Author Comments: Here's chapter 5, with chapter 6. I think I'm going to start posting two chapters at a time now. Anyway, this is sorta a transitional chapter so bear with me.
"Oh, Trap, you gotta hear this one!" said Hawkeye, laughing. "Once, BJ and I played a joke on Charles where his pants fell down in OR. Unfortunately, everybody ended up thinking it was a tasteless joke, and despised me for it. BJ had helped me pull it but stayed quiet, so I took all the blame."
Charles and BJ both were laughing hard now. BJ continued, "Hawk decided that he would play a joke on himself so that everybody would blame Charles and he would be off the hook. So we had Klinger set up chairs so that Hawk would sit in glue."
"I only followed orders!" Klinger put in.
Charles continued, "BJ, however, told Klinger the wrong places on purpose, so that I would be the one in the glue, and Pierce would again get the blame."
"I didn't know it wasn't a simple mistake until I talked to Klinger, who said that BJ had told him that." Hawkeye picked up the story, "So I went to Charles and told him that BJ had arranged it so that he got humiliated, I got blamed, and BJ was free and clear."
Peg was laughing extremely hard. "Oh, BJ, that was awful! Ingenious, but awful!
"So the next morning, I wake up in a nurses' tent." Said BJ, "Butt naked. Under my blanket, don't worry Peg. Anyway, the ladies wouldn't help me so I tried to take the blanket off, and found it was sewn on so I couldn't use it for cover. So I told the nurses 'until I get something to wear, nothing can make me move out of this bed.' Then the call for incoming wounded came, and I said 'except that'. I took that pillow to cover the essentials, and backed out of the tent."
Now everyone who remembered the incident was laughing too hard to continue. Finally Hawkeye gasped out, "Imagine his face when he backed out, bare-butt first, to the whole camp plus cameras! And the PA saying 'SORRY, DR. HUNNICUT, THEY MADE ME DO IT!'" Everybody laughed until they cried.
"Glad to see that not all the fun went out of the camp when Henry and I left!" said Trapper.
For a couple hours, they continued telling stories, then they looked at the clock and realized it was almost supper time.
"Listen, everybody, why don't we go out?" said Hawkeye, "I know of a place that has a table big enough for all of us to sit around, and it serves the best lobster in the world to boot!"
Everybody agreed, so they all piled in the vans and took off. They walked into the restaurant and, sure enough, the biggest table in the place was just big enough for all of them.
The Hunnicuts arranged their children, and Hawkeye asked Danny, "Where do you want to sit, buddy?". Hawkeye pointed to a couple seats Danny could choose from. Danny chose the seat between his parents. As Hawkeye placed him in the seat, Hawkeye looked over to Margaret and asked, "Are you doing Anna or do you want me to?"
Margaret handed Anna over to Hawkeye. "If you do her, I'll help Danny. Oh, by the way, she needs her diaper changed."
Hawkeye rolled his eyes. "Thanks a lot, Mommy."
Margaret just smiled. "You're welcome."
Hawkeye rolled his eyes again and took off for the bathroom to change his daughter.
"You got a dirty diaper, Girly?" he asked. Anna responded with a smile, a nod, and then she laughed as Hawkeye held her out in front of him and buzzed her around like an airplane as he walked.
Back at the table, Danny looked at Margaret. "Where Daddy 'n Anna go?"
"Anna needed her diaper changed." Margaret told him. Danny nodded.
BJ and Peg had managed to arrange it so that one of them would be within reaching distance of all three kids.
"No, Katy, I'm sorry but we forgot your cup at home." BJ was telling Katy.
"That's right. Sorry sweetie." Peg told her, then she explained to Margaret, "She has a special cup she drinks out of at home." Margaret nodded.
Hawkeye came out of the bathroom and started walking toward the table with Anna. "Feel better?" he asked her. Anna laughed. "Yeah, I wouldn't like a load in my pants either. But don't tell Mommy I said that, she wouldn't like it."
He placed Anna in the seat on his right, and then sat down.
"Nice place." Put in Father Mulcahy.
Sidney happened to be sitting across from Hawkeye.
"I see you've gotten over your fear of children."
"Well, I kinda had to." Said Hawkeye, motioning to Danny and Anna. "And Margaret's been a big help with dealing with that stuff, when I have to. The only time it's really come up to bother me was when they were about the same age as the baby on the bus."
Sidney nodded. "Makes sense. Sounds like you've done good."
Hawkeye smiled. "Thanks"
"No problem."
They all ate, and then they went back to Hawkeye and Margaret's. They talked some more until the kids started to fall asleep.
Margaret took the Pierce children into the bathroom to brush teeth and take a quick bath. Then the Hunnicutt children took turns in the bathtub, and finally 4-year-old Max Klinger Jr. took a bath. All the children were tucked into bed in the bedrooms upstairs.
After they got that accomplished, the adults all sat back down in the living room, joking and talking.
"And Henry almost got blown to bits…in the LATRINE!!! Remember that?" laughed Trapper.
After they got done laughing, the ones that had known Henry turned somber, the ones that hadn't were quiet for their friends' sake since they knew what they were thinking about.
Then Hawkeye raised his glass and said, "Henry, you would have enjoyed tonight. Thanks for the memories, buddy. We'll never forget you." Everybody in the room took a drink.
Then Hawkeye said to Margaret, "You think we should have invited Henry's family?"
Margaret shook her head. "On one level, I'm sure they would enjoy hearing about the funny things Henry did while at the 4077th. But it wouldn't be good for them in the long run to drudge through memory lane like we've been doing."
Hawkeye nodded, and then the talk turned to what people had been up to since the war.
Klinger had been in Korea for close to a year before they had gotten home. They had found Soon-Lee's parents but sadly learned that her brother had been killed. They got back to Toledo only about a month and a half before Soon-Lee gave birth to Max.
Father Mulcahy had regained some of his hearing, but not a whole lot. But with the combination of his limited hearing and lip-reading, he could follow even group conversations. He had, just like he said, been working with the deaf, and now knew sign language very well.
Charles, of course, had taken the position of Chief of Thorastic Surgery at Boston Mercy Hospital, and that was keeping him pretty busy. He also, the others learned much to their surprise, had a girlfriend that he was hoping to soon make into a fiancé.
Radar had met Patty in the airport on his last leave, right before he went home. He had told her he would get a hold of her when he got back to the states, and he did. They had been married for just under two years now.
Potter had been enjoying retirement in Missouri. He really enjoyed the extra time to fish or read.
Frank had simply been continuing his practice ("You mean MALpractice, right Frank?" cut in Hawkeye) in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his family, which he practically refused to say much about.
Everybody listened attentively as Hawkeye and Margaret described how they had ended up, 5 years after the war, married with two young children. Frank kept attempting to change the subject or make nasty comments about Hawkeye throughout, as he didn't want to hear the story, but everybody listened nonetheless.
BJ talked about how hard it was, at first, because Erin hadn't known who he was. But before too long, it was as though she couldn't remember being without him, which Peg said was actually true; Erin had been young enough she really didn't have that much recollection of when BJ had been away in Korea.
Finally, they realized they better get some sleep, so the women went upstairs to sort out sleep arrangements while the men grabbed a bunch of blankets and pillows to make themselves at home downstairs.