Chapter VI: Business as Usual?
Mulcahy's thoughts ranged all over the map as he hurriedly exchanged his robe for a clean set of the major's fatigues. He didn't want to keep Houlihan waiting too long outside the tent, but he also dreaded having to face her again so soon after making a fool of himself. Only through some minor miracle had he managed to end their encounter before anything more shameful than heavy breathing could take place. Unfortunately he was having less success reining in his traitorous imagination.
But there was no point in trying to delay the inevitable, so he collected himself as best he could and went out to join Houlihan. The short trip to post-op passed without a word as they walked side by side, maintaining a careful distance while matching each other's stride as if invisibly yoked together. Whether it was an actual phenomenon or just his mind playing tricks on him, Mulcahy thought he could sense residual electricity crackling in the air between them.
For fifteen or twenty minutes, Hawkeye and Trapper poked and prodded them, looking for injuries or other physical problems that might offer a clue about what had happened. When every test result came up normal, all four of them relocated to the colonel's office.
Henry Blake, looking somewhat the worse for wear, sat behind his desk with a glass of something fizzy close at hand. Hawkeye and Trapper, who always seemed to bounce back more easily from their frequent indulgences, moved to flank the desk and handed over the medical paperwork. While Blake scanned it, Mulcahy claimed an empty chair and Houlihan followed suit.
"Oh-kay, people," Blake began, "Medically, you both check out fine. So, two things: one, how are we gonna fix this, and two, how are we gonna deal with it while we figure out number one. Anybody have any ideas?"
Mulcahy cleared his throat. "Colonel, I think we could learn a great deal by examining what was salvaged from the North Korean camp. I brought back a few documents, but Captain Dickinson has everything else, and I'm not sure what he plans to do with it."
"Then I guess we'd better find out. Hey, Radar, can you..."
Before Blake could finish summoning the clerk, Radar had poked his head through the swinging doors and was completing the colonel's thought. "I'll just get Captain Dickinson on the line for you, sir."
He was already back in the outer office cranking up the phone by the time Blake got out, "...get this guy Dickinson on the horn? Thanks."
"I should warn you, Colonel," Houlihan put in, "Dickinson won't understand why we need the stuff because he doesn't know what happened. Well, he knows we were captured, but not...the other thing. We wanted to keep that 'in-house,' if you know what I mean."
Hawkeye looked amused. "What, he didn't figure it out?"
"No," said Houlihan in a sour tone. "The man was damn near ready to ask Father Mulcahy for his phone number."
Predictably, Hawkeye and Trapper burst out laughing. "Jealous, Major?" Trapper cracked.
She ignored him with long-practiced ease.
"Could you guys be serious for one lousy minute?" Blake took a swig from his glass and grimaced. "Okay, let's boil it down to brass tacks: can you two still do your jobs like this?"
"Oh, dear," Mulcahy breathed. Until this moment, distracted as he had been by physical vexations, he hadn't considered the possibility that his work might also have been compromised. To all appearances, at least for the time being, he was a woman -- how could he present himself as a priest to the wounded and dying soldiers in need of his care? Would it even be permissible for him to administer the sacraments in this condition? The chance of there being any applicable precedent, religious or military, seemed remote.
Not a nurse, not a surgeon, not a corpsman, not a priest...worse than useless to a MASH unit.
"I honestly don't know," he said at last, avoiding but appreciating the sympathetic glances aimed in his direction. Particularly the one that originated on his own former face.
The colonel turned to Houlihan. "Major?"
She shifted in her chair. "This shouldn't affect my ability to perform the duties of head nurse." It seemed to Mulcahy that her reply was more measured -- less self-assured? -- than what he might have expected from the Margaret Houlihan of several days ago. Perhaps he wasn't the only one whose confidence had been shaken by recent events.
Trapper spoke up again. "What I want to know is how fast can people get used to this? Me, I still have to stop and think to figure out who's who, and I've known about it since last night. We've got to avoid confusion in the O.R."
"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please," Hawkeye intoned in the style of a P.A. announcement. "For tonight's performance, and until further notice, the part of head nurse will be played by Father Mulcahy, and the part of chaplain will be played by Major Houlihan. Please consult your program inserts for further details."
"Very funny," sniffed Houlihan. "But there's not going to be any confusion in the O.R. My nurses, at least, will handle this like they do everything else -- professionally."
Blake was unconvinced. "Hold on, McIntyre's got a point...."
"Not just on my head, either." Trapper's infectious grin brought a smile to Mulcahy's face in spite of his low spirits.
But before the discussion had a chance to heat up any further, they heard Radar shout from the outer office, "Choppers! We've got wounded." The distinctive sound of helicopter blades in motion reached their ears maybe twenty seconds later.
"We'd better get moving." Blake pushed back his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Well, Major, looks like the nurses will have their chance to shine a little sooner than we thought."
--o00o--
"Superficial...he can wait. Over here, corpsman! Take this one first."
Out in the compound amid the noise and confusion of triage, hustling from patient to patient to help the surgeons identify those with the most critical injuries, Houlihan was back in her element, and things were going about as smoothly as they ever did.
Just as she had assured the colonel, most of the nurses took her sudden sex change in stride, obeying her without question after the sketchiest of explanations. Those who had been in Korea longer than a few months had already developed a high tolerance for the strange and unconventional and, as Lieutenant Klein told her later, once the orders started flowing, it didn't much matter that they were voiced in Mulcahy's light tenor instead of Houlihan's more forceful tones.
After scrubbing in, Houlihan stationed herself at Colonel Blake's table. She noted that on the opposite side of the room, as far away from her as possible, Frank Burns had staked out his own territory and was eyeing her warily over the top of his mask.
When he'd left her tent in a cloud of dust, she had half-expected Frank to keep right on running until he hit the Sea of Japan. He was still in a nervous froth, making twitchy, rabbity movements that didn't bode well for the wounded men who were about to go under his scalpel. She assigned Kellye, one of her steadiest nurses, to assist him and made sure to have a quiet word with her about his state of mind before any cutting commenced.
With Frank taken care of, she could devote her attention to the more important task at hand -- providing scalpels, clamps, retraction, and whatever else Blake required within seconds of each request. She had been doing this work for so many years that sometimes, when the rhythm and the personalities were right, she could predict what a surgeon would need before he even thought to ask for it.
Houlihan knew she was good at her job, and she was relieved to find that she could do it well no matter whose body she was in. There were minor adjustments to be made in grasping instruments with hands that were slightly larger than she was used to, but she soon learned to compensate.
At one point, holding a retractor in place with one hand and reaching for a sponge with the other, she caught a glimpse of Mulcahy out of the corner of her eye. As was his standard practice, he was hovering at the periphery of the action, ready to help out whenever and in whatever capacity he could. On this occasion, however, the chaplain was radiating an aura of quiet despair.
It wasn't surprising. Susceptible to bouts of self-doubt at the best of times, he had to be feeling particularly worthless after that session in Blake's office. She recalled with sympathy that when asked if he could do his job, Mulcahy had looked as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. Must have been the first time he'd really thought about it.
Personally, Houlihan saw no good reason why he shouldn't continue to practice his vocation; she knew better than anyone that Father Mulcahy was still Father Mulcahy in every sense that counted. But she did understand that, as a practical matter, most people would have trouble accepting a Catholic priest who appeared to be female.
Not for the first time, she felt a pang of guilt that he might've gotten the shorter end of the stick in their forced tradeoff. It bothered her on a gut level to think of her body -- which had served her quite well, thank you very much -- as being a source of torment for another person.
"I said Kelly clamp, Major. Take your time...whenever you're ready."
Houlihan started, yanking her mind back from wherever it had wandered. "S-sorry, sir. Clamp." She slapped the instrument into Blake's gloved hand, face hot with embarrassment that her mask couldn't completely hide. What the hell was the matter with her? Losing focus when a patient was on the table was a mistake that could cost a life. More than that, it was something she never permitted herself to do. Maybe she'd been wrong in claiming to be up to the job of head nurse right now.
It was too much to hope that her slip would pass unremarked in a roomful of doctors who prided themselves on their alleged wit, and Pierce was the first to take a swing. "Go easy on her, Henry. The poor kid's worn out from sawing wood in the Swamp all night. I'm a witness."
"That goes double for me," McIntyre chimed in. "Margaret, are you aware that you snore like a sailor after three days' shore leave? How does Frank put up with it?"
"I. Do. Not. Snore," replied Houlihan icily, wishing she had enough self-restraint to just ignore them for once instead of rising to the bait. She dared not look over to see Frank's reaction.
"My ears beg to differ." Pierce's eyes were twinkling, and she knew he wasn't trying to be deliberately vicious, but her lapse of concentration had already put her on the defensive.
She was about to lash out with words she would have later regretted when unforeseen assistance came from the sidelines. For the first time since Blake's meeting, Mulcahy had something to say. "Hawkeye, you really shouldn't blame Major Houlihan. She...ah...isn't the one who snores."
That put the brakes on long enough for Pierce to work through the logic. Then he laughed. "You, Father?"
"I'm afraid my former dorm-mates at the seminary could tell you horror stories."
Mollified (and touched) by Mulcahy's admission in her defense, Houlihan directed a grateful glance his way and willed her hackles to settle down. "Don't worry, Pierce, I'll be sleeping in my own tent from now on." (Well, Frank certainly wouldn't be returning to her bed in the foreseeable future.) "I'm sorry I disturbed you two last night."
"No, no, it's all right," countered Pierce. "Feel free to sleep with us anytime. Especially once you're feeling more yourself." He arched his eyebrows so suggestively that she couldn't help but chuckle. If nothing else, the man knew how to break tension in an operating room.
At least for most people. "Hey, how about some quiet in here," Frank huffed from across the room. "Some of us are trying to perform surgery!"
"And some of us are failing," McIntyre sang out.
"Oh, go stick it in your ear!"
"Ouch, Frank, that hurts."
"Enough, children," sighed Blake. "Play nice, or you won't get dessert. More retraction here, Houlihan -- I can't see."
Houlihan complied immediately, determined not to repeat her earlier mistake. The O.R. grew quiet, save for the background clatter of instruments and the sounds of necessary communication between nurses and surgeons.
"Sponge."
She had one ready. "Sponge."
"You okay, Margaret?" Blake wasn't looking at her, focused as he was on the perforated bowel in front of him, but his whisper held genuine concern.
"I'm fine, sir. It won't happen again."
"Good. Okay, then." After several more minutes of bowel reconnaissance, he crowed, "Aha! There's the shrapnel Private Kirby here's been hidin' from us. Gimme some forceps."
"Forceps."
"Excellent." Thus began the painstaking process of removing fragment after tiny fragment of metal from a place it had no business being and dropping each one into a basin with a satisfying clank.
For a time, the excavation of Private Kirby proceeded according to plan, but suddenly Nurse Bayliss, who was administering the gas and monitoring the patient's vital signs, sounded the alarm. "Doctor, his pressure's dropping."
"What? That shouldn't...."
"Seventy over forty and falling fast."
"Damn. Maybe there's a bleeder I missed?"
"Pulse is fading." Bayliss's tone conveyed the urgency of the situation to everyone in the room.
"Damn it! Margaret, can you see anything in there?"
"No, sir. I was sure you'd clamped everything."
"I can't get a pulse, Doctor...."