Kooshball note: Another Klinger fic. There just isn't enough of them! I'm fairly pleased at how this has turned out so far, but like always, wold love to hear your opinions. I've been practicing on my descriptions, so that would be the best thing to comment on in this chapter! I promise it won't be a 50 chapter fic like I sometimes do, and there probably won't be a sequel. Please tell me what you think.
"Let me do that," Klinger said as she reached under her top for the back of her bra. He ran his hand up her shirt after she took her hand away, and unclasped her bra quickly.
"You're good at that," she said. "Most men fumble when it comes to the bra."
"I had practise, from my section eight days," Klinger said. She just smiled, and pulled her top slowly, allowing it to fall to the ground. Her bra fell from her chest a moment afterwards.
Klinger swallowed hard and stared. "Wow," he breathed.
A few hours earlier
"Klinger, this guy next," Hawkeye said, pointing to the bleeding man on the stretcher.
"Right away, sir," Klinger said, picking up the closest end of the stretcher while Father Mulcahy grabbed the other.
"I don't know how many more hours of wounded we can handle," Father Mulcahy said. "The doctors have been handling wounded on and off for the last three days."
"Once we get this guy inside, I'm gonna call the 8063rd and see if they can send supplies or doctors, maybe take some of the wounded, anything to lessen the load," Klinger replied. He backed through the swinging doors and bumped into Margaret.
"Watch where you're going, Klinger," Margaret snapped.
"Sorry, Major," Klinger apologised. "I don't have eyes in the back of my head like you, ya know." Margaret pressed her lips together, but didn't say anything else. Klinger and Father Mulcahy eased the soldier onto the metal table.
"How many out there, Klinger?" Colonel Potter asked from two tables over, one of the nurses pulling rubber gloves onto his hands.
"I don't know, maybe a dozen," Klinger replied. The Colonel sighed.
"A dozen too many," he said.
"Look on the bright side. The war can't last forever, can it?" BJ asked from the other side of Hawkeye's table.
"Sooner or later they'll run out of bodies to shoot at," Margaret said coldly.
"Where is Winchester?" Potter snapped at Klinger.
"The Major is scrubbing right now, sir," Klinger said. He hurried out of the OR, and pulled the mask from his face. He was covered in sweat, not because he was hot, in fact, the weather had been almost perfect for the last week and a half. Klinger was sweating from fear, the blood and workload, and anything else that made his job harder. Radar had been gone only two weeks, and he still wasn't used to the running around, keeping everything in order, or anything else Radar had been expected to do. Klinger wiped his forehead, then walked briskly towards his office. That still sounded unusual. His office. To himself and everyone else in camp, it was still really Radar's office.
Klinger got onto the phone the minute he got in to the office. After getting through to the 8063rd, he was going to maybe get some lunch, then go back to the OR and help the corpsmen. He jumped when the voice at the other end started squawking at him.
"8063rd, Corporal Marks speaking."
"Hey, Danny, it's me Klinger. Listen, is your outfit getting the wounded we are?" Klinger asked.
"What wounded?" Marks asked.
"Is it alright if we start sending some of them your way? We're flooded here," Klinger said.
"Send 'em if you want. I'll give the doctors here the heads up," Marks told him.
"Thanks," Klinger said, relieved. He hung the phone up, then lay his head on the table, for just a moment. He jumped awake a few minutes later when Father Mulcahy tapped him on the shoulder.
"Are you all right?" he asked him.
"Yeah, just tired. How long was I asleep?" Klinger asked.
"No long," Father Mulcahy reassured him.
"Listen, we can send some of the wounded to the 8063rd. Are there any ambulances still around?" Klinger asked.
"I think there might be a chopper," Father Mulcahy said.
"Perfect. You go tell them to wait, I'll get the wounded," Klinger said. Suddenly, the sound of ambulances could be heard, first soft, then louder as they pulled into the compound, and the two men looked at each other. "Better yet, we'll ask them to go to the 8063rd," Klinger muttered, running out of the office. He stopped the driver who was running to the back of his ambulance.
"We don't need more wounded, take them to the 8063rd," Klinger said.
"But you guys are closer," the driver said.
"Our surgeons have been operating for days," Klinger said. "I just checked with the 8063rd, they haven't operated since sometime last week."
"Alright," the driver said, glaring at Klinger as he was herded back into his ambulance. "But if any of these guys die, I hope they come to haunt you, not me."
"Superstitious nonsense," Klinger yelled at the ambulance as it hurried away.
"Get some sleep," Father Mulcahy said to Klinger kindly. "I'll go help in OR."
"Thanks, Father," Klinger grinned tiredly. "I'm sick of being run off my feet. Who do they think I am, Radar?" He walked slowly back to his office and collapsed onto his cot. His eyes closed quickly, and he was asleep within minutes.
The sound of a jeep horn burst into Klinger's dreams. He jumped awake, vaguely wondering why General Mac Arthur made the same noises as a jeep when he gave out section eight papers. He got up, trying to straighten his untidy uniform as he went outside.
There was a woman in the driver's seat of the jeep, two wounded men in the back. The woman wore a tightly done up jacket over her shirt, stained with days worth of blood, dirt and sweat.
"Corpsmen!" Klinger yelled, running over to the jeep.
"It's 'bout time," the woman said, smiling slightly in a sad manner.
"What happened?" Klinger asked her as a few men ran towards the jeep with stretchers.
"We're from an aid station. Got separated from the others we were traveling with, and a bomb hit us as we ran from the jeep. They got hit bad, so I loaded them back onto the jeep, and drove here," the woman replied. She stumbled from the jeep, and almost fell to the ground. Klinger caught her, and helped her to walk. As the corpsmen took the two injured men away, he led the woman into his office, and sat her down on the cot.
The woman looked like she had been pretty before the war. She was malnourished, too thin looking to be healthy. Tiredness showed clearly on her face, and though the grime, there was a look in her large brown eyes that she may be ready to just give up on life.
"What's your name?" Klinger asked her.
"Lieutenant Humphrey," she replied, trying to straighten her hair a little.
"Not your rank, your name. Your first name," Klinger said. She looked up at him and gave another small, sad smile.
"Not very military, are you?" she asked. "I'm Lona."
"Max Klinger," Klinger said. "You don't look so good. Are you ok?"
"My chest hurts. I was hit too, but I didn't want to appear weak in front of those guys. It's bad enough I get a hard time for being a girl," she said.
"We've got understanding doctors here. They don't care if you're a guy or a gal, they'll fix you up," Klinger said. Lona gave her sad smile again. She unbuttoned her jacket as if it hurt to move too much, and took it off. Underneath, her shirt was red from blood and torn from pieces of shrapnel.
"Let me do that," Klinger said as she reached under her top for the back of her bra. He ran his hand up her shirt after she took her hand away, and unclasped her bra quickly.
"You're good at that," she said. "Most men fumble when it comes to the bra."
"I had practise, from my section eight days," Klinger said. She just smiled, and pulled her top slowly, allowing it to fall to the ground. Her bra fell from her chest a moment afterwards.
Klinger swallowed hard and stared. "Wow," he breathed.
Lona's chest and stomach was a mess of torn flesh and half dried blood. Klinger looked away, maybe a second too late, embarrassed to catch himself staring.
"Do you have a night robe or something? Anything that I can cover myself with," Lona said, hiding her chest with her thin arms. Klinger hurried over to his footlocker, and dug around in it for a moment.
"Here," he said, handing her a feminine powder blue silk shirt, avoiding looking at her. "I won't need it ever again."
"That section eight you were talking about, huh?" Lona asked. Klinger nodded as she took it from him. He turned around again when she had pulled it on. Blood showed through the shirt almost instantly.
"I'm sorry it's not your size," he said. Lona glanced down at the shirt. It hung loosely around her body, where the blood hadn't glued it to her body.
"It's ok. It means it doesn't press against my wounds," she said, giving her sad smile again. Klinger helped her out of his office, and across the compound. He left her in the small room between OR and Post op as he held a mask to his mouth and went into the OR.
"Sir, there's another person out there," Klinger said. "She looks pretty bad."
"Why weren't they put through triage?" Potter asked.
"She got here with two other guys, I think that's one of them you're working on now, sir, but she didn't want to appear weak in front of them, so she held off for a while," Klinger explained.
"I'm closing now, Klinger. Prep her, and bring her in," Hawkeye offered.
"I'd rather someone else did the operation, no offence, Hawkeye," Klinger said. "I've seen her wounds, and I'd hate it if I had to listen to you making jokes through the operation."
"Chest wounds?" Margaret guessed. Klinger nodded.
"Any objection to me operating on her, Klinger?" BJ said. "I'll be closing once I stitch this lung up."
"Thank you, sir," Klinger said, walking out quickly again.
"Can you believe it?" Hawkeye said to the nurse assisting him. "He doesn't want me operating on this nurse."
"I don't know why," the nurse replied sarcastically. "You're such a gentleman while operating."
"Sirs," Klinger said, bursting into the OR a few minutes later, supporting Lona. "She just blacked out, while I was talking to her."
"Corpsman!" Colonel Potter yelled. Father Mulcahy ran in, tying his mask back and being followed by two corpsmen.
"Move this guy, he's finished," Hawkeye said. The two corpsmen grabbed the stretcher on the hard, metal table, and Father Mulcahy helped Klinger lift Lona onto the table.
"Nurse, close, will you?" BJ said, rushing over to the woman on the table and ripping his gloves off.
"Klinger, get a mask on!" Margaret screeched. Klinger hurriedly took the mask from his pocket and tied it onto his head, Margaret glaring at him.
"She doesn't have dogtags, Klinger," BJ said.
"That's impossible," Klinger said, moving over to the table to see for himself.
"Is she even part of the army?" Hawkeye suggested, looking her over quickly.
"She was wearing a uniform before, maybe her dogtags are still with her jacket. Or they could have fallen off in the jeep," Klinger said.
"Max?" Lona said, blinking her eyes.
"Are you ok?" Klinger said, picking up her hand.
"Yeah, I think so. Where am I?" Lona asked.
"You're in OR," BJ said. "But we need to stabilize you before I can operate. Do you know your blood type?"
"B negative," Lona said. She glanced over to Klinger. "Don't leave me, will you Max?"
"I'll be here the whole time," Klinger promised. Lona smiled as Margaret came over with a whole unit of blood.
"Good," she whispered, closing her eyes. Margaret hooked the needle into her arm, and made sure the fluids were running properly into her body.
"How long until she's stabilized?" Klinger asked, not taking his eyes of her.
"Depends how much blood she's lost," BJ replied, unbuttoning the few buttons done up on the blue shirt.
"One of your former shirts, Klinger?" Hawkeye asked. Klinger just shot Hawkeye a quick look, and Hawkeye closed his mouth. BJ whistled when he saw the damage to Lona's chest and stomach.
"It's not as bad as it could be," BJ said. "She looks like she might have been partially behind something when she got hit."
"Will she be ok?" Klinger asked.
"I hope so," BJ said, glancing up at the bottle on the stand.
"You're very quiet, Pierce," Colonel Potter said. "What's the matter?"
"I'm surprised she could walk over to the OR like this," Hawkeye replied.
"She came in a jeep, with those other two guys. She was driving, didn't appear to be too hurt," Klinger said, keeping his attention focused on Lona's face. "Had a little trouble getting outta the jeep, and needed a little help into my office. She showed me what had happened, and I helped her over here. She didn't show any signs of being in pain, except she had to do everything real slow."
"That is pretty impressive," Hawkeye said. Colonel Potter walked over briskly and took a look.
"What's her name?" he asked.
"Lieutenant Lona Humphrey," Klinger said. "She said she was at an aid station."
"I don't think I've ever heard of a nurse at an aid station. I'll do a check on her," Colonel Potter said, heading towards the wash up area. "Just to be sure."
"Think it's about time to start cutting?" BJ asked Hawkeye. Hawkeye nodded.
"I'll feed her gas, so she doesn't wake up halfway through," he offered. "And no jokes or crude comments," he promised Klinger as he sat himself behind Lona's head. Klinger didn't say anything, he was too busy staring at Lona's peaceful face.
"Nurse, scalpel," BJ said, holding his hand out.