Mud, Martinis, and a Broken Frank Burns

“…Step aside, Major,” Margaret whispered, her voice trembling but cold as ice.

Before Frank could utter a word of protest about insubordination or Army protocol, Margaret shoved her hip hard against his, knocking him off balance. Frank stumbled backward into a tray of surgical instruments, sending them clattering loudly onto the blood-soaked wooden floorboards.

“Margaret!” Frank shrieked, his voice cracking into an undignified falsetto. “I am the ranking surgeon here! I’ll have you court-martialed! I’ll have you busted down to private! I’ll tell General Barker that you—”

“Shut up, Frank!” Margaret barked. It wasn’t the shrill, hysterical yell she usually reserved for unmade beds in the nurses’ tent; it was a guttural, primal command born of pure adrenaline.

Hawkeye Pierce, operating at the adjacent table, froze. He slowly lowered his forceps, leaning over to B.J. Hunnicutt. “Did you hear that, Beej? I think hell just froze over. Check the thermometer, I might need a sweater.”

Margaret didn’t have time for Hawkeye’s wisecracks. She plunged her gloved hands into the boy’s ruined leg, her fingers desperately searching for the severed ends of the femoral artery in a pool of dark crimson. “Pierce! Don’t just stand there making jokes, I need a vascular clamp and a prayer, right now!”

Hawkeye blinked, the sarcasm momentarily wiped from his face by the sheer, terrifying competence radiating from the Head Nurse. “Right away, Major.” He stepped over, quickly assessing the catastrophic mess Frank had made. “Jesus, Frank, were you trying to amputate his leg with a butter knife?”

Working with a synchronized rhythm they didn’t know they possessed, Hawkeye and Margaret clamped the artery, tied off the bleeders, and stabilized the young corporal. When the monitor finally returned to a steady, rhythmic beep, Margaret stepped back, her chest heaving. She stripped off her bloody gloves, throwing them into the bucket with a wet slap.

Frank was cowering in the corner near the scrub sinks, looking like a wet rat in olive drab. “Margaret, my dear,” he started, his tone shifting back to that sickeningly sweet whine. “It was just a momentary lapse. The light was bad, and you know my astigmatism—”

Margaret looked at him. Really looked at him. For two years, she had convinced herself that Major Frank Burns was the epitome of a soldier. She had overlooked his cowardice, his bigotry, his utter lack of surgical skill, all because he wore oak leaves on his collar and spouted Army doctrine. She had let him paw at her in the supply tent, desperately clinging to the illusion that they were the only two sane, upstanding officers in a camp run by lunatics.

But looking at him now, shivering and making excuses while a boy nearly died, the illusion shattered like cheap glass.

“Get out, Frank,” she said quietly.

“What? But Margaret, the reports…”

“Get out of this O.R. before I take a scalpel to your vocal cords!” she roared.

Frank scrambled out the double doors, nearly tripping over a litter bearer.

Later that night, the camp was dead quiet, save for the distant, rhythmic thud of artillery fire in the hills. Margaret sat on her footlocker in her tent, a half-empty bottle of gin in her hand. She never drank from the still in the Swamp, but tonight, she needed the burn.

The flap of her tent rustled. Hawkeye stood there, holding two clean glasses. He wasn’t wearing his usual leering grin.

“Can I come in, Major?” he asked softly.

“If you’re here to gloat, Pierce, I will shoot you with my service weapon,” she muttered, not looking up.

Hawkeye walked in and sat on the edge of the cot opposite her. He poured a generous splash of gin into a glass and handed it to her. “No gloating. I just wanted to say… that was one hell of a save today. You’re a damn fine surgical nurse, Margaret. Maybe the best I’ve ever worked with.”

Margaret looked at him, suspicious. “Is there a punchline?”

“No punchline,” Hawkeye sighed, taking a sip. “It’s just a tragedy, really. You’re too good to be hiding behind that idiot ferret. You don’t need Frank Burns to validate your rank, Margaret. You earned it. And you sure as hell don’t need him to make you feel like a woman.”

Hawkeye stood up, leaving the bottle on the trunk. “Get some sleep, Major. We’ve got a long war ahead of us.”

As Hawkeye left, Margaret stared at the canvas wall. He was right. She was Major Margaret Houlihan. She was a professional. But the loneliness of command was terrifying. If she wasn’t Frank’s partner, if she wasn’t the strict, unyielding “Hot Lips,” who was she?

She pulled out a piece of stationary. She needed an anchor. Something, someone, who was truly worthy of her respect. An officer of high caliber. She began to write.

Dear Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott…

A week later, the mail chopper arrived. Margaret stood by the landing pad, the wind whipping her blonde hair. Corporal Radar O’Reilly handed her a thick envelope bearing a Tokyo postmark. Her hands shook as she opened it. Inside was a letter, and a small velvet box. She opened the box to reveal a diamond ring.

Donald had proposed.

She slid the ring onto her finger. It felt heavy. Cold. She smiled brightly for the cheering nurses who had gathered around, but as she looked down at the glittering stone, a shadow fell over her face. She had just freed herself from one incompetent man relying on rank. Was she walking straight into a cage built by another?

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