Once all the wounded were sorted through in triage, Radar usually became obsolete around the operating room. He was sometimes needed to relay messages back and forth between Headquarters and Colonel Blake about the shelling situations, sometimes he was asked to bring food and juice or milk for the staff during the longer sessions, and only in dire situations was he ever asked to scrub up and act as a nurse.
This session was not as bad as most because the wounded were left over from the earlier one. The number of casualties brought this time was only a fraction of what was brought before. Radar ducked out of the hospital, clipboard in hand, and squinted as the sun beat down on his face. The position of the sun marked an hour or two past noon, the day was barely half over and Radar was already exhausted.
He sat down on a wooden bench just outside the OR, grateful to have a few seconds to rest, finally. He had a guilty pleasure in not being needed for this particular session. Half of the camp was working through the hubbub going on inside the building behind him. He closed his eyes and leaned his cap-covered head against the bulletin board hanging on the wall behind him. In the time he had spent in Korea, there were few moments that he found he could block out the war; the sight of it, the smell of it, even the sound of it could be completely erased for a split second. This was not one of those times. When his eyes closed, he started by filtering away the rustling papers on the bulletin board behind him, then he erased the distant sound of artillery, next he sifted out the clanking of surgical clamps and scalpels being used inside the OR. The yelling voices of doctors, nurses, and corpsmen soon followed…but there was one underlying sound that he could not erase. It was a light whirring sound like a far away engine of a machine or jeep. Radar opened his eyes, squinting again because of the harsh sun. He looked out onto the main road for the coming jeep. He didn't necessarily expect to see it right there, but it was coming nonetheless. It was at least ten or fifteen minutes away. He never could explain his uncanny ability to know thingswere going to happen before they actually did. His head began aching with the isolated whirring sound, which happened often with his so-called premonitions, so he let the war sounds trickle back in.
Huh, he thought. I guess our new nurse will be arriving kinda soon.
As surely as if it were on a timed schedule in Radar's mind, an olive-drab jeep, driven by a corporal and carrying a female Lieutenant, obviously the new nurse, pulled into the compound exactly ten minutes after Radar had heard it. The whirring finally stopped. Radar appreciatively rubbed his now quiet head and jogged over to the jeep. Radar gloated to himself about predicting the nurse's arrival.
The corporal driving the jeep threw the brake on, stood up inside the jeep and saluted. Radar, not used to receiving salutes, accidentally returned it with his left hand--which he also forgot was holding his clipboard. Not only was he red with embarrassment of his military faux pas, but also his forehead was going to have a very large bump where his clipboard hit. He abashedly dropped his left hand to his side and issued a proper salute to the Lieutenant.
"Corporal Rad…er…Walter O'Reilly, welcome to 4077th MASH." The corporal in the jeep did not respond, but sat down firmly in the driver's seat. When the driver sat down, Radar finally got a good look at the new nurse. She was probably between 19 and 21, wholesome and pretty, with wisps of blonde hair sneaking a peek from under her uniform hat. She had a smattering of freckles across a slightly up-turned nose, and her eyes were large and green.
She looked at Radar and said "Please excuse my driver, this is his first time away from his unit and he was pulled off the road by military police. He's been fairly quiet since." Her voice was earthy, with a slight mid-western accent that he couldn't quite place. She stood up and stepped out of the jeep. As she walked to where Radar was standing (with his mouth gaping open), he could fully see her delicate and shapely figure. She saluted him and his face flushed a deep crimson as he saluted back.
"Lieutenant Sarah McLaurian reporting for duty." She sounded like a very confident woman, but when she dropped her hand from the salute, Radar saw that she was shaking slightly. He wondered if she had practiced her introduction a few times one the ride over like he used to when he was new at MASH. "And you are Corporal…O'Reilly, wasn't it?" She asked timidly.
"Um, Ma'am, please, call me Radar…everybody else does. Sometimes I don't even recognize my own name when people call me it." Radar realized he was babbling, so he changed the subject. "The Colonel wished to be out here to meet you himself, personally, when you arrived, but he's in surgery…I mean…He's operating. He's not sick or nothing like that." He grinned shyly as he picked up her suitcase. "Um, I don't know where your new quarters are s'posed to be, the choppers came before Major Houlihan—she's the head nurse—told Colonel Blake where you'd be staying."
"The Major tells the Colonel the quarters arrangements?" Lieutenant McLaurian asked incredulously.
"Oh, not all the quarters…just the nurses of the female sexes." Radar stumbled over his words trying to find a proper explanation. The lieutenant nodded. "If you'll follow me, Lieutenant, ma'am, I'll show you to the VIP tent where you can leave your belongings until Major Houlihan is out of OR…and um…then maybe I could give you a tour of four-oh-double 7 until they're done." Radar blushed again. "Unless, of course, you don't want to, which is okey-dokey."
"That's sounds nice Radar…" She began.
"Yeah, well, I can understand your not wanting to, you must be tired…" Radar rambled.
"Radar, I said it would be nice." She interrupted shyly. He blushed again. "And you can call me Mickey." Radar looked at her with a confused gaze on his face. She tried to explain, "It's a lot easier than Lieutenant McLaurian."
Radar beamed again as the proverbial light bulb went on in his head. "Oh! Mickey! Like the mouse!"
Mickey giggled. "Yeah…like the mouse." And with that, the two headed off towards the VIP tent while the silent corporal stiffly drove away.