Situation FUBAR 1/? M*A*S*H fanfiction
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Colonel Potter sighed as he looked at his bedraggled troupe of ornery doctors and one nervous looking company clerk.
“Battalion aid lost two of their doctors after being blown sky high by friendly fire late last night. They need two of us to go up to the front until the replacements arrive.” Potter explained.
“We’re killing our own doctors now? What do the North Koreans need the Chinese for? We can just send them all home. Let them find a war where they are needed.” Hawkeye asked his voice dripping with disdain and sarcasm.
“Because we are so easy to replace. Interchangeable to the army you know.” BJ put in his two cents.
“One khaki scalpel just as good as the next.” Hawkeye groused sounding like a petulant teenager.
“Oh, you guys don’t have any respect for the war.” Frank complained.
“You’re right Frank, send me to my room, in Maine, without dinner.” Hawkeye said.
“Radar do you have the straws?” Potter asked looking at his right hand man and ignoring his screwball doctors.
“No, no straws, left over sausage from breakfast.” Radar told him as he produced four petrified sausage links from his pocket and broke two in half placing two of the halves in his pocket he placed the other two with the whole ones in his hand holding them all level with each other.
“Frank, go ahead, you draw first.” Potter said and Frank gave a lipless smile tilting his head to the side a bit as he twitchily reached out and grabbed a sausage, giggling giddily as it came out whole.
“That’s the way the sausage crumbles I suppose.” He giggled with a shrug.
“Hawkeye.” Potter directed and he reached out to grab a stub end of a sausage frowning at the half link and tossing it down on the desk.
“Guess I’ve won a trip to the fireworks.” He said none too happily.
BJ reached and grabbed the next sausage and it also came up a half link and he sighed “We’ll bring back souvenirs.”
Radar dropped the last full link into the garbage and Colonel Potter nodded.
“Alright boys, they are expecting you ASAP so you should get on your way, go sign a jeep out of the motor pool and be on your way, they can’t afford to be without surgeons for long.” He told them.
Everyone ambled out of Potter’s office BJ and Hawkeye going to get their helmets and a jeep.
They weren’t far from the front, a scant three miles and once they were on the road it wasn’t long before they reached the spot the map suggested Battalion aid should have been, but it wasn’t there, they apparently did not have the latest information. The front had moved back a mile pushed back by the Chinese that morning. Before the two doctors knew it they were in enemy territory and surrounded. They put up their hands as guns pointed at them in all directions.
“I always wanted to be a POW.” BJ said to Hawkeye as the enemy walked closer to them.
“Let’s just hope we get that far. Don’t want to get shot, might wind up on Frank’s table, might as well write my own toe tag up in that case.” Hawkeye told him shutting up as the men with guns got closer. He had a big mouth, but even he knew when to shut it.
There was yelling in Chinese as their jeep was surrounded and they were ushered out of it with guns pointed at them, they were ushered back into the back of the jeep and two of the chinese took the front, one of them turned to keep a gun trained on them and they sped off.
Both men looked at each other a moment communicating silently with their eyes before paying close attention to where they were going hoping if even one of them could escape for help they would be able to figure out a way back to the 4077th.
They both know how bad this situation is. There had been rumors that the Chinese were doing experiments on POWs, not that anything had been substantiated, but just the thought sent chills down the doctors’ spines. There was no real news about what the experiments might be and the UN was trying to shut down the rumor mill on the subject, but they couldn’t control it nearly as closely as they may like.
Hawkeye’s eyes went wide as they pulled up to a hospital, it didn’t look like it had been abandoned by whomever had used it before the Chinese had taken it over. The Chinese must have been keeping things up. Hawkeye figured they were about as far the other way of the front as their MASH was on the other side.
A gun was pushed into his side and there was yelling in his general direction in Chinese and he could see that BJ was already out of the jeep and being herded into hospital. He quickly followed not wanting to risk being separated from his friend.
They walked into a very sterile room, which seemed odd to Hawkeye as nothing in Korea was sterile. At the far side of the room were small bodies covered with sheets over their heads, on gurneys. Children, dead children… He looked at BJ and could see that he had figured out the same thing that he had and his friend looked slightly green around the gills.
*************************************************************************************************************
“Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez!” Radar exclaimed as he scurried into the Colonel’s office.
“What on earth is wrong, Radar?” Potter asked the obviously upset company clerk.
“I just got news from Sparky, oh jeez, sir the front was moved back a mile this morning by the Chinese. We sent the captains into enemy territory!” Radar explained looking white as a ghost and weak in the knees.
“Horse hooey!” The Colonel nearly shouted in distress. He was a career army man, he knew better than this. He should have gotten updated stats before sending his men out. Those boys were his responsibility and right now they were in very real danger and that was on him. Those boys wouldn’t know army regulation if it bit them in the butt and neither of them would know what to do in enemy hands. BJ, he was sure would be prudent and amiable if captured to secure his safety, but Hawkeye, for all he was a magician with a scalpel could not hold his tongue and check his cheek to save his own hyde and he would need to.
“What are we going to do, sir?” Radar asked desperately, hoping the older man knew some way to save their friends.
“That is just the thing, there is nothing we can do about it. We don’t have the people to send on a search and rescue and the army isn’t going to send more people into enemy territory it isn’t cost effective as far as lives risked for lives gained. If they have been taken as POWs they have rights and should be safe. It won’t do us any good being down two doctors, but they should be safe cooling their heels with the Chinese for the time being.” Potter told the distraught boy.
“You can’t mean that! We can’t leave the captains out there, they need us!” Radar exclaimed not at all okay with the military man’s choice on the matter.
“It doesn’t sit well with me either son, but there is nothing that can be done about it. This is just the way that war is,” Potter was very worried, but was trying to hold it together for the young man standing before him looking like he had just run over his puppy. “Make a call to the 8063rd and give them a heads up that Battalion aid is going to be looking for doctors and we have no one left to spare and then call around to see if you can find us some doctors as well. If they have been captured we are going to be needing doctors in a right hurry.” He hoped giving the kid something constructive to do would help keep his mind off his friends.
“Yes, sir.” Radar said unhappily excusing himself from the office and scurrying over to the phone to start doing as he was told.
*************************************************************************************************************
It felt like they had been strapped down to these beds forever being pumped full of lord only knew what. All Hawkeye knew was what he was seeing in his friend BJ as the days passed, his friend seemed to lose years off his age every day and now looked no more than maybe four years old, he himself looking at his hands knew he had been shrunk as well, but he didn’t know the extent of the damage to his own person. He had several years on BJ to start and if he was losing time as rapidly as his friend he knew he could be no more than six or seven. He now understood what those little bodies under the sheets were. From the small amount of English spoken and the facts before his eyes apparently they had been trying to regress people for quite a while and from the sounds of it this was as far down as they had gotten anyone without them dying from the process, but Hawkeye knew they were going to keep going till they were either newborns or dead. He needed to get them out of there. He could tell by how BJ acted and he felt that the regression was more than just physical, he felt little inside his head. His emotions were stronger, more pronounced and he just felt young though he still had his memories. He had watched BJ fight and cry the last two days as the doctors came near them with the needles something he had not done just days ago when he had been a bit older. He could not imagine how terrified his friend was.
BJ was fast asleep, they did a lot of that, sleeping, but then their bodies were going through quite the ordeal.
Hawkeye flexed his tiny hand in the medical cuff that held it captive. He had shrunk quite a bit today and the cuff had not been adjusted. He managed to wiggle it free after some time and then worked on the rest of his binds.
It was late at night and their jailers were sleeping. It was with no small effort for him to have stayed awake. He was so tired, but he had to get BJ out of here. He didn’t know how much more his friend’s body could take, in another day or two he’d either be an embryo or dead. Hawkeye couldn’t let that happen!
“Beej, Beej, wake up.” He nudged his now tiny best friend.
“Hawkeye, I don’t feel good.” The little boy told his friend as he was being released from his bindings.
“It’s okay BJ. We are gonna go home now and Potter and Margaret will make you feel better I promise, but you need to get up now and come with me. We hafta be very quiet.” He could see the fear in BJ’s bright blue eyes as he nodded at him. He could tell his friend had no idea what was happening to them and was afraid.
He took the little boy’s hand, feeling oddly protective of his down sized partner in crime and pulled him out of the hospital. They were both barefooted and wearing tiny sets of hospital scrubs and the chill night air was cold.
“How we gonna get home Hawk?” BJ asked in a trembling voice and Hawkeye desperately wanted to reassure him that they would be okay, but he was terribly frightened himself.
Hawkeye looked around when he spotted their jeep parked over to the side of the hospital.
“Our jeep. Come on, we will take our jeep.” He lead BJ over to the jeep and they both got it when BJ’s bottom lip started to tremble.
“We can’t reach the pedals.” He said in a whimper, tears in his voice and Hawkeye would have given anything to make this less scary for BJ who was only just little.
“How bout you help me okay? You can get down and press the pedals with your hands and I’ll steer, can you do that?” Hawkeye asked the preschooler.
BJ nodded “I can help.” He said as he slid down onto the floor by Hawkeyes feet.
“Okay you push the one I tell you to okay?” Hawkeye asked.
“I can do dat Hawk.” BJ told him.
“Good,” Hawkeye said as he started the jeep “alright, press lightly on the gas.”
A little hand pressed down on the gas and they jerked forward.
“Good, now even pressure.” Hawkeye instructed and the little boy obeyed as Hawkeye steered the to the main road and off to the 4077th.
Colonel Potter sighed as he looked at his bedraggled troupe of ornery doctors and one nervous looking company clerk.
“Battalion aid lost two of their doctors after being blown sky high by friendly fire late last night. They need two of us to go up to the front until the replacements arrive.” Potter explained.
“We’re killing our own doctors now? What do the North Koreans need the Chinese for? We can just send them all home. Let them find a war where they are needed.” Hawkeye asked his voice dripping with disdain and sarcasm.
“Because we are so easy to replace. Interchangeable to the army you know.” BJ put in his two cents.
“One khaki scalpel just as good as the next.” Hawkeye groused sounding like a petulant teenager.
“Oh, you guys don’t have any respect for the war.” Frank complained.
“You’re right Frank, send me to my room, in Maine, without dinner.” Hawkeye said.
“Radar do you have the straws?” Potter asked looking at his right hand man and ignoring his screwball doctors.
“No, no straws, left over sausage from breakfast.” Radar told him as he produced four petrified sausage links from his pocket and broke two in half placing two of the halves in his pocket he placed the other two with the whole ones in his hand holding them all level with each other.
“Frank, go ahead, you draw first.” Potter said and Frank gave a lipless smile tilting his head to the side a bit as he twitchily reached out and grabbed a sausage, giggling giddily as it came out whole.
“That’s the way the sausage crumbles I suppose.” He giggled with a shrug.
“Hawkeye.” Potter directed and he reached out to grab a stub end of a sausage frowning at the half link and tossing it down on the desk.
“Guess I’ve won a trip to the fireworks.” He said none too happily.
BJ reached and grabbed the next sausage and it also came up a half link and he sighed “We’ll bring back souvenirs.”
Radar dropped the last full link into the garbage and Colonel Potter nodded.
“Alright boys, they are expecting you ASAP so you should get on your way, go sign a jeep out of the motor pool and be on your way, they can’t afford to be without surgeons for long.” He told them.
Everyone ambled out of Potter’s office BJ and Hawkeye going to get their helmets and a jeep.
They weren’t far from the front, a scant three miles and once they were on the road it wasn’t long before they reached the spot the map suggested Battalion aid should have been, but it wasn’t there, they apparently did not have the latest information. The front had moved back a mile pushed back by the Chinese that morning. Before the two doctors knew it they were in enemy territory and surrounded. They put up their hands as guns pointed at them in all directions.
“I always wanted to be a POW.” BJ said to Hawkeye as the enemy walked closer to them.
“Let’s just hope we get that far. Don’t want to get shot, might wind up on Frank’s table, might as well write my own toe tag up in that case.” Hawkeye told him shutting up as the men with guns got closer. He had a big mouth, but even he knew when to shut it.
There was yelling in Chinese as their jeep was surrounded and they were ushered out of it with guns pointed at them, they were ushered back into the back of the jeep and two of the chinese took the front, one of them turned to keep a gun trained on them and they sped off.
Both men looked at each other a moment communicating silently with their eyes before paying close attention to where they were going hoping if even one of them could escape for help they would be able to figure out a way back to the 4077th.
They both know how bad this situation is. There had been rumors that the Chinese were doing experiments on POWs, not that anything had been substantiated, but just the thought sent chills down the doctors’ spines. There was no real news about what the experiments might be and the UN was trying to shut down the rumor mill on the subject, but they couldn’t control it nearly as closely as they may like.
Hawkeye’s eyes went wide as they pulled up to a hospital, it didn’t look like it had been abandoned by whomever had used it before the Chinese had taken it over. The Chinese must have been keeping things up. Hawkeye figured they were about as far the other way of the front as their MASH was on the other side.
A gun was pushed into his side and there was yelling in his general direction in Chinese and he could see that BJ was already out of the jeep and being herded into hospital. He quickly followed not wanting to risk being separated from his friend.
They walked into a very sterile room, which seemed odd to Hawkeye as nothing in Korea was sterile. At the far side of the room were small bodies covered with sheets over their heads, on gurneys. Children, dead children… He looked at BJ and could see that he had figured out the same thing that he had and his friend looked slightly green around the gills.
*************************************************************************************************************
“Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez!” Radar exclaimed as he scurried into the Colonel’s office.
“What on earth is wrong, Radar?” Potter asked the obviously upset company clerk.
“I just got news from Sparky, oh jeez, sir the front was moved back a mile this morning by the Chinese. We sent the captains into enemy territory!” Radar explained looking white as a ghost and weak in the knees.
“Horse hooey!” The Colonel nearly shouted in distress. He was a career army man, he knew better than this. He should have gotten updated stats before sending his men out. Those boys were his responsibility and right now they were in very real danger and that was on him. Those boys wouldn’t know army regulation if it bit them in the butt and neither of them would know what to do in enemy hands. BJ, he was sure would be prudent and amiable if captured to secure his safety, but Hawkeye, for all he was a magician with a scalpel could not hold his tongue and check his cheek to save his own hyde and he would need to.
“What are we going to do, sir?” Radar asked desperately, hoping the older man knew some way to save their friends.
“That is just the thing, there is nothing we can do about it. We don’t have the people to send on a search and rescue and the army isn’t going to send more people into enemy territory it isn’t cost effective as far as lives risked for lives gained. If they have been taken as POWs they have rights and should be safe. It won’t do us any good being down two doctors, but they should be safe cooling their heels with the Chinese for the time being.” Potter told the distraught boy.
“You can’t mean that! We can’t leave the captains out there, they need us!” Radar exclaimed not at all okay with the military man’s choice on the matter.
“It doesn’t sit well with me either son, but there is nothing that can be done about it. This is just the way that war is,” Potter was very worried, but was trying to hold it together for the young man standing before him looking like he had just run over his puppy. “Make a call to the 8063rd and give them a heads up that Battalion aid is going to be looking for doctors and we have no one left to spare and then call around to see if you can find us some doctors as well. If they have been captured we are going to be needing doctors in a right hurry.” He hoped giving the kid something constructive to do would help keep his mind off his friends.
“Yes, sir.” Radar said unhappily excusing himself from the office and scurrying over to the phone to start doing as he was told.
*************************************************************************************************************
It felt like they had been strapped down to these beds forever being pumped full of lord only knew what. All Hawkeye knew was what he was seeing in his friend BJ as the days passed, his friend seemed to lose years off his age every day and now looked no more than maybe four years old, he himself looking at his hands knew he had been shrunk as well, but he didn’t know the extent of the damage to his own person. He had several years on BJ to start and if he was losing time as rapidly as his friend he knew he could be no more than six or seven. He now understood what those little bodies under the sheets were. From the small amount of English spoken and the facts before his eyes apparently they had been trying to regress people for quite a while and from the sounds of it this was as far down as they had gotten anyone without them dying from the process, but Hawkeye knew they were going to keep going till they were either newborns or dead. He needed to get them out of there. He could tell by how BJ acted and he felt that the regression was more than just physical, he felt little inside his head. His emotions were stronger, more pronounced and he just felt young though he still had his memories. He had watched BJ fight and cry the last two days as the doctors came near them with the needles something he had not done just days ago when he had been a bit older. He could not imagine how terrified his friend was.
BJ was fast asleep, they did a lot of that, sleeping, but then their bodies were going through quite the ordeal.
Hawkeye flexed his tiny hand in the medical cuff that held it captive. He had shrunk quite a bit today and the cuff had not been adjusted. He managed to wiggle it free after some time and then worked on the rest of his binds.
It was late at night and their jailers were sleeping. It was with no small effort for him to have stayed awake. He was so tired, but he had to get BJ out of here. He didn’t know how much more his friend’s body could take, in another day or two he’d either be an embryo or dead. Hawkeye couldn’t let that happen!
“Beej, Beej, wake up.” He nudged his now tiny best friend.
“Hawkeye, I don’t feel good.” The little boy told his friend as he was being released from his bindings.
“It’s okay BJ. We are gonna go home now and Potter and Margaret will make you feel better I promise, but you need to get up now and come with me. We hafta be very quiet.” He could see the fear in BJ’s bright blue eyes as he nodded at him. He could tell his friend had no idea what was happening to them and was afraid.
He took the little boy’s hand, feeling oddly protective of his down sized partner in crime and pulled him out of the hospital. They were both barefooted and wearing tiny sets of hospital scrubs and the chill night air was cold.
“How we gonna get home Hawk?” BJ asked in a trembling voice and Hawkeye desperately wanted to reassure him that they would be okay, but he was terribly frightened himself.
Hawkeye looked around when he spotted their jeep parked over to the side of the hospital.
“Our jeep. Come on, we will take our jeep.” He lead BJ over to the jeep and they both got it when BJ’s bottom lip started to tremble.
“We can’t reach the pedals.” He said in a whimper, tears in his voice and Hawkeye would have given anything to make this less scary for BJ who was only just little.
“How bout you help me okay? You can get down and press the pedals with your hands and I’ll steer, can you do that?” Hawkeye asked the preschooler.
BJ nodded “I can help.” He said as he slid down onto the floor by Hawkeyes feet.
“Okay you push the one I tell you to okay?” Hawkeye asked.
“I can do dat Hawk.” BJ told him.
“Good,” Hawkeye said as he started the jeep “alright, press lightly on the gas.”
A little hand pressed down on the gas and they jerked forward.
“Good, now even pressure.” Hawkeye instructed and the little boy obeyed as Hawkeye steered the to the main road and off to the 4077th.