LIEUTENANT IN WHITE
Barry’s next impression was as startling as a vision of something unearthly. A girl with big, blue eyes and a crisp white uniform, was pushing something into his mouth. The thing was a thermometer.
“Who—where—whap happumed...?” Barry mumbled in bewilderment.
The blue-eyed vision touched her lips. A red-gold curl that had escaped from her cap dangled as she shook her head. She took Barry’s wrist in a light, expert grasp and compared his pulse-beats with her watch. The seconds, it seemed to him, passed with agonizing slowness.
A glance about him showed a regular hospital ward. The beds were occupied by young fellows dozing, reading, listening to the tuned-down radio. This couldn’t be New Guinea! But where was it? And how long was it since the Battle of Grassy Ridge, when that Jap had tried to bite his throat, and....
“You’re in a base hospital in Queensland, Australia,” the nurse murmured, just as if she had been reading his thoughts. “You have been here for a week. As long as your fever continued you were kept under the new sleeping drugs. I don’t think you’re very bright, Lieutenant—getting into a second fight before your head wound had started to heal. But your blood seems to fight germs as hard as you fought the Japs. You’re disgustingly healthy.”
“And you’re distractingly beautiful, Lieutenant!” Barry retorted. “Nevertheless, feasting my eyes on you doesn’t fill my empty stomach. How about bringing me a T-bone steak—rare?”
The blue-eyed nurse made a face at him.
“All you deserve is a can of bully-beef,” she declared. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Barry’s steak turned out to be bacon and toast. At his groan of disappointment, Nurse Stevens threatened to take it away. In fact, Barry had to apologize and promise to make no more complaints before she would let him eat anything.