2

Six and a half hours later, in The Swamp, Hawkye and BJ rolled over laughing at Winchester. The plywood door snapped shut behind him as he straightened his posture pointed his nose squarely at Hawkye.

"Gentlemen..."

Hawk and BJ burst out laughing again.

"Gentlemen, this mark on my face makes me look like Hitlah. Haadly inappropriate humuh...."

They sobered their laughter then studied Winchester's face. Hawkye said, "I thought we agreed on swirling the ends of of the mustache."

"Don't look at me!" BJ said. "But you're right. That black line does have a Der Furer look."

Two days later:

BJ slept most of his boozing off the night before, but his hands still shook. And he kept this to himself. And he could because there was no fighting on the front line. The eighty-sixty-third was in a holding pattern.

As BJ sat up from bed, The Swamp shook with the concussion of an artillery blast. Cracked the still. All three doctors found themselves under their cots.

The PA: "Ladies and Gentlemen...here we go again!"

BJ snapped to Hawkye, said, "I don't know if I can do this!"

"Beej, if you don't no one here will."

Winchester was already out the door.

In O.R. BJ could margaret shouting from out in triage: "Get this man in pre-op now!"

BJ furrowed his brow and focused on the bowel that needed resecting.

"How is it going, Doctor?" said Hawkye, closing a leg wound.

"You know, when I was a kid I fantasized about this."

"You too, eh?"

"Really?"

Houlihan stepped up to sponge off the profuse sweat off of BJ. "If you ever want to play doctor sometime...."

"If I had a nickel for every time...."

"Forgive me Margaret. Hawk got the best of me."

BJ felt better. He thought about his wife and his little girl and...not suddenly...but he began to feel quiet...somehow.... Maybe it was sobriety, but....

Back at The Swamp, and after two solid gin martinis, Hawk asked, "What does O.K. stand for Beej?"

BJ rolled over on his elbow, leafing through his letters and pictures from his wife and daughter. "I don't know Hawk," he said, distractedly. "I don't know."

To be continued...