A/N: In the tradition of "Each of Us Angels" and "Ghosts of Christmas Past" I figured I'd make an attempt at a similar kind of episode throwing our characters into Korea 1950. If you want to know the origins of the roles they're taking, I suggest you to refer back to Ch. 4
Harmon Rabb Junior as First Lieutenant Michael O'Grady
Jim Grant as Major David O'Grady
Bud Roberts as Gunnery Sergeant Patrick Grant
AJ Chegwidden as Major Nicholas Blake M.D
Sarah MacKenzie as Nurse Annabelle Parker
Harriet Sims as Nurse Betty Hancock
"We got a bleeder here!" Captain Annabelle Parker was the chief nurse at the 4055th MASH and their latest guests were a bunch of Marines from the X Corps. Triage was one of the worst parts of the job, the idea of prioritizing who gets medical treatment that will save their life and who has to wait a little longer and possibly die in the mean time was not one it was easy for her to stomach.
Triage patients basically fell into two categories when it came to Marines; the unconscious and barely conscious were one category and by far the easiest to deal with. The other group of Marine triage patients were the fully conscious; there wounds often trivial and their gung-ho, Semper Fi attitude still in place and running at full capacity. This was the case one early November morning when a platoon of X Corps Marines came rumbling into the 4055th.
Most of the patients were laid out with some pretty serious injuries but there were three Marines who came into the 4055th still walking, or limping and still ready to take charge. "Alright, we've got one hell of a ruptured chest cavity here, someone get over here and take a look at this!" The one Marine was bent over a patient.
"Who do you think you are? You can't come in here diagnosing conditions and aiding in Triage care!" Some Marines were crazy but no Marine had ever tried to take control of triage.
"Listen, honey, I know you think I'm just some gung-ho jarhead but I was a doctor and a damn good one before I joined the Marines. I'm also a Major, Captain, which means that you should start showing some serious respect and get this patient into pre-op." The bull-headed Marine Major stood up and looked her square in the eye before moving past her.
"Listen Major! I'm the chief surgeon here and I don't take kindly to anyone pushing around my nursing staff." Major Nick Blake came storming out of pre-op to deal with the disturbance.
"With all due respect to your command, Major, you've got forty-seven Marines coming in, now I'm a doctor; Dartmouth '38 and my brother Mike has got as much medical training as any corpsman or nurse so you might as well let us help if you want to get through this deluge." The two men stood eye to eye, neither giving an inch.
"Fine, what's your name, doctor?" Nick Blake's often terse tone had softened.
"Dave, Dave O'Grady." The two men shook hands.
"Nick Blake. You stay out here and run triage until we can have someone pull that bullet out of your arm. Then you can help in O.R." The two men nodded and parted ways.
"So does the doc have a problem keeping his hands off of you Captain?" Mike O'Grady was across the compound trying to inspect one very torn up leg.
"Pardon me, Lieutenant?" Annabelle Parker had never sounded so offended in her life.
"No offence intended, Captain; you just look like a pin-up girl is all." Removing the first-aid dressing to get a better look caused Mike to utter a curse. "Dave, we got a torn up femoral artery here, what do I do?"
"Get him as close to the front of the line as humanly possible, if he has to wait too long he'll lose that leg!" Dave O'Grady shouted back.
"Where did you get your medical training?" Annabelle Parker's demanding tone took over.
"I don't have any formal medical training. My father was a small-town practitioner outside of Boston; I worked with him since I was twelve. My brother's a doctor and he let me use his medical journals to keep up to date before we joined the Marines in '42." Michael O'Grady had one of those smiles when he finished a sentence that made it impossible to carry on an argument.
"Alright, Lieutenant, you and I should probably work together since you're not technically a doctor." Annabelle tossed him a playful smile and gave him a pat on the back. "We should also get that bullet wound in your leg looked at."
"That's nothing; I've been hurt worse playing horseshoes back home." Mike tossed her another smile, one that told her that she was going to enjoy this Marine being a resident of her MASH. "I have to say, normally I don't take girls to do Triage on a first date but I can tell you're something special."
"I'm sure you say that to all the girls." Annabelle shot back trying to hide a smile.
"Hey Dave! I ever take a girl to do triage on a first date?" Mike called across the compound much to Annabelle's surprise. Dave looked up from his patient as he moved on to the next one.
"No, there was that time that you wrapped Pa's car around that tree at Miller's point and he promised to put you in traction though." Dave called back as he looked through another patient.
"See, I told you that you were something special." Mike smiled at her and they knelt down to their next patient. He inspected the wound beneath the bandage and cringed. "Dave we got a lace curtain effect working on this guy's sigmoid colon!"
"Prioritize Mike, you know this stuff, you don't have to call over here every time you see something. You know what to do." Dave called back. "When's Gunny Grant coming in with the next batch?"
"Supposedly around 0100. We've been getting hit hard driving them back. Good thing we've got Colonel Puller, best damn Marine in the Corps!" Mike shouted back. "It just occurred to me, this is our first date and I don't even know your name, sweetheart." Mike said aside to the nurse.
"Annabelle Parker." She extended her hand.
"Mike O'Grady." Mike shook her hand. "I think I'll call you Belle, means beauty after all, it's only fitting." He laughed a little under his breath as the Corpsman took away the last of the casualties.
"Alright Mike, we've got to get into pre-op too, these wounds aren't going to heal themselves." Dave came walking over.
"Alright Dave, I'll be there in a minute. Well, Belle baby, I guess you should probably head into the O.R. How about a drink at the O Club later?" Mike looked into her big brown eyes.
"Sounds like a plan, Marine." She smiled and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
"Go to work, doll." He smiled and then followed his brother into pre-op. Mike and Dave O'Grady were brothers closer than twins despite the seven year age gap. "Hey Dave, I got myself a date with that hot little Captain." Mike smiled as the two men took up cots in pre-op.
"Only you could get a date while shot." Dave shot back.
"It's just the kind of guy I am, Dave old boy." Mike gave a backhander to the ribs.
"Old? Who you callin' old?" Dave responded with a punch to his brother's arm.
"Boys!" Nurse Betty Hancock called from across the room.
"Sorry Nurse." The two men looked defeated.
"So what are we going to do when this one's over, Mike?" Dave looked over at his brother.
"Well first we're gonna get the hell out of the Marines, two wars is enough for me. We should probably take over Dad's practice which means I have to go to med school. If there's any justice I'll get married to someone like that pretty little nurse." Mike and Dave shared a laugh.
"Yeah you need someone with that kind of firebrand to keep you in line, boy." Dave chuckled under his breath. "Can you believe that the Gunny's brother and our sister?"
"Yeah what are the chances of that? There are a lot of miles between Tennessee and Boston." Mike said back. "We should probably get some sleep. I know we've been fighting it, but these bullets still hurt like hell."
"You bet. See you in a few hours, brother." Dave turned over on a cot and fell asleep while Mike did the same thing on the cot next to him. In a few hours Mike woke up in a different place than he had fallen asleep and saw the angelic face of Nurse Annabelle Parker.
"Now this is a sight I like to wake up to." Mike sat up in his bed.
"Easy there, jarhead, I figured I should come wake you up for our date." She sat on the edge of his bed.
"Where am I, Belle? And where's Dave?" He looked around frantically.
"When you were asleep we shot a local in you and removed the bullet from your leg. You're in post-op. Your brother's in O.R helping Major Blake work through the remainder of the casualties. My shift is over so I figured I'd pick you up for our date." She smiled and placed a caring hand on his cheek.
"Alright, Belle, let's go." Mike practically jumped out of bed.
"You're going to have to go easy on that leg, Marine, it won't do you any good to strain anything, that bullet tore up some muscles pretty bad." Belle looked up into his eyes with concern.
"Nonsense, I'm taking the prettiest gal in all Korea dancing at the O Club." He roped an arm around her waist and they walked over toward the Officer's Club. He had a slight limp, likely a way of compensating with the pain. The two of them walked into the Officer's Club to find the place largely empty. Most of the officer's at a MASH were doctors and nurses and they were likely working or sleeping right now. At 2100, most of the wounded officers that were brought into the hospital were likely resting up in post-op.
"So tell me who Miss Annabelle Parker is?" Mike sat next to her at their table.
"She's a polite Southern girl from Savannah, Georgia who is at this moment a Captain in the US Army serving in Korea." Annabelle informed him but he didn't look impressed.
"No I mean what are your dreams, what's beyond this war for you? There's got to be something that you want to do with your life." Mike's eyes grew big and his smile wide as he questioned her.
"I want to be a mom. I think that's the most important job in the world, just to be a good mother and raise the next generation to be good caring people." She looked him in the eye and saw his teeth show in a wide smile.
"See now that tells me more about who Belle is than where she was born or her rank or her job. It tells me who's in there." He pointed his index finger to her heart.
"Why, Mister O'Grady, I do believe you're sweet on me." She said her words playing upon her southern drawl.
"I think you're right, Miss Parker." He reached for the hand she had placed upon the table and slowly ran his fingers over her skin. They sat there in silence for a stretch of seconds that felt like an eternity just companionably trying sort out why the person they were sitting with had such an effect on them. The notes of Nat King Cole's Mona Lisa came over the jukebox as Mike gently tugged on Belle's arm to guide her out to the empty floor of the O Club.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and laid one hand in hers as she placed her other hand on his shoulder. The two of them moved around the floor slowly and in rhythm to the music slowly taking in the atmosphere around them. As the song progressed Belle eased slowly into his arms and she laid her head on his shoulder as both her arms went up around his neck and both of his slid around her waist. She could've sworn that he was supporting her, that to stand on her own would've been impossible, that her knees would have surely given way.
He clung to her for dear life. There had been a lot that he'd left behind in that small town in Massachusetts and a lot had happened since then. Inchon had made him see life for what it was, able to end at any second. It was that experience, nearly dying and fighting on that made him the man he was. The man that wanted to look beyond all the death and the suffering that the war brought with it. And here she was, Belle, more than a woman, a lighthouse for man drifting through life's seas. It was natural for him to reach out to her.
"God you're beautiful, you know that." He whispered into her ear.
"I don't think I should be here, Mr. O'Grady, you're fast making me lose control." She whispered right back.
"I know, it's a wonderful feeling isn't it?" He smiled and she nodded as her head moved into the curve of his neck. She gently lifted her face and looked into his eyes. She saw more than the tough Marine playboy that had sauntered into camp earlier in the day, this was a man whose very presence electrified her. They leaned into each other, as two lost souls searching for some solace in a world engulfed by chaos.
Almost torturously the distance closed, hesitance weighing the better part of caution. When the door the O Club flung open and the face of Gunny Grant came in. "Lieutenant, sir, Major O'Grady said to come and get you. We've got twenty-three coming in by ambulance, chopper and bus. He said we'd need you for triage sir." Gunny was panting, his arms was stained blood red.
"Good God Gunny, what the heck happened to you?" Mike went rushing over to where his friend was wincing in pain.
"Mortar fragments, tore my arm sir. Got to be at least nine I can feel." Gunny Grant doubled over in pain on to the floor of the O Club. Belle and Mike ran over to him and carried him out to the main triage area.
"Looks like we're going to have to work together through the night, sweetheart." Mike shot her a smile as he tore off a part of his shirt to make tourniquets for Gunny Grant's wounds. "Not how I envisioned my first date with my dream woman ending." He said as he wrapped the tourniquet.
"How about we end it the way we were about to before we were interrupted?" She leaned in quickly and kissed him. Their lips interlocked in a passionate duel as her fingers raked through his hair. Willingly her lips parted as their tongues exchanged greetings. They were interrupted once again by a stern but familiar voice.
"Come on, you two, this is a war-zone not the back seat of dad's Ford." Dave shouted at them from across the triage area. "We've got a kid with some mortar fragments infringing on renal tissue here, lucky it's one and not both. He can wait."
In triage, diagnosis time and decisions mean that lives hang in the balance. What could take up to twenty minutes back in the States needed to be done in less than sixty seconds at a MASH and it needed to be done thoroughly. Major Blake, Dave, Mike and Belle worked triage like clockwork as the surgical shifts set up to work through the night. They processed twenty-three new arrivals in a matter of minutes as they came in from the North.
"We're done here, I'm going to go help you in pre-op." Mike ran alongside here toward the only permanent structure in the compound.
"You have to go back to post-op and rest we just pulled that bullet out of your leg this afternoon. Don't make me make it an order, Lieutenant!" She protested, the caring evident in her big brown eyes.
"If I go back to bed I won't see you for hours, if I go to pre-op I can work side-by-side with you for hours, I'll deal with the insubordination if it means being next to you." He smiled and she melted.
"Fine, jarhead, but don't get any ideas." She smiled as they rushed toward pre-op. The preparation before operation ward was the worst for anyone who didn't have to be in O.R. In pre-op you had all the lingering feelings of the OR without any of the relief of knowing that the kids in question were closer to being saved. Mike and Belle spent five hours in the pre-op tackling every problem that came their way until they were down to the last patient that had to be shuffled off into OR.
"I think you should go to bed." Belle stated as they lumbered out of the pre-op and into the compound at 0300.
"I think you're right." Mike said as he pulled her in for a hug. "Will I see you tomorrow, Belle?"
"Just try and prevent me from being there when you wake up jarhead." She kissed him on the cheek but couldn't help drawing her lips to his again. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her in as the kiss deepened. "Why do I find myself falling in love with you?"
"It's the uniform." He responded with a smile.
"It's the man." She replied with a serious tone as she grabbed him by collar and pulled him in for another kiss. "I have my own tent, do you think you could just, just hold me, it gets so cold here at night." She looked hopefully up into his eyes.
"Sure." He slid his arms across her shoulders and they walked over to her tent. In her tent the two of them curled up together on her cot. His big arms held her close and kept her warm threw the night. Being this far from home sleep had always presented something of an obstacle for her. It was in the night when loneliness and solitude reached their greatest intensity. But that night, with him she felt whole, secure and for once being in Korea, away from everyone she loved wasn't so daunting.
Her eyelids slowly closed and she drifted off to sleep. During the night she turned slowly into him. Her faces burrowed its way into his chest almost as if she was asking him to protect her while she slept. The night passed outside her tent and gently, the desolation that was the Korean War seemed to evaporate and the nightmares that plagued her mind; nightmares of OR and post op, those nightmares they all faded and her mind shifted out of the darkness. She was back home, in Georgia, a white picket fence around a house on the corner that she knew from her childhood. She was there with him, still amazed by the effect he had on her after all these years.
Morning's first light touched the hills of Korea early that morning but with the deluge over, Major Blake had everyone on twenty-four hour stand down. The two of them awoke later that morning. Him waking up first and gently brushing the hair out of her face. She was so peaceful, so serene almost angelic when she slept. He placed a light kiss on her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered open in that instant and caught the sincerity and caring of his action.
"Morning, jarhead." She whispered at the man who lay next to her on the pillow.
"Morning, Belle." He replied with a smile. "How is it you manage to look beautiful even when you've just woken up?"
"Years of practice." She smiled and gave him a light kiss on the lips. She started to pout slightly into his chest.
"What's wrong?" His voice dripping with concern as his hand lightly caressed her back.
"It's just, you'll be sent back to the line soon and all this, it'll end. Damn this war!" Tears were flowing from her eyes as he placed a hand under her chin. "I don't want this to end, it's too good. I've never felt like this before and this war and X Corps, it all seems determined to end all of that."
"It's okay, I'll come back, if for nothing else, for you. You know that feeling you've got? Well I've got it too. You're an amazing woman, Belle. How you live with all this blood and all this destruction and it doesn't kill that delicate southern flower inside of you is nothing short of a miracle." He brought her hands up to his lips and placed a light kiss on her fingers.
"What do we do? After you leave how will we…" She sniffled slightly as tears welled up in her eyes. "How will we meet up again?"
"We will. The first Independence Day or Christmas Eve after the war ends which ever one's closer. We'll meet at 2300, an hour before midnight at the Lincoln Memorial. All I know is that I want this with you, Belle. Now when I close my eyes I see you in it. I see kids playing on the swing that I've hung from a tree in the front yard and there we are pushing them. I know it sounds corny but I've realized a lot in this war. The happiness that you bring into my life is something I don't want to lose." He looked intently into her eyes.
"I agree. But why don't we make it May 05th, six months from this day and it will be spring the season for love." She replied as a smile grew on her face.
"I always loved May." He smiled slyly and gently drew her into another kiss. They laid on that cot for another hour just revelling in each other, not caring where they were or what was going on outside the entrance to her tent. They paid attention only to each other.
"I've got to go on Ward Duty in ten minutes, I should probably get ready." She got up from the cot and he stood beside her.
"I'll see you when you come off duty." He smiled and kissed her once on the neck before leaving her tent. Ward Duty was boring, every bit as boring as taking up a bunk in post-op which is what Mike, Dave and Gunny Grant were doing that day. They sat in their beds telling war stories about their days in the Corps during the Pacific campaign a few years earlier. The O'Gradys had been on Iwo Jima during the battles there and Gunny Grant had been on Saipan. All three of them had been a part of the fight for Okinawa and Guadalcanal.
The day moved quickly and before any one could believe that much time had passed it was already 1900 and the Ward Duty shifts changed. "Alright, Jarhead, I'm off work let's go hit the O Club." Belle smiled as she walked over to Mike.
"You got it, sweetheart." Mike got up from his bunk and the two of them walked out of the post-op doors toward the O Club.
"Gee, I sure envy Mike, sir." Gunny Grant said as he relaxed on his bunk looking up at the ceiling.
"Why's that, Gunny?" Dave was flipping through a medical journal that Major Blake had loaned him.
"Well sir, he just seems to have it all. You both have these swell careers waiting for you when this war ends and I'm just a career Marine. Now Lieutenant O'Grady has this great new gal on his arm. You guys just are really lucky, sir." Gunny kind of stammered through parts of his explanation.
"Don't be too happy for him, Gunny, we're being evacuated tomorrow to rejoin Colonel Puller and X Corps. The fighting has shifted to the far north. Rumour is Mao's boys are getting antsy and they want to join in the fun." Dave looked over at one very worried Gunnery Sergeant.
"You mean we're going to be heading up to the line to face more than just North Koreans, sir?" Gunny Grant's face was blanched.
"We're going to be facing the Chinese to if the scuttlebutt is right, Gunny. But don't worry. No amount of Chinamen could beat one prepared Marine division. Remember Colonel Puller told us that." The Major had an inspiring effect on his friend.
"You're right, sir." The Gunny replied.
"Alright, now let's grab some shut eye, Gunny." The Major dropped his book and turned over in his cot to go back to sleep.
The night passed somewhat differently for Mike and Belle over at the O Club. After a few Cokes, they shared a few dances and headed back to her tent for another night just wrapped in the loving solace they had found in one another. They woke up the next morning much in the same fashion that they had for the previous morning only a little earlier.
Dave, Gunny Grant and Mike all had their personal effects returned to them before they boarded the evacuation bus that was going to take them back to the line. "I'll write you, every chance I get. I've already started a letter home to my folks, telling them about this great gal I met." He smiled and raised a hand to brush against the softness of her cheek.
"I'm going to miss you terribly. I'll read every one of your letters, I'll treasure them." She smiled weakly and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug and pressed her face into his chest to hide her tears.
"I'll come back to you my southern Belle." He cradled her head against his chest.
"I love you, jarhead." She sobbed.
"I love you too." He said as he placed a soft kiss on top of her head. With that he climbed on to the bus which gunned its engine and headed back to the front. Mike gazed out the window at the fading figure of Belle as she disappeared behind the bus. Mike looked lost and gazed down at the floor of the bus trying to compose himself.
"The fighting has shifted north, the Chinese are expected to push the line here near Chosin Reservoir. That's where we're headed, Marines. I've got a meeting with Colonel Puller when we get there and from then on we'll know what we're expected to do. With any luck we'll repel the counter-attack, cross the Yalu and end the war by Christmas!" Dave announced from the front of the bus to mass cheers from the rest of the Marines.
Days passed back at the 4055th MASH , the days were long for Captain Annabelle Parker but not as long as the nights. Nights when all she could dream about was her Marine in some far off battle, risking life and limb. The days stretched into weeks until one fateful night just after Thanksgiving in November of 1950.
"This is Armed Forces Radio reporting that the Chinese have hit and ruptured the X Corps line at Chosin Reservoir Korea." The call came in over the camp intercom and the surgical staff sprang into action as the buses, ambulances and choppers stampeded into the compound. Belle felt her throat close up as she went into action doing triage in the compound. When she saw Gunny Grant come down off the chopper pad with severe head trauma and no pulse her heart started to waiver.
When she returned from the chopper pad to the main compound she saw the familiar face of an orderly Marine Major. "Belle! Belle!" The raspy almost unrecognizable voice called to her. She walked over and knelt down next to David O'Grady who was using his last breaths to call her. "I tried to save him Belle! I really did! He told me to tell you that he loves you and that he'll watch over you always." Tears rose in Belle's eyes as she listened to his words and saw his eyes close for the last time.
Belle scrambled on to the bus and saw his big limp form lying over one of the stretchers. She prayed to God that he was still with her. That God had spared her one heart ache from which she might never recover. She walked over and shook him vigorously hoping to stir him.
His eyes opened through the pain for a split second. "Belle?" He whispered.
"Yes?" She basically cried as her eyes met his.
"So cold, Belle." He said with tears in his eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck as if to give him something to hold on to. "Love you, Belle, never forget."
"No, Michael, never." She sobbed into his shoulder. In that instant she could swear she felt his spirit slip from her grasp.
In his apartment, North of Union Station, Jim Grant folded the last of the letters that his Uncle Mike had written home about the nurse named Belle. He folded the letter and slid it into its envelope with the others.
"Daddy! Are we going for that drive, daddy?" David jumped into his lap as he sat on the couch.
"Yeah, buddy. Let's go." He took his son by the hand and led him out the door to the jeep. David sat in the back seat and watched his dad pull out of the driveway and into the Washington streets. Jim hadn't bothered to change since he got home from work that day so the Marine Green still adorned his chest.
"Daddy, what's special about today?" David called from the backseat.
"Why would you think that something about today would be special?" Jim smiled in the rear-view mirror at his son.
"I'm staying up late daddy. Is this Daddy's Special Day?" David had a big but tired smile on his face. Nikki always used to call May 5th 'Daddy's Special Day' when they were married; it meant Jim went on a trip for a few days before coming home again.
"That's right, buddy." Jim laughed as his son seemed to understand. Jim put the car in park on the side of the street and he and his son got out of the car. David was wearing his own little Marine Corps uniform as his dad took his hand and walked with him up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They stood there for a second looking up at Mr. Lincoln.
"Daddy, why do people come to see President Lincoln?" David looked at his father like he had all the answers in the world.
"People come to see Mr. Lincoln because they want to ask him for guidance, for something very important. See, Mr. Lincoln did a lot of very good things for this country." Jim smiled down at his son.
"Can I ask him for something, daddy?" David looked at the medals on his dad's chest. His dad nodded and David looked up at the statue of the sixteenth President. "Mr.Lincoln, my name's Davey, Daddy says people come to ask you for important things. Mr. Lincoln, can you make Daddy happy again? Daddy's been really sad since Mommy died." With that David looked expectedly up at his father. "Did I do good, Daddy?"
"You did great, son." With tears in his eyes Jim Grant knelt down and placed a kiss on his son's forehead.
"I've seen your face before." A familiar voice came from behind them.
"It's the uniform." Jim replied as he turned and saw an expected sight.
"It's the man." She said as she walked up and stood next to him.
"How are you, Belle?" Jim said with a weak smile on his face.
"This day's always tough, James." She said as she hugged him. She looked down and saw David and gasped. "He looks just like him."
"That's what my grandfather says. She says Michael was reborn in this little guy." Jim mussed his son's hair.
"You've been coming here for twenty-five years on this day. Why do you come back, James?" She looked into his aging eyes.
"The same reason I came back the second year, Belle. I want to hear the story again."
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders Fields
- John McCrae, 1915
A/N: So what do we think? Did I succeed in living up to the tradition set in "Ghosts of Christmas Past" and "Each of Us Angels"? Did I fall short? Either way, feedback is most appreciated.