A/N: My aunt just died an hour ago and this is dedicated to her. This is a missing scene from the episode 'Where There's a Will There's a War'. I just thought Hawkeye's decision to write a will needed to be elaborated.
Disclaimer: I do not own MASH.
It would be so much easier to dodge bombs if he was a rabbit, but he wasn't. So as the bombs were falling and bullets criss crossing around him it wasn't a shock that he was hit. A deep shooting pain in his chest as the shrapnel hit him. Wide eyed he fell to the ground. He lay there gasping for awhile, waiting for a white light he supposed. As the bullets whizzed around him, he thought of all the things he'd seen. Boys younger than him going home in body bags, and things that would and will scar a man for life. He was lucky he supposed, he unlike many others was spared many horrors, having been just shipped over. Still he had seen enough.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe now, and he found himself thinking of his family. He groped for a letter that lay forgotten in his pocket. He had written it when he was first shipped over. All the men in his platoon had written one. They had advised him to do so should he ever die. They said that if he was ever killed the others would salvage his letter and send it home. He had written his like a certified Will because that's what it was, technically, although no one was brave enough to say it. He closed his eyes for a moment, or at least it felt like a moment, but upon opening his eyes he knew it must've been longer because he was somewhere else.
A tall black haired doctor approached him, lifting the large bloodied bandage on his chest. The doctor hid his grimaced look well but he could see through it. He was going to die. Suddenly a bomb went off, too close for comfort. The young doctor threw himself over his body shielding him from the falling debris.
"Hey, you doing okay kid?" the doctor said looking him in the eye as another tired man, most likely another doctor, brought him some instruments and a bowl of what smelled like alcohol. Trying to nod he reached for the letter. He needed the man to see it, to deliver it. Somehow he knew he wasn't making it out of this crummy hut alive. He felt the warm blood gush into his mouth and spluttered coughing it up as he tried to talk. The life drained out of him and he allowed himself to stop gagging. He lay there and all went quiet as he slowly drowned in his own blood. He held the letter loosely in his hand. He had somehow managed to grab it. The man would find it, he had to. His vision started to fade and the last thing he saw was the young doctor's look of hopelessness and desperation.
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Hawkeye knew the man was bad off when he saw him carried in, and now he was lying pale and limp on the stretcher. Hawkeye pounded on the man's chest trying to get a pulse, something! He felt a hand on his shoulder after several minutes. He stopped, breathing heavy. The man was dead. Hawkeye slumped to the ground head in hands.
"Damn." He massaged his temples slowly, trying to convince himself it would help his pounding headache. His eyes roved over the dirt floor of the hut. Suddenly he stopped, there lying among the debris was a letter. He reached out across the floor snatching it from the ground. He opened it slowly scrolling over the note on the front.
' Please. Anyone who finds this please send it to my family. If you find this I am dead, and this contains my last Will and Testament. I wrote this because I want my family to read my last words, to know what happened to me, even if I can't tell them in person. This is a final farewell so to speak. So please send this and please be respectful of the dead.'
Hawkeye stared in shock at the letter and then at the dead man lying in front of him. He started to open it but hesitated. He got to thinking of all the things he wanted to say and all the loose ends he had to tie up. In war there was no guarantee that he was going to make it out alive. The man before him had certainly considered others after he was dead. Slowly he got up and grabbed a nearby clip board. It had papers on it but after several moments of inspection he determined that they were not important. He flipped it over and and pulled out a pen. Bombs could be heard exploding not far off. He ignored the debris falling all around him focusing on what he was writing instead. He would make sure others knew. Then he began to write.
'I Benjamen Franklin Pierce, being of sound mind and endangered body, hereby decree this to be my last Will and Testament...'