Finding The 4077th

Exchange

It was a bright day on the 4077th, they just had breakfast and were now back at the Swamp, Chris was working on his schoolwork sitting on his cot, and Hawkeye was having a manicure done by Klinger, who was wearing his curlers and a lovely orange and white shiny kimono, topped off with a soft jacket.

Chris always liked the man's clothes, the kimono looked like silk, and the small white jacket Klinger wore with it looked very soft. All he wore was such a big contract with the big cigar he was smoking.

As Klinger scrubbed the doctor's hands, he said. " You have very strong hands, sir!" looking over the hands of the doctor.

"Oh thank you, Klinger, " Hawkeye replied. "My father gave 'em to me for graduation."

Klinger snickered at that as he brushed the nails clean.

Hawkeye, Chris, and Trapper were going on a weekend R&R, which meant rest and relaxing. They planned the whole weekend already. Chris was very excited, they told him about all the nice things they would be doing, his dad would of course drink a lot, and would want a couple of hours of privacy, but the rest of the weekend they would do stuff together. And Chris would be getting some more writing and work supplies, but his dad let him know that he could pick out a toy as well when they got there.

Chris even wasn't allowed to take his schoolwork with him, he was also there for R&R and he was going to get it.

The boy watched with excitement as the adults packed their things. He already had everything packed, he even already packed Wally. Chris liked to have things done early, but his dad was not as organized, as he randomly dropped a couple of Hawaiian shirts in his bag. Chris looked at the bag of his dad, it was not orderly at all, how could the man find anything in there!

Trapper was just thanking God for this weekend as Francis walked in.

"You rang?" the priest said with a gentle smile as he entered.

Hawkeye looked from the priest back at Trapper and said "I didn't know He made house calls."

The priest laughed and gave them a shopping list from some people from the camp.

Klinger apparently needed a training bra, not that the priest knew what that was, but he would give on the message and the money to buy one.

After the priest left, Henry came in with a request of his own. He asked if the doctors wouldn't mind picking up a package, a package under a fake name, because it was "old Chinese prints" and some things never change. The adults laughed at that, but Chris didn't get it.

After that Radar walked in.

"You got a shopping list too, Radar?" Hawkeye said "You want us to buy you a new pair of glasses at the dime store? "

Radar didn't appear to like the jokes very much as he ignored the man and asked for Henry's signature. There was a new shipment of plasma that just arrived.

Hawkeye and Trapper stopped packing and groaned, new plasma meant new wounded, which meant NO R&R till the wounded were helped.

They were right of course as a couple of minutes later the compound floated with casualties. Busloads of them.

Chris seemed a bit disappointing about their postponed trip as he had to unpack some of his stuff from his organized suitcase. But it couldn't be helped. Hawkeye would make sure to make it up to him somehow.

Frank is in charge of triage and keeps sending patients who can't wait for treatment. Hawkeye goes outside to confront Frank, who is keeping badly wounded Chinese patients on the bus, allowing all Allied soldiers to go before them. Hawkeye overrules Frank and takes the pressing Chinese cases immediately. In 36 hours, the 4077th handled 473 cases.