Carry On Once More
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The wind blowing across the compound pierced through the canvas sides of the tents to reach the occupants inside the temporary shelters that seemed to have become permanent homes. Fires burned in the oil drums that had been set up in sheltered areas of the camp and personnel were huddled around them, white masks pulled up over their noses and mouths.
The address system crackled to life. "Incoming wounded, folks. All fit surgical staff report to the OR." The choppers were already landing on the pad and ambulances could be seen making their slower progress up the road. The staff mobilized, scattering in different directions to carry out their appointed tasks.
Three figures staggered from the Swamp, headed in the general direction of the OR. "Hawk," one asked another, "are we awake yet?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Hunnicutt," the third snapped, running a hand over his thinning hair.
"Well, BJ," Hawkeye retorted quickly, "at least we know that Charles is still feeling well."
"How do you figure that?" BJ responded.
"He's still his usual irritable self."
Charles just rolled his eyes and stalked off toward the OR, muttering to himself something about ignorant simpletons masquerading as competent surgeons. BJ and Hawkeye continued their half-awake stumble toward the OR. "Is this anything like the last flu epidemic, Hawkeye?"
"Even though we're stuck with Chuckles over there, at least we've still got four surgeons on their feet and more than half of our nursing staff. The last time I was on my own." He laughed a little, cracking one eye open completely to look at BJ as he pushed the door open. "Father Mulcahy was operating."
"Well, don't count your chickens before they hatch. I've got a headache the size of Texas."
"Colonel Potter?" BJ asked, stepping over and reaching out a hand for Potter's forehead.
"Just wait a cotton-picking minute," Potter said with less than his usual vigour, sidestepping BJ's hand. "I might be getting sick, but I'm not that sick yet. My temp's only just over a hundred; one of the nurses just took it." He coughed into his hand, then reached up to wipe the sweat off of his face.
"Are you okay, colonel?"
"I won't be able to go a full bout, but I can at least go a few rounds." Potter caught sight of Hawkeye's raised eyebrow and added, "I'll find myself a nice bed as soon as I feel that I need to. The nurses are keeping one open for me."
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It had been three hours of surgery when Potter called shakily, "One of you boys got a free hand?"
"I'm almost finished, colonel," BJ said, handing his scalpel to the nurse. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I think I'm about done for," Potter answered, stepping away from the table. "They just brought him in. I haven't opened yet."
"Margaret, can you close?" She stepped over to take BJ's place at the table, nodding. BJ snapped off his gloves. A nurse stepped wearily over to replace them. "Why don't you set yourself up in the bed next to his?" he told her softly.
She didn't argue and the two made their way out of the operating room. They could hear Potter coughing in the next room. "I've got a bottle of booze on him being next," Hawkeye said, jerking his chin in Charles's direction. Beads of sweat were standing out on his pale forehead and the thinning hair under his cap was probably soaking wet.
"If you would stop your childish ranting and concentrate on your surgery, we could all get out of here that much faster," Charles retorted irritably.
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BJ slumped down against the wall of the change room after the last of the wounded had been closed and carried from the OR. It had been fifteen hours since they had first started and twelve hours since Potter had had to check himself in as a patient. "Am I still standing?" he rasped, closing leaning his head up against the wall and closing his eyes.
"Can you stand and still be horizontal?" Hawkeye asked, sinking down onto the bench beside BJ. He sat for a second and then reached up to tug his surgical cap off his head.
"Are you all decent?" a voice called from the other side of the door.
"It depends what you mean by decent," Hawkeye responded. "I tend to think that I'm pretty damn good, but you've never tested the waters yourself, Margaret."
"We're clothed," Charles called. He was leaning against the wall as though it were the only thing holding him up.
Margaret pushed open the door, stepping inside. "Colonel Potter's temperature has spiked up to one-oh-three. Jacobs, Lawrence, and Culbertson are just about as bad." She looked just as exhausted as the three surgeons.
"Kate Lawrence?" Hawkeye repeated. "She was assisting me take half the metal in Korea out of some kid's gut not even twenty minutes ago."
"She collapsed in the nurses' change room," Margaret said, sinking down beside Hawkeye. "She did the whole stint in the OR with a fever up over a hundred. So did another four of my girls."
"That makes how many now, Margaret?" BJ asked, cracking open an eye to look at her.
"A better question might be how many does that leave us," Charles commented dryly even though he looked like death warmed over.
"We've still got you three surgeons, sixteen nurses, including myself, and assorted other staff with little or no surgical experience." She was interrupted by a stifled cough from BJ. She instantly reached into her pocket for a thermometer.
In one swift motion, she stuck it beneath his tongue and reached up to place her hand on his forehead. "You're burning up, doctor," she exclaimed. BJ tried to mutter a response around the thermometer in his mouth. Margaret cut him off, moving her hand down to his chin to push his mouth closed.
"I believe that's a bottle for me, Pierce," Charles managed. "Twelve-year- old scotch would suffice barring a decent vintage brandy."
"One bottle of two-day-old gin for Charles," Hawkeye retorted, reaching to feel the glands beneath BJ's ears. "And one nice hospital bed for BJ."
"I'm fine, Hawk," he answered weakly as Margaret withdrew her thermometer. "Just let me get a couple of hours of sleep and I'll be even more fine."
She held it out for Hawkeye to see. The two exchanged brief glances over the top of it, and Hawkeye lifted one eyebrow. "A couple of hours sleep for us all then, and we'll see who winds up with the bottle of gin."
"Marines are trying to take Hill 54 again at oh-five-hundred, so you've got five hours at most," Margaret announced, pushing herself up and offering a hand to help pull BJ to his feet.
"And you?"
"There are still enough nurses to run in shifts," she explained as BJ and Charles staggered from the room in the general direction of the Swamp. "I'll get my sleep when my shift is over."
"You might want to catch your sleep now, while you can. You might be manning an operating table in a few hours."
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"A reminder due to the flu epidemic," the PA called, "that masks are to be worn at all times, and kissing is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Choppers are ten minutes out. Anyone still on their feet should report to the OR immediately."
The three surgeons grudgingly sat up in their beds. BJ broke out in a coughing fit that nearly caused him to double over in his bed. In his own bed, Charles groaned, biting back coughs of his own but not willing to submit to them yet. "Are you two okay to operate?"
"As I said, a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch will suffice."
"And I'll take the bottle of two-day-old gin," BJ croaked, his voice nearly gone.
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"Would the two of you just give in and admit that you're sick already?" Hawkeye called over the stifled coughs of his two fellow surgeons.
"Four-oh silk," BJ rasped, his voice dwindled down to a whisper.
"This isn't some sort of perverted contest," Margaret broke in from her position opposite BJ as she handed him the needle. She had stationed herself there because he looked the most like collapsing. Charles didn't look much better and she had stationed her next strongest nurse with him.
"I'm finished here," Charles said, snapping off his bloody gloves and holding his hands out for a fresh pair. The corpsmen stepped in to take the stretcher out of the operating room. But there wasn't another casualty coming in.
"That's the last of this batch, sirs," Radar announced. A round of sighs greeted his announcement. Relieved that they wouldn't have to spend another hour on their feet, bending over the shredded innards of some hapless soldier, they were all looking forward to getting to more intimately know their beds.
"We're finished here too," Margaret announced as BJ pulled off his own gloves. BJ nodded his agreement, looking over at Hawkeye questioningly.
"I'll be done shortly," he responded, answering BJ's unanswered question. "And when I check post-op, you'd both better be checked into matching beds, right beside Colonel Potter."
"It's unfortunate that post-op is out of room then." But Charles's reply was delivered with none of his usual vigour.
"They've moved all of the flu patients into the Officer's Club," Radar supplied. "The epidemic isn't theatre-wide and HQ doesn't want it to spread."
"I cede my bottle to you, Charles," BJ declared hoarsely. "Because that's where I'm heading, if I can make it that far."
"You can deliver my scotch to me in the officer's club, in the bed next to his."
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"You know, Radar," Hawkeye commented from the chair behind Potter's desk, "I never thought that I'd be here again."
"I'll get HQ on the phone," Radar answered, heading through the adjoining door.
"Wake me-"
"I'll wake you when I get them on the line," Radar finished as the door swung closed behind him. Left alone, Hawkeye leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, tucked his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
"Are you awake?"
"Boy, Radar, you sure work fast," Hawkeye mumbled. "And you must be getting sick, you're starting to sound like Margaret."
"That had better have been a joke," Margaret answered, no traces of humour in her voice.
Hawkeye grudgingly opened his eyes and took his feet off the desk. "What can I do you for?"
"Honestly, can't you be serious for just one minute?" She dropped herself into the chair in front of the desk. "Don't answer that," she said, cutting off his reply. "With Colonel Potter out, I'm next in rank to take command," she declared.
"Why don't we just do what we did last time," Hawkeye suggested, leaning back to close his eyes again. "I'll take care of the surgical stuff; you take care of the rest."
"And of course I wouldn't presume to tell you anything about surgery," Margaret continued, almost as though Hawkeye had never interrupted. "But I would like to take control over the administration aspects of the camp."
"I don't know, Margaret," Hawkeye answered, opening one eye to look at her. "I think that you should do surgery and I'll sit here and stare at the paperwork until it finishes itself." She stared at him. "That one was a joke."
"HQ is waiting, Hawkeye," Radar said, poking his head through the door.
Hawkeye grabbed the phone. "Go ahead, Radar!"
And with a series of clicks and a burst of static, the phone at Hawkeye's ear came to life. "This is Captain Pierce with the 4077th MASH. We're hit pretty bad here with a flu epidemic."
Margaret reached across the desk to grab a piece of paper and a pen from the top of Potter's desk, scribbling a note as Hawkeye listened to the response from whoever was on the other end of the line. She thrust it in his face as he said, "I understand that everyone in the area is being hit to some degree, but we're a hospital unit that's operating with only one operator!"
He read the note as the person answered. "And we're down to barely enough nurses to staff a normal operating room, never mind one that's missing three doctors."
There was another pause while the person on the other end of the line imparted some news. From Hawkeye's reaction, it was obvious that the news wasn't good. "You mean to tell me that there's going to be a assault tomorrow morning and we're the nearest hospital unit," he burst out. "And you want us doing that with only one surgeon and a dozen nurses when we're over our normal capacity already?"
"Are they crazy?" Margaret hissed. Hawkeye waved her off, murmuring assent to something.
"If that's the best that you can do," he said, barely holding back outrage. There was a brief pause and he all but slammed the phone back down into its holder.
"What did they say?" Margaret asked, finding herself not wanting to know the rest. It obviously hadn't soothed Hawkeye's temper.
"The 8043rd is far enough to the rear that they're haven't gotten any casualties from the front in three weeks and they're not expected to get more any time soon. They're sending us anyone they can spare."
"That sounds encouraging," she started hopefully.
"Five girls, tops," he stated. "They haven't had anyone in three weeks and they're not in the area to get any more. And the most they can spare is five nurses!"
"When are they supposed to get here?"
"Who? The wounded or the nurses?" He sighed and rested his head on his hands. "One will be late tonight and the other will be early tomorrow. Hopefully the early one will be the nurses late tonight. Is there anyone special that I need to see before I examine the inside of my eyelids?"
"What are you going to do about tomorrow?"
"Same thing we did last time. What other choice do we have? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my tent while you administrate to your heart's content."
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Hawkeye's snores were the only thing breaking the silence around the Swamp when the jeep pulled into the compound. Radar dashed from his cot in the office, pulling his glasses on and still clutching his teddy bear to rap on the door to the Swamp. Hawkeye gave a stunted snore and growled, "This had better be an emergency or I'll make you one."
"Hawkeye, the nurses are here from the 8043rd," Radar announced. "I'm going to wake Major Houlihan."
"Go and get Margaret," Hawkeye said, stepping into his boots and pulling his shirt on over his shoulders. He rubbed his eyes a few times and staggered off into the courtyard.
The jeep was just disgorging its occupants into the darkened courtyard as Hawkeye called, "Welcome to the 4077th, such as it is."
"Are you the acting CO?" one of the girls asked.
"Depends whether you want surgery or administration. I'm Hawkeye Pierce, chief surgeon."
"Major Houlihan," Margaret announced, saluting the new arrivals. They saluted back surprisingly smartly considering the time of night and the fact that they hadn't likely had much sleep. "We're expecting casualties in a few hours and some of our nurses have been on duty for twelve hours. You'll spell them off for a few hours and I'll arrange bunks for you."
"Of course, you may not get to the bunks for a while, but they'll be arranged for you," Hawkeye quipped. "Do you come with names?"
"Lieutenant Claire Watson," led a tall blonde.
"Lieutenant Sharon Nelson," offered a buxom brunette.
"Captain Anne O'Keefe." That one was the petite redhead.
"Lieutenant Marie Worrell," greeted a slender girl with black curls.
"Lieutenant Katherine Anderson," finished the last blonde, this one short.
"A captain among the lieutenants," Hawkeye commented offhandedly, running a hand over his mussed hair in an attempt to flatten it.
"If you five will follow me, we have the flu patients set up in the Officer's Club and the casualties are in post-op. O'Keefe and Worrell, you'll be in the Officer's Club. The other three will be in post-op," Margaret ordered. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you the way. Radar will take care of your bags." And without waiting for the five to get their feet firmly beneath them, she was already starting off in the direction of post-op.
"Excuse me, major."
"What is it, captain?" she questioned sharply.
"I don't know how much they told you about us," she started hesitantly, "but we're not all nurses."
"What do you mean you're not all nurses?" Margaret snapped. "Why on earth would they send us someone who's not a nurse? What good could they possibly be to us?"
"Don't worry so much, Margaret," Hawkeye tried to soothe her. "We had Father Mulcahy operating before with Radar assisting. Any extra hands are more than welcome."
"It's not as bad as you think," one of the other girls broke in.
"I don't know how it could get any worse. I don't know what they told you about us, but he's the only surgeon we've still got standing. And we're down to twelve nurses. That's hardly enough to staff us when we've got a full contingent of doctors." Margaret paused for a second, then continued. "Now if you would kindly explain why it's not so bad as I think."
"Well, the captain's a surgeon."
"I didn't know that there were any female surgeons this side of Tokyo," Hawkeye said, eyes roving over her. "Why don't you take the nurses, Margaret?" She nodded, starting off toward post-op again.
"I just got in, sir," she explained.
"In from where? And it's Hawkeye."
"Yes, sir, I mean, Hawkeye. I just got in from the States, John Hopkins."
"As in the medical school?" he asked, eyebrows rising halfway up his forehead. She nodded.
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Hawkeye knocked quietly on the door to Margaret's tent, knowing full well that she had just returned from the Officer's Club. "Margaret," he called quietly, "let me in."
"What do you want?" she asked, clutching her robe around her as she let him in. In the short time she had been back in her tent, she had already shed her clothes.
"How do you find the nurses?"
"This is hardly the time for that," she retorted.
"That surgeon they sent us is so green she may as well be a leprechaun. She's so wet behind the ears that she should be standing in a swimming pool. She's-"
"I think I get the point," Margaret said, cutting him off before he could think of anything else. "She's young and inexperienced. But she's still a surgeon."
"I don't think you understand just how green she is. You know where she was two months ago?" Margaret shook her head no. "Graduating from medical school! Two months ago she was still a medical student, Margaret."
"You mean." Margaret let her voice trail off as she stared at Hawkeye, unwilling to believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.
"I mean that she's starting her residency with meatball surgery and they sent her to us."
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"What the hell are you doing here?" Potter croaked, struggling to sit up in his bed. After a moment, he gave up and lay back against the pillows. "Forgive me for not getting up."
"I thought that I'd come around and make sure that you three weren't giving the nurses too much trouble," Hawkeye said, perching himself on the edge of Potter's bed. He would have pulled up a chair, but the cots were so close together that there wasn't room.
"Considering almost all of them are on the other side of the curtain," Potter retorted, his wit still sharp, "that would be difficult, even if some of the younger fellows felt up to it." He stopped to cough into his hand, turning his head away from Hawkeye. "That's not the reason that you're here. So out with it so that I can get back to sleep, even if you're not going to."
Hawkeye sighed and watched one of the loaned nurses move on the other side of the room. "I guess you know that the 8043rd loaned us some of their nurses," he started, not quite sure what he was here to ask Potter in the first place. The colonel didn't help matters at all, simply staring up at him and waiting. "They sent us a surgeon too. Well, sort of."
"You mean they actually sent us a sort-of surgeon or they sort-of sent us an actual surgeon?"
"They actually sent us a sort-of surgeon." Potter's eyes went round as he tried to figure out exactly what Hawkeye meant by that. Hawkeye sighed. "Two months ago she was sitting still in med school back stateside. This is her first residency rotation and it just happens to be meatball surgery."
"Look, Pierce, everyone had to start somewhere. We were all fresh out of med school at one point in time. We all had our baptism by blood into meatball surgery."
"But we didn't get them both at the same time in the middle of a flu epidemic that has three-quarters of the surgical staff out of action. Father Mulcahy has almost as much solo surgical experience as she does. And I'm pretty sure that Margaret has more."
"What exactly is it that you would like me to do from flat on my back?" Potter coughed again, waking BJ beside him. BJ instantly went into a coughing fit of his own. "We'd be on our feet in a second if we were able, and you know that just as well as we do."
"I know, colonel."
"Then go and get some sleep. I overheard Margaret say that there's going to be an attack in the morning, which I guess is coming up pretty fast. And at least she's a trained pair of hands."
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"Scrub up, Father."
"Now, Hawkeye, are you really sure that this is the best course of action," Father Mulcahy protested as he stepped over to the sink. "I heard that you got another surgeon from another unit. Do you really need me?"
"I'm sure," Hawkeye answered firmly as he pulled a surgical cap on over his dark hair. "We're going to need your hands just as much as we're going to need your prayers today."
"Of course, Hawkeye. Is there something bothering you?"
"You mean something other than the fact that half of the camp is flat on their backs and we're the closest hospital to a major assault?" Hawkeye questioned flippantly.
"Well, I suppose you have a point there. But what about that new surgeon?"
"New surgeon is right," he scoffed. Then abruptly, Hawkeye said, "I hope that Radar can manage to collect enough blood from the able personnel. I asked him to get at least twenty-five units."
Father Mulcahy looked momentarily confused at the sudden turn the conversation had taken. Then he realised that Margaret and the new surgeon had entered. "I have faith in Radar, Hawkeye. If there is any way to get it, he will," the priest continued gamely, trying to make up for the pause.
The two women wordlessly started to prepare themselves. Already dressed in their white scrubs, they pulled surgical caps on, tucking all of their hair up and under the fabric. An uncomfortable silence settled into the room. "Have you been with the 8043rd long, um, captain?" Father Mulcahy finally broke in, trying to lighten the heavy mood a little. His voice faltered a little when Margaret's face caught his eye.
"Please, call me Annie. I'm." She was going to say that she wasn't used to being called captain, but she saw the look on Hawkeye's face as he met Margaret's grimace. "I've only been with them for a week or so. Before that five weeks of basic training. And, as the others could tell you, I went into that fresh from medical school."
At least Hawkeye had the grace to look ashamed. "It's not that we don't appreciate you're coming to help," he started awkwardly.
"It's just that you don't think I'll be much help?" she provided, moving over to start scrubbing her hands. "Don't think that I don't know. It's the same thing that the other surgeons at the 8043rd thought. And it was the same reason that I was sent here. The CO told me in no uncertain terms that I'd 'better damn well come back with some experience' because I'm useless until I get some blood on my hands."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" Father Mulcahy asked gently.
"It's as close to a direct quote as I can remember," she said. "But it's completely true. If I had had the choice, I'd be back in a nice hospital in the States, doing what all the others in my class are doing, learning to practice medicine, not being thrust into it."
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"Metz scissors."
"Suction. Right there, I can't see what I'm doing."
The OR had rapidly developed into its usual chaotic rhythm. Hawkeye moved between the tables, trying to operate on as many patients simultaneously as was possible and still keep an eye on Annie. But every time he checked with her, he cringed inwardly. Who in their right mind sent a kid named Annie into a war zone without, as she had put it, 'blood on her hands'?
He thought back to when they had first entered the OR. The patients were waiting for them, already prepped and on the tables. As always, the most serious came first. The closest patient was a boy with his legs blown off and his internal organs riddled with shrapnel. Her face had gone pale, her shoulders had heaved almost like she was going to throw up, and she had stepped up to the table with the question, "Where do I start?"
It would have been great to say that the operation had been a complete success. But the boy had already crashed once in pre-OP and he did it twice more while she was sewing up his liver. They had managed to bring him back, but he crashed again almost as soon as he had been settled into a post-OP bed. That time the nurses couldn't revive him.
One of the nurses had told Margaret. And she had told Hawkeye, but they hadn't told Annie. She was doing her best to keep up. He'd tell her later, when it didn't matter so much that all hands were working to their full ability.
"Hawkeye." Father Mulcahy's voice brought him back to the present, and the coil of small intestine he had left draped over the priest's hand.
"What is it Father?" he asked from the next table over, trying to reattach two ends of a blood vessel.
"There's quite a bit of blood pooling here."
"I'll be over as soon as I can."
"Hawkeye," the nurse with Father Mulcahy repeated, "I really think that you should come take a look at this."
"Blood pressure is falling," the anaesthetist warned.
Hawkeye looked down at his own field. There was no way that he could step away at that point without someone to take over. Margaret was in her own case up to her elbows. None of the other nurses had experience with this sort of thing. That left only Annie. He looked up at her.
She was already watching him, waiting to see what he would tell her to do, if anything. "Can you?" he asked. There really was no other choice.
"Keep it irrigated," she told her nurse, exchanging her soiled gloves for fresh ones and stepping over to stand beside Father Mulcahy.
"Pressure's still falling."
"Give him another unit of blood," was her first direction. "Suction, please. I need to be able to see what I'm doing."
There was a pause from the table, short in the greater scheme of things, but an eternity in the hectic pace of the OR. "Annie?" Hawkeye asked, lifting his eyes from his own patient again.
"Is there an x-ray for this patient?" came her only response. Klinger hurried up with the film, angling it so that the light would shine through. Another pause. Then, finally, came some sort of an explanation. "There's shrapnel in his right kidney. It must have shifted enough that it cut more blood vessels."
"Are you going to repair or remove?" Hawkeye asked. He was grateful for the extra hands, but he didn't want to have to guide her through the operation, especially at a time like this when he couldn't exactly watch over her shoulder as she went.
"Remove," she answered grimly, looking up to meet his gaze. "The other one is fine. And," she added, meeting his gaze, "it's faster."
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Perched once again on the edge of Colonel Potter's bed, Hawkeye yawned, hardly able to stay awake. They had been in surgery for nearly fifteen hours. They had missed the slop that passed for breakfast, lunch, and supper in the mess tent. And Hawkeye would gladly have missed the next breakfast in favour of uninterrupted sleep.
"I'm glad to hear that my patients are well on their way to Seoul, but what about that is so important that you would forgo sleep to tell me?" Potter's temperature had started coming down and he was able to pull himself into a sitting position.
Hawkeye sighed. "Absolutely nothing."
"And so you're not sleeping for what reason?"
Hawkeye shook his head, looking away from Potter, down to the other end of the Officer's Club. One of the blonde nurses from the 8043rd was on duty. "She was in way over her head, and she knew it."
"Kindly explain exactly what you're talking about," Potter demanded.
"Annie, the new surgeon, was in way over her head. She knew it."
"And that bothers you how?" Potter asked. Hawkeye shrugged. So Potter picked it up again. "It bothers you because there was nothing you could do about it. It bothers you like the first time you were in this OR bothered you. It was the stripping away of innocence and you couldn't do a damn thing."
"Something like that."
"How'd she do?"
"About as well as she could have been expected to do. There were a couple really good moments, but there were some pretty bad ones too." He sighed again, "Too slow, too meticulous, not quite sure where to start, unsure of herself, needs to be more careful: everything that a resident usually is."
"And everything that we've trained ourselves not to be."
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Hawkeye had one more stop to make before he could let himself sink into the welcome oblivion of sleep. The five from the 8043rd were staying in the VIP tent, for lack of a better place to put them. He knew that the four nurses would be on duty, but he guessed that Annie would be in the tent, probably getting ready to sleep if she wasn't sleeping already.
He knocked lightly and when there was no answer, he pushed the door open, intending to check to see if she was sleeping. But there was no one in the tent. And he knew that she wasn't in the mess tent because that's where he ha just come from. He was about to turn and go when a gust of wind blew through the open door and scattered some of the papers that had been sitting atop the nearest bunk.
Not wanting to have them scattered across the camp, he bent to pick them up. He couldn't help but catch sight of his own name as he picked up one. Knowing it was wrong to read someone else's mail, even though he had shamelessly gone through Frank Burns's, he still couldn't stop himself from reading.
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The front is everything that you said it would be, Daddy. It's loud, and dangerous, and next to impossible to survive in. But, like you told me, we have to do it anyway.
The flu makes its rounds here too and I was loaned out to a different unit to help bring them up to operating strength, in both senses of the word. But they seem to regard me just like Colonel Brenner does. I'm more-or- less useless to them because I don't have the experience. And it's true.
The surgeon in charge for the moment here goes by the name of Hawkeye. I could tell right away, even in the dark, that he had a surgeon's hands. It's like how you can tell when someone has the hands of a pianist, just by looking at them. He's the only one left standing now, and he was the most set against me.
It's not my fault that the army assigned me here. I joined up because it was the only way I could afford to pay for the education. Don't feel badly, Daddy, because you tried as hard as you could to raise the money. Who knew back then that this would happen? And even once troops started going over, who would have known that they would send me straight here instead of letting me get experience stateside? Certainly not any of us.
It's later, much later, fifteen and a half hours of surgery later. I don't know how much more good I am to anyone now, but I've got more experience at this than I ever want. They call it meatball surgery for a reason. But I won't explain. It's not something that can be explained or taught. You can't tell someone the damage that flying shrapnel will do to the human body.
Even if I had been experienced when they sent me over here, which would have happened anyway, nothing can prepare you for something like that. I would have been back to square one again, right where I started this morning. But if I would have been experienced, then at least I would have known the way to square two.
The first patient I operated on was gone almost before I started. But I couldn't set him aside and move on to someone else. I finished the surgery and he died not long after. I just couldn't bear to give up on him. He was someone's brother. I couldn't just give up. After that it didn't get easier, but I saw the line of others waiting for their chance on the table and I knew that I had to keep moving. I couldn't spend the time on someone who didn't have a chance. I had to give the time to someone who could get benefit from it.
I don't know what impression I managed to give Hawkeye, but I hope that I at least didn't disappoint. He had such low expectations of me already that if I couldn't at least live up to them, I shouldn't be practicing. I was
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The page ended there. Hawkeye was surprised. He hadn't told her that the patient had died and he knew that Margaret hadn't either. She must have gone to post-OP to check on the patients herself. Much as he wanted to sleep, he needed another talk with Potter. He had really messed this one up.
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"What the hell are you doing back here?" Potter exclaimed, some of the usual crackle coming back into his blue eyes.
"I really messed this one up." He lowered himself back down to the bed. "I went to check on her. She wasn't there but the wind caught the pages of a letter she was writing home. I was picking them up and."
Potter cut him off. "And you read them." Hawkeye nodded.
"She was talking about me. She said that I had such low expectations of her that if she didn't live up to them, she shouldn't be practicing."
"Is it true?"
"Yes. And no. My expectations were too low, but my standards were too high. The first case I set in front of her was a chest case that you or BJ might have had trouble with. She tried, but she knew that he was gone when she started, she just wouldn't give up because I expected her to do it."
"I think that you owe that young lady an apology. First, for the way you treated her. And second, for reading her mail."
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After a couple of hours of sleep, Hawkeye stood outside the door to the VIP tent again. He felt nearly dead on his feet and hoped that he wasn't starting to come down with the flu. But that was only partially a serious consideration. The other part was his reluctance to knock on the door.
But he didn't really have a choice. And as Colonel Potter had so forcefully pointed out, he really did owe her an apology. So he grudgingly lifted his hand to rap lightly on the door.
The door opened quickly and he was greeted by a bleary eyed Annie. She was still in fatigues, but it was obvious that she had been asleep from the pillow lines on the side of her face. "Hawkeye?" she questioned, beckoning him in out of the cold. "What are you doing here?"
"Not too much," he said. "Just checking to see if everything was okay. I was here earlier and missed you."
"I was in post-OP, checking on the patients." She looked more than a little confused as he took a seat on the edge of her unmade bunk. But she closed the door to keep out the cold and took a seat on the bunk opposite him.
"Good, good," he answered, stalling. There was silence after that. He sighed, pushing himself to a standing position. She quickly stood as well, unsure of exactly what he was doing. He waved her back down and she sat as he started to pace.
"I owe you a couple of apologies," he stated after a moment. "My expectations were too low and my standards were too high. And I read your mail."
Her face turned as red as her hair. "I didn't mean to," he continued hastily, "read your mail that is. The wind caught it and I was just picking it back up. I didn't read very much."
"Just enough to know that I hoped I hadn't disappointed?" she asked quietly.
"A little more than that. But not much," he admitted. "But it's true. I was so disgusted with the army for sending you that I didn't stop to consider that you might actually be useful." He winced a little as he realised how that sounded. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that."
"It's fine," she answered. "That's what everyone thinks. That's why Tokyo didn't keep me there. And that's why I got moved along to you guys. No one wanted me until I had experience, and so I couldn't get any."
"You didn't disappoint though. For someone without experience with our variety of surgery, you held up pretty well. Some experienced surgeons have a harder time making the switch."
"I didn't really have much of a choice. It was do or the patient dies."
"You'll make a fine surgeon someday," he said, stepping over to take one of her hands. "You have a surgeon's hands."
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"Colonel Potter," Hawkeye said, taking his feet off the desk, but not standing up from his chair, "good to see you up and about again."
"Good to see you wiping the boot marks off the top of my desk," Potter growled pleasantly.
Hawkeye shrugged and ambled out from behind the desk. "It's all yours, boot marks and all."
"BJ and Charles are back in the Swamp, arguing over who you owe a bottle to. I'd ask, but I have a feeling that I really don't want to know," Potter said, moving to take his familiar seat behind his desk back.
"Radar says that the attack has moved far enough to the east that another MASH unit is getting the casualties. We should be pretty quiet for a couple of days," Hawkeye said. "Nothing like the day before yesterday."
"Hawkeye," Annie called, walking into the office with an arm-full of files. She saw the colonel behind the desk and stopped short.
"You must be Captain O'Keefe," Potter said with a glance over at Hawkeye. "I've heard quite a bit about you."
"Please, colonel," she answered, "call me Annie. I'm not used to being called anything but that yet."
"But I hear that you've acquitted yourself quite nicely as a doctor."
"I'm working at it, sir," she answered. "Someday I hope to be as fine a surgeon as the rest of you."
"You've got a fine start."
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"Hey, Hawk," BJ called, peering up over the top of his copy of Stars and Stripes. "Come here and look at this."
"Can't you see that I'm darning my socks?" he complained. "I'm darning the darns that have already been darned." But he tossed the socks down and came to look in over BJ's shoulder. "What exactly am I looking at?"
"There." BJ jabbed a finger at a small photograph.
Hawkeye looked for a second then reached down to snatch the paper away so that he could have a closer look. The grainy image was of a red-headed surgeon that he had been keeping touch with since her brief stint at the 4077th almost a year ago. "Captain Anne O'Keefe has refined a new kidney repair technique in order to allow combat surgeons to perform it quickly and safely in MASH units," he read aloud, smile growing on his face.
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The wind blowing across the compound pierced through the canvas sides of the tents to reach the occupants inside the temporary shelters that seemed to have become permanent homes. Fires burned in the oil drums that had been set up in sheltered areas of the camp and personnel were huddled around them, white masks pulled up over their noses and mouths.
The address system crackled to life. "Incoming wounded, folks. All fit surgical staff report to the OR." The choppers were already landing on the pad and ambulances could be seen making their slower progress up the road. The staff mobilized, scattering in different directions to carry out their appointed tasks.
Three figures staggered from the Swamp, headed in the general direction of the OR. "Hawk," one asked another, "are we awake yet?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Hunnicutt," the third snapped, running a hand over his thinning hair.
"Well, BJ," Hawkeye retorted quickly, "at least we know that Charles is still feeling well."
"How do you figure that?" BJ responded.
"He's still his usual irritable self."
Charles just rolled his eyes and stalked off toward the OR, muttering to himself something about ignorant simpletons masquerading as competent surgeons. BJ and Hawkeye continued their half-awake stumble toward the OR. "Is this anything like the last flu epidemic, Hawkeye?"
"Even though we're stuck with Chuckles over there, at least we've still got four surgeons on their feet and more than half of our nursing staff. The last time I was on my own." He laughed a little, cracking one eye open completely to look at BJ as he pushed the door open. "Father Mulcahy was operating."
"Well, don't count your chickens before they hatch. I've got a headache the size of Texas."
"Colonel Potter?" BJ asked, stepping over and reaching out a hand for Potter's forehead.
"Just wait a cotton-picking minute," Potter said with less than his usual vigour, sidestepping BJ's hand. "I might be getting sick, but I'm not that sick yet. My temp's only just over a hundred; one of the nurses just took it." He coughed into his hand, then reached up to wipe the sweat off of his face.
"Are you okay, colonel?"
"I won't be able to go a full bout, but I can at least go a few rounds." Potter caught sight of Hawkeye's raised eyebrow and added, "I'll find myself a nice bed as soon as I feel that I need to. The nurses are keeping one open for me."
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It had been three hours of surgery when Potter called shakily, "One of you boys got a free hand?"
"I'm almost finished, colonel," BJ said, handing his scalpel to the nurse. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I think I'm about done for," Potter answered, stepping away from the table. "They just brought him in. I haven't opened yet."
"Margaret, can you close?" She stepped over to take BJ's place at the table, nodding. BJ snapped off his gloves. A nurse stepped wearily over to replace them. "Why don't you set yourself up in the bed next to his?" he told her softly.
She didn't argue and the two made their way out of the operating room. They could hear Potter coughing in the next room. "I've got a bottle of booze on him being next," Hawkeye said, jerking his chin in Charles's direction. Beads of sweat were standing out on his pale forehead and the thinning hair under his cap was probably soaking wet.
"If you would stop your childish ranting and concentrate on your surgery, we could all get out of here that much faster," Charles retorted irritably.
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BJ slumped down against the wall of the change room after the last of the wounded had been closed and carried from the OR. It had been fifteen hours since they had first started and twelve hours since Potter had had to check himself in as a patient. "Am I still standing?" he rasped, closing leaning his head up against the wall and closing his eyes.
"Can you stand and still be horizontal?" Hawkeye asked, sinking down onto the bench beside BJ. He sat for a second and then reached up to tug his surgical cap off his head.
"Are you all decent?" a voice called from the other side of the door.
"It depends what you mean by decent," Hawkeye responded. "I tend to think that I'm pretty damn good, but you've never tested the waters yourself, Margaret."
"We're clothed," Charles called. He was leaning against the wall as though it were the only thing holding him up.
Margaret pushed open the door, stepping inside. "Colonel Potter's temperature has spiked up to one-oh-three. Jacobs, Lawrence, and Culbertson are just about as bad." She looked just as exhausted as the three surgeons.
"Kate Lawrence?" Hawkeye repeated. "She was assisting me take half the metal in Korea out of some kid's gut not even twenty minutes ago."
"She collapsed in the nurses' change room," Margaret said, sinking down beside Hawkeye. "She did the whole stint in the OR with a fever up over a hundred. So did another four of my girls."
"That makes how many now, Margaret?" BJ asked, cracking open an eye to look at her.
"A better question might be how many does that leave us," Charles commented dryly even though he looked like death warmed over.
"We've still got you three surgeons, sixteen nurses, including myself, and assorted other staff with little or no surgical experience." She was interrupted by a stifled cough from BJ. She instantly reached into her pocket for a thermometer.
In one swift motion, she stuck it beneath his tongue and reached up to place her hand on his forehead. "You're burning up, doctor," she exclaimed. BJ tried to mutter a response around the thermometer in his mouth. Margaret cut him off, moving her hand down to his chin to push his mouth closed.
"I believe that's a bottle for me, Pierce," Charles managed. "Twelve-year- old scotch would suffice barring a decent vintage brandy."
"One bottle of two-day-old gin for Charles," Hawkeye retorted, reaching to feel the glands beneath BJ's ears. "And one nice hospital bed for BJ."
"I'm fine, Hawk," he answered weakly as Margaret withdrew her thermometer. "Just let me get a couple of hours of sleep and I'll be even more fine."
She held it out for Hawkeye to see. The two exchanged brief glances over the top of it, and Hawkeye lifted one eyebrow. "A couple of hours sleep for us all then, and we'll see who winds up with the bottle of gin."
"Marines are trying to take Hill 54 again at oh-five-hundred, so you've got five hours at most," Margaret announced, pushing herself up and offering a hand to help pull BJ to his feet.
"And you?"
"There are still enough nurses to run in shifts," she explained as BJ and Charles staggered from the room in the general direction of the Swamp. "I'll get my sleep when my shift is over."
"You might want to catch your sleep now, while you can. You might be manning an operating table in a few hours."
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"A reminder due to the flu epidemic," the PA called, "that masks are to be worn at all times, and kissing is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Choppers are ten minutes out. Anyone still on their feet should report to the OR immediately."
The three surgeons grudgingly sat up in their beds. BJ broke out in a coughing fit that nearly caused him to double over in his bed. In his own bed, Charles groaned, biting back coughs of his own but not willing to submit to them yet. "Are you two okay to operate?"
"As I said, a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch will suffice."
"And I'll take the bottle of two-day-old gin," BJ croaked, his voice nearly gone.
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"Would the two of you just give in and admit that you're sick already?" Hawkeye called over the stifled coughs of his two fellow surgeons.
"Four-oh silk," BJ rasped, his voice dwindled down to a whisper.
"This isn't some sort of perverted contest," Margaret broke in from her position opposite BJ as she handed him the needle. She had stationed herself there because he looked the most like collapsing. Charles didn't look much better and she had stationed her next strongest nurse with him.
"I'm finished here," Charles said, snapping off his bloody gloves and holding his hands out for a fresh pair. The corpsmen stepped in to take the stretcher out of the operating room. But there wasn't another casualty coming in.
"That's the last of this batch, sirs," Radar announced. A round of sighs greeted his announcement. Relieved that they wouldn't have to spend another hour on their feet, bending over the shredded innards of some hapless soldier, they were all looking forward to getting to more intimately know their beds.
"We're finished here too," Margaret announced as BJ pulled off his own gloves. BJ nodded his agreement, looking over at Hawkeye questioningly.
"I'll be done shortly," he responded, answering BJ's unanswered question. "And when I check post-op, you'd both better be checked into matching beds, right beside Colonel Potter."
"It's unfortunate that post-op is out of room then." But Charles's reply was delivered with none of his usual vigour.
"They've moved all of the flu patients into the Officer's Club," Radar supplied. "The epidemic isn't theatre-wide and HQ doesn't want it to spread."
"I cede my bottle to you, Charles," BJ declared hoarsely. "Because that's where I'm heading, if I can make it that far."
"You can deliver my scotch to me in the officer's club, in the bed next to his."
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"You know, Radar," Hawkeye commented from the chair behind Potter's desk, "I never thought that I'd be here again."
"I'll get HQ on the phone," Radar answered, heading through the adjoining door.
"Wake me-"
"I'll wake you when I get them on the line," Radar finished as the door swung closed behind him. Left alone, Hawkeye leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, tucked his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
"Are you awake?"
"Boy, Radar, you sure work fast," Hawkeye mumbled. "And you must be getting sick, you're starting to sound like Margaret."
"That had better have been a joke," Margaret answered, no traces of humour in her voice.
Hawkeye grudgingly opened his eyes and took his feet off the desk. "What can I do you for?"
"Honestly, can't you be serious for just one minute?" She dropped herself into the chair in front of the desk. "Don't answer that," she said, cutting off his reply. "With Colonel Potter out, I'm next in rank to take command," she declared.
"Why don't we just do what we did last time," Hawkeye suggested, leaning back to close his eyes again. "I'll take care of the surgical stuff; you take care of the rest."
"And of course I wouldn't presume to tell you anything about surgery," Margaret continued, almost as though Hawkeye had never interrupted. "But I would like to take control over the administration aspects of the camp."
"I don't know, Margaret," Hawkeye answered, opening one eye to look at her. "I think that you should do surgery and I'll sit here and stare at the paperwork until it finishes itself." She stared at him. "That one was a joke."
"HQ is waiting, Hawkeye," Radar said, poking his head through the door.
Hawkeye grabbed the phone. "Go ahead, Radar!"
And with a series of clicks and a burst of static, the phone at Hawkeye's ear came to life. "This is Captain Pierce with the 4077th MASH. We're hit pretty bad here with a flu epidemic."
Margaret reached across the desk to grab a piece of paper and a pen from the top of Potter's desk, scribbling a note as Hawkeye listened to the response from whoever was on the other end of the line. She thrust it in his face as he said, "I understand that everyone in the area is being hit to some degree, but we're a hospital unit that's operating with only one operator!"
He read the note as the person answered. "And we're down to barely enough nurses to staff a normal operating room, never mind one that's missing three doctors."
There was another pause while the person on the other end of the line imparted some news. From Hawkeye's reaction, it was obvious that the news wasn't good. "You mean to tell me that there's going to be a assault tomorrow morning and we're the nearest hospital unit," he burst out. "And you want us doing that with only one surgeon and a dozen nurses when we're over our normal capacity already?"
"Are they crazy?" Margaret hissed. Hawkeye waved her off, murmuring assent to something.
"If that's the best that you can do," he said, barely holding back outrage. There was a brief pause and he all but slammed the phone back down into its holder.
"What did they say?" Margaret asked, finding herself not wanting to know the rest. It obviously hadn't soothed Hawkeye's temper.
"The 8043rd is far enough to the rear that they're haven't gotten any casualties from the front in three weeks and they're not expected to get more any time soon. They're sending us anyone they can spare."
"That sounds encouraging," she started hopefully.
"Five girls, tops," he stated. "They haven't had anyone in three weeks and they're not in the area to get any more. And the most they can spare is five nurses!"
"When are they supposed to get here?"
"Who? The wounded or the nurses?" He sighed and rested his head on his hands. "One will be late tonight and the other will be early tomorrow. Hopefully the early one will be the nurses late tonight. Is there anyone special that I need to see before I examine the inside of my eyelids?"
"What are you going to do about tomorrow?"
"Same thing we did last time. What other choice do we have? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my tent while you administrate to your heart's content."
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Hawkeye's snores were the only thing breaking the silence around the Swamp when the jeep pulled into the compound. Radar dashed from his cot in the office, pulling his glasses on and still clutching his teddy bear to rap on the door to the Swamp. Hawkeye gave a stunted snore and growled, "This had better be an emergency or I'll make you one."
"Hawkeye, the nurses are here from the 8043rd," Radar announced. "I'm going to wake Major Houlihan."
"Go and get Margaret," Hawkeye said, stepping into his boots and pulling his shirt on over his shoulders. He rubbed his eyes a few times and staggered off into the courtyard.
The jeep was just disgorging its occupants into the darkened courtyard as Hawkeye called, "Welcome to the 4077th, such as it is."
"Are you the acting CO?" one of the girls asked.
"Depends whether you want surgery or administration. I'm Hawkeye Pierce, chief surgeon."
"Major Houlihan," Margaret announced, saluting the new arrivals. They saluted back surprisingly smartly considering the time of night and the fact that they hadn't likely had much sleep. "We're expecting casualties in a few hours and some of our nurses have been on duty for twelve hours. You'll spell them off for a few hours and I'll arrange bunks for you."
"Of course, you may not get to the bunks for a while, but they'll be arranged for you," Hawkeye quipped. "Do you come with names?"
"Lieutenant Claire Watson," led a tall blonde.
"Lieutenant Sharon Nelson," offered a buxom brunette.
"Captain Anne O'Keefe." That one was the petite redhead.
"Lieutenant Marie Worrell," greeted a slender girl with black curls.
"Lieutenant Katherine Anderson," finished the last blonde, this one short.
"A captain among the lieutenants," Hawkeye commented offhandedly, running a hand over his mussed hair in an attempt to flatten it.
"If you five will follow me, we have the flu patients set up in the Officer's Club and the casualties are in post-op. O'Keefe and Worrell, you'll be in the Officer's Club. The other three will be in post-op," Margaret ordered. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you the way. Radar will take care of your bags." And without waiting for the five to get their feet firmly beneath them, she was already starting off in the direction of post-op.
"Excuse me, major."
"What is it, captain?" she questioned sharply.
"I don't know how much they told you about us," she started hesitantly, "but we're not all nurses."
"What do you mean you're not all nurses?" Margaret snapped. "Why on earth would they send us someone who's not a nurse? What good could they possibly be to us?"
"Don't worry so much, Margaret," Hawkeye tried to soothe her. "We had Father Mulcahy operating before with Radar assisting. Any extra hands are more than welcome."
"It's not as bad as you think," one of the other girls broke in.
"I don't know how it could get any worse. I don't know what they told you about us, but he's the only surgeon we've still got standing. And we're down to twelve nurses. That's hardly enough to staff us when we've got a full contingent of doctors." Margaret paused for a second, then continued. "Now if you would kindly explain why it's not so bad as I think."
"Well, the captain's a surgeon."
"I didn't know that there were any female surgeons this side of Tokyo," Hawkeye said, eyes roving over her. "Why don't you take the nurses, Margaret?" She nodded, starting off toward post-op again.
"I just got in, sir," she explained.
"In from where? And it's Hawkeye."
"Yes, sir, I mean, Hawkeye. I just got in from the States, John Hopkins."
"As in the medical school?" he asked, eyebrows rising halfway up his forehead. She nodded.
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Hawkeye knocked quietly on the door to Margaret's tent, knowing full well that she had just returned from the Officer's Club. "Margaret," he called quietly, "let me in."
"What do you want?" she asked, clutching her robe around her as she let him in. In the short time she had been back in her tent, she had already shed her clothes.
"How do you find the nurses?"
"This is hardly the time for that," she retorted.
"That surgeon they sent us is so green she may as well be a leprechaun. She's so wet behind the ears that she should be standing in a swimming pool. She's-"
"I think I get the point," Margaret said, cutting him off before he could think of anything else. "She's young and inexperienced. But she's still a surgeon."
"I don't think you understand just how green she is. You know where she was two months ago?" Margaret shook her head no. "Graduating from medical school! Two months ago she was still a medical student, Margaret."
"You mean." Margaret let her voice trail off as she stared at Hawkeye, unwilling to believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.
"I mean that she's starting her residency with meatball surgery and they sent her to us."
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"What the hell are you doing here?" Potter croaked, struggling to sit up in his bed. After a moment, he gave up and lay back against the pillows. "Forgive me for not getting up."
"I thought that I'd come around and make sure that you three weren't giving the nurses too much trouble," Hawkeye said, perching himself on the edge of Potter's bed. He would have pulled up a chair, but the cots were so close together that there wasn't room.
"Considering almost all of them are on the other side of the curtain," Potter retorted, his wit still sharp, "that would be difficult, even if some of the younger fellows felt up to it." He stopped to cough into his hand, turning his head away from Hawkeye. "That's not the reason that you're here. So out with it so that I can get back to sleep, even if you're not going to."
Hawkeye sighed and watched one of the loaned nurses move on the other side of the room. "I guess you know that the 8043rd loaned us some of their nurses," he started, not quite sure what he was here to ask Potter in the first place. The colonel didn't help matters at all, simply staring up at him and waiting. "They sent us a surgeon too. Well, sort of."
"You mean they actually sent us a sort-of surgeon or they sort-of sent us an actual surgeon?"
"They actually sent us a sort-of surgeon." Potter's eyes went round as he tried to figure out exactly what Hawkeye meant by that. Hawkeye sighed. "Two months ago she was sitting still in med school back stateside. This is her first residency rotation and it just happens to be meatball surgery."
"Look, Pierce, everyone had to start somewhere. We were all fresh out of med school at one point in time. We all had our baptism by blood into meatball surgery."
"But we didn't get them both at the same time in the middle of a flu epidemic that has three-quarters of the surgical staff out of action. Father Mulcahy has almost as much solo surgical experience as she does. And I'm pretty sure that Margaret has more."
"What exactly is it that you would like me to do from flat on my back?" Potter coughed again, waking BJ beside him. BJ instantly went into a coughing fit of his own. "We'd be on our feet in a second if we were able, and you know that just as well as we do."
"I know, colonel."
"Then go and get some sleep. I overheard Margaret say that there's going to be an attack in the morning, which I guess is coming up pretty fast. And at least she's a trained pair of hands."
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"Scrub up, Father."
"Now, Hawkeye, are you really sure that this is the best course of action," Father Mulcahy protested as he stepped over to the sink. "I heard that you got another surgeon from another unit. Do you really need me?"
"I'm sure," Hawkeye answered firmly as he pulled a surgical cap on over his dark hair. "We're going to need your hands just as much as we're going to need your prayers today."
"Of course, Hawkeye. Is there something bothering you?"
"You mean something other than the fact that half of the camp is flat on their backs and we're the closest hospital to a major assault?" Hawkeye questioned flippantly.
"Well, I suppose you have a point there. But what about that new surgeon?"
"New surgeon is right," he scoffed. Then abruptly, Hawkeye said, "I hope that Radar can manage to collect enough blood from the able personnel. I asked him to get at least twenty-five units."
Father Mulcahy looked momentarily confused at the sudden turn the conversation had taken. Then he realised that Margaret and the new surgeon had entered. "I have faith in Radar, Hawkeye. If there is any way to get it, he will," the priest continued gamely, trying to make up for the pause.
The two women wordlessly started to prepare themselves. Already dressed in their white scrubs, they pulled surgical caps on, tucking all of their hair up and under the fabric. An uncomfortable silence settled into the room. "Have you been with the 8043rd long, um, captain?" Father Mulcahy finally broke in, trying to lighten the heavy mood a little. His voice faltered a little when Margaret's face caught his eye.
"Please, call me Annie. I'm." She was going to say that she wasn't used to being called captain, but she saw the look on Hawkeye's face as he met Margaret's grimace. "I've only been with them for a week or so. Before that five weeks of basic training. And, as the others could tell you, I went into that fresh from medical school."
At least Hawkeye had the grace to look ashamed. "It's not that we don't appreciate you're coming to help," he started awkwardly.
"It's just that you don't think I'll be much help?" she provided, moving over to start scrubbing her hands. "Don't think that I don't know. It's the same thing that the other surgeons at the 8043rd thought. And it was the same reason that I was sent here. The CO told me in no uncertain terms that I'd 'better damn well come back with some experience' because I'm useless until I get some blood on my hands."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" Father Mulcahy asked gently.
"It's as close to a direct quote as I can remember," she said. "But it's completely true. If I had had the choice, I'd be back in a nice hospital in the States, doing what all the others in my class are doing, learning to practice medicine, not being thrust into it."
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"Metz scissors."
"Suction. Right there, I can't see what I'm doing."
The OR had rapidly developed into its usual chaotic rhythm. Hawkeye moved between the tables, trying to operate on as many patients simultaneously as was possible and still keep an eye on Annie. But every time he checked with her, he cringed inwardly. Who in their right mind sent a kid named Annie into a war zone without, as she had put it, 'blood on her hands'?
He thought back to when they had first entered the OR. The patients were waiting for them, already prepped and on the tables. As always, the most serious came first. The closest patient was a boy with his legs blown off and his internal organs riddled with shrapnel. Her face had gone pale, her shoulders had heaved almost like she was going to throw up, and she had stepped up to the table with the question, "Where do I start?"
It would have been great to say that the operation had been a complete success. But the boy had already crashed once in pre-OP and he did it twice more while she was sewing up his liver. They had managed to bring him back, but he crashed again almost as soon as he had been settled into a post-OP bed. That time the nurses couldn't revive him.
One of the nurses had told Margaret. And she had told Hawkeye, but they hadn't told Annie. She was doing her best to keep up. He'd tell her later, when it didn't matter so much that all hands were working to their full ability.
"Hawkeye." Father Mulcahy's voice brought him back to the present, and the coil of small intestine he had left draped over the priest's hand.
"What is it Father?" he asked from the next table over, trying to reattach two ends of a blood vessel.
"There's quite a bit of blood pooling here."
"I'll be over as soon as I can."
"Hawkeye," the nurse with Father Mulcahy repeated, "I really think that you should come take a look at this."
"Blood pressure is falling," the anaesthetist warned.
Hawkeye looked down at his own field. There was no way that he could step away at that point without someone to take over. Margaret was in her own case up to her elbows. None of the other nurses had experience with this sort of thing. That left only Annie. He looked up at her.
She was already watching him, waiting to see what he would tell her to do, if anything. "Can you?" he asked. There really was no other choice.
"Keep it irrigated," she told her nurse, exchanging her soiled gloves for fresh ones and stepping over to stand beside Father Mulcahy.
"Pressure's still falling."
"Give him another unit of blood," was her first direction. "Suction, please. I need to be able to see what I'm doing."
There was a pause from the table, short in the greater scheme of things, but an eternity in the hectic pace of the OR. "Annie?" Hawkeye asked, lifting his eyes from his own patient again.
"Is there an x-ray for this patient?" came her only response. Klinger hurried up with the film, angling it so that the light would shine through. Another pause. Then, finally, came some sort of an explanation. "There's shrapnel in his right kidney. It must have shifted enough that it cut more blood vessels."
"Are you going to repair or remove?" Hawkeye asked. He was grateful for the extra hands, but he didn't want to have to guide her through the operation, especially at a time like this when he couldn't exactly watch over her shoulder as she went.
"Remove," she answered grimly, looking up to meet his gaze. "The other one is fine. And," she added, meeting his gaze, "it's faster."
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Perched once again on the edge of Colonel Potter's bed, Hawkeye yawned, hardly able to stay awake. They had been in surgery for nearly fifteen hours. They had missed the slop that passed for breakfast, lunch, and supper in the mess tent. And Hawkeye would gladly have missed the next breakfast in favour of uninterrupted sleep.
"I'm glad to hear that my patients are well on their way to Seoul, but what about that is so important that you would forgo sleep to tell me?" Potter's temperature had started coming down and he was able to pull himself into a sitting position.
Hawkeye sighed. "Absolutely nothing."
"And so you're not sleeping for what reason?"
Hawkeye shook his head, looking away from Potter, down to the other end of the Officer's Club. One of the blonde nurses from the 8043rd was on duty. "She was in way over her head, and she knew it."
"Kindly explain exactly what you're talking about," Potter demanded.
"Annie, the new surgeon, was in way over her head. She knew it."
"And that bothers you how?" Potter asked. Hawkeye shrugged. So Potter picked it up again. "It bothers you because there was nothing you could do about it. It bothers you like the first time you were in this OR bothered you. It was the stripping away of innocence and you couldn't do a damn thing."
"Something like that."
"How'd she do?"
"About as well as she could have been expected to do. There were a couple really good moments, but there were some pretty bad ones too." He sighed again, "Too slow, too meticulous, not quite sure where to start, unsure of herself, needs to be more careful: everything that a resident usually is."
"And everything that we've trained ourselves not to be."
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Hawkeye had one more stop to make before he could let himself sink into the welcome oblivion of sleep. The five from the 8043rd were staying in the VIP tent, for lack of a better place to put them. He knew that the four nurses would be on duty, but he guessed that Annie would be in the tent, probably getting ready to sleep if she wasn't sleeping already.
He knocked lightly and when there was no answer, he pushed the door open, intending to check to see if she was sleeping. But there was no one in the tent. And he knew that she wasn't in the mess tent because that's where he ha just come from. He was about to turn and go when a gust of wind blew through the open door and scattered some of the papers that had been sitting atop the nearest bunk.
Not wanting to have them scattered across the camp, he bent to pick them up. He couldn't help but catch sight of his own name as he picked up one. Knowing it was wrong to read someone else's mail, even though he had shamelessly gone through Frank Burns's, he still couldn't stop himself from reading.
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The front is everything that you said it would be, Daddy. It's loud, and dangerous, and next to impossible to survive in. But, like you told me, we have to do it anyway.
The flu makes its rounds here too and I was loaned out to a different unit to help bring them up to operating strength, in both senses of the word. But they seem to regard me just like Colonel Brenner does. I'm more-or- less useless to them because I don't have the experience. And it's true.
The surgeon in charge for the moment here goes by the name of Hawkeye. I could tell right away, even in the dark, that he had a surgeon's hands. It's like how you can tell when someone has the hands of a pianist, just by looking at them. He's the only one left standing now, and he was the most set against me.
It's not my fault that the army assigned me here. I joined up because it was the only way I could afford to pay for the education. Don't feel badly, Daddy, because you tried as hard as you could to raise the money. Who knew back then that this would happen? And even once troops started going over, who would have known that they would send me straight here instead of letting me get experience stateside? Certainly not any of us.
It's later, much later, fifteen and a half hours of surgery later. I don't know how much more good I am to anyone now, but I've got more experience at this than I ever want. They call it meatball surgery for a reason. But I won't explain. It's not something that can be explained or taught. You can't tell someone the damage that flying shrapnel will do to the human body.
Even if I had been experienced when they sent me over here, which would have happened anyway, nothing can prepare you for something like that. I would have been back to square one again, right where I started this morning. But if I would have been experienced, then at least I would have known the way to square two.
The first patient I operated on was gone almost before I started. But I couldn't set him aside and move on to someone else. I finished the surgery and he died not long after. I just couldn't bear to give up on him. He was someone's brother. I couldn't just give up. After that it didn't get easier, but I saw the line of others waiting for their chance on the table and I knew that I had to keep moving. I couldn't spend the time on someone who didn't have a chance. I had to give the time to someone who could get benefit from it.
I don't know what impression I managed to give Hawkeye, but I hope that I at least didn't disappoint. He had such low expectations of me already that if I couldn't at least live up to them, I shouldn't be practicing. I was
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The page ended there. Hawkeye was surprised. He hadn't told her that the patient had died and he knew that Margaret hadn't either. She must have gone to post-OP to check on the patients herself. Much as he wanted to sleep, he needed another talk with Potter. He had really messed this one up.
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"What the hell are you doing back here?" Potter exclaimed, some of the usual crackle coming back into his blue eyes.
"I really messed this one up." He lowered himself back down to the bed. "I went to check on her. She wasn't there but the wind caught the pages of a letter she was writing home. I was picking them up and."
Potter cut him off. "And you read them." Hawkeye nodded.
"She was talking about me. She said that I had such low expectations of her that if she didn't live up to them, she shouldn't be practicing."
"Is it true?"
"Yes. And no. My expectations were too low, but my standards were too high. The first case I set in front of her was a chest case that you or BJ might have had trouble with. She tried, but she knew that he was gone when she started, she just wouldn't give up because I expected her to do it."
"I think that you owe that young lady an apology. First, for the way you treated her. And second, for reading her mail."
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After a couple of hours of sleep, Hawkeye stood outside the door to the VIP tent again. He felt nearly dead on his feet and hoped that he wasn't starting to come down with the flu. But that was only partially a serious consideration. The other part was his reluctance to knock on the door.
But he didn't really have a choice. And as Colonel Potter had so forcefully pointed out, he really did owe her an apology. So he grudgingly lifted his hand to rap lightly on the door.
The door opened quickly and he was greeted by a bleary eyed Annie. She was still in fatigues, but it was obvious that she had been asleep from the pillow lines on the side of her face. "Hawkeye?" she questioned, beckoning him in out of the cold. "What are you doing here?"
"Not too much," he said. "Just checking to see if everything was okay. I was here earlier and missed you."
"I was in post-OP, checking on the patients." She looked more than a little confused as he took a seat on the edge of her unmade bunk. But she closed the door to keep out the cold and took a seat on the bunk opposite him.
"Good, good," he answered, stalling. There was silence after that. He sighed, pushing himself to a standing position. She quickly stood as well, unsure of exactly what he was doing. He waved her back down and she sat as he started to pace.
"I owe you a couple of apologies," he stated after a moment. "My expectations were too low and my standards were too high. And I read your mail."
Her face turned as red as her hair. "I didn't mean to," he continued hastily, "read your mail that is. The wind caught it and I was just picking it back up. I didn't read very much."
"Just enough to know that I hoped I hadn't disappointed?" she asked quietly.
"A little more than that. But not much," he admitted. "But it's true. I was so disgusted with the army for sending you that I didn't stop to consider that you might actually be useful." He winced a little as he realised how that sounded. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that."
"It's fine," she answered. "That's what everyone thinks. That's why Tokyo didn't keep me there. And that's why I got moved along to you guys. No one wanted me until I had experience, and so I couldn't get any."
"You didn't disappoint though. For someone without experience with our variety of surgery, you held up pretty well. Some experienced surgeons have a harder time making the switch."
"I didn't really have much of a choice. It was do or the patient dies."
"You'll make a fine surgeon someday," he said, stepping over to take one of her hands. "You have a surgeon's hands."
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"Colonel Potter," Hawkeye said, taking his feet off the desk, but not standing up from his chair, "good to see you up and about again."
"Good to see you wiping the boot marks off the top of my desk," Potter growled pleasantly.
Hawkeye shrugged and ambled out from behind the desk. "It's all yours, boot marks and all."
"BJ and Charles are back in the Swamp, arguing over who you owe a bottle to. I'd ask, but I have a feeling that I really don't want to know," Potter said, moving to take his familiar seat behind his desk back.
"Radar says that the attack has moved far enough to the east that another MASH unit is getting the casualties. We should be pretty quiet for a couple of days," Hawkeye said. "Nothing like the day before yesterday."
"Hawkeye," Annie called, walking into the office with an arm-full of files. She saw the colonel behind the desk and stopped short.
"You must be Captain O'Keefe," Potter said with a glance over at Hawkeye. "I've heard quite a bit about you."
"Please, colonel," she answered, "call me Annie. I'm not used to being called anything but that yet."
"But I hear that you've acquitted yourself quite nicely as a doctor."
"I'm working at it, sir," she answered. "Someday I hope to be as fine a surgeon as the rest of you."
"You've got a fine start."
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"Hey, Hawk," BJ called, peering up over the top of his copy of Stars and Stripes. "Come here and look at this."
"Can't you see that I'm darning my socks?" he complained. "I'm darning the darns that have already been darned." But he tossed the socks down and came to look in over BJ's shoulder. "What exactly am I looking at?"
"There." BJ jabbed a finger at a small photograph.
Hawkeye looked for a second then reached down to snatch the paper away so that he could have a closer look. The grainy image was of a red-headed surgeon that he had been keeping touch with since her brief stint at the 4077th almost a year ago. "Captain Anne O'Keefe has refined a new kidney repair technique in order to allow combat surgeons to perform it quickly and safely in MASH units," he read aloud, smile growing on his face.