Chapter VIII: Dancing in the Dark
As she weeded through the contents of her dinner tray late one Thursday evening, Margaret Houlihan was in a pensive mood. Not much had changed over the past two weeks -- in spite of Corporal O'Reilly's best efforts, they were still in a holding pattern as far as getting solid information about the North Korean research. Not a peep had escaped I-Corps, and while the Corps of Engineers were happy to forward oceans of data concerning generators and wiring, none of it had been of any practical use in their situation. Also, the few educated Korean locals who had taken a crack at translating Father Mulcahy's documents couldn't make heads or tails of them. Whether they were written in code or simply contained too much arcane scientific notation was unclear.
All of which was depressing enough, but on top of that, she was lonely. Frank, of course, had not spoken to her since the incident in her tent, and she missed him more than she cared to admit. And most everyone else, though polite, didn't seem to know quite how to treat her outside of duty hours. While not exactly the cold shoulder, there was noticeable hesitancy in their dealings with her.
Worst of all, the one person who could truly empathize with what Houlihan was going through had been steering clear. She raised her eyes from her fast-congealing meal to glance over at Mulcahy, who was sipping coffee in a far corner of the mess tent, looking about as desolate as she felt. He gazed back at her with a wistful smile and a wave, which she returned.
She knew why he was avoiding her; he'd taken great pains to explain that it wasn't out of hostility, but rather fear of succumbing to temptation. So she had agreed to keep her distance, out of respect for his vows, but was driving herself certifiably insane in the process. It seemed that the longer they stayed apart, the more intense grew her cravings for another taste of electric bliss. And if the separation was this harrowing for her, she imagined it had to be agony for Mulcahy. Looking at him, there were definite signs that he hadn't been sleeping well....
Houlihan forced herself to break eye contact. The solicitous attitude she'd adopted toward the chaplain of late was another troublesome development. Did it spring from a natural concern for the health and well-being of her once-and-future body, or was it an irrational attachment to the man himself?
Just what were they to each other now? Whatever their relationship had been before that fateful road trip -- friends? acquaintances? comrades in arms? -- their shared experience had forged a closer bond of some kind between them. Whether they chose to acknowledge it or not.
And what would they be to each other once things were put right again? When you'd walked a mile quite literally in someone else's shoes, it didn't seem realistic to go back to being "acquaintances."
Having twisted her brain into knots, Houlihan was almost relieved to hear the sound of incoming choppers. She scooped up her tray and made for the door, resisting a backward glance. There was no need to look, anyway -- her other senses were keenly aware that Mulcahy wasn't far behind her.
The P.A. announcement went out over the air as she was preparing for triage. "Attention all personnel. The dance has begun, and it takes more than two for this tango. All shifts please report for duty."
Over the next several hours, a steady stream of casualties gave Houlihan something concrete to focus on, and she and Pierce, the surgeon she was assisting this session, settled into a comfortable rhythm. Though Pierce could be damned annoying off-duty -- she'd known adolescent boys with more maturity -- underneath the wisecracks he was a highly skilled and dedicated professional. It was a constant source of amazement to Houlihan that, when he wasn't chasing her nurses or running her underwear up the flagpole, the two of them managed to work together so well.
And she never had to second-guess his medical decisions, as she sometimes did for Frank.
Too bad he was incorrigible.
"Need more suction here," muttered Pierce.
She complied, ignoring his excusable brusqueness and admiring his technique as he probed for shrapnel fragments. The man did have nice hands....
Recognizing the path down which her thoughts were straying, Houlihan had to give herself a mental shake. How sad...was three weeks really such a long time to go without male companionship? Long enough, apparently, to start drooling over Hawkeye Pierce in the middle of surgery. And after her last O.R. lapse, she was more determined than ever to set aside such distractions and keep her attention where it ought to be.
Cataloging instrument trays in her head seemed to help.
But before long, Houlihan had far more serious distractions to deal with. She flinched and almost dropped the sponge she was holding when a mortar shell hit the ground and exploded somewhere nearby, close enough to rattle the actual instrument trays.
And loud...why did it have to be so loud? Though she camouflaged it well most of the time, Houlihan had always had a fear of sudden loud noises, and exploding artillery shells fit that description to a tee. Sometimes it even amused her to suffer from what had to be the classically perfect phobia for an army nurse in combat -- but this wasn't going to be one of those times.
Where one shell falls, others will likely follow, and so it was on this occasion. The noise and the tremors would have been bad enough outside of the O.R., but when delicate surgical procedures were underway, such conditions were intolerable.
After the third rafter-shaking blast, Colonel Blake had had enough. "Radar!" he bellowed.
"Sir?" O'Reilly, a mask held up to his face, was already at the colonel's elbow.
"Get on the horn and find out what the hell's going on out there, wouldya?"
"I'm on it, sir!"
As she watched the clerk hurry out, Houlihan sent silent good wishes after him. He'd been known to work miracles before to protect the MASH unit, convincing Those In Charge to alter their battle lines accordingly. With luck, he could do it again.
She steeled herself for the next explosion, but it was impossible not to react when the damn things were so close and so loud. The last one sounded like it had landed right out in the compound.
Pierce, as always, resorted to humor to cope with tension. "Hah! They missed us again! Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."
"Or the barn side of a broad," agreed McIntyre inanely.
Another blast, the worst yet, rocked everything that wasn't tied down. This time the overhead lights dimmed, then flickered out, raising a cry of protest from everyone in the room. The generator shed must have taken a hit.
After a few minutes of darkness, when the backup generator failed to kick in, the sounds of discontent began to intensify. Houlihan ordered Nurse Bayliss to distribute small emergency flashlights to all personnel who had a free hand to hold one, though the light they produced wasn't really adequate for the surgeons' needs.
It was clear that something would have to be done in short order about restoring the lights, so Pierce rattled the chain of command to help speed up the process. "Hey, Henry, I've got a kid here with half his insides on the outside. Care to shed a little more light on the subject?"
"We're all in this together, Pierce," sighed Blake. "There must be a problem with the backup. Somebody wanna get on that for me?"
Houlihan almost smiled when a familiar voice was quick to respond to the call. "I'll go," Mulcahy volunteered.
"You know how to fix one of those things?" Blake asked skeptically.
"Well, no, not exactly. But I can find a corpsman to help me."
"Go, then. We're desperate here."
As Mulcahy was leaving, O'Reilly peeked around the swinging door. "Sir? The shelling should be moving on real soon. I-Corps says our being in the line of fire was a mistake and they're taking care of it."
"Fine job, Radar. Now, can you go help Father Mulcahy with the generator?"
"Yes, sir." He disappeared again.
While they waited for power to be restored, everyone played the best hand they could with the cards they'd been dealt, but it was slow and frustrating work. Under the pale glow of her flashlight, Houlihan eyed each instrument carefully before she handed it to Pierce, to verify that it was in fact what he had requested. For his part, Pierce had slowed his usual work pace to a crawl, no doubt to avoid causing more damage than he was repairing.
She took a moment to mop the sweat from Pierce's forehead, then her own. At least things were quieter now -- an extended stretch of silence was bolstering O'Reilly's claim that the shelling had been diverted. Now if they could just get the lights back on....
"Bad news, Colonel!" It was Mulcahy at the door, catching his breath as if he'd been running. "The main generator is completely out of commission, and Radar's having trouble getting the backup started."
"Damn," was Blake's defeated response.
"I do have a suggestion," Mulcahy went on, more timidly, "though it's kind of a long shot."
"Yeah? Hit me with it."
"Do you recall a patient named Robert Kirby?"
There was a pause as the implied dots were connected. "Are you telling me you want to try and jump-start the damn thing?"
"Well, ah -- yes, that's the general idea. Of course, it would be conditional on Major Houlihan's agreement."
Blake shook his head. "No way, I can't let you do it. Sounds dangerous as hell."
But Houlihan wasn't as quick to dismiss the notion. It did sound dangerous, yes; under normal circumstances, it would be the height of idiocy -- even suicidal -- for two amateurs to go poking around inside a generator. But she and Mulcahy hadn't felt a thing when their current traveled through Private Kirby -- wouldn't it flow into the generator the same way?
Was she willing to stake her life on that theory?
She licked her lips, suddenly gone dry, and spoke up. "Colonel, we need those lights. We'll never get to all the wounded at the rate we're going."
Blake gestured at her with the scalpel in his hand. "Look, you guys are both a few noodles short of a casserole if you think I'm gonna stand by and let my chaplain and head nurse become tomorrow night's barbecue."
"Stop it, Henry, you're making me hungry," cracked Pierce. "Seriously, though -- this thing they've got, it worked on Kirby. Why not the generator?"
"For starters, smart guy, that kid wasn't putting out 5,000 volts of his very own."
"Right now, neither is the generator," Houlihan pointed out. "And if we touch it fast, while it's off, that might be enough to get it going. It took only a second for Kirby."
His head bowed, Blake was silent for what seemed an eternity. At last he said, "If you two are seriously nuts enough to do this, I don't wanna know about it until much, much later -- like when I'm filling out your Section 8 paperwork. And if anybody asks, I'll deny ever taking part in this conversation."
After assigning Nurse Able to take over her post at the operating table, Houlihan crossed the floor and quietly informed her commanding officer that she needed to go out to the supply tent for more gloves. He nodded without looking up from his patient.