As promised!
Chapter 38
"Look who's here." I looked up to see both Col. Potter and Margaret standing at the table.
"Hello Margaret."
"Hello Pierce. Good to see you here."
"Thanks."
"How are you now?" Asked Margaret as Col. Potter just sat down quietly.
"Good as ever, as you can see."
"GOOD! Because I did not want to feel guilty when I..." She started off heatedly but I curbed her enthusiasm in the bud.
"Margaret, I am sorry. About yesterday. That was not the brightest idea I had."
"Damn right, buster! Sorry Col."
"That's alright, Major. I think he has learned his lesson, right son?"
"Yes sir! I have." Again, unwilling to get into a pointless discussion or worse still, disappoint Potter, I decided to just go along.
"You are not eating. Everything alright?" Margaret again.
"Margaret, will you stop worrying? Everything is alright. Better, actually. I had a late dinner and then, here, I just got busy writing and forgot!" They both looked at me suspiciously but decided against butting in.
"There maybe something that might cheer you up, son."
"You are sending me home?"
"No..."
"Tokyo?"
"No."
"Then it won't cheer me up!"
"I am thinking of letting you return to work next week." I started opening my mouth in response but he held his hand up, signaling me to shut up. "Hold on, let me finish, just post-op and triage for now. No surgery for next three weeks." He was looking serious but I had other ideas. That was the best news I had heard in a long time. I grinned from ear to ear. Margaret gave me a broad smile herself.
"Thank you Boss Man, sorry, Col. Potter Sir!" This time, he couldn't help but smile.
"Pierce, you are impossible!" Margaret spoke, in her best exasperated impersonation.
"Don't worry Margaret, he is tired when he is cranky." That was BJ who just got here with his tray. "Did I miss something?" He probably hadn't noticed that it was not a sombre gathering for a change.
"Boss...Col. Potter has declared me persona very grata in post-op and triage. I am not banished anymore. Margaret was just reminding me that I was impossible not to miss."
"I did not say that. I wouldn't even have noticed you were gone if it were not for some peace in the OR."
"Yeah? Thats not what the little birdie told me." BJ looked at her in mischief. Now it was my turn to ask if I had missed something.
"You have a little birdie? And I don't even know about her?"
" Its not a her! Nobody is replacing you as the camp Casanova, relax!"
"Good morning sirs." That was Radar. Obviously Col. could not go anywhere in the camp without Radar following him a few minutes later.
"Mornin' Radar!" Came a chorus of replies. Margaret just shook her head. It had to be the whole sir/madam thing again. I nodded towards Margaret when Radar looked at me. He just shrugged. His tray was lobbed with food.
"Radar, have you dispatched the demands for supplies? For once, we are receiving some form of heads up and have no supplies to work with. These I Corps yahoos really burn my tail sometimes."
"What kind of heads up?" That was Margaret, of course.
"We are expecting some heavy fighting from now till Christmas Eve when official Christmas truce takes hold."
"I thought this lull WAS the truce." BJ spoke.
"You thought wrong, Hunnicut. We are not that lucky. The push is going to be from us this time."
"The infinite Army wisdom! Why do they want to get more kids killed right before Christmas?" I said somewhat heatedly.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be here. I would be pushing a desk somewhere in the SE Asia command HQ."
"So what is the problem with supplies?" Major Frank 'Ten Thumbs' Burns was probably the acting chief surgeon making BJ's life miserable. Any news of casualties meant almost double work for BJ. And on top of that, dealing with Frank on a daily basis. I did not envy him. I actually felt guilty for not leaving for Seoul and letting them have a replacement surgeon. The good thing was, I was returning to work finally. That ought to cheer him up!
"Besides the usual SNAFUs you mean? Instead of five hundred oral thermometers, we received a shipment of tongue depressors, only fifteen thousand of them. We sent them back, when was that Radar?"
"November thirteenth, Col."
"Yeah, so I sent them back with some colorful language on phone and some solid kick in the butt, pardon me Major., on paper. So they fix the mistake by sending us , how many Radar?"
"Twelve thousand, Sir!" Radar blushed. What did they send? Rubber? Diapers?
"Yes, twelve thousand thermometers. Rectal, of course!"
I was trying out the coffee at that unfortunate moment and BJ was probably sampling some ambiguous looking yellow liquid, most likely the scrambled eggs. For some reason, the disdain in Colonel's voice made me snort resulting in a surge of coffee up my nose and some spluttering all around. BJ, sitting in front of me, spluttered me with the yellow stuff. Col. Potter looked at us pitifully before cracking a small smile while Margaret probably swore under breath before speaking loud enough for everyone to turn and look at the commotion at our table.
"So much for missing you! And you too, after acting like a regular human for a whole three weeks. Overgrown oafs!" She addressed me first and then turned her attention to BJ who was responsible for most of this mess.
"You just cannot please some people." BJ spoke in general, barely avoiding the fit of the giggles.
"Now I have to change into something clean. Why did you have to splutter on me alone?" I asked faking indignation because most of his splutter had landed on Margaret.
"You won't know clean if it hit you between the eyes." BJ snorted some more.
"It was not so funny. Did you plan on it before coming here?" Margaret was still slightly miffed. Our sincere lack of apology added insult to splutter.
"Planned? You mean I made Col. Potter tell us of twelve thousand rectal thermometers...Cummon Margaret, even we are not that good. Col., really? Twelve thousand rectal thermometers? Who came up with this bit of brilliance?" I was laughing again.
"There's more! Instead of snow boots, they have sent us some surplus desert boots from WW II. What else went bad this time, Radar?"
"Three thousand sheets of carbon paper, seven thousand glycerin suppost...suppo..."
"Suppositories?" I asked incredulously before starting to laugh again.
"And brilliant. Leave it to Army to fulfill your needs. Since we cannot give you fiber we give you suppositories." BJ joined me all over again.
"Don't you have anything else to do in the world other than perfecting your Abbot n Costello routine?"
"I take umbrage, Margaret. This was all spontaneous. Improvised. And funnier. Right Beej?"
"You have nothing to do in the world, pardner. But I have to replace someone in post-op. I gotta go." And with that, BJ left the table with some egg still on his clothes.