For hours and well into the evening (without any shifts for any of us or any wounded coming in), the four of us talked. Kellye joined us before she had a shift with Major Bastard (as Hawkeye still calls Simmons) and drank a quick glass from the newly rebuilt version of the still, equipped with new and improved materials from the Storage Room. Gagging and laughing about joining us, she put her empty glass down and asked to be excused, as she had a shift not be drunk for and preferred to be alert for, especially with Simmons nosing about.
In the evening, a lull seemed to have occurred in the fighting. Dean mentioned there was one, even though it's been heard that MacArthur had been pushing for his "Home by Christmas" attacks (and failing miserably, since it all keeps coming and coming). We four relaxed, smiling and downing our last glasses of swill for the night. After commenting upon the taste of the gin (terrific of course), Dean looked down at his feet. He was sitting on Hawkeye's cot, as Hawkeye himself was sitting in the chair next to it, I was next to him in the wheelchair and Trapper was at his cot. My brother was mumbling about something under his breath. Nobody heard him and all of us were asking him to speak up, but it was me that got him to talk normally. We were twins after all. Dean might be comfortable in social circles, more so than I ever will be, but he still was getting used to Hawkeye and Trapper, no doubt about it.
"What is it, Dean?" I asked, curious that his jolly mood turned sour in two seconds flat. "What's got your Army shorts into a twisted wedgie?"
"Oh, Jeanie, did you hear anything about or from our…umm…father lately?" Dean asked me in return after a moment of silence, holding up his glass to his lips for another few gulps, as if to dispel the images from his mind.
While Trapper got up and took his glass (seeing it empty when Dean gulped the last of it), I shook my head. "No. Is there anything I should be aware of now?" I sipped from my own glass, trying to think about why Dean was asking me, after such a good night and all.
"Other than he's coming to Korea to visit us…" Dean took his glass from Trapper and downed it in one large gulp. He looked tense because of what was going to happen because of this action.
"WHAT?!" I almost choked on my gin, coughing. Hawkeye immediately patted my back and I breathed again. While Dean gave Hawkeye a warning look, telling him to stop (with his brotherly concern was ignored) I was soon motioning at my brother to explain himself and how he got the news.
"Henry called me up last night, while you were sleeping in Post-Op," Dean started to explain. "How he got through to me at the station we were sleeping at, I don't know. My unit was pretty damned busy at the borders, on orders to keep your unit secure and in place. I know you guys can go mobile, but we're trying not to make you move. It'll confuse everyone and more wounded can die as a result if the choppers can't find you."
"Radar probably came through with the call," Trapper suggested.
"Regardless." Dean waved his hand in indifference. "Henry and I talked about this and that, like what news we had from home and such. Apparently, he told me that Lorraine is having another baby, but don't tell everybody about it. Keep it quiet. She just found out herself and naturally was oblivious to it until recently."
"Sure…" I trailed, trying to see the point in all of this while feeling sorry for Lorraine at the same time, being so alone and with two other children to take care of already.
"Jeanie, I mean it." Dean played the part of older brother too well, crossing his arms even and looking at Trapper and Hawkeye severely. "You two better keep your mouths shut too. Now, anyway, after we chitchatted, Henry mentioned that our father called him while he was in Seoul for those days he wasn't here and Major What's-His-Face was. Apparently, the old colonel has been searching for Henry Blake and asking him about us. He has his connections, you know, even if he was staying in San Francisco, trying to quit booze."
"Cheers to that," Hawkeye announced, getting us all the toast our father for quitting drinking, and drank deeply himself.
We all did the same (refills were there for all), but it left me with an empty feeling inside. I didn't know why, for God knows how much I disliked my father for what he did to us. Even if he was trying to quit drinking, why should I care about him? The man hated me anyhow because I was born a girl, the same feelings my mother had for me, and made me feel useless. It was a mutual feeling except he was the bastard and I was the abused.
"So, how did he get to Korea if he's supposed to be confined in a hospital?" I inquired gently, draining my last glass for the night.
"I can't say," Dean answered carefully as he put his own glass down. "There are rumors of him threatening the doctors to let him go so that he could be with his company, the 68th Regiment, and to lead them in Korea. They're stationed up in Munsan while he's been in the background."
"That's dead in the middle of the fighting!" I exclaimed. "That's enemy territory! Dean, does he know what he's doing?!"
"If someone is 'Heartless' enough to push the enemy back for the US and defend the country, they'll go." Dean got quiet for a minute. "He's crazy, all right. He wants to get himself killed again and I can see it."
"He's always wanted to get himself killed, Dean," I pointed out. "Our father has already been in two wars and this is going into his third. In the First World War, he jumped out of his plane with a parachute allowing him to land, let his plane crash despite the cost, and tackled a bunch of German soldiers before running back to his lines through the trenches. I heard that, while he was in Asia in the second war, he had two attack dogs with him, to kill any Japanese who came near him while he was sleeping. Then, if the dogs didn't finish the job, he would kill the men himself, bashing their skulls in until their brains oozed out."
I paused, to take a breath because I was panicking. "Dean, this is a dangerous man who shouldn't be our enemy. Or haven't you noticed over the years? He's a military man gone wrong."
"I have to be missing something here," Trapper mused, a little confused.
"It's not anything really," Hawkeye commented. "We just have one Colonel Morrison, who likes to drop in on people not on his side, attack and kill, and then think everybody close to him is the greatest enemy other than the country's, but not having the guts to kill them."
"I guess you're all correct." Dean sighed, resigned with the inevitable. "Trapper, you're not missing much except for the story of a madman. Sadly, Hawkeye is right. He hasn't been promoted since 1919, but I think he likes it, which is why I never hear him complain."
"You talk with him?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Sometimes, it's necessary." Dean went quiet for a moment. "He likes to hear from me from time to time, since I am his youngest son and the sanest out of the bunch anyway. He doesn't ask about you often, maybe once or twice in the past decade or so."
"Like I cared in the first place," I pointed out bitterly.
"Again, he asked about you, Jeanie." I heard another sigh escape Dean. "I think the last time he did was a few years ago because he hadn't heard about you in almost a decade, you had been that quiet. The last he heard was that you escaped Mom and Clarence and you went into Army nursing school. I only told him what I knew at the time, that you were in West Germany and working for some government agency in the Army, and he cursed you, drank something, it sounded like over the telephone, and changed the topic."
"What dedication," Hawkeye added, toasting our father again. He and Trapper then drank deeply and threw their glasses at Frank's corner of the tent. We heard the glasses crash and shatter.
"Gee, thanks," I said, rolling my eyes and rubbing my now-free arms.
"Just be prepared, Jeanie." Dean looked at me seriously. "He'll be here next week, so be sober and recovered enough so he doesn't cause a scene. Remember the last time he saw you?"
"Yeah, I do, thank you for reminding me, Dean." I became angry upon hearing the reminder, but calmed enough to reply nicely (albeit sarcastically) to my older brother. "I was thirteen years old and he dragged me out of Mom's house to ask me if I was on his side. I told him I didn't know, because I really had no idea what was going on, and he slapped me and left in a hurry. And that was about the time we stopped seeing him at his house in Bloomington."
"Damn, we've got a drunk Dan Simmons with an ego," Hawkeye said.
"Yeah, and we're going to hear an earful and more if we're not careful," Dean cautioned. "Henry knows about the visit next week sadly and he's nervous as hell. He doesn't like 'Heartless' as much as we do."
"But he'll put out his heart for a visitor of the 4007th," Trapper laughed.
"Uh-huh, very funny," I only said to end the conversation, annoyed about my father and trying to change the subject so that Happy Hour did not turn into Angry Hour. "Now, aren't you two going to get new glasses and drink here or am I going to have to wheel myself to the Officers' Club to get more again?"