It was a cold mid-November morning in North Korea. The sun hadn't come up over the hills yet and it was so quite you could here the people throughout the camp snoring. It had been a long week for the people at the 4077th. They had done 5 days straight of meatball surgery. Hawkeye, B.J., and Frank were all inside The Swamp sleeping. There was a knock on the door of the Swamp and there was a silhouette of a smaller person coming through the screen. "Unless your coming to tell us the war is over go away or there will be consequences." Hawkeye said in a groggy voice from under the covers of his bed.
"This is important Hawkeye!" the voice from outside the door whispered angrily.
"Radar, is that you?" Hawkeye said back to him, whispering as not to wake up B.J. or Frank.
"Yeah its me. Who else would be sent out here at four fifty in the morning to deliver a message?" Radar replied.
"Alright, get in here and shut the door behind you." Hawkeye said getting up out of his bed and walking over to the fireplace in the middle of the tent.
Radar walked into the tent and sat at the end of the bed while Hawkeye grabbed some wood from under B.J.'s bed, some paper from Frank's notebook and threw it into the fireplace. He then walked over to his little desk, grabbed some matches, lit one, and then threw it into the fireplace. After a few moments, some light started spreading through the room as did some heat. "Now then, what's up, Radar?" Hawkeye said pulling up a chair.
"I have a message for you." Radar said, putting his hand into his pocket and digging through it to find the message. "I know it's here. I just had it. Oh, thank goodness, here it is." He said pulling it out of his pocket and handing it over to Hawkeye.
Hawkeye took the letter from Radar and read it aloud. "'Dear Hawkeye, Trapper here. It's been a while hasn't it? Well, I got back here to the states and it was fun for a little while but things got dull. So I'm coming to visit ya'. I'm in Tokyo right now and should be there on about, umm, Wednesday. See you then.' Did you hear that! Trapper is coming back to visit! I couldn't wait for the war to end just so I could go back and see him but this is even better. He's coming to see us Radar! He's coming to see us!" Hawkeye yelled with enthusiasm.
All his yelling woke up BJ and Frank. "Pierce, What do you think you are doing yelling at this hour of the morning!" Frank said furiously sitting up in his bed.
"Yeah Hawk, for once I have to actually go with Frank. What is with all the yelling?" B.J. said weakly, showing he hadn't had a decent amount of sleep in a long time.
"Trapper is coming to visit us!" Hawkeye yelled, answering their questions.
Frank's face turned a very pale white, even with the fire's glow on his face it was obvious. "You mean to tell me that McIntyre is coming back here! And he is going to be hanging you two buffoons the entire time! This is terrible! Outrageous! Uncalled for! He can not come here! There will be mass chaos with the three of you together! I will see to it that he is not aloud back here. I'm going to Colonel Potter at once!" Frank yelled.
Frank got out his bed and put on his coat and boots on. He stood up and was going to walk out the door when Hawkeye stood up and got in front of the door. "Not so fast, Frank. You can't stop Trapper from coming. He's like a brother to me. We haven't seen each other for over a year and a half. If you do this I swear to god that you will not have a winking moment of peace. I will make your life a living hell." He said in a furry.
B.J. and Radar were just sitting back watching this speechlessly. No one had ever seen Hawkeye act like this before. Then finally B.J. said something, "Frank, I think you'd better listen to him. I think Hawk actually means business this time."
"Oh you pipe down Hunnicutt! I don't need you to give me advice. When I want advice, I'll ask you for it. But until then, pipe down." Frank shot back at him, glaring at him.
This outraged Hawkeye and he did something no one had ever seen him to before. He clenched his fist with the letter still in his hand, pulled back, and punched Frank in the face, knocking him out cold in one blow. Hawkeye's face was red with furry. Frank had finally crossed the line with Hawkeye. Sure he could messed with Hawkeye and B.J. all the time but when it came to him trying to stop Hawkeye from seeing Trapper and then yelling at B.J., Hawkeye snapped. B.J. and Radar looked at Frank, then over at Hawkeye, then back down at Frank who was lying in the dirt motionless. "Y-y-you knocked Frank out cold! No one has ever done that before. It's amazing. And who woulda' thought that you, Hawkeye Pierce, would do it?" Radar said from the corner of the room sitting next to an astonished faced B.J.
"He finally crossed the line with me." Hawkeye said through clenched teeth.
He finally unclenched his hand and the crumbled up message fell to the ground. There was quite in the tent for a couple minutes until Hawkeye finally cooled down and said, "Wow, I have never been that angry before, or at least not that I can remember. I mean sure, I've been angry, but I have never done something like that before. Oh well, its over now. I'm going to talk to Potter in the morning and see what we can do about Frank while Trapper is here. Until then, well, I guess we will just have to try and not mention what happened."
"Alright, but the only person that we have to convince not to do that is Frank, and I honestly don't think he will." B.J. replied.
"Well, actually, after what just happened, I think Hawkeye has the advantage here." Radar said, clearing his voice, and then continuing, "Hawkeye, is kind of like the hero of the camp now. He's put Frank in his place."
"That is true. We can play this to our advantage with good old Burnsy boy." B.J. said laughing. "Oh, I can't wait to meet Trapper, either. It's going to be so great."
"With the mention of Trapper's name, Hawkeye cheered up and said smiling, "Yeah, it's going to be great. I can't wait 'till he arrives. We are going to have a lot of fun. Even more then usual."
Will Be Continued in "Trapper's Return, Part 2"