Cherry Ames 04 Chief Nurse Read Online Free

only women who go right up front with the soldiers. If we weren’t serious, we wouldn’t have taken the Army oath, or the Florence Nightingale pledge, in the first place. I don’t have to remind you,” Cherry said with some difficulty, and her voice dropped, “that we are here to dedicate our lives so that others may live.”
    There was a deep silence in the room. The girls looked so shaken that Cherry tried for a lighter tone.
    “Frankly, I’ve got a humdinger of a responsibility. You all have to help me by cooperating like mad! ” 18
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    Voices came from all sides of the room. “Okay, we will!” “Don’t worry, Cherry, we’re with you!” “You can count on us!” And then, she realized, that wave of sound was—of all things—applause!
    It was all right. It was wonderful. The girls were with her completely—even if Colonel Pillsbee was not.

    c h a p t e r i i
    Leapfrog
    an awful caterwauling broke the dawn stillness.
    Out of the door of the Commanding Officer’s hut, Colonel Pillsbee’s head emerged. He blinked in the early greenish light and shouted above the howling harmonies:
    “Who is making those unearthly noises?” The song, such as it was, petered out. There stood the nurses, ready to go, dressed in their stout olive drab trousers and blouses, complete with leggings, high field shoes, helmets, and packs on backs.
    “It’s a serenade, sir,” came a muffled voice from the rear.
    The girls’ sleepy faces were perfectly innocent—except Cherry’s. Fortunately, she thought, Colonel Pillsbee did not yet know Gwen Jones’s voice. Unfortunately, he would blame any pranks of the nurses on the Chief Nurse.
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    “I don’t care to be serenaded,” Colonel Pillsbee snapped.
    Another uncertain voice came from the ranks.
    “We were serenading Major Pierce, sir. Today is his birthday.”
    Colonel Pillsbee stared at them icily, then stated, “In future, have some respect for rank! There will be no more of these undignified demonstrations! Be ready to stand inspection! We start in an hour,” and retreated into his hut.
    And then, to their chagrin, an aide told them that Major Pierce had been at the other end of camp for the past hour.
    Cherry scolded her nurses as they held out their mess gear for breakfast, on line at the cook tent.
    “It’s your own fault,” Ann Evans said. Her dark blue eyes and smooth brown hair were as unruffled as herself. “You made us get up an hour too early.” Plump, comfortable Bertha Larsen declared, “Colonel Pillsbee was not very nice; he just hasn’t a sense of humor.”
    “We-ell,” said Gwen. She grinned, and even her short red hair and the sprinkling of freckles on her merry face seemed to laugh too. “If you had just let us sleep, boss——”
    Cherry, who was so often late herself, had taken no chances on having her nurses late this all-important L E A P F R O G
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    morning. For today the unit started out for Pacific Island 14. For four days, the newly arrived nurses had lived in a tented staging area, while they received special instruction for jungle duty. The diligent new Chief Nurse had seen to it that every girl had full equipment, and was properly warned to expect mosquitoes, mud, and no desserts.
    They were going to march by a special plan, which Cherry called “leapfrog.” Colonel Pillsbee thought that, as long as the unit would be passing through lonely outposts on its long march across Janeway Island, they should stop and treat the soldiers stationed en route. Because these soldiers en route were in small temporary groups, as work battalions, and were moved around so often, no field hospital was set up for them.
    But they did need care. On the other hand, since the evacuation unit was too huge to act as a field hospital for these small groups of soldiers, the whole unit would not be needed at any one outpost. Chief Nurse Ames had thereupon invented her