LATER THAT EVENING, WHILE CHERRY WAS ON THE ward, the phone rang.
“Lieutenant Ames, report to Colonel Wylie’s office immediately!”
Colonel Wylie faced Cherry across his desk. “Pack your things at once, Lieutenant Ames!” he ordered. “You are taking a plane in an hour!”
Cherry clung to the edge of his desk. She thought desperately, “They must be sending me home! They are discharging me from the Army Nurse Corps!” She glanced pleadingly at Bunce and Dr. Joe and Johnny Mae Cowan, who were standing in Colonel Wylie’s office looking mystified. In a weak voice, she got out, “Where am I being sent, sir?”
“To the Pacific.” Colonel Wylie chuckled at Cherry’s look of amazement. “Major Fortune’s serum has been used on the Indian for three weeks now and we finally see signs that it can cure blackwater fever. You are to deliver Major Fortune’s priceless new serum to a Pacific island Army hospital. His colleagues there, who have been working unsuccessfully on the same thing, are waiting for it. These research doctors will develop the serum further, for there are actually cases of blackwater fever in the Pacific area. It is the first of the serum ever to be sent and you are the first Army nurse to be entrusted with a special mission of this kind.” The surgeon added dryly, “It is a very great honor.”
The faces of the other three in the room lighted up with excitement and pleasure.
Cherry thought she would faint. “I’m going to… fly? To the Pacific? To bring Dr. Joe’s research friends his new serum?”
“Yes. Now you, sir.” Colonel Wylie turned to Bunce, who paled. “Private Smith!”
Bunce shuffled his feet. He was past being able to talk. Cherry held her breath. She was safe, but what was going to happen to Bunce?
“I have here,” Colonel Wylie barked, “recommendations for your admission to Medical Technicians’ School and for your promotion to a corporalcy, from Lieutenant Ames, Captain Upham, and Chief Nurse Cowan.”
Cherry glanced up at Johnny Mae Cowan, surprised and pleased. So she had put in a good word for Bunce! And for Cherry, too, apparently! The Chief Nurse smiled back at her a shade reprovingly.
Colonel Wylie cleared his throat. “I also have here… hmm… a very bad report on you, Smith, from Captain Endicott.” Colonel Wylie silently read over Paul’s charges. “Very bad indeed. So bad, Smith, that I think I shall disregard Captain Endicott’s report entirely.”
Bunce forgot himself and whooped. Everyone in the room laughed, and Cherry and Bunce were pumping hands in a joyous handshake. Colonel Wylie, still chuckling, rose from his desk to shake hands with Bunce.
“I’m happy to be able to give you this opportunity, Private Smith. You seem to have uncommon medical ability. I understand that you hope to become a doctor some day. I sincerely hope that attending Medical Technicians’ School will be a step toward fulfilling your ambition.”
Bunce blushed to his ears, and said, “Thank… thank you, sir!”
Colonel Wylie nodded his acknowledgment of Bunce’s gratitude. “Smith, you pack too. You sail late tonight, back to the United States to attend the School.” Bunce’s blue eyes were dancing.
Colonel Wylie’s secretary stepped in to announce that Captain Endicott had arrived.
“Oh, yes,” Colonel Wylie said dryly. “Just ask Captain Endicott to wait.”
Colonel Wylie turned to them again. “I wish to point out something more important than your personal fates. That is the medical victory which has been achieved through Cherry Ames’s courage, alertness, and initiative. And through the unselfish assistance and dependability of Corpsman Bunce Smith. Major Fortune’s successful discoveries will be announced to the medical world and to the press immediately, but naturally the formulae will remain a military secret. The United States Public Health Service will later standardize Major Fortune’s new spray control, serum, and vaccine. Once more we can be sure that Panama is the healthiest spot in the tropics, thanks to the Health Service. One more thing, Lieutenant Ames. You will find a very pleasant surprise awaiting you at the Pacific base hospital.”
“A combination birthday and Christmas present,” Dr. Joe beamed proudly.
“What? Oh, what is it?” Cherry begged. She looked from one smiling doctor to the other. “Am I going to stay in the Pacific? Or am I coming back? What about Lex and my friends in the rest of the unit?”
“An important promotion and a new post await you,” Colonel Wylie said, trying to sound gruff. “You’ll see your friends again soon. Now run, young lady! A plane is waiting for you!”
Cherry shook hands all around and ran out. Dr. Joe and Bunce followed her. Going through the anteroom, they had a glimpse of a dejected Paul Endicott. They heard Dr. Wylie summon him, then the door closed.
Cherry, for all her haste and joy, looked back curiously. What was going to happen to Endicott? It was Bunce who blurted out, “Say, Major Fortune, what’s Colonel Wylie going to do with that guy?”
Major Fortune hesitated. “I don’t want to speak out of turn. But you’ll hear about this, anyway. Colonel Wylie feels that Endicott has been malicious and meddlesome, and has acted outside of all bounds of his duty, and that he could be more useful working with a different sort of personnel. So Colonel Wylie is transferring Endicott.”
“Transferred!” Cherry exclaimed. Colonel Wylie certainly had handled matters in his own inimitable way. She could not summon up any pity for Endicott. If she felt sorry for anyone, it was for Vivian whose eyes were open at last. But she was really thinking of Lex. She wished Lex could have been present… a large part of this triumph was his. And what a triumph!
“I’ve got to run!” she cried to Dr. Joe and Bunce. “There’s a plane waiting for me… imagine!”
She dashed off down the hall, and the full realization of her triumph burst upon her. So she had not only regained her old status, she had won this honor and a promotion! She’d ask to take the promotional examination later, anyway, she’d want to. And Bunce was going to Medical Technicians School! Life was wonderful again!
What to do first? She’d have to tell Lex she couldn’t answer him now! Jam a few things into her suitcase. She’d ask the girls to pack and send on her foot locker by boat. Say good-by to Ann and Gwen and Rita and Bunce. She wished she could cable her family. Her family… Midge… Charlie… Today was Charlie’s birthday too! Cherry’s throat tightened. Then she thought how proud Charlie, and her mother and father would be of her, and ran like mad to get things done. So she had thought she had failed, and how gorgeously she was vindicated! What a surprise! What a birthday! Flying away on Christmas Eve!
Cherry got to the airfield in a jeep, on time for once in her life. A great four-motored plane, nearly a block long, a bomber, waited. Her jeep driver told her that this bomber, stopping here for refueling, was on its way to rejoin a fighting force, also delivering supplies… “and delivering you too!” Under the bomber’s great spreading gray wings, in the twilight, stood Rita and Bunce—Johnny Mae Cowan had let them leave the ward!—and Johnny Mae herself. And Ann and Gwen… how had they managed to come too? And a dozen of the other Spencer nurses and doctors, and several of her nearly well soldier patients, and, best of all, Dr. Joe, carrying a bundle, and Lex.
Cherry ran to Lex first of all. “You understand, don’t you, Lex,” she asked urgently, “that I can’t decide now?”
“Of course, Cherry, of course! And I’m mighty proud of you!”
“It was your doing,” she said gratefully. “If it hadn’t been for you, Lex…”
“Nonsense, you did it yourself!”
All the others stood around watching and smiling, but Bunce edged himself in. “Gee, thanks for reforming me, Miss Cherry. It certainly was worth it, wasn’t it? Now maybe I’ll be a doctor some day, at that!”
“This,” said Cherry with a grin, reaching in her purse, “is to wear, to remind you to stay reformed.” She handed him the Indian’s ring. Bunce drew in his breath, thrilled, but he did not want to take it from her. “No, I want you to have it,” Cherry insisted. “It’s too big for me, you see? And it will be good for your conscience.” She hesitated. “Well, so long, doc. And good luck to you, Bunce!”
Bunce looked like a small boy about to cry. “I’ll see you again some day, Miss Cherry, see if I don’t! I’ll write to you!”
To Ann and Gwen and the other girls, Cherry said good-by with the happy assurance that she would be seeing them all again before long. But saying good-by to little Rita Martinez was hard, for she probably would never see her again. Rita knew it, too.
“Good-by, Rita,” Cherry said soberly. “You’ve been a good friend to me.”
“Adios, amiga. Vaya con Diós. Go with God.”
Cherry turned quickly to Johnny Mae Cowan.
“Thank you, Captain Cowan,” she said simply.
The Chief Nurse shook Cherry’s hand. “You’re a fine nurse, Lieutenant Ames. Perhaps you yourself,” she said wisely, “will be a Chief Nurse one of these days!”
Two men of the ground crew began to chase them away from under the wings as Cherry turned last of all to Major Fortune. “And what about you, Dr. Joe? Where will you be?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t know, my dear. But wherever I go, or wherever you go, we’ll both know that it was you who brought my new serum to complete success.” The pilot, the copilot, three gunners, the radioman, the navigator, young Army Air Forces men in clumsy flying suits, strode across the airfield. They clambered into the huge waiting plane. Cherry had only a minute or two longer. Dr. Joe hastily thrust his packages and some letters into her hands. “These letters just arrived for you from home. Take care of yourself, Cherry! And write!”
“I will, I will! Good-by, everybody!” Cherry cried as now the great propeller started and roared in a whirl of dust.
“Good-by, Cherry! Good luck!” her friends chorused over the tremendous noise of the bomber’s four engines. “Happy landings!”
Johnny Mae quickly introduced Cherry to the pilot of the bomber, and he led her to a ladder on the side of the plane.
“Up you go!” said the pilot, over the din.
“Lex!” Cherry turned around halfway up the ladder to say one more good-by to Lex. Then the pilot pulled her through the small steel door, slammed the door, and Cherry bent her head as she climbed up the slanting plane floor. She sat down trembling on a narrow sort of bench. The engines roared, a flag dropped on the field, and the great plane trembled and shot forward. Cherry looked through the thick window to see Lex and Dr. Joe and Bunce and all of them rapidly growing smaller and dropping away as the plane lifted and soared and left the earth behind.
The plane flew high above the sea now, roaring out over the blue Pacific. Cherry looked back and down at the shimmering white spot that was Panama City. She had not found any pirates’ treasure there, but she had found something vastly more important—a way to save lives!
So she had thought she was a failure! So the answer to whether Cherry Ames could stand up to the rigors of Army nursing was emphatically, yes! She had faced the grim tests and proved herself as an Army nurse at last! She felt more mature, more sure of herself, happier, than she ever had before.
Cherry settled herself on the seat for the long flight. She looked forward into a blue vastness of sea and heavens. The plane was heading for the jungles—perhaps for the smoky, deafening air of battle. Cherry did not know what new life she would find there, what new challenge she would face. But whatever it was, she was ready for it!