janecarnall (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} janecarnall) wrote,@ 2004-12-17 23:34:00 |
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Mirror M*A*S*H, part 10
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, and part 9.
“Morning, Frank,” Hawkeye said cheerfully. He pushed the man into the shower cubicle ahead of him and turned the water on.
“Oh, sure,” Burns said, with complete hostility. He eyed the man in silence as Hawkeye began to lather him up, and after a few minutes asked abruptly, “Did I really dislocate his arm the other night?”
“Well, someone did,” Hawkeye said. “If it wasn’t you, who could it have been?” He was ostentatiously careful with the man’s left arm. “You just don’t know your own strength.”
Burns preened. “Well, that’s true.” He flexed his arms. “I used to work out at college. I’m very fit, you know.”
“Fit for what, Frank?” Hawkeye put all the contempt he could into his voice.
“You better not talk to me like that,” Burns said.
“Like what? Turn around, Francis, I’ll do your back.”
Silence for a minute. Burns switched off the water and left the shower cubicle. He came up to the one they were using: he was standing face to face with the man, only the shower cubicle wall between them. Hawkeye felt the man flinch and back away a little.
“Why did you call him Francis?”
“Suits him, don’t you think?”
Burns snarled again, and said, to the man, “Don’t you look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Hawkeye asked.
Burns was dragging his clothes on. “The Colonel said you weren’t allowed to keep him to yourself, you know.”
“As soon as his arm’s recovered, he can do your laundry, too.”
“Laundry,” Burns snarled. “Don’t tell me he’s doing your laundry. Licking your knees.”
“Just ask Major Houlihan,” Hawkeye said musically.
Burns went out. Hawkeye slammed his hand against the cubicle wall, hard. “Okay,” he said to the man. “You’re done. Out.”
The man was getting dry and dressed. He was moving far less awkwardly than yesterday. Hawkeye helped him with his shirt, and back into the sling for his arm. There wasn’t a lot of point to it any more. Hawkeye finished and sat him down on the bench. The man looked up at him, startled and silent.
Hawkeye pulled on his own clothes, thinking. He could kill him now: break his neck and tell the Colonel he fell over in the shower. Break his hyoid bone and tell the Colonel he choked to death on a piece of soap. It would be quicker than whatever the Colonel had planned.
He couldn’t do it. Though he wasn’t sure he could deliver the man to the Colonel’s office either.
“You could run,” Hawkeye said out loud.
“What?” The reply seemed to have been startled out of the man.
“Last night, why didn’t you try crossing the fence, instead of running to the Colonel’s office?”
The man swallowed. “Well, for one thing, the guards would have shot me.” He almost smiled. “Though I suppose that shouldn’t have worried me.”
“What?” Hawkeye stared at him, startled in turn.
The man didn’t answer. He was sitting with his right arm curved protectively round his left, and his head bowed.
“You could try crossing the fence this time.”
The man looked up. The smile was brief, but real. “We’re going to the Colonel’s office after this, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.” Hawkeye stuck his hands in his pockets.
The man stood up. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
The man nodded. He seemed to brace himself. “Let’s go.”
The Colonel was sitting behind his desk when they came in. A stack of neatly aligned white pages was being moved, a form at a time, from In-tray to Out-tray. He looked up, briefly, and looked back down again at the papers.
“Pierce. O’Reilly’s found out your man is an American.”
Hawkeye shifted on his feet. “Well, good,” he said brightly.
The Colonel looked up. “He told you the rest, then.”
Hawkeye swallowed. “Well, not in so many words – Look, does it matter?”
“BJ,” the man said.
Hawkeye moved sharply.
The Colonel lifted his hand. “What did you want to say to me last night?”
“I’m a Catholic priest.”
There was a small, still, silence in the room. The Colonel laughed abruptly. “Why did you want to say that to me? Did you hope to get off if you confessed before we found out?”
“Last night I think I rather hoped you’d kill me,” the man said, after a moment. “Or whatever happened, I wouldn’t have to go back to the Swamp.”
“What?” Hawkeye said. He felt as if he’d been punched.
The Colonel was smiling. His voice was as cold as his smile. “Pierce, here’s what we know about your purchase. He was registered a Christian in Pennsylvania, and suspected of being a priest, but nothing proved against him. He dropped out of sight before the purges – the last trace of him on record is 1944. Evidently he fled abroad and ended up earning a living the only way he knew how. I’m impressed with his sense of smell.”
“What?” Hawkeye was still dazed.
“He thinks living in the Swamp is a fate worse than death.”
Hawkeye laughed: it came out sounding more like a whimper. He found a chair by feeling for it, and sat down, dropping his head into his hands. After a moment he looked up. “What are you going to do to him, Colonel?”
“I don’t see any proof on paper he’s a Christian priest,” the Colonel said. “I don’t have to pay any attention to what he said.” He paused: Hawkeye was conscious of a nearly-unbearable hope. “You can’t get him back into the States if he’s on record there as a Christian, but you might be able to set him loose somewhere else on your way home, if you have my cooperation and support.”
Hawkeye nodded, grinning. He wasn’t feeling in the least amused. “And I get your cooperation and support by being a good little cutter all the rest of my stay here.”
The Colonel was still smiling. “I think you’re getting the picture. Oh, and keep him tied up to something. The smell in your tent, if you like.”
“I’m a priest, BJ,” the man said.
Hawkeye grabbed hold of the man’s arm. “Shut up, you.”
“You’re getting very fond of your leash, aren’t you?” the Colonel said quietly.
Hawkeye kept a firm grip on the man’s arm. “I’ll get him out of here.” He was still feeling wobbly around the knees. “Thanks, Colonel,” he added bitterly.
“BJ, I don’t intend to keep quiet about it.”
Hawkeye yanked hard on the man’s arm. “Shut up.”
The man let out a sudden sound of pain. “BJ – ”
“Teach him how to use the word ‘colonel’,” Pierce. Or I’ll teach him. And don’t dislocate his shoulder again. That’s reserved.”
“BJ, supposing you had proof I’m a priest,” the man said, hastily, “what would you be compelled to do?”
The Colonel’s smile was wide. “Why, send you home for a lengthy termination. Or, more likely, carry it out here. Pierce can make a termination last forty-eight hours when he’s in good form – can’t you, Pierce?”
“Termination?”
“You know what termination means.” Hawkeye said. He switched grips from left arm to right arm. “You worked in a MATH unit.”
“MASH,” the man said, distinctly. “Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.”
“Surgical?” Hawkeye queried, distracted.
“Get him out of here,” the Colonel said, sounding bored. “Next time we have a termination, if he still doesn’t understand the concept, he can watch.”
“BJ – ” the man said. Hawkeye pulled at his arm, this time hard enough to yank the man down. He put a hand across the man’s mouth. “Shut up! He’s letting you live.” He stood up, pulling the man up with him. He meant to keep his hand across the man’s mouth, but it slipped off.
“What about Erin?” the man said instantly.
Hawkeye put his hand back.
The Colonel was standing up, abrupt and menacing. “Get him to repeat that.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Hawkeye said, very nearly amused: but he took his hand off the man’s mouth.
“What are you going to tell Erin about what you did in Korea?”
The Colonel sat down again. He was smiling. “All right. Get him out of here, Pierce.”
Hawkeye clapped his hand over the man’s mouth, firmly, and began to walk out the door. The Colonel had turned his attention back to his paperwork. He was still smiling, and it was the most terrifying expression Hawkeye had seen.
[sketch bydigitalruki]
Trapper was still asleep. The man was moving as if he were in shock. Hawkeye pushed him down on to his own bunk, and went across to Trapper’s.
Waking Trapper was an unfriendly operation at the best of the times. Hawkeye punched his shoulder and stepped back out of reach of the flailing arm that tried to catch him, and stepped back in to pull the blankets off him.
Trapper growled out something as the blankets went, and tried to retrieve them, curling up with his shoulders to Hawkeye. He growled again and sat up and snarled at Hawkeye.
“This is bad,” Hawkeye said.
“No one ever wakes me up for something good,” Trapper said, very nearly coherently. “What?”
“Frank Burns is in OR,” Hawkeye said. “Can you go get Winchester here? I want to trade him a houseboy.”
Trapper stared. He rubbed the back of his hand across his face. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Hawkeye said. “You figure out what we can get. I want to do the trade before Burns finishes in the OR.”
Trapper looked past Hawkeye. “You better make sure he looks worth trading for.”
Hawkeye glanced back. The man was lying on his side on Hawkeye’s bunk, curled up with his head tucked down. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“What with, a hot iron?” Trapper stood up. “What time is it, anyway?”
Hawkeye glanced at his watch. “I don’t believe it. It’s only half of nine.”
Trapper sat down. “Burns only went on duty half an hour ago. Even he won’t finish inside four hours.”
“I thought it was later.”
“You had to wake me?”
“I still want to run the trade before Burns gets back.”
Trapper got up again. “Fine,” he said, and yawned. “Can I have coffee?”
“Sure, Winchester’s probably in the mess tent. Get him to come over here after breakfast.”
“Okay. You’re serious about this?”
“Yeah. Don’t let the Colonel see you talking to him.”
Trapper paused, pulling his bathrobe on. “What do I tell him if he asks where you are?”
“Tell him we haven’t found anything to tie Francis to yet.”
Trapper left, yawning. Hawkeye went back to his bunk and sat down on it. The man huddled, curling further into himself.
“Francis. Time to sit up.” Hawkeye caught hold of his right shoulder. “Look, I’m not going to – ” He broke off, considering the number of things he knew he was not going to do.
“Francis – ” he repeated impatiently, and literally shoved the man up. The man’s face was still and closed off. He sat and blinked, showing no sign that he was taking in what he was looking at.
“Look, Francis, you don’t want to be here – I don’t want to be here. I’ll trade you off to Winchester. Got it?”
After a moment, the man nodded. He glanced sideways at Hawkeye. He stayed hunched in on himself: Hawkeye had half-expected, half-feared that the man would cling to him as he had done before.
“Just – say ‘yes sir’ to everything, it’ll save time. And don’t tell him you’re a Christian.”
“I told BJ,” the man said. “I’m not going to keep quiet about this.”
Hawkeye slammed his hand down on the side of the bunk. “You are going to keep quiet about this, or else.”
“Or else what?” The man blinked at him.
“Or you’re going to die,” Hawkeye said ferociously.
The man shrugged a little.
“Oh, you think I’m kidding?” It infuriated Hawkeye.
“No,” the man said. “Radar told me what kind of place this was.” His voice was faint and scared and somehow stubborn. “Not a MASH unit. I kept thinking – ” unexpectedly, he laughed, shortly and shakily “ – I kept thinking you were still you. But if you – ” He wasn’t looking at Hawkeye. “I know you’re not him. I know it. But you still look like him and sound like him, and – God forgive me, I can’t bear it.” He ducked his head. “I can’t,” he said again, but it didn’t sound as if he were speaking to Hawkeye.
to part 11
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, and part 9.
“Morning, Frank,” Hawkeye said cheerfully. He pushed the man into the shower cubicle ahead of him and turned the water on.
“Oh, sure,” Burns said, with complete hostility. He eyed the man in silence as Hawkeye began to lather him up, and after a few minutes asked abruptly, “Did I really dislocate his arm the other night?”
“Well, someone did,” Hawkeye said. “If it wasn’t you, who could it have been?” He was ostentatiously careful with the man’s left arm. “You just don’t know your own strength.”
Burns preened. “Well, that’s true.” He flexed his arms. “I used to work out at college. I’m very fit, you know.”
“Fit for what, Frank?” Hawkeye put all the contempt he could into his voice.
“You better not talk to me like that,” Burns said.
“Like what? Turn around, Francis, I’ll do your back.”
Silence for a minute. Burns switched off the water and left the shower cubicle. He came up to the one they were using: he was standing face to face with the man, only the shower cubicle wall between them. Hawkeye felt the man flinch and back away a little.
“Why did you call him Francis?”
“Suits him, don’t you think?”
Burns snarled again, and said, to the man, “Don’t you look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Hawkeye asked.
Burns was dragging his clothes on. “The Colonel said you weren’t allowed to keep him to yourself, you know.”
“As soon as his arm’s recovered, he can do your laundry, too.”
“Laundry,” Burns snarled. “Don’t tell me he’s doing your laundry. Licking your knees.”
“Just ask Major Houlihan,” Hawkeye said musically.
Burns went out. Hawkeye slammed his hand against the cubicle wall, hard. “Okay,” he said to the man. “You’re done. Out.”
The man was getting dry and dressed. He was moving far less awkwardly than yesterday. Hawkeye helped him with his shirt, and back into the sling for his arm. There wasn’t a lot of point to it any more. Hawkeye finished and sat him down on the bench. The man looked up at him, startled and silent.
Hawkeye pulled on his own clothes, thinking. He could kill him now: break his neck and tell the Colonel he fell over in the shower. Break his hyoid bone and tell the Colonel he choked to death on a piece of soap. It would be quicker than whatever the Colonel had planned.
He couldn’t do it. Though he wasn’t sure he could deliver the man to the Colonel’s office either.
“You could run,” Hawkeye said out loud.
“What?” The reply seemed to have been startled out of the man.
“Last night, why didn’t you try crossing the fence, instead of running to the Colonel’s office?”
The man swallowed. “Well, for one thing, the guards would have shot me.” He almost smiled. “Though I suppose that shouldn’t have worried me.”
“What?” Hawkeye stared at him, startled in turn.
The man didn’t answer. He was sitting with his right arm curved protectively round his left, and his head bowed.
“You could try crossing the fence this time.”
The man looked up. The smile was brief, but real. “We’re going to the Colonel’s office after this, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.” Hawkeye stuck his hands in his pockets.
The man stood up. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
The man nodded. He seemed to brace himself. “Let’s go.”
The Colonel was sitting behind his desk when they came in. A stack of neatly aligned white pages was being moved, a form at a time, from In-tray to Out-tray. He looked up, briefly, and looked back down again at the papers.
“Pierce. O’Reilly’s found out your man is an American.”
Hawkeye shifted on his feet. “Well, good,” he said brightly.
The Colonel looked up. “He told you the rest, then.”
Hawkeye swallowed. “Well, not in so many words – Look, does it matter?”
“BJ,” the man said.
Hawkeye moved sharply.
The Colonel lifted his hand. “What did you want to say to me last night?”
“I’m a Catholic priest.”
There was a small, still, silence in the room. The Colonel laughed abruptly. “Why did you want to say that to me? Did you hope to get off if you confessed before we found out?”
“Last night I think I rather hoped you’d kill me,” the man said, after a moment. “Or whatever happened, I wouldn’t have to go back to the Swamp.”
“What?” Hawkeye said. He felt as if he’d been punched.
The Colonel was smiling. His voice was as cold as his smile. “Pierce, here’s what we know about your purchase. He was registered a Christian in Pennsylvania, and suspected of being a priest, but nothing proved against him. He dropped out of sight before the purges – the last trace of him on record is 1944. Evidently he fled abroad and ended up earning a living the only way he knew how. I’m impressed with his sense of smell.”
“What?” Hawkeye was still dazed.
“He thinks living in the Swamp is a fate worse than death.”
Hawkeye laughed: it came out sounding more like a whimper. He found a chair by feeling for it, and sat down, dropping his head into his hands. After a moment he looked up. “What are you going to do to him, Colonel?”
“I don’t see any proof on paper he’s a Christian priest,” the Colonel said. “I don’t have to pay any attention to what he said.” He paused: Hawkeye was conscious of a nearly-unbearable hope. “You can’t get him back into the States if he’s on record there as a Christian, but you might be able to set him loose somewhere else on your way home, if you have my cooperation and support.”
Hawkeye nodded, grinning. He wasn’t feeling in the least amused. “And I get your cooperation and support by being a good little cutter all the rest of my stay here.”
The Colonel was still smiling. “I think you’re getting the picture. Oh, and keep him tied up to something. The smell in your tent, if you like.”
“I’m a priest, BJ,” the man said.
Hawkeye grabbed hold of the man’s arm. “Shut up, you.”
“You’re getting very fond of your leash, aren’t you?” the Colonel said quietly.
Hawkeye kept a firm grip on the man’s arm. “I’ll get him out of here.” He was still feeling wobbly around the knees. “Thanks, Colonel,” he added bitterly.
“BJ, I don’t intend to keep quiet about it.”
Hawkeye yanked hard on the man’s arm. “Shut up.”
The man let out a sudden sound of pain. “BJ – ”
“Teach him how to use the word ‘colonel’,” Pierce. Or I’ll teach him. And don’t dislocate his shoulder again. That’s reserved.”
“BJ, supposing you had proof I’m a priest,” the man said, hastily, “what would you be compelled to do?”
The Colonel’s smile was wide. “Why, send you home for a lengthy termination. Or, more likely, carry it out here. Pierce can make a termination last forty-eight hours when he’s in good form – can’t you, Pierce?”
“Termination?”
“You know what termination means.” Hawkeye said. He switched grips from left arm to right arm. “You worked in a MATH unit.”
“MASH,” the man said, distinctly. “Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.”
“Surgical?” Hawkeye queried, distracted.
“Get him out of here,” the Colonel said, sounding bored. “Next time we have a termination, if he still doesn’t understand the concept, he can watch.”
“BJ – ” the man said. Hawkeye pulled at his arm, this time hard enough to yank the man down. He put a hand across the man’s mouth. “Shut up! He’s letting you live.” He stood up, pulling the man up with him. He meant to keep his hand across the man’s mouth, but it slipped off.
“What about Erin?” the man said instantly.
Hawkeye put his hand back.
The Colonel was standing up, abrupt and menacing. “Get him to repeat that.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Hawkeye said, very nearly amused: but he took his hand off the man’s mouth.
“What are you going to tell Erin about what you did in Korea?”
The Colonel sat down again. He was smiling. “All right. Get him out of here, Pierce.”
Hawkeye clapped his hand over the man’s mouth, firmly, and began to walk out the door. The Colonel had turned his attention back to his paperwork. He was still smiling, and it was the most terrifying expression Hawkeye had seen.
[sketch by
digitalruki]Trapper was still asleep. The man was moving as if he were in shock. Hawkeye pushed him down on to his own bunk, and went across to Trapper’s.
Waking Trapper was an unfriendly operation at the best of the times. Hawkeye punched his shoulder and stepped back out of reach of the flailing arm that tried to catch him, and stepped back in to pull the blankets off him.
Trapper growled out something as the blankets went, and tried to retrieve them, curling up with his shoulders to Hawkeye. He growled again and sat up and snarled at Hawkeye.
“This is bad,” Hawkeye said.
“No one ever wakes me up for something good,” Trapper said, very nearly coherently. “What?”
“Frank Burns is in OR,” Hawkeye said. “Can you go get Winchester here? I want to trade him a houseboy.”
Trapper stared. He rubbed the back of his hand across his face. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Hawkeye said. “You figure out what we can get. I want to do the trade before Burns finishes in the OR.”
Trapper looked past Hawkeye. “You better make sure he looks worth trading for.”
Hawkeye glanced back. The man was lying on his side on Hawkeye’s bunk, curled up with his head tucked down. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“What with, a hot iron?” Trapper stood up. “What time is it, anyway?”
Hawkeye glanced at his watch. “I don’t believe it. It’s only half of nine.”
Trapper sat down. “Burns only went on duty half an hour ago. Even he won’t finish inside four hours.”
“I thought it was later.”
“You had to wake me?”
“I still want to run the trade before Burns gets back.”
Trapper got up again. “Fine,” he said, and yawned. “Can I have coffee?”
“Sure, Winchester’s probably in the mess tent. Get him to come over here after breakfast.”
“Okay. You’re serious about this?”
“Yeah. Don’t let the Colonel see you talking to him.”
Trapper paused, pulling his bathrobe on. “What do I tell him if he asks where you are?”
“Tell him we haven’t found anything to tie Francis to yet.”
Trapper left, yawning. Hawkeye went back to his bunk and sat down on it. The man huddled, curling further into himself.
“Francis. Time to sit up.” Hawkeye caught hold of his right shoulder. “Look, I’m not going to – ” He broke off, considering the number of things he knew he was not going to do.
“Francis – ” he repeated impatiently, and literally shoved the man up. The man’s face was still and closed off. He sat and blinked, showing no sign that he was taking in what he was looking at.
“Look, Francis, you don’t want to be here – I don’t want to be here. I’ll trade you off to Winchester. Got it?”
After a moment, the man nodded. He glanced sideways at Hawkeye. He stayed hunched in on himself: Hawkeye had half-expected, half-feared that the man would cling to him as he had done before.
“Just – say ‘yes sir’ to everything, it’ll save time. And don’t tell him you’re a Christian.”
“I told BJ,” the man said. “I’m not going to keep quiet about this.”
Hawkeye slammed his hand down on the side of the bunk. “You are going to keep quiet about this, or else.”
“Or else what?” The man blinked at him.
“Or you’re going to die,” Hawkeye said ferociously.
The man shrugged a little.
“Oh, you think I’m kidding?” It infuriated Hawkeye.
“No,” the man said. “Radar told me what kind of place this was.” His voice was faint and scared and somehow stubborn. “Not a MASH unit. I kept thinking – ” unexpectedly, he laughed, shortly and shakily “ – I kept thinking you were still you. But if you – ” He wasn’t looking at Hawkeye. “I know you’re not him. I know it. But you still look like him and sound like him, and – God forgive me, I can’t bear it.” He ducked his head. “I can’t,” he said again, but it didn’t sound as if he were speaking to Hawkeye.
to part 11