Read Cherry Ames 05 Flight Nurse for Free Online

to do or say anything which would upset her flier. There was one thing, though, she had to know.
    “Wade, did you ever crack up in a plane?” Cherry asked.
    “Yes, once. But I went right up again so I didn’t have a chance to lose my nerve. Don’t look at me as if I were a hero! It’s all in the day’s work.” Wade showed her through the pilots’ club with its bar, game room and open veranda. Cherry guessed that pilots were given more luxuries than any of the other Army forces. When Wade smuggled her down a 36
    C H E R R Y A M E S , F L I G H T N U R S E
    hallway, for a glimpse into the ready room, she understood the reason. Here sat rows of fliers, elaborately at ease, as they were briefed. They were going out in a few minutes on a bombing mission. Some of them would never come back.
    Cherry and Wade went out on the field to watch the bomber squadron take off. The sweating ground crewmen, with anxious faces, were putting the last loving touches on the big brown B-17’s, checking up on the bomb load in the plane’s belly. The fliers climbed in, joking. Cherry saw how young they all were—some were still in their teens.
    The propellers whipped up a big wind. Cherry’s khaki skirt lashed, and she and Wade had to shout over the noise. The white signal flag dropped. One by one, the planes taxied, rose, then went thundering overhead in perfect formation. They diminished beyond the trees and blurred into the light in the sky.
    “Good luck,” Wade said under his breath. “Wish I were going with you.”
    “Wade—Wade—” Cherry did not know how to express the terrible excitement she felt. “I’d like to stand right here and make sure they—all come back. As if waiting for them—hoping for them—would bring them home.”
    “That,” the pilot smiled a little, “is known as sweating them in. You’re going to do a lot of that, living at a bomber base.”

M Y S T E R Y O F M A R K G R A I N G E R
37
    “I’ll never hear those planes go out and be able to rest until—”
    “Here, here, none of that,” he said gaily and took her arm. “You don’t burst out crying when you see a wounded boy, do you? It’d be the worst thing you could do to him. No, you just do your job for him. Now, my little landlubber, you have a very urgent date with a Coke—or an English version thereof.” The date with a Coke turned into a party. They ran into Agnes and Ann and some of the other nurses with their pilots. A bevy of fighter pilots gravitated to the new nurses. Wade, pretending reluctance, introduced them to Cherry. She was touched by their genuine admiration and respect for flight nurses. One of them said:
    “You flight nurses are our real pin-up girls. When we salute you, we aren’t just following Army custom. We mean those salutes.”
    A quieter pilot added, “Let me tell you, Lieutenant Ames, and it’s no exaggeration to say this, you flight nurses mean the difference between life and death to many a soldier. I was in North Africa when the hospital planes came in. I know.”
    Praise, such as this and from such men, filled Cherry—and for that matter, all the nurses—with a warm, strong desire to perform heroic exploits. Upon rising the next morning, they looked forward eagerly to six o’clock which might bring them their first flight assignment. But unfortunately, six A.M. brought only 38
    C H E R R Y A M E S , F L I G H T N U R S E
    calisthenics and drill, breakfast, house cleaning, and then an all-morning lecture by their Flight Surgeon, Major Thorne. He was a plump, ruddy little man with a twinkle in his eye. In closing the lecture he said:
    “I know you ladies are eager for your first flight order.
    I wish I didn’t have to disappoint you. Until your individual flight orders come through, you will do hospital duty. In fact, whenever you have time between flights, we’ll need you in the hospital.” The nurses groaned. So they weren’t going to fly at once! They had, apparently, crossed an ocean