Cherry Ames 04 Chief Nurse Read Online Free PDF Page A

could have cried.
    There was no doubt about it, the girls’ friendly smiles and warm-hearted encouragement were doing these tense, strained, half-forgotten infantrymen as much good as the medicines and treatments. Even the unit doctors commented on it.
    Only Colonel Pillsbee disagreed. At suppertime when Cherry reported to headquarters, he raised his small, beady eyes from a map, and said:
    “Lieutenant Ames, I would suggest that your nurses behave with a little more—er—formality. A little less, shall I say, a little less levity.” Cherry’s mouth fell open. “The nurses are only being kind and friendly, sir!”
    “I don’t understand what all the laughing is about,” Colonel Pillsbee puzzled.

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    “No,” Cherry thought in sudden realization, “you don’t understand laughter, do you? You understand responsibility and duty, luckily for the rest of us, but not laughter.” She was almost sorry for him. Aloud she said,
    “We’re trying to make the patients laugh and feel cheerful, sir. We feel it helps them to get well.” He blinked his eyes at her. “Ah, yes. Of course I approve of your helping your patients to recover.” But Colonel Pillsbee was inflexible. “Aren’t your nurses being a bit—er—forward? Couldn’t their cheerfulness be a trifle more restrained?” Cherry sighed hopelessly. “Yes, sir.” Colonel Pillsbee was a good and well-meaning man, she saw, but he was an iron-clad disciplinarian of the old school. Youth and high spirits had no place in the stiffly conscientious rules he lived by.
    “As for your own behavior,” Colonel Pillsbee cocked his head at Cherry in his birdlike fashion, “you are the leader and your behavior should be exemplary.”
    “But, sir, what did I do that was wrong?” Cherry felt her cheeks flaming redder than ever.
    Colonel Pillsbee said disapprovingly, “Your laughter sounded to me—I believe the right words are, a little too flippant. A little more dignity and formality, Lieutenant Ames.”
    “Yes, sir,” she muttered. It was useless to try to explain to him. “Here is my report of the day’s work, sir.

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    We plan to work tonight, also. Will that be all, Colonel Pillsbee?”
    “Yes, thank you, Lieutenant Ames. Have your nurses on the road at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, with all equipment packed. And I do not mean eight-thirty-one.”
    “Yes, sir.” He dismissed Cherry, and she left, shaking her head.
    Several of the girls were waiting for her under a tree.
    They had saved her her supper from the cook tent, and were keeping it warm under a helmet. When they saw Cherry’s dismayed face, they demanded:
    “What did The Pill say to you?”
    “You mean Mr. Sourpuss!”
    “I guess we mean Colonel Icicle.” Cherry sat down cross-legged beside them, and reached for her mess gear. “Never mind, little pitchers.
    You kids have outsize ears.” She was not going to relay Colonel Pillsbee’s “formality” order until she discussed it with the unit director. Cherry was reasonably sure that Major Pierce would not give them any such misguided order.
    The tropical sky burned and suddenly darkened, as the girls spent their supper hour under the tree. Their talk turned to home.
    “Boy, when this war is over,” Gwen declared, “I’m never going any farther than the corner drugstore! I’ll 30
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    just stay in our mining town, where my Dad’s the doctor, and be his nurse.”
    “You know what I’m homesick for?” Marie Swift said thoughtfully. Marie was a small, blonde girl, who found nursing more thrilling than anything her wealth had ever bought her. “I miss Spencer most of all!” The girls’ thoughts turned to the great white hospital where they had had their nurses’ training. “Golly, we had fun there,” Vivian Warren said, laughing reminis-cently. “Wonder if the student nurses there now have such a picnic?”
    “Did you ever hear