I don't own M*A*S*H.
The pain was horrendous.
Jack had never thought that getting shot would hurt that much. He pulled himself across the ground to their down communications officer. Most of his unit was down, he feared all of them.
The bullets were still flying past them as he continued to pull himself across the muddy ground. The smell of burning flesh and the sound of flying bullets filled the air. Still, Jack pulled himself across the mud until he reached the communications officer.
He reached across the still man's chest and pulled the radio towards him. It was agony as the pain in his shoulder exploded at the movement, but he pushed through it. They needed help or all members of his unit would die.
He pushed the button and opened communications.
"Unit 6458 requesting immediate evac. Several men down. Location coordinates are..."
Jack recited this three times before he received a response. They repeated the coordinates and said that help was on the way. Jack dropped the radio and relaxed.
Jack relaxed against the communications officer, suddenly happy to find that he was just knocked out as the man's heartbeat was still going beneath Jack's ear. He wasn't dead and, if help arrived soon, he wouldn't die here either.
The noise around them quieted and Jack took the opportunity to move again.
He looked and found that almost all his fellow soldiers were lying around him. He moved to each one, checking for pulses and reassuring those that were still awake that help was coming.
The medical unit arrived and loaded up the men into buses with Jack helping direct them to the men with the most damage. It was only when the last man from his unit had been loaded up that Jack collapsed from the blood loss.
He didn't pass out luckily. The pain in his shoulder was killing him. He had gone the entire war without injury, which was saying a lot considering. Then he had to be a hero, jumping in front of his friend, Private James Cooper, when the shots starting ringing out. He had been the first to see them hiding in the treeline. Jack's shout gave the men time to get off a few shots themselves.
He groaned as he heard a loud noise. He opened his eyes and watched as a helicopter was lowering to the ground. The noise was so loud, Jack shut his eyes to block out the noise. The next thing he knew, he could hear yelling and felt someone touch his shoulder. His eyes opened and he saw a man with dark black hair looking at the wound in his shoulder. He then felt the stretcher lift him up and Jack looked to his left.
Cooper was next to him, looking much worse than he did, or at least how he thought he did. Jack had no way to know just how serious Cooper's injuries were, or even his own at that point. He prayed that Copper would make it out alive before blacking out from the pain once again.
The 4077th was busy.
After another failed attempt to take Hill 22, or whatever damn hill it was, Hawkeye found himself once again up to his ankles in blood and guts as he pushed through soldier after soldier. After what felt like a year did Hawkeye look up over his patient to find Margaret looking at him with wide eyes.
He raised an eyebrow, obviously confused. This wasn't the first time Margaret had watched Hawkeye work on soldiers as young as this one was, but the way her eyes were looking at him you would think it was.
"What is it Margaret?" he asked as he looked back down at his patient to start closing up.
"The next patient is...going to be different."
Hawkeye looked up at Margaret now. Something in her tone told him that this was going to be really interesting.
"What do you mean? Got a wound in someplace I haven't seen yet or something?"
Margaret looked around the room before walking around the table and taking the nurse's place. The nurse moved to the other side of the table.
"Finish closing here," she said to the nurse before gesturing for Hawkeye to follow her into Pre-Op.
Hawkeye followed, if only because he was very interested in what was going on.
There were only a few men left in Pre-Op now, but Margaret moved passed them to one that had been moved to the back of the room alone.
"If you wanted to be alone with me, Margaret, all you had to do was ask."
She ignored him. "This is your next patient."
Hawkeye looked at the boy, who had to be younger than 18 based on his features. He had a slim face, small nose and full lips. His brown hair was cut short and was dirty as well. If anything this looked like a typical soldier that Hawkeye had seen time and time again. He remember evaluating this wound earlier in the day when the wounded arrived. This boy had arrived by helicopter with a rather nasty shoulder wound.
Then Margaret raised the blanket they had covering the boy and Haweye suddenly understood what was so interesting about this particular patient.
No wonder this soldier looked so young, it was a woman.
Margaret lowered the blanket and looked back at Hawkeye. "I don't know how this happened or what she was doing. This doesn't make any sense."
No, it didn't. Women just didn't serve in combat positions. How she had gotten past all that and into a unit was beyond Hawkeye's understanding.
He took a deep breath. "We'll have to hope that she explains when she wakes up. Let's get started."
Jackie awoke several hours later and slowly lifted her right hand to her throbbing left shoulder. She could feel the bandage that wrapped her. She followed it slowly, suddenly wondering why the bandage was covering lower than she had anticipated.
She sat up in a panic, her shoulder screaming at her, and found herself in a large man's shirt with her arm only through the right sleeve. She lifted the shirt to see what she already knew.
The bandage covered her shoulder and across her chest, covering her breasts. She couldn't believe it, all this was for nothing.
Dizziness overtook her then at her sudden movements and she slowly laid back down. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before reopening them.
She was in a tent and she was alone.
Her secret was out and she had been segregated from the other soldiers.
Why did she have to warn her fellow soldiers? Why did she try and save Cooper? How could she have allowed herself to get shot?
The door opened and the light in the tent was flipped on. Although not very bright, Jackie still had to lift her hand to block the light as her eyes adjusted.
"Oh, I see you're awake. Good," an older voice said. She slowly lowered her arm to see a Colonel standing next to her bed. He was an older gentleman with graying hair and wise eyes. She sent him a salute, which he returned with a raised eyebrow, before he took a seat in the one chair in the room.
"I'm Colonel Sherman Potter, I run this hospital. Want to tell me what's going on?"
Jackie narrowed her eyes. "Sir?"
Potter held up a set of dog tags. "These belong to Private Jack Murphy. Where did you get them?"
Jackie narrowed her eyes in anger. "They're mine. I'm Private Jack Murphy. My first name is Jacqualine, Jack for short. Everything on those dog tags is correct...except that I'm female instead of male."
The man nodded before setting the tags on the side table next to her. "That solves one problem, but it seems that there is no shortage of problems with you."
"Sir?"
Potter took a deep breath. "You saved your entire outfit by taking over the radio when you were attacked. You also warned everyone of the men in the treeline prior to that and took the first bullet for another solider. Every single member of your unit, including your commanding officer, is alive because of your actions."
Jackie let out a sigh of relief at those words. They were alive! All of them! She could almost cry.
Instead she took a deep breath and kept her face focused on Potter. "That's good to hear, so what's the problem?"
"The army and your commanding officer want to present Private Jack Murphy with a metal and Purple Heart, take pictures and send them back to be put in the newspapers back home. But the Jack Murphy the army wants to reward doesn't actually exist. One look at your injury will prove that you aren't who you say you are."
Jackie couldn't deny that. Although the bandages were tight on her, they didn't cover up her feminine curves like the army fatigues she had been wearing did. She could hide it before, but not like this.
Also, being recognized wasn't why she was here. Her job was simply to survive through the war and return home. Her family needed her to do this and she had to go and ruin it all.
"That would not be ideal, sir," she said firmly.
Potter nodded. "I agree. The army isn't going to take kindly to this. You impersonated a soldier and served in a combat position. How you even got past your physical is a mystery in itself. The fact of the matter is, no one is going to know just what to do with you." Jack nodded. "For now, just rest and start healing. We can figure out a battle plan from there."
"Thank you Colonel."
Potter stood and flipped off the light before leaving the tent, leaving Jackie engulfed in darkness.
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Her parents were not going to like this, not at all. She closed her eyes and just relaxed in the darkness.
What a mess.