Chapter 5
That evening, Frank found BJ trying not to fall asleep in his dinner. BJ put his drowsiness down to the foul stench evaporating from the food.
"Good evening, Hunnicutt," Frank greeted cheerfully. "How's the food?"
"Is that what it is?" BJ asked.
Frank forced a chuckle. "You're funny, you know."
"I hope I can take that as a compliment," BJ muttered.
"You know," Frank began. "You and me could make a very good team."
"Yeah?"
"Sure we could. I like you better than those other two jerks, Pierce and McIntyre."
BJ realised that Frank was trying to by sly and bluff something out of him. He decided to play along and see where the conversation was heading.
"You like me better than them? Even after I pulled all those practical jokes on you?" BJ asked innocently.
Frank smothered a grimace. "You know what? I'll forget about those, AND the punishment, IF you do something for me. We'll be working as a team, as I said before."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Tell me who is dating Margaret."
BJ hoped that the second he had spent hesitating, having been caught off his guard, had gone unnoticed to Frank. "Dating Margaret? No-one!"
Unfortunately, Frank was not buying it. He snarled, "Report for guard duty at twenty-one hundred hours." He stormed off.
BJ shook his head and continued to pick at his food. Unbeknown to him, a certain Corporal had witnessed the entire argument.
~~~
Trapper padded quickly across the compound later that evening, heading towards Margaret's tent. To an observer, it would appear that his quick movements were so he could escape the cold and sleety rain, but in reality, he wanted to get inside Margaret's tent without being seen by Frank.
He slipped quickly inside, and was greeted with a kiss from Margaret.
"Oh, Trapper, you must be freezing!" She exclaimed on embracing him.
"We've had warmer weather," Trapper remarked. He remembered glancing to see BJ on guard duty, and frown at the recollection.
Reading his thoughts, Margaret asked, "Is BJ on duty again?"
Trapper nodded. "Hawkeye said he'll do something about it first thing in the morning. He already tried today, and more times before that. It can't go on! Today, BJ did his Post-Op duty, and now it's Guard Duty by night. In between, he snatched a couple of hours of shut-eye. It's crazy!"
"And Burns won't do a thing about it," Margaret added. "He is the most inhumane man I've known!"
"He's power-hungry," Trapper said. "He'll do anything to get people to obey him, and to get people to look up to him. He think that's all life is about. Before I had people serve me, I'd want their respect and friendship. That's what made Henry the great commander and what gave him the great reputation he left Korea with."
Margaret chuckled. "You're right. He was scatterbrained, thoroughly unmilitary and could often be found drunk as a skunk, but he was a great commander and doctor. Everything that Frank isn't."
"And never will be," Trapper finished.
~~~
Hawkeye sat reading the 'Crabapple Courier' when there came a quiet knock at the door. He looked up to see Radar standing with his teeth chattering. "Come in, Radar," he called. "You can thaw out by the stove."
Radar gladly hastened inside, and made a beeline for said stove. "Thanks," he replied.
"Anything up, Radar?" Hawkeye asked, putting the newspaper aside.
"No sir," he replied. He silently added that he felt a bit lonely.
Hawkeye almost read his thoughts. "I'm guessing that the Officer's Club has been shut down?"
"Yes, sir," Radar confirmed.
"Hey, Radar, no need for any 'sirs' in this tent. Leave them for Burns, okay?"
Radar nodded. "Oh, hey, a letter from Colonel Blake came in Mail Call today."
"That's good. What does it say?"
"He says he's home safe and sound, and loves being a father again. He heard at the airport that Major Burns is now a Colonel and our CO, and he says he can't imagine how we are putting up with it. And he says he's missing us all." Radar read no more.
Hawkeye put a hand on the Clerk's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.
~~~
Frank had seen it. This time, he had spotted who it was, who the culprit was, and in a few moments, the guilty party would be exposed.
So, the Colonel thought to himself, it was not Pierce after all. It's always the one you lease suspect. It was McIntyre who was with Margaret, with HIS Margaret. Well, McIntyre was about to get a nasty shock.
Frank hurried to the door of Margaret's tent and burst through the door. Margaret and Trapper were found in each other's arms, lips locked. When they heard the disturbance, they looked up and gasped. Frank sneered.
"I knew that someone was with my Margaret."
"Your Margaret?!" Major Houlihan exclaimed.
"I thought, all along I thought it was Pierce," Frank muttered. "It was you! You, you degenerate! You have been exploiting Margaret!"
"Colonel Burns," Margaret stormed. "I am not your property! You should have gotten over me a long time ago!"
"But Margaret," Frank whined.
"But nothing!"
"I can't believe you'd ever love someone lower than your own rank," Frank muttered crossly.
"I can't believe I ever loved you! Get out of my tent!"
Frank leered at Trapper before he left, knowing that the Captain would soon get his comeuppance.
Trapper wrapped his arms around Margaret, who was shaking with anger. She calmed down surrounded by the loving support.
"Let's go to the Swamp," he suggested. She nodded, not daring herself to speak.
They entered Tent Number Six to find Hawkeye and Radar playing cards.
"Too quiet in your tent?" Hawkeye asked, not looking up at first. When he did, he saw the stony looks on both their faces and realised that not all was well within camp. "What happened?"
"Burns," Trapper told him. No more needed to be said. Both Hawkeye and Radar knew that Frank had found out about their romance.
"What's his plan of action?" Hawkeye enquired.
"Nothing as et. He'll probably take the night to cool off before he does anything. I'd sure like to know who tipped him off," Trapper added, almost growling.
"Trap, you can't be sure that anyone told him," Hawkeye reasoned.
"That's right. Knowing that weasel, he's probably spied on me since he got here," Margaret put in.
"He spied and asked people," Radar spoke up.
All eyes turned to the young Corporal, who up to that point had remained silent. "What do you know, Radar?" Hawkeye asked.
"He asked BJ outright in the Mess Tent, at dinner," Radar explained. "He says, 'Who's dating Margaret?' Before that, he was trying to get on BJ's better side, saying that he liked BJ and wanted to be friends, stuff like that. BJ said nothing, and he paid for it."
"How?"
"Colonel Burns said that if BJ told him, he would stop the guard duty. But, since he didn't, he still out there."
Hawkeye, Margaret and Trapper looked at each other in disbelief. "He kept that quiet," Trapper murmured.
"For goodness sake, he should have said something! He's doing guard duty for no reason!"
"There was a reason earlier," Hawkeye pointed out. "Besides, even telling him that, I'm sure he wouldn't have done anything differently."
Margaret nodded, knowing how true this was. It was late by then, so the four decided to retire for the night. Just as Radar was leaving the Swamp, he stopped sharply and listened. "Choppers!" he called, breaking into a run towards the landing pad.
"How many?" Hawkeye called, hearing his cry and running with him. As he sprinted, he heard the blades in the distance, and the announcement ring out over the camp.
"Three," Radar called back, seeing the aircraft coming around the side of the hill.
~~~
In surgery, Hawkeye could not help but notice BJ's irrational behaviour. It was nothing in particular, but little things that caught his attention. After finishing his second patient, Hawkeye glanced behind him. BJ was having trouble remaining awake, and he seemed confused as to what he was doing. He saw that the colour of BJ's skin was not its usual shade, but more of a blue-greyish colour.
BJ took a shallow breath and said, "There. Close, nurse." His speech was slow. Hawkeye knew the symptoms and called out, "How many more patients?"
"One more," Klinger replied, carrying in the last casualty on the stretcher. "Who wants him?"
"Trap," Hawkeye called, turning back to see his gurney contained another patient. "How close are you to closing?"
"A minute," Trapper called back.
"Good, you can have the next one," Hawkeye commanded.
"But, I can take him," BJ protested.
"BJ, it's simple. You can't. You're ill."
"I'm not, I'm fine."
"He's not leaving until everyone has finished," Frank piped up.
"Another new rule, Frank?" Trapper queried.
"You can't keep him here, he's sick!"
"I'll say when he's sick," Frank told them.
"If you get to see when BJ is sick then I get to say when you're sick. Frank, you're sick. You're a sick man with inhumane tendencies. You're sick when you ban alcohol and whatever else you've outlawed. You're sick to spy on certain members of the camp, and you're sick to send doctors out on full nights of guard duty. I'll tell you now, Colonel Burns, we're sick too - sick of you!" Hawkeye was livid by the end of his speech.
Frank seethed with anger. "Hunnicutt, you will remain at your table, standing to attention, until surgery is completed. That's an order."
BJ complied, and no more was said. When surgery was finished, Frank went directly to Post-Op duty, and the three doctors headed into the Scrub room.
"He has no right to be a CO, doctor or a person!"
"He's none of them!"
"He's a dictator"
"A wannabe dictator."
"Just a wannabe."
"His aim in life is to find the most ways to commit malpractice."
"So far he holds the record."
"Infinity doesn't even quite cover it."
"Infinity to the power of infinity comes closer."
As Hawkeye and Trapper continued to let off steam, BJ began to slide down the wall he had been leaning against, and came to a stop on the floor.
On hearing the soft thud of BJ's body meeting the ground, Hawkeye and Trapper stopped talking and looked for the source of the noise. Once they found it, they leapt into doctor-mode.
"Dilated pupils," Trapper reported on checking.
"Shallow breathing," Hawkeye reported. "Hey, can you hear me?"
BJ's eyes looked up. "Gee, I must have dozed off for a second there," he muttered, getting unsteadily to his feet. He swayed slightly, and grabbed the side of the sink to assist him.
"Can you tell me what your name is?" Trapper asked.
"BJ Hunnicutt," he replied slowly.
"Okay, BJ," Hawkeye began. "Come into Post-Op with us. You've got hypothermia."
"What? No, I haven't. It's probably just a cold."
"You have, really. You never took off your wet clothes before you put your scrubs on," Trapper enlightened him.
"I'm fine," BJ told them. When they grabbed him, each with one arm, in order to physically direct him to Post-Op, he resisted. "Hey! Stop it! I'm okay!"
"You're not," Hawkeye assured him. Trapper and Hawkeye had to drag him into Post-Op. Unfortunately, BJ was not the only person protesting the illness.
"I won't allow him to take up a bed for just a cold," Frank announced.
Hawkeye was about to retort when Trapper stepped in. "Hawk, the more time we spend arguing, the less time we've got for BJ. We'll just take him back to the Swamp and treat him there."
They took him and, as they had done the previous night, removed his cold, damp clothes. They wrapped him in several blankets and set him in his cot, which they had moved closer to the warming stove.
Hawkeye found as many hot water bottles as he could rustle up, wrapped them in warm, moist towels and added them to the bundle. "We want to keep his temperature from dropping any lower, and not bring it up too sharply," he reminded both himself and Trapper, who had just returned with a mug of warm, sweetened water.
"Sip this," he offered.
After the thermometer had been removed from BJ's mother, he refused. "It's okay, you don't need to do this."
Hawkeye looked at the thermometer. "31 degrees Celsius," he read. "We have a problem here."
"All we can do is wait, and make sure the temperature doesn't drop."
"And make sure we don't warm him too fast."
"We should take turns, with one of us watching him to make sure he's okay," Trapper suggested.
"Good idea. I'll start, and wake you in a few hours time."
Trapper nodded, and went to his cot to grab some sleep. He left Hawkeye with his concerns for BJ, and his thoughts for what he planned to do in the morning.
That evening, Frank found BJ trying not to fall asleep in his dinner. BJ put his drowsiness down to the foul stench evaporating from the food.
"Good evening, Hunnicutt," Frank greeted cheerfully. "How's the food?"
"Is that what it is?" BJ asked.
Frank forced a chuckle. "You're funny, you know."
"I hope I can take that as a compliment," BJ muttered.
"You know," Frank began. "You and me could make a very good team."
"Yeah?"
"Sure we could. I like you better than those other two jerks, Pierce and McIntyre."
BJ realised that Frank was trying to by sly and bluff something out of him. He decided to play along and see where the conversation was heading.
"You like me better than them? Even after I pulled all those practical jokes on you?" BJ asked innocently.
Frank smothered a grimace. "You know what? I'll forget about those, AND the punishment, IF you do something for me. We'll be working as a team, as I said before."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Tell me who is dating Margaret."
BJ hoped that the second he had spent hesitating, having been caught off his guard, had gone unnoticed to Frank. "Dating Margaret? No-one!"
Unfortunately, Frank was not buying it. He snarled, "Report for guard duty at twenty-one hundred hours." He stormed off.
BJ shook his head and continued to pick at his food. Unbeknown to him, a certain Corporal had witnessed the entire argument.
~~~
Trapper padded quickly across the compound later that evening, heading towards Margaret's tent. To an observer, it would appear that his quick movements were so he could escape the cold and sleety rain, but in reality, he wanted to get inside Margaret's tent without being seen by Frank.
He slipped quickly inside, and was greeted with a kiss from Margaret.
"Oh, Trapper, you must be freezing!" She exclaimed on embracing him.
"We've had warmer weather," Trapper remarked. He remembered glancing to see BJ on guard duty, and frown at the recollection.
Reading his thoughts, Margaret asked, "Is BJ on duty again?"
Trapper nodded. "Hawkeye said he'll do something about it first thing in the morning. He already tried today, and more times before that. It can't go on! Today, BJ did his Post-Op duty, and now it's Guard Duty by night. In between, he snatched a couple of hours of shut-eye. It's crazy!"
"And Burns won't do a thing about it," Margaret added. "He is the most inhumane man I've known!"
"He's power-hungry," Trapper said. "He'll do anything to get people to obey him, and to get people to look up to him. He think that's all life is about. Before I had people serve me, I'd want their respect and friendship. That's what made Henry the great commander and what gave him the great reputation he left Korea with."
Margaret chuckled. "You're right. He was scatterbrained, thoroughly unmilitary and could often be found drunk as a skunk, but he was a great commander and doctor. Everything that Frank isn't."
"And never will be," Trapper finished.
~~~
Hawkeye sat reading the 'Crabapple Courier' when there came a quiet knock at the door. He looked up to see Radar standing with his teeth chattering. "Come in, Radar," he called. "You can thaw out by the stove."
Radar gladly hastened inside, and made a beeline for said stove. "Thanks," he replied.
"Anything up, Radar?" Hawkeye asked, putting the newspaper aside.
"No sir," he replied. He silently added that he felt a bit lonely.
Hawkeye almost read his thoughts. "I'm guessing that the Officer's Club has been shut down?"
"Yes, sir," Radar confirmed.
"Hey, Radar, no need for any 'sirs' in this tent. Leave them for Burns, okay?"
Radar nodded. "Oh, hey, a letter from Colonel Blake came in Mail Call today."
"That's good. What does it say?"
"He says he's home safe and sound, and loves being a father again. He heard at the airport that Major Burns is now a Colonel and our CO, and he says he can't imagine how we are putting up with it. And he says he's missing us all." Radar read no more.
Hawkeye put a hand on the Clerk's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.
~~~
Frank had seen it. This time, he had spotted who it was, who the culprit was, and in a few moments, the guilty party would be exposed.
So, the Colonel thought to himself, it was not Pierce after all. It's always the one you lease suspect. It was McIntyre who was with Margaret, with HIS Margaret. Well, McIntyre was about to get a nasty shock.
Frank hurried to the door of Margaret's tent and burst through the door. Margaret and Trapper were found in each other's arms, lips locked. When they heard the disturbance, they looked up and gasped. Frank sneered.
"I knew that someone was with my Margaret."
"Your Margaret?!" Major Houlihan exclaimed.
"I thought, all along I thought it was Pierce," Frank muttered. "It was you! You, you degenerate! You have been exploiting Margaret!"
"Colonel Burns," Margaret stormed. "I am not your property! You should have gotten over me a long time ago!"
"But Margaret," Frank whined.
"But nothing!"
"I can't believe you'd ever love someone lower than your own rank," Frank muttered crossly.
"I can't believe I ever loved you! Get out of my tent!"
Frank leered at Trapper before he left, knowing that the Captain would soon get his comeuppance.
Trapper wrapped his arms around Margaret, who was shaking with anger. She calmed down surrounded by the loving support.
"Let's go to the Swamp," he suggested. She nodded, not daring herself to speak.
They entered Tent Number Six to find Hawkeye and Radar playing cards.
"Too quiet in your tent?" Hawkeye asked, not looking up at first. When he did, he saw the stony looks on both their faces and realised that not all was well within camp. "What happened?"
"Burns," Trapper told him. No more needed to be said. Both Hawkeye and Radar knew that Frank had found out about their romance.
"What's his plan of action?" Hawkeye enquired.
"Nothing as et. He'll probably take the night to cool off before he does anything. I'd sure like to know who tipped him off," Trapper added, almost growling.
"Trap, you can't be sure that anyone told him," Hawkeye reasoned.
"That's right. Knowing that weasel, he's probably spied on me since he got here," Margaret put in.
"He spied and asked people," Radar spoke up.
All eyes turned to the young Corporal, who up to that point had remained silent. "What do you know, Radar?" Hawkeye asked.
"He asked BJ outright in the Mess Tent, at dinner," Radar explained. "He says, 'Who's dating Margaret?' Before that, he was trying to get on BJ's better side, saying that he liked BJ and wanted to be friends, stuff like that. BJ said nothing, and he paid for it."
"How?"
"Colonel Burns said that if BJ told him, he would stop the guard duty. But, since he didn't, he still out there."
Hawkeye, Margaret and Trapper looked at each other in disbelief. "He kept that quiet," Trapper murmured.
"For goodness sake, he should have said something! He's doing guard duty for no reason!"
"There was a reason earlier," Hawkeye pointed out. "Besides, even telling him that, I'm sure he wouldn't have done anything differently."
Margaret nodded, knowing how true this was. It was late by then, so the four decided to retire for the night. Just as Radar was leaving the Swamp, he stopped sharply and listened. "Choppers!" he called, breaking into a run towards the landing pad.
"How many?" Hawkeye called, hearing his cry and running with him. As he sprinted, he heard the blades in the distance, and the announcement ring out over the camp.
"Three," Radar called back, seeing the aircraft coming around the side of the hill.
~~~
In surgery, Hawkeye could not help but notice BJ's irrational behaviour. It was nothing in particular, but little things that caught his attention. After finishing his second patient, Hawkeye glanced behind him. BJ was having trouble remaining awake, and he seemed confused as to what he was doing. He saw that the colour of BJ's skin was not its usual shade, but more of a blue-greyish colour.
BJ took a shallow breath and said, "There. Close, nurse." His speech was slow. Hawkeye knew the symptoms and called out, "How many more patients?"
"One more," Klinger replied, carrying in the last casualty on the stretcher. "Who wants him?"
"Trap," Hawkeye called, turning back to see his gurney contained another patient. "How close are you to closing?"
"A minute," Trapper called back.
"Good, you can have the next one," Hawkeye commanded.
"But, I can take him," BJ protested.
"BJ, it's simple. You can't. You're ill."
"I'm not, I'm fine."
"He's not leaving until everyone has finished," Frank piped up.
"Another new rule, Frank?" Trapper queried.
"You can't keep him here, he's sick!"
"I'll say when he's sick," Frank told them.
"If you get to see when BJ is sick then I get to say when you're sick. Frank, you're sick. You're a sick man with inhumane tendencies. You're sick when you ban alcohol and whatever else you've outlawed. You're sick to spy on certain members of the camp, and you're sick to send doctors out on full nights of guard duty. I'll tell you now, Colonel Burns, we're sick too - sick of you!" Hawkeye was livid by the end of his speech.
Frank seethed with anger. "Hunnicutt, you will remain at your table, standing to attention, until surgery is completed. That's an order."
BJ complied, and no more was said. When surgery was finished, Frank went directly to Post-Op duty, and the three doctors headed into the Scrub room.
"He has no right to be a CO, doctor or a person!"
"He's none of them!"
"He's a dictator"
"A wannabe dictator."
"Just a wannabe."
"His aim in life is to find the most ways to commit malpractice."
"So far he holds the record."
"Infinity doesn't even quite cover it."
"Infinity to the power of infinity comes closer."
As Hawkeye and Trapper continued to let off steam, BJ began to slide down the wall he had been leaning against, and came to a stop on the floor.
On hearing the soft thud of BJ's body meeting the ground, Hawkeye and Trapper stopped talking and looked for the source of the noise. Once they found it, they leapt into doctor-mode.
"Dilated pupils," Trapper reported on checking.
"Shallow breathing," Hawkeye reported. "Hey, can you hear me?"
BJ's eyes looked up. "Gee, I must have dozed off for a second there," he muttered, getting unsteadily to his feet. He swayed slightly, and grabbed the side of the sink to assist him.
"Can you tell me what your name is?" Trapper asked.
"BJ Hunnicutt," he replied slowly.
"Okay, BJ," Hawkeye began. "Come into Post-Op with us. You've got hypothermia."
"What? No, I haven't. It's probably just a cold."
"You have, really. You never took off your wet clothes before you put your scrubs on," Trapper enlightened him.
"I'm fine," BJ told them. When they grabbed him, each with one arm, in order to physically direct him to Post-Op, he resisted. "Hey! Stop it! I'm okay!"
"You're not," Hawkeye assured him. Trapper and Hawkeye had to drag him into Post-Op. Unfortunately, BJ was not the only person protesting the illness.
"I won't allow him to take up a bed for just a cold," Frank announced.
Hawkeye was about to retort when Trapper stepped in. "Hawk, the more time we spend arguing, the less time we've got for BJ. We'll just take him back to the Swamp and treat him there."
They took him and, as they had done the previous night, removed his cold, damp clothes. They wrapped him in several blankets and set him in his cot, which they had moved closer to the warming stove.
Hawkeye found as many hot water bottles as he could rustle up, wrapped them in warm, moist towels and added them to the bundle. "We want to keep his temperature from dropping any lower, and not bring it up too sharply," he reminded both himself and Trapper, who had just returned with a mug of warm, sweetened water.
"Sip this," he offered.
After the thermometer had been removed from BJ's mother, he refused. "It's okay, you don't need to do this."
Hawkeye looked at the thermometer. "31 degrees Celsius," he read. "We have a problem here."
"All we can do is wait, and make sure the temperature doesn't drop."
"And make sure we don't warm him too fast."
"We should take turns, with one of us watching him to make sure he's okay," Trapper suggested.
"Good idea. I'll start, and wake you in a few hours time."
Trapper nodded, and went to his cot to grab some sleep. He left Hawkeye with his concerns for BJ, and his thoughts for what he planned to do in the morning.