Nancy Dale, Army Nurse Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE GAS CHAMBER

  The following morning a scheduled lecture on military law was postponedfor an impromptu talk by Major Reed. Nancy's heart skipped a beat whenLieutenant Hauser introduced the major to the assembled unit.Instinctively she felt his appearance had something to do with what shehad told him last night. And she was right.

  He talked to them for an hour on the subtle ways in which the enemysucceeded in getting information. He admonished the nurses aboutsilence in public places, and prohibited discussion outside the campgrounds about what was going on inside. He warned them against pickingup conversations with strange men who might craftily get informationfrom them. He finished his talk by giving a half-dozen actual incidentswhere absolutely loyal men and women had witlessly supplied the enemywith vital information.

  "This is for your protection as well as for our boys out there on thebattlefronts," he told them. "I warn you to make no close contacts withstrangers."

  As the girls filed out of the lecture room there was awe in theirwhispered remarks. Most of them felt more keenly than ever theresponsibilities of the task ahead.

  As they went to the grounds for instructions in using gas masks, IdaHall and Tini Hoffman were close to Nancy and Mabel.

  "I noticed you had a mighty swell-looking date last night," Nancy heardIda saying to Tini. "Where'd you pick him up?"

  "I didn't pick him up," retorted Tini. "I met him in Charleston."

  "Recently?"

  "When I was on vacation after finishing my nurse's training."

  "Oh, I see." Ida's manner showed she didn't like Tini any more thanmost of the others.

  "You surely can't accuse him of trying to pick me up," Tini flared,fully aware of the implications in Ida's remarks, following so close onthat lecture. "He encouraged me to come into the ANC. In fact he wasthe very one who suggested it."

  "You must have made a hit with him," put in Nancy, "to have him comeall the way over here to see you."

  Tini looked pleased, and toyed with her blond curls before she said,"Well, you see he's a traveling salesman and gets around."

  "Huh, he must be luckier than most if he can still get gas to be atraveling salesman," commented Mabel.

  "Oh, he uses the trains. His territory is too wide for a car in thesetimes."

  Nancy smiled disarmingly as she asked, trying to seem casual, "Datinghim tonight?"

  "If he can arrange his business so he can be back in the village."

  There was no more time for probing, for their instructor, SergeantFuller, was calling them to attention on the pine-clad hill where theyhad already received their preliminary instruction in putting on andtaking off their gas masks. The structure of the masks had beenexplained in detail, and a lecture given on the various types of gas,and how to care for gas casualties.

  This morning, however, came their first really difficult test. They hadto go through the gas chamber, as they called the little house on thehill where the tests were made.

  "Gosh, I'll sure be glad when this is over," moaned a small, brown-eyedgirl, Grace Warner, whom they had dubbed "Shorty."

  Grace actually looked no more than sixteen and wore her hair with abang-bob which made her round, childish face seem even more immature.Her voice, too, had a thin, babyish quality. Though the nurses teasedher quite a bit, she was a general favorite.

  Shorty was between Nancy and Mabel when they lined up for thegas-chamber test. Her big brown eyes were apprehensive as she looked atNancy and said, "If we could go through there once and have it overwith I wouldn't mind so much. But three times--gosh!"

  "The first won't be so hard," Nancy said consolingly. "We just walkthrough the front door and out the back--to be sure our masks don'tleak or anything."

  "Only tear gas, anyhow," Mabel added. "It's not nearly so bad as theothers."

  "That's what you think," said Shorty. "One of our nurses back home saidshe got badly burned about the neck and wrists when she took the test."

  "She probably wasn't as snugly protected as we are. That's why theymake our shirts now with the extra protection flaps at the cuffs andfront. No skin exposed," explained Mabel.

  The nurses stood in line, their gas masks on. Already they could hearlaughter and nervous giggles on the other side, as the first of thegroup marched through and came out triumphantly to take off their maskstill time for the next test.

  Nancy and her friends didn't mind the first test so much, though theywere glad enough to hurry out the back door. On the second trip theywent in with their gas masks on, took them off inside, then hurried out.

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  _"I'll Be Glad When This Is Over," Moaned Shorty_]

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  "Oh, boy, is this fresh air good!" exclaimed Nancy, when she rushed outthe back door.

  "It was awful!" wailed Shorty. "My face is stinging all over. Iwouldn't go in there again for anything!"

  "But you have to!" stated Nancy. "The hardest test is yet to come."

  "I can't! I just can't!" wailed Shorty, her cheeks wet with tears thathad not all been caused by the stinging gas.

  "If you don't go through it you'll never get overseas," Nancy warnedher.

  "I don't see why they put us through all this misery," wailed Shorty."We know how to put on gas masks in case there's any trouble overyonder. No sense in torturing ourselves like this when we may neverhave to put 'em on again."

  Nancy caught Shorty by the shoulders and shook her slightly. "Now youcut out that kind of talk, or they'll not let you go down under withus."

  "Come on," warned Mabel. "It's our turn again."

  Nancy caught Shorty's hand. "Come on, honey," she said in a wheedlingtone. "We'll go through together."

  Nancy, herself, had really dreaded this final ordeal, but having tobolster Shorty's confidence left her little thought for her own fears.She shoved her little friend through the door saying, "Now, put on themask--quick!"

  Shorty already had her mask over her face when Nancy followed throughthe door. In spite of their speed their trembling hands fumbled a bitbefore the masks could be put into place, and so they felt a bit ofstinging. When they were securely masked, however, Nancy urged theexcited girl toward the back door.

  "It wasn't so bad after all, was it?" asked Nancy, after she jerked hermask off and filled her lungs with fresh air.

  "Could've been worse. But I guess I never would have got through atall, Nancy, if you hadn't made me," Shorty admitted in a shamefacedmanner.

  "Hope we don't ever have to use these for the real thing," Mabel said.

  "I heard a major, just returned from overseas, tell about how the Japsoften cry 'Wolf' about gas," said Nancy, sitting on the brown pinecarpet with the others to rest a bit.

  "What do you mean--cry wolf?" asked Shorty.

  "When our men are coming ashore from the landing craft the Japs oftenthrow up a smoke-screen and cry, 'Gas'. They say there's nothing breaksthe men's morale easier than the fear of gas," Nancy explained.

  "That's just too horrible to conceive of," said Ida Hall.

  "At least it's consoling to know it hasn't been used so far," put inMabel.

  "No telling what they'll do at the desperate end," Nancy warned them."I don't mean to miss a trick in these gas-mask drills."

  "I heard we'll have to go through the gas chamber again at the port ofembarkation," Ida Hall informed them.

  "Good night!" flared Shorty. "As if three times would not be enough."

  "These masks belong at the training center. They'll issue us new onesat the port. We have to test them out," Ida explained.

  The weather had turned warm and Nancy was glad to get back to theirquarters and have a good shower when the day's classes and drills wereover.

  Mail came twice a day, and the nurses always haunted their boxes rightafter breakfast and just be
fore the evening meal. Nancy talked with herparents every Sunday over long-distance telephone and had letters fromthem and friends back home almost every day. Letters had never meant somuch to her in all her life. She could now appreciate how importantthey were to Tommy and the other boys out there.

  That evening Nancy was thrilled to find a letter from Tommy, which hadbeen sent on from home. "One from the South Pacific!" she cried, wavingthe letter at Mabel, who was just opening her own box.

  "And I have one from my Jake!" exclaimed Mabel. "What a red-letter dayfor the long and short of our unit!"

  The girls moved out of the milling crowd at the mail boxes and openedtheir letters near a window.

  Nancy stopped in the midst of her reading to tell Mabel joyfully, "Hehas only a few more missions to fly and then he'll be coming home. Nowwouldn't that be something if I got sent out there while he comes back!"

  "Surely fate wouldn't play you such a mean trick as that, Nancy!"

  "Is your sweetie all right?" asked Nancy.

  "He is now, but the poor chap's been in the hospital. He didn't saywhat for. Isn't that just like a man?"

  "Better watch out. He may fall for some of those nurses."

  "If he's that fickle I'd rather know it now," Mabel said with a toss ofher head. "But really I'm not uneasy. Jake's sold on my red head. Therearen't so many redheads, you know."

  "He'd better not go to Turkey then. They tell me there're plenty ofred-headed dames there," put in one of the nurses near by, who hadoverheard their conversation.

  Nancy finished her letters and while waiting for Mabel she noticed Tinistanding not far from them. There was a scowl on her face as sheimpatiently tapped her fingers on the window ledge. A slit envelope andan open letter were in her hands. Nancy couldn't help noticing thereturn address on the envelope, "Hotel Carlton."

  "Bad news?" asked Nancy.

  "My good-looking date had to leave unexpectedly," Tini replied. "Makesme sick!"

  "You've been lucky to have him here at all," Nancy said. "Most of ushave been dateless for three weeks."

  "Huh, I always have dates wherever I go."

  "Sure, you're different," Mabel said sarcastically. Her longacquaintance with Tini left little patience with her superior attitude."The rest of us made up our minds when we came into the Army NurseCorps, to give personal consideration second place for the duration."

  "Zat so!" snapped Tini, rudely turning her back.

  Nancy and Mabel exchanged significant glances as they left for the messhall. As Nancy ate her appetizing dinner she thought over what she hadjust learned. She felt actually sick at heart over this unpleasantbusiness of suspecting a fellow student.

  She had no desire to be a spy. Yet when she recalled the horriblescenes at that wreck, caused by sabotage, she shivered. She would neverforget the dead and dying she had ministered to that awful morning. Asmuch as she hated the unpleasant position into which circumstances hadagain thrust her, Nancy was determined to let no squeamishness make herkeep silent. She had no choice but to report what she had just learnedabout Tini's date to Major Reed. If the man was really an enemy spy, hemust not be allowed to escape again.

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