She started planning the day Henry got his orders to go home. It was a simple plan, yet so ingenious, it was a wonder she hadn't thought of it before. First, she had to wait until Henry left for the states.
It didn't impress her when Hawkeye and Trapper got Henry smashed, she just thought with a hint of malice of the hangover they would have in the morning. She felt a pain of sadness when the chopper arrived, and Henry came out of his tent, dressed in a suit. This feeling was forgotten when he kissed her, but came back, twice as strong as the chopper lifted into the air, taking him with it. Now, with Frank in command, her plan had passed phase one.
When Radar came into the OR later that night, and delivered the news of Henry's death, she stopped, like everyone else, and grieved, but only for a moment. Death was a part of life, and he hadn't been that good a leader anyway. She'd be much better.
The next part was to ring up General Hammond. He was part two of her plan. A few suggestive comments, and he agreed to everything. He told her the orders would come through in about four days.
She went about the third step quickly, she'd need to for it to work. Hawkeye, she had decided, was the least worst of the two. He was given a week's rest and recreation in Tokyo. If she knew Hawkeye, and she did, he'd disappear for the week, and show up at camp by the end of it, with a hangover that would give a migraine a headache.
The orders came through later than expected. She had worried slightly, about her plans going down the latrine. She needn't worry, they came through, and Trapper was ecstatic. He started packing, but held back, waiting for Hawkeye to come back. Lucky for her, Hawkeye was completely unreachable.
Just after Trapper left, she went into the Swamp, to gloat to herself. Hawkeye was alone now, no more pranking duo, no more drinking buddies. The camp was more or less hers.
However, whilst in the Swamp, bragging to Hawkeye's empty cot, she noticed a piece of paper under one of the martini glasses by the Still. She picked it up, and read it. A note from Trapper to Hawkeye. Without a second thought, she tore it up and threw it into the stove. She wanted Hawkeye to break down completely, and behave himself. She filled the martini glass with the clear liquid from the Still and drowned it in triumph. No more troublesome two.
Hawkeye came back, hungover as she had expected. Already she was running the camp, through her puppet, Frank. Hawkeye was the last hurdle until it was fully hers. Unfortunately, Radar went and told Hawkeye Trapper had gone, and the surgeon had run off, to try and say goodbye. This only bothered her because she had forbade it.
Looking over the new surgeon's records, she couldn't contain her delight. A doctor just out of residency, without the arrogance and bad habits of Hawkeye or Trapper. By the time the war was over, he'd be just like her and Frank.
Things starting tail spinning like Henry's plane when the new surgeon, BJ Hunnicutt, showed up with Hawkeye and Radar, the two Captains drunk. Hawkeye had got to BJ first, and was ruining everything for her. She knew she'd have to act quickly to save face.
The final bullet in the horse was news of the new CO. Everything she had worked for, everything she had planned, was for nothing. She was no longer in command, she no longer controlled things.
And she'd just written her father, too.