Read Cherry Ames 04 Chief Nurse for Free Online Page B

soldiers seized Cherry’s hand and shook it. Every face she looked at was stunned and overjoyed.
    Cherry swallowed hard. So they had been cut off for two monotonous years in the nightmare jungle! These I S L A N D 1 4
    43
    fighting men looked to her suspiciously like homesick small boys. They were pathetically eager for the nurses to make some sort of response.
    Cherry impulsively stepped forward. “We’re just as glad to see you as you are to see us! We’re going to take good care of you! And—and—” She looked into the waiting, lonesome faces, and was so moved she forgot such things as rules “—and you’re all invited to a party!
    The nurses invite the whole island to a party!” This time, her sixty nurses as well as the crowd of soldiers let out a delighted yell. General bedlam and joy broke loose. “A party!” “Oh, boy!” “We haven’t had any fun in months!”
    “With refreshments!” Cherry shouted over the up-roar.
    “Ice cream?” several very young boys shouted back eagerly. “We sure do miss ice cream!”
    “And ice cream,” Cherry promised blindly. “And entertainment!” she added in a shout. She could not stop herself. She impulsively promised, and the next moment wondered desperately how she could keep her promises. Well, she would make good on her promises if she got court-martialed for it!
    At that moment, Colonel Pillsbee’s aide came hurry-ing down a little hill and approached Cherry. “The Commanding Officer wishes to speak to Lieutenant Ames!”

    44
    C H E R R Y A M E S , C H I E F N U R S E
    The soldiers scattered to their posts. Major Pierce rather hastily led the nurses away. Cherry was left alone to accompany the furiously silent aide up the hill.
    The command tent and Colonel Pillsbee’s tent quarters had just been set up on a high cleared plot of ground, and some soldiers were building a wooden railing to enclose Headquarters. “Colonel Pillsbee would erect a railing between himself and the rest of us,” Cherry thought. That railing made her feel quakingly as if she were entering a jail, instead of the headquarters tent.
    “What is this talk of parties?” Colonel Pillsbee demanded primly.
    Cherry stood before him and explained, or at least she did her best to explain.
    “Don’t you know the nurses are not to mingle socially with the enlisted men?” Colonel Pillsbee reproved her.
    “Yes, sir, but this is a group party,” Cherry sought for tactful words. “The girls won’t be having dates, sir, they’ll just be acting as—well, sir, as Army hostesses to several regiments.”
    Colonel Pillsbee considered this. The good Army word “regiments” and the phrase “Army hostesses” had an impersonal, formal ring; they satisfied him. “But,” the Commanding Officer said, his small eyes like chips of ice, “these men are fighting men. We must not coddle them. It softens them, and does them real harm when they have to face combat.”

    I S L A N D 1 4
    45
    Cherry thought anxiously that Colonel Pillsbee had an indisputable point there. Then she thought of those homesick faces. “Would just one party do them very much harm?” she pleaded. “After all, sir, these men have been stationed on islands like these for two years, and it seems, at least to me, sir,” she said gingerly and very respectfully, “that their morale is a little—
    discouraged.”
    Colonel Pillsbee in his turn looked anxious. “Sit down, Lieutenant Ames.” Cherry sat down on the edge of a box, scarcely daring to breathe.
    “Two years here is a long time,” Colonel Pillsbee admitted. A shadow crossed his face. Cherry realized that in his touch-me-not way, he cared deeply for his men.
    “Well, Lieutenant Ames, suppose I gave permission.
    How would you propose to manage a party of that size, and furnish the ice cream and entertainment which I heard you indiscreetly promise?” He was now at least considering the idea! “I haven’t the slightest idea where I’ll get those things, sir,”