The head nurse of the 4077th was an enigmatic recruitment poster. For as much reserve as she showed professionally she had some depth. She was not a partner to the 'love' portion of this story, but she was central to its development.
For his entire first tour of duty Marty was not even sure if Margaret Houlihan even knew his first name. She surprised him in the chow hall at the start of his second tour by suddenly taking his hand and saying, "Marty Williams. It's good to see you again. We need good pilots like you." It was a revelation. She actually knew how to smile.
The little green helicopter landed with a slight slide that centered it right over the colored panel that marked the middle of the upper pad.
Personnel crouched in and unloaded the bird in less than 30 seconds. Marty was receiving mission coordinates when the CO of the 4077th came at him from the other side of chopper.
"Hey, are you trying to get one my surgeons greased!?" Colonel Blake yelled at him in a not so angry tone.
"1st of the 9th was getting overrun," Marty explained. "Had to do the swoop and scoop thing, man! Ya know…you'll be working for those guys all day." He gestured to the casualties laid out on top of jeeps going back down the hill.
"Go get 'em!" Henry slapped Marty on the shoulder. Marty handed him Captain Pierce's travel bag from under the seat before he left.
As the chopper lifted and turned in the air Hawkeye looked up from the chest wound he was already intubating, waved and pointed towards the hill from which they had come in one quick motion then returned to his jeep side surgery.
The chief nurse listened as Captain Pierce excitedly told his story.
"Ya know the part in The Inferno," Hawkeye asked as he scrubbed himself vigorously. "The seventh circle? The way Dante describes it… I've seen it. It's real."
He explained the devastation and desperation he saw…and their narrow escape from failure. It was the part about shoving out the dead soldier that made her gasp.
"No!" she nearly faltered as she helped him on with his surgical gown.
"We had to. He was dead. There was nothing we could have done for him.
"No. They need the body," Major Houlihan explained. "It's for the family. It's for the sacrifice."
She was solemnly serious.
"He said we weren't going to make it over."
"Who?"
"It was Marty," Hawkeye said, partially reluctant to reveal his partner in this.
She seemed satisfied with that.
Fresh from R&R and with his class-A uniform still on, Captain Pierce went in to operate on one of the three lives he had brought back to save.