Cherry Ames, Army Nurse by Helen Wells

Author:Helen Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
Published: 2006-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VI

Secret Journey

A FEW MORNINGS LATER, CHERRY WAS AT THE guardhouse on her lunch hour, paying a visit. The guard let Bunce come out into the cheerless corridor. He and Cherry sat down morosely, side by side on a hard wooden bench.

“I guess you know what I came to say,” she started, smoothing her olive drab cape. “Thank you and … I’m sorry.”

Bunce grinned at her. “Aw, don’t be sorry, Miss Cherry. I’m used to this place, sort of at home here by now. Besides, didn’t you hear about me going hunting?”

Cherry’s dark eyes sparkled, but she tried to look disapproving, as Bunce explained. Unable to resist the fall weather, the woods full of animals, and all those rifles around, he had reverted to his happier civilian habits. He had gone AWOL for one glorious day. When he returned with a nice bag, the Commanding Officer sent the game to the kitchens and Bunce to oblivion. Cherry shook her head at him. Going AWOL was bad enough, but obtaining ammunition for personal use was a very serious offense.

“Only one thing I really mind,” Bunce finished thoughtfully. “Mom might hear about my bouncing around. She’s workin’ so hard in a war factory, I’d be kind of sorry to worry her, or anything.”

“Then why don’t you behave?” Cherry asked, laughing a little. “Honestly, now, why don’t you behave yourself? You could get promoted to medical technician and go to the Army Medical Technicians’ School—that’s al-most as good as being a doctor, you know—if you’d only reform.”

Bunce shrugged his big, loosely knit shoulders. “I guess I might, if you were around all the time to keep after me. But now that you’re goin’ away I guess I might as well say good-by to you now forever.”

“Why, what in the world do you mean?” Cherry was startled at Bunce’s long face.

“Well, you’ll be leaving any minute. Shucks, your training’s over. And then you’ll go somewhere and I’ll go somewhere and we’ll never see each other any more.” He scraped one big foot unhappily along the floor.

“We might meet again some place else,” Cherry suggested.

But Bunce dolefully shook his head. “Good-by, Miss Cherry. You’ve been real nice to me. Well … good luck.” The guard came and took him back.

Cherry was half-amused, half-shaken by Bunce’s sudden and dolorous farewell. But the boy proved to be right. That very afternoon the Chief Nurse called all of Cherry’s unit off the wards for an emergency meeting.

“From this moment,” she told them, “you and the entire Spencer unit are on alert. You are to hold yourselves in instant readiness for departure at any hour of the day or night. I cannot tell you your destination; for reasons of security, I do not even know myself. You are to go back to your duties, but your bags must be packed, your quarters in perfect order. You will preserve the strictest secrecy, and exercise all your discretion. No one but yourselves is to know you are alerted. All this is for your own safety.

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