Hawkeye placed one hand on Linda's back and took her by the arm with the other. "I think this vicious slandering of Frank Burns' character calls for a toast!" he proclaimed. I took her other arm and we dragged her towards the swamp.

"A toast? This early?" she asked. Hawkeye looked at her fondly. The truest sign of a newcomer was someone who was ignorant about the intense amount of alcohol consumption in camp.

An explosion of color erupted from behind the swamp as Klinger swished up to us. He was wearing a full-length, purple, floral evening gown with sequins that caught the sun, making him shimmer as he traipsed about, topped off with a white, wide-brimmed hat and his trusty rifle.

"And how are my favorite captains doing on this fine afternoon?" he asked, addressing Hawkeye and myself.

"I'm holding myself back, Klinger," Hawkeye responded. Klinger laughed but stopped when he caught sight of Linda.

"And who do we have here?"

"This is Lieutenant Linda Florence, one of our new nurses," I said. "Linda, meet Corporal Maxwell Klinger."

He extended his hand and she did the same.

"How do you do, Lieutenant?" he asked, eying her from top to toes.

"I'm doing very well," Linda said, trying desperately not to laugh. "I bet you get this all the time, but I really like your dress."

Klinger's eyes widened and a smile played across his face. "Really?" He began to get excited. "I made this one myself. It's a little too small for me in the bust area because I ran out of fabric. You know how hard it is to requisition lilac flower print in a war zone?"

"I can imagine," Linda replied, smiling.

"Well, I've got to finish my sentry duty and then report for KP," Klinger said. He turned to Hawkeye and me. "I got extra KP on account of Major Burns finding that letter I was telling you about. The one to General Hammond with the enclosed picture of me in my negligee." He extended his hand again and Linda took it. "Really nice to meet you Lieutenant."

"The pleasure's all mine, Corporal," she replied, a wide smile spreading across her face."

Klinger fixed his hat, smoothed out his dress, and waltzed off to Radar's office, his ensemble lightly fluttering in the breeze.

"There goes Klinger, the son and daughter I never had," Hawkeye said.

Linda turned around and faced us. "Was that a man in a dress?" she asked, laughing.

"No," I said. "That was Maxwell Klinger in a floor-length evening gown and matching hat."

"Should I even ask why?"

"Klinger is a great soldier and a good guy," I began. "But he wants to get out so bad he'll do anything to prove he's crazy, including wearing women's clothing."

"Well, the best of luck to him," she said, beaming. "This certainly is a colorful camp."

"We try our very best," Hawkeye said. "Now how about that toast?" He ushered us to the swamp, opening the door for Linda and me and slamming it shut.

"Did the place get dirtier since last night?" Linda asked, laughing.

"Our garbage multiplies on its own," I replied. "But try not to look, it gets nervous."

"I'll turn my head if I see anything less than decent," she said.

Hawkeye hustled around his bed, brushing it off to make it suitable for Linda to sit on. I wiped the martini glasses clean with a dirty rag.

"So, what do you really think of the place so far?" I asked Linda, pouring the twenty-minute old gin into three glasses. "And none of this, 'I really like it here' stuff. We want the truth."

"I think that you two are trying to get me drunk," she said, laughing. "How many times a day do you guys drink?"

"How many hours are in a day again?" asked Hawkeye as he accepted his martini from me.

Linda laughed and took the glass from my hand. "This is the only one, though. I can't hold my liquor to save my life."

"We have an extra tank if you need it," I said, smiling at her.

"Seriously, though. I'm terrible with booze."

"Fair enough," I replied. I glanced over at Hawkeye who was staring at Linda in a rather undignified way: his tongue was practically sticking out.

She noticed his stares and laughed. "What is it?"

"It's just I've never seen you dressed like that before."

"Well, as soon as I find somehow to iron my fatigues I'll never dress like this again, so enjoy it while you can."

"What do you think I'm doing now?"

She found one of Hawkeye's magazines and threw it at him. He ducked, but not in time, and it hit him square on the forehead.

We laughed as Hawkeye rubbed his head. "Remind me to pick you first when we play camp baseball," he said. He changed the tone quickly. "A toast! What to?"

"To us!" Linda yelled, raising her glass.

"To them!" Hawkeye countered.

"To you!" I said, raising my glass to Linda. "For your gift of disobedience to your military superiors who, by strange coincidence, are everyone's mental inferiors."

We all drank. Linda began to sputter.

"I forgot that this isn't really gin," she said, giggling.

"Unfortunately gin is copyrighted, we'd get sued if we made the real stuff," I said, pouring her another glass. She shook her head.

"I really shouldn't drink this early," she said, putting her glass down on the table beside her. "If I'm smashed during my shift in post-op, Houlihan will have my hide."

"When do you go on?" Hawkeye asked.

"Fourteen hundred hours," Linda replied. "So two o'clock?"

"Ah," Hawkeye said, placing his glass gently on the table then bouncing up. "You have won a romantic middle of the day with our not-so-eligible non-bachelor, Captain BJ Hunnicutt, M.D. in the remote paradise of the 4077th's post operative ward."

"Are you going to be there too, Hawk?" she asked. Hawkeye laughed.

"I am the lucky doctor who does not have post-op duty all day today. Unfortunately, I'm the unlucky doctor who has it first thing in the morning. Twelve midnight. No-hundred hours."

Linda walked up to him and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "You should get some sleep, Hawk. You look tired."

"I always look tired," he replied. "Korea has an amazing night life."

"Did you sleep at all?"

"There was that five minutes that I can't account for. So I either slept or was abducted by aliens. Other than that…"

"Sleep, Hawkeye. That's an order."

He put his hands on his hips, faking irritation. "You can't order me, I'm a higher rank than you are."

"That's true, but I have more sense than you do," she laughed.

"Good point." He threw himself on his cot. She fixed the covers over him, making sure he was completely covered and soon his breathing slowed and came out in even rasps.

She patted his arm and walked past me, nudging me out the door. We walked a few paces from the tent and she whispered, "Has he been doing ok?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, leaning against a jeep parked in the compound.

She climbed into the bucket seat of the jeep and crossed her arms as if she were cold.

"It's been pretty intense for him with my being here. I just don't want to mess up his routine or make him uncomfortable at all."

"He'll adjust, Linda," I said, dropping into the driver's seat. "Hawkeye is strong and he can figure things out by himself, he just needs time."

I ran my hands along the circumference of the wheel, resting at the ignition. My hand ached to turn it and just drive, drive away from the hospital, from the wounded, from the military, from the world in general. I just wanted to be away, but I knew that Uncle Sam didn't like when people stole his toys, so I rested my hands on the wheel and just pretended I was somewhere else.

The jeep squeaked behind me and Linda plopped into the passenger seat.

"Let's go for a ride." I was a bit shocked and for a moment I thought she had inherited Radar's ability to read people's minds.

"Excuse me?"

"Let's go for a ride. Rev it up and just drive forever." Her eyes fixed on a spot in the horizon and went glassy for a moment. "Just drive."

"If I could, Linda, I would," I replied. "But you haven't been in the army for long. Being absent without leave is somewhat frowned upon and stealing government property at the same time is just adding insult to injury."

"Well, then we'll tell someone. Just say, 'Hey someone, we're leaving forever, do you mind?' If they say 'no,' then we have leave, right?"

She threw her head back and laughed. Her jaw curved and became one with her neck so elegantly that it was almost too perfect. Her laugh was harsh, but not forced or fake like most of the laughter I had heard since I got here. It was real, genuine laughter and it was music in the din of the afternoon.

She kept nudging me. "Come on, BJ." "Start the engine." "I'll give you a nickel."

I laughed. "How badly do you want to go?"

"If I'm going to be vacationing in Korea I have to at least see more than the dusty field I'm calling home for the next forever."

"Well, I can give you the dime tour." I motioned to the mountains. "Over there is a prime spot for snipers to hide and fire on while we're all unarmed. Past the mountains is the thirty eighth parallel, where all this garbage started. Go past North Korea and you're smack dab in Communist China." I looked at her and sighed. "Does that sound fun to you?"

Her face brightened. "Not with that attitude, it doesn't."

She pushed me out of the jeep and I had to catch the side to keep from falling on my face. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm commandeering this vehicle whether you like it or not Mr. Pessimist and if you don't come with me and tell me where to go, I will get lost and captured and probably shot." She scooted over and put her hands on the wheel. "What's it gonna be, Captain?"

I shook my head and jumped into the backseat of the jeep. I put my lips to her ear. "Drive straight and at Rosie's bar, take a left. Drive for five minutes then turn right at a small dirt road."

"What's at the end of the road?" she asked. I climbed into the passenger seat and smiled slightly. "You'll see."