Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Carolyn Jablonski, RodCrawford, Dave Morgan and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Norma Kent of the WACS
_By_ ROY J. SNELL
_Illustrated by_ HEDWIG JO MEIXNER
FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM _Series_]
WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY RACINE, WISCONSIN
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_Copyright, 1943, by_ WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY PRINTED IN U. S. A.
_All names, events, and characters in this story are entirely fictitious_
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE I Mrs. Hobby’s Horses 9 II The Test That Told 15 III Interceptor Control 24 IV A Light in the Night 33 V Spy Complex 41 VI A Startling Adventure 50 VII A Hand in the Dark 58 VIII Rosa Almost Flies 68 IX Something Special 78 X I’m Afraid 84 XI Two Against Two 91 XII Harbor Bells 102 XIII A Wolf in WAC’s Clothing 113 XIV Pale Hands 122 XV Spotters in the Night 131 XVI The Vanishing Print 137 XVII Those Bad Gremlins 146 XVIII Sudden Panic 157 XIX A Battle in the Night 167 XX Patsy Watches Three Shadows 178 XXI Night for a Spy Story 186 XXII Flight of the Black Pigeon 196 XXIII Rosa Flies the Seagull 208 XXIV The Decoy Beacon 220 XXV The Masterpiece 232 XXVI A Sub—On the Spot 238
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_The Girl on the Cot Next to Hers Whispered Something_]
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NORMA KENT of the WACS
CHAPTER I
GIRLS IN UNIFORM
Norma Kent stirred uneasily. Her army cot creaked.
“You’ll have to lie still,” she told herself sternly. “You’ll keep theother girls awake.”
Even as she thought this, the girl on the cot next to her own half roseto whisper:
“We’re Mrs. Hobby’s horses now.”
“That’s the girl called Betty,” Norma thought as she barely suppresseda disturbing laugh.
“Shish,” she managed to whisper. Then all was silent where, row on row,fifty girls were sleeping. Fifty! And Norma had spoken to barely half adozen of them! It was all very strange.
Strange and exciting. Yes, it had surely been all that. They had allbeen jumpy, nervous as colts, on the train from Chicago. If they werewalking down the aisle and the train tipped, they had laughed loudly.They had been high-pitched, nervous laughs. And why not? Had they notlaunched themselves on a new and striking adventure?
As Norma recalled all this she suddenly started, then rose silently onone shoulder. She had caught a flash of light where no light wassupposed to be.
“A flash of light,” she whispered silently. At the same instant shecaught the gleam of light once more. This time she located it—at thehead of the cot by the nearest window.
“Rosa Rosetti!” she thought, with a start. She did not know the girl,barely recalled her name. She had a beaming smile, yet beyond doubt wasforeign-born.
“What would you do if you suspected that someone was a spy?” Thatquestion had, not twenty-four hours before, been put to her by a veryimportant person. She had answered as best she could. Had her answerbeen the correct one? Her reply had been:
“Nothing. At least, not at once.”
Now she settled back in her place. The flash of light from the head ofRosa Rosetti’s cot did not shine again. Nor did Norma Kent fall asleepat once.
“A flash of light in the night,” she was thinking. “How veryunimportant!”
And yet, as her thoughts drifted back to her childhood days not so longago—she was barely twenty-one now and just out of college—she recalleda story told by her father, a World War veteran. The story dealt with astranger in an American uniform who, claiming to be lost from hisoutfit, had found refuge in their billet for the night.
“That night,” her father had said, “flashes of light were noticed atthe window of our attic lodging. And that night, too, our village wasbombed.”
“Suppose we are bombed tonight?” the girl thought. Then she laughedsilently, for she was lodged deep in the heart of Iowa, at old Fort DesMoines.
As the name drifted through her dreamy thoughts, it gave her a start.She was fully awake again, for the full weight of the tremendous moveshe had made came crashing back upon her.
“I’m a WAC,” she whispered, “a WAC! I’m in the Army now!”
Yes, that was it. She was a member of the Woman’s Army Corps. So, too,were all the girls sleeping so peacefully there. Here at Fort DesMoines in four short weeks they would receive their basic training. Andthen—“I may drive a truck,” she thought with a thrill, “or operate anarmy short-wave set, or help watch for enemy planes along the seacoast,or—” she caught her breath, “I may be sent overseas.” North Africa, theSolomons, the bleak shores of Alaska—all these and more drifted beforeher mind’s eye.
“Come what may,” she whispered, “I am ready!”
She might have fallen asleep then had not a cot less than ten feet fromher given out a low creak as a tall, strong girl, who had caught hereye from the first, sat straight up in her bed to whisper three words.
The words were whispered in a foreign tongue. Norma was mildly shockedat hearing them whispered here in the night.
“She was talking in her sleep,” Norma assured herself as the girlsettled quietly back in her place. Then it came to her with the forceof a blow. “She too might be a spy!”
“What nonsense!” she chided herself. “How jittery I am tonight! I’ll goto sleep. And here’s hoping I don’t dream.”
She did fall asleep, and she did not dream.
From some place very, very far away, a bugle was blowing and someoneseemed to sing, “I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up. I can’t get’em up in the morning.” Then an alarm clock went off with a bang andNorma, the WAC recruit, was awake.
Her feet hit the floor with a slap and she was putting on her clothesbefore she knew it. A race to the washroom, a hasty hair-do, a dash ofcolor to her cheeks and, twenty minutes later, together with thirtyother raw recruits, she lined up for Assembly.
It was bitter cold. A sharp wind was blowing. A bleak dawn was showingin the east. Norma shivered in spite of her thick tweed coat. Shelooked at the slender girl next to her and was ashamed. The girl’s lipswere blue. Her thin and
threadbare coat flapped in the breeze. Shewanted to wrap this girl inside her coat, but did not. This would bequite unsoldierlike. So she stood at rigid attention. But out of thecorner of her mouth she said:
“It won’t be long now. Those soldier suits we’ll wear are grand.”
“It wo-won’t be-be long!” the girl replied cheerfully throughchattering teeth.
Norma permitted herself one quick flashing look to right and left. Toher right, beyond the slender girl, stood the tall girl who hadwhispered so strangely in her sleep. Wrapped in a long black fur coatshe stood primly at attention. There was something about this girl’sprim indifference to those about her that irritated Norma.
She turned to the left to find herself looking into a pair of smilingblue eyes. The girl said never a word but her bright smile spokevolumes. This girl’s dress, short squirrelskin coat, heavy skirt, neatshoes, and small hat spoke both of taste and money. Beyond this girlstood the little Italian who flashed a light at night. She stood, lipsparted, eyes shining, sturdy young body erect, very sure of herself andunafraid.
“Whatever happens, I’m going to like her a lot, and that can’t behelped,” Norma assured herself.
Five minutes later they were all back in the barracks making up theirbunks and preparing for a busy day ahead.
“Bedding down Mrs. Hobby’s horses,” said a laughing voice.
“Say! What does that mean?” Norma demanded, looking up from her workinto a pair of laughing blue eyes.
“Don’t you know?” asked the other girl, as she sat down on her cot.
“I don’t. That’s a fact,” Norma admitted.
“Well, I’ll tell you. But first,” the other girl put out a hand, “myname’s Betty Gale. Something tells me that we’ve both just finishedcollege and that we’re likely to be pals in this great adventure untildeath or some Lady Major does us part.”
“You’re right in the first count,” Norma laughed. “And I hope you arein the second. My name is Norma Kent.”
“Swell,” said Betty Gale. “Now—about Mrs. Hobby’s Horses.”
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