Finding The 4077th

Sneaking Back In

The two introduced themselves to the ladies but the madam just said, “No appointments” and closed the shutter.

“No appointments? What does she mean with no appointments?” The Colonel asked the other man.

BJ just shrugged and knocked again, this time the woman opened the door and said “Sorry, everybody tired, big night last night. ” and she closed the door again.

“Now would you please come out here, madam?” The Colonel insisted, he still had his hand on the child's shoulder, and he refused to lose the boy. But he was losing his patience.

“I think you hit it right on the head. ” BJ said

“What's that supposed to mean? ”

“Madam. And the others are her ladies of the evening or afternoon or morning as the case may be. ” BJ explained.

Potter covered Chris's ears before he said. “Concubines? In a schoolhouse?”

BJ chuckled, “They have to learn someplace.”

Potter felt his anger rise and his patience slip a little as he knocked again and demanded that the ladies got out. He even name-dropped a high-ranking general but the woman seemed to recognize that name which made BJ burst out into laughter.

Potter shook his head, this was making things harder than they should be. And of course, if things don't go as planned it will only get worse, this proved to be the truth as Burns walked up whistling aggressively with his whistle. That whistle was getting on his nerves, just like the man blowing it.

The Colonel glared at Frank but the man seemed oblivious to the Colonel's irritation and asked why people were living there. They tried to explain it to the man subtly but Frank didn't understand, so BJ just told him this was a brothel.

Frank gasped and looked disgusted by that, he immediately wanted to remove them with army force and started blowing loudly his irritating whistle again almost in the Colonel's face which was the last drop of the Colonel's patience as he let go of Chris and snatched the whistle away from the man, this time the Colonel looked even angrier, his face turning red as he held the whistle in front of Frank's face and yelled: “CONFISCATED!”

Chris made slowly some steps backward, he knew that fast movement would attract the attention of the man.

The Colonel told Burns to go back to work and the man sadly walked away mumbling over his whistle. Potter then turned towards the ladies, not noticing the small boy slowly reaching the corner of the building and sneaking around it.

There weren't a lot of hiding places after he made it past the building but most personnel weren't paying attention as everyone was busy setting up camp. He still decided to take the longer safer route around most people, this way he had less chance to get found but it was further away from the road he needed to follow.

With the building blocking everyone's view, Chris ran towards the vegetation and entered the bushes trying to stay hidden. It wasn't a forest but it offered enough coverage for the small boy to get past the people. He was glad he was camouflaged, his dad gave him one of his old shirts to wear, it was a bit too big for him, but it smelled like his dad and that helped a lot.

He didn't know how long he walked, but he still couldn't find the road he was supposed to follow, which was strange, maybe he took too much of a detour trying to avoid everyone. The small boy realized he was sort of lost, and the loud explosions around him didn't help any. He kept moving in the direction he thought was the good one and hoped for the best.

After a couple of minutes, he heard something. He stopped and listened, it sounded like his name was being shouted, it sounded far away so he moved a little bit closer to the sound.