When word got around that once again Frank Burns had jeopardized the life of a patient, he of course met it with his usual tantrum. At Vivi's urging, Pierce and McIntyre did not tell them it was her that knew the boy still had shrapnel in his arm. They wanted to commend her in some way for her eagle eye, but she begged not to. They could see she valued staying on both Major Houlihan and Burns good side, wherever that was.
They did find it charming though when she worked alongside them in the OR. She was quiet as a mouse, did not partake of jokes, and always asked Major Houlihan's permission if she could speak freely.
"You know Vivi." Pierce said just as they finished up a patient. "You can enjoy being a part of the OR once in awhile."
"The OR is not for enjoyment Pierce." Burns said.
"With all do respect sir." Vivi said. "I do enjoy it."
"But you are so quiet my dear." McIntyre said. "We would love for you to say more than just scalpel or rib spreader."
"She nor the other nurses should not be indulging in conversation." Margaret said. "This is not recess on the playground after all."
"Now, now." Colonel Blake intervened. "As long as we keep it clean, then there is no harm in banter."
Vivi took the chance.
"I've always been like this sirs." She said. "My father always said I should lighten up a little in the operating room, especially when the surgery was easy. I don't know, I just find myself fixated on the patient."
"Ah." Pierce added. "A walking x-ray machine."
"That's exactly why my father calls me from time to time actually." Vivi said with a laugh, but subdued it when she caught Major Houlihan's eye.
"He always said if I could shrink myself I'd go into the body of the patient and find ever single thing that needed to be fixed."
"Yuck." Radar said handing a clipboard to Blake.
Vivi chuckled.
"It is silly isn't it?" She said.
"Then why did you not think of becoming a doctor yourself?" Trapper asked.
Vivi shrugged.
"Expensive and too much school." She said. "I love being a nurse. I was anxious to get in the field instead of sitting in a lecture hall and I didn't want to put a heavy financial burden on myself or my parents. My father has been the best teacher I could have anyway."
"Your dad is a doctor too?" Nurse Kellye asked.
Vivi nodded as began help Hawkeye plaster a soldier's arm.
"Military also." She said. "He was an army captain then a major in World War I and was promoted to Colonel just after World War II."
That perked up Margaret's attention.
"Must have been a strict childhood!" Kelleye exclaimed. Everyone knew Major Houlihan's upbringing was militaristic. To the point of too much.
Vivi shook her head.
"Not at all." She said. "He didn't bring the military home. He was always just dad and doctor to me."
Pierce looked down at her and through his mask smiled. It was about time someone brought a breath of fresh air to the place. And kept Hot Lips and Ferret Face quiet.
They finished up and soon after Vivi realized she was hungry. She made her way to the mess tent. Lunch was being served. She saw Klinger on KP duty.
"Ah the lovely Ms. McCullough." He said. He was wearing a pink dress with an apron and hairnet. "Care to partake of the day's feast?"
"Hello Klinger!" She said and looked down. It was brown mush and what appeared to be vegetables. She could have sworn she saw a few bubbles pop up.
"Stew?" She asked.
"I think it's supposed to be meatloaf." Klinger said picking at it. Vivi held out her tray and he slopped it on.
"Thanks Klinger." She said. "Pink really seems to be your color."
"I prefer powder blue." He said with a wink.
Vivi chuckled, grabbed a mug of coffee. Finding an empty table, she took a seat and like everyone else picked at her food.
"Mind if I sit here?" Vivi looked up and saw Nurse Kelleye. She was bit surprised as the nurses were not a fan of hers right now. After her first evening in the OR and Burns praising her and mocking them in his own way, she was not exactly the popular girl in school.
"Of course!" Vivi said.
"So what do you think of Korea so far?" Kelleye asked sitting down.
"Well it is what Radar told me it would be like when he came and got me at the air strip." She answered. "I appreciated the warning."
Kelleye gave a small smile.
"I do like it here though." She said. "Everyone has been really nice."
"You seemed to have your way with Major Burns." Kelleye said.
Ouch, the zinger. Vivi felt she deserved it.
Vivi shrugged.
"I can take the military too seriously sometimes." She said dancing her fork around the gravy on her tray.
She leaned in though.
"Can I be honest with you though?" She asked Kelleye.
Kelleye obliged.
"Major Burns is a complete and total jackass!" She whispered angrily. Kelleye blinked then burst out laughing.
"I'm serious." Vivi said but laughing herself. "I have never seen a more stick in the mud doctor. I'd really like to know who on earth gave him those clusters! He is the most obnoxius doctor I have ever worked with!"
Kelleye nearly fell off the bench as did Vivi. The other nurses came over to see what the noise was all about. When Kelleye told them privately of course, they too began laughing.
"What is all this racket about?" Major Houlihan yelled. Vivi and Kelleye stood up as the other nurses stood at attention.
"We can hear you laughing all the way in post-op!" She continued. "What must be so hilarious that you have to cackle so!"
The nurses were at a loss.
"Forgive me Major." Vivi suddenly said. "I was telling the other nurses about a joke General Patton had said in Stars and Stripes a few months ago! That one about the soldier who thought a donket was a horse. He sure knows how to boost morale. Did you see it?"
Major Houlihan looked at Vivi and the other girls who were nodding their heads.
"Yes, actually." She said. "I did see it. It was quite funny. But please do keep it down. You are nurses, you are supposed to show maturity!"
"Yes major." The girls said. Major Houlihan then left the mess.
All the nurses looked at each other and began giggling. Vivi had not only saved their hides, but prevented a Major Houlihan tongue lashing.
Nurse Able tapped Vivi on the shoulder and motioned her head toward the table she and the other nurses had been sitting at. The new nurse had earned her place with them.
If only camraderie could last more than horror. Vivi would see it soon enough. A few nights later ambulances began filling the compound, but it was not soldiers this time. It was villagers whose homes had been shelled by enemy fire. They came pouring in bloody and in agonizing pain.
But the worst part of it all was soon to come.
A young Korean girl on a stretcher was being lifted off of an ambulance. She was screaming and crying, but not from the mangled arm she endured.
She was placed on the ground and Pierce called for Vivi to assist. Bone was protruding from the skin of her arm.
"Blood pressure 129/80." Vivi said.
"That's way too high we gotta calm her down." Pierce said and ordered for a tranquilizer.
Suddenly the girl began to speak. Vivi heard the familiar Korean vocabulary and her heart stopped.
"She's asking where her parents are." Vivi said aloud.
Pierce turned to her.
"You understand Korean?" He asked.
Vivi nodded as they got the girl into pre-op.
"A little." She said. "A Korean shop owner back home taught me some of the language.
"Vivi." Hawkeye said. "We need you to scrub up, but can you try to also get the patients relaxed? They don't trust us and can become resistant?"
Vivi nodded.
"Good, start with her." He said pointing to the child. Vivi looked down and began to stroke her hair. Vivi spoke to her calmly.
"It is going to be all right." She said in Korean. "You are safe here."
The girl looked at the strange woman who was working with the doctor with the dark hair.
"You speak Korean?" She asked.
Vivi nodded.
"What is your name?"
"Ae-Cha."
"That's a pretty name." Mine is Vivi. I am a nurse. You were hurt and the doctor here is going to make it better."
Ae-Cha felt herself grow tired.
"I feel sleepy." She said. "You won't hurt me?"
Vivi shook her head.
"We are going to make you better." She said. "We just gave you some medicine to help you sleep while we fix you up."
"Mother and father will be here too?"
Vivi did not have an answer to that one.
"Just close your eyes now." She said.
An anesthesia mask was put on Ae-Cha and she was asleep.
"Good job nurse." Pierce said.
"WILL YOU CALM DOWN!"
Everyone looked up to see Burns fighting with a Korean man on his table. He was yelling, trying to prevent Burns from sticking him with a needle. Pierce eyed Vivi and she made her way over.
"Relax, relax.." She urged the man.
"He is going to kill me!" He yelled. "I will not let him!"
"He won't kill you." Vivi said. "He is a doctor."
"He is an American! They destroyed our village"
"We are not those Americans." She said. She saw an instrument pan with the red cross on it and showed him.
"See?" She said. "Not soldiers. Doctors."
"He wants to poison me!" He said pointing to Burns who was glaring at him.
"It's not poison." Vivi said. "It's medicine. "It makes you sleep."
She took a cursory glance at his injuries.
"We need you to sleep, otherwise when we try to operate on you, you will be in more pain. Both of your legs are broken. We can't fix them unless you are completely still. "
He looked at Vivi. It didn't occur to him that she was an American speaking his language.
"If you don't let us operate, your legs will get worse and if it comes to that, we will have no choice but to separate them from you. Do you want that to happen where you might not be able to walk anymore? It will happen if you do not let us help you."
Vivi gave him a pleading look. The peasant man felt he could trust her. The angry doctor not so much. He nodded and Vivi helped him lie back down.
"This doctor is no better than a dog." He said as the anesthetic began to take effect. "I can see it, he is an awful man."
Vivi chuckled.
"Please, I like dogs. Calling him a dog would be an insult to them." She said. "I prefer calling him a cow's behind."
The peasant man let out an almost drunken laugh and was out within moments.
"Finally." Burns said. "No good beggar. Shouldn't be operating on these commies anyway."
Vivi just glared at him and went back to assisting Hawkeye.
It was a very rough night. Thankfully there were that many soldiers in post-op so they were able to fill the beds with the injured villagers.
Vivi had taken an interest to Ae-Cha and found herself monitoring the girl. She could have been no more than thirteen. She was a bright girl and had a shy smile.
"You need to eat." Vivi said to her as she saw the food tray still full.
"Not hungry." Ae-Cha said.
"If you do not eat." Vivi said. "You will get sick."
Ae-Cha looked at Vivi.
"I will eat when I know where mother and father are."
Vivi sighed. She had been questioning the other villagers when Ae-Cha was asleep. No one knew where her parents had gone during the shelling. Ae-Cha herself had been had been in a nearby field when it happened. The explosion and the impact of the shelling had thrown her backwards and knocked her unconscious. She only started to awaken when she had been loaded onto the ambulance.
"Attention, attention." The voice from the camp's intercom. "All staff to compound, ambulances coming."
"They don't quit do they?" Vivi said to herself. She patted Ae-Cha's hand and headed out.
"What do you got?" McIntyre said.
"Not many." The driver said. "Few villagers from that shelling two nights ago. Found them when we were combing the area. Some were alive when we got to them."
"Some?" McIntyre asked.
The driver shook his head.
"Didn't make it on the way here." He said as stretchers were being unloaded. Vivi and McIntyre began to work when suddenly a scream rang out.
Everyone looked up to see Ae-Cha. She had somehow snuck out of her cot and came outside.
"MAMA, PAPA!" She screamed and ran to the cots where a Korean man and woman lay motionless.
Vivi ran after her with McIntyre at her heels. She checked for a pulse on Ae-Cha's father while McIntyre on her mother. Shrapnel from the shelling had obliterated their aortas and lungs.
They were dead.
Ae-Cha was shaking Vivi's arm.
"Fix them, fix them!" She yelled in Korean. "Make them better! You are nurse and he is doctor. You do that!"
Vivi fought the urge to cry.
"I'm sorry." She said. "They are gone. We cannot bring them back."
Ae-Cha looked at Vivi in pure shock.
"No, no no!" She yelled punching at Vivi with her good arm and then she collapsed on her mother. She was in hysterics.
Vivi stroked Ae-Cha's hair.
"You cry Ae-Cha." She said. "You cry as much as you need."
Ae-Cha felt the warm hand of the nurse and fell into her arms. Vivi held her and rocked her gently.
"WHAT IS GOING ON OUT HERE!?"
Vivi's blood boiled the minute she heard that familiar shrill.
"Kid lost her parents Frank." Trapper said. "Think she's got a right to be upset."
Frank straightened a little.
"Well she doesn't have to be so loud about it." He said. "It's war, she should be used to it by now. Her people are the ones who caused all this after all."
That was it.
"MAJOR BURNS, WOULD YOU PLEASE SHOW SOME DAMN RESPECT!?"
Everyone turned and saw an enraged Genevieve McCullough. She had released Ae-Cha into the arms of the duty nurse.
He approached her.
"What did you say, NURSE!?"
"I said." She said in a voice shaking with anger. "Please show some damn respect. That girl is only thirteen years old and just now she saw the dead bodies of the parents she had hoped would be found alive. If she wants to scream and cry and do all but tear up the camp, she is in her right to do so."
"Now you wait just a moment here!"
"You may have contempt for these people Major." Vivi interrupted. "And yes, they are people. But we are strangers on their land, taking their property and our military that you so wonderfully praise was responsible for the deaths of those two laying on the ground. We are medical personnel, not soldiers, as much as you wish you were!"
"Vivi." Hawkeye had emerged from his bunk just after a liasion with a pretty nurse when saw the calm Vivi now giving the Major a verbal lashing. He knew she could be in huge trouble as much as he was enjoying this.
"I will not let you, Major Burns, insult that child any further. She is not a red, she is not Korean soldier. She is now an orphan. If you cannot show respect for her grief, then you are no better than the enemies our soldiers are fighting."
"THAT IS ENOUGH LIEUTENANT MCCULLOUGH!" Major Houlihan yelled, but Vivi ignored her too.
"Nurse McCullough." Burns said angrily. "You have just crossed a very serious line. You better believe that when Colonel Blake gets wind of this, no even better General Hammond, he will make sure you never serve in a military hospital again! You will be stripped of all your medals and titles. You'll be lucky if you will have a dollar to your pension."
Vivi chuckled.
"I served my country before Korea." She said. "Unlike you I do not need the accolades to prove it. I will take any punishment you and as well as you Major Houlihan give. But don't think for a moment Major Burns that I regret my actions."
"You are on report Nurse." Major Houlihan said sternly. "You are restricted to quarters until we figure out a suitable reprimand."
"Yes Major." Vivi said and headed to her bunk.
Silence was all that followed her.