Nancy Dale, Army Nurse

Nancy Dale

ARMY NURSE

CHAPTER ONE

 

EMERGENCY

Nancy stood on the steps of the train and waved at a misty-eyed couple, a man and woman of middle years. Strange how she could be so close to tears, yet so buoyantly happy all in the same moment.

The train began to move slowly and Nancy called back, “Be sure to forward all Tommy’s letters, Mom!”

Her mother nodded and smiled, while her father lifted his hat in that courtly way he had. Nancy could scarcely believe that at last she was on her way to becoming a member of the great Army Nurse Corps. In fact she was one now, for she had already taken her oath of allegiance. This slowly moving train marked the beginning of a wonderful journey that might take her anywhere in the whole world—Africa, Italy, India, the Arctic or the South Pacific.

She had been praying ever since she joined that it would be the South Pacific, not only because her brother was there flying a bomber over the tropical 


blue waters, but because the tropics had always seemed fascinating. But little did she dream what she must go through before she saw again that beloved couple she had just left.

As she turned back into the Pullman she suddenly felt empty, with that awful, hollow, going-away feeling. She thought how lucky she had been to get her nurse’s training right in her own home town. She had never known the feeling of homesickness, for her few brief trips had all been for pleasure. But this was different and far more exciting, yet she knew suddenly now that it would also have its heartaches.

From her seat in the car she caught one more glimpse of her parents. How lonesome they would be with both their children in the service! For a few minutes, as the train crawled out of the city, Nancy could think of nothing but the two she was leaving behind.

How concerned poor Mom had been when she said, “Do be careful, darling, about getting wet. You know how easily you take cold when your feet are wet.”

Nancy had promised to be as careful as possible, but didn’t fret her mother by saying she was afraid there would often be days on end when her feet would always be wet, if her experiences were anything like the overseas nurses she heard from in Italy and New Guinea.

Not until the last house of her beloved town had 


vanished beyond the green hills did Nancy turn her gaze to the inside of the Pullman. She noticed now that practically everyone was in uniform, both men and women. There were two WACs across from her, and an ANC captain a little farther up.

She thought it would have been more fun had someone been going with her. This trip to the capital was always so slow and boring, then there would be a tiresome wait before she took the sleeper for Alabama. She tried to read but was too keyed up to concentrate. She could think of nothing but the great adventure into which she was going. Settling her head against the cushion she faced the window, watching the rolling hills. Suddenly she realized she was tired after all the excitement of farewell parties and packing. How grand everyone had been to her! Since she was the only volunteer in her class, she had been given a dance at the Nurse’s Home. How could anyone stay behind, she wondered, when the fighting men needed so many nurses?

Drowsiness was creeping over her when she caught the low tones of two men behind her. The fact that they were speaking in a foreign tongue pricked her to alertness. She leaned closer to the window and concentrated. They were talking almost in whispers, but she heard the gutteral syllables of several German words. She had studied a little German in her high school days in order to sing some selections from the Wagnerian operas. Now she caught the words, ute Abend and acht Kusches.


“Tonight ... eight cars,” she translated.

The Pullman conductor came down the aisle, and the men fell silent. If they hadn’t become so abruptly silent at his approach, Nancy might have thought little of the whispered conversation. Though she tried to dismiss her suspicions, attributing her sensitiveness to the fact that she had just entered the service, she could not forget the two men speaking German fluently who sat behind her.

After an interval Nancy decided to take a look at the pair. She started down the aisle under pretense of getting a drink of water. The man nearest the aisle had the broad face and blond complexion of a typical German, though he wore the uniform of an American soldier. The other was in civilian clothes, and wore a small mustache. All Nancy could glean in her hasty inspection was that he had a lean countenance, dark coloring, and wore dark-rimmed glasses. On her return she noticed that the blond had a corporal’s stripes on his sleeve.

If he was a spy, surely the army would have detected it before making him a corporal, she thought, and promptly tried to dismiss her suspicions. Not until eleven o’clock that night when she was hurrying with the crowd to go aboard the west-bound train, did she again think of those words spoken in German behind her. Her Pullman was at the end of a very long train. Soldiers were filing into the front 


coaches. She counted eight cars ahead of hers.

Suddenly she recalled the words she had heard behind her at the beginning of her journey, acht Kusches. And here they were, eight coaches of service men. Again she thought of their words, ute Abend. Tonight! Could there possibly be any connection between those words and this troop train?

Nancy followed the redcap to her Pullman seat with a feeling of uneasiness. She knew that spies all over the country were busy trying to get information about the movements of troop trains and transports. She pressed her eyes to the window and looked out at the milling crowd. Then suddenly she saw the blond corporal. He did not get aboard the train, but watched the troops marching down the paved walk between the tracks. Then he turned sharply and hurried back toward the station. The man in civilian clothes was not with him.

Nancy tried to shake off the nagging uneasiness that haunted her even after she was comfortably stretched in her berth, and the train was rushing out across the red Georgia hills. But her interest in what lay ahead was too keen for her to remain depressed. Several times she raised the shade to peep out when the train slowed at small towns where street lights twinkled sleepily, but at last the hum of the wheels lulled her to sleep.

Then suddenly, several hours before dawn, there came a terrific crash and jolt. Nancy caught wildly 


at the clothes hammock to keep from being hurled into the aisle, as the Pullman crashed to a stop and toppled slightly to the right. Screams and moans were heard above the grinding noises.

Nancy clung to the hammock a moment, too stunned to move. She expected the tilting coach to crash to earth any moment. Lights had vanished beyond the cracks of her curtain. With shaking hands she found her flashlight in the zipper bag left at the foot of her berth. She opened the curtain and turned the light up and down the aisle. Several who hadn’t been thrown from their berths were climbing out, wanting to know what had happened. Groans, curses and cries only added to the confusion.

Then with the speed of a fireman preparing to answer a call to duty, Nancy put on her clothes. Some sure instinct warned her that in a few minutes there would be no time to think of herself. At last her long legs swung down from the berth. Her flashlight showed some people still lying where they had fallen in the aisle. Some actually climbed over them in their frantic haste to get out of the leaning Pullman.

She turned her light on the nearest injured person. It was a gray-haired lady, moaning that her arm was broken. A big man, clad only in his undershirt and army trousers, emerged from his berth.

“Here, give me a hand,” ordered Nancy. “This lady has a broken arm.”

The soldier, who was of powerful build, braced 


himself against the berth on the lower side, and lifted the stunned old lady to his shoulder. Nancy held her flashlight so he could see as they made their way toward the exit. She snatched a sheet to use for bandages from one of the berths as she went.

On reaching the platform they found the Pullman was leaning precariously against a clay cut on one side, while the steps on the other were high in air. Flares had already been lighted beside the track, and eager hands reached up to help with the injured woman. Nancy never remembered how she got down herself. Her one idea was to help the little old lady whose wavy gray hair was so like her own mother’s.

“Do you have a pocket knife?” she asked the service man as he was stretching the woman on the ground.

He dug in his trouser pocket and produced one.

“Cut me a splint off some bush or tree,” she ordered. “I’ll have to protect this broken arm till it can be X-rayed and properly set.”

She took off her coat to cushion the gray head. While she waited for the splint she saw that injured people were being brought from the three rear coaches. Just beyond the clay bank which had saved their car from greater damage, she saw that several coaches had overturned and telescoped into a horrible mass of wreckage.

The soldier came back promptly with a good splint from which he was deftly peeling the bark. To Nancy’s 


surprise he knelt on the ground, and in the light of her flash began to manipulate the broken bone into position. One glance at those skillful fingers and Nancy exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a doctor!”

“Yes,” was all he said as he proceeded to the business of the moment.

“Thank God,” she said earnestly, and began to tear the sheet into bandages.

As she had done numberless times before in the emergency room, Nancy helped bind up the broken arm.

“I see you’ve at least had first aid,” he said as they worked.

“I’m a nurse,” she retorted as tersely as he had informed her he was a doctor.

“There’ll be plenty for us to do tonight,” he told her.

When the arm was set, he lifted the frail woman and carried her out of the cut.

“Wait here with her,” the doctor ordered. “I’ll go back for my bag. She should have a hypo. You can help.”

Someone had placed some boxes for steps at the rear entrance to the coach and he returned that way. They were still hauling people out and stretching them beside the end coach, which by some miracle had not overturned. To Nancy’s surprise she recognized the ANC captain she had noticed on the train yesterday afternoon. She was trying to stop the bleeding 


in a leg wound of a man next to Nancy’s old lady.

“Please, someone try to find a doctor,” she said to no one in particular.

“One was here just now,” Nancy told her. “He’ll be back in a moment. He went for his bag.”

Nancy bent to help the captain make a tourniquet below the injured man’s knee. She had just secured the knot with a stick when she saw the doctor returning. The ANC captain straightened and saluted.

“This man will have to have some stitches, Major,” she said.

“I’ll look after him.”

To Nancy’s consternation she saw that the soldier she had just been ordering around, had put on his coat. His gold leaf indicated him a major, and the caduceus that he was a member of the medical corps. She felt terribly embarrassed at her mistake.

He seemed to think nothing of it, however, for he explained to the captain, “I’ll keep this young lady to help me. She says she’s a nurse.”

“Then I’ll go look after some of the others,” said the captain, alertly.

Major Reed was stooping to give attention to the injured man, and asked as he did so, “Where did you graduate?”

“Stanford Hospital. I’m Nancy Dale. I just joined the Army Nurse Corps and am on my way for basic training.”

This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to the 


major. He set his bag on the ground and pulled the zipper. “Give the lady there a hypo. We’ll need one here, too. Tell Captain Lewis to get what she needs from my bag.”

Until the sun rose over the red clay hills Nancy worked beside Major Reed, setting bones, sewing up cuts and giving sedatives to the hysterical. Several automobiles had gathered and focused their headlights upon the scene. Though Nancy had never faced such an emergency, she did not lose her head, nor did her hands shake as she worked to relieve the injured.

Only once did she feel an inward tremor and that was when she thought of how she had ordered Major Reed around. But there was no time to dwell on that in the busy hours before the arrival of nurses, doctors and ambulances from the nearest town.

“Someone to relieve us at last,” said Captain Mary Lewis, who now looked as weary as Nancy felt.

“I phoned the camp for a car to be sent for us,” Major Reed told them. “There’ll be plenty of room for the three of us and our baggage.”

Nancy glanced from one officer to the other in astonishment. “Oh, are we really within driving distance of the camp?”

“Only about fifty miles,” replied Major Reed.

“And you’re both going there?”

Captain Lewis nodded and smiled. “I’ve been on a tour of inspection, and Major Reed has been assigned work there.”