Greetings. Sorry if this is a disappointing chapter. I couldn't bring myself to write too much more of Frank wallowing in self-pity. I was surprised to read many of you are now feeling sorry for Frank. I know I'm not, but that may be largely due to my lack of human emotion. It does seem, however, to be a recurring theme in my stories.
Also many thanks to you, the reviewers: Ne-chan1, vandevere, Sporky, Hawk's Soul and Scorpius. Yes, Sporky, I shall update as quickly as I can.
Part 4 – Backstabbed"They WHAT?!"
I could hear Klinger's yelp from the other side of camp. Mind you, it was a very loud camp: everyone had been talking non-stop about the verdict. Yeah, so they'd reached it hours ago. What else was there to discuss?
"But they… he… whaddya MEAN, he got off?!"
Much, apparently.
"I know! I thought they'd convict him for sure!"
"Especially since he said nothing in his own defence… I smell a brass rat, Igor."
"Well, you know what I heard?"
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."
"I heard it had somethin' to do with Cap'n Pierce…"
Captain Pierce? What did he have to do with it? It was my court-martial! I had a right to know! I mean… I'm obviously glad they let me off, but… why? I'd thought I'd be sending postcards from the stockade. I thought I was a goner. But no! The General proclaimed me "not guilty." All at once the prosecution side – their side – had erupted in shouts, boos and curses at the General and his men. Margaret had instantly gone beetroot again, while McIntyre stood with his jaw in an unseemly ground-scrape and Pierce… Pierce staring straight at the General, barely displaying a hint of emotion. Was he joyous, angry, satisfied…? I don't know. I might have caught a hint of wink, but I'd been so overwhelmed at the time I really hadn't paid attention.
I was back in the Swamp. McIntyre hadn't said a word to me, which suited us both fine. So far I had only received suspicious glares from his cot and hand gestures best left to the imagination.
Come to think of it, I hadn't seen much of Pierce. Apart from the Mess Tent, named after the rubbish it offers, and triage, Pierce and I hadn't seen each other all day. Which suited me very well, too. In fact, things had worked out very well: I was off the hook and the Captains hadn't spoken to me. Apart from the small matter of the… divorce papers… life was trundling along very well indeed.
Dear Louise,
Words fail to express my deepest regret, remorse and shame at your news. I beg you to reconsider, Louise: I'm really not as bad as they all say I am.
You know that court-martial I told you about? I'm free! I'm innocent! Not guilty! See? I'm not that bad! I mean, it isn't as if I had done anything really bad in the process, but I'm glad they let me off the hook.
Oh, Louise, I'm miserable without you. Please, don't be drawn in by Patrick! Think of the sanctity of marriage! Before too long, I'll be back in Fort Wayne, with you and the girls. It won't be too long.
In other news, Cretins Pierce and McIntyre aren't making as many snide remarks as before. In fact, they're not making many remarks toward me full stop. Yet their silence leaves me only more time to think of you. Of our marriage.
Louise, I have done all I can. It's up to you to make this work for us.
Your darling,
Frank
"Oh, Frank?" called a sing-song voice I knew only too well.
"Can it, Pierce. I'm not in the mood."
"I can't understand why. Someone just lied through their teeth to save your brass."
"Their teeth to save my brass?"
"That's right, Einstein." Pierce wandered over to his anti-freeze factory and poured himself a glass. We didn't look each other in the eye. I couldn't help but wonder what the hell Pierce was talking about, but I wasn't about to tell him and give him the satisfaction of knowing I was thinking about what he was saying.
"Well, er, I don't know why either. I mean, you hate me!" I stated indignantly. "And so does everyone else! They wanted me to be found guilty and thrown in the stockade! I…" I turned from the letter I'd been finishing and sat on my bunk. "I just don't understand."
"Of course you don't, Frank," muttered Pierce in a superficially-sympathetic voice.
I don't know what compelled me to believe I could have a serious conversation with Captain Pierce. Of course he would slip in his snide jokes, his little asides that showed me clear as day he was never entirely serious.
Strangely, it kept compelling me.
"Oh, I understand lots of things. Such as 'you all hate me!' "
"Frank, if I really hated your guts I would not have gone to the trouble of… of being so nice to you! If I figured you weren't worth the effort, I wouldn't have put it in!"
"Really?"
"Really, Frank."
Another uncomfortable silence.
"Well, that's fair enough. – What effort?"
"What effort?! For the past three months I have successfully restrained myself from killing you! Didn't I tell the General that? 'Our relationship extends to us wishing to kill each other?' Yet here you are, still being a pain in the arse!"
He downed the rest of his martini and promptly fixed himself another. No booze for me today. If I was going to argue (again) with Haw-Pierce (he's Pierce, dammit) I wanted to do so with a clear head.
"I suppose it was too much for me to hope you'd turn over a new leaf. 'Course it was. And after…"
Pierce threw his hands in the air, an apparent sign of frustration. I really couldn't see what was bothering him; after all, he talked to me first. I didn't provoke him this time.
"After what?"
"After the strings I pulled to get you let off!"
…oooOOOooo…
Even without alcohol clogging my brain, it took a few minutes for what Pierce said to fully filter through. He did it. He pulled the strings, Frank. He set you free!
Yet… I couldn't fathom it. We'd been the best of enemies ever since I set foot in this godforsaken dump three days before he did. Captain Ben Pierce. Master of practical jokes, saviour of wounded Americans (and the occasional Commie), friend to all. Excluding me. Or did it?
"And he finally gets it. Congratulations, Frank. The look of realisation appeared on your face after four minutes and thirty-seven seconds."
Pierce has a disturbing tendency to mess with my head. One minute, he's got me all wound up like a yo-yo. The next, he's flung me out, in, out, in, out. Eventually, I get disoriented, like fairy floss and a roller-coaster ride mixed together.
"But… why?!"
In answer, Pierce strutted to my side of the tent and sat on my cot, next to me. He tried to appear kind and thoughtful. I knew better.
"Frank, I must confess something to you."
"Pierce, this isn't Father Mulcahy's tent."
"Oh, I know that," he drawled happily, sipping yet another martini. "But you're so much more fun than the Padre, Frank." He leant up to me and smirked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Disgusting. I chose to ignore this last remark and bravely tried to hang onto my pride.
"My confession, Frank. I stepped in to save your brass for one reason." At this point he again put on his pensive mask, carefully weaving an impression of care and trust. Ha. I wasn't fooled.
"Remember when you and Hot Lips wanted a double transfer? When Trap and I fooled you greedy guts into thinking you'd hit the jackpot?" Oh yes. I remembered it very well. Moral filth. They had no right fooling me like that. I was sure there was something in The Army Officer's Guide interdicting that sort of thing. "Well, my point is, we only bothered to keep you two lovebirds here because, well, double duty wasn't our martini, so to speak."
Hold on. That meant… "You mean you only want me here to do your work?" I spluttered, outraged. How dare he only think of me as a worker! I was more than that.
"No, I want you here to do your work. I didn't want to do yours as well." Pierce got up and poured himself another martini. I swear, he's built up a resistance to those things… nowadays it takes at least seven or eight before he seems even slightly inebriated.
"And the court-martial…?"
"Was precisely the same situation."
He didn't! I opened my mouth to give Pierce a shot of my mind, but he held up his hand. "Let me finish. This time around, Trapper had nothing to do with it. He wanted you in front of a firing squad just as badly as everyone else here. But I didn't. My work's bad enough without having to do yours as well, though I would probably be doing your patients a favour. However much I hate your internal organs, Frank, we need you here." He swallowed half the martini and the olive in one gulp.
I continued to sit on my cot, open-mouthed. I couldn't even work up the courage to spout a nasty comeback at Pierce. Of course, he appeared very pleased with himself as he trundled out of the Swamp, whistling a jaunty tune. What better pastime was to be had in this place than teasing and taunting Frank Burns?
Unaware of the passage of time, I sat on my bunk, thinking, mulling and soliloquising. Everyone says I was pouting, moping or having another temper tantrum. A lot they know. They don't know the half of what goes on in my head. Most of the time, I don't know either.
As the sun bade goodbye to the parched, scrubby lands of Korea, I felt as if I had tripped down a few stairs on the grand staircase to hopelessness. Not depression. Depression has such an air of… finality about it. As soon as the Army would grant me my discharge I was sure that in a few weeks I'd be right as rain.
Suddenly a flash of off-white caught my eye, from the other side of the tent. The dusk seemed to illuminate an envelope lying on Pierce's bunk, one which may or may not have been placed there by accident. It almost seemed to taunt me, calling out, "Read me, Frank. Read me." It reminded me of when the still sang its praises, uncannily in the same sort of voice. I could hardly resist having a peek. Lying there, on his cot… it's like an invitation, really.
I sneaked over, careful to avoid making any noise, and pried the letter off his blanket. Dr. Daniel Pierce, 4302 Octavia Street, Crabapple Cove… Aha. Pierce Junior writing Pierce Senior. I flipped the envelope. A shrewd smile passed my lips as I read the return address. Hell.
Using a trick I had once learned from Corporal O'Reilly, I unsealed the envelope and unfolded the letter. As I read, I felt my jaw drop lower and lower. I had suffered through so much undue angst and torment at the hands of Pierce and his sidekick. Only now was I beginning to understand what he really felt about me.
Dear Dad,
And so the war continues. Our old friends have struck again, those friends being dysentery, diarrhoea and dullness. After last week, rather dull by your stateside standards and must-see utterly fabulous by mine, the 4077th is settling back into its old ways.
Frank Burns is back to his arrogant best, stomping around the Swamp as if something's biting his tush. In case you've forgotten, he was court-martialled over a tantrum he threw a month or so back. Trapper McIntyre offended him somehow and he went AWOL for a night, somewhere in South Korea. Anyhow, the judges let him off on a couple of technicalities. Everyone around here's furious and won't talk to Frank. Even the free man himself seems unhappy. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he really wanted to go to Leavenworth.
But here's the thing, Dad. I got him let off. I talked to the judges and convinced them that Frank was really a good guy, it was completely out of his character etc. etc. It hurt my teeth, I was lying through them so much. You know how bad a surgeon Frank really is. I hated doing it, but we need him. We need his extra ten buttered fingers.
I also hated the idea of doing double duty. I learned that lesson the last time Frank seemed to be out of here. We might have ended up with someone worse than old Ferret Face. At least we can manage Frank, given time and enough training.
In my off-hours, I worry whether I've done the right thing by keeping him here. No one else knows I've done it, not even Trapper, so they can't give me a hard time about that. Time will only tell, eh, Dad?
Can't wait to see you again. Send my love to Crabapple Cove.
Your loving son,
Hawkeye