Mabel stepped back and looked in. “Sure is! Come on, I’ll get some dental floss and see what she’s up to.”
As they went in, Tini’s back was toward them. She sat on a stool at the soda counter, drinking a coke. Why had she come here for a coke when they had all the cold drinks they wanted back at the canteen? Tini was leaning across the counter, turning her charm on the soda jerker who was at least five years her junior. What was she up to now, Nancy wondered?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy was not too surprised when she found Tini having a whispered conversation with the soda jerker in the strange town. Tini seemed always involved in some undercurrent.
She glanced at her watch and saw they had only five minutes before the transport was due to move on. “We’ve got to beat it,” she told Mabel.
“Better come along, Tini, or you’ll be left behind!” warned Mabel as they went toward the door.
Tini threw her money on the counter and overtook the girls.
“Don’t see why you wanted a coke ’round here when we had plenty of free ones at the Canteen,” Mabel said.
“Oh, just an excuse to talk to the clerk. I wanted to ask him if Carl Benton had been here lately.”
“Carl Benton,” repeated Nancy as they almost ran toward their trucks. “You mean that fellow you dated back yonder?”
“Sure. He sells soda-fountain supplies. Said he came through here often.”
“Dumb bloke—no! He’s only had that job a few days.”
“Surely you’ve heard from him since he left,” said Mabel, not without an acid flavor in her tone.
“You bet! But I thought if he was around this way I might get a chance to see him again.”
“May as well put him out of your mind,” Nancy suggested.
“Gal, if my hunch is right we won’t be doing any dating till we get through some maneuvers ahead of us,” said Mabel.
Toward sunset it began to look as though Mabel’s hunch had some material foundation. They turned off the paved highway and bumped for five miles over a rutted clay road before they entered a swamp made shadowy by the Spanish moss that hung from the oaks, cypress and sweet gum trees. Though the nurses were tired after their long day’s travel, Nancy and Mabel exchanged satisfied glances.
“Say, gal,” whispered Mabel. “Looks like they’re preparing us for the real thing.”