Chapter 10 – Just another day at the office

The wave of wounded I-COR had promised, turned out to be a regular flood: Two o'clock that night the entire staff of the 4077th were still in OR and there was no visible end to it.

Agnes had already been through two amputations, several internal bleedings, a knee reconstruction and a now a shattered throat and a chest full of shrapnel. Her neck was sore, her feet tired, but at least she still felt tolerably awake. It helped a great deal that she worked opposite Hawkeye, who knew exactly what to do, when things got a bit to heavy:

"I had a wonderful dream last night," he told Agnes, when his patient was wheeled out. "Wanna hear it?"

"Is it suitable for a young audience?"

"You always think the worst of me."

"Gee, wonder why?" Agnes glanced up and Hawkeye looked wide-eyed and puppylike back at her. She sighed and softened. "All right, tell us about the dream."

"Okay, I had just unzipped her dress…"

"Pierce, you abhorrent swine," Charles chided drily behind Hawkeye, when Agnes broke into helpless laughter against her will.

"What?" Hawkeye huffed back at Charles. "You don't know what I was going to say. Maybe I exposed her as an alien, all green skinned and black-eyed?"

"Knowing you," Charles said wryly, "that probably didn't stop you the slightest."

"Could we please keep a civil tongue in here?" Margaret commanded, piercing the two men with her eyes from the other side of OR.

"I try, Margaret, honestly, but it got drafted with me. I tried to get it home on a Section 8, but the board found my answers a bit to tongue-in-cheek and sent me back."

"Oh, Pierce!"

The chief surgeon wiggled his brows at her and turned his attention to his new patient.

"Hi there," he said friskily. "You're one lucky gun, you know that? These late-night shows get sold out quicker than an ice cream stand in Sahara."

The soldier glanced at him uncertain from under the mask.

"Don't worry," Hawkeye said, smiling at him. "The next time you open your eyes, it will all be over. Goodnight, sweet prince and dream a little dream of me." He put out his hand for fresh gloves and burst into a shivering tenor: "Staaaaaars fading but I linger on, dear! Still craving your kiss!"

"Oh, good Lord," Charles groaned, when BJ joined in. Agnes was glad she was wearing a mask; she could only imagine, how piqued Charles would be, if he could see how wide she was grinning behind it.

oOo

Around seven o'clock, when the sun rose above the mountains, Agnes was sent out for thirty minutes of rest. Though it was more than needed it also meant waking up the surgeon that was going to replace her, an ungrateful task that never failed to make her feel like the most heartless person in the world.

"BJ?" she whispered, shaking his shoulder. "They need you in OR."

The tall, mustached surgeon muttered something inaudibly in his sleep and fell back into a slumber. Agnes patted him lightly on the side of the head.

"BJ. There's a patient waiting for you."

BJ's eyes fluttered open. He glanced groggily up at her.

"Who?"

"A belly wound."

He rubbed his face and staggered to his feet.

"How are you holding up?" he asked her through a massive yawn.

Agnes stretched out on the bench and sighed.

"Not bad. I'm looking forward to see how well you guys are paid in overtime next month."

BJ patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. "Keep dreaming, kid."

He walked into OR and held the door for the nurse, Agnes had been working with all night – Lieutenant Harris. Agnes like her: She was young, but very skillful. Even after nearly 12 hours in OR, you couldn't even tell that she was tired.

"Excellent work in there, Harris," she greeted her, when the nurse sank down on the bench on the other side of the hallway and rubbed her stiff neck.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Agnes."

Nurse Harris pulled her mash down and smiled at her. "Gail. And you did a great job too – I was sure we had to amputate that leg. What a mess."

"I hope it hasn't deterred you from becoming a doctor after all?" When Gail gaped with her in honest surprise in her chocolate-brown eyes, Agnes clarified: "When I drove to the orphanage with Father Mulcahy, he mentioned that one of the nurses was studying for Medical School. Since you were the only nurse reading The Anatomy Atlas at dinner, it wasn't that hard to figure out who it was."

"I haven't actually told the other nurses yet," Gail responded quietly. "I don't want them to get their hopes up, in case I can't do it."

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Besides, I think you'll do just fine. You've got just the right amount of stubbornness and industriousness to make it as a medical student."

"You don't think I ask to much?"

"Are you kidding?" Agnes stifled a yawn. "It's the only thing that's keeping me awake in there."

Gail huffed a tired chuckle. "Major Winchester doesn't like it, when I do it."

"That's because the only voice Charles likes to listen to, is his own," Agnes informed her, halfway asleep. Gail looked perplexed by her brutally honest opinion about a fellow surgeon, but Agnes smiled it off. She had no anger towards Charles. Despite all his obvious personality flaws, she quite liked the Major and after having worked just a couple of feet away from him all night, she had started to grow a genuine admiration for him as well. No matter what cruelty the corpsmen brought in – men swimming in their own blood, men with half their faces gone, men who looked like they had been through a meat grinder – he just went straight to work. Once in a while, she would hear BJ mutter 'Oh, boy…' or Hawkeye or Potter sigh deeply, when a particular grim case was rolled in, but never Charles. Nothing seemed to be able to shake him.

He wasn't the fastest surgeon in there (neither was Agnes though – you can only learn so much of conveyer-surgery in a month), but he was thorough and she had just witnessed him perform two arterial grafts at five o'clock in the morning, without so much as a second's hesitation. How could you not admire that?

oOo

"How long can it take to produce a simple X-ray?" Charles growled and dropped another shrapnel into the emesis basin that the nurse held out for him. "What's the Lebanese mongoose during?"

"Charles, you can't expect him to perform wonders with a machine that's was already outdated in the last war," Agnes said, rubbing her tired eyes with the back of her wrist.

"Always the diplomat," Charles noticed. "Retraction, please."

She winked at him teasingly with both eyes behind the mask. "Only because I know how much it annoys you."

He huffed, just as Klinger entered the OR, the cape of his Red Cross nurse uniform flapping behind him.

"Here's the X-ray you ordered, Major."

Charles poured him a sour look. "About time."

"That's Winchester-ish for 'thank you very much, Klinger," Agnes added in an appeasable manner and Klinger awarded them both an exhausted grin.

"You're welcome, Major," he said graciously to Charles, before moving on to the next table. Charles glanced at his assisting surgeon on the other side of the table.

"You are spoiling him," he grumbled.

"I know." Agnes pretended to glare after the corporal with a provoked frown. "And I really shouldn't. That upstart is brash enough as it is. I mean, just look at his infallible nails and the way he has conquered those heels. He makes the rest of us women look like a bunch of slobs."

Charles tried not to smile, but he was drained, sweaty, his back was killing him and that cognac-eyed creature of a wonderfully wicked woman, raised a brow at him, challenging him to say another unkind word about her favorite dress-wearing corporal, and he just simply couldn't help himself.

oOo

16 hours and 43 minutes. That's how long the first wave lasted. Almost 17 hours from the ambulances started pulling up in front of Pre-Op, to Father Mulcahy came into OR to announce that BJ had gotten the last patient.

"Get some sleep, boys," Potter said wearily before leaving. "The next wave is just an hour or so away."

Hawkeye staggered after Charles out of OR, ready to keel over at the first plain surface that presented itself. Agnes was already flat out on a bench, one arm draped over her face, covering her eyes from the bright ceiling light. Charles dragged himself over to her.

"Room for one more?" he asked, dapping at her boots.

Without moving her arm, Agnes raised her legs and as soon as Charles was seated, she plunked them down in his lap. To Hawkeyes immense surprise, the proud Bostonian let her do it, bloody gowns and all. Either he was too tired to argue or – and Hawkeye found the latter very worrying – he just didn't mind her doing it. If it had been anyone else, Charles would have shoved them of the bench in a heartbeat.

"You know, we could all walk over to the Swamp for a nap," Hawkeye said. "Be a lot more comfortable."

"And waste two minutes walking, where I could be sleeping?" Charles murmured, nesting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. "No, thank you."

"But…"
"Pierce – shut up."

oOo

He must undoubtedly have fallen asleep. The next thing Charles detected was that he was being shaken awake by an insisting hand around his shoulder.

"Sorry, Major, but we need the two of you in OR as soon as possible, we've just got another bus of wounded," he heard Klinger say and the corporal pressed a cup of coffee into his hand. "Here. Try and share, we're almost out."

Charles rubbed his face violently in attempt to clear his foggy brain. 17 straight hours in OR on top of a 12 hour working day and there were still no end to it. He was ready to give up anything – his fortune, his house, his name – for just one decent hour of sleep. He drank from the cup and pulled a face. Hell, right now he was ready to give it all up for just a proper cup of coffee.

With a sigh, he tried to get up from bench – only to find out that something heavy pinned his already defiant lower body down. He glared at the pair of white-dressed, bloodstained legs resting on his thighs, for several seconds until his fatigued mind finally made a connection.

"Agnes?"

"Mmm?"

"My lap, which you are currently using as a pillow for your feet, could I have that back, please?"

"Not really, no," she muttered.

Charles grabbed hold of her ankles and plopped her feet to the floor. Agnes let out a dissatisfied groan, when he then continued to haul her to a vertical stand. He handed her the rest of the coffee.

"Charles," Agnes said faintly, after two mouthfuls of coffee, "do you remember the last patient I worked on?"

"Hardly."

"Me neither. Should I be worried?"

"That would only be a waste of precious energy, my dear," Charles responded worldly-wise and helped her tie her surgical mask again.