The realization that their only exit was blocked hit the camp like a physical shockwave. The roar of the fire was no longer a distant threat; it was an angry, living beast breathing down their necks. The air in the 4077th was so thick with smoke that breathing felt like swallowing sandpaper.
“Timber!” Hawkeye yelled, a dark, desperate laugh escaping him. “Just what we needed! A little rustic landscaping to really tie the apocalyptic hellscape together.”
Colonel Potter was already sprinting toward the fallen, blazing tree, his face a mask of furious determination. “Klinger! Get the winch on the deuce-and-a-half! I want that flaming toothpick out of my driveway five minutes ago!”
Corporal Klinger, who for once had abandoned his elaborate dresses for a highly practical pair of flame-retardant dungarees and a hard hat, saluted. “On it, Colonel! Assuming the tires don’t melt before I get it in gear!”
Back in the OR, Hawkeye and Margaret were working with terrifying synchronization. All previous animosity was buried under the immediate need to survive. They were taping up boxes of plasma, their hands moving in a blur.
“Margaret, grab the morphine!” Hawkeye ordered, coughing violently as a fresh wave of smoke rolled into the tent. “If we burn to a crisp, I at least want to be numb for it!”
“I’ve got it, Pierce! Just focus on the antibiotics!” she shouted back, wiping soot from her eyes. She looked magnificent in the chaotic light, a fierce, protective commander ensuring her medical supplies were safe.
Meanwhile, Major Frank Burns was engaged in a battle of a different sort. While orderlies were carrying stretcher-bound patients to the ambulances, Frank was standing by his tent, his face red and sweating, trying to drag his personal wooden footlocker through the dust.
“Burns! What in the name of Florence Nightingale are you doing?!” Hawkeye yelled, running past with a crate of bandages.
“This is vital military material, Pierce!” Frank wheezed, his grip slipping on the brass handles. “My officer’s manuals! My collection of pristine shoelaces! And my investments! I will not let the reds burn my portfolio!”
“Frank, you idiot, the only portfolio you’re going to have is a pile of ash!” Hawkeye dropped his crate and grabbed Frank by the collar, dragging him away from the trunk. “Get to the post-op and help load the wounded! If you die for a pair of shoelaces, I swear I will write ‘He died as he lived: an absolute moron’ on your tombstone!”
“Unhand me, you insubordinate hooligan!” Frank squawked, but a burning branch the size of a baseball bat landed violently on the lid of his precious footlocker, bursting into flames. Frank shrieked and ran toward the post-op tent, his priorities instantly realigned by the heat.
Over by the motor pool, the situation was looking grim. The massive truck Klinger was driving groaned and spun its tires in the dirt as the winch cable pulled taut against the burning tree blocking the road.
“Give it more gas, son!” Potter yelled over the roar of the fire. The flames were now licking at the edge of the minefield on the eastern perimeter. Explosions began to pop off in the distance as the fire triggered the landmines, creating a terrifying, chaotic symphony of destruction. Boom. Boom. Whoosh. “It’s too heavy, Colonel!” Klinger yelled out the window, choking on the smoke. “The truck’s gonna stall!”
Radar ran up to Potter, entirely out of breath. “Sir! Choppers! I hear choppers!”
Potter looked up. “Choppers? Now? They can’t land in this smoke, they’ll fly right into the mountain!”
“They’re not landing, sir! They’re passing over!”
Suddenly, the unmistakable thwack-thwack-thwack of helicopter blades cut through the roar of the fire. But they weren’t dropping down to the pad. Two Huey helicopters, flying dangerously low through the smoke canopy, roared overhead. As they passed the blocked road, one of the pilots leaned out and dropped something.
It was a bundle of heavy-duty tow chains and a note attached to a rock.
Radar scrambled to pick it up. He read the note aloud, squinting through the ash. “‘Looks like you folks could use a pull. Hook this to your truck and the tree. We’ll pull from the air. Compliments of the 8063rd.’ Sir! They’re gonna yank it out of the way!”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Potter smiled grimly. “Pierce! Get out here and help me rig this chain!”
Hawkeye and Potter ran toward the burning tree. The heat was so intense the hair on Hawkeye’s arms singed instantly. They worked furiously, looping the heavy chains around the thickest, least-burning part of the trunk, coughing and squinting against the blinding light.
“Hook it to the chopper’s line!” Potter commanded.
They locked the carabiners just as the helicopter hovered above, the downwash from its blades fanning the flames even higher, creating a terrifying vortex of fire around them.
“Clear!” Hawkeye screamed, sprinting back toward the jeeps.
The helicopter pitched forward, the heavy cable snapping taut. The deuce-and-a-half truck, driven by Klinger, simultaneously slammed into reverse. For a terrifying ten seconds, nothing happened. The tree groaned, the chains screamed, and the helicopter’s engine whined in protest.
Then, with a sickening CRUNCH, the burning tree snapped in half and was dragged violently to the side of the road, tumbling down into the ditch.
“The road is clear!” Potter yelled, waving his arm in a massive circle. “Move out! Move out! Go, go, go!”
The convoy of ambulances, jeeps, and trucks began to barrel down the dirt road, bouncing wildly over the rutted terrain. Hawkeye jumped into the back of an ambulance with Margaret and two critical post-op patients.
As they pulled away, Hawkeye looked out the back canvas flap. The fire had breached the camp. He watched in silence as the mess tent—the site of a thousand terrible meals and endless complaints—erupted into a massive fireball. The Swamp’s canvas roof peeled away, catching fire like tissue paper.
They had made it out. But the 4077th was gone.
Suddenly, Margaret grabbed Hawkeye’s arm. Her face was pale beneath the soot.
“Hawkeye,” she said, her voice shaking. “Look at Private Miller.”
Hawkeye looked down at the patient strapped to the stretcher beneath them. The violent bouncing of the ambulance over the rough road had torn open his fresh abdominal sutures. He was bleeding profusely, his blood pressure dropping by the second.
Hawkeye looked at the swaying roof of the ambulance, the dim light of the flames outside, and the terrified face of the young soldier.
“Damn it,” Hawkeye whispered. “Margaret, grab the clamps. We’re doing surgery.”
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
