Disclaimer: I suppose a disclaimer is customary, though it offers about as much legal protection as a Kleenex seatbelt. For the record: Neither MASH nor any of its characters or proprietary ideas belong to me. If they did, I'd muck up the series with blatant self-insertion, and I would also be considerably wealthy.
October, 1952
Between the 4077th and 8063rd MASH
BJ didn't mind the back-and-forth (usually more back than forth) jerking of the jeep, or having to take the literal backseat to a private and a first lieutenant, or being somewhat crushed between Lt. Callaway's suitcase and Cpl. Klinger's case of tinned hams. He didn't even mind the silence; after four solid days without casualties, which of course meant four solid days of the Hawkeye Pierce Mess Tent Mystery Odor Tour, a little judicious sullenness was more than welcome. Even if it was of the uncomfortably frosty variety – BJ didn't know any particulars, but the wedding ring that had reappeared on the lieutenant's finger as soon as she got her Milwaukee walking papers seemed to have Private Jowett in something of an uproar. BJ was just glad to be going for a ride. After two weeks of chilly fall rain the day had dawned flawlessly clear and just warm enough for a breeze to be welcome. They'd encountered no shelling and no snipers on the trip, and the day was so fine and pleasant BJ could almost pretend that he had simply made a strange choice of vacation destination, and Peg and Erin would be waiting for him at the end of the safari. That thought was all it took to puncture his high morale; the trip to the 8063 was actually to provide an extra set of hands for the enormous influx of wounded they were expecting.
Jowett braked hard when they approached the 8063rd and slapped the jeep's horn. "Need anything else, sir?" he asked, clearly just as a formality.
"No, thank you, Private," BJ answered, unfolding himself from the backseat. "Your nickel tour of the backwoods is more than enough to keep me in bed for a week."
The PFC didn't even kill the engine as BJ retrieved his medical bag and small suitcase. "Yes sir, I'll be back this evening, sir," he said, and slammed on the accelerator. BJ knew that "evening" was something of a stretch – he was just on his way to Seoul, less than twenty-five miles away, and then his orders were to come back and wait until BJ was ready to depart the 8063rd, but BJ figured he wanted to either spend a few last tearful minutes with Callaway at the airport or with some watered-down hooch in the adjacent bar. Either way, he didn't want to prevent it; if Jowett wanted to nurse a broken heart (BJ swallowed a laugh at the pun), that was Jowett's business. Callaway and Jowett were arguing before they were even out of earshot; BJ caught "whore" and "bastard" before he was approached by a handsomely vacant man not much older than BJ himself. He sported Lt. Colonel's clusters, though from the way he kept fingering his lapel, he couldn't have held them long.
"Captain Hunnicutt, I presume?" he asked, extending a hand.
"I find it suits me better than Dr. Livingstone," BJ answered with a grin. The other man didn't laugh, or even react. "BJ, please," he said, shaking politely.
"I'm Colonel Dubroff, C.O. here at the 8063. I'm sorry we weren't able to reach your man in the clerk's office before you came all the way down here, BJ," he started.
"Uh-oh."
"The big influx of wounded we were supposed to get won't be turning up; apparently the North Koreans weren't where I-Corps thought they'd be, and the battle they expected didn't happen."
"It's hard to be upset about fewer wounded soldiers, Colonel," BJ answered cheerfully.
"Even so, I'm sorry to have you come down here just to send you back…" the officer blinked and looked around. "Where's your transport?"
"My driver had to see a man about a broken heart in Seoul. He'll be back to pick me up sometime this evening."
"I sure am sorry, BJ. We've got a couple of patients in Post-Op; if you need something to do, we could always use a second opinion, even though most of our interesting cases have been evac'd to the 121st. Otherwise you're welcome to grab some coffee in our mess tent, or there's a bar just down the road a stretch." Now that BJ looked around, the camp didn't really look like it was preparing for an influx of wounded – it seemed mostly empty, and those personnel he could see were loitering over leisure activities or attending their appointed duties without urgency. A nurse abandoned the game of checkers she was playing outside a tent to cross the compound towards BJ and Col. Dubroff.
"Thanks. That was a bit of a bumpy trip; I could do with something to make my stomach worse. Which way to the mess?"
"I can show him, sir," said the nurse, who had approached her C.O. in hopes of an introduction.
"That'll be fine, thank you, Robbins," he answered. "This is Captain Hunnicutt."
"Yes, sir," she said. The Colonel made a vague statement of need to return to whatever he had been doing and wandered back to his own office, while the nurse, a captain herself, extended her own hand. "I'm Madeline Robins – Madeline, please."
"I'm BJ." They shook hands, then she walked with him around the tent where she had been playing checkers.
"Sorry about the colonel," she said, smiling. "He's a good enough guy so long as you don't ask him to count too far past ten with his boots on. He's just awfully new to command; he doesn't understand that when I-Corps says 'jump' the correct response is 'are you sure?' rather than 'how high?' So he panicked a little when he heard we were getting so many wounded."
BJ laughed, more to acknowledge that she'd made a joke than out of actual amusement. "Better an overreaction than the opposite."
"I'll say," she said. "I'm glad you're here." BJ gave her a sidelong glance, but she wasn't flirting; she wasn't even looking at him. She wore an engagement ring, and even if she were looking for outside company she was pretty enough – not to BJ's taste, but as good looking as the as some of the more popular nurses at the 4077.
"Oh?"
She laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm being very cryptic! You work with Hawkeye Pierce, right?"
"Hey, if he owes you money, I can't get him to pay his gambling debts to me, much less anyone else."
"No, no, it's nothing like that!" She led him into a mess tend much like their own mess tent. BJ had to stoop a little to avoid banging his head on the lintel, and when he didn't look interestedly at the chow line, she led him to a massive samovar of coffee. "Hawkeye told me you're from Mill Valley," she said, taking a cup for herself.
"Home sweet home," he said with a wistful smile.
"We're practically neighbors!" she said cheerily. "I'm from Sausalito! My whole family lives just off Caledonia Street!"
"Oh, that's great!" They took a seat together and began drinking the atrocious coffee. "There's nothing like a neighbor to make home seem a little closer."
"Amen," she smiled. "Do you know, on Caledonia, the restaurant with the wrought-iron seagulls over the door?"
"With the spectacular view of the City and the awful pie? Aggie's Kitchen?"
"That's the place!" She laughed. "Awful pie? I'll have you know my sister-in-law is their cook and bakes those very pies!"
"She does not!" BJ said in laughing disbelief.
"Okay, she doesn't." The nurse leaned in close. "She buys them at the grocery store. Don't tell anybody!"
BJ laughed riotously.
Over the course of the morning they drank several cups of coffee, comparing notes on views of the Bay and urban growth in San Francisco, the growing danger of driving highway 101 and rising housing prices in Stinson Beach. To his embarrassment, BJ found himself growing a little misty at their discussion of the California sky – "They just don't get the right color blue over here," – and was almost happy for the relief from bittersweet nostalgia when she announced that it was her turn for a shift in the lab.
"I guess I'll go see what's going on in Post-Op," BJ said. "I'd like to be a bit useful, seeing as I came all the way out here."
"There's nothing there except a case of food poisoning and a couple of fractures," Robins said dismissively. "You should go on our nature walk! It's great. Goes past a little stream, and there are lupin; on a day like today, if you squint a little and don't listen to the birds too closely, you could almost be in California."
BJ smiled sadly. "Sounds nice."
"It's an all purpose reminder of the States, I think; Major Browdy says she thinks it's just like Effie, and Swanski – our clerk – says all he needs is a cheesesteak and he could be in Haverford. Hey, Swanski!" she called.
An apple-cheeked corporal abandoned his mostly-empty tray and the argument that was brewing at an adjacent table. "Yeah, Captain?"
"Keep an eye on Captain Hunnicutt's bags, and show him where the nature walk is, will you? I've got duty."
"Sure thing," said the corporal, picking up BJ's suitcase with practiced lack of effort. "This way, Captain; it's a real pretty walk, I'm sure you'll like it."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll like anything Captain Robins orders me to like," BJ said, amused at the way she had more-or-less ordered him to go traipsing through the Korean wilderness.
"Yeah, she's like that," grinned the corporal. "It really is a sight to see, though."
"I believe it," BJ said affably.
"Okay, this is the start of it. The path is marked by olive drab stakes, as long as you can see one, you know you're in an area that's been de-mined. If you can't see a stake, just shout for a while; somebody that knows the area'll hear eventually and send you out a guide. Don't go into the creek, and don't drink the water; the doctor's say it's not potable 'cause the locals throw waste into it upstream. You don't have to worry too much about NK this far south, but you see any red uniforms you run first and ask questions later. Any questions?"
"Yeah, is this a nature walk, or a torture museum?" Swanski shrugged. "Thanks, Corporal. You'll keep an eye on my stuff?"
"You got it, doc. Have a nice walk."
"Thanks."
The clerk's extended warning notwithstanding, the walk was actually quite splendid. The path – really a well-worn footpath, marked more by packed bare earth than flimsy balsa stakes with scraps of green fabric tied to them – wound through the scrubby flora before entering a copse of taller trees that clustered around a rapid-flowing creek. In spite of concerns about bacterial infestation, it was quite picturesque; a bed of stones impeded the river's flow and produced a cheerful babble. Someone had used an axe and sandpaper to shape a fallen tree and stump into a passable table and chairs, and, to judge by the litter of empty bottles surrounding the table, the hardworking soldiers of the 8063rd considered the retreat a nice place to relax.
BJ dislodged a beer bottle to sit on the more comfortable-looking chair, carefully positioned to use a living tree as a backrest. Robins was right; when he pulled his dog tags out of his shirt so he couldn't feel the metal against his chest and half closed his eyes, it was almost like the day he and Peg had gotten lost on a walk on Mount Tamalpias. They made camp and ate Oreos and, in perfect solitude, barked at the moon and declared their love for one another.
Thinking about that day produced such bittersweet longing that BJ found himself completely unable to move. So he did what any self-respecting doctor would do on an afternoon with no patients and a natural lullaby: He fell asleep.
Author's notes:
Seeing as I was just a glimmer in a parental eye when MASH finished its run, my knowledge of 1950s culture runs only deep enough to know that victory gardens were out of vogue and hairstyles ranged from laughable to nightmarish. So I'm sure the story is peppered with anachronisms; if you note any particularly egregious problems please let me know, either by review or email. And speaking of reviews! It would be a lie for me to suggest that reviews lead to faster chapters, but they do make me feel a whole lot better about taking time away from writing my headed-nowhere-fast research proposal, and if they're constructive, they may make for better subsequent chapters.