The Foresight Trial
CAUTION: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRITTY SCENES OF WAR
That aside, this is an AU story, taking elements from two MASH episodes: "Preventative Medicine" and "Fallen Idol." It also incorporates themes from the song In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Disclaimer: I don't own MASH or the characters, I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
It was a cold Korean night, quiet and lonely, with an aching, mourning wind flowing through the camp. Radar O'Reilly watched dead leaves swirl and scrape close to the ground, his head bowed. The air haunted him with its chilling portent, flooding him with tense unease like ice water through a broken hull. Like the Sea of Japan into a wreaked airplane. There was no use denying it, he could feel it coming.
Foresight, that's what they called it. His Mom used to tell him he had a gift, but it was more of a curse here. He didn't like waiting for wounded. He was a storm-chaser, and each deluge was just a prelude to the Ultimate disaster he always knew would sneak up on him.
It was coming tonight.
His skin tingled and he shivered. He heard the soft rumble of distant shelling. He had been waiting for this moment all his life—the moment when he knew without a shred of doubt that something overwhelming, something disastrous and terrible was going to happen. Within the next twenty-four hours, Radar was sure they were going to get more wounded than they had ever seen. So many wounded that soldiers would die waiting to get into the OR. So many that the surgeons wouldn't have time to do things delicately—in a deluge like this, there would be amputations rather than careful resections.
He picked up his teddy bear and tucked it under his arm as he wandered around the compound. Should he tell anyone? It would help if they could prepare for the mess in advance—they had heeded his "unofficial" casualty predictions before. He just hated being the bearer of bad news. I have a message….
"Hey, kid, what's the matter? You nearly ran into me!" Klinger snapped, hastening to re-adjust the stack of objects he was balancing on his head. He was trying to break a record, so far keeping a bedpan, three books, four wineglasses, and a syringe teetering above him.
"Listen, Klinger," Radar began, staring off into space, "can you do something for me?"
"Does it look like I've got something better to do? Shoot."
"We're getting wounded. We gotta make sure we've got lots of blood and stuff."
There was a crash as Klinger dropped his MASH record onto the ground. The wineglasses shattered and Klinger kicked the bedpan into the road. "I didn't hear anything about wounded."
"I know. I'm telling you. Just make sure we're ready. Maybe you shouldn't tell anyone."
"Why?"
Radar helped him gather the broken glass. "As long as we're ready, we better let everyone rest, you know, relax for a little while. You can't relax when you're waiting for wounded."
"Right. You're really something, kid. I'll go see what I can do."
"Thanks."
Radar quietly slid into Post Op, walking like a ghost down the aisle. There were only three patients, and they were sound asleep; the lights were off except for two lamps at both ends of the room. The silence was spooky—just the sound of breathing, and the crackle of the fire, and the scratch of Nurse Able's pen. Radar cocked his head slightly as he heard something else: urgent talking muffled so he could just hear the noise of it. He followed it, made his way to the scrub room, and hung back behind the curtain. Hawkeye and B.J were arguing heatedly.
"Damn it, B.J, Colonel Lacey is killing young boys! Children! You've got a kid, Beej—I thought you'd understand."
"That doesn't make what you're doing right."
"I'm trying to keep more kids from dying out there. That seems right to me. If you can't agree—get out of here. Because I'm doing it whether you approve or not."
"Cutting into a healthy body is mutilation."
"Don't give me that. Unnecessary operations happen every day back home—and why? Because the doctors want a few bucks! I'm trying to save lives, by a simple appendectomy."
"Some things are wrong, and they're always wrong. You're going to hate yourself for the rest of your life."
"I hate myself right now. I hate me, and I hate you, and I hate this whole life here!"
"Fine. Do it. Carve into him!"
B.J spun around and stormed out. Hawkeye was left alone in the scrub room. He hit the tap over the tub and scrubbed furiously at his hands, washing them with almost obsessive compulsion. Radar peeked behind the curtain and watched him enter the OR.
Benjamin Franklin Pierce is a good surgeon.
Hawkeye prepared his instruments and set them in a neat row. He stared at Colonel Lacey's bare abdomen, and tried to imagine the scar he was going to inflict. He picked up the scalpel.
Benjamin Franklin Pierce is a compassionate doctor.
He put down the scalpel and felt Lacey's abdomen with his gloved hand. He mapped out Lacey's internal organs in his mind, trying to pin point exactly where his appendix was. He hesitated, and picked up the scalpel again.
Benjamin Franklin Pierce is a dedicated physician.
His hands were shaking. Horrified, he tried taking quick and deep breaths, but his hand would not assume its usual rock-like steadiness.
He looked at Colonel Lacey's face. He steeled himself to see evil.
The man was careless with life! Hawkeye would never again have such a complete nemesis. Lacey was getting young men killed. Young baby-faced boys with freckles and acne and peace-fuzz and such slender, delicate shoulders burdened with heavy gear.
"No, no," Hawkeye whispered to him. "No more shining potential laid to waste. No more innocent kids are going to die for your twisted glory. Those kids, those beautiful, wide-eyed children…they're not going to end up maimed, or blinded, or on crutches, or depressed and wounded in their souls—not one more kid is going to face shellfire scared to death because of you."
The scalpel met flesh. He began to cut.
Benjamin Franklin Pierce is a good man.
He could not quell the shaking of his hands.
Radar was sitting on a bench in the change room when Hawkeye stumbled in. Hawkeye stopped dead and stared at him with empty eyes, as if he didn't recognize him. Then he snapped to his senses with a jerk of his hands—he clasped them behind his back, as if hiding incriminating evidence.
"Hi, there, Radar," he said with a false grin. "Is the stuffing coming out of your teddy bear again?"
Radar ignored him and stood up. "Hawkeye, did Colonel Lacey really have appendicitis?"
Hawkeye froze stiff. "What? What? How could you ask me that, Radar? What do you think I am? Of course he had appendicitis! One clue would be the fact that I've just removed his appendix. What's the matter with you?"
"Don't yell at me because you feel bad about it."
"What? Radar, that Colonel was seriously ill. I don't believe this—you think I'd…I'd…"
"I heard you and B.J talking about it."
Hawkeye just blinked. Then he paced back and forth in the small room, tearing off his surgical whites at the same time. "I did what I think is right, period. I don't need your moral opinions."
"Why did you lie to me?"
"Why? Why?"
"Yeah, if you think this is so right, why did you lie about it? You've never lied to me before! I thought I could trust you. I'm not a doctor, Hawkeye, I don't know whether it was right or not—"
"Damn right you don't!"
"But when you cut out Colonel Lacey's appendix, you cut out a piece of yourself, too."
"What do you want from me! Don't you get it?" His voice was breaking with desperation. "I couldn't let him keep sending us his boys in pieces, Radar! Kids were dying just because he had an overproduction of testosterone! There's enough destruction and horror in this place without a jackass like him walking around!"
"You're tearing yourself apart, Hawkeye."
Hawkeye stopped. He sighed as if breathing all his energy out of his body. "I'm going to go get drunk."
Radar paced a little, too. He didn't want to tell him. "You can't."
Hawk shook his head, all too aware of the reason, the frustrating reminder of the never-ending war. "You hear them again," he said flatly, referring to the choppers.
"Not yet. But they're coming. It's not official."
"You're never wrong," Hawkeye mumbled. "And if I know B.J, he's trying to get drunk right now, too."
"I better tell him."
"No. I'll do it. Now get out of here."
Hawkeye slowly walked into the swamp and sat down heavily on his cot. B.J was turned away from him, drinking a martini. The gloom was thick and suffocating.
"Well?" B.J said.
"It was pink and perfect and I tossed it in the scrap bucket. And we were both right: I'll hate myself for the rest of my life, and I still think it was the right thing to do."
B.J rubbed his eyes. "Want a drink?"
"Thanks." He took the proffered glass from B.J's hand, knowing it was a peace offering of sorts. He downed it, then got to business. "We're getting wounded, Beej. I'm afraid we'll have to keep our heads clear."
"I couldn't get drunk anyway. Something in the air."
"INCOMING! ALL PERSONNEL, GRAB YOUR SOCKS! LOOKS KINDA HEAVY."
Colonel Potter stared out the OR window. There were flashes in the distance, and the rumblings of shellfire were definitely coming closer. The wounded who could talk all said the same thing—the enemy was gaining ground, and the front was being pushed back. Toward Ouijuanbu. There were still twenty casualties waiting for surgery, and there were no less than nine boys who could not be moved from Post-Op under any circumstances.
"Sir? It's General Clayton again. He's very insistent that we bug out, sir," Radar said.
"Suction," Potter barked to the nurse. "Radar, tell General Clayton that we aren't going anywhere. No…wait just a minute, son." Potter looked up at the other doctors and nurses in the room. "The war is on its way up here. I think we're about to get very chummy with the enemy. So…the nurses are going to have to be evacuated, along with any wounded who can stand the trip. The rest of us will have to wait it out. Radar, get on the phone. Any nurse who isn't at a table right now—go help the wounded onto the bus."
"Sir, we can't leave now—there's still two dozen casualties out there!" Margaret cried.
Potter scowled impatiently. "If it wasn't for this deluge, we would have bugged out ten hours ago, Major! This is no time to argue!"
"Margaret, would you quit your foot-stomping long enough to help me save this kid's arm?" Hawkeye said savagely, the exhaustion and stress overwhelming him.
"Wait a minute, Pierce," Potter interrupted. "I saw that boy's arm. It's pretty bad."
"I can do it, Colonel."
"You probably could, if we had two or three hours to spare. But we don't, Pierce."
Hawkeye glared at him. "Colonel…"
"It's time to get practical, son. That's an order."
Hawkeye looked down at his patient and nodded vaguely. "Under orders. That won't be much of a comfort when this kid asks me why I took his arm."
B.J stripped off his gloves. "We're just saving lives tonight, Hawk. I'm finished here, Klinger, send in the next one."
"Colonel!" Nurse Kellye cried, running into the OR. "It's Colonel Lacey. He's dead, sir."
"What?" Colonel Potter shouted. "Pierce, you got to him in time, didn't you? An appendectomy is routine stuff."
Hawkeye didn't answer. The blood drained away from his face, leaving him pale grey and sick. He faltered before his patient and dropped the saw on the floor.
"Pierce?" Charles called.
Hawkeye backed away from the table and stumbled outside.
"Damn it, I want him back in here!" Potter ordered.
"I'll go talk to him," B.J volunteered, already halfway out the door.
"Bring him back! I realize Lacey was his patient, but we just don't have time for this. We'll figure out what happened later."
"Nurse," Charles said, "how did he die?"
"He had been conscious for about three hours and was resting comfortably. Then he saw that some of the new wounded were from his battalion, and he tried to get up, and he just collapsed." Tears began to run down Nurse Kellye's face. "We were busy, we were making bunks for the overflow of casualties…he seemed fine, so we…we weren't watching him very closely, sir. There were so many others…we thought an appendectomy wouldn't…I mean, Dr. Pierce said the operation went well, so…"
"No one's blaming anyone," Colonel Potter said gently. "Why don't you go back and assist with the evacuation."
B.J found Hawkeye retching the minimal contents of his stomach onto the dirt. B.J sighed and went to him, supporting him until he was finished.
"God," Hawkeye gasped. He tore off his gloves and spat, running a hand through his hair.
"Potter wants you back," B.J said.
"My hands were shaking," Hawkeye rasped. "My hands were shaking. I must have nicked his appendix. Damn thing's full of poison! Or maybe I hit the small intestine."
"Are you okay to operate?"
Hawkeye wiped at his eyes and smeared tears over his face. "Damn it."
"We need you, Hawkeye."
"I know."
"It was an accident, Hawkeye. Come on. You have to scrub up again."
Hawkeye shook his head helplessly, despairing. "B.J….I'll be hanged!" Hawkeye croaked through the painful lump in his throat.
B.J didn't know what to do, or what to say. Hawkeye was his best friend, despite their moral argument last night, and he knew Hawk had acted out of dedication to the sanctity of life. If Hawkeye was responsible for Lacey's death, it was a terrible accident—but to the eyes of the Military, it was certainly murder.
"They won't know," B.J began softly, "that Lacey didn't have appendicitis."
A shell screamed within a mile of the camp. Hawkeye buried his head in his hands and his body tensed as it was slammed with fierce emotional tides. His shoulders shook. "I can't do this."
"It'll be all right. I'll be there." B.J bit his lip, hearing Hawkeye's breath come in gasping sobs. He would have to get stern with him, just so he could function—a trick Colonel Potter often used. "Hawkeye. There's no sense in letting anyone else find out about this. We have to go back in there. Take a couple deep breaths. Those wounded boys are depending on you to put them back together. And this is just the first wave. In another few hours we're going to get a whole new batch. You hear those shells? They're coming closer, and soon we're going to be up to our necks in blood and this camp's going to turn into a battlefield."
B.J helped Hawkeye to his feet and led him inside.
Four hours after the nurses and wounded were evacuated, the surgeons finally finished. Colonel Potter sat in his office with Radar as the shells began to pound harder and closer.
"Would you like a drink, Radar?" Potter asked, pouring whiskey into shot glasses.
Radar jumped slightly at the battle noise. "Sir, shouldn't we sandbag the Post Op and have everyone stay in there? It's getting kinda dangerous out."
"That can wait, son. We just got out of the OR, we need a little down time to keep us going. Besides, we have some time yet. Let me show you something, son. Come over here by the window." Radar obeyed and Potter put an arm around his shoulders. "Watch for the next shellfire, all right? There! Did you see that? Which came first, the light or the noise?"
"I saw the flash before I heard it."
"Right. That's because light travels faster than sound. They're actually happening at the same time, but we're far enough away that it's taking the noise a bit of time to get here. When we see it and hear it at the same time, then we'll start worrying about it, okay?"
"Yes sir, Colonel."
"Atta boy."
"Sir, can I ask you about Colonel Lacey?"
"Are you worried about Pierce?"
"Yeah."
"We sent the Colonel's body on a special evacuation vehicle to Seoul, under General Clayton's orders. When it's something like this, the Army wants an authorized pathologist to do the autopsy. The death of a Colonel, under these circumstances, is pretty important stuff. When they get their report together I'm sure we'll be the first to know what happened."
"But…what do you think will happen to Captain Pierce?"
"If Pierce missed something or made an error, the army or Lacey's family might want to press charges. He'd be Court Martialed, but given the pressure we're all under I imagine he'd get off with a warning."
"Sir…what if Hawkeye shouldn't have operated at all?"
"What?"
"What if Colonel Lacey didn't have appendicitis? I mean… SIR, GET DOWN!" Radar screamed. He pulled the Colonel to the floor.
"What's the matter, son!"
"Wait for it!"
Then, an explosion blew out the window and rocked the office into chaotic disarray. Gunfire began to pierce the air.
"Sweet Jesus! An enemy troop must have gotten through the line! Stay down, son!"
"Sir—I think some of the tents are on fire!"
"Stay put!"
"But—sir, my animals! Oh, no!"
Radar scrambled toward the door, but Potter grabbed his ankle and pulled him under the desk. "You can't go out there, son."
"Sir—sir, what about Sophie?" Bullets sprayed the opposite wall from through the window. "Oh my God! Sir!" Radar yelled, almost wailing.
"Sophie went with the nurses," the Colonel replied with a thick, wavering voice. There were shouts outside, yelling and shellfire and bullets and the roar of flames. He held the terrified corporal protectively.
"I'm sorry, Radar, I didn't think to tell them to take your zoo. Shhh. We don't want to attract attention, son, we're under attack."
"B.J? Beej, where are you?" Hawkeye yelled through black smoke that burned his throat and lungs. The roof of the Swamp had caught fire.
"Hawkeye?" B.J yelled back. They collided with one another and both grabbed onto the other's arms.
"Where's Charles?"
"I can't see anything!"
They succumbed to coughing. The heat and the smoke and the thunder of shells were utterly disorienting, and physically debilitating. Hawkeye stumbled, knocking into the stove as he tried to find the door. "Damn it, can't they see the big red cross! Charles? Charles, where are you?"
Someone grabbed his arm. "Pierce, I suggest we get of this raging inferno right now! I have no wish to experience Dante first hand!"
They made it outside, and fell into a foxhole the enlisted men had begun to dig. Behind them, three other tents were smouldering. They did not burn well, being somewhat fire resistant (for once, an intelligent army precaution!), but produced thick, black, toxic smoke.
"Is everyone all right?" B.J asked.
"I think so. Charles?"
"I am alive, Pierce, and would very much like to stay that way. There appears to be a troop by the road—" Charles paused to cough painfully, "—North Koreans!"
"I wish I was a nurse," Hawkeye groaned.
"Yes, perhaps Klinger had the right idea all along," Charles replied, keeping an iron grip on Hawkeye's forearm.
"Maybe they're just trying to cut down on transportation costs. Maim everyone in the hospital parking lot," B.J mused.
Rapid, chaotic gunfire erupted suddenly as American soldiers burst from the trees. A battle was playing out before the surgeons' very eyes as grenades and shells and bullets did their destructive work to spill hot red blood. Wounded boys fell hard, some dead instantly, others screaming in English or Korean. One boy slithered with his leg trailing lifelessly behind him, pulling himself with his arms across the dirt road. When he got close enough, the doctors grabbed him and laid him down in the foxhole.
"My leg!" he howled. "They shot off my bloody leg!"
They worked with lightning speed, though they had nothing but their shirts for bandages, and no morphine to soothe the boy's glassy-eyed, moaning pain. Thankfully for the soldier, he fell unconscious.
"Shock. He's almost comatose," Hawkeye reported.
"Pulse weak and abnormal. Damn. Substantial blood loss," B.J added.
"He'll lose the leg," Charles said, "and we'll lose him if we can't stabilize him."
Hawkeye looked grimly at the dangerous route to the OR. "I've got to get him in there. He's a small kid, I could probably carry him."
"Hawk, don't even think it! The air is full of bullets!"
"I can't lose him!"
"Pierce, this isn't your fault. You're not the one who got him wounded," Charles told him urgently.
"No, I just killed Colonel Lacey."
The American soldiers outnumbered the enemy now, as they killed off North Koreans with a sick kind of efficiency. Then a dark mass of moving forms emerged from the forest on the east side and spilled out into the minefield. A landmine went off almost immediately, illuminating the field in a red flash and revealed the dirty, frightened faces of ragged North Korean guerrillas. They panicked and ran, setting off a rapid fire of explosions. Most didn't make it across the field. Those that did were shot down by Americans on the other side.
Planes from the North burst through the cloud of smoke and dropped bombs over roads that led to the front, cutting off the South Korean supply line. Then, five American tanks from the front lines burst into the camp, followed by hordes of soldiers, bleeding and muddy. They retreated onto the hill at the helicopter pad, then stood ready to defend their new position. A giant anti-aircraft missile lumbered up alongside the tanks and took aim at the sky. The soldiers hastily erected sandbag forts as bullets and shells continued to hit their comrades.
"We're not a MASH anymore, we're an Aid Station," Charles whispered.
"Welcome to the Front," B.J replied.
"Come on! Let's get this kid to the OR!"
They gathered the boy in their arms and climbed carefully out of the foxhole. Under the thunder of planes and shellfire they ran, bursting through the hospital doors, and laid the boy on a gurney. There were sandbags piled everywhere, which provided a false sense of security, but the place was cold and dark and there were holes in the walls.
"We did it," Pierce said, exhaling hard. The three of them shook hands affectionately.
"You had us worried sick, boys," Colonel Potter said somberly. "Everyone's in Post Op. I tell you, with all those wounded, there isn't much room. And it looks like we're going to get a whole lot more."
"This kid's real shocky, Colonel—Beej, get me uh, three units of O- blood."
"Pierce, we can't spare that much. We have to conserve all our supplies—especially blood and time," Potter reminded him.
Hawkeye picked up a basin and threw it as hard as he could at the wall. "It's not fair!"
"Scrub up, Pierce!" Colonel Potter responded sharply.
Shortly after Hawkeye hit the sink, the doors flew open again. A gasping medic was carrying a badly bleeding soldier in his arms, yelling for help. Charles and Colonel Potter got him on a gurney and began assessing the damage while the medic talked with nervous speed.
"We just got clobbered out there—I tell you, when we got the call to retreat, we really ran. You guys shoulda bugged out, you know, you're right in the middle of it, right in the middle of it. This here, this is it. Oh, boy. There's lots of kids out there, I don't know how many I can bring back here….most are dead, I guess…there's about five other medics trying to make the trip without getting killed… " he was swaying back and forth, wringing his hands, and ducking his head a little with the fierce noise. He was left there as Charles and Potter scrubbed and rushed to save the dying soldier.
Father Mulcahy found the medic standing there a few minutes later. He touched his shoulder gently.
"Our generators are out, my son, but it's fairly cozy in Post Op. Why don't you come with me?"
The medic turned to him and shook his head. "I…can't. You know? I have to go back out and try to help, and if it's God's will I'll die out there. I don't want to go, Father, I'm scared, but they need me. My buddies are dying."
They worked with flashlights. Radar, Klinger, Father Mulcahy and Igor were working as OR nurses, handing instruments and other necessities as best as they could to the frantic surgeons. Rizzo, Zale and six other enlisted men held the lights and rushed around for towels and gloves. That left the medics to carry in the wounded, and almost no one to attend to the growing number of Post Op patients. There simply were not enough bunks for the flood of unconscious men.
"Somebody turn down the volume on the war," Hawkeye said hoarsely. "If that missile launcher ever actually hits one of those planes, I'm going to jump outta my boots and send my scalpel flying back to the States."
"Father, hold that back for me. Hold it back!" Charles snarled. He pressed his fingers to the underside of the soldier's jaw. "Damn it. I've lost him. All right, call in the next one. Father—I hope you understand I wasn't yelling at you."
"No explanations needed, Major."
B.J stepped back as a new patient was wheeled in. "Igor! Gown and gloves!"
"We're out, sir!"
"Then set up basins of alcohol," B.J ordered angrily.
"Radar, why don't you tell us a story about your Uncle Ed?" Potter asked quietly.
"Should I, sir? I mean, isn't this a bad time?"
"Son, this is the best time there will ever be. Hmmm, I need a clamp, Radar. No, no, the one by your thumb."
"Oh, good Lord. Hawk?" B.J called.
"What is it?"
"This kid…both legs, and his right arm. I'm going to take three of his limbs."
"Oh, God…" But there was nothing Hawk could say. A screaming shell said it for him, hitting just outside the OR wall.
B.J ducked and covered his patient as dust rained from the roof. "How about that story, Radar?"
To Be Continued… reviews are very welcome and would encourage me.