Mirror M*A*S*H, part 12
If things look confusing to you, this may be because you have missed reading part 11, posted yesterday. Or it may just be because you are a naturally confused person. I leave it to you to decide which.

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, and part 11.




There was some food left over in the mess tent: Hawkeye looked at it and what was left of his appetite fled. He went out, to the bare stretch of ground by the perimeter fence, and started to walk.

The man was dead. It wasn't in question. It was just a matter of where and when. And how.

Unless he followed through on Winchester's suggestion. Hawkeye wiped his hand across his mouth, and only realised he was doing it when he noticed his mouth hurt. He couldn't do it. In the OR, in the zone where insulting a healthy body seemed like a natural thing to do, it would be easier - but in the OR someone would stop him: his wounded were meant to talk, not be muted.

Kill him?

That would, in theory, be easier. Hawkeye walked on. He could see it would be better. He had promised he would do it.

Shuffle the man's termination off on to Frank Burns? At least then it would be through in six hours. Hawkeye glanced out of the corner of his eye at the OR, the most solid construction in the camp. It was soundproofed. He could pretend he didn't know. He could get blind drunk and when he woke up it would all be over, and if anyone ever mentioned it to him again he could dislocate Frank Burns' arm.

Hawkeye walked on. Rat in a treadmill. He had to write to his dad.

Dear Dad, this man looked at me and called me Hawkeye like he knew me, so I bought him and now he's going to be tortured to death. And I'm probably going to do it.

Because that's what I do.

Of course he couldn't write that. His mail was read before it reached the US, and a letter like that would never get to its recipient: it could be enough to get the sender and the recipient terminated.

Kill the man, quickly and painlessly. It was the right thing to do.

Dear Dad, this man looked at me and spoke to me like he knew me, so I bought him and played with him for a few days and then I killed him.

Because I break everything I touch.

Hawkeye walked on. He could ask for a 24-hour pass to Seoul, smuggle the man into the back of the jeep, and let him loose there.

To be recaptured by the MPs within the week, even if he could get the man out of the camp. Getting him in had been easy enough: but only military personnel with a legit reason, or wounded who had been cleared in the OR - and he couldn't pass the man off as cleared while he was still ambulant and able-bodied. Even if he could get him out, it would be like handing him over to Frank Burns: same result, just out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind.

Kill him. Hawkeye walked on. Can't.



Hawkeye came back into the Swamp to silence. Trapper was sprawled on his bunk, his hand resting on the back of the man's head.

Trapper looked up. "How are you doing?"

Hawkeye stuck his hands in his pockets and shook his head. He cleared his throat. "How about you?"

"When you're not around, he kicks but he doesn't bite," Trapper said.

Hawkeye nodded. He sat down on his own bunk.

"He doesn't talk when his mouth's full."

"Yeah," Hawkeye agreed. He picked up the letter from his dad, and put it down again.

"You look like you could use a drink," Trapper said.

"No thanks," Hawkeye said.

Trapper pushed the man's mouth off his dick and stood up, pulling his bathrobe together. "Hawkeye - "

"Don't let me interrupt you," Hawkeye said.

"I was just soaking my dick," Trapper said. "I have to get to the OR in half an hour. I'll scrub Francis and see he's fed."

"No," Hawkeye said. Kill him.

"I'll do it," Trapper said. He spoke gently. "You need a break."

Hawkeye shook his head. "Leave him here." I'm going to kill him.

Trapper stood still, looking down at Hawkeye. "You know - you're about the best friend I've got."

"What?"

"If you need help - if there's anything you need - maybe I can help."

Hawkeye managed to smile. "Thanks. I can manage. You've already had one ulcer."

"Beats me how you don't get one."

"Clean living," Hawkeye said.

"Sure." Trapper went on out.

The man was curled up on Trapper's bunk: in the silence after the door closed behind Trapper, Hawkeye could hear him making small, breathy noises, as if he were having trouble swallowing. He was half-stripped, and made no move to cover himself as Hawkeye came over.

The man was having trouble swallowing. Hawkeye poured a glass of gin. It might be easier for both of them if he got the man thoroughly drunk first. He sat down on the bunk and propped the man's head up: his face was wet. His mouth opened easily for the first mouthful of gin, but he turned his head and spat it all over Trapper's blankets rather than swallow.

"Okay," Hawkeye said, and tilted his head up to make him drink again. After a while, more gin had got down the man's throat than over the blankets - probably; and the glass was empty.

"Better?" Hawkeye asked.

The man sat up. He was trying, awkwardly, to cover himself, but then he gave up. "I can't live like this," he said. His voice sounded rough. "I - can't."

Don't worry, you won't have to, Hawkeye nearly said.

"I was asleep in that place where you got me," the man said. "I tried saying no and I was beaten, and I tried fighting and I was beaten and chained up, and it made no difference: I was raped anyway. So I went to sleep, I think. I let it happen to me. You woke me up. I've been trying to see a way out of this since it happened to me, and if I can't kill myself, at least I can die for something, something I care about, not just die for - for saying no. Are you going to kill me?"

Hawkeye nearly dropped the empty gin glass. "No." He got up and went across to the still, filling the glass again. He came back and sat down on the bunk beside the man, and met the man's eyes squarely. "Yes. If I can."

The man nodded. He let out a long breath, and dropped his head a little. He seemed to be saying something, very quickly and quietly. He lifted his head again after the pause, and looked Hawkeye full on. "Thank you. Is - is there anything I can do to make it easier for you?"

"You can drink this," Hawkeye said.

The man looked at it. "Is it poison?"

"Only if you drink too much of it." Hawkeye held the glass out. "I think this'll go easier on both of us if you're drunk."

The man took the glass. He looked at it, and Hawkeye, somewhat dubiously. "All right," he said after a moment, and set it to his mouth. It went down as if it were smooth as Tokyo scotch. Hawkeye took the empty glass back across to the still for a refill. There was probably two more glassfuls-worth in the flask.

The door opened. Hawkeye looked round.

The Colonel was standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, looking round. After a moment, still without saying anything, he stepped further in and kicked the door shut behind him.

"Colonel," Hawkeye said. At first he was only conscious of impatient irritation: he had to get this done with, and the Colonel was interrupting.

"Pierce," the Colonel acknowledged.

"BJ," the man said.

"I want to have a word with your leash," the Colonel said. "You can either assist, or get out."

"Ah, Colonel - " Hawkeye tried to keep his voice insoucient and light. "I had plans for this afternoon. How about you come back later?"

The Colonel tilted his head and looked at Hawkeye. He was smiling: cold and terrifying. "Wrong choice, Pierce. Either assist - or get out."

Too late. Hawkeye felt a sick relief. He could just walk away.

"What do you want, BJ?" the man asked.

"I'll stay," Hawkeye said.

The Colonel didn't look at him again. He pulled the man to his feet and jerked him round, manacling him fast enough that the man's grunt of pain at the fresh stress on his left shoulder came after the Colonel let go: and the Colonel stepped back, and took the man down with a neatly-placed foot to the back of his knees.

Hawkeye stood still. Outside the OR, he believed there were limits to what the Colonel could do: and so long as the man wasn't taken to the OR, the worst that could happen was - a broken bone or two - a dislocated joint -

Pain without tools, caused by nothing but skilled hands. Surely there were limits to what skill and hands could do.

"Tell me where you came from, and how you got here," the Colonel said.

The man looked over at Hawkeye, almost as if asking for permission, or help. He told his story again - third time of hearing for Hawkeye, second for the Colonel. It was the same story - crazy, but the same.

"A temple in Seoul," the Colonel said, and began questioning him more carefully about what it looked like. This time the man was visibly reluctant - odd, since the rest of the fantasy had come out almost in a rush. But the Colonel was good at his job - almost as good as Hawkeye - and the right questions got answers.

After a while, in the simple stress of unremitting minor pain, a hand that touches compromised joints, a foot that presses flesh against bone into bruises, the wounded begin to drift: Hawkeye had seen it happen. After a while, it becomes easier, out of the haze, to answer the questions than not answer them.

The gin must have helped, of course. Maybe they ought to try that as an opening draft for the OR. Hawkeye watched. The man was crying sometimes, answering questions in a voice that sounded more hoarse and cracked than an old leather jacket fallen into the swimming-hole and left to dry out when the summer heats came. It must have helped that the information wasn't important: the Colonel was softening the man up, letting him drift and answer, drift and answer.

"What about Erin?" the Colonel asked, his hand resting on the back of the man's neck.

"What about her?" the man answered. His voice was faint: Hawkeye had to strain to hear. "I never saw her. Only photographs. Only film - "

"Erin Hunnicut," the Colonel said. His voice was different somehow: quieter, too.

"Erin," the man said. "BJ? Is that you?"

"Yes," the Colonel said. "Tell me about Erin."

"She had her first birthday not long ago," the man said. "We made BJ a cake. It didn't turn out well. Peg wrote a letter but it came late."

"Peg," the Colonel said. "Margaret?"

"I suppose so." The man's eyes were closed. "I never heard BJ call her anything but Peg, Peggy - BJ, is that you?"

"Yes. Tell me about Erin."

"She's a lovely child," the man said. "BJ gets photos from Peg every month or so. Don't you have them?"

"No," the Colonel said.

"Why don't you have them?"

The Colonel's voice was still different - drifting, almost. "On February third, 1950, my wife was in Los Angeles."

Hawkeye sat up, abruptly. He shut his mouth on a sharp what? but the Colonel's eyes had caught the movement, and he stared at Hawkeye with a look that froze. The Colonel wasn't drifting any more.

I'm dead.

He knew it even before the Colonel drew his gun and got to his feet, in one easy smooth motion. "Pierce. On your feet."

"I didn't hear a thing," Hawkeye said.

"I didn't ask you. Up."

The man's eyes blinked open again. He looked as if he were trying to find his focus.

"I told you leave or assist," the Colonel said. "There's more than one way you can assist."


to part 13