Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress Page 11

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LIEUTENANT IN WHITE

  Barry’s next impression was as startling as a vision of somethingunearthly. A girl with big, blue eyes and a crisp white uniform, waspushing 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 escapedfrom her cap dangled as she shook her head. She took Barry’s wrist in alight, expert grasp and compared his pulse-beats with her watch. Theseconds, it seemed to him, passed with agonizing slowness.

  A glance about him showed a regular hospital ward. The beds wereoccupied by young fellows dozing, reading, listening to the tuned-downradio. 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 tobite his throat, and....

  “You’re in a base hospital in Queensland, Australia,” the nursemurmured, just as if she had been reading his thoughts. “You have beenhere for a week. As long as your fever continued you were kept underthe new sleeping drugs. I don’t think you’re very bright,Lieutenant—getting into a second fight before your head wound hadstarted to heal. But your blood seems to fight germs as hard as youfought 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 seewhat I can do.”

  Barry’s steak turned out to be bacon and toast. At his groan ofdisappointment, Nurse Stevens threatened to take it away. In fact,Barry had to apologize and promise to make no more complaints beforeshe would let him eat anything.

  Not many days passed, however, before Barry Blake was actually eatingsteaks and calling Lieutenant Moira Stevens by her first name. Hestarted that on the first evening that she helped him to walk from theward to the canopied ramp that surrounded the hospital.

  “Why won’t you tell me anything about Captain O’Grady?” he asked as shetook the deck chair beside him. “You admitted he was sent here from theNew Guinea airfield. If he’s dead, I’m well enough to stand the newswithout bursting a blood vessel.”

  Lieutenant Stevens turned her clear, steady gaze on Barry’s face.

  “You think the world of Captain O’Grady, don’t you?” she murmured. “Howlong did you know him before he was wounded?”

  “Less than two weeks,” Barry Blake responded. “Somehow time doesn’tcount much with wartime friendships. It seems as if I’d known you formonths—Moira.”

  A low laugh bubbled in the girl’s throat. It wasn’t a giggle—just agood-humored, friendly chuckle. Lieutenant Moira Stevens rose severalpoints in Barry’s estimation because of it.

  “I guess I can safely tell you the latest news about Captain O’Gradynow,” she said, changing the subject. “I heard the doctor say thismorning that he is out of danger. When you first came to your sensesthe captain was just hanging between life and death. If I’d told youthe truth then, you might have worried yourself back into a fever.”

  Barry did not speak. He gazed across the clearing at a row of tallcocoanut palms. All at once the tropical night seemed very beautiful.

  “So the Old Man is here—in this hospital,” he said at last. “When doyou think I might see him? I—I’d like to talk with him about _SweetRosy O’Grady_ ... tell him she’s not beyond repair.”

  “I’ll ask the medical officer in charge, Barry,” the girl promised, asshe rose to her feet. “Come, now! It’s time you were getting to bed.Take my arm—that’s it—and we’ll go back to the ward.”

  The following day Moira took Barry to see his Old Man for athree-minute period. Captain O’Grady looked shockingly thin. His wide,humorous mouth was drawn with lines of pain, but his blue eyes had thesame smile that Barry remembered.

  “What brought you here, Barry?” he asked as he released his co-pilot’shand. “Another raid on Rabaul?”

  “Nothing so pleasant,” Barry grinned. “The Japs raided our airport thenext night after you came to this hospital. The raid was a cover-up fora landing of paratroops and field guns on a ridge above the field. Igot cut up a few days later helping to clean them out with tommy-gunsand grenades. All of _Rosy’s_ crew went along and had a great time.”

  Captain O’Grady’s face sobered.

  “I see,” he murmured. “The Jap guns had shot up the field so youcouldn’t get any planes off to bomb them. You boys were wrong, though.You had no right to risk half a dozen highly trained Fortress men in aland skirmish. Why did you do it?”

  “That’s hardly a fair question, Captain!” Moira Stevens broke in.“You’d have wanted to go yourself if you’d been there. Would you behappy, sir, sitting in the shade of your plane while your friends werefighting to save it for you?”

  “Nurse Stevens,” the Old Man replied with a wry smile, “you’ve knockedout all my guns. I’m completely at your mercy, and you know it.”

  “In that case, sir,” Moira said, “Lieutenant Blake and I will leave youto make the best landing you can.... Come along, Barry! Time is up.”

  As she pulled the young co-pilot toward the door he turned for a lastword.

  “I’ll be back to see you again as soon as the nurse will let me,Captain,” he said. “And, by the way sir, _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ is onlygrounded until she can get repairs. I—er—thought you’d like to know.”

  In his later conversations with the Old Man, nothing was ever saidabout the Captain’s missing arm. They talked as though one of thesedays would see him again at the wheel of a flying fort. But both menknew that it was all talk. Before long Tex O’Grady would be back athome in the States with the only person in the world that he lovedbetter than his warplane—sweet Mrs. O’Grady herself.

  Six weeks from the day he came to the Queensland hospital, Barry Blakereceived his new orders. He was to report at the new airplane repairbase immediately upon being discharged.

  Barry was exultant. He demanded that Moira bring the medical officer incharge to examine him at once. For the past week, he told her, he hadbeen feeling more like a prisoner than a patient—without even aprisoner’s excuse for sticking around. Furthermore, he declared, acertain blonde, blue-eyed lieutenant had been neglecting him shamefully.

  “_I’ll Be Back as Soon as the Nurse Will Let Me._”]

  Moira Stevens wrinkled her pretty nose at him.

  “As a nurse I have no interest in perfect physical specimens,” shereplied. “Sick men are my job. But if you haven’t forgotten me whenthis war is over, it might be fun to get together and compare notes.”

  She flashed him a smile that took the chill out of her words.

  “Hmmm!” murmured Barry as she swept out of the ward with a rustle ofstarched uniform. “They don’t make ’em any finer than Lieutenant MoiraStevens. And I mean, _definitely_!”

  The colonel in charge gave Barry an examination that overlooked nothing.

  “You’re fit for service, Lieutenant,” he said. “If you were my age,you’d be in bed for another six weeks. Be thankful that nineteen yearsheals just twice as fast as forty-five! Er—by the way—at eleventhirty you will report to Captain O’Grady on the west ramp outside thehospital. That is all.”

  Barry had intended to see the Old Man before leaving, but being_ordered_ to do so puzzled him. He glanced at his watch and saw that itwas already ten-thirty. He would have just comfortable time to shave,dress, and check over his few personal effects that had been sent fromthe New Guinea airport.

  As he stepped out onto the west ramp, the sight of several “brass hats”halted him in his tracks. A mere second lieutenant had no place in suchcompany! Then he glimpsed Captain O’Grady in a wheelchair, chattingwith the highest-ranking officer.

  Barry glanced at the time—eleven-thirty. Recalling that he was
thereby order of the colonel gave him courage. He waited until O’Gradyrecognized him, then stepped forward and saluted.

  “General Morse,” the captain said with grave formality, “this isLieutenant Barry Blake, who brought our crippled Fortress home afterthe raid on Rabaul. Although wounded, he landed the plane under almostimpossible conditions, risking his own life to save mine!”

  As in a dream, Barry found himself taking the general’s outstretchedhand. He tried to make some appropriate answer, but no words wouldcome. All at once he found himself the center of everyone’s attention.General Morse was pinning something on his breast. In the backgroundthe colonel and the brass hats were standing at attention—to honor_him_.

  Barry caught his Old Man’s eye, and it steadied him. He saluted, metthe general’s handclasp, and stepped back. The tableau of high-rankingofficers broke up and passed on into the hospital.

  “Sit down with me, son,” O’Grady invited him. “Moira Stevens will joinus in a few minutes for lunch. There’ll be just the three of us. Youdon’t know how pleased I am, Barry, that I could be present to see youdecorated with the Purple Heart.”

  Barry touched the bright medal wonderingly.

  “I feel, somehow, as if it ought to belong to you, sir,” he answered.

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