“Who… who are you people?” Hawkeye whispered. “Where am I?”

A suffocating silence fell over the room. Colonel Potter’s face visibly aged ten years. Margaret pressed her hand to her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. Radar looked like he was about to faint. The war had finally done it. It had shattered the brilliant, cynical mind of Benjamin Franklin Pierce.

Hawkeye let the silence hang for five agonizing seconds.

Then, a slow, familiar smirk spread across his face. “And more importantly, does anyone have a dry martini?”

The collective exhale from the group was loud enough to be mistaken for incoming mortar fire.

“Pierce!” Potter roared, his face turning an impressive shade of magenta. “I ought to have you shot! Or better yet, transferred to Frank’s command!”

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” Hawkeye laughed weakly, rubbing his eyes. “I couldn’t resist. The dramatic tension in this room was thicker than the mess tent’s oatmeal.”

Margaret, furious but overwhelmingly relieved, slapped him hard on the shoulder. “You are an absolute jackass, Captain!”

“Careful, Major, I just had a near-death experience,” Hawkeye winced, though he didn’t pull away.

“You had a near-minefield experience,” Potter corrected sternly. He pulled up a stool and sat down beside the cot. “Listen to me, Hawk. The joke is over. You’ve been operating on fumes and nightmare logic for a week. You’re no good to me dead, and you’re no good to these kids if you’re trying to perform surgery in your sleep with a tent peg.”

Hawkeye looked down at his hands. The tremor was back. The adrenaline was gone, leaving nothing but the bone-deep chill of the Korean winter and the crushing weight of everything he had seen.

“I can’t close my eyes, Sherman,” Hawkeye said, his voice dropping to a quiet, vulnerable whisper that broke the hearts of everyone listening. “When I close my eyes, the helicopters don’t stop. They just keep coming. And the kids… they don’t have faces anymore. They’re just puzzles I can’t put back together.”

Margaret stepped forward, her rigid military posture softening entirely. She reached out and gently placed her hand over Hawkeye’s trembling fingers. “You put enough of them back together, Benjamin,” she said softly. “More than anyone else.”

Radar stepped up to the other side of the bed and placed a glass bottle of grape Nehi on the nightstand. “I, uh, I saved this for you, Captain. From my private stash. It helps with the bad dreams. My mom says grape juice wards off the boogeyman.”

Hawkeye looked at the purple liquid, then up at Radar’s earnest, terrifyingly young face. “Thanks, Radar. I appreciate it.”

“Alright, here’s the deal,” Potter announced, standing up and taking charge. “You are officially off duty for the next forty-eight hours. You are not to enter the OR, you are not to look at a stethoscope, and you are definitely not to go wandering around the camp at night. I’ve had Sidney Freedman on the radio. He’s coming up from Seoul tomorrow to have a chat with you.”

Hawkeye groaned. “Sidney? Come on, Colonel. I don’t need a head-shrinker. I just need a vacation from the human race.”

“You’re getting Sidney, and you’re going to like it,” Potter said firmly. “In the meantime, you’re going back to the Swamp. I’ve instructed Father Mulcahy to spike your evening tea with enough phenobarbital to knock out a water buffalo. You are going to sleep, Pierce. A real, dreamless sleep.”

As if on cue, Frank Burns pushed his way into the tent. He was still wearing his helmet, and he had a thick rope tied around his waist.

“Colonel!” Frank barked, saluting rigidly. “I have taken the liberty of requisitioning this rope to tether myself to my cot tonight. If Captain Pierce attempts another nocturnal assassination, he will find me firmly anchored!”

Hawkeye sighed, leaning back against his pillow. “Frank, the only thing I want to assassinate right now is my own consciousness.”

“See? He admits it!” Frank pointed triumphantly.

Potter rolled his eyes. “Major Burns, if you don’t remove yourself from my sight in three seconds, I will personally tie that rope around your neck and hang you from the officers’ latrine. Dismissed!”

Frank scurried away like a frightened beetle.

That night, the camp was quiet again. No choppers. No artillery. Just the freezing wind howling through the Uijeongbu valley.

Hawkeye lay in his cot. Father Mulcahy’s “special tea” was already dragging him down into a heavy, chemical darkness. He looked across the Swamp. Frank was indeed tied to his bed, snoring loudly.

Outside the tent flap, Hawkeye could see the dim glow of a cigarette. Potter was sitting on a crate in the freezing cold, standing guard.

Hawkeye closed his eyes. The meat grinder never sleeps. The war would still be there tomorrow, waiting to tear more boys apart. But for tonight, at least, the ghosts were held at bay. The sleepwalking was over. He sank into the darkness, and for the first time in weeks, there were no screams in his dreams.