Glossary:
ANC - Army Nurse Corps
LT - Lieutenant
POW - Prisoner of War
Beat your gums - talk, chit chat, jabber
Dog food - food from the mess hall. It was usually canned, suspicious looking meat.
Spud duty - kitchen duty
Bars - small metal pins attached to the collar of an officer; denotes rank
"Queens, I've got the bandages."
"Put them in the cabinet. Majorie! Where d'ya want the morphine?"
"Over here. Private! Careful with that!"
"Queenie, tell the guys how to set up the beds in that tent."
"Sure thing, Cap'n. Jonesie, do me a favor and finish this."
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
Queenie ducked outside the tent and drew in a deep breath, but didn't linger. She strode to the tent next door where three privates were setting up more cots in the makeshift hospital ward. The wounded had all been carefully moved to one corner so the medical staff could prepare.
"Hey, Queens!" one of the injured men, Freeman, called to her. He gave her a crooked grin despite the bandage covering part of his head. "Mind filling us in on the gossip, doll?"
Queenie spared Freeman and his buddies a smile, but went right back to directing the privates. "The 107th is coming in. You and you, shove all those beds against the perimeter. Turn 'em like this. We'll get more room. You, start arranging these over here."
"107th? Ain't we heard of them, Chief?" a fellow with a Texan drawl asked Freeman.
"Yeah, isn't they the ones fighting krauts over in Umbria or somewheres?" a nasally voice agreed.
"Private! The other way," Queenie snapped. She'd been paying too much attention to the conversation in the corner than to the set up of the cots. A mistake she quickly rectified, clipping out directions quickly to the orderlies.
"Boy, I tell you what, them I-talians are a nasty piece of work," the Texan remarked, drawing out the "I" in "Italian" to be "eye."
Queenie was distracted once more by that comment, but before she could refocus, Majorie poked her head into the tent and caught her eye.
"Queens, did you get the bandages rolled? Cap'n wants to know."
Queenie sighed and glanced at the crates by the "door" (the fabric that could drape over the entrance) of the tent. The crates gleefully reminded her of all the work still to be done, but Queenie remembered she had a full tent of men with nothing to do and nowhere to go. A smile began to spread over her face.
"Not yet, but," she glanced at the injured yet cheerful soldiers, "I've found some idle hands that could be of assistance. Boys, since you clearly have time enough to beat your gums, you must have time to roll these. Freeman, I leave 'em to your direction."
Majorie grinned and disappeared to report to the Captain amidst the groans from the soldiers.
"Be grateful I didn't give you spud duty," Queenie answered sweetly, dragging the crates to them, and Freeman laughed, before addressing the others.
"You heard the LT, boys. Roll 'em nice and tight now!"
Queenie rolled her shoulders back and set her jaw. Time to get back to work.
"Alright, you two," here she gestured to a couple more orderlies, "Start bringing in the rest of the cots from outside. You, what's your name? Watson? Watson, you and I will set 'em up. Step on it, boys!"
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
After three hours of frantic work, Captain June Lee forced Majorie and Queenie to stop, rest, and eat before the expected troops came in. The mid-forties woman went off to seek Colonel Phillips before doing the same herself.
"Nap first or chow?" Majorie asked as they left the hospital tent.
"Nap. The dog food will keep me awake, not help me sleep," Queenie grimaced with a laugh. The two chatted softly as they headed to their shared tent, weariness beginning to set in. The camp's tension was palpable - the calm before the storm of soldiers streaming in. The red crosses on the girls' arms earned them some respectful nods, and the guys quickly fell back to let the girls head to their tent. Several of them knew Queenie and Majorie and knew how to read their exhaustion levels.
"We've been here since August, Queenie. Three months," Majorie noted thoughtfully.
"And before that, three in France," Queenie remembered.
"And four in England before that," Majorie continued.
"When I said I wanted to go abroad for a year in Europe, this is not what I had in mind!"
Majorie threw her head back and laughed at that, and Queenie grinned. She always knew exactly what to say to make her best friend laugh, no matter how tired they were. But the rumble of a truck broke them out of their humor, causing them to glance over their shoulders and step off the muddy track into the equally muddy grass. The truck ambled up alongside them, and Queenie looked to see who it was. Colonel Phillips, his driver, and a woman.
"Hold up," Phillips instructed the driver, who obligingly stopped by the two nurses. "Lieutenant," he addressed Queenie. Queenie shot him a sideways smile.
"Colonel. How's that trick knee? Gonna rain later?"
The colonel rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but then lowered his voice, leaning forward.
"None of your cheek, LT. Agent Carter, this is Lieutenant Ethel Smith and Second Lieutenant Majorie Whipple. They're nurses in the SSR's division of the Army Nurse Corps. Girls, this is Agent Peggy Carter, and she's not here."
Majorie and Queenie didn't bat an eye; this sort of thing happened more often than not in the SSR, or Strategic Scientific Reserve, not that any of the soldiers knew of the special affiliation the girls had. An American intelligence branch, the SSR was a secret organization that required the girls to have extra work from time to time.
"Lovely to meet you," Agent Carter said, her British accent friendly and her smile sincere. A spark of something akin to mischief danced in the agent's eyes and Queenie decided she liked the woman at once.
"You too, Agent Carter. But call me Queens or Queenie. No one ever calls me Ethel, 'cept my Ma, when she's fired about something. I don't think even Majorie here knew my name was Ethel," Queenie laughed.
"Then call me Peggy."
The two women smiled at each other before the colonel interrupted.
"Right, enough chit chat. LT, go rest and eat. I've had word they'll be here in an hour. But I wanted to introduce you to one of our brightest agents. And Carter, these two are the handiest nurses to have in a pinch. Alright, drive on."
Queenie gave a jaunty salute to the fatherly colonel and nodded to the agent behind him, the brown-eyed woman giving her a wink of encouragement.
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
An hour and a half later found Queenie up to her elbows in blood. The experiences of the previous year had taught her to quickly and efficiently close wounds and administer anesthesia. She moved from man to man, focused and fast, but offered small words of comfort to soothe the men as she patched them up. Assess the injury, usually needing stitches, sew up the man as fast as possible but as smoothly as possible so as not to cause any further pain, and apply a bandage. A shot of morphine usually wrapped up the process, depending on the injury, and then the patient would be moved by orderlies to a different bed, allowing a new patient to be brought in his place.
"Where's Lee?" Majorie called, as she strode up, arms full of bandages. She dumped them in a box by Queenie and took a swig of water from her canteen.
"Still in operation. Why?" Queenie administered a shot of morphine. The soldier's moans of pain began to quiet, although his breathing remained heavy.
"'Cause another truckload is about to pull up and things need directing out there. I won't have enough pull. Switch with me."
Queenie nodded once and finished applying her patient's bandage before trading places with Majorie as the man was carried away. A new patient was brought in and Majorie set to work, doing the same tasks Queenie had been doing.
Queenie dashed outside. Two trucks were coming up, but the first was still being unloaded, and the two behind it showed no signs of stopping, rumbling up toward the men scattered about the parked truck at an alarming rate. Without further thought, Queenie ran into the road, forcing the trucks to screech to a halt. Groans peppered the air, and now and then a scream broke out as the surgeon kept busy.
"Hey! You lot! Hold it!" Queenie shouted angrily.
"We've got wounded!" yelled the driver, throwing a hand up in annoyance.
"So do we, soldier! Don't give me that lip. You'll wait for a damn moment while we get these men cleared, and that's an order."
Spinning on her heel, Queenie didn't give them a chance to reply. She quickly organized the chaos outside the surgery tent and the hospital one. If a soldier was standing, he got a once over to make sure he wasn't going to pass out from blood loss from an unnoticed or forgotten injury. If he wasn't going to pass out, he was assigned to a more severely injured soldier to assist. Queenie sorted them out, experience lending her efficiency and speed, sending many to the operating table and fewer to the hospital where Majorie could perform a more thorough diagnosis. Within moments, the first truck had been cleared and Queenie finally turned to the trucks behind her.
"Pull up over there," Queenie pointed, "And hey, you!" she motioned to the truck behind the one in front, "You pull up 10 feet behind him, yeah? Keep the left side clear!" And the process repeated. As soldiers were unloaded, Queenie's quick once-over determined their next destination. Once the men had been sorted and the trucks pulled away, Queenie remained outside to take a moment to assess.
"Hold up, this can't be right. Are more coming?" Queenie frowned, counting the men. A man with a field bandage on his left arm overheard her and snorted.
"No."
"What do you mean, no? This is supposed to be the 107th, and yet I count less than 50 of you!" she exclaimed.
"That's right, doll. Krauts are damned-" he shot a look at her before continuing, evidently changing what he'd been about to say, "devils. Whoever isn't here is a POW."
Queenie processed the information as she stepped closer to inspect his wound. In the dimming light of the twilight, he noticed her bars.
"Say, LT, you could use some help, couldn't you?" he offered. Queenie smirked as she ascertained that this soldier's wound had been tended to properly.
"You're going to regret offering, soldier. Follow me," she said with a wicked grin.
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
Peggy and Colonel Phillips watched Queenie's skill slowly but surely clear a way through the more severely injured troops, and Peggy could tell that because of it, the medical personnel would not be working wholly through the night. Majorie stepped outside for a moment of conversation with Queenie, who accepted the proffered canteen. After taking a long swig, Queenie splashed some water into her face. Then she rolled her shoulders and got right back to work.
"Smith and Whipple are a force to be reckoned with," Phillips remarked. "You and Stark are the best leaders the SSR has, but those two are the best behind-the-scenes workers."
"High praise indeed, coming from you," Peggy returned. "But the 107th… HYDRA's taken a lot of good men."
"Don't remind me. Sometimes I wonder just how far this whole thing will go."