Chapter 21

Perhaps I had underestimated my ability to sleep because next thing I knew, I was shaken awake by one of the corpsmen. He had a tray in his hand which seemed loaded for three normal people. Or one Radar, as the case may be. What was he thinking?

"Sir. Here's your dinner. And a message from the CO. He ordered me to tell you to finish this. And that is an order for you. Sir!"

"Stop sirring me. I got the message already. In technicolor, of course." I said, grumpily, while eyeing the latest culinary atrocities.

" Yes sir, Captain Pierce, Sir! Would that be all?" Was he trying to be funny or was he completely humorless? And did this question make any sense?

"Yeah, yeah! Dismissed. You have done enough to add to my anguish anyway. Tell Col. Potter...Never mind. Just leave before you come up with a new way of inflicting agony to me."

"Yes sir!" He grinned as he turned back to leave.

"And don't get fresh!"

"Yes sir, Captain Pierce!" And out he went. Must be new, I decided.

Please God, or whoever controls everything thats good or bad, give me strength to deal with this food. And if you don't have strength to offer, give me patience. And if not even patience, I will gladly take numbness!

Food did not smell too bad. Actually, it was not bad, period. Maybe CO was threatening the cook again. If he was, he had my vote for next election! Henry was a great guy. I still missed him. I also missed Trapper sometimes. But I was glad for the replacements we got for them. Potter definitely had no contacts in Havana, Cuba. But then, not everybody was perfect. For a Southern cowboy, he sure as hell was alright!

It helped that I had no one to discuss this food with. With me and my private thoughts, I was downing food without paying it any attention. Not a bad position, if anyone were to ask.

Suddenly I heard a squeaky voice of my beloved Radar, 'Choppers! Choppers! Loaded and too many!' and then PA system blared, 'Both shifts to OR, Both shifts to OR. Cancel your dates, folks. We are in for a long ride!'

Damn!

The only upside of my absence was the definite possibility of Frank whining about it and the workload he had to share. The downside far outweighed this upside. My absence meant an additional 8.3 malpractice cases which was not so cool. I hated that! Him working on who were supposed to be my patients. BJ would cover the chest cases mostly. Potter would do a few too but he would stick mostly to abdomen cases. And the small cases would go to Frank who would make their recovery just as precarious as that of the sicker ones. He was the great Leveler of 4077. The relatively less sick ones had no right to get better before the more sick ones. It was Frank's undefined duty to make sure of that!

Suddenly the door opened without a knock and Radar barged in before checking himself.

"Hawk! Col. Potter says you stay put. And that you must be shedding virus and he cannot have an epidemic in the camp. If you need anything, just holler my name. I will be in my office. Gotta go."

" Hey, WAIT! Did he tell you to tell me that if I need anything, I holler Sherman and he will come running? Tell him he cannot run and he does not have the best of hearing. he would never hear me holler to begin with! Disadvantage of being old." I said all this to a half-retreating figure of Radar who made a face and mumbled, " Thats not funny!" before leaving.

"RADAR!" I hollered as I remembered the letter I wanted to send to dad.

It took him a few minutes before he made it to my tent.

"Sorry Hawk! I was on the phone. What can I do?" He was half in, half out of the door.

"You won't be doing anything from that distance. I wanted a nurse here but for now, you would do!"

"HAWKEYE! I won't come next time even if you do need me. Can't you just stop making fun?"

And with that, he started leaving.

"Heyyyy, I wanted you to send this letter for me in your next outgoing mail. Here." I offered him the letter but he refused to take it.

"Col. Potter said you were shedding virus and I should not touch anything that you touched." Kid had a point.

"You had your shot, right? Its not gonna hurt you. And I am sending it to my dad. I wouldn't send him anything that could hurt him, right? Please take this even if you have to use a pair of long fingers." My plea moved him. It was either that or his blind faith in Army Issue shots. He took the letter as if it was a grenade swallowed by a rat who had died. No, he loved animals. I was not sure about his love for the dead ones though. Did he mourn them? If yes, for how long? I decided to pursue this chain of thought at a later time. Maybe he though of it as a grenade with the pin removed?

My mind was failing me in coming up with the right analogy to describe his facial expressions. It was also wandering in every direction. My mind, that is. Not his face or its expression!

"Also, ask someone to get this tray from here. I don't want company for the night. And if this tray stays here, your rodent buddies are bound to pay me a nocturnal visits and even though I personally am a great fan of nocturnal visits, my pleasure does not extend to your bosom buddies!" I pointed towards the tray which was still half loaded.

"Alright! You need anything, let me know!" He made yet another cute-annoyed face and started to leave.

"How about some water? That would be good enough. How is the situation?"

"Its bad but not as bad as the last big one. So far, we have had eleven rather serious soldiers and twenty eight less serious ones. But they say that battle is still going on. They will cease firing around midnight. So we may get more."

"Keep me posted, will you?" I hated to be cut off like this. This was already driving me mad, kinda like solitary imprisonment. I had read that prisoners tended to go crazy in solitary. I was not really solitary but it sure felt that way right now.

Maybe it was time for another nap.

I was awakened by the PA system. I had no idea what time it was and did not care. I just felt bad. And guilty. To be able to sleep while BJ and Potter and rest of the camp busted their butts. That was not fair!

There was another load of injured ones out in the compound. I just opened the door to see who was doing triage. It was BJ. He looked at me once and then turned his attention to the soldier lying in front of him and then shook his head towards a corpsman. The soldier probably did not make it. I saw corpsmen remove the litter to a side while BJ returned his attention towards another soldier. I looked at rest of the compound. Jeeps were coming loaded from the front as were the buses. It was a big one. With me sticking here, Col. Potter probably could not ask for a replacement. It was going to be a good few weeks before I could go back to the OR and that was a long time to go with one out of four missing. Fighting was going to get worse close to Christmas before truce took hold.

God I hated this place. I hated this war. I hated all war. What were they going to gain? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Except thousands, or in case of Koreans, millions of dead bodies and mourning families left behind. How could they teach us in school not to fight and then encourage kids to go in Military where the only mission in life was to destroy the enemy. And who decided who the enemy was? The guys who decided who the enemy was never had to go out and look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger. They were not the ones we were drafted to save! And it wasn't even saving. All we did was patching them up so they could go back to the killing till they were killed themselves and replaced by fresh faces, younger faces. Was I the only one who saw the pervasiveness of this whole process? I wished I could find one of those bastards who decided to kill those kids, feed them in a large howitzer, and aim him at the Chinese. But right now, I just hated my own selfishness. And the fact that this hatred was just as futile as our efforts at saving those kids. Most were repeat customers. Smart ones probably just lied back down and waited for storm to pass over. Or maybe they were all mostly repeats? Even if I wanted to, I could not remember all the soldiers I had worked on. That was not what I wanted to grow into once I was a fully working surgeon. I was not the one to get too involved with patients. I had learned to keep some distance to sustain my own sanity. But this level of forced indifference made me feel inadequate. And mechanical. This was not what I spent my life training for!

This was not fair. This just wasn't fair!