Nancy Dale, Army Nurse

by Ruby Lorraine Radford

Mabel and Shorty had already gone out on duty when Nancy and Ida Hall returned to their room. Nancy was relieved to see that Mabel had put her clothes in order. The two nurses who had been off duty had arranged hanging places for their garments. Mabel had even put Nancy’s pajamas on the foot of her bunk, and her bedroom slippers were near by.

“It’s really going to be very comfy here,” said Nancy when she came in from a shower at the end of the hall. However, she found that Ida Hall was already asleep.

Nancy scarcely remembered getting into her double decker before she, also, was asleep. That was the beginning of a routine that lasted for several weeks; eight hours’ work eight hours’ sleep, eight hours for eating, bathing, washing clothes, and a bit of recreation.

Even the southern hemisphere mid-winter which came in June had but a slight cooling effect on them, for they were too close to the equator. Nancy had been almost two months in Australia before she had her first letters from home. There were a round dozen from her parents. Eagerly she climbed up under her mosquito bar to enjoy them.

There was always the possibility that there might be news that Tommy was found. So many of their friends who had first been reported missing had later returned. The fact that Miss Anna also had a hunch that Tommy still lived, had boosted Nancy’s own belief that he would eventually be returned to them.

With her usual orderliness Nancy arranged the home letters according to date and opened the oldest first. Each letter was filled with bits of news of home and friends and encouraging words for herself. But she read on and on without finding the longed-for news about Tommy. She had just picked up a letter from a friend when she heard Ida Hall exclaim, “Oh, say, there comes more work!”

Nancy crawled down from her perch to look out the window and saw a convoy rolling into the streets between the hospital buildings. First there were trucks packed with the wounded who were able to sit up. These were followed by Red Cross ambulances loaded with the seriously ill.

“They’ll more than fill the long tent they put up back of ward three,” Nancy predicted.

She was right. They filled the tent to overflowing and some had to be packed into the already crowded bungalow wards. Nancy was now serving on night duty. Orders came before she went on that evening to report for duty in the tent where the new patients had been put.

It was already dark when she took her G.I. flashlight, dimmed with blue paper, and crossed the street behind the buildings to go to her new assignment. Bee Tarver, the nurse she was relieving, told her the men had all been bathed, fed and their wounds looked after. Night duty was easier of course, though Nancy sometimes had to struggle to keep awake. She was rather relieved to know there would be plenty to do tonight, as Bee described the various cases.