A sultry and sweetly fragrant breeze swept across Manila Bay as Eleanor Lindstrom walked carefully down the gangplank of the just-docked naval transport ship, mindful that her land legs might be slow in returning. A band was playing a cheerful Benny Goodman tune as she and other disembarking servicemen and women stepped onto solid ground. Filipino nationals on the other side of a rope held up by stanchions were waving hello and hawking maps of the islands or taxi rides or paper bags of sweets or bouquets of aromatic frangipani blossoms. The late-afternoon air was thick with their excitement but also with humidity that rivaled anything Eleanor had felt back home on a Minnesota midsummer's day.
The mood all around her was festive, despite the stifling heat, and she wanted to linger, to take it all in, and let the buoyant atmosphere energize her. Fortify her. Calm her. Crossing the Pacific, especially for a twenty-three-year-old Midwesterner who had never even seen the ocean before, had been challenging, yes, but it wasn’t just the fatigue of travel that made her want to stop and fully embrace the novelty of her new surroundings. It was far more than that.
It was deciding on a whim to apply to the Navy and getting accepted so quickly. Leaving for training barely three weeks after signing on the dotted line. Saying goodbye to civilian life. Leaving her friends and fellow nurses at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Hugging her parents and sister farewell and knowing a three-year overseas assignment meant it would likely be several years before she saw them or the family dairy barns again.
And all this change because she’d fallen in love with a man who loved another.
Eleanor set down her suitcase, closed her eyes, and breathed in deep the smells and sounds and feel of her new world, a world so far from all she knew, all she loved, and the part she needed to stop loving.
It hadn’t been a mistake to join the Navy Nurse Corps, she knew that. Eleanor had nursing skills they obviously needed, and she needed an abrupt change in her day-to-day life. Both she and the Corps had gotten what they desired.
She loved being a nurse, had wanted to be one since her earliest childhood memories of pretending her dolls were sick or hurt and needed her kind attention. She loved her country, too, and was proud to now be serving in the Corps. And she’d always hoped to one day travel to a foreign land and experience a vastly different culture. But she knew these were not the real reasons she was standing at that moment on an ocean pier, thousands of miles from home.
Eleanor felt a hand on her arm and opened her eyes. A fellow naval officer was standing in front of her. The single gold bar on his lapel indicated he was an ensign; the lowest ranking of officers, so fairly new to military life, like she was. He carried a clipboard in his hand.
“Hey, are you feeling alright? Do you need to sit for a moment?” Concern etched his face.
Standing with her eyes closed after just getting off the ship had surely suggested she was about to faint. “I’m fine.” She laughed nervously and he withdrew his hand. “I was just . . . enjoying the fresh air.”
“Oh. Okay.” He peered at the name tag on her uniform. “Nurse Lindstrom. Good. I found you. I’m Ensign Mathis from Command, and I’m here to make sure you and the other new Navy arrivals get to where you’re supposed to be today. You are the only new Navy medical staff on this transport, yes?”
“Yes. Just me. I was told someone would meet me dockside. Thanks for being here.”
“Certainly. Headquarters has arranged a driver for you.” Ensign Mathis pointed to a shiny black sedan parked just on the other side of a chain-link fence.