A World Against Me

Note and Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and plotlines of M*A*S*H. It's just becoming more and more fun to write about Frank.

It had been a week since that awful incident, when my letter to my beautiful wife was read to the whole camp over the intercom. Now, it had taken the same amount of time to make up to Margaret, my Angel of Mercy that make the world so bright. I had to win her back and fast. It first began with some flowers and some love notes left mysterious at her tent door. I next brought her little things I found, like pretty rocks by a river or even a teddy bear some locals were selling. Then, when she was bursting with excitement and trying to tell the other nurses that she truly had a secret admirer, I would swoop right in and bring her breakfast in bed, kisses for a good day and even a few bites on the neck when she was brushing her hair at night, one hundred strokes and nothing more or less.

In the meantime, as I was trying my hardest to get Margaret's affections shining back to me, worse things started happening. Ever since that new hotshot surgeon came to camp riding with a local – one Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce – strange stuff had been going on and it all involved me. I mean, it was small at first, like maybe my boots laces being tied together or maybe a snake in my cot, but as the days passed, they became more and more silly and I was getting angrier.

The hour before my scheduled date with Margaret in her tent, I tried speaking with the CO, Colonel Blake. I explained the situation to him as he slouched in his desk chair, drinking and smoking a cigar, of all things in a war zone! I was scandalized, my dislike for him more and more intense the more he stared at me and without the respect I so desired. However, I kept my temper, being as solid and as cool as a cucumber, and told the colonel everything. He listened to the best of his abilities, I assumed (you cannot tell with those kinds of people), and even nodded every now and then.

"Well, geez, Frank, if you expect respect from the others, maybe you should earn it yourself," the colonel suggested after the end of my list of woes.

"Frank?" I was outraged. "Colonel, do you realize that I am a major and you are a colonel and that you are to address me as such? No first names allowed!"

"No, Frank, I did was not aware of this rule," Colonel Blake simply replied. "This camp is about as Army as the mutts that run away from the locals. Come on, Frank, get over it. Play well with others, will ya?"

I was insulted beyond belief. I could not speak, I was so mad. I felt my blood pressure rise and hit a boiling point before I screamed something I couldn't understand myself and ran out. On the way to Margaret, my only beacon of hope, I passed Captains Pierce and McIntyre, who entered the colonel's office. I didn't hear what they had to say nor did I care to. I was tired of the colonel, tired of them and tired of this place, enough to blow my brains out and take them with me!

Without realizing it, I stormed out and headed to Margaret's tent and did not knock on her door, allowing everyone to see where I was going and who I was hoping to catch sight of naked. As I entered, I saw that Margaret was doing something with her hair in front of a compact mirror, hiding a bottle of something and a cotton wad under a towel as soon as I entered. She turned around to face me with a smile on her face, cooing over me as I fumed, hot air running in and out of my nostrils as she fluttered like a fairy in nature. She then came to me and embraced me, whispering that she knew it was me all along and that she knew that she was loved by me and me alone.

I did nothing, which attracted poor Margaret's attention and changed her tune. "What's the matter, my little oak leaf?" she asked me when she saw my face. "Oh, my poor baby, what's happened?"

"You have no idea," I said through clenched teeth. "It's horrible!"

Margaret was insistent in her ministrations and begged me to be still. She managed to get me calmed down, guiding me to her bed and telling me that it'll be all right. I doubted it. Things were on a smooth road when I arrived here and now were unraveling before my very eyes. My darling would understand, just as I knew she would and she would listen to it as much as my mother and wife always had.

"Tell me all about it," Margaret whispered seductively and so close to my ears. "Tell me everything, Frank."

"Well, it started when that new captain came here," I explained in the most unromantic way, but feeling a sense of happiness come over me, such that comes when I see my wonderful Margaret. "It seemed like a whole world was against me, Margaret. I started seeing my life flash before my eyes and it didn't take much for me to see it coming. I mean, it was small at first and got bad from there. My mother's picture frame was smashed into pieces and replaced with a spam replica."

"Oh, no!"

"That's not all. My cot was infested with flea eggs which hatched when I woke up one morning."

"The terror you must have had!"

"Yes! The horrible itch it was! And then, there was reveille. Someone made sure I fell into a trench on my way to roll call."

"I saw that! I wanted with all of my heart to help you, my love, but the talk would be worse."

"Oh, I forgive you, Margaret. But that's not all."

Margaret's face changed from loving to curious. "What do you mean?"

"I've had rubber utensils for my meals," I continued. "Two dogs cornered me in the latrine before the company clerk chased them away. An orderly who dresses in dresses even delivered female personnel garb and argued with me about it until I ordered him out. Worse of all, Margaret, is that I found myself in traction after days and days of being in the OR…and raised so high and near the ceiling that I wasn't able to walk away!"

It was then that Margaret's face turned bright with rage and then came up with an idea. "And what did Colonel Blake think of all of this?"

"Nothing more than a dismissal," I confirmed, nodding my head. "Yessiriee, he didn't care one little bit."

"And I think I know why," Margaret admitted. "He's protecting those two maniacs."

"What maniacs?"

"The two surgeons we have. I think they're the ones who are pulling the pranks."

"You really think so?"

"As sure as I am about the war lasting a while. Come on, Frank. We have work to do."

Again, I was angry. Through some careful investigating and through the careful words of my precious nurse, we have found our culprits and that was what made it worse. I did nothing to those two knuckleheads and yet…yet they have given me so much disrespect that was uncalled for. Margaret was right. We have a lot of work to do and it involved contacting someone over Colonel Blake's head, a general perhaps who would give us what we wanted.

I got up with Margaret and we headed for the door. Margaret went first, trying to push her way out, but she was stuck and so was I. I ran right into the small of her back, no doubt hurting her (grievous error that it was), and tried doing the same for me, to show how strong I was. We looked at each other in horror when I could not budge it. The door was jammed and locked from the outside!

Margaret starting banging on the door with her hands and then her fists, splinters raining down on her poor skin. "Let us out! Let us out!"

I screamed the same, hoping that someone who hear us and free us. I mean, it was the only way we could escape. The tent was tied down on all sides and without a knife to cut the thick material (of which Margaret might not have), we could not get out. The only way we could do our duty was to ask for help and then face down the horrible gossip together. A couple so much in love and brought together by war can handle a few bad words in their directions, especially when found together in a female personnel's tent and begging for help from the first person who came along…

And that was when we realized that the tent caved in.

For my very own Mistress Twist...for the world is never against you. You are a wonderful friend. :D