Disclaimer: I don't own MASH or anything for that matter and if I did I'd buy a pony. But I don't so don't sue.
OK guys and gals this is my first MASH fan fic so any constructive criticism would be mucho helpful! I'm sorry if it's cheesy and very Mary Sue-ish but I hope not.
Scopolamine: a colorless thick liquid poisonous alkaloid found in some plants of the nightshade family and used as a truth serum, to prevent motion sickness, and as a sedative.
Hawkeye looked down at his lunch with apprehension and cautiously poked a gray lump that at one time in it's former life might have been a moldy piece of bread. Prudently, he shoved his tray across the table and gulped down his coffee that reminded him of the taste of chalk when he had to clap out the erasers after class and the white clouds of dust found a way into his mouth.
"Lunch not agreeing with you Hawk?" BJ poked; jokes were the only thing keeping the two awake after another O.R. session.
"We're not on speaking terms," Hawkeye tiredly replied, his lids slowly declining over his blood-shoot eyeballs.
"Howdy boys. Mind if I join you?" Colonel Potter had just walked into the mess tent, cup of coffee in hand.
"Ah Colonel, I see you've decided to join us for the world's only kamikaze lunch," BJ said as he scooted down the wooden bench.
"I'll bypass the flight today boys. Just stopping by after checking on Sophie.
"And how is that old gray mare?" BJ inquired.
" Ain't what she used to be," Hawk answered back in a singsong voice.
"Your probably the closest Pierce. That mare's stocked up, she hasn't been exercised in so long that the fluids built up in her legs. Damn, a horse like that shouldn't be cooped up like. Deservers to be ridden more to be taken care of better. I just haven't had the time, being a doctor and a C.O. doesn't leave much time for Sophie.
Hawkeye opened his dreary eyes and looked into the aged, but very alive face of his C.O. At lines over his cracked face that weren't there when he had first joined the cavalry, when being with horses was the only thing that he had time for.
"Come on Colonel cut yourself some slack. This place is hell, can't expect to have to much fun," BJ said in a soothing voice.
"But it isn't fair to her damn it!" Potter replied slamming his fists into the wooden table.
Both surgeons just looked at Potter for a moment, suspired at the sudden out lash.
"Sorry boys. It was a rough session. I think I'll go catch 50 winks." And with that, Potter walked out of the mess tent and to his bed, where even the thrilling adventures of Zane Gray were going to have to wait.
Hawkeye and BJ soon followed in suit, collapsing on their army cots and promising the martini glasses that they would get drunk later.
The next couple of days were spent leisurely visiting the Officers Club, whittling away in Post-Op and sleeping. Everyone in camp noticed the extra effort that the Colonel was putting in to spend time with Sophie. He would often go out of his way after visiting the latrine to stop at Sophie's coral and scratch the mare in between the ears and let her lick his hand in hopes of finding a sweet morsel of hay to nibble on.
But most of the time he would be called away by Kilinger with an urgent phone call or some papers that needed his signature. At meetings that he, himself, had called his eyes would become glassy and unfocused. Every so often he would crane his next and try to see if he could see if Sophie was still there. He had taken on the attitude of a kid waiting to be let of detention to go play with his friends.
It was a crisp spring day in Korea when Colonel Potter walked with purpose towards Sophie's coral. He had just won himself a few free hours by burying Klinger with forms and reports that he needed to fill out. He grabbed a brush and began stroking her chestnut coat. His nostrils dilated as a wave horse smell lingered around his head the same way Mildred's perfume would on a hot muggy day in Missouri.
He was half way to reaching for his saddle when the loud speakers crackled alive and Sophie's ears pricked toward them,
"ATTENTION, ATTENTION ALL PERSONAL INCOMING WOUNDED! ALL MEDICAL TEAMS REPORT TO TRIAGE. SORRY FOLKS.
"Damn!!" He looked into Sophie's kind brown eyes filled with question to where he was going. "Sorry girl, I guess I'll have to take a rain check.He set off at a run toward the bus that had just pulled into the compound. He entered the bus first Charles at his ankles. The two surgeons quickly fluttered between patient making orders for more plasma and blood and giving the order of which they would operate. It was Charles who first reached Frank Porter, Red Cross worker, father and fatally wounded.
"Colonel Potter, if you be so kind to call for Father Mulcahy?" He said as he exited the bus to fingers keeping an eye on his patient's pulse.
"Sure thing Winchester. Corpsman," he waggled his finger as to beckon to have him bring the Father. The Father soon was hastening on to the bus, kissing his stole on the way.
"So that's it, you're not even going to try and save him. What kind of place is this?" a new voice had entered the mix of moaning, dying and confusion. At first Potter mind raced back to Hannibal, to his daughter's voice but all to quickly realized that it couldn't be her. There was a teenaged girl sitting on one of the bunks, dark jade green eye's staring him down.
"I'm sorry there's nothing we can do sweetie. Now let me help you," Potter said soothingly.
"Don't call me that! Only my father could call me that and now he's dead!" She let an accusatory index finger fly out at Frank Porter. She had nasty cuts across her face that was still bleeding. Her eyes were filled with pearly white tears.
"Come on let's get you out of here. What's your name?" Potter said as he led the girl from the bus.
"Virginia Porter, but my dad called my Ginny," Ginny was trying her very hardest to keep from sobbing, waves of numbness setting in over her mind trying to protect her from the hurt. She was trying to forget what had happened.
"Colonel we need you in surgery!" Margaret's voice carried across the compound. She eyed the girl as one of the corpsmen took her away. "What's a young girl doing in a war zone?
"Your guess is as good as mine, but we have more pressing matters right now," the Colonel replied as he made his way into the scrub room.