As far as they could see along the beach, troops, equipment and boxes of supplies filled almost every available foot of space. The earlier invading army had cleared a road with tractors through the heart of the jungle. The leveled trees had been used on the most swampy ground to make corduroy roads. But the hospital unit was not to follow the marching troops into the interior.
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[Illustration: _Landing Craft Pushed up to Shore_]
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A small detachment of men set up camp east of the road, while the western side was cleared for the hospital site. A small stream meandered through the grounds to supply them with water for bathing and laundry. They had brought their own drinking water against the possibility of not finding pure water.
A squad of negroes cleared underbrush from under the towering palms, cut a few trees here and there, and with almost magic swiftness the tent hospital went up. Those men took care of the long tents that were to serve as hospital wards and mess hall, but the nurses put up their own sleeping quarters.
The first night they had to sleep on their bedding rolls on the beach, for their campsite had not been entirely cleared. Before the second night, however, Nancy, Mabel, Shorty and Ida were prepared to sleep in their own tent.
“I never dreamed we could be so cozily settled in so short a time,” said Nancy.
Even their mosquito bars were up, and they had the prospect of a decent night’s sleep, for the previous one had been a nightmare. Only by covering up completely could they be free of the torturing pricks of mosquitoes, and then they sweltered.
At intervals during the first twenty-four hours there had come the rumble of heavy firing in the distance, like an approaching thunderstorm. No doubt those troops and tanks that had moved on beyond the jungle wall were already in the thick of the fight.
An hour before sunset of their second day ashore the thundering reverberations were increased ten-fold. Before dark, their tent hospital, not yet ready for patients, was precipitated into action. Ambulances began rolling in from the north. Those first patients had to be stretchered on the sands of the beach. To Nancy’s amazement she found that some were not bloody, wounded men.