The 4077th Operating Room was a symphony of controlled chaos. It smelled of ether, sweat, coppery blood, and the distinct, metallic tang of fear. It was hot, the canvas walls doing nothing to keep out the oppressive Korean humidity.
“Clamp,” Hawkeye demanded, holding out a gloved hand.
Margaret slapped the instrument into his palm with practiced precision. “Clamp.”
“Suction,” Potter called out from the next table. “Come on, stay with me, son. Let’s get this shrapnel out.”
Standing awkwardly in the corner, looking like a penguin that had wandered into a meat grinder, was Major Sterling. He was clutching a microphone attached to a heavy, portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. The live broadcast wasn’t until tomorrow, but he had insisted on “gathering ambient audio” and “coaching the personnel on appropriate terminology” during an actual session.
It was going terribly.
“Captain Pierce,” Sterling called out, his voice trembling slightly behind his surgical mask. “Could you… could you perhaps describe what you’re doing? For the tape. But please remember, use uplifting terminology.”
Hawkeye didn’t look up from the chest cavity of the nineteen-year-old corporal on his table. “Sure thing, Major. Right now, I’m taking a lovely little stroll through this young man’s thorax. I’m searching for a piece of ‘uplifting’ jagged metal that some ‘misunderstood’ gentleman from the North put there.”
“Captain, please,” Sterling pleaded, stepping closer, though clearly repulsed by the sight. “Avoid the word ‘thorax.’ And ‘metal.’ Let’s call it… an obstacle to his wellness.”
Frank Burns, operating on a relatively minor leg wound two tables down, puffed up his chest. “I can do it, Major Sterling! Observe!” Frank cleared his throat and leaned toward the microphone Sterling was holding out. “Citizens of America! I am currently adjusting the… the internal patriotic structure of this brave soldier’s leg! I am ensuring his… his mobility apparatus is fully aligned with Army regulations!”
“You’re nicking an artery is what you’re doing, Frank,” Hawkeye snapped. “Margaret, watch him before he adjusts the kid’s leg right off his body.”
“Major Burns is doing a fine job, Captain!” Margaret defended instinctively, though her eyes immediately darted to Frank’s hands to ensure he wasn’t actually causing a hemorrhage.
“Colonel Potter,” Sterling pivoted, holding the mic toward the older man. “A word for the mothers back home? Tell them how safe their boys are in your capable hands.”
Potter pulled a jagged piece of shrapnel from a soldier’s abdomen and dropped it with a loud CLINK into a metal basin. Sterling flinched violently at the sound.
“You want a word for the mothers, Sterling?” Potter said, his voice gravelly and low. “Tell ’em to write their congressmen. Tell ’em to stop sending boys who haven’t even learned to shave yet to get chewed up in this meat grinder. More suction here!”
Sterling practically dropped the microphone. “Colonel! I cannot record that! That is defeatist propaganda!”
“It’s the truth, you pompous windbag!” Hawkeye yelled, finally looking up, his eyes blazing over his mask. “Look around you! Take a good, hard look at your ‘obstacles to wellness’! This kid here has a hole in his chest the size of a grapefruit. I can’t fix that with a red pencil and a patriotic jingle!”
“I am officially ordering you to cease this insubordinate language!” Sterling shouted, his face turning an unhealthy shade of grey as he looked at Hawkeye’s bloody gloves. “You will adhere to the broadcast guidelines, or you will face a court-martial!”
“Get in line,” Hawkeye muttered, turning back to his patient. “Tie off.”
For the next two hours, the casualties kept coming. The relentless pace of meatball surgery took over. Sterling, trapped in the corner because the doorway was constantly blocked by stretcher-bearers, was forced to watch. He watched Hawkeye perform miracles with inadequate supplies. He watched Margaret anticipating the surgeons’ needs before they even spoke. He watched Father Mulcahy quietly praying over a soldier in the corner who didn’t make it.
The censor’s bravado slowly dissolved into a puddle of sweat and nausea. The neat, black-and-white world of military public relations was being drowned in the harsh, red reality of the 4077th.
“Major,” Hawkeye said quietly, exhaustion creeping into his voice after hour three. “You want ambient sound for your broadcast? Listen.”
The OR was quiet except for the hiss of the sterilizer, the rhythmic breathing of the patients, and the distant, muffled thud of artillery.
“That’s the sound of us trying to put the world back together after people like you and the generals tear it apart,” Hawkeye said. “Write that in your script.”
Sterling swallowed hard. He looked down at his clipboard. The perfectly typed script was splattered with a single, undeniable drop of blood. He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to issue another threat, perhaps to finally admit defeat.
But he never got the chance.
The distant thud of artillery suddenly wasn’t distant anymore. A deafening CRACK ripped through the air, shaking the very ground beneath them. The canvas roof of the OR violently buckled inward. Dirt and dust rained down from the ceiling.
Then, the lights went dead, plunging the operating room into absolute, terrifying darkness.
Over the ringing in their ears, Major Sterling let out a high-pitched, entirely un-censored scream.
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
