Mad Dogs and Corporals
That bit that they left out at the end of "Mad Dogs and Servicemen." (S3 E13)
Author's Note: This is my first time experimenting with writing in the present tense. I'm hoping that it doesn't detract from the story at all.
Radar gives a perfunctory knock before entering the Swamp, shoulders drooping. He mumbles a greeting to Hawkeye and Trapper, who are both lounging on Trapper's bunk. Trapper is wrapping Hawkeye's splayed hands with yarn, but pauses to hold his hand out for the letter Radar proffers, murmuring a thanks. Hawkeye's hopeful expression falls in obvious disappointment when the clerk turns away from the pair after handing Trapper a single envelope. The corporal drops Frank's mail carelessly on the absent surgeon's cot before reaching for the door.
Hawkeye returns his gaze to Trapper's yarn before his boredom-benumbed mind registers Radar's body language and he does a double take. "Radar. What's eating you?" he asks with mild concern.
"Oh," Radar begins in subdued tones, "well, I haven't seen that little mutt in a while. You know, the one that nipped me last week? He usually shows up by now." The kid looks out at the compound worriedly through the tent's mosquito netting, as if hoping to see the dog trot by at any moment. "I really hope he hasn't been the one eaten!"
Hawkeye appears taken aback. He sends a glance to Trapper, who rolls his eyes ever-so-helpfully. Hawk takes a deep breath in preparation for the inevitable. "Radar, do you know how a rabies test is done?"
Radar shrugs with a shake of his head. "Well, no, none of my animals ever had to have one before."
Hawkeye's eyes, the only tell to be found on his carefully assumed poker face, quickly progress from dread to gratitude to calculation. "Well, ah, we had to send the dog away for the test. And the Army doesn't like to pay return shipping on strays, you see."
"Oh." Radar looks somewhere between relieved and disappointed. "But he's just in Seoul, right? That's not too far to send him back."
Hawkeye delicately formulates his reply. "Radar, I'm sure he's not unhappy where he is now."
Trapper sends his bunkie a knowing smirk.
Unsatisfied, Radar persists. "But will someone take care of him there?"
Hawkeye half-smiles darkly. "Don't worry, someone already has."
The naïve corporal briefly considers his friend's assurances before nodding once. "Well. As long as you think he'll be happy."
"I guarantee you he doesn't have a care in the world." The doctor lets his half-smile widen, both reassuring the kid and revealing a bit of smugness at his own wit.
Radar returns the smile weakly and exits, mollified.
A few days later Radar storms into the mess tent, where Hawkeye and Trapper are trying to force down yet another mostly unidentifiable meal. He skips the customary greeting and cuts right to the chase.
"Hawkeye! Colonel Blake just told me that you killed my dog!"
Hawkeye cringes but feels a fleeting nanosecond of gratitude at the excuse to set down his fork. He's been hoping to have permanently sidestepped the unpleasant fact that Radar has brought up. 'Permanently' being for the rest of the war, at least, when he wouldn't have to deal with it. He certainly hasn't planned on revisiting the subject quite so soon. He makes a mental note to point that out to Henry the next chance he gets. In elaborate, emphatic detail.
"What dog?" he asks with mock puzzlement, stalling for time while he tries to think of a dignified yet hasty way out of the conversation.
"You know what dog! You think –! You –! You lied to me!" Radar's tone, higher pitched than his normal speaking voice, makes his indignation plain. "You said he was in Seoul and happy!"
Technically speaking Hawkeye hasn't uttered a single untrue word, but he rather doubts that Radar is in the mood for splitting hairs at the present.
"Radar, we had to know if it had exposed you to rabies," the surgeon explains patiently and apologetically. "If we'd just quarantined it you would have had to have more shots and would have been sicker for even longer. And you looked pretty miserable laid up in Post-Op like that." 'And pitiful,' he doesn't add, knowing that his sympathy for the kid's plight wouldn't aid his argument in any way. "Your health was the most important aspect of that situation," he emphasizes in his 'doctor' voice. "Not to mention that there was the problem of who would care for a potentially dangerous animal while it was confined for over a week." A sigh of resignation escapes his lips as he shakes his head. "It just wouldn't work out, Radar. I'm sorry."
The corporal's livid expression takes on a decidedly red cast as his anger reaches apoplectic proportions. "You mean you didn't have to kill him?! You could have just locked him up and found out that way?!"
Hawkeye briefly closes his eyes and swipes a palm over his face, taking a moment to kick himself. Figuratively, at least. He realizes that he should have expected that Radar would be willing to sacrifice his health, however temporarily, for an animal's life.
Observing his bunkmate's countenance, Trapper rides to the rescue, albeit a bit belatedly. "You know the Army," he hedges. "They wouldn't want their company clerk's, ah, efficiency to suffer on behalf a stray dog. It's S.O.P. to... to take a sample of nerve tissue in cases like this." He wisely doesn't mention that the dog had to be beheaded for that nerve tissue to be collected. Some things are better left unsaid. This entire conversation could probably fall under that category, in fact.
"And you couldn't do that without killing him?!"
Hawkeye is impressed that so much ire can be contained in such a small package. "I'm sorry Radar," he says sincerely. "Modern medicine has come a long way, but that just isn't possible." He really hopes that the corporal doesn't pursue this unpleasant line of questioning.
He's in luck. "Yeah, well, that was still a really rotten thing to do! That poor dog wasn't hurting anybody! To go and kill him…!"
The doctors elect not to point out that the still-healing bite on Radar's hand directly contradicts that statement. Logic doesn't seem to be one of the clerk's priorities at the moment. Emotion is clearly the frontrunner.
"And you were never going to tell me, too!" the kid adds angrily. "Excuse me for saying, but you sirs've sure got a lot of nerve!"
"Honestly, Radar, weren't you happier not knowing?" Hawkeye asks with a questioning wave of his hand, brows knitted in frustration. He'd genuinely been trying to protect his little friend, with the mindset that ignorance is bliss. So much for that plan. Leave it to Henry to blow Radar's peace of mind right out of the water.
"I'd've been a lot happier if you hadn't gone and killed him in the first place!" the teenager retorts vehemently.
Trapper valiantly takes up the gauntlet. "Radar, that dog was a public health risk. We couldn't just let an animal potentially infected with a deadly virus run around loose or be kept in camp. It was dangerous."
The corporal isn't placated by Trapper's voice of reason. "Except you didn't know he had it! And he didn't! And you killed him for nothing!"
Hawkeye searches desperately for a way to extricate himself from the rapidly sinking ship, even contemplating the benefits of knocking himself unconscious on the table in front of him. He concludes that that particular plan would probably not be very advantageous to the headache blossoming between his eyes.
"We're very sorry Radar," he says honestly. "I wish we could have done something differently, but there were really no other options." That reiterated, Hawkeye sagely decides that it's time for some good old-fashioned bribery. He slides his half-eaten tray in the clerk's direction. "Here. Look. I got the last of the ice cream. Do you want it? It's strawberry, your favorite."
Outrage wars with desire on Radar's face. He eyes the melting prize, clearly torn.
"It'll make you feel better," Hawk coaxes. "I promise. Scout's honor." He contorts the fingers of his right hand into a position that is almost certainly not the boy scout sign.
"Okay, fine." Radar resentfully scoops up the tray. "But I'm still not talking to you sirs." He stalks off to an empty table across the tent and attacks the mound of ice cream with the same amount of aggression he's just shown the doctors.
Hawkeye and Trapper lock gazes and exchange slight smiles. It's a step in the right direction, at least. Hawkeye has a feeling that the offerings of ice cream and a few nudist magazines, paired with a little time, will return things back to (ab)normal.