pad, he drew Cherry a tiny map. It showed
a long, very thin, crooked piece of land, like a turkey s
neck. These few little miles of land were all that
connected the vast northern and southern continents
of the two Americas, all that separated the mighty
Atlantic from the endless Pacific. But the oceans aren t
separated any longer, Ding said. The Panama Canal,
which the United States built and operates through
treaty and purchase from Panama, cuts right through.
Their boat nosed its way into Cristobal. Cherry saw,
lying in its harbor, warships and merchant ships flying
the flags of Russia, China, England, Canada, South
Africa! Panama was certainly an international zone! The
Cristobal docks rang with staccato words of Spanish,
flashed with dark Latin and Indian and Negro faces.
Cherry nearly fell over the rail watching the longshore-
men on the pier below. They were loading huge boxes
and bales onto ships bound for the States.
Pirate treasure, Ding nudged her. Pirates used to
hide in Panama and waylay ships bringing jewels from
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