Consequences

Chapter One

"Anyway, the fire department eventually got it out with the help of some goose grease, and that was that. He's going to be mighty tender for a while, but other than that he's just fine. And so is the cockerel."

Lounging comfortably on his cot, legs stretched out and ankles crossed, Hawkeye grinned. Home always seemed a little closer when he was reading his father's stories of the everyday dramas going on back in Crabapple Cove.

He looked up as the door opened, and his smile evaporated as BJ Hunnicutt came in, bringing with him a blast of cold air. BJ looked grey-faced and exhausted. He slumped down on the edge of his own cot without bothering to take off his parka, and buried his head in his gloved hands.

"Damn," he whispered.

"What is it?" asked Hawkeye, putting down the letter and swinging his feet to the floor.

BJ dropped his hands and met Hawkeye's concerned eyes. "Private Marshall. I really thought he was okay, Hawk. I thought he was out of the woods. One minute he was talking to me, saying how he was looking forward to getting home, and then….." He sighed and shook his head as if struggling to accept what had happened. "He had a heart attack right there in front of me. I tried everything to bring him back, but I guess the shock and the strain of his injuries was just too much for his body to handle." BJ's gaze slid from Hawkeye's face and he stared at the floor. "Damn," he whispered again.

Hawkeye understood BJ's quiet despair. Losing a man on the operating table was bad enough, but losing someone you thought you had managed to save - someone you were starting to get to know - that was as unfair as taking a knockout blow after the bell, when you thought the fight was over and your guard was down.

"Beej, I saw the state that guy was in when he came in last night," he said. "If it hadn't been for you, he would never have left the OR alive. You did the best you could, and that's a hell of a lot better than most people. But you can't work miracles. None of us can." He reached across to grip BJ's shoulder. "Keep the energy you're using to question why you couldn't save this life, and use it to save the next one."

There was the trace of a smile on BJ's tired face. "Isn't that what Colonel Potter said to you, after he pulled you off Marshall's buddy in the compound last night?"

Hawkeye's lips tightened as he remembered pounding at the wounded soldier's chest like a man possessed, refusing to give up until the colonel had placed a hand on his arm and gently ordered him to stop.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "It was good advice then and it's good advice now." He stood up and reached for his coat and scarf. "Come on," he said. "You'll feel better after some food."

"In this place, that would be a first," said BJ, following him out of the tent.

Hawkeye sniffed and looked up at the sky as they crossed the compound. "Hey, it must be getting warmer," he said. "I can smell the garbage dump again. Most of that stuff's been as solid as an iceberg for months."

"Great," said BJ. "The wonderful aroma of springtime in Korea. To be followed by the sweltering heat of summertime in Korea, then the depressing gloom of fall in Korea, the freezing cold of winter in Korea, and before you know it another year's gone and we're still here."

"No, I mean it," said Hawkeye. "Today was the first morning I couldn't see my own breath."

"Dragonbreath," muttered BJ, and Hawkeye looked at him, an amused, mock-indignant expression on his face.

"Excuse me? Is that some kind of criticism of my dental hygiene? Because if it is, I could make a few comments about the fragrant feet I have to share a tent with."

BJ laughed. "When I was little, we used to call the first really cold morning of each winter Dragonbreath Day. I thought it was so cool to go around breathing "smoke". For a couple of years I honestly believed that if I blew hard enough, one day I would be able to make fire like a real dragon."

Hawkeye smiled as they walked on, relieved that his friend's mood seemed to be lightening.

They were late for lunch, and most people were finishing their meal even as Hawkeye and BJ were starting theirs. The last few stragglers drifted off as they ate, and by the time they were finishing off with coffee the two surgeons had the mess tent to themselves. BJ cupped his hands around his mug and stared into the rising steam. He was still exhausted, but the hollow feeling in his stomach had retreated.

"Amazingly enough, I do feel better for eating whatever that was," he said. "But then, it's just occurred to me that the last meal I had was breakfast yesterday."

Hawkeye was dissecting the remains of his own meal and peering closely at parts of it as if performing a post-mortem. He looked up. "Yesterday? You're kidding. How did you manage that?"

"I dunno. I guess I was busy this time yesterday, and then I was just about to eat in the evening when the wounded came in, and I was in post-op at breakfast time." He shrugged. "You know how crazy it gets round here sometimes."

"Wait a minute," said Hawkeye. "You were still finishing up when I left the OR last night, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. And I haven't seen you all morning. Don't tell me you were in post-op all night?"

"Not all night – I couldn't sleep and I went over a few times to check on Marshall."

"Beej, we have the best nurses in Korea and a duty roster of the finest doctors you could wish for, present company included. You have to stop trying to do it all!" Hawkeye was exasperated with his friend, but BJ simply nodded.

"Yeah, right," he said. "And these wise words are from the man who had to be scooped off the floor and carried out of OR on a stretcher after he gave blood how many times in one week?"

Hawkeye reached over and took BJ's mug from him. "I'm serious. You're no use to anyone if you're walking around looking worse off than this……" he gestured at his tray but was unable to reliably name the contents, "…….well, worse off than this. Come on back to the Swamp and I'll lull you to sleep with my dad's latest epic."

BJ started to protest half-heartedly, then fell silent as an unfamiliar figure appeared in the doorway. The tall young man peered around as if looking for something or someone. He wore captain's bars and his hair was blond above a thin, intense face.

"You two Pierce and Hunnicutt?" he asked. When they nodded, he came over to them. "They told me I might find you here. Name's Chris Barker – you've got some of my boys in your ward over there."

Hawkeye and BJ shook his hand and introduced themselves. Barker sat down and BJ fetched them all fresh coffee, ignoring Hawkeye's reproachful glance.

"If I'd known you were here, I'd have come to find you myself," said BJ, taking a seat next to the new arrival. "I worked on Private Marshall. I really thought he was going to be all right, but…"

Barker held up a hand. "I'm not here to give you grief, Doc. I spoke to the nurse on duty, and I know you did everything you could, just like your friend here tried his damndest to save Corporal Shaw last night. But there's three more of my men who are alive because of you and your colleagues, and I wanted to thank you before I left."

"Marshall told me a bit about Corporal Shaw," said BJ, sipping his coffee. "They seemed pretty close."

"Yeah, it was funny seeing them together sometimes. There must have been fifteen years between them, but they really hit it off, kind of like a father and son team. Lots of joking going on, but they always looked out for each other, y'know? I can't believe they're both gone – it's hit the rest of the guys hard." He paused. "I've only been a captain for a few weeks. These are the first men I've lost. It's gonna take some getting used to."

"Pray you never do," said BJ, and Barker gave him a sharp look.

"Listen," he said hesitantly. "I need to ask you both something, and I'm not sure how to go about it."

"If it's something medical, or to do with your men's injuries, just ask," said BJ. "We'll help if we can. But if you're looking for military advice, the local plant life probably knows more about strategy than we do."

"I know how to run away," offered Hawkeye. "And my surrendering skills are legendary in these parts. I can do things with a white flag and a stick that you wouldn't believe."

Barker nodded, but he didn't smile at their attempts to put him at ease. "Well, it's like I said; I only just got promoted. And these guys – Marshall and Shaw – it's gonna look bad on my first monthly report. And I was wondering if … well, if you could maybe make it so they didn't die for a couple more days. Officially, I mean. Then my first month would be clean."

It was suddenly very still in the mess tent.

"Clean?" said BJ into the silence, hoping that his tired brain had somehow misinterpreted what he thought he'd just heard.

"Yeah. If the certificates show they died after the sixteenth then I'll have gone my first month without losing any men." He somehow made the whole thing sound like a practical, reasonable proposition.

BJ opened his mouth but found himself unable to form words. Then he felt Hawkeye's foot tap against his own under the table, and an unspoken message passed between them. He forced himself to nod slowly as if considering Barker's idea, then passed the baton. "What do you reckon, Hawk?"

Hawkeye chewed at his lip and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I don't know, Beej. It's not as easy as just changing a date on a piece of paper." He looked at Barker. "I mean, the rest of your men know what happened and when, don't they?"

"Yeah, but they don't need to see the paperwork." Barker visibly relaxed as he sensed a pair of willing co-conspirators. "And my CO signs pretty much whatever I put in front of him. You know what these older guys are like – won't do anything to rock the boat while they count down the days to retirement."

"Yeah, that's true." Hawkeye leaned across the wooden table. "I think I know what you should do, Chris – can I call you Chris?"

"Sure," said Barker, dropping his voice to match Hawkeye's and leaning in until their heads, one blonde and one black, were almost touching. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," said Hawkeye, very softly. "That if you walk out of here right now, we can all pretend you never made that obscene suggestion. And I'm thinking that I'm on the verge of doing something you would regret for a very long time."

He let the ensuing silence stretch out, not moving and not breaking eye contact with the man opposite him. Barker shifted uncomfortably, impaled by the icy stare.

"Hey, those guys wouldn't mind," he said, a little desperately. "We were buddies. What harm can it do anyone?"

Hawkeye said nothing and Barker, thinking he might still have a chance, made a fatal error. "C'mon, Captain..." he started, and it was as if he had thrown a match into a powder keg. Hawkeye was on his feet in a rush, and Barker sat back so suddenly that he almost fell off the bench.

"Don't call me Captain!" snapped Hawkeye, and his anger seemed to crackle like electricity in the air between them. "I'm a doctor first and last and everything in between, and if you believe holding the same military rank makes us members of some kind of cosy brotherhood then you're way off. How dare you! How dare you believe you can play God with people's lives – with their deaths – just so you can keep a clean scoresheet, as if all this is some kind of game!"

For a second the younger man looked shocked, frightened even, and it seemed as though he might back down, but then his face hardened and twisted into an ugly, knowing smirk.

"Okay, Doctor." He made it sound like an insult. "Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about someone I know who heard you two changed the date on a guy's death certificate just a few months ago."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hawkeye's voice was shaking with fury.

Barker looked at BJ. "Doctor Hunnicutt knows what I'm talking about, don't you Doc? You're looking a little pale."

Hawkeye answered before BJ could speak. "He's pale because he's been up all night looking after your men and because he's just had his first meal in over twenty-four hours," he said, coming round the table to stand beside BJ. "And you shouldn't be looking at him, you should be looking at me, because this is the direction the fist is going to be coming from."

Barker ignored him, challenging BJ directly. "What about it, Doc? Is your conscience clear?"

BJ rose, deliberately standing too close to the seated man so that he towered over him.

"Take my friend's good advice and get out of here," he said slowly and clearly, his disgust evident in every syllable. "Right now. Take your wonderful, shiny new Captain's bars and crawl back into whatever dark hole you came out of. And if you are very, very lucky, you and I will never meet again."

Faced with the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder glaring down on him, Barker had the sense to admit defeat. He slid off the edge of the bench and sidled towards the door like a child who has lost an argument; sullen and defiant but not quite brave enough to turn his back on the enemy.

"You think you're untouchable," he said, stabbing a finger at them. "Just wait. Just you wait." Then he was gone, the door slamming behind him.

BJ let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for hours. "For once the bad taste in my mouth is nothing to do with lunch," he said. "Still, talk about dragonbreath – you certainly singed his ears for him."

Hawkeye sat down heavily and unclenched the fists he hadn't been aware of making. He stared down at his hands. "Never mind his ears - if he'd stayed in here another ten seconds, you'd have had to prise these from around his throat."

"I think I might have found a reason to look the other way," replied BJ. Then he put into words what they were both thinking. "Hawkeye, is he right? Is what we did so different?"

Hawkeye looked up at him. "God, I hope so," he said quietly.

"What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should speak to the Colonel."

…………. to be continued ……………