21

Dog Tags

Hours passed like mud through a sieve, and still the wounded kept coming. The phone lines were down and there hadn't been any word from Irene or the doctor she'd left with. One after the other, corpsmen brought boys in for surgery and one by one Hawkeye sent them back out the door with prospects of a future.

Blood caked onto his boots, seeping through in places where the leather hadn't held up, soaking spots in his socks. Margaret remained as fretful as he felt and keeping her calm was the only way of talking himself through his own anxiety.

Radar came in with drinks for the weary surgeons and Margaret whipped around so fast it startled Hawkeye. Lucky for them all, he was still getting gloves on and prepped for the next soldier. She didn't get a chance to utter a word as Potter spoke up first, asking about Irene.

"No word yet, sir," Radar said, serving Potter first. "No word on when those lines'll be up again either. But I did just have some guys ride through a little bit ago on their way to the front. Said the road to Seoul is clear and an ambulance bus should be here within the hour."

"How long have we been at this?" Potter asked.

"Oh um, about ten hours, sir."

"Damn. I'd think Foster would have been back by now."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Margaret asked.

"All we can do is wait."

Hawkeye felt eyes on him. He looked up to meet BJ's gaze from the next table over. Hawk was getting a firsthand look at what Beej had experienced when he'd gone to get a haircut and Hawk had to fill in for him at battalion aid. It was torture.

Klinger burst through the double doors. "Those guys headed up to the front just camp back with an injured doctor. Said they found him next to a wrecked jeep a few miles up the road."

"My God," Margaret breathed.

"Get him in here," Potter said. "Did he say anything about Foster?"

"No, sir. He just keeps repeating Hawkeye, over and over."

"Better get out there, Pierce."

Hawkeye stripped off his gloves and threw them on the floor as he ran out the door, hot on Klinger's heels. The two soldiers were on their knees in the front seats, leaned over to tend to the doctor as best they could but the man was in terrible shape. His right leg was gone at the knee and the tourniquet the men had tied wasn't doing its job. Blood oozed from the wound as well as from a head injury and something on his chest that Hawkeye couldn't see for all the blood.

"What happened?" Hawk asked, surprised the man had made it this far.

"Dunno," the first soldier replied. "The jeep was on fire and he was laying halfway in the road."

"Was there a woman with him? There should have been a woman too."

"I didn't see a woman. Sorry, sir."

"Dammit."

"Hawkeye," the doctor said, breathing raspy. "Hawkeye."

"I'm here. I'm Hawkeye. Where's Irene? Was she with you?"

"Hawkeye," he repeated, holding out his hand.

A metal chain snaked across Hawkeye's wrist, dog tags landing in his palm before the doctor's hand dropped. His head rolled back, mouth agape.

"He's dead," Klinger whispered. "What did he give you?"

"Irene's dog tags." Hawkeye's heart dropped into his stomach. In the split second before he sprang into action, he nearly vomited. "I have to go."

"Wait, where?" Klinger yelled after him but Hawkeye didn't reply. He jumped into the nearest jeep and tore out of the compound, sliding in a patch of mud right outside of Rosie's.

He clutched the steering wheel, yelled and cursed and begged for miles until at last he could see the glow of fire through the trees. The jeep was in pieces scattered around the area and what was intact was in flames, lighting the road and the snowy clearing on the other side of the ditch.

Hawk ran toward the wreckage, slipping in a puddle of blood that had nearly frozen on the side of the road. The snow had been disturbed and he could tell it was where the doctor had pulled himself before he was found by the soldiers. Hawkeye slid down the ditch, following the trail of blood until he saw a mass in the snow.

"Irene!"

She didn't move, not even when he carefully rolled her over. Snow had packed into a severe wound in his chest, stopping the bleeding but Hawk was afraid she was already dead. Her lips were blue and her eyes were partially open. Hair made wet with blood had frozen and crunched under his hand. There was a pulse. Faint. And he could hardly hear her breathing at all.

"Stay with me. You're going to be fine." His voice shook nearly as violently as his hands as he lifted her from the snow. "I'll fix you up and you'll be just fine."

The hill seemed steeper on the way up and he failed to climb it twice before he dropped to his knees, heart pounding against his ribcage, breath coming in gasps. His body shook under the strain but one more push and he made it, driven by adrenaline. He put Irene on the litter strapped to the back and searched the jeep for a medical bag, cursing himself for not grabbing one before he left but breathing a sigh of relief when he found one shoved under a seat.

He dressed the wound as best he could and wrapped an old blanket around her though he knew it wouldn't do any good, then raced back to camp. Klinger and Radar met him at the jeep and carried the litter in without question. Margaret and Alice helped Hawkeye prep for surgery, but Alice had to be excused when she broke down crying in the middle of tying on his smock. Hawk couldn't blame her. He wanted to do the same.

"Your hands are shaking," Margaret said as she helped him scrub. "Are you sure you don't want BJ or Winchester to do it?"

"No. I want to do it. I need to."

"Alright."

BJ and Charles were waiting at the table when Hawkeye got back. Potter was finishing up his last patient. BJ sat on the stool at the head of the table, ready to act as Hawk's anesthetist while a couple nurses put new gloves on Charles and prepared trays for surgery.

"Steady, Pierce," Charles said, his voice not lacking in sympathy.

Hawkeye nodded as Klinger and another corpsman brought in the stretcher with Irene. Cleaned up the wound looked worse than Hawkeye thought it was. The sight nearly brought tears to his eyes but he took a shaky breath and set to work.

"Her skin is freezing," Charles said.

"She was face down in the snow."

"That fact alone might have saved her. Have the extremities been examined for frostbite?"

"Yes, sir," a nurse replied. "The circulation was slowed, but no sign of frostbite."

"At least there's that."

"Having her fingers and toes won't mean anything if we can't fix this chest wound," Hawkeye growled.

Father Mulcahy loomed nearby, signing the cross as he began to pray quietly to himself. He was on standby. Only doing his job and as much as Hawk respected the man, it was times like this he felt himself at war with what the Father was doing. At war with death itself. Mulcahy only brought peace with him, but sometimes it felt the grim reaper standing behind him. Waiting.

"This seems so strange," Charles mused, and Hawkeye didn't have to ask what he meant.

Usually they had young men on these tables. The only women they got were the occasional pregnant lady or sometimes civilians that had been wounded by bombs dropping on their villages. They always seemed so fragile and Irene… she had the worst wounds Hawkeye had ever seen on a woman, much less one he cared about.

"I think I almost got it all," Hawk said, plunking another piece of metal into the receptacle Margaret held out for him. Despite the cold, sweat dotted his forehead and she was quick to wipe it away, offering words of encouragement that passed through his head without thought. Blood was becoming more liquid as her body warmed and he knew he had to close soon. "There. That's the last piece."

"I'm not getting a pulse," BJ said.

"Get me that rib spreader!"

Charles assisted with the spreader while Hawkeye hopped onto the table as he had done so many times before with soldiers. He straddled Irene's hips and there it was… her heart, stopped, between her ribs. He took it in his hands and went to work with the kind of desperation he hadn't felt in a long time. Death waited in the wings and watched as Hawkeye fought back.

"C'mon, Irene. C'mon," he begged.

"Nothing," BJ said, voice losing his calm tone.

"Stay with me!"

The room went still and silent, nurses, doctors, corpsmen, waited with bated breath for a sign.

BJ paused, "I'm getting a pulse. It's weak, but it's there."

Hawkeye nearly collapsed. He slid off the table with Margaret's help and Charles removed the rib spreader. She wasn't out of the woods yet, but this was one step closer. Hawk closed the wound and dressed it himself instead of letting a nurse do it. That control freak that lived in the back of his mind took over, terrified that if he wasn't in control over every step someone might do it wrong and he'd lose Irene for good.

"Damn good work, Pierce." Potter patted Hawkeye on the back. "Why don't you go get some rest."

Hawkeye didn't argue this time. He pulled off his gloves and trudged into the scrub room where he dropped to the bench. BJ followed, stripping off his bloody clothes and cap to dump them in the dirty bin when Hawk pulled Irene's dog tags from his pocket. Blood had dried and crusted on them and some had flecked off.

"Those soldiers didn't know to look for her," Hawk said. "If that doctor hadn't gotten these tags to me…"

"But he did," BJ replied, hand on Hawkeye's shoulder. Hawk put his hand on BJ's wrist, clutching it tightly. "You can't think about what might have happened. She's here and you saved her."

"She still has a long way to go before I can say I saved her."

"Where are you going?" BJ asked as Hawkeye started for the door.

"Post-op. I want to make sure she's going to be alright."

"Hawkeye, stop. You know we have the best nurses in Korea. They know what to do. You don't have to have your hand on every little thing. Get some rest. If you don't and they do end up needing you, you won't be up to the task."

"I'm fine."

"You look like death. Get some sleep." BJ's tone was firmer.

Hawk removed his smock and threw it hard into the bin. Handing over the reins wasn't easy. He knew he'd toss and turn in his cot until he could see her again or… or maybe not. Adrenaline left him and no amount of fear could push him any farther. His body was tired. His mind was exhausted. As soon as he collapsed into bed, he was asleep, still in his bloody boots.