IT WAS A FOGGY DAY IN THE HISTORIC CITY OF LONDON. Curling wisps of mist, blown in from the River Thames, washed up against the windows of the double-decker bus as it lumbered along the twists and turns of celebrated Baker Street.
Sitting in the front seat of the top deck, Cherry Ames peered through the haze at the old stone buildings that lined the street, and wondered if one of them might be the famous 221-B where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson had their rooms. Because of the fog, it was impossible for Cherry to see the number plates over the doors. It was from 221-B that the great detective set out at all hours of the day and night to solve the robberies and murder mysteries that always seemed to baffle the police.
Cherry had been involved in so many mysteries herself that Holmes, with his long, plaid cape and deerstalker cap, seemed almost real to her. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she might run into another mystery when she got back home. But she quickly dismissed the thought. Hilton, Illinois was such a quiet, typical Midwest town that it hardly seemed likely.
It was Cherry’s last day in England. For the past month, as companion nurse to the American writer, Martha Logan, Cherry had traveled all through the English countryside. But now her temporary assignment was finished—as was the research that Mrs. Logan had been doing for a book—and at last it was time for both of them to return to the States, and for Cherry to get back to her job at Hilton Hospital. Even in a prosperous American town like Hilton, there never seemed to be enough nurses.
So, on this final afternoon in London, she was having one last fling at sightseeing.
The bus turned from Baker Street into Oxford Street, which was crowded with big department stores and small shops, and, in spite of the weather, jammed with people. Londoners were so used to fog, Cherry thought, that it took a real pea-souper to keep them indoors. Taxis, cars, trucks, and buses were crawling along bumper to bumper.
Then, as they emerged into Trafalgar Square, the fog began to lift, and Cherry could plainly see the statue of Lord Nelson standing on top of its towering pedestal. Up Ludgate Hill the bus went, past the magnificent dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and through a maze of narrow streets to the jumble of weathered gray-stone buildings that is known as the Tower of London.
Cherry had read all about the Tower in a guidebook and was determined to see it in a leisurely way. She knew that it was a living symbol of English history. William the Conqueror had built the original tower, and later kings had added other towers and moats and walls. In these grim dungeons, Anne Boleyn and the Earl of Essex had lost their heads to the executioner’s ax; and Sir Walter Raleigh and a long list of other famous people whose names fill the history books had spent dreary years in prison. Now the Tower was a national museum that contained many of England’s most precious relics, including the priceless Crown Jewels.
Cherry alighted from the bus, stared for a moment at the Grenadier Guard, who, in a bright-red coat and tall bearskin hat, was marching stiffly up and down before the main entrance, and then she went in through the arched stone gateway.
For the next hour, she lost herself completely in the fabulous exhibits, wandering from room to room amid a crowd of other tourists. Most of them she recognized as fellow Americans, not only by their accents as they spoke to each other but also by the cameras hung around their necks.
In one room she saw what was probably the most curious exhibit of all. Two mannikin knights were seated side by side on mannikin horses, both dressed in suits of shining steel armor. One of the knights was trim and slim; and the other was hugely fat. Cherry couldn’t suppress a giggle when a guide explained to the crowd that both suits had been made for King Henry the Eighth—the first when he was a boy of nineteen, the second when he was a middle-aged man who had indulged himself too freely at too many banquet tables.
Behind her a man’s voice, distinctly American, seemed to echo her thoughts. “The old boy should have watched his calorie intake,” the voice said. “He should have had a good nurse looking after him. Somebody like Cherry Ames.”
Cherry wheeled around, her eyes as wide as saucers, then she laughed.
“Well, for goodness’ sake!” she gasped. “If it isn’t Bob Barton, the millionaire intern!”
Bob grinned. “In the flesh,” he assured her. “But what in the world are you doing here in London? I didn’t think nurses ever had time for European vacations.”
“It’s a long story,” Cherry said. “And I was going to ask you the same thing. The last I heard, you had finished your internship and were doing resident work.”
“Well, mine’s a long story too. But if you’ve had enough sightseeing, I’ll take you some place and buy you tea and a crumpet and we can tell our long stories to each other.”
“That,” Cherry declared, “is the best offer I’ve had today. Besides, my feet are killing me from tramping over these hard stone floors.”
“Then face about and quick march,” Bob said, affecting an English accent, “and Ho for the Blue Bird Inn!”
Cherry had met Bob Barton a year or so before, when she had been on a special private-duty assignment at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, and he had been serving the last few months of his internship. His father, she had learned, was one of the richest oil-well operators in Texas. But Bob had passed up the idle life of a millionaire playboy for a more satisfying one in medicine. The other interns at St. Luke’s had jokingly referred to him as the “millionaire intern,” and Bob had gone along good-naturedly with the gag. But Cherry had soon learned that beneath his lighthearted, wisecracking exterior, Bob Barton was one of the most dedicated young doctors she had ever known.
The Blue Bird was an old-fashioned inn in East-cheap, only a short walk from the Tower. Its oak paneling glowed with the patina of age, and Cherry guessed that the oaken chairs and tables were nearly as old as the inn itself.
“All of a sudden I’m hungry,” Cherry said. She pointed across the room to where a chef in a tall white cap was carving a loin of beef. “May I have a cold beef sandwich instead of just a crumpet?”
“You name it and it’s yours,” Bob said. “They didn’t kid me about being a millionaire for nothing.” He ordered for both of them.
When the sandwiches and steaming mugs of tea arrived, Bob said, “All right, give. What is Cherry Ames doing in London?”
As she ate her sandwich and drank her tea, Cherry explained all about the assignment that had brought her to England.
“But now it’s over,” she added. “Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Mrs. Logan and I are flying back to New York.”
As she talked, Bob’s face had grown serious. “Look here, Cherry,” he said. “You asked me for my story, and I am now going to tell it at some length. And when I’m finished I’m going to ask you to do one of the most important things you have ever done in your life.”
Cherry’s brow wrinkled in curiosity. But she kept silent as Bob went on talking.
“It’s like this,” Bob began. “When I finished my internship at St. Luke’s, the hospital offered me a residency. And I was about to take it when I ran into a fellow I had gone to med school with. He was with the Abercrombie Foundation, and he gave me a tremendous pitch about all the good work they are doing all over the world among underprivileged people.”
“The Abercrombie Foundation? That’s a privately endowed organization, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bob said. “Old Mr. Abercrombie made his millions in chemicals. And when he died, about ten years ago, he left the bulk of his estate for the establishment of a medical foundation to help people who can’t help themselves. You know, just as Carnegie left his money to establish libraries.”
Cherry nodded. She knew about the Abercrombie Foundation, of course, but had never had occasion to come into actual contact with it.
“Anyhow,” Bob went on, “I liked the idea of working with an outfit like that, so the upshot was that I applied for the next vacancy on their staff. And after an interview or two, I was accepted, and assigned to their Washington hospital. That was just a year ago.”
Bob took a sip of his tea.
“I said this was a long story, but I’m going to try to cut it as short as I can. You may not remember, but I was always sort of a nut on tropical diseases, and at the Foundation Hospital we saw plenty—mostly civilian workers coming back from duty in Asia and Africa. I began to study up on them, and finally decided to make it my specialty.
“Now comes the reason I’m here in London. About a month ago we got an SOS from the Foundation representative in Kenya, East Africa. It appears that a fairly serious epidemic of trypanosomiasis has broken out among the Kikuyu natives in a little village”—he stopped a moment to remember—“called Ngogo, if I’m pronouncing it correctly. It’s down near the Tanganyika border.”
Cherry recognized the medical term. “Sleeping sickness! But I thought that had been pretty well wiped out in Africa!”
“Well,” Bob said thoughtfully, “it had. As you know, it’s caused by the bite of the tsetse fly, and in the old days it was a dread killer of cattle and humans alike. Then the British Health Service moved in and got it under control by destroying the breeding places of the tsetse. But a few years ago Kenya became an independent nation, and the British hygienic teams gradually began pulling out of the country.”
Cherry frowned. “And left those poor people without any help at all?”
“It’s not quite as simple as that,” Bob explained. “About nine-tenths of the whole African continent has become independent in recent years. And the Africans are a very proud people. Kenya had quite a few English-trained native doctors, but not nearly enough to take care of five or six million people—mostly pretty primitive by our standards—and scattered over nearly a quarter of a million square miles of bush and hill country. When this epidemic struck, it was a much bigger thing than the native Kenyan medical organization could handle, so the government in Nairobi asked us for help.”
The waiter came by with a fresh pot of tea. After he had freshened their cups, Bob went on.
“As you know,” he said, “the Abercrombie Foundation operates wherever help is needed, especially in the newly developing countries. So since I happened to be something of a specialist in tropical diseases, I got tagged for this African assignment.”
Cherry’s eyes lighted up. “Africa! What an opportunity for a doctor—a nurse! Think of what you could do for people, and learn! I almost wish I was going with you.”
“That’s what I was coming to,” Bob said seriously. “I brought a nurse with me from the States. But last evening, only a few hours after we had arrived, she got a cable to the effect that her mother back in Virginia had suffered a stroke. That meant she had to take the next flight home, which sort of left me in the lurch. I burned up the wires to Washington this morning; but assigning a replacement for her, going through all that organizational red tape, and getting her over here takes more time than I can afford. So I went sightseeing this afternoon to take my mind off my troubles. Then when I saw you in the Tower, it seemed as though the answer had been sent to me like a gift from Heaven.”
Cherry’s dark eyes widened. “Me?”
“Yes—you, Cherry. I want you to replace my nurse and come to Kenya with me. When I was at St. Luke’s, I had a chance to see how you worked, and I’d much rather have you than some nurse out of the replacement pool that I’ve never even met. Besides, it will save a lot of time.” He grinned. “Well, what do you say?”
Cherry’s mouth hung open. “Why—why, Bob,” she said, hesitating, “you really sweep a girl off her feet.” Then she thought awhile and shook her head. “No—no, I don’t see how I can. I’m due back at Hilton, and they really need me there. The supervisor of nurses is expecting me the end of this week.”
“See here, my girl,” Bob said earnestly. “They don’t need you half as much back in Illinois as those poor Kikuyus out in Kenya do. I can fix it up in two shakes of the Atlantic cable. I’ll wire your supervisor and tell her about the emergency. Then I’ll buzz Washington for official approval. And I’ll bet you King Henry’s two suits of armor that both O.K.’s come through in no time.”
Cherry’s pretty head was spinning. The idea of going to such a strange, faraway place as Africa was making her heart beat fast.
“I don’t know, Bob,” she said slowly. “You could wait for your substitute nurse from Washington, and…”
But by the hesitant tone of her voice, young Dr. Robert Barton knew that he had won.
“No, I can’t, Cherry,” he assured her. “You know how I work, and I know how you work.” Bob took her hand in his. “We’d make a terrific team, Cherry. And if you think it was a challenge working with junior volunteers back in America, just think how much more satisfaction you’ll get training native nurses out in Kenya.”
“Take me back to my hotel,” Cherry said, “and I’ll think it over.”
“That’s a deal,” Bob said, grinning. “We’ll grab a taxi and you can be thinking it over on the way. By the time we reach the hotel, you will have made up your mind to come to Africa. Then I’ll get those cables going.” His voice grew more serious. “The thing is, Cherry, we don’t have any time to waste. This Kenya business is urgent.”
Cherry smiled, and her eyes twinkled.
“All right, Bob,” she said. “You’re the doctor.”