Chapter 4

Boredom arrived among the camp. Hawkeye and BJ were bored enough in their tent that they took the word and made a game out of it.

"So bored, it's boring," Hawkeye said as he knitted something.

"Boring-a-ding-ding," BJ continued as he threw darts at the dart board that hung on the tent door.

"Boronus, boreetus, boreemus. I came, I saw, I bored," Hawkeye kept going.

"Bored, she bored, they bored."

"All aboard."

"I was gonna say that."

"Sure," Hawkeye said with a hint of doubt.

Just then, two nurses, a blonde and a brunette, were driven onto the compound. The army jeep came to a stop right outside the swamp. He was happy to see new nurses arriving, until he thought he recognized one of them.

"Don't tell me. Don't even think it," Hawkeye said hoping that what he was seeing wasn't real.

"What's wrong?" BJ asked.

"There are five MASH units in Korea, three evac hospitals, I don't know how many aid stations clearing stations, hospital ships, whatever - and she had to land here," Hawkeye continued in disbelief.

"Which one?"

"The blonde on the right."

"Very attractive."

"Completely forgettable looks, that stay with you forever."

"Sounds like we're getting into flashback country," BJ commented as they watched the nurses pass by. Hawkeye did something that caught BJ by surprise. He hid from this nurse. "You gotta be kidding?" BJ laughed. "You just hid."

"I haven't hidden since I was three. Sometimes I'm sorry they ever found me," Hawkeye replied.

"You wanna talk?"

"We were involved for a time..." Hawkeye jumped right into it. "During my "regical surg" my, uh, surgical, uh, residency in, uh, Boston. - Wonderful girl. Good kid."

"You always react like this to good kids?"

"We were close. Pretty close. If I didn't see her every hour, I got the bends."

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"You saw a lot of each other."

"Couldn't help it," Hawkeye continued. "We were living together."

"The plot thickens."

"Not long, a year, a year and a half. Not long. We had a small flat. Painted it ourselves. My hands were Hunter Green for a week. Told everybody I was a tree surgeon. It, uh, busted up sort of."

"You left her?" BJ asked.

"The minute after she left me," Hawkeye explained.

"What's her name?"

"Carlye Breslin. Altogether unusual," Hawkeye said as he perused through one of Major Burns' books and fidgeted as he said the following... "I don't... I don't mind her being here. No, I don't think I really mind at all."

"Is that why you're reading Frank's diary?"

"I mean, she can't help being sent wherever those idiots send her. It's just that of all the people to jump out of a Jeep in southwest Korea why the hell does it have to be her?" Hawkeye said as he slammed the diary down onto the spare cot. "I think I'll check this out. Find out how long she's staying, you know? Maybe she's not even staying. Maybe it's not even her."

"Maybe you're not even you." BJ said trying to soothe his friend.

"Right." Hawkeye went to the door before turning back to BJ and saying, "It's me. It's her. It's us." Then he left the tent in search of the company clerk.

~***~***~

After Hawkeye got the information he was looking for, with the unexpected news that Carlye was married, he and BJ went to the tent the new nurses were sharing and acted as their welcoming committee. Small talk was made about the welcome basket which contained a bar of soap, toilet paper, and other necessary hygienic products along with mentioning the book "The Last of the Mohicans" where Hawkeye got his nickname.

Before they left the tent, the doctors warned their new coworkers about the food in the mess tent. And Hawkeye invited them, mostly Carlye, to come over to The Swamp for a drink.

~***~***~

Hawkeye sat in his favorite chair located beside his cot. He was leaning forward as he reread one of the many letters he'd written, but never sent, to Arrow.

"Dear Arrow,

"I have so much to tell you since you've come back into my life. And so much I'd like to learn about you.

"The last time I saw you was the day your mother left me. You weren't even born at the time. She must have decided she couldn't handle raising a child on her own after she left me and chose to do the same with you..."

Hawkeye stopped reading the letter.

"I sure painted a pretty picture of Carlye for Arrow to read about, didn't I?" He asked himself.

He folded the letter back up and returned it to its envelope when he heard a knock on the door.

"Come," he said.

Carlye came in after being invited and said that the appearance did indeed fit the name.

Hawkeye offered his promised drink and gave her the choice of gin, or gin.

"It's pure poison," Carlye said after taking a sip of the brew.

"We think so."

"How are you, Hawkeye? Are you well?" Carlye asked.

"How do I look?"

"A little thinner. A little paler. A few gray hairs."

"These aren't mine. I'm breaking in a friend's senility."

Carlye took another sip before asking, "Has it been rough for you over here?"

"It's mostly kids you work on as if they machine-gunned a high school class."

"You all right?"

"Yeah. Fine," Hawkeye said, debating whether or not he should bring Arrow into the conversation. He decided it was best to not bring her up just yet. "How do you stand on the subject of sitting?"

Carlye agreed as if she was about to say that herself. They talked about her husband, a Mister Doug Walton, who was an officer in the navy and would be going back into advertising if he made it back from the war.

"Any children with him?" Hawkeye asked going against his better judgement.

"No, not yet. We're still talking about that."

"That's not how you get 'em. I just read a paper on that."

"How about you?"

"Children? Just our daughter, Arrow. You'll be able to spot her. She walks around camp with the help of a nurse. Can't see yet because it hurts to open her eyes. The nurse is there to guide her around and take her back to her cot when she gets her dizzy spells."

"Is there a Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Pierce?"

"My ring finger is clean. I remain unbetrothed, my bachelorhood intact a solitary figure seemingly sentenced to single-ness."

"You're trying too hard. Are you uncomfortable?"

"I'll stop pressing."

"May I meet her?" Carlye asked. "Be her nurse?"

"I don't know if she'll accept the change, Carlye. She likes her nurses... very particular about who touches her and where." Hawkeye took a sip of his gin. "I'll ask her in the morning when I walk her around the grounds. If she agrees, I'll find you and you can watch what we do," Hawkeye suggested.

Carlye nodded. She understood that it would take some time for Arrow to warm up to someone new. She took another swig from her glass. Having forgotten how strong it was, she exclaimed, "Oh, may I have some more of this horrible stuff?"

"Obviously, you don't know a good antifreeze when you drink it."

~***~***~

Arrow sat with the nurses on the far end of the mess tent. Her fingers fondled the tray of food in front of her in an attempt to find anything edible.

"I should call home. See if my grandpa could send me some real food," Arrow commented. "The eggs taste like sand, the water might as well have mold in it, and the meat is a joke," she added, making the other nurses laugh at her commentary.

Two nurses who were sitting in front of her got up and cleared their places. Not long after, she sensed the presence of Hawkeye, but it was lacking something.

"You okay, Hawk?" Arrow asked. She felt he was happier, but at the same time, she couldn't tell if depression had entered the equation.

"Yeah... Uh... Arrow, I'd like you to meet someone," Hawkeye started to say.

"Hi," she said, holding her hand out. "I'm Maxine. Everyone calls me Arrow."

"Carlye Walton," Carlye said, shaking Arrow's extended hand.

"You're new, aren't you?" Arrow asked.

"Yes, I am."

"Watch out for this guy." Arrow did her best to point at Hawkeye. But she was pointing at something or someone else. Hawkeye took her hand and changed the direction so her gesture was aiming at its intended target. Himself.

This action wasn't one of a Hawkeye everyone at camp knew. It was strange enough that the nurses who were still at the table with them stopped talking and watched in silence

"I think he's chased after every nurse here, except for myself. Which is good, 'cause that would be an awkward encounter." Arrow redirected the conversation back to Hawkeye. "You want to talk about something?"

"Yeah, a couple of things actually."

"Okay," Arrow said with slight anticipation.

"Your eyes? How long can you keep them open?"

"Two or three minutes before feeling dizzy," she said.

"Pain?"

"I wouldn't be in any if you didn't put in my chart that the nurses had to help me walk around camp every day," she said. "It's bearable. I'm happy it's not like my first week out of that coma."

"On to my next question. How do you feel about Carlye coming with us for your morning walk?"

"I guess... Hawk, when is Radar going to put in that paperwork that'll send me home?" She asked.

"It's been submitted, but the paper jockeys are as bad as the cooks. It probably got lost somewhere. You'll be seeing and walking without pain by the time you get that discharge and won't be going home."

"Where else could it have gotten lost? Nowhere doesn't exist," Arrow said just before the PA system sounded, announcing the arrival of wounded soldiers.

"Your walk will have to wait until after surgery," Hawkeye said as he got up on his feet. "Carlye, could you help Arrow to her cot in post-Op while I go scrub up?"

Carlye nodded and stood as the other nurses rushed out of the mess tent, leaving their trays behind for the kitchen staff to clean up.

Arrow opened her eyes long enough to see which direction she was going to slide out from behind the table.

As she reached the edge, she felt Carlye's hand on her arm.

Calye and Arrow talked as they walked to Post-Op and did their best to avoid getting trampled by the hospital staff as everyone ran around the compound for triage.

"So, Arrow. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Why are you called Arrow?"

"I got because I can see things most people don't. When I lived in California, it was because I never beat around the bush. Always went to the deeper meaning behind the spoken words and was right on target nine times out of ten... But when I moved to Maine and lived with my grandfather, the name was given a whole new meaning," Arrow said.

"How so?"

"Every person in my grandfather's office couldn't figure out what was wrong with this one kid. He had hypothermia, but he wasn't showing any of the known symptoms and his body temperature was normal. I only made the suggestion because the kid's lips were blue. After that, I diagnosed Grandpa's more difficult cases and he started putting me through med school."

"What made you want to join the army?"

"I enlisted as a nurse after I turned eighteen. Told the recruiting office that I wanted to help in the medical field, but really, I wanted to meet my father. Stayed with my grandpa for a year because my dad was drafted and shipped out before he even knew I was coming to live with him," Arrow shared without giving too much away in her opinion.

Carlye opened the door to post-Op and found Arrow's bed, helped her get settled in and left to assist in triage.

Arrow opened her eyes. She reached out and removed the clipboard from the frame of her cot so she could read her chart.

"What'cha readin', Arrow?" Radar asked as he and another corpsman brought a patient in from the O.R.

"My chart. Only one doctor here says I'm fit to go home, but he's wanted to get rid of me since I arrived," Arrow said.

~***~***~

After hours of surgery had been completed, Hawkeye and Carlye went to a secluded part of the camp, the Officer's Club after it was closed.

"Oh, fantastic," Carlye said with a little sarcasm.

"I knew you'd like it," Hawkeye replied.

"Yes, it's very nice. Early terrible."

"Not fair. You're insulting the place, and you've only been here five seconds."

"Well, what's the record? What have the other nurses said?"

"I never bring nurses here, except in an emergency. Fortunately-"

"There's a constant state of emergency," Carlye finished as if reading his mind.

Hawkeye opened a bottle of beer that he called khaki champaign and offered some to her.

"My, there's a lot of drinking here, isn't there?" Carlye asked.

Something from their earlier conversation made its way into this one as Hawkeye said, "Well if truth's the first casualty of war I guess sobriety is second. Here's to what?"

"To just being yourself," Carley answered.

"I'm a little out of practice, but for you..." Hawkeye took a gulp from his bottle before sitting down across from Carlye and saying, "I was wrong about what I said at first."

"Our first first or this first?"

"When I said that you and I could just work together... just work. I don't see how I can behave like a normal human person around you unless I get rid of some of that unpleasant baggage I've been carrying around for years."

"My name is on that baggage?"

"I hated you for a long time. Passionately. Hate. The real thing. If I'd met you during my celebrated blue period, I don't know what I'd have done."

"I know I hurt ya, Hawk," Carlye said.

"Hurt? You broke my legs. It really tore me apart when you left me."

"There was no reason for you to feel that way, you know. You let it happen."

"Well, I still felt betrayed. And mad as hell because I never got to know my daughter. Finally. Finally, finally, finally I thought I'd gotten over it. I got over the hate, but I never got over the love... When you came into camp that first day I heard this strange sound. It was my heart beating again. One look at you and it got a jump charge. I can't just just work around you."

"It can't be the way that it was, Hawk."

"It could be better."

"Ohh! Master complicator."

"God forbid anything should ever be easy," Hawkeye said as the conversation ended with a kiss.

~***~***~

A few weeks had gone by and Hawkeye was spending more and more time with Carlye.

BJ was in Radar's office setting up a call to his wife in San Fransisco through a HAM radio network when Hawkeye came in to file some paperwork under the shorthand "M.P."

The two went through their own made-up list of "M.P's" from medical profile to military police until BJ landed on married person.

"I haven't been home much the past few weeks," Hawkeye said, knowing where the conversation was leading him.

"It's better. That way you miss me sobbing into my pillow," BJ replied.

"I think we're very happy."

"I think you'd probably know. You and Arrow have been rather close since she woke up from her coma. How does she feel about the arrangement?"

"You disapprove," Hawkeye said. He considered BJ to be perfect and it bugged him.

"Me? You want disapproval, you disapprove. I'm not the ACME Judgment Company."

"A lot of married people are unfaithful."

"I read that in the Cheater's Almanac."

"What Arrow doesn't know won't hurt her. I'll tell her at some point. You? Ever been unfaithful?"

"To whom?"

"Well, who could you be unfaithful to?"

"Myself, for openers."

"You know what I mean, to your wife. Ever checked in somewhere without a toothbrush."

"Never."

"Never been tempted?

"Tempted's another subject."

"Ah, you have been tempted."

"Never. But it's another subject."

"You rat."

The phone rang and BJ answered while Hawkeye filed the papers. He was called away by Radar shortly after BJ began talking to his wife.

Radar had a transfer request in his hand which he proceeded to give to his friend and superior. Hawkeye couldn't believe what he was reading.

~***~***~

Hawkeye knocked on the door to Carlye's tent and waited for her to answer.

"Come in," she said. When she saw it was Hawkeye outside her door, she said, "Oh, hi."

"'Hi'? I just found out you put in for a transfer. 'Hi'? You'd have to use a divining rod to find a 'hi' in me," Hawkeye said. Once again, he was hurt. But he was also glad he never told Arrow that she had been going on daily walks with her mother.

"Oh, Radar doesn't waste any time, does he?"

"Radar's my informer. He's my snitch, my friend, my helper. If he could fly, he'd be my falcon."

"I was going to tell you. I wouldn't have just slipped away."

"It's always worked before."

"Oh, you're still working on last time?"

"Last time turns out to be a warm-up for this time. Only this time it won't just be me you're hurting. Arrow likes you, Carlye. And she doesn't like just anyone. It took her months to warm up to almost every single person in camp," he said as he came closer to her. "What are you telling Potter?"

"The truth. I can't stay here with you... with me, the way we are again...You won't tell Arrow?"

"Only if she asks me?"

Hawkeye didn't want to leave this relationship without being the one who ended things this time. That wasn't going to be true, but it was his last request of Carlye before she left camp.

~***~***~

"You're saying this happened twice with the same woman?" Arrow asked from where she sat on Hawkeye's bed as Hawkeye and BJ were playing a game of guess who with the initials G.R.

"Don't rub it in," he said as he turned his attention to BJ. "G.R., right?"

"Right," BJ said.

"An actor."

"A living American actor," Arrow added as she was part of the game.

"Right," said BJ.

"George Raft."

"He's just a living American," Arrow said as she pushed Hawkeye's shoulder.

"All right. Uhh. Gene Raymond."

"Nope."

"Oh, I know," Arrow said sounding excited. She'd caught on to BJ's word play.

"Gregory Ratoff," Hawkeye said, trying to beat Arrow to the answer.

"Nope. Ya give?"

"Give," Hawkeye replied.

"Gerald Rassmussen."

"Who is Gerald Rassmussen?" Hawkeye asked.

"He was the high school drama teacher during BJ's teens. Terrific actor from what I was told" Arrow felt the silence as Hawkeye and BJ stared at her. "What? I went to BJ's high school before I moved to Maine to live with my grandpa. And everybody would have heard of him if he hadn't died."

"You said living American," Hawkeye exclaimed as he learned he'd been duped.

"If he'd said dead, you'd have guessed Gerald just like that," Arrow said.

"And how'd you know who this actor was with the clues that were given?"

"It was in all the school papers in the display cases," Arrow replied.

"Care to try again?" BJ asked.

"Later. Next month. I love the way she drops into my life every few years - just to give me a little open-heart surgery."

"It's got to be rough."

"I'll live. In some ways, I don't mind that she's gone again. It's just that she never altogether leaves. But I can't complain about that too much. Something great did come out of both relationships," Hawkeye said as he hinted to BJ.

But what Hawkeye didn't know was that Arrow seemed to understand what he meant.