The unmistakable, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of the Bell 47 helicopter blades beat against the freezing Korean air like a frantic heartbeat. Down below, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was an ant hill kicked wide open. Dust and freezing mud swirled in equal measure as the medics rushed out, bending low under the downdraft, dragging stretchers carrying boys who looked entirely too young to be bleeding out thousands of miles away from home.
Inside the clerk’s office, the air was thick with panic and the distinct scent of cheap Parisian perfume.
Corporal Maxwell Klinger stood frozen, the heavy black receiver of the field telephone clutched in his hairy hand. He was wearing an absolutely stunning, albeit utterly impractical, reproduction of a 19th-century Antebellum ballgown, complete with a hoop skirt that took up roughly forty percent of the limited floor space. Normally, this ensemble was reserved for inspections by visiting generals—a surefire ticket to a Section 8 psychiatric discharge, or so he prayed every night to whatever saint governed cross-dressing draft dodgers from Toledo.
But today, the dress wasn’t a ticket out. It was a trap.
Colonel Sherman T. Potter stood in the doorway, his face the color of a freshly slapped sunburn. The veins in his neck looked like they were about to declare independence. “What in the name of Marco Polo’s trousers do you mean we don’t have plasma, Klinger?!”
“I mean the requisition form bounced back, sir!” Klinger stammered, frantically trying to untangle his lace sleeves from the typewriter carriage. “Sparky at I Corps said the paperwork was improperly coded! I used form 409-J instead of 409-G, and they sent our plasma to a quartermaster unit in Seoul! They’re probably using it to starch their collars, the miserable pencil-pushers!”
Potter rubbed his temples, letting out a breath that sounded like a deflating tire. “Radar O’Reilly never used the wrong form.”
The name hit the room like a physical blow. Radar had been the heart, the soul, and the bureaucratic wizard of the 4077th. He could smell a general approaching from ten miles away and could trade a broken jeep for a brand-new x-ray machine using only a smile and a jar of grape jelly. When Radar got his hardship discharge and headed back to Iowa, he left a crater in the camp’s operations. Potter had appointed Klinger as the new Company Clerk, figuring the man spent so much time in the office trying to fake insanity anyway, he might as well type something while he was there.
“I’m not Radar, sir,” Klinger said, his voice surprisingly quiet, devoid of his usual theatrical flair.
“I know you’re not, son,” Potter snapped, grabbing his surgical cap. “But right now, I have thirty wounded boys coming into the O.R., and unless you’re planning on bleeding out that crinoline, we are in deep, dark trouble. Get on that horn. Beg, borrow, or steal. Just get me blood!”
Potter turned on his heel and sprinted toward the O.R., leaving Klinger alone in the suffocating silence of the office, broken only by the distant sounds of shouting medics.
Over in the Pre-Op ward, Hawkeye Pierce was practically vibrating with nervous energy, wiping his hands on a towel that was already suspiciously brown. “Alright, who’s next? Bring ’em in, let’s keep the assembly line moving! Step right up, get your free appendectomy, folks! Today only, we’ll throw in a sarcastic remark at no extra charge!”
B.J. Hunnicutt, looking equally exhausted, leaned over a young private with a shrapnel wound to the chest. “Hawk, we’re going to need a lot of O-neg for this one. He’s pale as a ghost.”
Major Frank Burns shoved his way past, his ferret-like face twisted into a scowl. “If the men would just learn to duck, we wouldn’t have this problem! It’s poor discipline, that’s what it is. A soldier in my command would never allow himself to be shot in such a vulnerable area!”
“Frank,” Hawkeye said without looking up, “if ignorance were an anesthetic, you’d put the entire peninsula to sleep just by walking into the room. Nurse, get me a clamp, a retractor, and a martini, very dry.”
Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan stepped up to the table, slapping the instruments into Hawkeye’s waiting palm with enough force to sting. “Doctor Pierce, this is a military hospital, not a cocktail lounge! And we have a major problem. Blood inventory is at critical.”
“Critical as in ‘we should order more tomorrow’ or critical as in ‘I need to start bleeding Frank’?” Hawkeye asked, finally looking up, his dark eyes losing their comedic spark.
“Critical as in we have four units left,” Margaret said grimly. “The shipment didn’t arrive.”
“Where the hell is Klinger?” B.J. asked, tying his surgical mask tighter.
Across the compound, Klinger was engaged in the fight of his life against a rotary dial. “Sparky! Sparky, you gotta do this for me! I’ll give you my entire collection of silk stockings! I’ll give you my velvet smoking jacket! Just reroute the supply trucks from the 8063rd!”
The crackly voice of Sergeant “Sparky” Pryor came through the earpiece. “Can’t do it, Klinger. The 8063rd has an offensive pushing up North. Army regulations say they get priority. Besides, what am I gonna do with a velvet smoking jacket? I’m sitting in a bunker that smells like wet dog and despair.”
“Sparky, listen to me,” Klinger pleaded, the sheer terror of the situation finally overriding his desire to play the fool. The elaborate persona of the cross-dressing lunatic was a shield he used to protect his mind from the war. But the war had just kicked the door down. “I have kids bleeding on the floor over here. Kids! If I don’t get plasma, they’re going to die. Not in a heroic, glorious charge. They’re going to die because an idiot from Toledo wearing a hoop skirt checked the wrong box on a piece of paper.”
“I’m sorry, Max,” Sparky said, his voice softening. “My hands are tied by a two-star general. There’s no blood coming to the 4077th today.”
The line went dead.
Klinger slowly lowered the receiver. Outside the window, a nurse ran past carrying a basin of bloody rags. The reality of his failure crashed down on him. He wasn’t just a clown anymore. He was the bottleneck. He looked down at the massive, ridiculous dress. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like a disguise. It felt like a straightjacket.
He had to fix this. But Radar’s sweet-talking wouldn’t work, and Klinger didn’t know how to be Radar.
He slowly walked to the door, tearing the delicate lace sleeves off the dress with a violent rip. “I’m not Radar,” he muttered to himself, a new, hardened glint in his eye. “I’m Maxwell Q. Klinger. And nobody hustles like a guy from the Toledo Mud Hens.”
He stepped out into the freezing mud, grabbing the keys to a jeep, his mind racing with a desperate, highly illegal plan.
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
