The air was still. Crisp and cool, no longer cold but not yet warm. It was late, well after midnight and creeping towards dawn. A few birds had begun to sing in the trees, although the sun still had yet to crest over the tall, green mountains that bordered the camp to the east. Peace at wartime. But tranquility was not to be long-lived.
A convoy of urgency flew into Colonel Potter's tent. Two men half-clad in sleepwear stood before the sleeping colonel, one of them tall and hulking with a sparse crown of hair, the other shorter and with a moustache that under normal conditions might have been called comical. Charles and BJ behaved like two men possessed. The surgeons crowded into the small, unlit space in a cloud of panic, each one speaking as loudly and unintelligibly as the other. The Colonel bolted upright in his bed and stared at the men as they verbally assaulted him, more confused than he had ever been when first waking up. Even sleeping in the foxholes of the first two world wars had not prepared him for this sort of madness.
"Quiet!" he shouted over the din, prompting the doctors to swallow their tongues as well as their words. "Now what in the name of Hannibal's elephants are you two goons shouting about? Don't you know what time it is?" The colonel dropped his voice and pointed his finger accusingly at the men. "If this has anything to do with the rash of practical jokes around camp lately, I kindly suggest you shove it somewhere the sun don't shine and get back to bed before I do it for you." Sherman ran a hand through his tuft of white hair and rubbed the sleep from his weary blue eyes. He waited for his staff to move. They didn't.
BJ took a deep breath and held it before letting go. He looked at his comrade for support and nodded. "Colonel, it's serious."
Potter reached for his nightstand and fumbled around for his glasses. He slid them on his face and motioned for Hunnicutt to continue. "All right, son. Let's have it."
"It's John," BJ said.
The colonel stared at him, confused. "Ain't the little lady visiting the 121st Evac? She's not due back 'til tomorrow in the PM."
"If I may, Hunnicutt," Charles interrupted, putting his hand on the other surgeon's shoulder. "Colonel, it appears as though Nurse Johnson's plans were changed last minute—"
"So what's all the hubbub?" In Potter's less than restful state, things were taking a while to make sense. Or maybe his men were just being nonsensical. It was sweet of them to miss John so much, but that certainly didn't warrant a 3 AM wakeup call of howling.
"The 'hubbub'," Charles continued, his voice betraying an urgent irritation, "as it were, is that John is not coming back tomorrow evening, she made the decision to return tonight only to become the target of enemy fire on her way." His face turned red. He'd said his peace all in one panicked breath.
Potter was out of bed in an instant. "Jumpin' jackrabbits, why didn't you say something sooner?" He hurriedly pulled on his uniform as he spoke. Both BJ and Charles started out the door, urging the colonel to move faster. "Where is the girl? Is she here? Why didn't you tell me the second she got into camp?"
BJ held the door open impatiently, his feet dancing in their attempts to carry him off to the OR where John was, no doubt, being cut open as he spoke. "There wasn't any time. The guy driving her in was so shocked we had to sedate him just to get his hands off of her wounds. Hawkeye was the first one to get to her. He's getting her prepped for surgery right now."
"Well, what in Sam Hill happened to her? Sniper fire?" The three men were suddenly in the compound, running as fast as their legs would carry them toward the hospital. Everything had happened so fast that Winchester and Hunnicutt were still wearing their robes.
"Hard to tell," Hunnicutt explained as they reached the door leading to pre-op. "Too much shrapnel to be from one sniper's rifle."
"I suspect it may have been a grenade from the looks of things," added the major. "The side of the jeep was so badly damaged by an explosion I'm surprised it was even able to function."
BJ shook his head fiercely as he pushed his way inside the makeshift hospital. "Remind me to send Rizzo a gift basket when she pulls through this."
"I would not be so optimistic, Hunnicutt. You saw her wounds. You know just as well as I what a difficult situation we are facing here." Charles' tone was soft, as if he was afraid to say what was on his mind. This was a curious and unnatural feeling for the Winchester.
Charles was wise to be cautious. As soon as the words left his mouth, BJ whirled around to face the major with his hand clenched into a fist. "Don't you ever say anything like that again, Winchester, or I'm not going to be responsible for what I do to you."
Colonel Potter was between them in an instant. "Hunnicutt, stand down. The last thing we need, the last thing John needs right now is dissension in the ranks. We have to pull together to get through this." He stood aside cautiously and watched as Hunnicutt slowly lowered his arm. Then Sherman turned to Winchester. "Much as I appreciate your complete and utter lack of feeling Winchester, I'd also be pleased as Punch if I never heard those words come out of your mouth again." Charles opened his mouth to speak and quickly thought the better of it. "Now, who's in there assisting Hawkeye?" BJ and Charles looked at each other and had no answer.
Again, BJ spoke first, "I didn't even think of it. It all happened so fast. Klinger was the only one around when she came in. He got the drugs for the driver and helped Hawk pull John in to pre-op."
"That's fine and Jim Dandy, but we're going to need more than a corpsman if we're going to perform an operation like this. Winchester, go wake Margaret."
Charles rolled his eyes up to the sky and let out a long, agonized moan. "Margaret!" he exclaimed. "I cannot believe we didn't even think to wake her." Without another word, Charles moved in the direction of Major Houlihan's tent. Hunnicutt and Potter looked after him, neither one envying his task.
Quickly, Potter recovered himself. "BJ, go and get the padre. I want this surgery to be safe as houses, which means we'll need the head honcho on our side." Hunnicutt nodded and was off and running before the colonel could get in another syllable. He drew in a sharp breath and headed inside, petrified of what would face him as soon as he entered the OR.
The smell of blood and isopropyl alcohol hit his nose the second he walked into pre-op. It was a smell that never quite left, even after weeks without wounded soldiers. It was a sickly, sterile smell that clung to everything: clothes, sheets, hair, skin. It was a smell that rarely meant a rosy future and a happy ending for everyone involved. Normal hospitals did not smell this way. It was a stench reserved strictly for the horrors of war.
Potter had no idea how bad John was torn up. Maybe, he thought, it was all an elaborate prank pulled by the staff to get him riled up after April Fools Day. Then the smell hit his nostrils again. There was nothing to laugh about in here. And this was certainly not a hoax. On the other side of the door, Sherman could hear the voices of Hawkeye and Klinger arguing. He took a minute to steady himself before the door swung open on the scene of one of his comrades fighting for her life on an operating table.
