Please don't tell Mother or Daddy. Mother would be disappointed and Daddy would be furious. I am embarrassed that I could have behaved that way, but things are different here. I am different here.

I know that I promised to write you every week and I am sorry that I haven't. I just don't know what to tell you about. Do you really want to hear about how I had to put my finger inside a bullet hole so that our patient wouldn't bleed to death? Or about how everything here is grey or brown or khaki, except the blood? Sometimes it is just easier to make everything hazy so that the colour, and the days, blend together and I can forget the parts that are just too hard to remember.

Thank you for your letters. You write me faithfully every week, and it is always a joy to receive news from home. It is the one thing I look forward to every week. Please give Mother, Daddy and Carol Ann and Edward my love. I miss you all terribly (yes, even Edward).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jo carried the envelope with her. It was a thick envelope that had been carefully addressed to Victoria Avery. She was intending to post it that afternoon before heading into the mess tent. Before she could make her way across the compound, the P.A. blared from a nearby pole. "All personnel. Incoming wounded."

Jo tucked the letter into her back pocket, as she heard the choppers descending on their camp. Now familiar with the procedure, Jo sprinted toward the pre-op tent, where she would begin by preparing the soldiers in worst shape for procedures that would either save them or kill them.

Carefully, Jo drew blood from a young soldier with a belly wound. He was nearly unconscious when he had been brought in to her. He began to whimper. Jo could see a tear slowly make its way down his cheek.

"Hey," she said softly, leaning close to his ear. "Can you hear me?"

"Am I going to die?" he sobbed.

"Take it easy," Jo said, "we're going to take care of you."

Two corpsmen grabbed hold of his stretcher and began to move him into the O.R.

The boy reached out and grabbed her arm so tightly Jo had to stifle a cry. "Don't leave me. Please don't leave me!" he cried. The corpsmen tried to move the stretcher, but stopped when it became apparent that Jo was going to have to move with them.

"What is going on here?" a doctor shouted at Jo. "That man should be in the O.R. Why are you holding him up?"

Jo tried to pull away, as the doctor with no lips sneered at hear. The boy who had attached himself to her arm only tightened his grip.

"Please," he whispered, his voice pleading and soft. Jo wondered how he could muster the strength to hang on to her so forcefully.

Jo tried to pull away again, but she wasn't able to. "I'm, I'm sorry, Major," she stammered. "He won't let go."

"Let me see that," he grumbled, and moved in beside Jo. He grabbed the soldier's wrist, and Jo's arm and tried to force them apart. Jo yelped in pain and the soldier moaned and the doctor's hands tightened their grip.

Another doctor pushed his way in behind the Major. "Frank, what are you doing?"

"Me?" he retorted. "It's this nurse you should be talking to. She won't let this soldier go into the O.R."

"He won't let go. He asked me to stay with him," Jo explained. The soldier was still moaning, and Jo's arm was aching from the hand still firmly wrapped around it. "Let go, you're hurting him."

"I am your superior officer, and you will address me as 'sir'," he snapped.

"Yes, sir. Please let go, sir, you're hurting him." Jo's voice was cool, somewhere between pleading and sarcastic.

"Frank, do what she says. We need to get this kid into O.R." came the calm voice, filled with authority not bestowed by rank.

"But he won't let go," the first doctor whined.

"I don't see why we can't bring her along for the ride." Frank let go of Jo's arm and the soldier's wrist. "After you Lieutenant."

The lights in the O.R. were harsh, and Jo had to squint until her eyes adjusted to the glare from the lamps above stainless steel tables.

"It's okay, kid," the doctor said to the boy now lying on the table, "she's not going to leave you." When the boy didn't let go, he motioned to the anaesthetist. "Let's put him under."

As the anaesthetist held the mask over the boy's face, Jo spoke softly to him. "Just take deep breaths, I won't leave."

After a few breaths, Jo's arm was free. She rubbed it gently with her other hand, already seeing bruises from his fingers.

"Margaret? Let's get this nurse scrubbed up and ready for surgery."

"Yes Captain," the head nurse replied and led Jo off to get ready to assist in the operation.

Jo had spent hours on her feet in the O.R. They ached, and so did her back. The bruises on her arm had been throbbing for over an hour, but she tried to ignore the pain so that she could concentrate on the patient on the table in front of her.

As she stepped outside, the fresh air hit her. It was still hot out, but the air was not stale, as it had been in the O.R., and it didn't have the metallic smell of blood.

"Buy you a cup of coffee?" came a voice from behind her.

Jo flinched. "Captain Hunnicut," she stuttered, "I, I didn't realize that you were behind me."

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I didn't mean to startle you. Please, call me B.J."

"It's alright, Capt - I mean, B.J. I guess I'm just tired."

"You did some nice work in here, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, sir. Please call me Jo."

"Certainly, Jo. Now, how's about that cup of coffee? I know a place near-by, and if you don't swallow anything, chances are good it won't kill you."

"Thank you, B.J., but I'll have to pass. I just wanted some fresh air before going back in to sit with that soldier you worked on. I did promise that I wouldn't leave him."

Jo woke up because her back was so sore. She was slumped in a chair. It took her a moment to realize that she was in post-op, and another moment to remember why she was waiting there.

The soldier lying in the cot was sleeping. His stomach was bandaged carefully. Jo stood up and stretched. She picked up the chart at the end of the bed. She had spent the night at the side of his bed and she didn't even know his name. She picked up the chart, hanging at the end of the bed. Archibald, Robert, Pte., it read. She looked at the sleeping boy. He couldn't have been much more than eighteen, only three years younger than Jo, but he seemed so young, so innocent. She imagined his mother called him Rob, maybe even Robby.

B.J. was coming around the beds, checking on the patients. As he approached, he reached out for the chart. Jo passed it over to him.

"How is he?" she asked.

"It's still touch and go. He was pretty badly wounded, lost a lot of blood. But he's a fighter." He gestured to the bruises on Jo's arm. "I guess you know that already."

Jo looked down at her arm. "It looks worse than it feels. Really."

"Look," B.J. told her, "you've still got a couple of hours to grab a shower, some sleep or something to eat. Why don't you take a break? I promise to keep an eye on him."

Jo was about to decline the offer when her stomach grumbled. It wasn't often that she wanted to eat here. In the month and a half that she had been living here in Korea she had lost nearly ten pounds. "Thank you," she said. She looked down at the soldier. "I'll be back. I promise," she told him before she left the tent.

Her stomach full, Jo lay down on her cot. The air was still hot, and the cot offered little in the way of comfort, but Jo fell asleep quickly. When she woke someone was shaking her shoulder gently.

"Jo, you'd better get up. Your shift started ten minutes ago," the pretty young nurse said.

Jo moaned and slid out of bed. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep. "Thank you, Bonnie."

Jo made her way through the post-op ward. She was about to check in with the nurse whose shift was finishing when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

When she turned around, she saw the sad face of the doctor she had worked with the night before. "No," she whispered, looking toward the bed that Robert Archibald had occupied only hours earlier. It was empty. Jo's eyes welled with tears and she turned to leave the ward. B.J. caught her arm and she cried out in pain. He let go of her immediately, and she ran from the room, his apology echoing behind her.

Behind the tent, Jo reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, but instead found the letter for Victoria. The envelope was rounded from having been in her pocket for so long, and one corner had some blood on it. She took the envelope in both hands and tore it into tiny pieces.