“Frank, if you don’t get me that blood in five seconds, I’m going to perform an emergency proctology exam on you using this clipboard!” Hawkeye roared, the veins in his neck standing out against his mud-caked skin.
Major Frank Burns took a step back, his ferret-like face pale, but he held the clipboard higher. “You can’t threaten a superior officer, Pierce! General Binkley made it perfectly clear. No Form 409-J, no plasma. It’s about accountability! We are hemorrhaging supplies!”
“We are hemorrhaging nineteen-year-olds, you idiot!” Captain B.J. Hunnicutt snapped, rushing over with a clamp. He practically shoved Frank aside to get to the young soldier. “Get out of the way, Frank, before I forget my Quaker upbringing.”
Hawkeye didn’t wait for Frank’s compliance. He abandoned his post for a split second, lunged toward the supply cart, and physically ripped a bag of O-negative from the hands of a terrified supply corporal who was desperately trying to read a mimeographed rulebook.
“Captain Pierce! That is unauthorized appropriation of military property!” General “Ironclad” Binkley’s voice cut through the chaos of triage like a rusty hacksaw. The General had been observing from the porch of the Mess Tent, a cup of perfectly brewed, non-muddy coffee in his hand. He was a man who believed wars were won not by bullets, but by properly filed paperwork.
“General, sir,” Hawkeye said, not looking up as he sprinted back to the patient, squeezing the blood bag to force the life-saving fluid into the boy’s veins faster. “I’ll be sure to write the Army a check. Bill my father in Crabapple Cove. Right now, this kid is dying of a severe lack of red tape in his bloodstream.”
“Insubordination will not be tolerated in my command zone, Captain,” Binkley barked, marching over, his polished boots stepping gingerly to avoid the worst of the Korean mud.
Colonel Sherman T. Potter, roused from his tent by the commotion, pushed his way through the crowd of nurses and orderlies. He took one look at the boy on the stretcher, then at Hawkeye, and finally at the General. “General Binkley, with all due respect, we have a meat grinder in full operation here. My surgeons need to cut, not write.”
“Colonel Potter,” Binkley sneered, “discipline is the backbone of the United States Army. Without it, you are nothing but an armed mob. If this hospital cannot account for its inventory, it is a liability to the war effort.”
“This hospital,” Potter said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly register, “is the only thing keeping these boys from going home in pine boxes. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a war to patch up. Move him to the OR! Move, move, move!”
The doors to the Pre-Op ward swung open, and the chaotic ballet of the MAS*H operating room began. The smell of ether, sweat, and copper filled the air.
Inside the OR, the heat was sweltering. Hawkeye and B.J. worked side-by-side on the young private with the severed artery, their hands moving in a synchronized dance of desperation. Across the room, Frank and Major Margaret Houlihan were working on a soldier with shrapnel in his abdomen.
“Swab,” Hawkeye demanded. “More suction. Come on, kid, stay with us. Don’t you dare die for a clerical error.”
Margaret, despite her usual adherence to the rules, was sweating profusely, her eyes darting between her patient and the door. “Colonel,” she called out, “we’re running dangerously low on morphia. The supply truck from Seoul was supposed to be here three hours ago.”
“I know, Major,” Potter replied, working on a chest wound. “Radar is on the radio trying to track it down.”
Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly burst through the OR doors, his glasses askew and a piece of paper clutched in his hand. He looked like a frightened rabbit. “Colonel! I got I Corps on the horn. The supply truck is stuck at Checkpoint Charlie.”
“Stuck? Why?” Hawkeye asked, not looking up from the intricate suturing he was performing.
“Well, sir,” Radar swallowed hard, glancing nervously at the corner of the OR where General Binkley had decided to observe the proceedings to ensure ‘compliance’. “General Binkley’s new directive. All supply vehicles must have a stamped Transit Manifest Form 77-Alpha. The driver doesn’t have it. The MP at the checkpoint won’t let him through.”
A heavy silence fell over the OR, broken only by the rhythmic hiss of the sterilization equipment and the shallow breathing of the dying men.
“You mean to tell me,” B.J. said, his voice eerily calm, “that the truck carrying our morphine, our antibiotics, and our blood, is parked five miles down the road because of a piece of paper?”
“Yes, sir,” Radar squeaked.
Hawkeye stopped cutting. He slowly raised his head, locking eyes with General Binkley. The General stood firm, chin jutted out. “Regulations exist for a reason, Captains. To prevent smuggling and unauthorized diversions.”
“General,” Hawkeye said, his voice devoid of its usual sarcastic lilt, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity. “I have three men in here who will be dead in an hour without that truck. I am respectfully requesting that you call that checkpoint and order them to let it through.”
“I will do no such thing,” Binkley replied stiffly. “If I make an exception for you, the entire system collapses. The driver must return to Seoul and obtain the proper documentation. It will take perhaps twelve hours. You will just have to make do.”
“Make do?” Margaret whispered, horrified, looking at the abdominal wound in front of her. For the first time, the staunch military woman saw the cracks in the pristine armor of the Army’s logic.
Hawkeye threw his scalpel into the metal basin with a sharp clatter. He stripped off his bloody gloves.
“Hawk, what are you doing?” B.J. asked. “We’re not done here.”
“I’m going to get a coffee,” Hawkeye said, his eyes wild. “And then I’m going to commit a court-martial offense. Keep him breathing, Beej.”
Hawkeye stormed out of the OR, grabbing Radar by the collar of his shirt as he passed. “Radar, you’re coming with me.”
“I am? Where are we going, sir?” Radar squeaked, stumbling backward through the swinging doors.
Hawkeye’s face twisted into a grin that held no humor, only a dangerous, anti-authoritarian resolve. “We’re going to take a drive, Corporal. We’re going to see a man about a truck. And we’re taking the General’s personal jeep to do it.”
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
