The jeep tore down the dusty, rutted road leading away from the 4077th, Hawkeye behind the wheel driving with the reckless abandon of a man who had entirely stopped caring about military regulations. Beside him, Radar was clinging to the roll bar for dear life, his helmet rattling against his skull.
“Sir! Are you sure about this?” Radar yelled over the roar of the engine. “General Kelly is notoriously un-understanding! He once court-martialed a private for sneezing during ‘Taps’!”
“Radar, right now, I don’t care if it’s Douglas MacArthur’s personal stash of frozen yogurt,” Hawkeye shouted back, gripping the wheel. “That kid is cooking. We are going to get that ice cream if we have to trade the entire camp’s supply of penicillin for it. Which, by the way, I am fully prepared to do.”
They rounded a bend and saw it: a heavy convoy truck rumbling slowly down the dirt road, preceded by an MP jeep. The truck was a behemoth, its rear box gleaming with an unmistakable frost line near the exhaust vents. It was a beautiful, refrigerated oasis in the middle of a war-torn desert.
“Alright, Radar, here’s the plan,” Hawkeye said, slamming on the brakes and skidding the jeep sideways across the road, effectively blocking it. “You’re going to be the distraction. I’m going to be the extraction.”
“Me? Distraction? Sir, I’m not very distracting. I’m mostly background noise!”
Hawkeye leaped out of the jeep, grabbing a battered wooden sign they had hastily grabbed from the motor pool. It originally said “LATRINES,” but Hawkeye had crossed that out with a thick black marker and scribbled “UXO – UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE” over it. He jammed it into the dirt.
The MP jeep screeched to a halt, followed heavily by the refrigerated truck. Two Military Police officers, looking hot, tired, and aggressively devoid of a sense of humor, stepped out, their hands resting on their sidearms.
“What’s the meaning of this, Captain?” the lead MP barked, glaring at Hawkeye’s decidedly un-military attire—a sweaty t-shirt, dog tags, and combat boots unlaced. “Move that vehicle. We are transporting vital supplies for I Corps.”
“Can’t do it, Sergeant,” Hawkeye said smoothly, pointing to the sign. “We’ve got a live one. A 500-pounder dropped by bed-check Charlie last night. It’s buried right under the road about fifty yards ahead. The bomb disposal unit is on its way from Seoul. They said if anyone drives over it, the crater will be visible from space.”
The MP frowned, looking nervously down the road. “Nobody told us about an unexploded bomb on the MSR.”
“That’s the military for you,” Hawkeye sighed, shaking his head. “Always keeping secrets. The left hand doesn’t know the right hand is about to be blown into the stratosphere. Now, you can wait here, or you can take the detour.”
“What detour?” the truck driver yelled from his cab. “There ain’t no detour! It’s rice paddies for three miles!”
“Exactly,” Hawkeye said. “So, you’re stuck. Now, speaking of stuck… I am a doctor at the 4077th MASH, just over that hill. We have a medical emergency. A soldier is dying of hyperthermia, and I need access to your refrigerated truck.”
The MP stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “No unauthorized personnel in the transport. General’s orders. This cargo is classified.”
“Classified?” Hawkeye barked a harsh, incredulous laugh. “It’s vanilla ice cream, Sergeant! It’s not the Manhattan Project! It’s dessert! I have a nineteen-year-old boy whose brain is literally boiling, and you’re guarding frozen dairy like it’s the Holy Grail!”
“Orders are orders, Doc.”
Hawkeye’s eyes went dark. He took a step closer to the MP, completely ignoring the hand on the holster. “Listen to me, you bureaucratic wind-up toy. A kid took shrapnel for this country, and he survived the metal, but he’s going to die from the heat. Now, you have a choice. You can let me take what I need to save his life, or you can shoot a Captain in the middle of the road. But if you don’t shoot me, I am going to walk past you, open those doors, and take it anyway. Make your choice.”
The tension was thick enough to choke on. The MP looked at Hawkeye, seeing the sheer, unadulterated desperation and madness in the doctor’s eyes. Then, Radar stepped forward.
“Excuse me, Sergeant,” Radar squeaked softly. “I… I can forge General Kelly’s signature. I do it for Colonel Potter all the time. I can write you a requisition form right now that says the General generously donated twenty pounds of dry ice and five tubs of ice cream to the wounded heroes of the 4077th. You’d be a hero. You’d get a commendation.”
The MP hesitated. The truck driver yelled, “Just give ’em the ice, Sarge! If the General finds out it melted cause we sat here for a bomb, he’ll have our hides anyway!”
The Sergeant exhaled a sharp breath. “Five minutes, Doc. And I want that paperwork, Corporal.”
Ten minutes later, Hawkeye and Radar were tearing back toward the 4077th. The back of the jeep was loaded with smoking blocks of dry ice wrapped in thick canvas, and three massive, five-gallon tubs of military-grade vanilla ice cream.
They skidded into the MASH compound, hauling the supplies straight into the OR. The heat inside was still staggering. Miller was still seizing, his skin now a horrifying, ashen purple. Margaret was frantically massaging his limbs, trying to stimulate circulation.
“Ice!” Hawkeye yelled, kicking the OR doors open. “We got it! Frank, get out of the way!”
Frank Burns, who was cowering near the scrub sinks, shrieked as Hawkeye tossed a smoking block of dry ice onto a nearby tray. “Captain! You cannot bring that into a sterile environment!”
“Frank, shut up before I pack you in it,” Hawkeye snapped. “Margaret, grab the vanilla. We’re doing a full-body immersion.”
“Vanilla?” Colonel Potter looked up, thoroughly bewildered as Hawkeye ripped the lid off a massive tub.
“It’s cold, it’s malleable, and it covers surface area perfectly,” Hawkeye explained, his hands already plunging into the freezing, sweet-smelling sludge. He scooped out massive handfuls of the ice cream and began slathering it directly onto Miller’s naked chest, groin, and under his armpits.
Margaret, after a single second of hesitation, plunged her own hands into the second tub. Soon, the entire surgical team, excluding a horrified Frank, was frantically packing the dying soldier in hundreds of dollars’ worth of General’s dessert and dry ice.
The bizarre scene played out under the hot operating lights. A wounded soldier, fighting for his life, completely encased in a thick, melting layer of vanilla ice cream, the sweet scent of sugar and cream aggressively battling the coppery smell of blood and the sharp tang of antiseptic.
“Come on, kid,” Hawkeye whispered, pressing a freezing clump of vanilla against the boy’s neck. “Don’t die on me. Not for the weather. Stay cool. Just stay cool.”
The monitor continued its erratic, terrifying beep. The ice cream began to melt rapidly, running down the surgical table in a sticky, milky river.
“His temp is 106.5,” Margaret reported, her voice tight. “Hawkeye… I don’t know if it’s working.”
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
