That night was something for me to remember. September twentieth was the night that I could never forget for the rest of my life. It began in reality, like something I could touch, feel and see for once, and then it ended in a dream, leaving me to wake up with a child in my arms and my hopes so cruelly dashed. It began in worry and tragedy and ended in hope and love, feelings I had to give up very readily as the days wore on and the night became colder and colder.
It all began in the Swamp, as it always did…or did it? Yes, that was it. I was in the Swamp, as I always was. Hawkeye and Trapper wanted to drink some gin from their still and were teasing me with it, saying how I could not drink yet and what a mother I am going to be when I had the baby (drunk and happy at the same time or who knew what). I knew that words were words and that they could not hurt me, but I almost swatted them both. Of course, I could not get up so easily and it would have been in vain if I didn't try extracting my revenge, hence how funny it seemed. Even with the small back cramps coming and going every few minutes or so, it didn't seem like something terrible was going to happen. I've had the same issues during the summer I was away and I wasn't too worried about my back aching.
However, their words reminded me of my fate. It was of how I am staying here in Korea, where my child was going and how I am going to survive without being a proper mother. With that thought, a small, stinging pain went through my back as I almost stumbled on some garbage on the floor, laughing as I tried to hit Trapper with a fly swatter he left on his shelf. I missed him very miserably as he swiftly moved away from me. I shuddered as I stopped to laugh along with the two Swampmen, ignoring that new pain.
Oh, dear God…
Hawkeye, Trapper and I finally relaxed after a pillow fight ensued quite suddenly (naturally, it was my fault), feeling the quiet of the night as the feathers flew to and fro, most of them old pillows destroyed in out fight (and mostly Frank's, by the way). Crickets even sang us their song once more, telling us in sorrowful tones how we spent this first year here in Korea. And look where we are now, still drinking, working, playing and worrying…and me being pregnant.
Sing us a song of war, won't you? All we see are human destruction, pain and death. Where is the quiet and peace of this night going to? When will that peace come? We're all going to die anytime now because of you. It's just another suicide waiting to happen.
I heard the words well enough in my mind, knowing all about peace and quiet, in a weird sort of way. I missed the quiet of something called a home, whatever it was and wherever it was, and could only sit quietly after the pillow fight as the two friends drank deeply and cursed the war and toasted boredom and dirty socks. It was the usual scene, but it was one I also could not forget.
Soon enough though, after the gin had been drunk, talk moved onto other things, other than teasing each other and destroying Army property. Hawkeye asked me about the orphanage and I would supply him with stories, faces and pictures immediately, describing one and all that I knew. I remembered every child that was there (dead or alive at this point) and sighed. I cried a few tears, not wanting to continue after telling him about the bombing a few months ago, in which some of the children were hunting for some food in the farming fields and fell to enemy fire. It hurt me too much and Hawkeye saw it, so he stopped and sighed, cursing the war once more and drinking deeply as he refilled his glass.
In turn, Hawkeye told me about the latest news (gossip, town, family, friend or otherwise) from Crabapple Cove and tried to cheer me up with pictures of the beaches and lobsters, forests and woods, all from his father and some of his cousins. He even described the family's old cabin in Vermont, a place where the two had been when they needed to get away. I saw them, as well as beauty in the black and white pictures sent to cheer him up, and smiled. I would have liked to see there someday…with Hawkeye right next to me.
Suddenly, there went another cramp, creeping up my back like a black widow spider, crawling up to purposely poison me. I ignored that too, pretending that nothing but us three and our stories existed. Hawkeye and I then turned to Trapper, for he had some stories to tell too.
After Hawkeye joked about the news from home and how his father seemed to have another widow to hang out with (so much like Hawkeye, before we began our troubling relationship), Trapper took me to his side of the tent and showed me pictures of his two daughters. Becky's birthday party was in one of the piles, the one he missed the month before. His wife took pictures of that day for him, to help him feel at home in Korea and to show him some happier times that he had been missing out on. The suspicious Mrs. McIntyre even wrote on the back of one of the pictures, something sentimental that was making Trapper forgo nurses.
It was something that brought tears to my eyes. I'll be waiting for you, Darling. We love you and miss you very much!
I saw a tear come down Trapper's face slowly, as if he allowed it to run and forgot that he did. It was an accident of war, an accident showing his own weakness, and he wiped it away quickly so that I couldn't see it again. I didn't even consider the countless others he had probably cried when nobody was watching him. Instead, I only asked him if he was ok and if he needed anything.
"I miss them more than you know," Trapper informed me almost indifferently (to hide the pain he felt in missing them) as Hawkeye took another glass from the still and handed him one too. "I can't wait to get out of here. I'll just pack up my latrine supplies and leave the rest behind. This tent can be a gift to the rats and roaches."
"Hear, hear!" Hawkeye announced from his side of the tent, when he got back there from the still. "Let's cheer them, the dirty socks and magazines!"
I waddled back slowly…carefully…to Hawkeye's side of the tent, not wanting Trapper to see my own tears at my own upcoming loss and perhaps Hawkeye's as well. Sitting down at the chair next to Hawkeye's cot (as he laid there, an empty glass on the floor next to me), I wiped away my own drying waterfall and then put my fingers through his jet-black hair, ignoring the nasty magazines the two Swampmen read and laughed at (even cutting pictures out when the magazines were needed for the winter fires). I vowed to burn every one of Hawkeye's when the opportunity arose, but I never did get the chance to…yet.
"I'm glad to be back home, Love," I randomly said slowly, rubbing Hawkeye's forehead, just like I used to do, another spasm shaking me.
Hawkeye eyed me and smiled. "Shouldn't I be doing that to you?" he asked nervously, smiling at me, remembering all of our few goods times and rubbing my belly. We have, as a solid couple, had so few precious moments together in the year of 1951 (the year before almost being a distant memory to me) and this closeness made me feel complete again.
I disagreed with him in regards to his question. I had my own reasons why.
"Who's the chief surgeon here?" I inquired instead, smiling back at him and continuing my massage. "Who stresses out more?"
"Hey, can you two teenagers get a room? Some of us here are trying to be miserable." Trapper threw a roll of toilet paper at Hawkeye and me, the white flag covering me as if I were an oversized, fat tree on Mischief Night.
"If there was one, I'd go and pay for it," I replied, throwing back some of the ripped toilet paper at Trapper and laughing with glee, thinking back to our pillow fight.
"I think Henry has the Supply Room tonight with –" Hawkeye began before an explosion erupted some yards from the camp.
Immediately, the three of us were on the floor, scared out of our wits. Hawkeye was on top of me and my belly, to protect me from the debris coming from the landmine fields, pieces of Earth and metal that ripped up one side of the Swamp and luckily, not where we were. Already, Frank's side of the tent was in shreds, his mother's picture frame shattered on the floor. I knew that he would not only be pissed about the mess we made with his pillows, but also that the enemy dared to violate a picture of the elder Mrs. Burns.
Either way, it was the worst timed disaster. Somebody or something was getting us bombed and using the minefield to do it. Airplanes were heard overheard, shooting in one direction and then the other and zipping away. Explosions continued, seemingly without end, and the debris from this destruction, in this horrid annihilation called war, began once more. Only this time, it was worse than anything we've ever had before.
Somehow, the peace of quiet of my homecoming to the 4077th was going to be cut short. The good times ended too quickly. I had been at the camp for about six hours and already, the war was back on and we most likely had to leave.
"When are they going to stop?!" Trapper yelled as another bomb was heard in the distance, exploding just outside of the camp and shaking the ground like an earthquake.
"Who knows?" I yelled. "They don't care how we feel!"
However, that was not all I could feel, the creeping black widow spider already releasing its poison and quickly crawling away to another spot. A sticky, wet liquid was making me cold from the legs down. It dribbled from my pants to the floor without warning, almost like a slow waterfall, but caused me no pain. It was barely noticed with the mess on the floor to begin with, but it was not what I was worried about.
It made my heart skip a beat, panic rising in my throat. I knew what it meant.
"I don't know, but whenever that is, I hope it's soon!" Hawkeye got up from on top of me, not noticing that he was wet, and took his helmet off of a shelf quickly. He was concerned about the wounded in Post-Op and was about to leave when Trapper got up and took his own helmet from his shelf.
Putting the helmet on my head as he bent down to see me, Trapper went to Hawkeye, nervous and scared. "Let me go. Your responsibility is here with Jeanie. I don't know what will happen next, but I think you should be there for her. I can't do anything for her like you can."
I knew, then and there, that he saw the wet mess on the Swamp's floor. In the deepest, darkest part of my mind, I realized that I was in deeper trouble than I thought and Trapper knew it.
Hawkeye looked to me and then to Post-Op multiple times, wondering, worried and in a deep hole and between a rock and a hard place. A decision had to be made and made soon and I wasn't going to force him into one, especially when I could have taken care of myself for a few minutes more. We were being attacked and he had to make a choice whether to take care of the two patients in Post-Op or to take care of me, his Love.
Another explosion shook the Swamp again, the flaps of fabric letting in dirt and some fragments from the camp, odds and ends from the garbage and maybe some rocks. Both Trapper and Hawkeye shook with the quake and almost lost their footing, but kept on their feet and were not hit. They were lucky, I thought.
"Hawkeye, you're the chief surgeon, but it doesn't mean you have to be there every time for every patient!" Trapper yelled as the two tried to keep their balance, another explosion rocking them like waves to a boat. "You have one right there who needs you. I'll get Henry to help you. Frank and I can handle two patients and the camp getting the hell out of here if we need to. She can't be moved!"
"Air raid! There's an air raid! We have to move!" We heard Frank shriek from the distance (most likely from Margaret's tent), telling everyone the most obvious thing. "Get to the trenches! It's an air raid!"
"I'm fine!" I tried to say back to Trapper, but I knew that my voice was lost to the minefields exploding and Frank's shouting. Fireworks lit up the skies quickly, causing Hawkeye and Trapper to hit the ground again, before the assault put them there on purpose again.
Hawkeye put his own helmet on Trapper's head, ignoring his own safety and knowing what he was to do now. His decision had been made.
"Be careful, Trap," Hawkeye said, hugging Trapper after a minute of listening to the enemy fighting our forces, creating craters closer and closer to where we were. The landmines were exploding as bombs dropped once more. "We can't move Jeanie right now. I agree, get Henry quickly. He'll gonna have to help me. He's done this before."
Another small back spasm crept up my body, making me want to scream as it grew a little stronger. My face registered pain and fear, but I could not voice them, knowing the priorities of this camp and how to proceed. They were more important things to think about, like getting the hell out of the enemies' way or even trying to get up from the floor of the Swamp. I could do neither though. I was stuck, transplanted to the ground by fear and pain alone.
Hawkeye crawled to me as Trapper ran out to Post-Op, falling a few times as he ran into the night. We watched, seeing that Trapper kept his balance as he barked orders for the two wounded men to be evacuated and that the camp should be packing and out the door as soon as possible. Even Frank, as the senior officer of the two, wouldn't have disapproved of his decisions as he solidly got the ball rolling. There was no way the camp could safety stick around.
Where Henry and Frank were, I didn't know. I would have thought that one of the two would be saying the same thing and not a mere captain who, for the whole time he had been in Korea, had been mocking the Army and its maneuvers and lamenting the loss of young life and the emptiness he felt, with his own family being so far away. I wouldn't have blamed Trapper either, for all of his feelings, although that night showed that he still had a head on his shoulders and that he could command.
"Are you all right, Jeanie?" Hawkeye asked as he came over to me, concerned once more.
"I've never felt better in my life," I replied sharply, being sarcastic. "Dammit, what a time to have a child, isn't it?"
Hawkeye only held me, covering my body with his. "It'll be over soon, Jeanie," he only said, doubtful himself, something that I heard it in his voice. "We'll get through it together."
~00~
I was only aware of everything else in some way, as if it in a dream, all of its images surreal and in swirls and circles. It's like you were sleeping almost. It's all black and time has no meaning. Everything in your body and mind still works, but when you're totally aware of everything once more, when everything is fully clarified and in a rich picture, it's all illusory. Nothing seemed to be real, nothing that you can touch with your fingers…
However, I knew even more than that. I was losing blood faster than it could be given to me and I knew that AB negative blood was scarce (I was one of a kind). I seemed to be dying inside and there were bombs going off outside of the OR still. Oh, I even saw Henry and Hawkeye in this dream of mine, this imagery thing that wasn't quite true with all those bombs bursting around us, but really was. They both looked worried, albeit nervous, in their surgical garb. There were whispered words, words I could hardly hear, much less understand, and glances exchanged as hour after hour passed and nothing seemed to happen.
Radar was nowhere in sight. I think I heard Hawkeye say that the poor guy fainted and was in Post-Op under a bed, safe and sound for the time being. I was not sure though. Darkness claimed me as its own again, telling me that the pathway was not yet over. I was still chained to the exile and was not expected to come out anytime soon.
By then, life was like a tunnel afterward, with pain around me and no relief. There was some light at the end of it and yet, it was nowhere in sight. I could not see it just yet. There had to be some time before it would come to me. Henry and Hawkeye must have seen it because they always fought back, but I didn't. I knew that it was there, waiting for me somehow, and the darkness always was telling me that it was never possible. And then, there it was, pulling me forward and letting me see everything in the full, allowing me to see life once more.
Relief…and then there was relief from the pain at long last.
It was some time before I saw myself in the OR fully, feeling exhausted. Before me, beyond the sheet that separated me from reality, was Henry and Hawkeye, the former cuddling a small, bloody bundle in his white arms, slowly dripping some blood and mucus as it was wrapped in a green blanket and cleaned off. The latter looked proud of me, but could not say anything. His eyes were wet though. I knew that he could not cry in front of me again.
Hawkeye gently took the green bundle from Henry, saying cheerfully as he started to wipe the baby, "Congratulations, Henry, you're now a grandfather. It's a girl."
I saw that Hawkeye was smiling, ready to crack a joke at me, but I didn't hear it if he said it. However, I felt a smile crack on my own face, holding out my arms for that little bundle that was mine. She was finally given to me, her anxious mother, by Hawkeye. Of course, she was mine, made by me with nine months of growing. She was my daughter, my little daughter, who was to stay with me for as long as we were allowed to be. I had few precious moments with her, but those would be few and far between in the future while I stayed here in Korea. Nobody knew how long that would be.
"I'm not ready to be a grandfather just yet," I heard Henry say, as if from a distance. "There are too many years ahead for me to earn that title from any one of my children." There was a pause. "Pierce, is that wise now?"
Henry was walking towards me, afraid that my little daughter would be dropped by my weak arms. However, I could not drop her and afford to destroy her. I was holding upon her too tightly after Hawkeye gave her to me, my beautiful joy that I almost killed shamefully and without thought, all before she was born and in my arms.
"I think so, Henry," Hawkeye replied as he looked to me, wanting to be near me, but not knowing what to do. "Leave her alone."
An explosion went over outside, shaking the building in what seemed like the millionth time. We knew that it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. The best thing to do was enjoy whatever life was given to us in the moment and forget the war and its passions, deaths and heartbreaks. A miracle had been given to us and I, for one, could hardly contain myself in the excitement I felt.
I looked at them both, fighting the urge to sleep against the loud advice of my mewing daughter. She was crying at me, her red face telling me to help her in some way. I didn't know what to do for her just yet, but it would be soon enough before I figure out the ins and outs of being a good mother, before everything in my body dried away and I start to forget the tiny infant in my arms. Soon enough though…it would be soon enough.
"Shannon, my Shannon," I finally whispered, her name faint on my lips. "She's my daughter now."