Dear Victoria,

There is so much here that has changed since I last wrote you. I know that I already wrote you that my friend Bonnie died, but I didn't tell you the whole story.

We were overwhelmed with wounded. I must have worked all night and well into the day, or maybe all day and well into the night. It seems so strange to me that I can't remember when I returned to my tent. I thought that the details were etched into my memory, but now that I am writing them down, I realize that they aren't.

I started falling asleep on my feet in surgery. I always thought that was a funny expression. Who could fall asleep on their feet? The doctors and head nurse sent me off to get some sleep, but it was hard because our camp was being shelled. Every time I would drift into sleep another shell would go off and I would wake up.

I was lying in my cot, with the covers pulled up over my head. Do you remember when Mother taught us the Lord's Prayer? She had us kneel beside our beds and fold our hands together. She would say a line and we would repeat it. Every night she would come to our room and pray with us. She only stopped when I moved into my own room. I kept praying every night, even when she didn't come to check on me. I stopped when I came to this place though. It didn't make sense to pray to a god who could let this happen. I am not sure which is better; that there is no God, or that God would let this happen.

I prayed that night, though, lying under my thin blankets, trembling. I said the Lord's Prayer just like I did as a child. I felt like a little girl with monsters under her bed. As long as I stayed very, very still, nothing could hurt me.

So when Radar came to tell me that they needed me, I stayed still and hoped that he might just go away. Instead Bonnie volunteered to go. She never made it to post op. A shell went off on her way there and she was wounded. She was taken to the operating room, but there was nothing we could do. She was too badly hurt, and there were others who could be saved.

******************************************************************

"You're not going to start ignoring me again, are you?" Hawkeye asked, as he came up behind Jo.

Jo quickened her pace, but Hawkeye matched it. She stopped in her tracks and he nearly walked right into her. "I don't suppose I have a choice," she said. "I don't have a bodyguard anymore, remember?" Jo smiled a sad smile and tilted her head to one side. Hawkeye didn't reply. She must have caught him off guard; it was rare for the doctor to be at a loss for words.

"Look," he said finally, "about the other night..."

"Oh, God, Hawkeye..."

"I just wanted to make sure you knew that nothing happened."

"Hawkeye, I would rather just forget the whole thing ever happened."

"I thought you had." Jo's face burned red with embarrassment. "Okay, okay," Hawkeye said, seeing her reaction. "Consider it forgotten."

******************************************************************

It's strange Victoria, I spent so much time with Bonnie that I never took the time to get to know anyone else here. Now I am left living in a tent with strangers. They are all very nice, mind you, and they've been really terrific to me, but it's not the same.

I spend all of my time working and trying to sleep. I only get about half an hour in before I wake up sweaty and shivering. What if? I keep asking myself. What if I had not been so afraid? What if I had gone to post op when I was supposed to? I thought that I was close to Death here, because I see it every day, but this is the closest I've ever been. Death was supposed to come for me, Victoria, and instead he took my best friend. I am not quite sure how I am supposed to live with that. My mind starts running at a breakneck speed and I can't seem to get it to turn off. Sometimes I will even go see what I can do in post op, just to be doing something. The worst is when I am left alone with my thoughts.

******************************************************************

The compound was dark as Jo walked around, her housecoat wrapped tightly around her. Post op was virtually deserted. There hadn't been wounded in days. The first few nights the officer's club had been noisy and full with people anxious to take advantage of this opportunity and let their hair down, but now most people had returned to their regular routines, albeit at a more leisurely pace.

Jo had hoped that she might enjoy the night and get some good sleep, but her body would not stop shaking. The only way to control the shaking was to keep moving.

Jo found herself walking around the compound in the middle of the night, trying to exert control over her own muscles. She had been walking long enough that Klinger simply nodded her way when they passed each other rather that stopping her with his cry of "Halt, who goes there?" Her feet were beginning to shuffle along the ground. Her body was exhausted, but her mind wouldn't stop. Questions rolled around in her mind as her stomach muscles tightened and relaxed in spasms.

Passing by the Swamp, she heard the laughter coming from inside. With each lap of the camp, she wished that she was inside. At least with other people she would have an excuse to ignore her own thoughts. She paused outside the door, listening to the jokes being tossed back and forth and watching the shadows through the screen walls.

Suddenly every thing inside came to a stand still. The jokes stopped and the shadows stilled.

"Who do you suppose it is?" Jo heard Radar hiss under his breath.

"Halt, who goes there?" called Hawkeye, though he sounded startlingly like Klinger.

"It's Jo, Hawkeye."

"Well, don't just stand out there lurking."

Jo stepped inside the tent. There was a small group sitting around a table.

"I'm sorry," Jo said, "I'm interrupting."

"Only a poker game," said B.J.. "Pull up a cot and join in."

Jo sat on the edge of the cot, just outside of the circle. "I don't know how to play," she admitted.

"Radar, move over," Hawkeye instructed, patting the empty space Radar left. "Have a seat here. You can play with me until you get the hang of it."

Jo sat in the warm seat. She was still shaking a bit. She hadn't noticed the shaking while she was walking, maybe because the steady rhythm of her steps masked the unconscious shivering.

"You're cold," Hawkeye remarked. "Bartender, get the lady a drink," he announced. Jo didn't argue. She wasn't cold, but perhaps the drink would help to relax her. Someone handed her a glass, and she began to drink as Hawkeye continued. "Dealer's choice. Let's start with something easy for Jo's sake. How about kings and little ones." Turning to Jo, he explained, "That means kings and your lowest card are wild."

"I see," said Jo, though she didn't have the faintest idea what Hawkeye was talking about.

"No you don't," Hawkeye shot back. "The first thing you need to work on is your bluffing."

The game went on well into the night, and by the wee hours of the morning Jo was playing her own hand. She had won nothing, but she had also learned quickly when to fold, so she hadn't lost much more than two dollars.

She emerged from the Swamp bleary eyed and fell into her own cot just before sunrise. She was just beginning to slip back into sleep when she felt a gentle nudge.

"You have just enough time to grab something to eat," the voice next to her bed was saying. "You're on duty in half an hour."

Jo swung her legs over so that she was sitting up on the edge of her cot. "Thanks," she muttered absentmindedly to the other nurse.

After the other woman had left the tent, Jo reached under her pillow and pulled out the paper and pen she had placed there the night before. Instead of going to the mess tent, Jo finished the letter.

******************************************************************

I haven't told you about the other changes here. One of our surgeons has been sent home. I'm sure that I wrote you about Major Burns before. He was quite unbearable and not a terribly good surgeon. I think that some of the more experienced nurses are probably better surgeons. He was always a bit crazy, but he went off the deep end when Major Houlihan, our head nurse, was married. So he was promoted and sent stateside. That's the army for you.

We have a new surgeon here now. I'm not quite sure what to make of him yet. Daddy would like him, I think, although he might call him stuffy behind his back. Major Charles Emerson Winchester the third. Even his name is stuffy. But he is a good surgeon. He is certainly the kind of man that Daddy would deem worthy of an Avery girl, but Daddy is far too absorbed with how things appear. I have learned here that not everything is as it seems, and the way things appear is not the most important thing.

Please give my love to the family. Thank Carol Ann and Edward for the picture. I have it next to my bed and I look at it every night before I go to sleep. Eddie is beautiful. Please tell him about his aunt in Korea. I hate knowing that I will be a stranger to him when I return home. Take care of yourself Victoria.