Chapter 55
Stringfellow Hawke found himself in the midst of a battle between two doctors. As he attempted to rest on the cot in the swamp he found a battle of annoying wills erupting around him. In Charle's side of the tent, classical music arose from a portable record player. On Hawkeye's side of the tent the cheers and a play-by-play broadcast from a ballgame was heard over a transistor radio with HAM radio reception. Charles would turn up the music to drown out the ballgame and in turn Hawkeye would turn up the volume of the radio to drown out the music. BJ was making the rounds in the recovery ward leaving the battle to be handled by String alone.
String had enough of the pair. He was tired of the shenanigans of the two. He rose from his cot and looked at the pair rather disgusted and then went for the door.
Charles spoke, "Are you going someplace, Captain Hawke?"
"I am." he replied a bit miffed.
Charles reached under his pillow and pulled out am letter, "Could you be a good chap and drop this off at HQ for Radar to mail for me." He sounded rather pompous in the request.
Hawkeye came to his defense, "He's not your errand boy, Charles."
String asked, "Do you two normally act like this?"
"Depends on the day." Hawkeye admitted.
Charles retorted, "I am trying to bring some resemblance of civilization to this wretched place."
Hawkeye turned down the radio and came to attention as if straining to hear. "Turn it down, Charles." he told him.
"I will not!" he huffed.
"Listen." he requested.
Charles turned the player down. In the distance the faint sound of a chopper could be heard.
Then the klaxons sounded, "All hands on deck. Incoming wounded. It's a big one."
In a shot the doctors rose up and were out the door. Busses of wounded were pouring into camp. A chopper was coming in for a landing with wounded. The camp was being flooded with wounded men. String watched the doctors started triage.
He called to Hawkeye who seemed to have taken charge. "I'm a combat medic. What can I do to help?"
Hawkeye stated, "Help with triage. Is anyone else on your crew a medic?"
"We all have some experience." he told him.
"Anywhere they can help is appreciated." Hawkeye told him.
Caitlin ran around the corner with Dom and Sam as they came to see the influx of wounded.
String hollered, "Help with triage! They need all the help they can get." He paused for a moment and looked around as wounded flooded in around him like wave of water. He fell back on is combat experience and began to triage the walking wounded.
Another chopper headed towards the landing pad. This chopper was not only loaded with wounded but smoking as well from the engine. A trial of black smoke marked the damaged chopper as it came in for a landing.
String noticed the smoke and the wayward incoming Bell H-13 helicopter. He ran up the small hill to see if he could assist.
BJ Hunnicutt had gotten to the chopper with a jeep with Radar to take the wounded. As String reached the landing pad he found BJ and Radar had already loaded the two men into the jeep and were bringing them back down. BJ called to String as they passed, "Check the pilot. He was hit by gunfire in the arm but won't let me look at him."
"Got it!" String yelled back. He soon reached the pilot, a man just slightly taller than he and with light brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a leather flight jacket and guarded his left arm as he climbed up on the side of the chopper to assess the damage.
String called out to the pilot, "You wounded."
The pilot turned to String and stated, "Just a scratch."
String paused for just a moment as he spied the face of his father, Major John Hawke. He gathered himself for he wanted nothing more to run up to the man and hold onto him and never let him go but he simply could not. Instead, he fought back his overwhelming emotions and came to his aid, "I'm a pilot and engineer. You need help?"
"Took a round in the engine compartment." he reported. "I can't fly without repairs and a new fuel pump." He got a good look at String. He cocked his head for the man resembled his own father to some degree. "Major John Hawke." He held out his good hand.
"Captain Hawke." he greeted with a handshake. He had to resist the urge to pull his father close and wrap his arms around him. For to his father, he was a stranger and his son was a mere child back in the States.
He gave a slight chuckle, "I wonder if there is any relation. You look a lot my dad. Different nose though." he commented.
"I come from a big family." he replied. "Who knows…" he hinted. "Captain Hunnicutt wanted me to take a look at your arm."
"It's just a scratch." he insisted.
String retorted, "Let me see it."
Major Hawke winced as he removed the arm from the sleeve of the jacket. String found a flesh wound that went straight through the meat of the upper arm. He instructed, "You need stitches and an x-ray." He grabbed a bandage and placed it over the wound and then gently elevated the arm and applied pressure to control the bleeding.
Major John Hawke asked, "You new here? Where is your insignia?"
"I'm passing through." he explained. "Lost my uniform." he excused. "Come on, let's get you down to camp." String then walked by his father's side still holding the pressure bandage on the arm to the doctors in the camp.
Hours Later
As the doctors and nurses tended to the most serious wounded Sam, Caitlin String and Dom tended to the men with non life threatening wounds to help ease the load for the doctors.
Major John Hawke stared intently at Dom sitting nearby as String patched up his arm after finding no broken bones or injury to a major blood vessel while Caitlin and Sam tended to cleaning up the area after stitching up the walking wounded.
"You look just like my best friend but older." John Hawke told Dom.
Dom figured it would be nearly impossible to deny the truth. "That's because I am your best friend, John. Now hold still while String stitches you up."
He asked in shock, "How? You are…how old are you?"
"I'm sixty five." he told him.
"How are you sixty five and how are you here in the 4077th when you flew two wounded to the 8063rd?" he balked.
"Think about it, John. How could that happen? I know you are smart enough to figure it out." he replied.
"Time travel?" he asked bewildered.
"How is time travel possible, John?" he asked him.
Major Hawke pondered, "Well…you would have to create a hole in space-time fabric using a gravity source."
"Right!" he smiled. "What kind of engine would you need to do that?" Dom asked.
"A gravity wave engine." he figured. "We don't have gravity engines…" he cocked his head, "Do we?" He leaned forward, "That wasn't a weather balloon in Roswell, was it? We saw something that night."
Sam perked up, "You saw what crashed at Roswell?"
"I saw something…Miss…Um…" he looked to Dom, "Who are your friends, Dom?"
Dom debated who he should say. "Well, that's Samantha Hawke and Caitlin O'Shannessy and the man stitching you up is Stringfellow Hawke, your son. And Sam is your granddaughter." he added.
He looked at String and blinked, "Wait! This man is my String? My little boy?"
Dom nodded, "He is."
String looked up still holding the needle and tread with the surgical tool, "Hi Dad." He had no idea what else to say and felt simply awkward.
He looked at Dom with absolute shock, "Is Sinjin here too?"
"No," Dom shook his head. "But Sinjin knows about it and the engine. Sam is his daughter."
He looked to Sam who was cleaning up the messy area. She glanced up, "Hi Grandpa." she stated with no clue what else to say as well.
He looked at Dom again, "Um…" he was at a loss for words.
"It was an accident, John. Sam made the engine and were testing it and it brought us here. We didn't intend to come here. Sam is working on getting us back. Until then, we have no place else to go and we can't let anyone get their hands on the engine. Just don't tell anyone about it." he pleaded.
John stated, "Surely, others in the 4077th recognize you, Dom."
Dom replied, "Jan and Father Mulcahy did and they are not telling anyone. Colonel Potter knows the truth too. We can show you the engine. Sam built the engine and we put it in a chopper that String designed." He suggested, "Me and String can help you get that chopper fixed and you on your way. Just do me a big favor and when you see young and dumb me, don't tell him there is an old man version of him here."
John figured, "I doubt anyone would believe this." He looked to String, "My son, huh!"
"I never knew I looked like grandpa." he mentioned.
He sat beside himself, "My son, who is a little boy is now a grown man and stitching me up."
Dom added, "It's gets worse. Hot Lips has the hots for him."
He grew wide-eyed, "Oh' hell no!"
Later
With the swamp full, Major John Hawke was allowed to stay in the VIP tent with Dom as String returned the doctor's tent. He found all three doctors in the tent and had crashed from exhaustion after hours of surgery. He went to his cot still shaken upon seeing his father once more and sat down and let out a long deep exhale.
BJ looked over to him, "First time?" he asked.
"You mean the wounded?" he asked.
"Yeah," he nodded still laying down.
He recalled, "I saw action before. Combat medic…" he could not say he was in Nam for that conflict had not occurred as of yet.
BJ sat up and told him, "You seem a little ruffled, String."
He couldn't tell them the truth. "I'll try to not seem like that." was all he could say.
"What is it? It helps to talk and get it off your chest, Captain." BJ pressed concerned.
Hawkeye also sat up as he wounded if String was having some trouble emotionally or mentally after the wave of wounded. He offered, "I can make you a nightcap if it helps. We make our own." he motioned towards the still.
He shook his head, "I'm fine. Just a bit…overwhelmed."
Charles also sat up in bed. He looked at the pilot, "I can see why you would be overwhelmed. Stuck here with a top secret chopper and then all the wounded, stuck in the middle of a war."
Hawkeye added, "You and your crew really helped us out today. You jumped right in and helped. Most pilots just go to the officer's lounge and drink. You even stitched up Major Hawke and you did a good job at that." He then suggested, "Ever think about becoming a doctor? Going to med school. I bet you could do it, String."
He shook his head, "Not sure I could do what you men did today. That was a lot of blood and guts and I've seen some bad wounds in the field. Not like what you doctors have to deal with. You get them one after another…like an assembly line of body parts in some weird factory." He confessed, "I'm not sure I could hold it together if I saw that all the time."
BJ confessed, "We don't! We have to blow off steam. The last doctor who was in here before Charles…he lost it. Frank!"
He asked, "What happened to Frank?"
"They promoted him to Colonel." he informed. "He went nuts in Tokyo so, in the Army's wisdom they gave him a promotion."
Hawkeye nodded, "Frank was like a mind with all the gears stripped out. Him and Hot Lips were a thing." He then recalled, "Majors Hawke and Santini were in the camp for a layover. They stayed to fly out a patient who was real touch and go. He managed to get on their nerves even."
String asked, "There was a doctor in here that managed to get on my fa…Major Hawke's nerves?" He found it hard to imagine such a doctor as his father would not take nonsense from anyone.
Charles caught to the near slip. He squinted in thought. The highly advanced helicopter, the meal ready to eat, the lack of uniforms and how much the older Colonel looked and acted like a much younger Major that would fly into camp made him wonder if perhaps the test flight was more than they were being told.
Hawkeye agreed, "Major Hawke is a guy who is easy to get along with. Frank…" he winced. He reached for the booze, "Sure you don't want a drink, String. It will help ya sleep."
He gave in, "Just a sip."
Hawkeye grinned and poured the white alcohol into a cocktail glass and then handed it to String. "Made that batch just the other day." he beamed proud.
String soured as he took the glass, "More than just a sip here."
"Take a big sip." Hawkeye urged.
String brought it to his lips and took a small sip. He puckered soon after as he eyes began to water. He handed the glass back to Hawkeye and could barely catch his breath. "You drink that all the time?" he coughed.
Hawkeye retrieved the glass and took a sip himself. "It's better than normal." he informed.
He asked, "Did you ever give that to Major Hawke or Major Santini?"
He grinned, "Give it to them. Heck, they helped us make the still. Got the copper we needed." He threw back his head and drank down the rest and then mentioned, "Dom and John are two fun pilots. Our Dom is lot like your Dom…I mean a lot like him. Just your Dom is older." He pondered allowed, "I wonder if they are father and son?"
String shook the hard taste from his head. He couldn't believe Dom could drink booze that terrible. "No wonder he like McDonald's. That stuff ate away his taste buds." he concluded.
"Hmm," Charles picked up on the words. "Tell me about this McDonald's?"