CRASH.

The sound of shattering glass was sickeningly loud, even over the ringing in their ears from the artillery shell. Water, medical waste, and the lingering scent of cheap scotch splashed across the wooden floorboards, soaking into Frank Burns’s boots.

“My suction!” Hawkeye roared, pushing himself off the patient. He grabbed the dangling end of the rubber tubing, which was now sucking nothing but the dusty, cordite-laced air of the tent.

“I… I tripped!” Frank stammered, backing against the canvas wall. “It was an act of war! The blast knocked me over!”

“I’m going to commit an act of war on your face, Frank!” Hawkeye shouted, his hands frantically searching the surgical tray. The field was filling up rapidly again. Without the continuous negative pressure of the Wangensteen, the delicate anastomosis he was trying to complete was drowning.

“Quiet down, both of you!” Colonel Potter bellowed. He marched over to Hawkeye’s table, crunching over the broken glass. “Houlihan, grab a bulb syringe. Pierce, use the Toomey syringe. We do this by hand until we figure something out.”

Margaret was already there, slapping a massive, 50cc metal Toomey syringe into Hawkeye’s waiting hand. For the next ten minutes, it was grueling, backbreaking work. Hawkeye would insert the syringe, pull back the heavy plunger to manually suck out the fluids, detach it, empty it into a bucket, and repeat.

His forearms burned. His fingers cramped. It was like trying to drain a swamp with a teaspoon.

“This isn’t working, Colonel,” Hawkeye said through gritted teeth, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “I can’t keep the field clear enough to see the bowel edges. If I sew this blind, it’ll leak, and he’ll be dead of peritonitis by Tuesday.”

“We need continuous vacuum,” Margaret added, her own hands flying as she clamped off minor bleeders. “Is there any other glass in the camp? Can we rebuild it?”

“Only if you want to use shot glasses from the Officer’s Club,” Hawkeye grunted. “And I don’t think gravity works fast enough on a one-ounce scale.”

Suddenly, Radar burst through the double doors of the O.R., panting heavily. “Colonel! The shelling hit the motor pool! Sparky says the generator is officially dead. Kaput. The distributor cap is in orbit.”

A heavy, oppressive silence fell over the room, broken only by the squelch of Hawkeye’s manual syringe and the distant thud of artillery.

“Right,” Potter said, his jaw set. “We do this the hard way. We pack him up, stabilize him, and pray.”

“No,” Hawkeye said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I am not closing up a compromised bowel. I’m not sending a kid to Tokyo with a ticking time bomb in his gut because Frank has two left feet and a glass jaw.”

“Captain, unless you can magically inhale hard enough to keep this boy’s insides dry, you don’t have a choice!” Potter countered.

Hawkeye paused. He looked at the rubber tubing dangling uselessly from the patient. He looked at the Toomey syringe. Then, he looked at Klinger, who was sweeping up the glass in his velvet gown.

“Klinger,” Hawkeye said, his eyes widening with a manic spark. “That bicycle you stole from the MP… the one you tried to ride to Incheon last week.”

“I didn’t steal it, sir, I permanently borrowed it under the guise of an emergency mental health evacuation,” Klinger corrected indignantly.

“Does it have a tire pump?”

“Yes, sir. A big one. Two-handed.”

“Get it. Now.”

Three minutes later, Klinger rushed back in with a large, heavy-duty, cast-iron bicycle pump. It was rusty, covered in Korean mud, and smelled faintly of kimchi.

“Hawkeye, you can’t be serious,” BJ Hunnicutt (who had been quietly working on a chest wound at the far table) chimed in, stepping over to see the madness unfold. “You’re going to pump air into him? He’s a soldier, not a Goodyear blimp.”

“Not into him, Beej. Out of him,” Hawkeye said, grabbing a roll of surgical tape. “A pump works by creating a vacuum to pull air in from the outside before pushing it into the tire. If we reverse the valve… if we tape the suction tube to the intake valve of the pump…”

Margaret caught on instantly. “We create a manual, mechanical vacuum.”

“It’s insane,” Frank muttered from the corner. “It’s unhygienic!”

“Frank, we are up to our knees in mud, operating by candlelight, while people throw explosives at us. Hygiene left on the last train to Seoul,” Hawkeye snapped. “Margaret, help me tape this. It has to be airtight.”

They worked furiously, winding yards of white adhesive tape around the junction of the sterile rubber medical tubing and the rusty metal intake valve of the bicycle pump.

“Alright, Klinger,” Hawkeye said, handing the pump to the corporal. “You want to be a hero? You want a Section 8? Prove you’re crazy enough to do this. Pull UP on the handle. Hard and steady. Do not push down while the valve is open or you’ll blow air into his abdominal cavity and I’ll have to kill you.”

Klinger braced the base of the pump beneath his velvet-clad feet. He grabbed the wooden handle with both hands. “Like milking a very tall, very angry cow. Got it, Doc.”

He pulled up.

Inside the surgical field, the pooling fluid vanished, sucked rapidly through the tube.

“It’s working!” Margaret gasped.

“Holy Toledo,” Klinger grunted, pushing the handle down (with the exhaust valve open), then pulling up again with a loud thworp sound. Thworp. Pssss. Thworp. Pssss.

“Keep that rhythm, Klinger!” Hawkeye yelled, his eyes locking onto the now-clear surgical field. “I can see the mucosa. Margaret, 3-0 silk, give it to me.”

For the next half hour, the O.R. was filled with the most bizarre symphony of the war. The distant boom of artillery. The hiss of kerosene lanterns. And the loud, rhythmic, ridiculous thworp-pssss of Klinger furiously operating a bicycle pump, sweat ruining his velvet gown.

Hawkeye’s hands flew. Without the distraction of pooling blood, his suturing was a masterclass in speed and precision. Needle in, needle out, tie off. Cut. Repeat. He was a machine, driven by adrenaline and the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“Last stitch,” Hawkeye declared, his voice hoarse. He snipped the thread. “Sponge him out. Klinger, you can stop.”

Klinger collapsed backward onto a stool, gasping for air, the pump falling to the floor. “I think… my arms… just fell off.”

“I’ll write you a purple heart for a severe case of pump-elbow,” Hawkeye said, stepping back from the table. “He’s closed. He’s solid. He’s going to make it.”

A collective sigh of relief washed over the tent. Potter clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder. “Nice piece of improvising, Pierce. That was either genius or the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“In this place, Colonel, the line between the two is written in mud,” Hawkeye replied, pulling down his mask.

Just as Margaret began to place the final dressings over the wound, a loud, coughing sputter echoed from outside. The lights above them flickered, hummed, and suddenly blazed to life, flooding the O.R. with blinding, sterile, electric brilliance.

The electric suction machine on the wall violently hummed to life, sucking aggressively at empty air.

Hawkeye shielded his eyes against the glare, looking at the glowing bulb above him, then down at the ruined, tape-covered bicycle pump on the floor.

“Perfect timing,” Hawkeye muttered, ripping off his bloody gloves. “War is hell, but the comic timing is impeccable.”

He turned to the door, desperate for a martini, a shower, and a solid twelve hours of sleep. But before he could take a step, the double doors banged open.

Radar stood there, looking pale. “Uh, Captain Pierce? Major Houlihan?”

“What is it, Radar?” Hawkeye sighed. “Did the generator catch fire?”

“No, sir. Choppers. Five of ’em. Just landed on the pad. They got hit heavy at Hill 403.”

Hawkeye stopped. He looked at Margaret. He looked at Potter. The exhaustion in his bones felt heavy enough to drag him to the center of the earth. But he turned around, walked back to the scrub sink, and kicked the pedal.

“Well,” Hawkeye said, lathering the soap. “Klinger, tape that pump back together. I have a feeling we’re going to need it. Radar, get me a new gown. And for God’s sake, someone find out where that raccoon took the third bottle!”