Chapter Text
It was one of those days one would rather forget but found one couldn't. One of those days that ingrained themselves on one's brain.
MASH 4077 was under fire, the origin as of yet unclear but Corporal Klinger was onto finding out while they still had a functioning phone connection. Mortar shells struck too close to the OR for comfort, if comfort was the right word for a room full of torn and ripped bodies being patched up as best as possible. Thankfully for the wounded, the best possible was a rather high standard as all three operating surgeons, Captains Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce and B.J. “Beej” Hunnicut, as well as Colonel Sherman Potter, had excellent skills.
The fourth surgeon of the camp, Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, was on pre-or duty, certainly the worst job while under artillery fire. Clutching his helmet to his head, he dashed to the newly arrived bus the Army used as an ambulance – heaven only knew how it had managed to reach the hospital safely. He climbed inside and shouted out instructions to get everyone into the relative safety of pre-or as quickly as possible before he had even checked on the first wounded man. Being out here would only expose their lives to more danger than they already were in from their wounds.
At the back of the ambulance sat a young corporal, his left arm hanging down limply while with his right hand he clutched the hand of another soldier as if his life depended on it – or as if his comrade and probably friend's life depended on it.
As Charles worked his way towards the back of the ambulance while the patients closest to the door were already being carried or helped to pre-or, his eyes fell upon these two young men.
“Don't you dare die on me, Ricky,” Charles heard the corporal whisper while – Charles stopped and looked again. Had the corporal just caressed the other man's hand with his thumb? “I l...” Another mortar exploded close enough to rock the bus and drown out the corporal's words. It also kicked Charles into action again.
“We'll take care of him now,” Charles assured the corporal who seemed to be holding onto his friend's hand even harder now. “Get inside and we'll bring,” Charles reached for the wounded man's dog-tags, “Corporal McKinney over right away.” While he was at it, he lifted the bloody bandage from McKinney's chest. He didn't like what he saw underneath and signaled for someone to come and carry McKinney out.
“I'm not leaving him!” The young man with the limp arm sounded desperate and close to tears.
“All right, just let go of his hand so we can carry him out. You can walk beside him. But time is of the essence now.” He didn't explain whether he considered the mortars or the chest wound the bigger threat.
Charles wasn't usually this understanding for the bonds between two soldiers, or at least he usually didn't show it, but the tiny caress, such a tiny gesture, had touched something deep inside of him, had woken a long buried memory.
The softer tone of Charles' words at least caused the desperate man to let go of his friend's hand, but he followed the bearers out of the bus close enough to nearly get under their feet, and refused to move from McKinney's side until the badly wounded man was carried through the double doors into the OR itself.
“Pierce, are you free? I have a bad chest wound here,” Charles asked as he strode in behind McKinney. He knew Pierce was the hospital's specialist when it came to chest wounds, and for the sake of a patient he was willing to admit it – at least this way.
“I'm still playing hide and seek with shards in this one's stomach.”
“I think you'd better tackle it yourself, Major,” Colonel Potter, who could see the concentration written all over Hunnicut's face as the captain worked on his own patient, stated, “How many more this time?”
“Six, this one is worst off. He takes priority over those already waiting. Prepare him while I wash,” he said to no one in particular. Someone would see to it, he knew.
“Margaret, maybe you'd better help Charles,” Hawkeye Pierce suggested somberly. “Kellye can finish with me.”
Another mortar crashed down somewhere close by as Charles walked out the door to go and wash.