After finishing my first fan-fic, I just couldn't stop writing and this time I'm making a go of my all-time favorite show M*A*S*H. Of course, revolving around my equally favorite M*A*S*H doctor, the wonderfully proud Major Charles Emerson Winchester.
I don't own M*A*S*H. Sadly I was born 8 years too late to even make that possible.
Sorry for grammar mistakes. I'm not a native English speaker - and Charles certaintly doesn't make it any easier :P
DEEP WOUNDS IN DAMAGED PLACES
Chapter 1 - Fresh blood
The heads of the 4077th's outlandish surgical staff had all huddle around Colonel Potters desk, making the already small commanding office seem even smaller. After a long afternoon and part night in OR, Colonel Potter found it incredibly enjoyable that all three of his surgeons and his head nurse were listening in complete silence. Well, a bit too silent…
Potter stopped in the middle of his briefing and gazed over at the head surgeon who appeared to be sleeping with his head against the cupboard.
"Pierce, are you getting any of this?"
"After nine hours of surgery," Hawkeye muttered, not even bothering to open his eyes, "why wouldn't I?"
"I'll leave the summary in his oatmeal," BJ said placatingly. "Please continue, Colonel."
"Right. As I was about to say, Tokyo General has kindly found some time in their busy schedule to think about our tiny neck of the woods and have granted us with a special visiter: An orthopedic surgeon will be joining our staff for the next week so we can get a refresher of what's new in the field of orthopedics."
"Tokyo?" Charles noted with a raised brow. "Someone I have been acquainted with?"
"Could be. Does the name, Agnetha Clearwater, ring a bell?"
"Not as far as I remember…"
Hawkeyes nodding head snapped back up like a yo-yo.
"Agnetha?" he repeated groggily. "That's a woman's name, isn't it? Does that mean we're getting a visit from a female doctor?"
"Ah Pierce, your razor-sharp deduction skills never cease to amaze us," Charles drawled, a scornful smirk twisting the corner of his mouth. Hawkeye rewarded him with a bleary-eyed scowl and a sneer.
Charles scoffed. "Not to mention your savage comebacks…"
"Alright you two," Potter intervened in a brusque tone. "Knock it off. Yes, Pierce, Captain Clearwater is a woman–"
"And she has not come all this way to listen to your worn-out pick-up lines in the OR." Margaret snapped, cutting the Colonel of mid-sentence. "So, could you for once behave like a grown up and not treat her like your next stockroom rendezvous?"
Hawkeye blinked in surprise. "Geez, what did I say?"
"You don't even have to say anything, buster, 'cause I know–"
"Yes, thank you, Major." Potter said loudly, drowning the rest of her outburst. "Listen, I know we're all a bit cream-crackered, so if you children could just pipe down so I could finish and we could all go to bed that would be most appreciated." He looked from Hawkeye to Margaret and finally to Charles, who sat with his arms crossed as if he found the whole thing incredibly pointless. "Good! Now where was I- Ah, yes: Captain Clearwater is visiting our dear neighbors as we speak, so we can expect her sometime tomorrow around lunchtime. Questions? Excellent!" He exclaimed, before Hawkeye could add any final remarks. "Now, go to bed – and that's an order!"
oOo
"Ma'am? We're almost here - the MASH 4077th. Ma'am?"
The sergeant nudged his silent passenger with an elbow and Captain Agnetha Clearwater, who had been dozing with her head in one hand and her arm resting on top of the door, jolted awake.
"Did you party too hard last night, Captain?" the sergeant asked with a smirk, as he steered clear of a giant hole in the middle of the road and Agnes had to cling to her duffle bag when the battered jeep started swaying dangerously.
"No, but the rest of 8063rd did," she said, fighting back a yawn. "I didn't close an eye until four o'clock this morning – two hours before you woke me up."
"Sorry, ma'am, but that was your order, remember?"
"I know, I know. And as long as all of my luggage is still on board when we arrive," Agnes said, when the frazzled jeep took a dive into another pothole, "I might forgive you for taking my ridiculous order so seriously."
She stretched her aching back as much as she dared without letting go of the canvas bag and looked up at the clear blue summer sky. Funny how the world could seem so unaffected when there was a war going on just miles away and young men were fighting for their lives back at the 8063rd. Agnes closed her eyes and tried not to think about it.
The road smoothed out. They drove under a wooden sign and Agnes caught a glimpse of the words: MASH 4077th – Best care anywhere painted in white on the raw planks. Green tents in all shapes and sizes appeared in the distance. The compound between them was empty except for two enlisted men carrying big bags of what seemed to be dirty linens; it looked like the 4077th were sleeping in.
The sergeant parked in front of a long shed-looking building, the unit's hospital, and Agnes crawled out, stiff in all of her joints and limbs.
"You don't know where I can find the CO, do you?" she asked her driver when he handed her suitcases over.
The sergeant jabbed a thumb in the direction of the grey shed. "In there I reckon. The name's Colonel Potter."
"Thanks."
"Good luck, Captain," the sergeant said with a smirk that Agnes didn't find especially reassuring, before he saluted her and drove off. Agnes dumped her luggage next to the bulletin board and walked in through the plywood swinging doors that allowed her to enter the building.
She found herself standing in a rather small office – one bed, a desk, several filing cabinets and a large communications device, took up most of the floor. The room was empty, but this time she had three different set of doors to choose from. She thought she heard noises coming from the ones right ahead and called out tentatively:
"Hello?"
The door was pushed open and a very young corporal, hardly twenty years of age, round-faced and bespectacled, peered out at her. Agnes' unexpected appearance seemed to catch him off guard.
"Captain Clearwater?" he queried uncertainly.
His flurried expression made her smile. "That's me."
"Oh, we weren't expecting you this early!" the corporal exclaimed and hurried into the office, arms full of paperwork. He was shorter than Agnes by about an inch and his clothes were at least a size too big for his squatty stature. "Colonel Potter isn't even out of bed yet."
"I'm sorry, Corporal. With all the fighting in the area, I didn't expect the drive here to go this smoothly. Please, don't wake him up on my account," Agnes added quickly when the young man looked like he was about to drop everything and storm out the door. "I can wait."
"Oh… Uh – good. You want to wait in your quarters, ma'am?"
"That would be lovely. Thank you, Corporal."
"It's this way, ma'am." As they went through the doors, he spoke over his shoulder: "I'm Corporal Walter O'Reilly, by the way – the company clerk. But you can call me Radar, everybody else does."
"Radar?" Agnes repeated, puzzled.
"Yearh, people call me that because I kinda know when things are gonna happen, before they happen." He gazed up at her a bit shyly and bent down to grab her suitcase. "It'll make sense in a couple of days."
He showed her to the VIP tent that looked exactly like the other ones she had been sleeping in, in the two previous MASH-camps: Neat, spartanly and the canvas walls decorated with maps of the country and pictures of old war heroes. A bed on the right side of the tent, a desk to the left, a footlocker as well as a narrow wardrobe by the far wall constituted the interior. Radar put her luggage down on the floor.
"Anything I can get you, while you wait, Captain? Coffee? It's really not that bad once it's made your tongue numb."
Agnes stifled a grin. "No, thank you… Radar. I'm good."
"Okay. The latrines are behind the hospital and if you get hungry, the mess tent is the big one just outside. You can't miss it, just follow the smell of burnt porridge."
"Gotcha. Listen, I was wondering–"
"Every personal call has to be approved by the Colonel, but I can ask him as soon as he wakes up," Radar responded promptly before Agnes had finished her sentence.
She stared at him dumbfounded and then her own surprise made her laugh.
"Wow – you could have been a wonderful nurse, you know that? I bet that talent comes in really handy with the ladies?"
Radar looked slightly ashamed. "Not really. The lieutenants here can be really mean when they think I can't hear them."
Realizing he had probably admitted to much, he blushed all the way up to the edge of his woolen cap, gave a hasty salute and left the tent. Agnes bit her lips to stop herself from smiling when a puzzled mixture of amusement and compassion overcame her. Poor kid.
Alone at last, Agnes sat down on the cot and kicked off the uncomfortable high heels that went with the Class A uniform. Rubbing her sore feet, she looked around at her new surroundings and tried to decide whether she wanted to take a nap first or embark on the inevitable task of unpacking her luggage. There was no doubt of what sounded most appealing but before she could make up her mind, her stomach let out a large growl, reminding her that she had left the 8063rd before breakfast had been served.
"Well, no grain no gain," she yawned and reluctantly slid into the heels again.
The mess tent was nearly empty. Except for two enlisted men eating their breakfast in silence, it would have looked like an ominously deserted scene from a bad crime story. The soldier serving the food, a young sergeant, gazed curiously at Agnes when she entered.
"New here, Captain?" he asked, slapping powdered scrambled egg onto her tray.
"On loan only." Agnes bent over the food and squinted at something that was either strange colored porridge or a diluted omelet. "Tell me something: What is that?"
The sergeant shrugged. "Beats me. I only serve the stuff. Wanna try?"
"You know what, I think I'm good," Agnes said, snatching two slices of toast from the table.
"How about some orange juice then?" He leaned towards her and lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. "Fresh."
Agnes gaped at him. "Fresh as in… fresh?"
The sergeant hauled a jug out from under the table and placed it in front of her. The juice, or what was left of it, blushed like an autumn sun.
"Fresh as in 'creatively provided' from a General's stock of oranges in Gimpo."
"Are you kidding me? I haven't had anything fresh since I left Tokyo. Sergeant, you may just have saved my day."
"Always at your service," the sergeant said, grinning at her.
Agnes carried the glass of precious nectar to an empty table and sat down. But before she could dig in, something distracted her – a movement across the compound. A tall, solidly built man in surgical gowns appeared from the grey building and plodded out into the bright sunshine like a sleep walker. His white scrubs were stained with blood, but he didn't seem to care in the slightest. He staggered his way to the nearest bench, ripped of his mask and surgical cap, and slumped back against the wall with an observable sigh and closed eyes.
Had he been operating all night? He looked beyond exhausted. Agnes regarded the man for a minute or two before she rose from the table. She seized the glass of orange juice on her way out the tent.
"Looks like you could use this more than me."
The man hadn't moved a muscle, since he had sat down, but the sound of her voice made his eyes flutter open. Despite a not so flattering receding hairline and day-old stubbles, he had an almost noble face, complete with the nose of a Greek statue and eyes so intensely blue that Agnes had the feeling she was being X-rayed. He blinked slowly, as though she had woken him up from a long nap, and reached for the glass.
"Thank you." His voice was faint and rough from fatigue. He pulled himself up against the wall and took a closer look at Agnes and her captain's bars.
"You know," he said and Agnes noticed a distinctive Bostonian drawl when he spoke, "when Colonel Potter told us we could expect a visiting medical personal, I hadn't realized he had sent for miss Nightingale."
"Well, when he heard I had spent the time between wars to become doctor Nightingale, how could he ever turn me down?" Agnes responded with a crooked smile and sat down next to him.
The trace of a smirk twisted the man's lips ever so slightly and he drained all the juice in one mouthful. Then, with a slightly disoriented look on his face, he lowered the glass and stared at it as if it had started speaking gibberish to him.
"Good God," he muttered in a baffled tone. "I must be dreaming already. This actually tasted… good."
"It's fresh."
"In that case, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Captain Clearwater," the doctor said, extending a large hand out to her. "Major Charles Emerson Winchester. How do you do?"
"Compared to you, I can't complain. Are the other doctors still in surgery?"
"I can only assume the fortunate wombats are sound asleep in their bunks," Major Winchester responded wearily, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand. "It was of course my patient that, after an hour into my desperately needed respite, started vomiting and ripped a suture which lead to an acute peritoneal hemorrhage."
"Oh, God. Is he all right?"
"Right now…" Winchester heaved a groan when he got to his feet. "I'd say I'm in worst condition than he is."
"Captain Clearwater?" boomed a new voice behind her.
Agnes turned around. Two men were approaching – one was an elderly colonel, the other a younger and slightly taller fair-haired man with kind grey eyes and a silver cross twinkling on his chest.
The Colonel nodded to the Major. "Morning, Winchester."
"Colonel," the tall surgeon responded tersely.
"Captain," the Colonel said to Agnes, greeting her with a sharp, respectful look and a firm handshake; he was a small man in his sixties, but Agnes had a feeling the frail appearance was deceiving. "Welcome to the 4077th. I'm Colonel Potter, commanding officer, and this is our chaplain, Father Francis Mulcahy."
The priest stepped forward, removed his headwear, a weather-beaten panama hat, and shook her hand with a smile.
"A true pleasure, Captain," he said and sounded as gently as Agnes had expected him to. "It's quite an experience having you here. Female doctors are sadly a rare sight in this area."
"We are an exotic and indomitable race," Agnes responded with a smile. "A pleasure meeting you too, Father. And you, sir."
"I see you've already been acquainted with one of my doctors," Colonel Potter said. "Major Winchester was stationed in Tokyo too, not long ago."
"Ah, yes – Tokyo," Winchester sighed mounfully. "The oriental light tower in this sea of despair. So," he said to Agnes, "how is Tokyo?"
"Wet and invaded by soldiers on R&R," Agnes recalled. "The rainy season started just before I left, but not even the worse downfall seems to cool those guys down. The last night I was there I saw three Marines having a pool party – in the gutter. Complete with cocktails and women in tiny bikinis."
Potter and Mulcahy chuckled, but Winchester looked solemn.
"My dear girl," he said. "Know this – after a week here, you will be missing every dirty puddle in that heavenly city."
"The Major's been with us for two month now," Colonel Potter said in a significant tone.
"Really? No more?" Winchester said wryly. "I could have sworn it was years by now."
"So, what did you do before Tokyo, Major?" Agnes asked.
"I resided in Boston," he responded. "Worked as a thoracic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. I was, in fact, on the track to becoming Chief of Thoracic Surgery, before this charming place decided they couldn't possibly do without me."
He glanced coolly at Potter and it wasn't difficult to guess who the snide remark was aimed at. Potter looked undisturbed, but the priest blinked uneasily behind his round specs.
"So, Boston?" Agnes said, trying to ease the suddenly strained atmosphere. "I suppose you are a Harvard graduate then?"
As expected, Winchester forgot all about his vexation and straightened slightly, puffing his broad chest out before he retorted haughtily, "Indeed. '43. Graduated summa cum laude."
Potter rolled his eyes behind Winchester's back.
"Tell me, Major," he said before the tall surgeon started floating off, "are your bunkmates still asleep?"
"More like unconscious. Why? Are you in desperate need of a dirty witticism?"
"No, I was just going to warn them that we can expect casualties again tonight, maybe even before then," Potter said.
"Wonderful," Winchester sighed. "But in that case, I'd better turn in. Gentlemen. Captain." He turned to Agnes, "I'll hopefully see you later once I revive from this night terror."
He took a gentle hold of Agnes' hand and placed a kiss on the back of it. For a brief moment, his piercing blue eyes were on hers before he strolled back into the hospital to change.
"A Harvard-man and a Boston General surgeon serving here permanently?" Agnes said to Colonel Potter. "How on earth did you manage that?"
"672 dollars and 17 cents," Colonel Potter responded with a knowing smile.
"Sorry?"
"That's how much the Colonel that sent him here owed him after Winchester flattened him in cribbage back at Tokyo General."
Agnes chuckled. "Oh no."
"Hatred doesn't' begin to cover how he feels about this place," Potter said. "I'm sure he has little voodoo dolls of Colonel Baldwin and me somewhere in his foot locker." He shook his head. "I would gladly have sent him back to Tokyo if he wasn't such a talented surgeon, but I'm scared of what we could get instead. His predecessor was a nightmare."
"Frank Burns wasn't exactly a 'do unto others' kind of man," Father Mulcahy said rather dishearteningly.
"No, more like the jaw bone of an ass," Potter said in such a solemn tone that Agnes had a hard time containing her chortle. "But you didn't hear that from me."
"Heard what, sir?"
The Colonel smiled at her.
"Good girl. Tell me something – has anyone showed you around yet?"
"That young corporal – Radar, was it? – showed me to my tent, but other than that, no."
Potter grimaced. "Sorry about the poor welcome, Captain. We've been up to our heinies in wounded since yesterday, so it's about getting some shut-eye when the opportunity finally presents itself."
"I know, Colonel. Don't worry about it. The last couple of days weren't exactly a picnic at the 8063rd either. But I must say, your men act a little bit more responsible. The other camp decided to celebrate the temporary truce by throwing the biggest party south of the border."
Potter snorted.
"I have to admit, I'm not surprised. The 8063rd have a medical staff that makes mine look like boys straight out of Sunday school when it comes to parties."
"Speaking of Sunday," Father Mulcahy said tentatively. "I do hope I will be seeing you in church tomorrow, Captain?"
He looked so endearingly hopeful that Agnes couldn't find it in her heart to let him down.
"Sure thing, Father," she smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."
The young priest beamed back at her.
"I better get back to my tent and polish up my sermon then," he said, tipping his hat to her. "Bye for now."
As soon as he had left, Agnes felt a pang of guilt.
"I'm not actually that religious," she confessed to the Colonel. "I hope he doesn't notice."
Potter held up his hand in a soothing gesture. "Don't worry, Captain. The majority here think the Bible is just a fancy, leather-bound bookend to support their comic magazines and crime novels. The good padre is just happy to have someone to speak to."
"Good to hear."
"Say, have you eaten? I reckon we might as well start the tour and why don't we begin in the mess tent. Since it also doubles as our chapel, you better know where it's located."
"Oh – I left my tray back there. I was in the middle of eating when Major Winchester disrupted me."
"Let's find you a new one. If the chow wasn't foul when you go it earlier, it sure is now."
They walked to the mess tent; the tables were now fuller and the food line longer. The camp had awoken. As they went through the swinging doors, Agnes saw a flash of bright yellow swagger out of the tent at the other end. She blinked. It had unmistakably looked like…
"Was that a man in high heels and a yellow sundress or am I more bushed than I thought?"
Colonel Potter chuckled. "Every camp needs a good ol' looney. Ours goes by the name of Maxwell Klinger. He's been trying to get a Section Eight since he got here."
"Well, anyone – man or woman–" Agnes said when they found their place in the food line, "who has voluntarily been walking around in those heels for that long, deserves to go home."
"Never in the sweet name of Carrie's corset let him hear you say that – he only needs two doctors' opinions before he can go home." He put his hand on Agnes' arm. "But most importantly: Don't let his exterior deter you. He's a swell guy and not crazier than the rest of us."
"You know, back at the 8055th, they had a guy who claimed he could predict the number of wounded arriving by talking to the moon at midnight, and a corpsman who whistled constantly during OR sessions because he thought it calmed the blood down and stopped it from leaving the wounds too fast. Nothing in this man's army can deter me anymore."
"That's the spirit, Captain," Colonel Potter said, holding out his tray to the waiting KP soldier.
If was actually writing the part including Father Mulcahy on New Years day, when I read the sad news :( R.I.P William Christopher, you gentle soul.