“Move over!”
Hawkeye slammed his hip into B.J., knocking the paralyzed surgeon aside. He plunged his own hands into the bloody cavity, his fingers frantically searching through the crimson tide by pure instinct.
“Come on, come on, you son of a bitch, don’t you die on me, you’re not old enough to buy a beer!” Hawkeye gritted his teeth, his fingers finally brushing against the jagged edge of the torn artery. He pinched it shut. “Got it! Clamps, Margaret, give me all the clamps!”
Margaret was there in a flash, her usual hostility replaced by absolute, flawless professionalism. They worked in tandem, a well-oiled machine of desperation, tying off the artery and packing the wound.
“Pulse is returning,” the anesthetist breathed a sigh of relief. “Pressure is stabilizing. He’s back.”
Hawkeye exhaled a breath he felt like he’d been holding since 1950. He slumped his shoulders and looked over at B.J.
Hunnicutt was standing against the canvas wall of the O.R., his arms hanging limply at his sides, his bloody gloves staining the olive fabric. He looked like a man who had just been executed but hadn’t quite figured out how to fall down yet. Without a word to Hawkeye, Margaret, or Frank, B.J. turned and walked out the O.R. doors, stripping his gloves off and throwing them onto the floor.
Three hours later, the choppers stopped coming. The immediate bleeding had been stopped, leaving only the dull, throbbing ache of exhaustion that settled over the camp.
Hawkeye didn’t go to the mess tent for the unrecognizable slop they called coffee. He didn’t go to the Officers’ Club to hit on nurses. He went straight to the muddy spot outside the Swamp.
The pink envelope was still there, now thoroughly marinated in the Uijeongbu mud. Hawkeye picked it up gingerly. He didn’t make a habit of reading other people’s mail—unless it was Frank’s, which was a moral obligation—but this was different. This was a triage situation of the soul. He wiped the mud off on his pants and slid the letter out.
He read it under the pale moonlight. He closed his eyes, let out a long, heavy sigh, and ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, Beej…”
Hawkeye pushed open the door to the Swamp. The tent smelled like rotting canvas, unwashed socks, and the sharp, medicinal tang of homemade gin. B.J. was sitting on his cot in the dark, still wearing his blood-spattered scrub pants and an olive undershirt. He was pouring a second—or maybe fifth—martini from the still.
“You shouldn’t drink alone,” Hawkeye said softly, stepping inside and letting the door flap shut behind him. “It leads to introspection, and introspection leads to realizing we’re living in a garbage dump in the middle of a war.”
B.J. didn’t look up. He just threw the gin back, grimacing as the raw alcohol burned its way down his throat.
“I read it,” Hawkeye said, holding up the crumpled, muddy pink paper.
“That’s a federal offense, Hawk,” B.J. replied, his voice raspy.
“So is operating a still, stealing army jeeps, and impersonating a sane person. We’re well past the law here.” Hawkeye sat on his own cot, leaning forward. “Beej… it’s just a word. Kids learn words. She probably calls the mailman ‘Dada’ too. She’s a baby.”
“She’s my daughter,” B.J. snapped, finally looking up. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild. “She is my daughter, Hawk. And she doesn’t know who I am. I’m a photograph on a mantle. I’m a bedtime story Peg tells her so she doesn’t forget. But she is forgetting. Because I’m not there.”
He stood up, pacing the small space between the cots like a caged tiger.
“I’m here. I’m here sewing up kids who get blown apart over a line on a map that nobody even cares about! I spend my days up to my elbows in the blood of farm boys, playing God with a scalpel, while some guy named Gary comes over on Sundays and fixes my front porch! He fixes my porch, Hawk! And he plays with my kid!”
B.J. grabbed the martini glass and hurled it at the canvas wall. It shattered against one of the wooden support beams, raining glass onto Frank’s perfectly made bed.
“I froze today, Hawk,” B.J. whispered, his anger suddenly collapsing into profound shame. He sat back heavily on his cot, burying his face in his hands. “I looked at that boy on the table… and I didn’t care. For ten seconds, I didn’t care if he lived or died. I just wanted to go home. I almost killed him because I was feeling sorry for myself.”
Hawkeye didn’t make a joke. He didn’t offer a witty retort. He knew that the humor they used as armor had no power against this kind of wound.
“You saved hundreds of boys, Beej. You’re allowed to be human for ten seconds,” Hawkeye said quietly.
“No, I’m not,” B.J. said, looking up with a terrifying, absolute resolve. “I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not being a ghost in my own house.”
He reached under his cot and pulled out his olive-drab canvas duffel bag. He unzipped it and started throwing clothes inside. Shirts, socks, a framed picture of Peg and Erin.
“Beej, what the hell are you doing?” Hawkeye stood up, alarm bells ringing in his head.
“I’m going home, Hawk. I don’t care how. I’ll walk to Tokyo and swim the Pacific if I have to. But I am not staying here another day.”
Hawkeye moved to block the door. “Beej, you can’t. That’s desertion. They’ll court-martial you. They’ll throw you in Leavenworth. You’ll never see Peg or Erin again if you’re sitting in a military prison!”
“Get out of my way, Pierce,” B.J. growled, zipping up the bag and slinging it over his shoulder. The look in his eyes wasn’t the gentle, moral compass of the 4077th. It was the look of a man who had entirely lost his mind.
Before Hawkeye could physically wrestle him to the ground, the door flap flew open.
Colonel Sherman T. Potter stood in the doorway, a lit cigar clenched in his teeth, his eyes darting between the shattered glass, the packed duffel bag, and the two surgeons standing at the precipice of a disaster.
“What in the name of Marco Polo’s unwashed trousers is going on in here?” Potter demanded.
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
