Time for a Change
By Les Bonser
This is a work of non-commercial fan fiction. The characters used in this story remain the trademarked property of their respective owners. No trademark infringement is intended and no profits are made by the author for writing or distribution of this work.
No permission is given to anyone other than the author to archive this on any website. No permission is given to anyone other than the author to repost this on any newsgroup.
Chapter 12
Deep space
The Lion's Soul gem reappeared in deep space, thousands of years ago. It drifted between the stars, until it fell into the influence of the gravity of a second-generation G-type star. It slowly began to accelerate toward the star.
It neared the end of its journey when it fell into the atmosphere of the third planet of the star.
As time was reckoned by the inhabitants of the planet, it was 7:17 in the morning of June 30, 1908 when the gem entered the atmosphere above the continent of Asia in the region called Siberia.
The friction of the atmosphere caused the gem to glow brightly as it fell. The gem absorbed some of the heat energy and began to pulse again with the energy that had first driven it through the spectrum of universes. The passage through the air left a 500 mile long iridescent trail that could be seen for hundreds of miles away.
At about six miles above Tunguska, the gemstone absorbed as much heat energy as it could and exploded.
The force of the blast flattened over 500,000 acres of the pine forest below. It killed thousands of the area's reindeer. Because the area was so sparsely inhabited, the number of people killed was unknown.
People 60 miles away were thrown to the ground and some knocked unconscious by the force of the explosion. One hundred miles away, people heard a thunderous noise. Seismic vibrations were recorded as far away as 600 miles from the area. The blast's electromagnetic pulse created radio interference all over the globe.
The explosion reduced part of the gemstone into several smaller pieces. The rest of the gem was converted to dust; some of the dust was later found embedded in the ground and trees of the region. These tiny bits of dust created the green globules of trinitite which were discovered in the area, similar to those produced at the Trinity site of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico years later.
Some of the dust and larger particles were forced through the fabric of space and time into other universes. The largest single piece bounced back into the air from the force of the explosion and the compressed atmosphere beneath it.
Eighty years later, scientists would calculate that the force of the explosion was equal to 40 megatons of TNT. The force of this explosion wouldn't be equaled by humans until the development of hydrogen fusion bombs in the late 1950's. Had the gemstone exploded over a populated area, the death toll could have reached millions.
The largest piece of the shattered gemstone followed a trajectory to the southeast of the blast site. It flew over the nations of Mongolia and China before landing on a remote hilltop on the Korean peninsula. It created a small crater, but after several years of erosion, the form of the crater softened into a simple depression in the hillside.
The Lion's Soul gemstone had fractured along the natural planes of its crystalline structure. Originally the size of a man's fist, the only remaining piece was know roughly the same size and shape of a man's thumb.
Korea, 1952
Corporal James Thomas Kirk, "Jimmy" to his buddies, was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division of the United States 8th Army. His regiment was the famous 23rd Infantry.
The 23rd Infantry Regiment had been formed in 1861, during the American Civil War. Since its beginnings, the 23rd had developed a tradition for itself. Soldiers from many different generations had fought under the regimental colors. They had fought in battles at places known to history as Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Little Big Horn. They had fought in this century at places called Lorraine, Aisne, Ile de France, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne, and then Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, and Ardennes-Alsace. Now, they were in Korea defending the south from the invading Communists of the north.
Jimmy Kirk was the first from his family to leave their Iowa homestead. He doubted he'd be the last. He'd been drafted in the summer of 1951, a year after the "police action" in Korea started. He was proud to be one of the Tomahawks, as the soldiers of the 23rd Regiment were known; the sense of history and tradition meant a lot to him. But all things considered, he'd much prefer to be home.
Jimmy had graduated from high school only two years before. He'd been dating Sally for almost three years now and had been thinking about asking her to marry him. He'd made his decision only the day before the draft notice had arrived. He'd put off the marriage proposal until after the returned from the service. He'd been in Korea for almost six months now, through the cold winter and into the wet spring of 1952.
Right now, he and his platoon were pinned down by North Korean and Chinese mortar fire. He and his buddies hugged the side of an unnamed hill somewhere in central Korea.
His lieutenant was on the radio. The platoon had taken just one casualty so far, their platoon sergeant. But unless an air strike or artillery barrage could loosen up the enemy mortar fire, there would be a lot more men killed or injured. The platoon had a mortar of their own, but so far had been unable to find the range of the enemy position and they were quickly running out of ammunition.
The shrill whistle of an incoming enemy round drove everyone to hug the ground. Jimmy pushed himself as far into the rocky ground as he could. His face was resting right in the dirt as he waited for the blast.
This blast hit about thirty yards in front of him. Jimmy looked up to see that his best friend, Joey, had been hit. Jimmy started to crawl forward to help his friend before the dust from the blast even settled. He'd only crawled about ten yards before the dust settled enough for him to see there was no need to go any further. Joey was laying sprawled out on the rocky ground, his helmet had been blown off and half his head was gone.
Jimmy averted his eyes and fought not to lose his lunch. He lost that fight. He hunched over a large rock and his stomach heaved.
When he was finished, Jimmy crawled away from where he'd been sick. Life in Korea was bad enough; he didn't want to die slumped over a puddle of vomit.
Corporal Kirk crawled maybe twenty yards back toward the platoon's lieutenant before he heard the sound of another incoming round. He hugged the ground again. This time, when he looked up, he saw that his lieutenant had been hit. The man was moving, thrashing in pain. At least he wasn't killed, Jimmy thought. Like Joey.
It took a moment for Kirk to remember that with the lieutenant injured and the sergeant killed, he was in charge of the whole platoon. He bowed his head and took a couple deep breaths. He didn't want to be in charge of 35 guys. There were other men in the platoon with more experience.
Jimmy was looking down at the ground and continued breathing. He was trying to figure out how to get the men out of this mess. He thought about pulling back, but the mortars had them pinned down. He thought about calling for air support, but the lieutenant had been arguing with the air dispatch for the last half hour. Either the Air Force had the support to send or not. If so, they would have been here before now.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts, he almost didn't notice the crystal on the ground. It was right in front of his eyes, but he almost hadn't seen it. He'd never seen anything shine so bright in the Korean sunlight. He fumbled to grab it; for no reason particularly, he just thought it looked neat. Almost without thinking, he put the crystal in his pants pocket.
There had been no more North Korean mortars for a while now. Kirk thought about it; maybe the enemy was out of ammo too. Or they thought they got all of us. We've been pinned down here and haven't moved enough, Kirk thought. Maybe their spotters can't see us.
He crawled slowly to the two guys that had the platoon's own mortar. He went as slow as possible in hopes of not attracting any more attention from the enemy spotters. It took Jimmy over half an hour to move thirty yards.
When he got to his squad mates, Jimmy took inventory. They had exactly four mortar rounds left. Jimmy took the binoculars from one of the men and studied the surrounding area. He thought he could just make out the enemy position, about 500 yards to the west, over the crest of the hill.
He adjusted the angle of the mortar tube and instructed the men to fire one round. Jimmy watched with the binoculars. The round fell short, but he could see the North Koreans scrambling to return the fire. That was the problem with firing a mortar; its range was short enough that it gave away your own position.
Jimmy made a quick adjustment to the tube and nodded for the men to fire again. This time, the round was right on target. He saw several North Koreans slumped lifeless on the ground.
Later that day, the air strikes finally came. They cleared out the enemy positions and reinforcements came up from the rear.
Corporal James Kirk reported their actions to the Marine captain that headed up the group that secured the hill. The captain seemed impressed with Kirk's actions. It might just mean a medal, Jimmy thought as he returned the Captain's salute.
That night Jimmy was getting ready to sack out in his foxhole when he remembered the crystal he'd found. He dug it out of his pocket and studied it in the dim light. He figured it was some sort of lucky charm and returned it to his pocket. He fell asleep quickly, tired from the day's actions.
The lucky charm seemed to work. For almost three months, Jimmy Kirk's squad continued fighting on the front lines and received no more casualties.
The luck wore off on June 1, 1952. Kirk and half of his squad were injured trying to retake a hill from the Chinese. It was a hill very similar to the one where Jimmy had found the crystal.
Jimmy took machine gun fire in his left leg. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He lost track of time.
Kirk didn't remember the medics finding him or the evacuation to the aid station four miles behind the line. He drifted in and out as the aid station doctor gave him morphine and bandaged his wound.
His first cognizant thought was of a bumpy ambulance ride. Each bump made his wound hurt. Between the bumps, the morphine eased the pain. The ambulance ride finally ended and Jimmy took a deep sigh of relief.
The door of the ambulance opened and the medics unloaded Jimmy and two other injured soldiers. One of the medics was wearing a woman's hat and had a large nose and a thick beard shadow. "Hey, Captain Hunnicut, where do you want these guys?" the medic yelled across the compound.
"Over here, Klinger," came the reply. Captain B. J. Hunnicut, surgeon, was directing triage. Triage was the initial assessment of the wounded. They would then be treated in priority order. The most seriously wounded patients would be taken into surgery first. Those with more minor wounds were given painkillers and maybe blood or plasma, and then taken into surgery next.
And sometimes the wounded didn't make it from the aide station. It was the triage doctor's responsibility to pronounce those few unfortunate souls as dead.
The medics carried Jimmy on a stretcher. He turned his head from side to side to see where he was, but couldn't tell. Just a few tents and a lot of people running around. The medics laid the stretcher down and left in a hurry.
Major Margaret Houlihan was the head nurse at the 4077th. She was rushing about, assisting her nurses in the triage. Until a couple weeks ago, all the doctors would be out here also. But she had proposed a new system. A system where the nurses, overseen by a single doctor, would do the triage. That would free up the other doctors to begin working on the worst cases. She'd trained her nurses hard, and they'd come through with flying colors.
The system was working. Doctor Hunnicut was supervising today. But Margaret was still nervous and she hurried from patient to patient making sure everything was okay.
She saw one soldier that no one had gotten to yet. Houlihan looked around for someone to attend to the soldier. She saw no one available at the moment, and went to him herself. She might be the head nurse and more than willing to delegate authority when necessary, but she never shirked doing the hard work herself.
Jimmy started to panic when he saw a blonde nurse knell over him. She had a clipboard and started to check his dog tags and look at his leg. "It's alright, solider," Houlihan said. "You're at a MASH. The doctors will be fixing your leg right up and then you're going home."
He couldn't see the nurse's nametag, but he saw the gold oak leaf on her collar. She was a major. He didn't realize there were woman majors.
Just then, Jimmy sensed a shadow standing over him. For a split second, he thought it was the Grim Reaper himself, but then the shadow knelt down and became a man. A man in a white coat. A doctor.
"He's been hit in the leg. Looks bad, might be tendon damage around the knee and vascular damage too," Hunnicut said. "Let's give him another grain of morphine and start a unit of whole blood. I think he can wait a bit."
"Yes, Dr. Hunnicut," the nurse said.
The doctor finally took a moment to look at Jimmy and not his leg. "You'll be okay, son. I'm a doctor and we'll get your leg fixed right up."
"Am I going... to lose it...sir?" Jimmy had heard stories about men getting shot in the leg or arm and having to have the limb amputated. He didn't want to go home with only one leg.
"No," the doctor smiled, his teeth white and shining under a thick mustache. "I'm the best doctor here. I always put all the parts back in when I'm done with the patient."
As he was talking to the doctor, Houlihan had started an IV in his arm. Jimmy looked up to see a bottle of blood hanging from a stand. The doctor left to tend to another patient.
"You'll be fine," Houlihan said before also leaving.
Jimmy laid there, trying not to think about how bad he was wounded. Tendon damage, the doctor had said. Maybe vascular damage too.
He could sense people hurrying around him, but no one came back to Corporal Kirk for what seemed to be a long time. The drugs were making him sleepy again and he nodded off.
Kirk woke a few minutes later as a different nurse was cutting his pants off. She didn't talk as she did it, but just as she finished, another person came by.
"Hi," the man said, "I'm Corporal O'Reily, but everyone calls me Radar. You're at the 4077th MASH. I'm the company clerk here. I need to put all your valuables and stuff in this box."
The man, O'Reily he'd said his name was, started to remove the contents of Kirk's pockets and put them into a small cardboard box. "It's okay, you'll get everything back. I promise." Jimmy looked up at the man, and realized he couldn't have been much older than Jimmy himself. The man wore wire framed glasses that looked like they'd never been cleaned.
"Oh, this is pretty," Radar said. He held the crystal up so Jimmy could see what he was talking about.
"That's my good...my good luck...charm..." Jimmy tried to say. He was so tired. The second shot of morphine was starting to take effect.
"It must be lucky," Radar said. "It's working now. The doctors here are the best. They'll fix you up real good."
That was the last thing Jimmy Kirk remembered until he woke up after the surgery.
A small island somewhere in the Pacific
"Skipper! Hey, Skipper!" Gilligan yelled. He ran down the path toward the huts.
The Skipper was sitting at the table with the Professor, Mary Ann, and Ginger.
"Hey, Skipper!" Gilligan slid to a halt beside the table.
"Yes, Gilligan?" the Skipper said.
Gilligan was out of breath and had to take a couple gulps of air before he could talk.
"I found...It's a big...In the jungle..."
"What did you find, Gilligan?" the Skipper asked, trying to remain patient with his friend.
"In the jungle...about this high..."
"Calm down, Gilligan," Mary Ann said. "Do you want some mango juice?" The pretty little brunette handed the first mate of the S.S. Minnow a coconut shell filled with mango juice. Gilligan downed the entire shell in one gulp.
"Now, Gilligan, try again," the Skipper said. "What was it you found?"
"It's a big metal box. I'll beat it fell out of a plane."
"A big metal box? In the jungle? It's probably just something left over from the war. These islands were used in the war for ammo dumps and supply depots," The Skipper had served in the war and know what he was talking about.
"No. It fell out of a plane, I know it. Last night."
"I didn't hear anything," the Skipper said.
"Skipper," the Professor interrupted. "I thought I heard something last night. Maybe he has found something."
"Yeah, yeah, a big metal box. I wonder what's in it?" Gilligan was babbling. "I bet it's a robot. One of these big robots the space guys are always shooting to the moon."
"Maybe it's food," Mary Ann said. "Could be a food cart from an airliner. I would die for a hot fudge sundae." Her eyes turned all misty over the thought of something other than mangos or coconuts.
The group had been stranded on the island for years now. They had all been on a island cruise aboard the S.S. Minnow when a freak storm had thrown them off course. The Skipper and his first mate, Gilligan, had managed to keep the ship afloat during the storm and they had eventually landed on this uncharted island. But the ship was severely damaged. They'd lost their two-way radio during the storm and had no way of calling for help. The authorities had searched for their ship, but they'd blown so far off course, the Coast Guard never found them.
The island had plentiful foliage; they ate a steady diet of coconuts, mangos, papayas, and bananas. They sometimes caught fish in the lagoon and on rare occasions even captured and killed a wild boar. It was enough to survive on, but the diet got monotonous. One of the castaways favorite past times was to sit around the table and tell each other what they missed from back home. Mary Ann was a farm girl from Kansas. She almost always talked about what foods she missed.
"Well what are we waiting for?" Ginger asked. Even though they were stranded on a desert island, the movie star was wearing an evening gown. Ginger had been in Hawaii for a publicity tour promoting her latest movie. All she had in her luggage was the gowns she'd planned to wear on the tour. Mary Ann had volunteered some her own clothes, but the two women were completely different sizes.
"Let's go," The Professor said. "Gilligan, lead the way."
The five castaways headed into the jungle. On the way, they ran into the Howells. Millionaire Thurston Howell the Third and his wife, Lovey, were coming back up the path from the beach.
"Gilligan found something in the jungle," Mary Ann explained.
"We're going to look for it," Ginger said.
"It's a big metal box that fell out of the sky," Gilligan told the millionaire and his wife. "I'll bet it's a space robot."
"Well, my boy, let's go see," Howell said. He dropped the folding deck chair and umbrella he was carrying. It was the Howell's morning ritual to go to the beach, sit in their deck chairs under the umbrella and listen to the financial report on the single portable radio.
"Oh, Thurston, am I dressed for an expedition into the jungle?" Lovey asked.
"Why, Lovey, I don't know," Howell confessed. "I've never financed an expedition before."
The metal box Gilligan found was resting at a 45 degree angle and was half buried in the soft jungle soil. It had hit a coconut tree as it fell. The Professor examined the tree. The fresh gouges in the tree trunk proved Gilligan's assertion that the object had fallen last night or at least recently.
The box was about five feet square, but only about three foot tall. Upon closer examination, the box turned out to be more of a platform. The base was about a foot thick. The outside of the box was little more than a railing.
On one side of the box was what appeared to be a royal crest. The Professor couldn't make out any of the markings; the crest had been damaged. On one of the railings, there was a panel with switches, dials, and buttons on it.
"Well, it's not a space robot, Gilligan," the Professor announced.
"What is it, Professor?" The Skipper had taken his hat off and was wringing it anxiously in his hands.
"Yeah, Professor, what is it?" the rest of them asked in unison.
"I don't know. But it's obviously got electronic components," he said as he pointed to some loose wires that poked through a broken panel in the side of the box. "I might be able to use the parts from this..." the Professor searched for a word, but couldn't find it. "This...whatever to fix the radio. This may very well get us off the island."
The group cheered at the prospect of leaving the island.
Korea, 1952
When Jimmy Kirk awoke, he realized he was in a hospital. It took him a minute or two to recall the events of the previous day. He was at a MASH--a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. That meant he was still pretty close to the front. Being mobile, the hospital could move as needed to remain as close to the fighting as possible. The closer the hospital was, the quicker the wounded could be treated. It was an experiment the Army was trying for the first time. And so far, the experiment was a success. A higher percentage of wounded soldiers were being returned to duty than ever before. And of those soldiers too seriously injured to return to duty, a higher percentage were going home alive than in previous conflicts.
Jimmy looked around. There were about 10 other guys in the beds around him. He recognized Scotty in the bed next to him.
"Scotty" was a nickname. Corporal James Scott Johnson had joined the platoon about 3 months ago. Corporal Johnson insisted that he'd been called Jimmy since he was a little boy, but the platoon christened him "Scotty" to avoid confusion with James Kirk.
Scotty was asleep and Jimmy didn't wake him. To be honest, Jimmy didn't feel much like talking right now anyway. His throat hurt and he needed a drink of water. He looked around for a nurse, but didn't see one.
"Nurse," he called out weakly.
"I'm not a nurse, but will I do?" It was a slender dark-haired man with a slight touch of gray. "I'm Dr. Pierce, but you can call me 'Hawkeye'."
"...thirsty..." Jimmy said.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, of Crabapple Cove, Maine, looked at the patient's chart. This was the knee reconstruction BJ had done the day before. "Yep, says right here you can have as much as you want. When you're hungry, you can have as much to eat as you want. But I'd recommend waiting until we discharge you. If you eat the food from our mess, you'll end up sicker than you are now."
Hawkeye poured a glass of water and helped Jimmy lift his head to drink.
After drinking the water, Jimmy found it easier to talk. "How's Scotty?" he asked.
"Scotty?" Hawkeye guessed Jimmy was talking about the guy in the bed next to them. Scotty Johnson was the one that Hawkeye had operated on.
Jimmy nodded toward the man in the bed next to his, confirming Hawkeye's guess.
"What do we have here?" Colonel Sherman T. Potter, commanding officer of the 4077th, walked up and leaned on the chart rack at the end of the bed. A short man, the chart rack was just the height for him to rest his arms on.
"Uh, Colonel," Hawkeye said. "This is Corporal Jimmy Kirk. BJ fixed up his knee yesterday. Jimmy was asking about his buddy here." Hawkeye pointed to the other bed.
Potter nodded.
Hawkeye answered the Corporal's question. "Corporal Johnson had a nasty shoulder wound. But he'll be okay. Probably just still sleeping off the drugs we gave him during surgery."
"Thanks, doc," Jimmy said.
"You're welcome," Hawkeye said. Knowing that the patient was in good hands with Colonel Potter, Hawkeye left to complete his rounds.
"I'm Colonel Potter. I'm the CO here."
Jimmy tried with difficulty to salute the officer. His arm was tangled in the IV tubing.
"At ease, Corporal," Potter said. "We're not too formal around here."
"Thank you, Colonel, sir," Jimmy said.
"I just wanted to stop by and see if everything was okay. We get a lot of soldiers through here. I can't talk to every one, but I try to talk to as many as I can," Potter explained. The doctor picked up Kirk's chart. "Ah, says here you're from Iowa?"
"Yes, sir."
"You'll probably be getting a visit from my company clerk. He's from Iowa too," Potter explained.
Colonel Potter chatted with Kirk for a few minutes and then moved on. Jimmy watched as the older man did the same routine with each of the men in the ward that were awake.
Jimmy watched Doctor Pierce check the chart of the patient in the bed opposite his. He heard the doctor talking with the nurse; heard him say something about "give me reports on Corporal Sheffield every hour." Jimmy wondered if Corporal Sheffield, the patient, was another of his buddies from his platoon. He tilted his head up and looked across the small recovery room, but the patient's head was almost totally covered in bandages. Whoever he was, the guy looked in a bad way.
He hoped it wasn't Bones. His friend, Charles Sheffield, was called "Bones" because he was so skinny. "Nothing but skin and bones," everyone in the platoon would say when describing Sheffield. Despite his skinniness, Bones was one of their best snipers.
Jimmy thought about all the stories Bones had told the gang about growing up down south in Mississippi. He claimed to have gotten so good at shooting by having hunted squirrels. "I'm just a poor ol' country boy," Bones would say.
He watched as the nurse took the patient's temperature and blood pressure. She didn't look encouraged as she wrote the results in the chart.
Jimmy suddenly felt very lucky. I guess my lucky charm was working after all, he thought.
Kirk woke up in the middle of the night. His knee hurt something fierce. "Nurse," he called. No one heard him.
Out of no where, a doctor appeared. "What do you need, son?" The doctor had a silver oak cluster on his collar. A Lieutenant Colonel.
"My knee hurts," Jimmy said. "Need something..."
The doctor looked at the chart. "Yeah, it's been a while since your last morphine shot. I'll make sure the nurse gets you something."
"Thank you, sir," Jimmy said. The pain was already easing, just knowing that he was going to get some relief.
The doctor said, "I'm Colonel Blake, the CO around here." The tall man bent over and checked Jimmy's dressings. "Your knee's going to be okay."
"Yes, sir," Jimmy said. He was tired and in pain, but he thought the older Colonel had said he was the commanding officer earlier. Now this Lieutenant Colonel was claiming to be. Jimmy yawned, tired and confused.
"So you're from Iowa, huh?"
Jimmy nodded, yawning again.
"I'm from Bloomington, Indiana. We're practically neighbors," the officer said.
The next morning, a nurse came by to take Kirk's vitals and to give him another shot. "But I just had a shot," Jimmy told her.
The nurse double-checked the chart. "You had one last night about 21 hundred. You've got to be in pain by now."
"No, ma'am," Jimmy said. "I had one in the middle of the morning. The doctor came by and okayed it."
"It's not on the chart," Nurse Kelley said. "I'll need to check with the doctor." She looked around. Hawkeye and Major Winchester were at the end of the ward, discussing something. "Doctor?" she called out.
Both doctors came over. "Yes, Kelley?" Hawkeye said.
She handed the chart to Hawkeye. "He says he had a morphine shot sometime early in the morning. Said a doctor okayed it. But it's not in the chart."
"I was the doctor in charge last night," Major Charles Emerson Winchester said. "I didn't okay any morphine for this patient."
"There's nothing on the chart," Hawkeye said. "Do you remember the doctor?" he asked the corporal.
"I don't remember..." Jimmy said. "He was tall, said he was from Indiana. He was a lieutenant colonel, I think..."
"Wait a minute," Hawkeye interrupted, tossing the chart to Winchester. "Indiana, you said? Colonel Blake was the only person we've ever had here from Indiana..."
"Blake, yeah, that was the name..." Jimmy said.
Hawkeye felt the blood rush from his head and the hairs on the back of his neck tingled. "Son, Colonel Henry Blake is dead. There's no way Henry could have ordered your shot."
"I don't know, sir..."
"Pierce, it's obvious this man is in pain from his injury and the subsequent surgery. He's confused and tired. It's also patently obvious that he hallucinated the entire conversation. Nurse, please give this patient his scheduled shot," Charles said. He handed the chart back to Nurse Kelley and resumed his shift change paper work at the desk at the end of the ward.
Kelley looked at Hawkeye. He nodded agreement with Charles' orders and headed outside for some fresh air.
Outside in the chill morning air, Hawkeye took a couple deep breaths. He hadn't thought of Henry Blake since that terrible day six months ago when Henry's plane was shot down--on the way home no less. How the hell would a patient even know Blake's name? Hawkeye asked himself.
He thought maybe this was some sort of sick joke. Maybe something Charles cooked up to get back at him and BJ for putting pudding in Charles' underwear. But even Charles wasn't vindictive enough to do something this sick. And Winchester wasn't even here when Blake had left. And Corporal Kirk didn't look to be in any shape to be in on the joke.
Was Henry haunting the 4077th? Hawkeye couldn't explain the young soldier's story and it left him with a bad feeling.