“Maybe I should just hire a band and have the whole thing catered!”

Charles Emerson Winchester III threw his hands up in utter defeat, his face a spectacular shade of Boston Brahmin crimson.

He had made a fatal tactical error: he had opened a wooden crate from home while the sun was still up.

It was supposed to be a quiet, dignified afternoon. A momentary escape from the dirt and despair of the 4077th, facilitated by a tin of Russian caviar, a wheel of imported Camembert, and a bottle of vintage port.

But in the Swamp, privacy was a myth.

Within seconds of the crate popping open, Hawkeye Pierce had materialized, wielding a wooden tongue depressor like a butter knife. B.J. Hunnicutt followed, drawn by the scent of actual, non-powdered food. Soon after, Klinger swept in wearing a ruffled Carmen Miranda dress, aggressively offering to trade a “lightly used” jeep tire for a cracker. Even Radar had appeared, peering nervously at the caviar as if he expected it to hatch.

Now, they were all crowded around Charles’s cot, staring at his gourmet oasis with the hungry eyes of stray dogs.

“Relax, Charles,” Hawkeye grinned, entirely unbothered by the outburst. “We don’t need a band. B.J. can whistle, and I play a mean comb-and-tissue paper. Now hand over the cheese before someone gets hurt.”

“I will do no such thing!” Charles boomed, instinctively shielding the tin of caviar with his broad chest. “This is a private care package, addressed to a private individual! It is not a buffet for the wretched refuse of the drafted class!”

“Come on, Major,” Klinger pleaded, adjusting his towering fruit hat. “I haven’t had real food since my Uncle Habib’s third wedding. Just a little taste! I’ll give you my best pair of nylons!”

“I do not want your nylons, you lunatic!”

“You sure?” B.J. asked, leaning over Charles’s shoulder to inspect the cheese. “Because this Camembert looks like it needs a good home. It’s practically begging to be eaten. It’s crying out, ‘Save me from the snob!’“

Charles shot B.J. a venomous glare. “If any of you lay a finger on this food, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of this wretched war emptying bedpans.”

But the threat lacked its usual sting. The war had been heavy lately. The OR had been a nightmare of endless, bloody shifts. The exhaustion was etched deep into all their faces—even Charles’s.

Hawkeye dropped his sarcastic smile for a fraction of a second, his voice softening just a hair. “Look, Winchester. It’s been a hell of a week. We’re tired. We’re hungry. The mess tent is serving something that Igor claims is meatloaf, but I’m pretty sure it used to pull a supply cart.”

He reached out, very slowly, and tapped the edge of the wooden crate.

“We just wanted to remember what civilization tastes like. For five minutes.”

Charles paused. He looked at Hawkeye. He looked at B.J. He looked at the ridiculous fruit hat on Klinger’s head, and the hopeful, exhausted eyes of the young corporal from Iowa.

He sighed. It was a long, dramatic, thoroughly Winchester sigh.

“Savages,” he muttered under his breath.

Slowly, he reached into the crate, pulled out a sleeve of water crackers, and tossed them onto B.J.’s chest. Then, with the utmost reluctance, he handed the tongue depressor to Hawkeye.

“If you drop even a single pearl of this caviar onto this filthy floor,” Charles warned, his voice dangerously low, “I will use your own stethoscope to strangle you.”

Hawkeye beamed. “You’re a gentleman and a scholar, Charles.”

“I am a victim of circumstance,” Charles corrected, delicately cutting a slice of the Camembert for himself.

Within minutes, the cheese was gone. The caviar was devoured. The vintage port was passed around in tin cups and aggressively unwashed martini glasses.

It wasn’t a catered affair. There was no band. They were sitting on lumpy cots in a drafty canvas tent in the middle of a war zone.

But as Charles sat there, listening to Klinger tell a ridiculous story about Toledo while Hawkeye and B.J. laughed genuinely for the first time in days, he took a slow sip of his port.

He would never admit it aloud. Not if they tortured him.

But somehow, the food tasted better when he wasn’t eating it alone.