At precisely 2200 hours on the evening before his current stint in the O.R. working on Major Winchester, B.J. Hunnicutt opened the door of the Swamp to find Colonel Burns standing at the entrance—alone. It was very strange. As Burns entered the tent, B.J. gave him an overly enthusiastic salute. Rather than look offended at the clear goon of his overly military style, Frank saluted B.J. back, his mouth set in a kind of proud smile. Charles could only roll his eyes as he sat on his bed flipping through his book of poetry.
"Where's Hawkeye?" B.J. asked. "He was the one to go get you. I figured he'd have to tie you up to get you over here. Instead you arrive here on your own."
"I didn't see him," Frank said as innocently as possible, shrugging as he did so. "I just came over here to check in with you all."
"Right," B.J. said, his voice laced with doubt. "I don't know if you heard, but we have Shirley Temples."
"Oh, is that right?" Frank replied, obviously bluffing. "That's my favorite drink."
"Here's a glass for you," B.J. added, holding out a martini glass. He pointed towards the bowl of red liquid. "Just dip it in to the bowl."
"But my fingers will get sticky!" Frank whined.
"Remember the general's Colt 0.45? You already have sticky fingers, Frank," Hunnicutt remarked. Charles glanced over at Frank knowingly. The lieutenant colonel fidgeted but said nothing. Of course these hotshot surgeons all stuck together.
"Well, are you going to go for it or not?" B.J. asked.
Frank sighed and dipped the glass into the liquid and held it up to his lips. His eyes moved suspiciously from B.J. to Charles as he held the glass in front of his nose and sniffed its contents.
"It's poisoned, isn't it?" he asked, his eyes narrowed. "You taste some first. I don't trust you two."
"Alright, Frank," B.J. murmured. He took a fresh glass and dipped it into the punch bowl. Immediately he brought it to his lips and drank the contents of the glass. "There," he grumbled, "Happy now?"
"I guess so," Frank replied. He began to drink the concoction and smiled. "It's even better than I remember!" he exclaimed. "The wife never let me drink the stuff!"
Charles looked over at Hunnicutt and then to Frank Burns, only to find that Frank had already finished off his first glass. Hunnicutt was still sipping his glass of gin and Charles was trying to pay as little attention as possible.
"You know what?" Frank said, stepping towards the makeshift still. "I think I need some of the real stuff. I have a lot to forget, you know."
"You mean, in addition to everything you learned in medical school?" Hunnicutt called out with a smile.
"And your manners," Charles said with a scoff.
"Will this stuff help me forget, Beej?" Frank asked, his face as innocent as a child's, as he pointed at the still.
"Not only that, but it'll kill the brain cells that were storing those memories," B.J. said with a smile. "I would tell you how it does that…. but I forgot."
Hunnicutt watched in wide-eyed wonder as Frank picked up a clear glass pitcher and began to fill it with the contents of the still. With a triumphant grin, Frank poured the entire pitcher into the punch bowl and took the first of many martini glasses full of the extra-spiked concoction.
"Lord. And I thought Pierce had added a lot," Charles muttered under his breath.
Hawkeye Pierce opened the door of the Swamp to find Frank sitting on his bed, chatting animatedly with Hunnicutt, all while Winchester quietly fingered through his poetry books. It was clear that Burns was beginning to show the effects of the alcohol, because he was less high-strung and paranoid. Rather, now he was almost giddy. Surely Hawkeye hadn't spiked the concoction to be so immediately potent.
"Hey, Hawk; what happened to your hand?" Hunnicutt said, glancing up at his friend with surprise.
Hawkeye glanced down at the side profile of Frank Burns, who had instantly frozen at the mention of Pierce's name.
"Yes, where on Earth did you go for so long?" Charles commented, his eyes still buried in his book. "I hadn't realized it took forty minutes to traverse our humble little compound, even if there are nurses to be had." When he hadn't heard a response within an appropriate amount of time, he looked up to see the reason for Pierce's tardiness.
"Oh," Charles muttered, staring at the casted hand. As he was about to speak, B.J. cut him off.
"What happened, Hawk?" B.J. asked insistently. The mustached doctor made a move to stand but was shushed back down by Hawkeye.
"Let's just say I fell," Pierce said, giving the top of Frank's head a quick glare.
"Liar!" Frank blurted. He looked up at Hawkeye sternly to see an ugly scowl.
"Oh, is that right?" Hawkeye replied. "Care to explain the whole story, then—hmm?"
Pierce patted the pocket containing the stolen item and Frank gulped, his anger completely dissipated.
"Ha," Frank said, noticing that three pairs of eyes were now locked on him. "It's nothing, really; I just figured you to be too… graceful to fall." He followed his statement up with a short burst of hyena-like laughter. Charles perceptibly cringed at the dissonant sound.
"Is anything broken?" Hunnicutt asked. "I'd guess yes, by the look of it."
"Three of my damn fingers," Hawkeye replied. "I don't know what I'm gonna do once this ceasefire is over and the casualties come rolling in again."
Frank took in a breath and held it, his eyes staring straight ahead and not daring to look up at Pierce.
"You'll be okay," B.J. answered. "Colonel Potter, Major Winchester, and I will perform the surgeries and you can assist for a while." For the moment, Hunnicutt avoided asking if Burns was involved with the incident. He already knew the answer.
"You and I both know that the casualties are always worse right after a ceasefire," Pierce replied, shaking his head. "It's like they have to make up for lost time."
"Colonel Potter is not going to be happy about this," Charles warned in a sing-song voice. "I'd suggest you figure out a means of hiding that rather crudely-wrapped display of your failure to control your emotions."
Frank laughed then, a tiny squeal that he immediately stifled with his hand.
"Frank Burns," Hawkeye spat. "What brings you to the Swamp?"
"Oh," he muttered, not looking up at Pierce, "I just wanted to drop in for a bit. It was getting a little dull over in my tent."
"Isn't it past your bedtime?" Hawkeye said with a sneer. He pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. "My watch says it is."
"Let him stay a while, Pierce," Charles announced good-naturedly. "He was just beginning to loosen up a bit. Were you not just about to tell us about your job in the States?" Smiling, he poured himself a snifter of his cognac and quietly took a sip.
"Alcohol does not loosen me up, Major," Frank retorted, taking a moment to pour another martini glass full of spiked Shirley Temple down his gullet. "I have very high tolerance for alcohol and I know my limits."
"That's right—you stop yourself just before you start having fun," B.J. remarked. He was met with a little sneer from Frank.
"Unlike you bozos, I like to keep my wits about me. There's nothing worse than a man who's lost all control."
"I could say the same for a scalpel in your hands," Hawkeye remarked with a grin.
"Hey!" Frank retorted, his voice too loud, "I thought you promised to be nice to me! Don't you remember?"
Meanwhile, Hunnicutt shook his head, smiling to himself. When he'd first arrived at the Swamp, Frank had denied seeing Hawkeye. Frank was simply not smart enough to be a good liar.
"Of course I do, Frank," Hawkeye responded. "That was nice, compared to what I could say about you."
"You said you were gonna make fun of Major Winchester. So—go ahead!"
Charles sneered at Hawkeye but that didn't sway him. Frank scooped out another drink and downed it in two gulps. In the ensuing silence, Hawkeye began to think aloud.
"Right, make fun of Charles. What can I say about Charles? Hmm…."
"What about the whole newspaper thing?" B.J. commented.
"Ah, yes," Hawkeye said with a big smile, explaining the story to a blitzed Frank Burns who stared up at him like a giddy child. Pierce gestured to Winchester, watching Frank's eyes follow his hand. "Charles here turned the whole camp against him when he accused someone of stealing one of his Boston Globe newspapers! We ended up taking every single item of his out of the Swamp and hiding it from him."
B.J. cut in, his voice full of glee. "He had to run across the compound with only a Boston Globe covering his Boston globes!"
"Ha—very clever pun," Charles interjected, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "That reminds me—can either of you tell the remainder of your anecdotes in another language? Korean, perhaps?"
"I'm only fluent in pig latin," Hawkeye admitted. "Wait a minute—you know it better than I do. Speaking of which, I-way is ank-Fray oh-say unk-dray?"
At his understanding of the question, Charles paused a moment, looking amused. He took another sip of cognac and smiled knowingly at Hawkeye.
"Pierce, why bother embellishing your language when it was you who correctly informed me of the man's inability to comprehend plain English? He dumped a pitcher of gin into the Shirley Temple."
"Why are you moving around so much, Hawk?" Frank asked, blinking exaggeratedly as he completely ignored what had just been said about him. His speech was slurred and every movement of his body and face was exaggerated as he spoke to Pierce. "Stay still, will ya?"
"I haven't moved," Hawkeye replied. Charles was blown away by this strange camaraderie Frank Burns was now expressing in regards to Pierce, who looked as if he could start yelling at the man at any moment.
"Right," Frank replied, clearly disbelieving Pierce. "What else did you do to him? That's mild compared to what you two did to—"
"Oh, we couldn't forget to tell him about Charles's double-agent days," B.J. reminded the dark-haired doctor. A wave of recognition came to Hawkeye.
"Oh, yeah—there was the time he tried to pit us against Margaret, and Margaret against us. He tried to be on both sides, riling us and Margaret to keep pranking each other. We really got him that time—made him believe that Margaret upped the ante by sending a letter to Beej's wife about a supposed affair they were having, as a way of getting back at our last prank. I think we scared the crap out of Charles, because he ended up confessing his dastardly plans and apologizing like it was Judgment Day."
"Margaret had an affair with B.J.?" Frank gasped, attempting to stand but failing to gain the balance to do so. "I had no idea she was such a... floozy!"
"No," B.J. cut in, his expression serious. "We were trying to fool Charles. It was a joke."
"Oh," Frank said, drinking yet another Shirley Temple. "Well, what about his being called Major Ego? What did he do to earn that nickname?"
Hawkeye rolled his eyes. He had told Frank earlier about that in the V.I.P. tent, but perhaps Frank wanted to hear about it from B.J. as well. Certainly Frank didn't have any tact to ask such a question in front of the very subject of the question.
"I am sitting right here, for your information," Charles responded irritably. Hawkeye and Hunnicutt barely suppressed their laughter. Charles continued to speak. "I earned the name Major Ego because I am in fact well aware of my positive attributes, which is not a crime. I'll bet your buddies Pierce and Hunnicutt here couldn't name one practical thing they are better at than I am."
"That's easy," B.J. said with a shrug. "We're better at practical jokes."
"I can agree with that," Charles replied languidly. "You're both practically jokes."
"Touché," Hawkeye remarked. "But enough about Charles. How 'bout we talk about what you've been up to, Frank? Besides calling the kettle black?"
"Ehh," Frank said, waving his hand in dismissal. "There's no up about it; it's all been pretty much downhill for months now."
"Oh really?" Hawkeye replied. "Well, what does your wife think of your being here?" Hawkeye asked him, smiling at Frank even though his question was dead serious. "Does she know about your coming here for Margaret?"
"My wife? Ha!" Frank blurted, his burst of laughter reminiscent of a donkey's bray. "Louise left me! I haven't seen her or the girls for almost six months now! And you know what?" He smiled triumphantly, quickly downing yet another glass of spiked Shirley Temple. "I don't miss her at all!"
"Is that true, Frank?" Hunnicutt chimed in, his brow knitted with concern. It was enough to cause even Charles to look up from his snifter of cognac.
"Would I lie to you?" Frank slurred back. "Actually, yes, I would."
"Where did your caduceus pin go?" Hawkeye asked, pointing at Frank's empty lapel. "Did your wife take it with her?"
"As if I'd let her!" Frank replied. "I lost it!" At that he swung his not-quite empty glass around, ignoring the droplets of Shirley Temple that spilled onto his clothing and onto the floor.
"Where?" B.J. asked. "Let me guess; it's in the same place your mind and your respect are."
"No, you nitwit; at the VA Hospital! I think Louise was fooling around with their board of directors. They just up and took it away from me!"
"Really, without any explanation?" B.J. inquired. "I'm sure they told you why they took it."
"They said it was because I bumbled one too many times! Can you imagine? The nerve of them to say such a thing! I'm the best surgeon they've got."
"God save Indiana vets," Hawkeye muttered to Hunnicutt. Upon receiving a smile from his friend, the dark-haired doctor turned to Frank. "So what are you doing here, Frank? I can see that you aren't here to help out the M.A.S.H."
"Actually, Hawkeye, his not being able to help out is the most help he could ever give the 4077th," B.J. remarked.
"I am here to win back Margaret," Frank explained matter-of-factly. "I'm now officially divorced and I can now pursue Margaret with a clean conscience."
"As opposed to your earlier pursuit of her with a dirty conscience," B.J. said with a snicker.
"I resent that!" Frank huffed.
"But what if she says no, Frank?" Hawkeye remarked. "She isn't the Margaret you left behind more than a year ago."
"I didn't leave her! She left me! I, on the other hand, was taken against my will!"
"Did you hear Hawkeye just now?" Hunnicutt said. "Major Houlihan's not the same."
"What?" Frank blanched. "Did she lose everything in the divorce?" His voice trailed off with uncertainty. "Surely she didn't lose everything…?"
"No," Hawkeye responded, to watch Frank loudly sigh with relief. "Geez, Frank, can't you hide the fact that you're just after her money?"
"That was just with Louise. Margaret's different—she's my best affair. Nancy and Gertrude couldn't hold a candle to her. Neither could Betsy, for that matter," Frank insisted.
"Geez, I can't understand why Louise would ever want to leave you, Frank," B.J. deadpanned, his statement dripping with sarcasm. "Sounds like you're quite the husband."
"That's what I said!" Frank replied, nodding his head in agreement at the remark. "Anyway, if I can't get Margaret back, it's curtains for me."
The three other surgeons in the tent glanced at each other. Frank scooped out another glass of Shirley Temple and downed it in one gulp.
"What do you mean by that?" Hawkeye carefully asked. "I don't think Margaret is willing to give you her curtains. They really play up the hominess factor of her tent."
"It's a figure of speech," Frank said with an inappropriate smile. "If she refuses me, she'll be sorry."
"Sorry about what?" Hawkeye replied. "That she hadn't done it sooner?"
"Hardy har har," Frank said, unamused. "She'll be sorry when I blow my brains out."
Charles choked on his cognac and coughed several times in the ensuing silence, gaping at the man with the silver oak leaf. Frank was clearly blitzed and was speaking as nonchalantly as one would discuss the weather. On one hand, Hunnicutt was unsettled by Frank's admission, and on the other hand, Hawkeye was irritated by it.
"I would argue that your brains were already gone, the way you're talking, Frank," Hawkeye muttered, shaking his head. "You can't be serious."
"I have nowhere to live," Frank explained matter-of-factly. "I have no one to stay with. I've got no money…."
"How did you get over here then? Plane tickets to Korea aren't free unless you're being shipped here to fight or stitch up the people who fight."
"I just told you I have no money! You figure it out!" Frank scoffed.
"Did you get it from your mother?"
"She's dead."
Hawkeye's eyes went wide.
"When?"
"Does it matter? All that matters is the only person who favored me over all others is now dead."
"Well, didn't you get anything from her estate?"
"She left everything to my brother."
A silence fell over the Swamp, until B.J. interrupted it with a question.
"How did you get over here, Frank?"
"What?" Frank squawked. "Are you my mother now? It's none of your beeswax!"
"Was it legal?" Hawkeye remarked.
"Of course it was legal. I pawned my stuff. You know, just the usual: jewelry,watches, guns, surgical instruments… prescriptions…"
"Ha," Charles scoffed. "Your perception of legality is far removed from that of the civilized world. I am loathe to have heard your explanation in its entirety."
"Don't give me that baloney!" Frank cried, pointing a finger at Charles. "You try living with no money!"
"Perish the thought!" Charles exclaimed, placing his palm on his chest.
"Now, where's Margaret?" Frank asked, fidgeting as he sat on Hawkeye's uncomfortable mattress.
"So you're going to use Margaret to have a place to live, if not for her money. That's not right either," B.J. cautioned.
"I love Margaret!" Frank cried. "And I know she loved me, before that brute Colonel Penobscott came along. I'll win her back and we'll live happily ever after!"
"This isn't some kind of fairy tale," Hawkeye warned. "This is real life. Margaret is stuck over here in Korea until Uncle Sam says she can go home. You're AWOL from your post in Indiana. There's no way it'll work between you two unless the heavens part and messengers from the sky bring forth—"
"Attention all personnel: the ceasefire has ceased to exist. And on that same vein—incoming wounded!"
"—more casualties," Hawkeye added with a sigh of disgust. "Guess that's it for the party, eh?"
Charles looked at him with disdain.
"Party? Not hardly. More like a dirge. Please warn me well in advance the next time you plan one of these so I can be anesthetized first."