A 97% efficiency rating. What does that mean, all in all? Only that Henry Blake had been accurate in his statement that the first rule of war is that young men die.

"And rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one." Hawkeye drunkenly mumbled to himself. His stomach gurgled, indignant at having been filled with so much venom before even getting the mild pittance it expected from the Mess tent. "Shut up, you."

Two men. Two young men had died during that session in the O.R. The ones who had arrived dead had already gone in the vehicles in which they'd arrived. Two was certainly more than they were used to losing in a session that, comparatively, short. It didn't help matters that Hawkeye had Henry on the brain. He stared out from behind the green mesh of the tent and the dark haze of the alcohol, and began to wonder about the families of those men in there. It wasn't something he enjoyed dwelling on. He could see the film that Henry had shown them, of his daughter's birthday party, and he could see it in triplicate. Three Lorraines. Three little girls. Three birthday cakes. Three fathers, three husbands never coming back.

So, when Hawkeye saw Father Mulcahy hurrying across the compound to begin his grisly offices, he pulled himself together as much as possible, and hobbled after. "Need a hand, Padre?"

The chaplain couldn't help but look surprised at the offer. He was about to politely decline, but he saw something desperately needing in Hawkeye's countenance, and he gave a slight bob of the head. "I'd appreciate some company." He finally uttered.

Hawkeye shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and quipped, "Well, yeah, not exactly a lively bunch, are they?"

Mulcahy felt it best to let the joke fall on no reply but a brief smile, understanding that Hawkeye meant no disrespect.

Hawkeye fell into place next to the chaplain. "Thanks." He appended.

Dinner came and went. The two men indexed the personal belongings of the two men, and in the course of time grew to know them more intimately than Hawkeye had perhaps foreseen, although he was almost happy to be subjecting himself to it.

It was nearly time to send their sometime guests on their way.

The darkness of the compound was made doubly dark by the fact that Hawkeye's eyelids refused to leave the sticky surface of his eyeballs except for the briefest of moments. Nonetheless, driven by grief, he entered the supply tent to slide out a pair of the coffins that, gratefully for most people, but rather painfully for Pierce right now, lay dusty and mostly unused in a back corner of the tent.

"I wonder if I can just lift the side of the tent up and get them out over that way," Hawkeye pondered to himself, hardly noticing the coffin door before him beginning to open silently.

~