“He’s sleepwalking, Colonel,” Hawkeye lied quickly, though his voice lacked its usual smooth conviction. “I was just trying to gently wake him before he walked all the way to Seoul.”

Colonel Potter slowly took the cigar out of his mouth. He looked at B.J., who stood rigidly with the duffel bag digging into his shoulder, defiance warring with despair in his eyes. Potter had been in the army since the cavalry rode horses; he knew a breaking man when he saw one.

“Put the bag down, Captain,” Potter said softly. It wasn’t a barked order from a commanding officer; it was a request from an old man.

B.J.’s jaw tightened. “Colonel, with all due respect, I am requesting an immediate transfer. Or a discharge. Or you can arrest me. I don’t care. But I am leaving this camp tonight.”

Potter didn’t flinch. “Pierce, wait outside.”

“Colonel, I don’t think…”

“Outside, Hawk,” Potter repeated, his tone firm. “And don’t eavesdrop. I can hear you breathing through the canvas.”

Hawkeye threw one last, desperate look at B.J. before slipping out into the cold Korean night.

Potter walked over to B.J., gently grabbed the strap of the duffel bag, and pulled it down to the floor. “My office, Hunnicutt. Now.”

B.J. followed numbly. When they entered the CO’s office, Potter went straight to his filing cabinet, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a bottle of his good, private stock scotch. He poured two fingers into two slightly dusty glasses and pushed one across the desk.

“Sit,” Potter commanded. B.J. sat.

Potter took a slow sip of his drink and looked at the painting of his wife, Mildred, hanging on the wall. “I was in France during the First World War. Then I was in the Pacific during the Second. I missed a lot of anniversaries, Hunnicutt. I missed birthdays. I missed my son learning how to ride a bicycle. By the time I came home for good after ’45, my boy looked at me like I was a stranger who happened to wear the same uniform as the man in the pictures.”

B.J. stared at his glass. “So you know.”

“I know,” Potter nodded heavily. “I know the exact flavor of the poison you’re swallowing right now. You read a letter, or you hear a piece of news, and suddenly this whole war feels like a personal insult to your life. You think you’re the only one bleeding out here, but your wounds just don’t need bandages.”

“She called another man ‘Dada’, Colonel,” B.J. whispered, his voice finally breaking. The dam he had built up all day crumbled. He put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, agonizing sobs. “She doesn’t know me. I’m losing my family, and I’m losing my mind.”

Potter walked around the desk and put a heavy, calloused hand on B.J.’s shoulder. He let the young man cry. In a place filled with so much physical agony, Potter knew that this kind of emotional hemorrhage was just as fatal if left untreated.

“You listen to me, son,” Potter said gently, once B.J.’s breathing had slowed. “You are not a ghost. You are Captain B.J. Hunnicutt. You are a damn fine surgeon. You are a husband, and you are a father. And the reason you are here—the only reason any of this madness makes a lick of sense—is so that those boys we had on the tables today can go home and be fathers, too.”

B.J. wiped his face, looking up at the older man.

“It’s unfair,” Potter continued. “It is deeply, profoundly unfair that you have to be here while someone else fixes your porch. But if you desert… if you run away… you’re not going home to Peg and Erin. You’re going to a military prison. And then you really will be just a story they tell.”

Potter walked back behind his desk and picked up a pen. He scribbled something on a piece of official army stationery, stamped it, and slid it across the desk.

“What’s this?” B.J. asked, his voice thick.

“That is a three-day pass to Tokyo,” Potter said. “There’s a transport plane leaving Kimpo at 0600 tomorrow. You’re going to be on it. When you get to Tokyo, you’re going to find the best telephone exchange in the city, and you are going to call Mill Valley, California. You’re going to talk to your wife. You’re going to have her put that baby girl on the phone, and you are going to let her hear her father’s voice.”

B.J. stared at the piece of paper as if it were made of gold. “Colonel… I…”

“Don’t thank me, Hunnicutt. I’m being entirely selfish. I need my best surgeon’s head in the game, not halfway across the Pacific. Three days. Then you come back here and you do your job.”

“Yes, sir,” B.J. said, standing up. He saluted, a gesture he rarely offered sincerely. Potter returned it.

When B.J. walked back into the Swamp, Hawkeye was sitting on his cot, chewing on his thumbnail nervously.

B.J. picked up his duffel bag from the floor and started unpacking. He took out his shirts. He took out his socks. Finally, he took out the framed picture of Peg and Erin and placed it carefully on his bedside table.

Hawkeye let out a breath and smiled softly. “I see the old man worked his magic.”

“He did,” B.J. said. He reached under his bed and pulled out his stationery box and a fountain pen. He sat at the small, wobbly table in the center of the tent.

“Writing a manifesto?” Hawkeye asked, lying back on his bunk, his relief palpable.

“No,” B.J. said, unscrewing the cap of the pen. He looked at the picture of his daughter. The pain was still there, a dull ache in his chest, but the panic was gone. He wasn’t a ghost. He was just a man caught in a terrible storm, waiting to go home.

He touched the tip of the pen to the paper.

“I’m writing a bedtime story,” B.J. said softly. “So she doesn’t forget the sound of my voice.”

Outside, the distant rumble of artillery echoed through the valley, but inside the Swamp, for the first time all day, there was peace.