Chapter Text
Potter looked like he’d just been told Sophie needed another enema and there was no one available to do the honors for him, so Hawkeye figured he hadn’t been invited to his office for a surprise party.
“Radar, close the door behind you,” he said. “And no listening in.”
“Yes, sir,” Radar said with a pout and took off, leaving Hawkeye alone with the colonel, who gestured to the chair in front of his desk pointedly. Hawkeye sat with one knee up at chest height, foot braced against the edge of the desk, and the other leg crossed over it.
Potter held up a plain white envelope. “Do you know what I have here?”
“A dirty letter from Harry Truman? It’s about time he sent me one back.”
He sighed. “This, Pierce, is the end result of your particular brand of wit. Only that, thankfully.” He handed the envelope over and Hawkeye took out the letter. It was formal, military issue. He got five sentences in before all the blood in his body rushed to his head and spots started dancing in front of his eyes. I believe Captain B.F. “Hawkeye” Pierce is a sexual psychopath. He blinked a few times and scanned to the bottom to find it was sent by a Major Samuel Flagg.
“Oh,” he said, staring blankly at the paper. His chair fell forward onto all fours with a thud as he sat up straighter. “I probably shouldn’t have asked him to fuck me.”
He glanced up. Potter’s hand was cradling his forehead like Hawkeye was an air-raid siren wailing against his ear. “No,” he said, “you probably shouldn’t have.”
His career flashed before his eyes. His dad already knew, he wouldn’t be getting disowned, but Brigham wouldn’t be rehiring him either. He wouldn’t be performing surgery, he’d be lucky if he could even visit his dad in Crabapple Cove, but he couldn’t think about that, about — “Can you tear it up? Forget about it? Tell them Flagg’s projecting?”
“Not leaping at the chance to escape?” Potter asked wryly and, frankly, unnecessarily.
“If I wanted to throw my career away and spend the rest of my life checking tonsils at my dad’s practice I could’ve escaped before they even dragged me here. No, forgive me my hypocrisy in not being willing to ruin my own life to get out of this damned man’s army, but I’m not exactly jumping for joy right now.”
“Okay, okay, no need to start frothing at the mouth.” He thought he was being remarkably calm under the circumstances, and would’ve told the colonel so at length if he hadn’t continued on to say, “You’ll probably be fine, we just have to use a little finesse. Sit down.”
Potter was looking up at him with a scowl now. Hawkeye had leapt to his feet, bracing his hands on the desk as he leaned down to meet Potter's eyes. He was full of jittery nervous energy and it took a herculean amount of effort to sit back down when he could have been pacing or climbing the walls or running to his still. He tapped his fingers a little frantically on the chair’s arm while Potter continued.
“He would have sent this to the higher authorities too, so I can’t just ignore it. But Flagg was demoted because of a false accusation against you. He wants to make something stick now to justify himself to his superiors, but that’s already a strike against him — he’s spinning his wheels, and it’s obvious. As long as he doesn’t get anything else, no one’s going to take him too seriously.” He raised an eyebrow. “Will he get anything else?”
“Like what?” If he sounded overly defensive then, well, what did Potter expect, springing this on him? “He could find a general or two I’ve fluttered my eyes at without even hiring Sam Spade.”
“I don’t mean jokes — those shouldn't stick to you, at least not with me on your side." Shouldn't, probably, maybe, hopefully, on a wing and a prayer… "You’ll still want to rein in your sense of humor for a while, if at all possible," Potter finished. If at all possible.
It took a moment for him to actually comprehend what Potter had said. “Then what, you —” And it dawned on him, shoving the creeping dread of potentialities out of his head and replacing it with a Universal monster of a fact. “You mean witnesses. Testimonies.” His fingers stopped tapping, started gripping. “Are you sure you’re on my side?”
“Relax son, I’m not angling for a confession. I don’t give a damn what the best surgeon in Korea does in his own time. I just want to know if they could get their hands on a corroborating witness. Someone who might’ve named you under duress, or someone here who hates your guts enough to claim they saw something.”
Hawkeye's grip and chest both loosened slightly, but only slightly. As much as he liked this particular C.O., he was still a C.O. “What’s the difference? If there is, there’s nothing I can do, is there?”
“There are ways. I can pull in favors, I can send your enemies on well-timed R and R, you can call in your own witnesses. I know you have a nurse or two who could vouch for you, and Sidney signing a piece of paper wouldn’t hurt either. But I have to know what’s necessary.”
Did he even have a choice but to trust him? He was lost at sea here; he needed a guide who knew the army, who could save him from the army, and the only one he had was a colonel in that army. Sure, he liked the guy, but what did that amount to when his entire career as a surgeon was on the line? He had friends he’d known for twenty years who didn’t know his romantic history featured almost as many men as women, but he was supposed to take Potter’s word that he didn’t care enough to turn him in?
No, think about it. Flagg had obviously gotten the idea in his head from a joke, so if one of his few army bedpost notches of the masculine persuasion was listing names it would be a total coincidence of timing. There was no way they had anything on him, so he didn’t have to admit a thing.
“No,” he said. His voice was steadier than he felt. “No one would’ve accused me of anything.”
“What about closer to home? Anyone here who would take the opportunity to testify against you?”
He shrugged. “Frank’s gone. Zale owes me thirty bucks. Nurse Llewelyn thought I’d buy her a ring even though she knew my reputation, but I think she’s moved on by now.”
Potter nodded. “Good. I’ll make sure everyone knows that if I lose my chief surgeon because of someone’s loose lips they’ll wish they’d sewn them up instead of flapping them. But everyone here likes you, and they all know what you’re like. If you manage to restrain yourself from flirting with the investigator, we shouldn’t have a problem.”
“I think I can just about manage that,” he said, and then, because he was still teeming with nervous energy, “unless he looks like Clark Gable. Then all bets are off.”
“Pierce.”
“Katherine Hepburn then. You ever see that movie, what was it, she crossdressed as a man? More convincing than Klinger, but not as flashy.” His fingers were still tapping out a routine.
“You should practice your salute. And make sure you’re wearing fatigues when you see him. It doesn’t hurt to look like a real soldier.”
“Oh, you’d say anything to get me out of this bathrobe.”
“You should also consider getting rid of your nudie mags.”
Now that was just unfair. “What? Why? If they busted everyone who had a Sunshine and Health they’d have to close the war due to lack of participation!"
Potter held up his hands. “I just think, as a precaution, it might be prudent not to have any pictures of naked men lying around your tent while you’re under investigation.”
Well, when he put it that way… “How long do I have 'til someone gets here?”
“No more than a couple of days. Maybe less. You’re lucky the mail wasn’t delayed or we’d both be blindsided.”
“You really know how to reassure a guy,” he said. “Anything else?”
Potter eyed him for a moment, like he was sizing him up. “That should cover it for now. You’re dismissed.”
***
Potter was as good as his word and the next day half the camp seemed to know that Hawkeye’s big mouth had gotten him into trouble, and most guessed what kind of trouble. But, aside from maybe a suspicious glance or two, no one batted an eye.
“Really, I don’t know what you expected,” Margaret said during breakfast. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, the way you terrorized Frank. You even kissed him!”
BJ nearly spilled his coffee. “You kissed Frank?”
Hawkeye’s sausage didn’t pass inspection so he tossed it onto BJ’s tray. “What can I say, he’s cute when he’s angry.”
“See what I mean? I don’t know why he never reported you.”
“Maybe because he kissed me back.” He winked at her, and she rolled her eyes. He wondered if she’d ever encouraged Frank to report him. He wouldn’t have put it past her, back then — but if she had then he probably wouldn’t still be here to get investigated today. Either way, it was all water under the bridge now. He sniffed a forkful of powdered eggs, dropped them, and resigned himself to the toast.
BJ side-eyed him as he swallowed a bite of his own world war two memorabilia. “Shouldn’t you try toning it down, under the circumstances?”
He’d thought of that, but shutting up had never been his strong suit. The first thing on his mind was also the first thing out of his mouth. Maybe he could brazen his way through the interview with one-word answers and white knuckles, but all bets were off during casual conversation before the guy even got here. “I need to get it out of my system,” he offered as an explanation. “You handsome devil, you.”
“I’m a married man.”
“And I cry myself to sleep over it every night.”
“But seriously,” BJ said, and he did sound concerned, “you are going to be able to beat this, right?”
Margaret jumped back in. “Don’t be silly, he’ll be fine. The U.S. army wouldn’t condemn a man over a lousy sense of humor.”
Hawkeye turned to BJ pointedly. “How is it that the person whose whole life revolves around the army knows the least about it?”
“I think you answered your own question.”
“Oh, really,” Margaret huffed. “Don’t you two ever get sick of cynicism?”
“I got my booster shot last month,” Hawkeye said. Then, noticing Klinger striding purposefully towards their table, white tulle floating in his wake, “Ah, Moira Shearer in the flesh. Come to ask me to dance?”
“You, sir, owe me one,” he said, brandishing an outraged finger at him. “It’s thanks to you I have to hide the Klinger Collection on short notice. What am I gonna do, huh? It takes up a whole tent!”
“Are they doing door-to-door inspections now?” BJ interjected.
Hawkeye raised a suggestive eyebrow at him. “Why, you got something to hide?”
Before BJ could either scold or humor him Klinger answered with, “It’s a precaution. I’m pleading insanity, not deviance, and the colonel says these guys love witch hunts. So are you gonna help me or what?”
“Klinger, I’ve got problems of my own right now.”
“Oh please, you’re a surgeon, they’ll be looking for any excuse to keep you on board. I’m just a corporal, I’m replaceable.”
“Not in our hearts.”
“I’ll talk to the nurses,” Margaret interrupted loudly and with a grand show of exasperation. Hawkeye scowled at her, but shut up for the moment. “I’m sure between all the women we can fit your wardrobe into our tents.”
Klinger beamed. “Gee, thanks, Major! That’s really swell of you!” Then his eyes narrowed with only a veneer of parody. “You will give them back, right?”
She gave him an innocent smile. “Of course, I’ll make sure they all get back to you. Except that green blouse. You know the one.”
His face fell. “You drive a hard bargain. But deal.” They shook on it.
“So, do I still owe you?” Hawkeye asked now that they were done.
Klinger looked back at him and shrugged. “Buy me a drink at the O-Club later, we’ll call it even.” Then he turned on his three inch heel and walked out of the mess tent.
“Careful, that kind of talk is what got us into this mess,” Hawkeye called after him.
BJ turned to him again. “The cops are going to spend five minutes with you and make up their minds.”
“Maybe they’ll think I’m funny. Everyone else does.”
“That’s certainly a matter of opinion,” Margaret said before picking up her tray and nodding at him and BJ. “Try to stay out of trouble, Pierce.”
“If they didn’t make so many rules I wouldn’t have to break them,” he said, to BJ this time rather than Margaret’s retreating back. BJ just sipped his coffee with a slight grimace. “Anyway,” he continued, returning to BJ’s earlier question, “Potter says I’ll probably be fine. Flagg’s put whatever credibility he had out of its misery, and as long as I don’t confess there’s not much they can do. Hey, no one here secretly hates me, right?”
“Only openly, as far as I know. But I don’t think Charles is going to sabotage you. He had his chance already.”
“I guess I should just be glad Frank’s gone.”
“You wouldn’t have even got this far if he was here,” BJ agreed, sending a little shudder through him. He could just imagine Frank leaping at the chance to falsify evidence for Flagg to get him hauled away as a communist. As loathsome as Charles could be, he’d take three of him over one Frank any day.
“Remind me to send dear old Charles a thank you card when all this is over,” he said, and popped the last bite of stale toast in his mouth.
With that, BJ headed for his post-op shift, and Hawkeye spent the next twenty minutes searching for Radar before finding him in his petting zoo.
“Have I got an offer for you,” he said as the kid gave the guinea pigs a few handfuls of wilted lettuce. It seemed unfair; if anyone ought to be eating well in this place you’d think it would be the rodents.
“What’s that?” said Radar with a surprisingly curt edge. Maybe Babette had tried to escape again.
“You’ll love it, I promise. It’s the next best thing since they patched your hole in the women’s showers. How would you like to peruse all the naked volleyball pictures you could want for the next few days?”
Instead of the expected excitement, elatement, or ecstasy, he got a suspicious look as Radar practically backed away from him and towards the next cage, the one leased to the skunk. “Why?” he asked.
Well, it was pretty obvious what this was about. “To seduce you,” Hawkeye answered with an eye-roll. “I was gonna move up to flowers next. I just can’t resist your tiny little body.”
“Hey! You said you’d stop making fun of my height!”
“Yeah, well, you deserved that one. What’s with the attitude? Are you scared the accusations are contagious or I am?”
“The accusations are contagious,” Radar muttered sullenly.
“All right, fine, but the investigator isn’t here yet so you can still be seen talking to me. Unless you don’t want to.” Hawkeye crossed his arms, letting all the offense he’d taken show.
Radar looked conflicted for a moment, but ultimately relented. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “This is all just because of a joke anyhow, right?”
“Nothing more exciting than that,” Hawkeye confirmed. It might’ve been nice to hear that it wouldn’t matter even if the rumors were true, but he’d take what he could get. “Not for lack of trying, but that Colonel Flagg is a tough nut to crack.” This time Radar suppressed a laugh, and he gave himself a pat on the back. Everyone kept telling him the jokes would be his downfall, but they were the best defense he had. One lunatic out for revenge wasn’t going to change that.
“So, do you want to babysit my magazines, or not?”
The suspicion returned, milder than before but still aggravating. “Well, wait a minute, why are you getting rid of them anyway? ‘Cause if it’s ‘cause they’re perverted somehow, count me out.”
“I resent that, there’s nothing more wholesome than a community of nudists gathering together to play sports. It’s practically the Garden of Eden all over again.” Radar just scowled, so Hawkeye went with the utterly reasonable truth. “Because there’s men in them,” he said. “You know that, I’ve seen you peeking. It’s — ironically — how they get away with claiming the pictures aren’t pornographic. C’mon, every soldier in the army would kill to get their hands on these, no one would look at you twice. I just have the bad luck of being under the extremely suspicious eyes of the military right now. They’d probably arrest me if I pinned a picture of Marlene Dietrich in trousers above my bed.”
“Well…” He succumbed to temptation, as Hawkeye knew he would. “Fine. Drop ‘em off tonight.”
“You’ll be thanking me tomorrow,” he said, and left the area before Radar could open the skunk’s cage. He’d taken enough risks since he’d come to Korea.
***
That evening Hawkeye bought Klinger his drink, and then two more after that. Father Mulcahy sat at the piano trying and failing to coax it into a melody, a couple of couples shuffled around awkwardly with the unpredictable rhythm, and there were two empty glasses behind him and half a scotch in front of him, so all things considered it was a decent night if you ignored what was looming on the horizon. But he’d never been any good at ignoring these things, and now that they’d run out of small talk and petty complaints about what the nurses would undoubtedly do to his wardrobe, Klinger wasn’t helping either.
“So what’d they get you for, anyway?” he finally asked.
“I said something to Colonel Flagg — Major Flagg now — and I think I broke his heart when he realized it was just a joke.”
“So not…” he trailed off pointedly.
“No, not…” Hawkeye mimicked. “Please, I’m careful.” They were at a corner table as far from the rest of the bar as they could get, but he still kept his voice low.
“You don’t act all that careful.”
“Ah, but that’s the act.”
Klinger looked like he’d just been asked to divide a five digit number. “What?”
“I’m never serious so no one takes me seriously. I can say whatever I want as long as I’m doing a Groucho impression.”
"You're trying to tell me it's all calculated?”
He laughed. “Of course not, I’m just lucky. If I had worse comic timing I would’ve been discharged two days after I showed up because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”
“Oh. Well, that figures." Klinger took a swig, approaching the dregs. “So what are you going to do when the M.P.s get here?”
“Guess I’ll try harder to be boring. Want another round?”
“You still buying?”
“You lost a blouse thanks to me, seems only fair.” Klinger drained his beer and handed him the empty bottle. When he sat back down with a clink of glass hitting wood, Hawkeye couldn’t help but ask: “Why'd you sacrifice it, anyway?”
“You were there. No way I could out-haggle Margaret, and I come from a long line of distinguished hagglers.”
“I mean why hide the dresses at all? Why not parade them out and take the discharge? You’ve got the perfect escape — what do you care if ‘homosexual’ goes on your permanent record? You’ll probably be working at a family business when this is all over, right?”
Klinger gave him an I-thought-you-had-a-brain look. “Aw, c’mon, why limit myself? I got an uncle with a friend or two in high places, and even he couldn’t get me a job with that on my record. And no G.I. bill… I don’t wanna go back to washing dishes and running crooked craps games.”
Hawkeye took a long swig of his scotch with just a tinge of theatricality to emphasize his understanding. That was exactly where he’d end up if all didn’t go well. Maybe worse, because his dad didn’t own a restaurant, he owned a practice that wouldn’t be able to employ him as a doctor if he lost his license, and didn’t need a receptionist or orderly — and that was if he wasn’t run out of town on a rail before he got that far. “Touché,” he said, and raised his glass. “Here’s to the irony of us, of all people, doing our damnedest to stay in the army this week.”
Klinger laughed and clinked drinks with him. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
***
He wasn’t any good at anticipation, and with dread added to the equation, forget about it. BJ and Charles were getting closer and closer to strangling him in his bed as he spent two nervous nights climbing the walls and draining the still and kvetching for as long as anyone would listen, and a little longer after that. As much as he hated waiting, for once in his miserable stay here he wished time would stand still for a while and draw it out even longer. He had more than his fair share of confidence in many things, from his head to his toes with important stops at his mouth, his hands, and his pelvis, but his ability to play Real Army wasn’t one of them.
But inevitably time and soldiers marched on, and while they had six casualties in need of repair Radar rushed into the O.R. with an announcement.
“Um, sir, a Sergeant Schafer, C.I.D., just drove in.” Hawkeye was never gonna let his hands shake in someone’s thoracic cavity over a little thing like that, but the hairs on the back of his neck definitely stood up.
“Thank you, Radar,” said Potter. “Give him the tour and tell him I’ll be with him in an hour or two.”
“Finally,” said Charles. “At least one way or another I won’t have to withstand Pierce’s whining another day.”
“I’ll start rending my garments and wailing every night just to spite you if you’re not careful.”
“If you’re not sent home in disgrace.”
“Major,” warned Potter.
Charles fell silent, granting Hawkeye the last word. “After these past three months with you I’m considering getting down on my knees and proposing to this guy just to escape.” He dropped the briefest of pauses after “knees,” just for fun.
“Children, please.”
After they’d changed out of their scrubs, Potter told him to stay while BJ and Charles headed back to the Swamp. “There are a few more things you should know before you talk to him.”
“Oh good, what’s the bad news now?”
Potter sighed. “Official policy has changed a little since the last time I had to deal with this, but I asked around, made a few calls, so we’d be up to date on what to expect. They do their best to catch you off guard and trick a confession out of you, and they only get so many because the suspects don’t know when they’re lying to gain their trust, so pay attention.”
Hawkeye sat down on the bench beside him, resigned. “All right, hit me.”
“He might promise you won’t be discharged, he might feign understanding and concern, he could agree to keep it off the record. He might say he just wants to get you in touch with a psychiatrist. It’ll all be lies.”
There he went again, taking it as read that the accusation had a kernel of truth. Was he really so obvious? “Even if I had something to confess, I wouldn’t turn to a priest, let alone the cops,” he said.
“Maybe not, but he’ll probably have a tape recorder with him too, so don’t say anything that could even be interpreted as a confession, I don’t care how good a punchline it is.”
He had to hand it to him, Potter knew his weaknesses. He mimed zipping his mouth shut with a flourish.
Potter rolled his eyes, and continued on. “He might threaten you with prison time. That’ll be a lie too. Even the brass needs a concrete reason to sentence a man.” He didn’t trust that one as much — military courts didn’t even have lawyers. Who knew what they could get away with? He nodded anyway.
The next tip stopped him short. “They probably won’t do this outside H.Q., but they do sometimes make suspects strip and interrogate them in the nude.”
“Why the hell —?”
“Intimidation tactic. If they can’t cajole a confession, they’ll try to force one. Like I said, it probably won’t happen here, but it’s best if you know the lengths they’ll go to. They’ll make the process as uncomfortable and intimidating as they can, just to keep you off balance.”
“Right,” he said a little faintly. This was shaping up to be one of his less fun afternoons in Korea, and the competition was stiff. Usually from rigor mortis.
“Be prepared for a whole slew of personal questions too. He’ll want to know everything about your sex life.”
“I bet he won’t even buy me dinner first.”
“Your shamelessness should come in handy, at least.” Potter paused for a moment, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “This is another odd one, but if he sticks something down your throat, you should do your best to throw up on his shoes.”
“Uh. Please tell me that’s just a set-up for one of those punchlines I shouldn’t say.”
“Something like a tongue depressor, Chuckles. They test your gag reflex, and if you don’t have one it's a big strike against you.”
He was feeling a little queasy now — which, apparently, could only help. Never would have guessed that one. “This keeps getting better and better. Think I could make it a weekly date?”
“If you’re not careful, yes,” Potter replied pointedly. The jab hit neatly.
“Touché. Any other cards up his sleeve you wanna point out?”
“I think that about does it.” Potter stood up and stretched. Hawkeye watched him. How many interviews and tribunals had he sat in on a decade or two ago for people less valuable than a surgeon? Whatever self-preservation instincts he had chased the thought out of his head. Didn’t matter, as long as he was on his side right now.
“Oh, and don’t tell him I told you any of this obviously. As far as anyone knows, I told you about Flagg’s accusation and put you under observation, and that’s it.”
“Right. It’ll be our little secret.” He followed Potter out the door, and headed to the Swamp to wait for his number to be called.
***
“He searched the place!” came BJ’s voice as soon as Hawkeye opened the door to the Swamp.
“I guess Klinger warned us. Did he steal anything?”
“If he so much as touched my record player I’ll kill him and spare you all this trouble.” Charles didn’t turn to look at him, examining his pride and joy closely for, presumably, fingerprints.
“That’s sweet of you,” he said, and collapsed into his chair.
“I hate to think that he read any of my letters.” BJ was rifling through the small pile he’d had out. There was still a mountain in his footlocker.
“You didn’t tell Peg about us, did you?”
“Hey — you said you’d quit the jokes when he got here. For all you know he could be outside right now.”
That had occurred to him, about an eighth of a second after the words had come out of his mouth. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m retiring the comedy circuit now. Serious answers only.” Fuck, Schafer had better not have had the place bugged. If he dragged BJ into this just because he couldn’t keep his idiotic mouth shut he’d never forgive himself.
“Thank goodness for small mercies,” chimed in Charles. Hawkeye stuck his tongue out at his back, and BJ stifled a laugh.
He changed into his fatigues and settled in his chair to wait, trying not to feel like he was on death row. Not half an hour later, Radar showed up on their doorstep apologetically. “Colonel Potter says to meet him in his office, uh, Captain Pierce, sir.”
“Well, time for my date. Meeting.” He felt like he had weights tied to his neck as he rose to his feet. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” said BJ at the same time as Charles said, “You’re going to need it.”
“Thank you BJ.” And then he was out the door. He had the brief urge to run in the opposite direction, but despite his long legs he’d never been much of a runner so it didn’t catch. That and he wasn’t quite desperate enough to make a mad dash for the minefield. Yet.
Potter stood behind his desk, and the man of the hour stood beside him, looking a lot like a frog in a swarm of flies, slime and all. Hawkeye had seen a lot of smug smiles since he’d been drafted, but this one really made his spine tingle.
“Captain Pierce, allow me to introduce Sergeant Schafer, C.I.D. Sergeant Schafer, this is Captain Benjamin Pierce.”
Offending every screaming instinct in his body, Hawkeye gave the creep a “Sergeant,” and a salute you could slice bread with. It wasn’t returned.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Schafer said, “I’ll take it from here.”
Potter turned to Hawkeye with one last warning look. “Give me a shout if you need anything,” he said to Schafer, and left Hawkeye alone with him. He suddenly felt a little too much like a fly for comfort.
Schafer gestured to the chair in front of Potter’s desk, and moved to the one behind it. Hawkeye sat, planting both feet on the ground and folding his hands in his lap, as polite and attentive as could be. He waited while Schafer pulled open a drawer, reached inside, did something that made a click — turned on a tape recorder, he’d bet — and then produced a clipboard and pen from somewhere near his feet and looked across at him with a laser focus in his beady eyes.
“Please state your name, rank, and serial number for the record,” he said.
Hawkeye took a breath. “Benjamin Franklin Pierce, M.D. Captain. One-nine-nine-oh-five-six-oh-seven.” As bad as it would look he wished he still had to consult his dog tags for the number.
Schafer drew a single line, ticking a box maybe. Subject confirmed. Why take both notes and a recording anyway? Just to make him feel observed? He probably wasn’t supposed to know about the tape.
“Formerly employed at Brigham Hospital, Boston, Massachussettes. Thoracic surgery under Doctor Leonard Harper. Is that correct?”
Coming right out the gate with the intimidation tactics, then. He couldn’t keep the surprise from showing on his face, but maybe that was good. He probably shouldn’t come across as too well prepared. “Yes, sir,” he said, managing to keep the sour taste of the second word off his face.
“Do you know why I’m here today?”
He bit back the first flurry of replies that cannonballed through his head. Because the army has no sense of humor, because Flagg is a sore loser, because you couldn’t get a date tonight, because God is punishing me for my hubris, because because because. “Because Major Flagg made a complaint about me,” he said.
“And do you know what that complaint was?”
“Well, not the exact wording, but I assume it had something to do with a joke I made.”
“And what was the joke?”
“He said something threatening and sexually suggestive to me, so I responded in kind. I think I said, ‘Take me, I’m yours.’” There, describing it out loud made it impossible to deny that this whole affair was a laughable waste of time. If there was any justice in the world he’d be out of here in five minutes. But his heart did a little pirouette in his chest upon Schafer's next words.
“And why do you think that’s what this interview is about?”
"Isn’t it? Colonel Potter told me — well, he said Flagg was accusing me of, uh, sexual deviancy, and that was the last thing I said to him. What else could it be?”
Schafer wrote something down, silent for a few seconds, and Hawkeye painfully swallowed the urge to keep talking. The army was lucky the North Koreans had never gotten their hands on him; they wouldn’t even have to torture him, they’d just need someone to stand around expectantly and he’d tell them anything. Not that he knew a damn thing about the U.S. army’s strategy beyond what the North Koreans already knew: that they’d bomb or shoot or immolate anyone they felt like. And it wouldn’t take bamboo skewers for him to tell them all about arterial transplants, he’d do that for free. What on earth was this guy writing?
Finally Schafer spoke, as if in answer to the silent question. “I’m only ascertaining what you’re aware of. There’s no reason to be nervous.”
Spoken like sycophantic believers in the American way everywhere. “You want nervous, you should see me when this place is being shelled. This is nothing.” Already losing control of his mouth, not the best sign.
Schafer smiled thinly. “I’m sure.” He made another note, even though there was no way he’d said anything relevant. “I’d just like to ask you some routine questions now. Please answer honestly.” He nodded; Schafer wrote that down too. All this attention was almost flattering. “Have you ever had a homosexual experience?” Schafer began.
“No,” he said evenly. Schafer’s pen scratched at his paper.
“What do you think I mean by ‘homosexual experience?’” was the next question, and that one threw him a little.
“Sex with another man,” he answered, hoping it wasn’t some kind of trick question.
“But there’s many different types of sex, right?” Okay, not much of a trick then.
“I figured it applied to all types, unless there’s a loophole I wasn’t informed of.”
“And how do you define ‘sex?’”
“Genital contact,” he said. “For the sake of pleasure or procreation, I must add, as a doctor.”
“Hmm,” Schafer said, noting that down as well. He paused for a moment to meet Hawkeye’s eyes. “Let me assure you that you can be completely truthful with me. I am perfectly aware of the proclivities of homosexuals, so nothing you can say will shock me. And there’s no cause for concern. If we discover a problem, we can refer you to help.”
Potter’s warnings about false assurances echoed in his brain loud and clear. “I wouldn’t lie to you,” he lied blithely.
Schafer gave him a thin smile. “Of course. Then let’s continue. Have you had any sexual encounters with women?”
Easy. “Plenty of ‘em.”
“What do you find most attractive in a woman?”
He raised an eyebrow. Maybe they got a lot of idiots tripping up and accidentally saying broad shoulders and bulging muscles. “I’m partial to a good, curvy figure myself. Long hair, broad hips, the works.”
“Do you find yourself drawn to the male figure?”
“No.”
Schafer’s pen never ceased its flurry across the page. “Do you engage in manual stimulation during your sexual encounters?”
Hawkeye blinked at the rapid escalation, but remained unfazed. Thanks again, Colonel. “Sure. I’m a surgeon — it’d be a waste of talent if I didn’t.”
“Do you engage in oral stimulation?” He’d gained enough expertise on obscenity in his time to know that even admitting to wholesome, heterosexual oral sex posed a risk, however minute, thanks to the technicalities of the laws on the books. They weren’t likely to nail him to the wall for it, but who knew what these guys were willing to throw at him if they were frustrated enough?
“Only if kissing counts,” he answered.
“Do you enjoy caressing the breasts of women?” Did he have a checklist?
“Absolutely.”
Schafer went on like that, and Hawkeye had the distinct impression that he wasn’t trying to catch him in a lie so much as trying to make him blush. Potter had been right — his shamelessness was useful right now. If anything he was starting to feel like he had the upper hand. After a long series of questions that wouldn’t have felt out of place at a stag film audition, which he figured he passed with flying colors, Schafer swapped out the genders, and he switched to stonewalling with ease.
“Have you ever kissed a man?”
“No.”
“Have you ever engaged in manual stimulation with another man?”
“No.”
This round was a lot briefer, Hawkeye resolutely giving Schafer absolutely nothing to work with. Soon enough, he gave up on his sex life and moved on to more personal questions.
“Have you ever considered getting married?”
He managed to catch the wow, guess you were enjoying this more than I thought before it flew out of his mouth. “Once,” he answered. “She turned me down. Didn’t want to play second fiddle to my career.”
“No other serious relationships in your life?”
“No romantic ones.”
“But you have other relationships?”
“Family and friends.”
Schafer lifted the paper on his clipboard to peer at one of the pages underneath his notes. “Ah yes, your family. That would be Daniel and Rachel Pierce. Only child. Mother deceased, father residing in Crabapple Cove, Maine.” Like the mention of his workplace, there was a hint of threat there. Wouldn’t it be a shame if someone were to mention this to your father? But unlike his boss, he didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to his dad — and if all went well, they’d have nothing to say to the Chief of Thoracic Surgery either.
“That’s them.”
“Are you close to your father?”
“Yeah.”
He expected a barrage of questions about Doctor Daniel Pierce to follow, but instead Schafer moved right along. “Were you close to your mother?”
He managed not to falter. “As close as any kid, I guess.”
“How did she die?”
He took a breath and willed himself to stay detached. He’d take invasive questions about his sex life over this any day. “Terminal illness,” he said.
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Sad.”
“You’ve seen a lot of death since, haven’t you?”
Odd line of questioning, but he could manage. “Since coming to Korea.”
“There was someone who died at this unit, a little over a year ago. A Thomas Gillis.”
And that was when Hawkeye’s brain screeched to a halt and left streaks of burned rubber all over his skull. They had something. They had something, and he’d had no — he’d been dancing for this asshole for half an hour now and — none of it was going to matter? No, it wasn’t a sure thing, he didn’t know what they had. He couldn’t fuck it up now.
“Yeah,” he managed after too long of a pause. Grief. They were talking about his friend’s death, it was natural to be fazed. That didn’t stop Schafer from scribbling on his clipboard like he’d just discovered the secret to eternal life and had to write down the recipe before he forgot it.
“Did you know him?” Schafer had no more eagerness in his voice than he’d had throughout the rest of the interview, but when he looked up from his notes his eyes burned a hole through Hawkeye’s head.
“He was from my home town. Yeah, I knew him. What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
“When Gillis was killed, a man in his unit became upset, nearly hysterical. He was brought in for questioning, based on certain things other men overheard him say. He confessed to us that Gillis was a homosexual who had seduced him. Does this come as a shock?”
“I couldn’t be more shocked if you hooked me up to an electric chair,” Hawkeye answered truthfully. He was so shocked at the turn this interview had taken he should be lying down with his feet elevated.
“Perhaps you would also be shocked to learn that, in exchange for certain privileges, this man agreed to list the names of some of Gillis’ other lovers. Unfortunately, only one name on the list could be connected to active military personnel. But another name was unusual enough that it stuck in my memory. When I heard it again I couldn’t help but recall that young man’s confession. Hawkeye.”
“The guy must have been mistaken,” Hawkeye said, knowing Schafer knew he was lying, pretending he was talking to whichever bored schmuck would be listening to the recording tomorrow instead. “Tommy must have mentioned that I was a friend. He got the wrong idea.” He could feel beads of sweat on his forehead; he had to stop himself from calling for a cloth like he was in the middle of a pulmonary resection.
“Are you sure you had no idea that Gillis was a homosexual? I’m told that he was not particularly reticent with suggestive comments. Of course, I’m told the same about you.”
“Did anyone report Tommy before he died?” Schafer didn’t respond, but Hawkeye barrelled on anyway as though he had. “There you go. I bet no one else had any idea, so why should I? He was a regular comedian. That’s how I saw him. Maybe I picked up some of my sense of humor from him.”
“And nothing else?”
“No.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Gillis. How did you meet?”
He didn't want to, he really, really didn't, but what else could he do? "I met him at school. We were kids. It was a small town, he was one of fifty friends I had."
"Yet he mentioned you to his intimate."
"You said it — 'Hawkeye' is unusual, it stands out, so that’s what he remembered. Tommy probably mentioned Tom, Dick, and Harry too, and those names just didn't stick in his head."
"Perhaps." The way he was looking at Hawkeye made him feel like he’d already done the striptease Potter had warned him about. “Why did you become friends?”
“He was funny. We got along, we made each other laugh.”
“Did you ever have sexual contact with him?” Hawkeye didn’t even blink.
“We both had sexual contact with the same girl a couple of weeks apart once, does that count?”
“Did he ever kiss you?”
Denial was the only card he could play, and he laid it down with aplomb. “He used to brag about how good he was but no, he never offered a demonstration.”
“Did you ever think about it?” His monotone was going to drive Hawkeye crazy.
“I’m afraid I was too preoccupied thinking about girls. Sorry to disappoint.”
If he was disappointed that his blunt questions hadn’t shocked a confession out of him, Schafer didn’t show it, but he did change tack. “Tell me about the day he died.”
Don’t let him rattle you. “He was wheeled into the operating room. I saw him. I tried to save his life. Didn’t work.”
“How did you try to save his life?”
“I wanted to open him up — open heart massage.” He ran a hand through his hair. “My C.O. wouldn’t let me. It would’ve been useless anyway. I don't even know how he got into the O.R., unless Frank triaged him — this was before the nurses learned. Not even enough time to say goodbye."
“How did that make you feel?”
“How do you think it made me feel?! It made me angry! At Henry, at him, at myself, at every idiot volunteer who thinks there’s a good reason for shooting and being shot — how the fuck was I supposed to feel?” A part of him that he’d tied to a chair in the back of his head sometime in the past thirty seconds screamed at him to shut up. “You know Tommy was a volunteer? I assumed he’d been drafted, one of the rare unlucky thirty year olds, but oh no no no, he volunteered because he wanted to write a book about it. A book! No one’s ever going to read that book now. What the hell was a journalist doing playing soldier? I couldn’t even — he wouldn’t have listened, but I didn’t even tell him he was being an idiot. I figured it was his own choice. And now he’s dead.”
He only realized he was on his feet when Schafer threw him the next question and he turned back to look at him from the new angle. "Do you have any regrets about your relationship with him?” he asked, just as unaffected as he’d been for every other question.
Something in him snapped, sick to death of questions about the worst day of his life. “Like what?” he asked venomously. “That I should’ve kissed him goodbye? What the hell does it matter?”
“Did you want to kiss him?”
Hawkeye laughed, harsh and bitter. “You never quit, do you? All you care about is making people’s lives miserable if they don’t fit into the Norman Rockwell painting above your fireplace, am I right? Not a thought spared for the hundreds of men you bastards send to their deaths every day. A man died fighting your war for you, and all you want to know is whether I wanted to kiss him? I’ll tell you what, if you can bring him back right now I’ll kiss him just for you.”
He was silent for a moment, and then a click rang through his ears. Schafer had turned off the tape recorder.
“I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?” he said. Hawkeye stared at him, frozen in place. He’d fucked up. Schafer had just read him like a fucking billboard, and gotten exactly what he wanted.
His mouth opened again. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You said a great deal. I’m going to recommend a psychiatric evaluation. You’ll accompany me back to Seoul H.Q.” You could grease a cake pan with Schafer’s smile.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked after another long moment filled with visions of padded rooms and jail cells and the director of surgery at Brigham telling him he wasn’t welcome back, terribly sorry, but we can’t employ a man with your predilections, please remove yourself from the premises —
“Not yet. Not if you cooperate.” Schafer picked up his briefcase and stood to open it on the desk. The clipboard went into it, as did the tape recorder, which he was no longer bothering to hide from Hawkeye’s view. Guess it had served its purpose.
“Am I being thrown into an unmarked van right away or do I have time to pack a bag and say goodbye?” He had to talk to Potter. He needed to know what his odds were, exactly how hard he was about to be fucked, if there was anything he could do. What had he even said? What does it even matter. What was more damning, that, or the sarcastic offer of a kiss?
Schafer closed the briefcase and looked up at him. “You won’t need to pack. Everything you need will be provided at H.Q., and we’ll send for your personal effects in the case that you’re discharged, or otherwise removed from the line of duty.”
He didn’t ask this time. “Come get me when you’re ready, then,” he said, and nearly ran out of the office. He jogged past rows of empty beds in post-op, feeling like there was something chasing him, slow and steadily getting closer no matter how fast he went. He caught Nurse Armstrong on her way into the supply room and asked if she’d seen Potter recently.
“Last I saw him he was about to get lunch,” she said.
He ran to the mess tent next, actually ran. He didn’t know how long he’d have before Schafer tapped him on the shoulder and told him to get in the jeep. Could be two minutes. His driver could be at the wheel, waiting.
Potter was still there, sitting at a table with BJ and Margaret, all three sipping coffee. It was past lunchtime and before dinner, so no one else was around; they were probably waiting just for him. They looked up as he burst through the door.
“They’re taking me to Seoul,” he said without preamble.
BJ set his cup down hard enough to slosh coffee over the side, and Margaret’s mouth fell open. “What?” she said with a gasp. He couldn’t tell if she was upset on his behalf or surprised he’d been a bit of a fag all along.
“Hawkeye, you’re going to single-handedly raise my blood pressure five points,” said Potter, looking more disappointed than anything.
“I didn’t say anything! Nothing — he, he said something, the whole interview went sideways, I gave him a whole shpiel about dead soldiers, I made one joke, and I told him it didn’t matter and it was stupid to care about this while people are dying, and he closed the case! What do I do?”
“They can’t possibly get you with that, it’s gotta be —" BJ began, but Potter interrupted.
“Quiet,” he said, holding up his hand for silence. “How did it go sideways?”
Hawkeye glanced between BJ and Margaret, but if they didn’t believe him the professional headshrinkers at H.Q. definitely wouldn’t, so he told them about Tommy in broad strokes.
“So they have whatever I said in there, and a second hand mention of my name in relation to a guy from my hometown. Can they nail me with that?”
Potter’s chin was resting on his hand, not like he was bored but like he was exhausted. Well, he could blame the army he loved so much for that; this wasn’t his fault.
"If they really want to, they can," he said eventually. The rush of blood to Hawkeye's head sounded like the torrential rain they got here sometimes.
"In that case, oops," he said, his own voice echoing in his ears. Margaret and BJ both leapt to their feet even though he was pretty sure he wasn't blacking out, just having a major cardiac event. He let them pull him down into a chair anyway.
"—Be all right," Potter was saying.
"I will?" He focused on Potter and not his heart pounding away in his chest like a fist beating uselessly against a wall.
"Hopefully," he said, in a tone that made it clear he was repeating himself. "You're the best surgeon here, and they still don't have anything concrete. It's very likely the boys in Seoul won't care nearly as much as this Schafer fellow. You get fanatics here and there, but most of the men investigating this kind of thing are just trying to make their jobs as easy as possible. I'll make some calls, see what Sidney has to say, get you some character witnesses. A woman willing to attest to your heterosexuality could help too. You have any nurses on hand willing to vouch for you?”
“I will,” said Margaret, and everyone at the table turned to look at her like she’d recited a dirty limerick, including him.
“Really?” he asked, touched.
An irritated flush rose in her cheeks. “Well, I’d like to help,” she said. “I don’t want to lose a good surgeon to a ridiculous witch hunt.”
“Are you two…?” Potter interjected, looking like he’d swallowed a june bug.
“No!” Margaret said just as Hawkeye said, “Just the once.”
Margaret gave him an outraged look. “You’re the one who brought it up,” he said defensively.
“All right,” Potter said. “Margaret, it wouldn’t hurt if you wrote a letter. BJ, you should write one too.”
“Uh,” said BJ.
“As a character witness, Bozo. ‘Captain Pierce is vital to the success of this unit and has never given anyone cause for concern.’ I’ll throw one in too. The more we can get the better — like I said, these people like to take the path of least resistance, so we should resist as much as we can. Any other women we should ask, Pierce?”
“I’m on good terms with Nurses Paulsen and Jacobs,” he offered. “Maybe Bigelow, she runs hot and cold. The rest are all immune to my wiles. Or mad at me.”
“Margaret?”
“Lieutenant Jacobs is married.” Said with a mild glare at Hawkeye.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning to propose to her.”
“I’ll talk to the others,” she said, turning back to Potter with an exasperated air.
“I’ll pass the hat around and see who else wants to put in a letter,” BJ added.
“And I’ll get on the horn to Sidney,” Potter finished.
"Okay, fantastic, thank you," Hawkeye said, hoping his sincerity peeked out through the panic. "What should I do in Seoul?"
"Remember everything I already told you, and do it this time."
He almost gave Potter an ironic salute, but held himself back. The colonel was going out on a limb for him and he was grateful as hell, which made even a mock salute feel like a step onto an icy slope. “I promise I’ll be extra good now,” he said instead.
“Don’t say anything, and even more importantly, don’t sign anything,” Potter reiterated. “Just hold out on them as long as you can — I’ll be working double time here to bring you back. It’ll work out.”
“Yeah, Hawk,” BJ added. “Try not to worry too much. We’ll all be doing everything we can to help.”
“You know me,” he said, “I’m unflappable. Nothing flaps me and gets away with it.”
Margaret actually let out a nervous giggle at that, which didn’t do much to help his nerves. Then she said, “Would you like some coffee? I was just about to get up.”
“Yeah, sure,” Hawkeye started to say before BJ interrupted with, “Uh oh, looks like he’s not going to have time for it.”
Hawkeye followed BJ’s gaze through the translucent tent canvas, and sure enough there was Schafer, striding across the camp in his direction.
“Figures,” he said. The asshole had probably detoured just long enough to find his driver before coming right after him. “At least I’ll miss out on dinner tonight.” He stood up just as Schafer got to the door.
“Ready, Captain?” the menace asked as soon as he was inside.
Before Hawkeye could ask if it made a difference, Potter spoke. “Now wait just a minute,” he said. “Sit down, Pierce.” That was an order he had no problem obeying right now. “This man is my best surgeon and I’m not parting with him without a damn good reason. Pierce tells me you’re dragging him all the way to Seoul just to ask more questions. Now, I have a right to know why you think that’s necessary, and when you’re going to be returning him once this wild goose chase comes to an end.”
“Colonel Potter,” Schafer said, and now his voice was warm and reassuring, with none of the clinical monotone he’d used earlier. What a professional. “I can assure you that it is in this country’s best interests to investigate all claims of sexual psychopathy as thoroughly as possible. I’m sure you understand the security risk posed by these individuals.” His eyes flicked to Hawkeye pointedly on that last part.
“And I’m sure you understand the risk posed by taking my chief surgeon off the front lines with hardly any evidence, let alone proof, that it’s necessary. Those wounded start piling up, we might as well be down two men without him.” As flattering as that was, he was starting to feel like a stick caught between two pitbulls.
“You’ll have to take it up with H.Q., I’m afraid. I’m just doing my own job as best as I can.”
“Believe me, I will. So you’d better be absolutely certain this is necessary.”
“Oh I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Hawkeye winced as BJ leapt into the fray. As much as he appreciated BJ’s urge to defend him, the sheer hostility in his tone made him wonder what BJ would think if he knew he was defending a lie.
“It means, of course, that our conversation has led me to believe that Captain Pierce is undoubtedly a deviant, and I have every confidence that a psychiatric evaluation will confirm this.”
“If you’re that certain, I want a receipt,” Potter said, cutting BJ’s retort off as soon as he’d opened his mouth.
Never mind a stick, he was a shoe. “A receipt?” he asked incredulously.
“Can it, Pierce.” Potter turned back to Schafer. “I want written proof of where he is, and a signed guarantee that he’ll either be charged with something or released back to the four oh seven seven within three days. That should give your boys enough time to interview him and make up their minds, and that way I’ll know whether I’ll need to requisition a new surgeon for the next lunchtime rush.”
Schafer sighed, like music to Hawkeye’s ears, and opened his briefcase.
“Of course, it’s not in my power to guarantee a time frame,” he said, uncapping his pen, “but I can have a status report relayed.” He scribbled something down as Hawkeye’s brief bubble of hope deflated. “I’d recommend filling his position immediately; he can always be reassigned if we determine there’s no cause for discharge.”
“Absolutely not,” said Potter firmly. Hawkeye would’ve kissed him and offered to fill in as the office carpet since he wanted to treat him like requisitioned furniture so badly, but that wouldn’t help his case.
“Suit yourself,” said Schafer. He signed his name and handed the note to Potter, who read it over.
“Fine,” he said, and that was the end of it.
***
Sherm watched him go, hoping this wasn't gonna be the last he'd see of the life of the not-quite party that was the four oh double seven.
"Well," he said, "you have your assignments. It's time for me to make some phone calls." He slapped his knees perfunctorily and stood up. The other two followed suit and they went their separate ways.
He started with Sidney. Really, he should’ve called him days ago, when he’d asked Hawkeye if it might be necessary — but he supposed he couldn’t blame the man for not wanting to admit that his name could be out there, considering what he was going through now. As much as he considered Hawkeye a friend, he was still his commander first and foremost, and that was the way it ought to be. He could expect Hawkeye’s trust in a lot of areas, but his sex life was outside their wheelhouse.
It took longer than expected for Radar to get through. Busy line, maybe. But the kid managed it eventually, so he picked up the phone at his desk.
“Always a pleasure, Sherm,” said the voice on the other end, “assuming you’re calling to schedule the next poker night.”
“‘Fraid not, Sidney. I need your professional advice. Our favorite captain’s gotten himself into trouble.”
“Mazel tov. When’s he due?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. Lord save him from comedians. “Very funny,” he said, in a tone that he hoped conveyed exactly how much he was laughing.
“All right, what’s the trouble?” Sidney conceded.
“Hawkeye’s just been hauled off to your neck of the woods to be investigated for sexual psychopathy.”
“Ah,” came Sidney’s less-than-fruitful response.
He filled him in on the details. “So what do you think? I was hoping you’d be willing to sign a statement on his behalf, but is there anything you can do besides?”
“Oh sure, I’ll write a letter.” The words came slow and steady, like he was considering everything he said carefully. “I’m in Tokyo on a consultation. Kid who lost his leg and his identity along with it.”
“Damn,” Sherm said. Must be why the call took so long to connect. “I was hoping he’d have an ally there at the hospital.”
Sidney chuckled mirthlessly. “Even if I was in town there are no guarantees. Not these days. Ten years ago I could’ve signed a form and sent him on his way. Now that could cost me my job.” A sigh crackled through the receiver. “But I’ll make some calls. Still, not sure how much good it’ll do if someone named him.”
“Near as I can tell it was a name once-removed, if that’s any help. A… friend of a friend of Hawkeye’s put his name on a list. Hawk’s swearing up and down that the kid was just handing over any name he’d ever heard the guy mention.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t think that matters, now, does it?”
“If you say it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.”
Sherm scowled into the middle distance. Maybe he shouldn’t blame Hawkeye; maybe his optimism had just been a decade out of date. He’d known the higher ups were stepping up the blues the last few years, but that was usually how it went in peacetime. He’d figured they’d cut it out while the war was on. But if even Sidney thought he might lose Hawkeye for good… “Is the prognosis really that bad?” he asked.
“It’s not good. But in Hawkeye’s case it’s hard to say. If he was a private it’d be over already, but a surgeon, especially one with his record, and no concrete proof — he’s got a good chance. It really just depends on who’s making the decision. I’ll make those calls and see what I can do to help from here. And I’ll send that statement tonight.”
“Thanks, Sid. I owe you one.”
“I’ll collect it in chips next time I come by the Swamp.”
Sidney hung up, and Sherm kept the receiver up to his ear. Sure enough, there was still faint breathing on the other end. “Radar, get me General Imbrie,” he said, relishing the surprised yelp. It was time to start making a fuss until he got his chief surgeon back.
***
Hawkeye sat in the back seat of the jeep on the way to Seoul, feeling about as helpless as he’d felt on his way to basic training. He had a to-do list that, despite the name, contained only don’ts. Don’t make jokes, don’t sign anything, don’t accuse any officers of being bloodthirsty warmongers, and especially don’t tell anyone in a white coat that the best kisser you’d ever known was a football player in pre-med named Jack Something-Or-Other.
All he was allowed to do, as far as he could tell, was breathe and keep his mouth shut.
“So how long does it usually take to get a verdict?” he asked, projecting his voice over the roar of the jeep and the wind.
“I couldn’t tell you, Captain,” Schafer said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“You’re quite suspicious.” That sounded like the prelude to another attempt to dig something out of him, and you didn’t have to be suspicious to notice.
“Can’t imagine why,” he said, to himself this time, and fell silent again.
The drive took an hour, and every time he tried to open his mouth Schafer’s smug satisfaction reminded him why that was a bad idea. He was torn between dread and relief when they reached Seoul near sun-down and pulled up in front of the hospital. It was deceptively unimposing: a series of white buildings tucked away behind the more military trappings of the rest of the base. There were lush trees everywhere, just starting to turn color with the approaching autumn, and big swaths of the yard, usually near benches, had been landscaped and gardened neatly. There were a few doctors and nurses in white coats wandering around, a few green and tan suited military men, and a few lost souls in blue robes, let out to take in the scenery. Wonder if any of them were here for the same reason as him?
There was a medical hospital elsewhere in the city; this was just the psych ward. Sidney had told him a little about it, and as he climbed out of the jeep, he kept his eye open for the one face guaranteed to be friendly here. He followed Schafer into the smallest building, front and center. Administration, Hawkeye figured when they stepped into the dim interior.
A fan creaked in slow circles above them, a few personnel in hospital and army garb milled around, and a woman in nurse white sat at a desk off to the side. Fluorescent light cast harsh shadows in the corners of the room and drained her face to ghostly pale. Despite the picturesque yard out front, this felt more like being checked into Hell than into a spa.
She looked up as he and Schafer approached, and hurriedly shoved something under the desk. A magazine, probably. Hopefully not a dirty one; Schafer would probably have her committed next for autoeroticism. She stood smartly and saluted. “Sergeant,” she said.
Schafer pulled the clipboard out from his briefcase and handed her the page on the top. “I’m requesting a psychological evaluation for this man, Captain Benjamin Pierce.” She read through whatever the paper said thoroughly, and Hawkeye crossed his arms and tapped his foot while he waited. Half agitation, half feigned nonchalance. Probably badly-feigned, but who was counting? Other than all the psychiatrists who’d have their eyes on him now, of course. Eventually she nodded, filed the paper away, and dug through a drawer to eventually find another form on another clipboard. “Sign here, please.”
He was signed in, and the receptionist waved someone over. A pair of someones. The orderlies — or maybe corpsmen was a more fitting term — flanked him like they thought he might make a run for it, and their imposing presences beside him made him want to give them something to chase. He held his hands behind his back and squeezed his fist in an attempt to keep his nervousness subtle.
“Well, I can’t say it’s been fun,” he said to Schafer after erasing the “Promise you’ll wait for me,” from his tongue. Schafer didn’t deign to respond. He just turned on his heel and left him with the corpsmen. Good fucking riddance. Hawkeye glanced at each of the men beside him. Both were tall and broad, one slightly taller than him, one just a hair shorter. The taller was handsome and young, with soft brown hair and a chiseled jaw right out of Adonis, while the other had a face like unfolded origami, past whatever prime he might’ve brushed against once.
“Come with us,” the older man said. Neither of them actually grabbed him, but he was painfully aware that they could drag him down the hallway without breaking a sweat if they had to, and had probably done so to plenty of other people over the course of this war. He followed them back out the front door and down a path that led behind the four main buildings he’d seen when they arrived. These two in the back were identical to the rest but had more shade from the trees. It was still pretty warm so maybe that was a good thing. He was led to the leftmost.
His mouth went dry as Older Corpsman pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the door. A locked ward. They were going to lock him in. He willed himself to stay calm. There were windows, it was a big place, there was no reason to panic. A cell in a basement, sure, that might be worth a heart attack or two, but this was nothing.
The inside was just as unpleasant as the front office had been, fluorescent lighting and green-gray walls combining into Dorothy Draper’s worst nightmare. He flinched as the door shut behind them with a click of the lock reengaging. If they were angling for a confession, the prison itself must’ve been step one. Enough time in here and he’d sign anything just to be sent somewhere else.
He and the orderlies made their way down the hall. There were windows to one side, but they faced south, away from the sun, and the wire cage behind each one didn't do much to make the place seem cheery. Doors lined the other wall to their right; he couldn't tell if they led to rubber-lined cells or storage closets. Some had little observation windows, but no one stuck their face up to one.
As they walked they only passed one person, a guy in a white coat. It was eerily empty and quiet for a hospital.
At the end of the corridor they stopped and Handsome gestured to a door — not to the double doors standing in their way, but to a right-hand side door, identical to the others. “You can change in there,” he said.
“Into what?”
“There’s clothes for you. Take whatever’s in your size.”
So Hawkeye stepped into the changing room. To his further jittery terror, it was barely bigger than a walk-in closet. Looking around filled his head with radio static, and, even though the door wasn't even lockable as far as he could tell, it was hard to call his fear irrational. He was already locked inside one cage. So far it was big enough that he could keep his head screwed on, but this little closet just felt like a smaller, suffocating version of the bigger prison.
He took several deep breaths, but it barely pulled the reins on his racing heart. There was nothing he could do except get dressed as quickly as possible. Running back out and making himself look insane while trapped in the funny farm wasn’t an option.
What the hell was he going to do if they locked him in a padded room? Maybe if it had windows it would be manageable — they must have windows, right? It would be inhuman to lock someone away in a room without a window. Get dressed. Stop thinking.
He couldn’t quite manage the latter, but he could focus on the former. The clothes were in drawers labeled from small to large, and they barely counted as clothes: hospital pajamas in a thin material half a step above paper. It wasn’t like he wanted cashmere, but they could at least use all the tax money the army was vacuuming up to spring for something that wasn’t going to give him a papercut. A wardrobe in the corner held house robes, dark blue, also thin, and trailing loose threads like they were on phenytoin.
He took off his shirt and jacket and optimistically held a medium top over his torso, but the sleeves didn’t even come down to his wrist bones. Great, the large was going to make him look like a rake in a dress. The one saving grace was that the pants had a drawstring. He changed as quickly as he could, then threw a robe over top, and tied it tightly to make himself look slightly less like a flagpole on a calm day. Finally, he schooled his expression and his breathing and stepped back out into the corridor, which felt like a meadow now in comparison. His guards were standing guard on either side of the door.
“Well,” he said, spreading his arms to present himself, fatigues balled up in one hand, “how do I look?”
Handsome smiled with amusement and the fact that Hawkeye’s first instinct was to start flirting really said it all. It was a miracle he hadn’t ended up here a week into his sentence. He bit back the follow-up joke that had leapt to the tip of his tongue. It was getting easier to swallow them down.
The double doors, he realized with a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach, were also locked. Handsome pulled out a key-ring — the traitor — and opened them up.
Hawkeye followed them through, into a room that looked a lot like a typical post-op ward, aside from more bars on the windows. There were two rows of beds, twenty in total, each with a railing above where privacy curtains would’ve been hanging, if they hadn’t been removed. Only three of the beds were occupied. Two held napping former soldiers, and one held two men playing cards. They looked up as he walked in, but didn’t say anything. Hawkeye nearly grinned and waved at them, but he restrained himself — not in front of the staff. They were probably homosexuals too, and goodness gracious, it simply wouldn’t do to be caught cozying up to a queen.
His guards led him past the card players to the second bed from the far wall. There were flimsy-looking slippers at the foot of it, but no mints on the pillow.
“We’ll take your fatigues. Take off your boots,” said the corpsman Hawkeye didn’t want to fuck. He handed the olive green bundle over and sat down on the bed. It rankled to obey without a word but he consoled himself with the knowledge that this would be over soon, one way or another. He took off his boots, fighting the temptation to kick them at him and test the corpsman’s reflexes, and then slipped on the cardboard slippers. He’d hate to try to make a getaway in these.
“There’s showers, a cafeteria, and a rec room through there,” said Handsome, gesturing to another door on the wall opposite his bed. "You’re free to move about the ward during the day, if you have no other obligations, but lights go out at ten P.M.”
“Roger,” Hawkeye said. Maybe they’d have better food here.
With that, the corpsmen left him alone. The doors shut heavily behind them and locked with a very final-sounding clunk. It sent a shudder down his spine, but the ward was big enough that his claustrophobia remained a toe-tapping tingle in the back of his mind rather than a scream.
Now he turned his attention to the card players, bouncing off the bed and striding over to them. “Hi,” he said. “This a private affair or can anyone join?”
“Pull up a chair,” said one of the men in the sardonic, slightly lilted tone he’d heard on countless nights in bars and at exclusive parties back in Boston. Made him feel right at home.
"I'm Hawkeye," he offered, sitting down on the bed next to them.
"Hell of a name," said the other man, sounding as butch as you’d expect from someone in the good ol' U.S. military.
"I'm Ray, and this tragic loser here is Tom,” said the first man, laying down a row of clubs. “Flush,” he added.
Tom scowled as Ray raked up the pot — a small pile of q-tips. “How’d you get so damn lucky?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? How lucky could I be?” Ray turned to Hawkeye. “Deal you in?”
“Sure,” Hawkeye said, more eager for conversation than q-tips but willing to work with one for the other. “Anything wild?”
“Just my sex life,” Ray said like a reflex, granting Hawkeye the first real laugh he’d had all day. He handed him a small handful of their makeshift chips, then dealt him a black pair of eights, a five of clubs, and a jack and a two of hearts.
“So,” Hawkeye asked, thinking about the locks on the doors, “are you both here for deviancy, or is this dorm co-ed?” If he was trapped in the same ward as someone who thought he was Jack the Ripper, he’d like to know. He tossed a couple of q-tips into the pot.
“This is the gay ward, hon. We’re all deviants here. Call.”
“Wonder if we’re considered flight risks, or just dangerous,” he mused, and threw out everything but the eights. He’d never turned a heterosexual, but being squirreled away from the straights made him want to try.
Ray dealt Hawkeye three, Tom two, “And dealer takes three."
Not a full house in sight. “They don’t monitor us in here, do they?” he asked next while debating whether or not to call.
Tom snorted in amusement. “They wouldn’t waste the money on cameras for us.” A weight sloughed off him; at least he wouldn’t have to keep his mouth shut the entire time he was here. “Why?” Tom continued, “looking to have some fun?” He said it sarcastically, without a trace of personal interest. Shame — he’d’ve been tempted to answer in the affirmative if he had. Tom was broad and nicely chiseled under an appealing dusting of scruff. Probably for the best though. The last thing he should be doing here was having sex next door to a swarm of malicious psychiatrists waiting for him to slip up, no matter how satisfying it would be to get away with it.
“Well, I figured it’s the next-best thing to a bar. I was getting tired of the usual Tokyo and Seoul hot spots, so why not take the free trip here, see some new faces? I fold.”
Tom collected the pot this time. “So, how’d they nab you?” asked Ray. “Caught in flagrante delicto? Or did you just drop too many hairpins?”
“They haven’t nabbed me yet, I’m only under investigation. If anyone asks, I’m as straight as a volunteer’s back.” He was met with a pair of skeptical faces, so he doubled down, only a little desperately. “Hey, look, I’m a surgeon. They hate discharging us, and my C.O.’s working ‘round the clock on the other side of this tug-of-war. I’ve got a decent shot.”
“A better shot than most if you’re a surgeon,” Tom allowed. It was his turn to deal. “But that’s not saying much.”
“They really have it in for us these days,” added Ray. “I’ve been a captain since the last war, the big war, broken wrist and all, but it didn’t matter until now. I — you’ll love this — I had a friend who got caught spooning with his beau, both naked as the day they were born, and you know what happened to him? Teasing. He was smart enough not to sign back up for the reprise too.”
Hawkeye had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. It was a refrain he’d been hearing ever since he’d first moved to New York at the tender age of nineteen. You wouldn’t believe what we got away with in the twenties, dear; oh, the Village was so real before the rich tourists moved in a few years ago; always watching the door now, always keeping one eye open. As if the cops had only started raiding bars in the last ten years. It probably wasn’t all empty nostalgia — he treasured his Bruz Fletcher recordings for a reason — but it didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to find a decent bathhouse, bar, or house party in his own roaring twenties either. Hell, he didn’t treasure his Ray Bourbon 78s because the lady was still putting them out.
“Well, if I’d known the army was a pervert’s paradise I still wouldn’t have signed up for it, but at least I’d see the appeal,” he said, humoring Ray.
“It wasn’t all like that,” Tom put in as Hawkeye picked up his new hand, affirming his thoughts. Three hearts, that was something. “This is my first war, but I’ve heard horror stories from the good ol’ days too.”
Ray did roll his eyes. “Of course it wasn’t a paradise, dear, but it was a damn sight better than it is now, and I’m living proof. The more they notice us, the harder they kick.”
Tom laughed, a little bitterly. “I bet that’s why they call it army style. It’s not because soldiers are meaner than any other repressed fag. It’s because that’s what the army does. They use you, then they beat the shit out of you and wash their hands of it all.”
Ray scoffed but Hawkeye let out his own bitter laugh. It wasn’t just the homosexuals either. The army chewed an assembly line of men up and spat them out after they’d gotten what they could wring out of them. It was obscene.
They played another couple hands, only one of which Hawkeye won, and then it struck five and they headed to dinner, along with, it turned out, about fifteen other men who'd been scattered around the ward. One of the sleeping men groggily awoke to a nudge and followed; the other didn't budge.
Aside from the ever-present dread it was a fantastic evening. The men had no reason to hold back now that they’d been found out so most didn’t. The small cafeteria had the atmosphere of — not even of the downtown bars he’d known. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Maybe this was what the paddy-wagon was like after a raid, or might be, if the ride to the station took a few days and gave everyone a chance to cool their anxieties and get to know each other: the jovial chatter, the cackling laughter, the bitter edge, the smirking defiance aimed at the snooty line-cooks serving them.
It was all he could do not to join in and tell the man dropping mashed potatoes on his tray that he had a cute nose, but he did manage to hold his tongue. Who knew what they might report to their superiors? At least the room was full enough that he couldn’t possibly be expected to feign disgust and sit by himself. He kept quieter than he was used to, trying to maintain the illusion of reservation, and drank the conversation in like a fine wine as he ate. It was better than the food back at the M.A.S.H.
Eat, drink, and be merry, he thought.