Note: This chapter is going to have multiple POVs so, for convenience's sake, I will put the name of the character, in handy bold letters, whose POV it is at the top of the section that that character will be POVing.
- In Love And War -
Chapter Nineteen: Never Never Land
I was up to my elbows in a kid's stomach when I noticed the corpsman whispering to Harbourn, both of them looking at me with a sort of look I didn't like at all. Harbourn finally asked, "McIntyre, have you seen Captain Hunnicutt recently?"
"I've been in here since I got here," I snapped. "When would I've seen him?"
"I was just asking, Captain," Harbourn growled. He didn't seem to like me a whole lot, which was just fine by me, on account of me not liking him right back.
"I thought you had him outside running that sorry excuse for triage you've got."
"He was. Now, he seems to have gone missing."
"Missing?" I repeated. "Whaddya mean, missing?"
"I mean we can't find him. He's missing."
"You think he's gone AWOL?"
"My people have looked everywhere, and they can't find him. Yes, I think he's gone AWOL."
"What about that shelling we had a little while ago? You said it knocked a few buildings down—what if he got trapped under one?"
"He was nowhere near any of the ruined buildings when he was last seen."
I snorted, looking up from my patient to shake my head at Harbourn. Hawk was right, this guy was an ass. "So you just decided not to check? Hunnicutt's not the kinda guy to go AWOL. Get your people to look in the rubble or whatever, he's gotta be there somewhere."
"I don't take orders, Captain. I give them."
"I know, that's why I'm telling you to order your men to look for him."
I thought for sure he was gonna bite my head off, and we stood just staring at each other from across the room for a good minute or two, till he finally turned to his corpsman and ordered him to get together a team to look through the destroyed buildings. He also ordered the guy to talk to the company clerk and see if he could get another surgeon to replace Hunnicutt, since the wounded were still pouring in and we needed someone for triage and pre-op. "Don't take anyone from the 4077th," I warned.
"Why not?" Harbourn demanded, glaring at me again.
"You've already got two of our surgeons, you don't need another one."
"The 4077 is the closest MASH unit, and we need another surgeon!"
Oh, you're just asking for it, boy… I wasn't quite as good at chewing out stupid people as Hawkeye was, but I could do a good enough job of it when I had to. "You won't take Pierce, since he pointed out you were an ass. You can't have Potter, since, you know, he kinda has to be there to run the place and all. And if you bring in Burns, he'll kill more kids'n he'll save. That's all the surgeons we got! Get someone from a different unit!"
"We need a surgeon outside, now!"
"Fine, you want someone outside? I'll go." I took a step back from my table, pulling my hands outta my patient's stomach. Blood spurted nicely, and Harbourn screamed at me to stop fooling around, and what the hell kind of a doctor am I? "Get someone from a different unit," I said again, calm, talking just loud enough that he could hear me over his own screaming.
"Fine, fine! The 8055!"
"Thank you," I said cheerfully, and stepped back to the table. My kid'd only lost a little blood, and the damage was easy enough to fix—as far as I was concerned, worth it to see the look in Harbourn's eyes.
"You're as bad as Pierce," Harbourn growled, and I could hear it in his voice that he was just itching to wrap his hands around my throat.
I smiled under my mask. "Thanks."
Hawkeye
They seemed to think I was a flight risk. At least, that's what I assumed the two armed corporals outside my door meant. Luckily for me, one of them was Klinger. I "psst"ed him closer to the door, and cajoled him to let me out. He was reluctant to go against Potter's orders to keep a close watch on me, so I had to go against all my scruples and order Klinger to let me out, but he explained sadly that a Captain couldn't countermand a Colonel's orders. A flash of brilliance struck me, and I pointed out to him that he needed four doctors' signatures to get his section eight, and if he allowed me to go find BJ, there would happen to be three doctors willing to sign—me, Trapper, and BJ, and then it would only be a matter of tricking Frank into signing. He "escorted me to the latrines," leaving the other corporal standing guard outside the Swamp, and Klinger—who reasoned that if he stayed with me, he wouldn't exactly be defying orders—and I hopped into a jeep and went roaring out of camp.
I drove, probably way too fast, but I couldn't afford to waste any more time. BJ could be dead or dying, and every second I wasted made the former more probable. I had to find him, save him, and that meant getting to the 8063 as fast as possible. Not even the shells, when they started going off to every direction, could make me slow down. They didn't matter, they were nothing—all that mattered was BJ, and me getting to him in time.
"Chaos" was the only word that could be used to describe the 8063 when we pulled into the compound—or got as far into the compound as was possible, with all the wounded laying around, and doctors, nurses, and corpsmen dashing every which way. I leapt out of the jeep, shouted over my shoulder for Klinger to ask around for BJ. I grabbed the first arm that came to my fingers, dragging a running nurse to a stop, and demanded, "Have you seen a Captain Hunnicutt? A surgeon. He's been missing."
She shook her head impatiently and ran on. I got the same sort of reply from the next few people I asked, but a lieutenant finally asked, "Hunnicutt? Are you the surgeon they sent to replace him?"
"Re—replace?"
"Yeah, Colonel Harbourn said the 8055 was sendin' a surgeon—that you?"
"No, I—they told me I was supposed to help find Hunnicutt."
"Oh, okay. Well then, you wanna go see Sergeant Zimmer over there, he's in charge a searchin' for the missin'." He pointed vaguely towards a dozen people sorting through piles of wood and fabric—buildings destroyed by the shelling. I thanked the lieutenant and went to find Sergeant Zimmer, who set me to work digging through the wreckage of what he said had been the O-Club. As I searched frantically through the debris, I found myself, for one of the few times in my life, praying. Hawkeye the atheist, the cynic, begging God to let BJ be alive, to let me find him before it was too late. "Please," I whispered, feeling the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes and not caring, "please, please…"
"Hawkeye!" A hand on my arm, pulling me down, away, wrenching me around to face brown eyes, brown eyes in a worried face, brown eyes—not the blue I was looking for, not the blue I so desperately needed to see—
"Hawk, what're you doing here?"
I stared blankly at Trapper. What was I doing here? What the hell did he think I was doing here? "Looking…BJ…"
He looked as stricken as I felt. "Damnit, they told you? The idiots… Hawk, c'mon, come over here—"
"No!" I shouted, wrenching away from him, turning back to the pile of broken wood and fabric. "I have to—have to find him, I can't—I have to find him." He didn't stop me when I scrambled back up the trail I'd made through the debris and started digging again, desperately hopeful and hopefully desperate, for once in my life the optimist, because if I became my normal pessimistic self, I'd realize it was hopeless, there was no chance, they would have found him by now, and since they hadn't I certainly wouldn't, so what was the point, what was the point in trying, in wasting my time, my hope, my energy—why not save all three and go curl up in a corner for a good sob, and listen to the sound of my heart breaking? That was all that was left, it was all over but for the heartbreak, but I couldn't think of that, I had to be optimistic, I had to believe he was alive, because if you believed hard enough and long enough, the blind and uncaring God might just decide to throw you a bone, throw you a shimmer of light, of life, of hope, and answer your desperately hopefully and hopefully desperate prayers for once in your life. 'Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!'
A crash next to me as Trapper pushed away a heavy piece of wood. I looked over at him; he looked back, levelly. We said nothing; just dug deeper and deeper. Desperate. Hopeless.
BJ
It was dark…so dark. A mountain had fallen on me, and I lay crushed beneath it. My body was twisted awkwardly, my legs facing one way and my torso facing the other, and judging by the searing pain in my hip, I'd done some serious damage; my left arm was trapped under my back, and there was something pressing heavily on my chest, preventing me from moving the arm, but I could move the right one, could move my hand in order to push the crushing weight off my face, so I could turn my head and see, to search through the darkness for—there! a single spot of light, far above me, too far. But it meant I had air, and light, and it was enough, for now.
There was a groan, to my left. I could turn my head just enough to see an arm, protruding from the debris, fingers hanging above me, blood dripping down the arm to pool on my shoulder. The fingers twitched weakly. There was nothing I could do.
A crash, impossibly loud, and my spot of light vanished. I think I groaned, or maybe it was the owner of the arm, but I could feel tears running down into my hair. A crash again, and a scraping, and I whimpered, hurt and confused, lost and alone, terrified, terrified, what was happening?
And then the world opened up, my vanished spot of light expanding, blinding, and I cried out, turned my head away, tried to cover my eyes. A shout above me, and a hand reaching down, resting lightly on my head, another hand wrapping around the fingers of my free hand. "It's okay," a voice said, soft, gentle, comforting. "You're gonna be just fine…"
TBC