Mirror M*A*S*H: Through the Mirror, Part Eleven
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H. Apologies for the long delay: this section was stalled halfway through for months due to the death of my old laptop. This section was begun on my old laptop and finished on my new one.

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 are here.

Part Eleven

The light through the green tent roof and walls was exactly the same. Korean sunlight, dimmed to a military glow.

If today was Thursday, he was leaving for Spain on Sunday or Monday. On Saturday or Sunday, back home, depending on the time difference, he was a deserter instead of AWOL, unless the army were convinced he was dead.

If he was dead, everything would be all right. It had occurred to him, left alone to think that through, that Francis should understand that. And if he could explain that to Francis, the other man should be able to, as well.

Francis hadn’t moved. Shalev Friedhof hadn’t lost contact with him. There was no way he could move Francis by himself, and nowhere to put him except the cot Hawkeye had been sitting on. One of them was going to have to help. When Francis stirred, sounding as if he was half waking, Hawkeye moved, away from both Francis and the cot. “You’d better let him lie down.”

“You’re not going to help?” Shalev sounded faintly surprised.

“No,” Hawkeye said. He stood rigidly by the tent wall.

Shalev and the other man between them got Francis up on to his feet: he didn’t resist them. They walked him over to the cot, and he sat down, his head bent, his arms shielding his face.

“Hawkeye, why don’t you get the Father some coffee?”

The man looked at Hawkeye, and his face moved as if he wanted to speak. But after a moment, with a shrug, he did as he was told. As he opened the tent door, Hawkeye saw a glint of light on glass.

Francis’s glasses had fallen to the ground. They were dusty, but undamaged: Hawkeye picked them up and came back across to the cot, polishing the lenses with the tail of his shirt. Shalev was looking at him, head tilted slightly to one side, undemanding, observant.

“Can you give these to him?” Hawkeye held them out.

Francis lifted his head, and stared at him, blinking. His hand groped across his chest.

“Your crucifixion’s caught on your shirt.” Hawkeye said. He held out the glasses to Francis. “The chain got tangled when you fell.”

Francis took them from him without touching his hand. His other hand found the small crucifixion, and straightened the chain so that it hung in the middle of his chest again. He put the glasses on, and stared from Shalev to Hawkeye.

“Oh. Sidney... what happened?”

“You fainted,” Shalev said.

“I thought,” Francis said, and didn’t finish the sentence. He was staring uncomfortably from Shalev to Hawkeye.

“You thought you saw two Hawkeyes?” said Shalev. “So did I. One of them is over in the mess tent fetching you what the army calls coffee.”

“Oh,” Francis said. “I’m – ” His voice was cracked as old leather. “I’m perfectly all right,” he said. “I think I should go.” He started to push himself to his feet.

Hawkeye stepped back. Shalev glanced at him, briefly, but his hand fell again on Francis’s shoulder. “Father, you lost consciousness,” he said. “I think you should sit still for a while.”

“I should go,” Hawkeye said. He looked at Shalev. “Is your name Sidney Freedman?”

Shalev nodded, eyeing him.

“Then we’re done.”

“Are we?” Shalev tilted his head to one side.

Francis was looking at him. Hawkeye stepped back again. Everything had been clear and simple – for the first time in a month, in a year – till he saw Francis again.

“What are you doing here?” Francis asked.

Hawkeye shrugged. “He wanted to let Shalev – Sidney Freedman – see there were two of us. He’s seen us. We’re done.”

The loudspeakers made a short high screaming noise as they switched on. The tent was so cold the sweat on Hawkeye’s back felt like ice. “Incoming wounded,” a voice said, loudly, too loudly. “Choppers on the upper pad, ambulances in the compound. All cutters to the OR.”

Hawkeye turned to the door, holding his hands out in front of him. Incoming wounded.

The door opened, abruptly, and he himself came in, looking over his shoulder, carrying two mugs of coffee. He brushed past himself with only one cold look, and went directly to Francis. “Drink this,” he said.

He stood over Francis, holding the other mug: Francis took one obedient mouthful and swallowed. “Sugar?”

“Just drink it. You can have the other coffee after.” The other Hawkeye twitched round, looking at him. “Stay in here. I’ll – Sidney, can you – ”

“It sounds like you have quite a lot on your mind,” Shalev said. “I’ll see you later.”

“He’s got to go back to Seoul,” the other Hawkeye said. “He isn’t supposed to see Father Mulcahy. No one’s supposed to see him. Father, I’m sorry – ”

Francis looked up. “I understand.” He took the other mug from him. “You need to go.”

The other Hawkeye looked around the tent – from Francis to Shalev, and twisting his neck with an odd grimace to look at himself again. “Yes. I’m sorry,” he said again, mostly to Francis, though part of it seemed to be directed at Shalev. This time, he gave himself a wide berth as he went out.

The noises from the compound weren’t the same. That occurred to Hawkeye only as the door closed behind himself. He let his hands fall to his sides. His palms still felt cold, but the rest of the tent seemed to have got back to normal. He looked at Shalev.

“What now?”

“I should go,” Francis said. He didn’t sound very happy about it: his voice was grey but even, self-controlled. “I think – ” He put his coffee mug down beside the other, and set his hands on the cot, pushing himself to his feet. He swayed a little, and turned, glancing back down at the cot. He looked up again, at Hawkeye, questioningly, but he spoke to Shalev. “I have to go. Can you – will you – ”

“What do you want me to do, Father?”

Francis looked caught. He stared from Hawkeye to Shalev. When he spoke, finally, it was to Hawkeye. “Please don’t tell him,” he said. His voice was devoid of expression. He bent his head, avoidance rather than submission, and walked out of the tent.

Shalev and Hawkeye were left looking at each other. After a moment, Shalev said, “What’s your name?”

“Benjamin Franklin Pierce,” Hawkeye said. “Hawkeye.”

“What’s mine?”

Hawkeye opened his mouth to say “Sidney Freedman,” but he knew that look on Shalev’s face. No use lying to him. “Shalev Friedhof.”

“Where are you from?”

Hawkeye went to the cot, and sat down. His legs were feeling shaky. “You were always one of the smartest people I knew,” he said.

After a moment, he heard Shalev fetching the chair the other Hawkeye had been sitting in. When he looked up again, Shalev was sitting a couple of feet away, as expressionless and watchful as if he were conducting an operation.

“Did Francis Mulcahy spend the month he was absent from the 4077th with you?”

“No,” Hawkeye said. And then, seeing what Shalev was asking, “Not with me. But where I come from – ” He broke off. “What did Francis tell you?”

“Hardly anything at all,” Shalev said. “And what he did tell me, I didn’t altogether understand.”

“Until you saw the two of us.”

“Until you called me by my Hebrew name,” Shalev said. He folded his hands together. “And you know ‘Friedhof’, too. Where are you from? Where did you meet… the other me?”


It was easier to tell Shalev the story than it had been to tell the other Hawkeye. It was, Hawkeye realised about halfway through it, like it had been for Francis when he told the Colonel the story for the second time: telling a listener who already believed and wanted only clarification. He lost track of the thread: he was not on his knees with his wrists manacled together, filled with gin and pain, but he drifted, coming back to himself with his mouth open, hearing himself speak. He stopped. He hadn’t said anything about Francis. He didn’t think he had. But he’d said quite a bit about Dad.

When he finished, Shalev hadn’t moved. He unfolded his hands, watching Hawkeye. He was waiting, Hawkeye realised.

“That’s all. I’m done. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

Shalev put his hands together again, palm and fingertips touching. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “Did …Francis… meet me, while he was there?”

“No,” Hawkeye said, aghast. He averted his eyes from Shalev’s hands. “No.”

“Do you plan to return there?”

Hawkeye kept his eyes on Shalev’s face. “Can you keep something to yourself?”

“Yes,” Shalev said. He smiled, briefly.

“I can’t go back. I don’t belong here. He’ll probably hear next week. When he does – ” Hawkeye’s mind struggled to find the right words. “Tell him I said – I got a month I shouldn’t have had. So it was for the best.”

Shalev was no longer smiling. “I can’t tell him that,” he said.

Hawkeye put his hands out in front of him. “You understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes,” Shalev said. “I understand. Where have you been staying?”

“In the Jesuit convent in Seoul,” Hawkeye said.

“Have you talked to anyone there about this?”

“Of course not. They’d think I was crazy.” The laugh that caught him took him by surprise. Shalev laughed too: with restraint, as Shalev always laughed, but genuinely amused. Hawkeye lifted his hands in front of his face, and turned them, looking at them, back and front.

“Why do you do that?” Shalev asked. He sounded gently curious. It was very easy to answer a question asked in that tone of voice.

Hawkeye propped his elbows on his knees, and stared at his hands. Through the frames of his fingers he could see Shalev’s hands. “When he hears, next week,” Hawkeye said. “you can tell him, I said to say – ” Even to Shalev, it was hard to say it. “I didn’t die a torturer.”

The tent’s door opening was very loud in the silence. Shalev’s face hadn’t changed. He turned, slightly, keeping half his attention still on Hawkeye, and said, calmly, “Hello, Father.”

Francis closed the door and took two paces into the tent. He stopped. “I came to see if you… needed anything.”

“We were just talking,” Shalev said.

“Yes,” Francis said. He looked colourless. “I suppose so. The Colonel told me to leave the OR. If anyone needs last rites, they’ll call me, he said. But he told me to go. Hawkeye told him I fainted.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Shalev asked.

“I came to see if you needed anything,” Francis said again. “I supposed – ”

“Join us, Father,” Shalev said.

Hawkeye didn’t move. He hardly dared breathe. Francis came across the tent, and sat down on the cot at the other end. “The Colonel ordered me out of OR,” he said again. “That’s never happened to me before.” He looked at Shalev, and then at Hawkeye. His eyes didn’t linger on Hawkeye’s hands, but then, they never did.

“I suppose you know now what I didn’t tell you,” Francis said. He was looking at Shalev now, seeming to avert his gaze completely from Hawkeye.

“I certainly know more than you were telling me,” Shalev said.

“I’ve asked for a transfer.”

Shalev nodded.

“I’m never going to see either of you again,” Francis said. His voice was distant and cracked. “I – want to – I don’t want you to say anything.” He looked at Hawkeye briefly. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t – say anything.”

Hawkeye shook his head.

Francis sat still on the end of the cot, his hands clasped, his head down. He didn’t look at either of them when he began to speak.

to part 12