Hawkeye wandered back into camp and stopped dead. The camp was too quiet. No one ran between tents, the latrine doors sat empty and waiting. Nothing moved. He went into the building closest to him, Potter's office, to try and figure out what was going on. Klinger lay slumped over the desk, hat crushed and torn on the floor.
"Klinger?" Hawkeye asked worriedly.
"You okay?" Hawkeye lifted him by his shoulder, raising his face from the desk. His head hung lifelessly as Hawkeye tremblingly touched the tiny hole in his blouse. The tiny hole directly in line with his heart. Pierce felt for a pulse, but he knew he would not find anything. He was right. He laid Klinger gently back to his desk and went into Potter's office. Potter's frozen look of shock greeted him. Still in his chair, a bullet hole marred his forehead. Hawkeye didn't bother with a pulse. Radar lay on the floor, folders and reports strewn around him, eyes open and staring into nothingness. Hawkeye backpedaled, running from the room and trying not to throw up.
"What happened? Who did this!" He cried, turning in circles in the center of the camp. He had opened every tent he had come across. Every tent except one. They all held similar horrors. Everyone was dead, the nurses' bodies lay strewn across their cots, he dared not think about what they had suffered before their deaths. Margaret had fought, he could tell, her tent a whirlwind of shattered knickknacks and heavy objects. It was all to no avail. She, too, was dead. There was one last tent, the Swamp. Hawkeye went in. BJ lay on the floor, hands clutching his abdomen.
"Beej!"
"Hawk? You survived? Where were you?" BJ whispered. Hawkeye knelt down next to him.
"I went for a walk, and when I got back... Who did this?"
"North Koreans. I was asleep, but then I heard the women scream, and I tried to help them. I really tried, Hawkeye."
"I know, I know."
"And then there's this guy, and he's got a gun, and he forces me back into the tent. Frank yells at him... and he shoots him. Hawkeye, he blew Frank's head off. He forced me onto my knees. I begged him, told him I had a family. He shot me, Hawk." Hawkeye pulled apart his hands and looked at the gaping hole in BJ's stomach.
"It doesn't look too bad." Hawkeye said, lying through his teeth.
"Hawkeye, promise me you'll take care of my family."
"You'll be fine, Beej. I'll fix you right up, don't talk like that." BJ pulled out a picture of his wife and child and stuck it in Hawkeye's pocket.
"Promise me you'll take care of Peggy and Erin for me. You're the only one I trust. Promise."
"I promise."
"Thanks Hawk. Tell them... Tell them I love them." BJ gasped and stopped.
"Bye Erin..." He whispered as he passed away.
"Beej! No! Beej! Not like this! You can't die like this! Beej!" Hawkeye cried, trying desperately to force his friend's body to live. He heard movement behind him, but, before he could turn, something glanced across his skull. He saw no more.
He awoke to a strange sensation. His wrists and ankles were tied to a pole and his shirttail scraped the ground. He was roped up like a prize kill. A bloody necklace of dog tags hung from his throat, swinging in time to the men's steps. He said nothing, letting his tears and grief overcome him. They finally came to the end of their march and dropped him unceremoniously. He landed with a grunt, not bothering to struggle. They cut his ropes and threw him into a pit, covered with a bamboo latticework. He didn't try to escape. As the setting sun threw its rays into his cage, Hawkeye mustered up enough strength to read the tags. O'Reilly. Houlahan. Potter. Klinger. Burns. Mulcahy. Abel. Freedman. Hunnicut. Pierce. There were several more, but he didn't read further. It was somehow fitting that the names of his friends hung around his neck. The dreams had warned him, but he had not listened. Now, his friends had paid for his mistake.
He fell into a fitful slumber, plagued by the faces of the dead. The sunrise was a welcome respite from continual nightmares, but carried its own dreadful consequences. The soldiers were back. They hauled him from the pit and forced him to march by gunpoint. After a few hours of continual motion, Hawkeye was exhausted. His usual sharp wit failed him, and, even if he had been on his toes, the soldiers' complete lack of English curtailed any bargaining. He only wondered why they hadn't killed him. They slowed the march as they came into a clearing. Several tents and a small wooden shack greeted them.
"Home sweet home." Hawkeye muttered as they walked into camp. After much gesturing and loud exclamations, Hawkeye was led into what was obviously a private tent. A wounded man lay on the cot. The soldier pushed Hawkeye towards him.
"You want me to help him? Is that what all this was about! You could have brought him in! We would have helped him! There was no need to kill them!" Hawkeye screamed at the soldier. The soldier ignored him, pushing him with the tip of his gun towards the wounded officer. Hawkeye examined him.
"Severe concussion, multiple lacerations, possible internal bleeding. I'd need a hospital to fix this! Hospital, understand?" Hawkeye said, drawing a cross on the dirt floor. The soldier nodded and yelled something out the door of the tent. Another man ran in with a bag of medical supplies they had stolen from the MASH.
"Oh, yah, good. A few bandages and some morphine. That'll really help internal bleeding. Hospital! I need to get him to a hospital!" The soldier pushed him with the gun.
"Okay, no hospital. You can't expect me to work miracles, right?" Hawkeye asked rhetorically. He worked on the officer for a few minutes, doing what he could. Namely, reliving the pain and making his death as comfortable as possible.
"Why I'm doing this, I don't know. You and your buddies murdered all of my friends. Rightfully, I should let you die. Unfortunately for me, they're expecting me to heal you." Hawkeye muttered to the officer as he wrapped bandages around his head. The man started to convulse.
"Damn it! I knew this was going too well. I need some adrenaline, stat! Give me the bag." Hawkeye said, snatching the bag away from the soldier and digging through it. He pulled out a syringe and injected the officer. Nothing. Starting CPR, Hawkeye struggled to revive him, knowing it was hopeless. If his heart hadn't stopped, he would have bled to death, anyway. After several repetitions, Hawkeye yielded to the inevitable.
"He's gone." Hawkeye told the soldier. The soldier felt for a pulse. Finding none, he pulled Hawkeye up and shoved him out the door. Stumbling, Hawkeye fell prone in the dirt. The soldier pressed his foot on Hawkeye's back and kept him from getting up. Pierce coughed, trying to rid himself of a mouthful of dust. The soldier called to the others. He was surrounded. Hawkeye tried to rise, pushing up against the soldier's boot. A gun was shoved in his face. He froze.
"Okay, I got it. I'm not moving." He said, eyes practically crossed as he eyed the barrel. The soldiers appeared to get in quite a fight, arguing, Hawkeye assumed, about what to do with him. They seemed to reach a decision. The soldier moved his boot, and Hawkeye was allowed to stand. As he stood, he looked around warily, wondering why he wasn't already dead. He presumed they were thankful for his help, as if he had a choice. One of the soldiers pulled out a long, and Hawkeye surmised, sharp knife. The men parted like the Red Sea, the space a veritable arrow pointing straight to him.
"Um, hi. I hope you're not planning on using that knife, 'cause, you know, I'm not real fond of sharp objects." Hawkeye said, backing away. The man came towards him and Hawkeye started to panic.
"Look! I tried to save him! I couldn't do anymore! You wouldn't let me take him to a hospital!" The man ignored him completely. Reaching Hawkeye, he held the knife to his throat. Pierce swallowed and fell silent. The man said something, and then pulled Hawkeye towards the woods.
"Where we going?" Hawkeye asked as the knife moved away from his neck and pricked his back, urging him on. The woods grew darker as they moved further away from the camp. They stopped. The soldier pushed Hawkeye to his knees, pressing the knife to his throat once again.
"What? You brought me all the way out here for a private funeral?" The soldier bent to meet his eyes. Gesturing, he pointed to his head and chest.
"Yah, your boss. What about him?" The soldier gestured again, pointing to the caduceus on Pierce's uniform.
"I tried to heal him. I couldn't." The man nodded, seeming to understand. He took the knife away from Pierce's throat. Hawkeye breathed a sigh of relief. The soldier pressed his knee into Pierce's back, forcing him to the ground. Hawkeye struggled under the knee, confused.
"I thought you understood! What are you doing? Let me go!" He cried as the soldier grabbed his right arm. The man altered his center of gravity and the weight pushed the air from Pierce's lungs, rendering him momentarily silent. Hawkeye saw the knife lower towards his right hand.
"No! What are you doing? Stop!" Hawkeye screamed as the knife began to cut into his wrist.
"No!" Hawkeye's voice echoed through the forest, falling abruptly silent mid-cry.
He awoke hours later, bleeding to death on the forest floor. Blood pumped from his handless arm, oozing onto the already damp undergrowth. For a few moments, he didn't move. The physical pain was nearly overwhelming, but the emotional pain was more so. In just a few months he had lost his fiancé, his friends, and now with his hand, his livelihood. A strange thing to think about as you lay dieing on the ground. What will I do now, no longer able to be a surgeon? A paper fluttered in front of his face. A photograph. Peggy and Erin's smiling faces taunted him from their two dimensional world. BJ's last words echoed in his mind. He pulled himself into a sitting position, cradling his stump to his chest.
"I promised him I would take care of them." Hawkeye moaned, finally standing. Stumbling forward, Pierce started towards home.
"A terrible tragedy in Korea. A horrific sight met investigators today as they searched the MASH 4077 for any signs of life. After two days of silence from the camp, an investigative party was sent to uncover the problem. They stumbled into a holocaust. The bodies of the officers and enlisted men and women of the 4077 lay scattered in their tents. The camp was apparently overrun with no warning, as some of the men were found still seated in the Mess Tent or behind their desks. The investigators surmise that North Koreans struck sometime Thursday, massacring the entire population. This strikes a terrible blow to the war, as the absence of such an important medical center will likely cause a rise in causalities. Identifying the bodies has proven problematic due to the mysterious disappearance of all the dog tags in camp. However, proper identification has been made and the Army is notifying their families. All of the people assigned to the MASH were found, except one surgeon, Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce. He has been officially listed as MIA. This has been a broadcast of the Armed Forces' Radio Network. Good night."
Hawkeye had wrapped his wrist in a piece of his shirt. The rag had soaked through long ago, but Pierce ignored the steady drip of blood. He didn't know exactly where he was, but he moved in a generally southern direction, hoping to at least get out of enemy territory. He came upon a road, and, finding it easier than fighting his way through brambles, took it. His slow and steady gait served to numb his mind, the constant movement a welcome respite from his blazing thoughts. When a jeep finally came barreling past, he nearly missed it. It slid to a stop and backed up. The two soldiers looked at him curiously.
"You need a ride, Sir?" Hawkeye kept walking.
"Sir?" The driver asked again, turning off the jeep. When Hawkeye didn't respond, he got out.
"Sir?" The man asked, touching Pierce's shoulder. Hawkeye finally looked at him, blinking into awareness.
"Huh?"
"You okay, Sir? Do you need a lift?"
"Yah. I need to get to a hospital. I've had massive blood loss and I need a transfusion." Hawkeye said dazedly as he crawled into the jeep. He passed out as the jeep started.
"Jeeze, Louise! How many dog tags does this guy have! Does anybody know his name? I've got to figure out his blood type!"
"He looks like he's coming around. Try and ask him his name."
"Hey, buddy, can you tell me your name? Captain?" Pierce's eyes cracked open as he looked up into a light. He laughed sardonically, thinking how the tables had turned, once a surgeon, now a patient.
"Captain? Can you tell me your name?" The doctor asked, face shrouded in the surgical mask.
"Pierce, Benjamin Franklin. Surgeon, MASH 4077. Serial number..." Pierce faded out, lapsing into unconsciousness. As he faded, he could hear loud exclamations.
"4077? It couldn't be!"
"Didn't they say there was a Captain Pierce MIA?"
"Yah, and all the dog tags, remember?"
"Wow. I hope he can tell us what happened." A young nurse said, amazed. The older doctor shook his head.
"I hope he can't."
"MIA MASH surgeon found. The only survivor of the MASH massacre was located yesterday. Captain Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce was found wandering just south of the front lines. His exact condition has not been released, but reports indicate he was injured. He is listed as stable at Tokyo General Hospital. No further information regarding the massacre has been provided. The Army has released a statement stating that Captain Pierce was wounded in action, and, after a debriefing in the States, will be honorably discharged. It is also reported that he will be recommended for a Purple Heart. This was a broadcast of the Armed Forces' Radio Network. Good night."
"I'm proud to award you with a Purple Heart. Congratulations, Captain." The General said, saluting.
"Thank you, Sir." Pierce said, swallowing his feelings and returning the salute left-handed. He was free. The awards ceremony marked the end of Captain Benjamin Pierce, MASH 4077, and the return of Benjamin Pierce, MD.
"Now what?" Hawkeye asked to empty air as he walked from the base, suitcase swinging freely in his left hand.
Hawkeye put his suitcase down. He had been on his way home, but he never made it. Something rested heavily on his mind, and no amount of homesickness could displace it. He knocked on the door, slipping his right arm out of sight as the door opened.
"Yes?" A lovely blond woman asked, dressed entirely in black. Swallowing hard, Hawkeye steeled himself for her tears.
"Peggy?"
"Yes, I'm Peggy."
"Peggy, I'm Hawkeye Pierce. I was your husband's bunkmate..." She gasped, cutting him off.
"You're Hawkeye? Oh, BJ told me so much about you! Come in." She said, opening the door and inviting him in. She puttered around, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table, and inviting him to sit.
"Ma'am, I can't stay long. I just came by to, well, to tell you how much your husband meant to me." Hawkeye said gently, waiting until she sat to continue.
"Beej, he was more than a bunkmate. He was my best friend, the only one who kept me sane. I wanted to tell you how much he loved you and Erin." Peggy tried to wipe away the tears that welled up, but she couldn't stop herself.
"He loved you too, Hawkeye. You were the only thing he'd write about that made me feel he found some happiness there." She said, sobbing into her handkerchief. Hawkeye reached out to comfort her, and as she looked up, she gasped. Hawkeye jerked back, ashamed and embarrassed.
"I'm sorry. I forgot for a second." He mumbled, hiding his right arm again.
"No, no, I'm sorry. I hadn't heard. I mean, I knew you'd been hurt, but..."
"I've got to go." Hawkeye said, standing. She nodded, aware of how sensitive the subject was to him. She walked him to the door. He stopped halfway through.
"I wanted to give you these." He said quietly, holding out BJ's dog tags. Peggy took them from him reverently.
"Thank you, Hawkeye." She said. He didn't respond. Grabbing his suitcase, he headed towards home.
Later that night...
The rain had been falling in sheets, and the temperature had dropped several degrees, but the man still paced the streets, hunched over and soaked to the bone. He found himself in front of her door again and finally worked up the courage to knock. Hair hanging in his eyes, Hawkeye looked like a sad little stray pup, left to fend for himself in the world. The water dripping down his face served to camouflage his tears, but the telltale redness of his eyes gave him away. Peggy opened the door, wrapping her robe tightly around her.
"Hawkeye?"
"Hi." Hawkeye said, teeth chattering.
"Oh my goodness! How long have you been out in this? Come in, come in!" She said, practically pushing him in the door. Guiding him into the kitchen, she sat him in front of the stove and made him a cup of hot tea. Wordlessly he took it and sat silently, staring at the warm brown liquid.
"Now, do you want to tell me what you're doing out in the rain at this time of night?" Peg asked gently. Hawkeye looked up, tears running down his face, and with such a forlorn and lost expression that Peggy's heart went out to him.
"What is it?" She asked, prying the cup from his hand and replacing it with her fingers. Hawkeye looked at her, through her, into a world of his own. After a long stretch of silence, he finally spoke.
"I'm supposed to take care of you." He whispered, looking at Peg for the first time.
"What do you mean, Hawkeye?"
"Beej. He told me to tell you he loved you, and he made me promise to take care of you and Erin. He said I was the only one he trusted." Peggy started to cry, thinking of her husband once again.
"Thank you for telling me, Hawkeye. You don't know what it means to hear that." She said.
"I can't break my promise." Hawkeye said, crying harder.
"You don't have to." Peggy said, trying to comfort him.
"How can I take care of you! The only thing I'm good at, the only job I've ever had, and I can't do it anymore! There's not a lot of call for one handed surgeons!" He cried, leaping up from his chair and pacing the room like a wildcat.
"Hawkeye." She said commandingly, in a tone that was so familiar that he stopped immediately. He looked at her. She walked to him and stood close, craning her head to look him in the eyes.
"You will not break your promise." She said, emphasizing each word.
"But how..." She cut him off, pressing her fingers over his lips.
"One day at a time." She said softly. She was so close, so inviting, and they were both so lost. He kissed her.