After that the girl stomped about like a spoiled child, making the dust fly over those around her. Nancy wondered why she was here at all if she had not come in the spirit of cooperation with the training program.
“Too much silly falderal,” she heard Tini say in a low tone when the formation broke up. “I came in to nurse the sick, not to do a lot of crazy drilling.”
That afternoon Tini was close to Mabel and Nancy when they were jumping some hurdles. Nancy’s long legs swung easily over the first two, but the last took all the ability she had. Tini, however, didn’t even try to go over the last, but quickly ducked under when the instructor wasn’t looking.
“Go back, you cheat!” snapped Mabel. “We’re not going to have any duckers-under in this unit.”
Mabel’s bluntness attracted the attention of Lieutenant John Warren, who was putting them through this phase of their training. He called out good-naturedly, “Now, now, young lady! You have to take it over the top, you know.”
Tini knocked down the bar twice before she finally made that last hurdle. She scraped her chin the first time she hit the gravel. When their instructor was out of hearing she gave him some back talk, and continued to grumble while she crawled parallel with Nancy and Mabel under some lengths of chicken wire.
Nancy was sure her palms had as much earth on them as skin when she finally came triumphantly through on the other side. “Boy, what an experience!” she burst forth, when she got up to brush herself off.
“Just imagine how much faster we could do it, if the Japs were using the soles of our G.I. shoes for target practice,” Mabel reminded her.
“There’s just no sense in all this,” complained Tini, wiping her gritty palms on her coveralls.
Nancy didn’t like this girl, nor her attitude, and found she couldn’t keep silent any longer.