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Mirror M*A*S*H:Through the Mirror, part seventeen
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H.

Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four, Part five, Part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten, part eleven, part twelve, part thirteen, part fourteen and part fifteen and part sixteen are here.

Part Seventeen

There had been a month when Father Mulcahy wasn’t at the 4077th, and for most of that time, no one had ever directly suggested to Hawkeye that Mulcahy might be dead, because of what happened to anyone who so much as referred to the Father in the past tense.

Father Mulcahy wasn’t dead. He had just gone, and wouldn’t be back. Hawkeye could write him letters: Mulcahy might even reply. Though he might not want to be reminded Hawkeye existed, now he was out of there.

Hawkeye sat over late breakfast alone: the tables around him were full.

It was, if looked at directly, which was something Hawkeye had been avoiding doing not for months but for years, a curious superstition: that Mulcahy’s prayers actually did something. Did anything. Men came in wounded to death, but most of them who arrived alive left still alive and likely to stay that way. Mulcahy was useful enough in OR and out of it, ready to fetch or hold X-rays or orange juice, hold a soldier’s hand – he had stayed with that patient who was panicking –

Patients came in, and Hawkeye knew he wasn’t good enough to save them, and most of them lived. Somehow this had got tied into a man with glasses who said prayers in Latin and made bad jokes and sounded cheerful even at the dead hours when no one had a right to be that cheerful without any sleep. And played the piano badly when everyone was sick of the juke box records, and played poker far too well, and… looked at Hawkeye as if he believed in him.

Hawkeye jabbed his fork into a piece of hard meat that was probably meant to be bacon. He couldn’t ask for a transfer because he wasn’t good enough without Father Mulcahy. He hadn’t asked for a transfer after Trapper went home.

Hawkeye propped his forehead on his left hand, shielding his face, and went on messing with the food and his fork. There was a funny story about Trapper, how he’d got his nickname: a college girl on a train who’d run away shrieking “He trapped me!” after two hours in the washroom on the slow train to Ardoscoggan.

It had been a funny story. He got drunk and got me drunk and held me so that Trapper could fuck me.

Trapper John McIntyre. Good surgeon, good drinking buddy. Good at finding the ginch, trapping the birds, banging the bishop… We got drunk. We got Father Mulcahy drunk. I held Father Mulcahy so that Trapper could fuck him.

He hadn’t done it. But he could see that he could have done it. He and Trapper between them could have done it. Not because it would have taken two of them to subdue Father Mulcahy, not if he was drunk enough, but because either of them might have lost interest alone. Both of them together could stay interested a lot longer than they could separately.

That was a funny story about Trapper. Hawkeye had told it to quite a few people, in various times and places. The punchline “He trapped me!” had to be said in a falsetto shriek. People laughed. Hawkeye was usually laughing when he got to that part.

Father Mulcahy wasn’t going to look at Hawkeye as if he believed in him any more.

If Father Mulcahy were too drunk to resist, he must have been too drunk to be….

not going to think about that

…interesting.

The tines on the fork had bent against the metal of the plate. Hawkeye stared at the mess.

Someone sat down across from him. Should have been a quiet uninteresting man with glasses, who would cross himself and thank God for the food. Wasn’t. Wouldn’t be again.

He trapped me.

Hawkeye got up. Someone was standing in front of him on his way to the door: he took a step sideways to get round them and was standing outside before he realised that he had left his tray with the mess still on it behind: the food ought to have gone into the garbage bucket. He stood still a moment, and shrugged, knowing he wasn’t going back into the mess tent.

He could go to the officer’s club and melt down some of next month’s pay; or go to the Swamp and use up the current batch in the still: or go to Rosie’s and drink whatever she was selling as Scotch this month. Or he could go to the Colonel and ask for a transfer.

Someone was standing in front of him, again. Klinger. Hawkeye blinked at him.

“Officers,” Klinger said, with unconcealed disgust. “Do they make you deaf when they stitch on your officerness? I’ve been trying to tell you for the past ten minutes, Captain, the Colonel wants to see you in his office, right now.”

“Ayuh,” Hawkeye said. He started moving in that direction. Klinger came with him.



Hawkeye sat down in the chair in front of Colonel Potter’s desk and glanced over at the drinks cabinet. The Colonel stood up, walked over to the door, opened it abruptly, and said something to Klinger. He closed the door, not quite as abruptly, came back to his desk, and sat down.

“I had a call from Sidney Freedman this morning,” he said. “I’m running out of errands for Klinger that take him away from his desk. We don’t have a lot of time, so I’m not going to go into your incredible behaviour yesterday – ” There was the familiar Colonel-growl on incredible, but Potter broke off in the middle of the sentence and looked at Hawkeye again.

“Pierce, are you hungover?”

“Don’t think so,” Hawkeye said, with an effort. “Why?” His gaze drifted to the drinks cabinet again.

“I know who you invited to the camp yesterday,” the Colonel said. “I need your full and undivided attention.”

“What?” That did get through. “Sidney told you?” Hawkeye was trying to imagine that conversation. There’s this duplicate of Hawkeye, who looks exactly like him –

Yes, that’s what duplicate means. But he’s not me, he’s not me.

“I already knew,” the Colonel said, cryptically. “Pierce – Hawkeye! I need your attention. How much did you have to drink last night?”

Hawkeye shrugged. He hadn’t had a drink last night: he was beginning to think that was a mistake. He fixed his eyes on the Colonel’s face. “I’m all attention,” he said.

“The visitor you had yesterday needs surgery today,” the Colonel said. He leaned forward. ”Last night, after Sidney drove him back to Seoul, he seems to have got hold of a scalpel from somewhere and cut his right wrist. Got any idea what might have made him do that, Pierce?”

. The question popped against him like a slap. “No,” Hawkeye said. He glanced down and realised that his left hand was cradling his right wrist. “No.”

“Sidney says he lost two or three pints of blood before the good Fathers could stop the bleeding. He’s had a transfusion, and they’ve stitched the wound. He’ll live, but Sidney thinks that if he’s ever to have the use of that hand again, he needs a surgeon.”

“What’s this got to do with me?” Hawkeye said. “I’m not – ” He stopped himself. “I’m just a meatball surgeon. That kind of work takes a specialist.”

“I know that, Pierce. I’m not proposing you operate on him. I’m asking for your suggestions as to who I can ask to operate on him.”

Hawkeye stared at the Colonel. “Why?”

Potter stared back. He was getting red in the face, and his eyes were widening. These were all signs of Potter about to lose his temper, really lose it, and Hawkeye looked up at him – Potter had stood up, swiftly, as if he couldn’t sit still – and fumbled with something else to say through the fog.

“Son,” the Colonel said finally, sitting down again, “last night was not a good night to go on a bender like that. We’re expecting casualties again today. I’m expecting a call any time now to let me know when. You need to sober up. I need to know who’s the best surgeon I can ask to operate on your visitor.”

“Anyone who’s got a background in nerve repair,” Hawkeye said, reaching for a professional tone and fumbling it on to his voice. “Just send him to Tokyo General.”

“I already did that. I can’t get away with it again. Whoever I ask,” the Colonel said slowly, “I’ve got to tell them they’re operating on you. Do you understand that, Pierce?”

“What do you mean, you already did that?”

“When Father Mulcahy brought him to Seoul,” the Colonel said. “They both ended up at Tokyo General, and I fixed it up there that he was domiciled in the hospital as you. Then I got a friend in administration just to lose the paper record. But I can’t send him – you – back there.”

Hawkeye sat upright. It was like having a bucket of cold water poured on him slowly, the truth seeping through. “You knew? All along – you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”

“Why in creation should I tell you?” the Colonel asked. His voice rose. “You’d only have run off to Seoul and done something stupid like packing your twin in a jeep and driving him back here and lodging him in the VIP tent to give Father Mulcahy a heart attack!” He was still red in the face. “Pierce, you’ve done a lot of stupid things in your time, but yesterday was the outside limit. If I could frame it without getting the padre and your twin into trouble they don’t deserve, I’d court martial you.”

“He’s not…” Hawkeye said, beginning emphatically, and trailing off. He was thinking. “Why do you have to tell them he’s me?”

“Take a look in the mirror, Pierce,” the Colonel said harshly.

Hawkeye put his hands up, over his eyes, without thinking about it. “No,” he said, not in denial, just a kind of answer. “I mean, yes.” He knew what he wanted to ask: Why tell anyone? Let him go. Spain. Anywhere. “I suppose that arrogant SOB who was here for BJ’s hand,” he said at last. “He’d believe it was me.”

“Doctor Trager? Yes, but he’d also more than likely report you, and me. We’re looking for someone who’ll keep quiet that they operated on you after you’d cut your wrist. Sidney will help. We’ll say it happened in Seoul, and we’re keeping quiet about it for your sake – are you paying attention to me, Pierce?”

“He’s not going back to Crabapple Cove,” Hawkeye said distinctly.

The Colonel let out an ingathered breath as if he were breathing fire. But, when he spoke, there was no anger in his voice. “Son, we just need you to give him cover while his wrist’s operated on, not marry him. I understand the Fathers had made arrangements to get him out of the country, and as soon as he can travel, they’ll get him on a plane. He’s going to Europe, I gather.”

“Charles could do it,” Hawkeye said after a moment. “He’s good at nerve work. I’d give him the job.”

“Son,” the Colonel said, with laboured patience, “whoever operates on that fellow in Seoul has got to believe he’s you. Winchester saw you sleeping in the Swamp this morning, he’s not going to believe that you cut your wrist in your sleep and then I shipped you to Seoul and shut you up in a blessed monastery. Have some sense.”

“I’m going to ask you for a transfer,” Hawkeye said. “It doesn’t matter what you tell anyone once I’m out of here.”

There was a pause, as of storm gathering. “You can apply for a transfer any time you God damn like, Pierce,” the Colonel said finally. His voice was harshly level. “After your performance yesterday and today, I might just apply for a transfer to get you out of here. But you are not leaving me short handed with casualties due. Get out of here, get yourself sobered up, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

Hawkeye stood up. “Ayuh,” he agreed, back in the fog. “That – the wrist injury. You could ask Doctor Borelli. He’d do it, if he thought it was me. And he probably wouldn’t talk, until he got really drunk. Which he will sometime, but maybe not any time when it matters.” He turned himself around and got across the room, pushing through the doors. He had his right wrist cradled in his left hand again.

tbc