Chapter 6 - The House That Henry Built

"4077th always unique place. Father's work camp right where Colonel Blake and company lay foundation. One camp for death, one for life. One camp kill Americans, Chinese, and Koreans, one help everyone regardless. Rosie does not need to tell you which one she liked better. My father spared his cruelty to no one."

Scully stopped Rosie, there.

"If your father ran one of those death-march camps, whose purpose it was to work POW's to death, then why wasn't he prosecuted for war crimes? There's no mention of the 4077th being on such a site, that I've seen."

Once again, Rosie shook her head at what she percieved as Scully's naivete.

"My father make my mother believe he love her. How hard you think it is for slipperry number like him to make deal with occupying American forces, who want insider's knowledge of area? They ship him back to Japan. Toshi's family's problem, not ours anymore. I love my great-nephew, but if father was in Korea too much longer, he would get my mother pregnant again. She would have been dead at 39, rather than fifteen years back. So Toshi's grandmother get hit, instead of my mother. Both good, gracious women.. Strong. Deserve much better."

Dana was constantly struck by the way Rosie both shrugged off her early life and yet was haunted by it. At least Rosie's harsh life had no mysteries. Aliens or no, something had happened to Samantha Mulder that would haunt her partner forever-with no real answers. She then remembered her host's mention of...

"Rosie, what about the meteors and Colonel Blake? For that matter, what did your father know that spared him war crime charges?"

Rosie gathered herself. These were all things she knew, but the telling was not easy.

"If you think the two are connected, Agent Scully, you are correct. In exchange for information about the Meteor Valley, or Sky-Stone Valley as my grandparents called it, certain people cut my father a good deal that not only kept him out of war trials, but kept social workers from answering his Japanese family's calls of abuse. Always very thorough, my father. Damned thorough."

Dana was getting a bit edgy, now. Any talk of the meteors and what Scully suspected about them was being sidetracked by Rosie's feelings about her father.

"Forgive me, Rosie. But what does Sky-Stone Valley have to do with the 4077th-or Colonel Henry Blake?"

Rosie looked both annoyed and apolegetic.

"If Rosie take time to get to point...You can be pretty sure that I have a point to make. Washington, D.C. built on swamp, go on to do great things. Henry Blake built the 4077th MASH in the Valley Of The Sky-Stones! The O.R. built on spot where most of them hit. Father used the meteors to terrorize locals. Told about stones to American men with dead, cold eyes. Those men create Immunita. Colonel Blake deal with them, to save camp. Almost doom camp in process. Probably doomed himself."

Rosie could see from Scully's eyes that not all of this was meshing for her.

"I'll explain by way of a couple of stories, Agent Scully. To take you forward, Rosie will have to take you back a ways."

THE SECOND WORLD WAR, KOREA, AUGUST 1943. EXACTLY SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE FOUNDING OF THE 4077TH MASH

Girl was not her name. But it may as well have been for all the Japanese soldiers cared. She was in an odd position in life. The soldiers treated her with contempt; But other Koreans were beneath contempt, in their eyes. They were not half-Japanese, as she was. To most Koreans, though, she was less than nothing. A thing built by the invading forces that had toppled their princes.

But she wasn't at the camp that day for any of them. She was there for her father. There were times she wanted his approval so badly she could taste it. Other times, she wanted to rip out his heart. Today, though, she was to meet someone. And to see something important.

"Girl, this is my son. If you were not half-beast, he would be your brother. Understand, he owes you nothing. If he wants, I will give you to him, to be his first. Do you understand?"

Taking care not to meet her father's gaze, the girl nodded yes. At least this boy bathed. None of the other soldiers did. Besides, she could see, from the terror in his eyes, that he really was her brother. It wasn't just a trick.

As her father left them, she prepared for the worst. She hoped it wasn't really his first time-men were always so clumsy, then. What he said, though, surprised her as she began to undress.

"I think it inappropriate that a sister should undress in front of her brother. I am nothing like him; unless you want this, or if he will beat you, then my sister is my sister, nothing else. He will believe whatever I tell him."

The boy, Yoshiro, was sweet and tender to her. In the weeks that followed, they were siblings, and nothing more. Yoshi was delighted to have an older sister. They would kiss goodbye full on the lips, each day, to satisfy their father's twisted desire. He could believe what he wanted about what else might happen. Neither of them cared much for the thug that dishonored their mothers. Even the other soldiers found the extremes of his racial views repugnant. The head of the guards was actually relieved when he discovered the children were simply playing together. But nothing could erase the terror all held the Commander in; Whatever fun the girl and her brother had together would be tempered still by that first day.

"Do you approve of the halfling, my son?"

The boy regarded his sister. She pretended to be upset, as he had told her to.

"Fortunately, Father, she has some quality blood in her. But we will have to see if she meets my standards. Perhaps, by the time I am done here, there will be more meat on her."

Later on, the boy wasted valuable play time apologizing for his remarks. But fate had a sense of humor and justice. Public bluster aside, the Commander did not have the son he wanted. His son would have simply picked the girl up and carried her off. But he said nothing. He had control, and , more importantly, the appearance of control. After this, he would have even more.

"Bring forward the prisoners!"

At his bidding, a mixed bag of Chinese and American POW's was brought out, and told to crack some rocks, with pick-axes. As they had done this many times before, they simply broke the rocks, with no prompting. Then, the horror came..

A sickly looking greenish gas came out from the rocks. Reactions varied. Some men literally shriveled up and died. Some actually hacked up internal organs. Skin began to flow like water off of others. Some few-very few-simply continued to break the rocks, rather than be summarily shot. Of a field of 40, 3 were left when it was done. When a 2nd pile of the odd rocks was brought out and broken, 2 of those were gone. Of the groups that came and went , only 3 Americans and 3 Chinese survived. There was no rhyme nor reason. They simply did. Further, from then on, they had no dyssentery, nor even a cold or rash. The Commander had his terror, and then some.

Before he left, Yoshi met one of his sister's friends. She was actually delighted at a soldier who asked, and did not simply take, so his first time was with her. The tales he told, though, were of his sister. This was at her insistence, so that their father would think his son like him. He didn't give her what he told the other soldiers he did; But he did give her something.

"It's a doll! Oh, Yoshi! Her red hair is so beautiful. Like a rose!"

Since he was out of sight of the others, he kissed her on the cheek. "My sister is beautiful. So is Lo, but I can not see her again. Tell her she will always have a place in my heart. But hide the doll, or Father will smash it. I know you're a little old for it, at 23, but let nothing happen to our little Rosie."

Back in the present, both Dana and Rosie were close to tears.

"So that's how you became Rosie to any Westerners?"

"Yes. It would remind me of a brother so wonderfully different from his father. He was in Tokyo, in December of 1954, when the Catastrophe struck. Hawkeye saved his life, then. If the 4077th had not held its reunion, there, my brother would have died under that creature's great feet, like so many others in Tokyo."

"Rosie, if your brother had not been so kind, would your father have actually forced you to commit incest?"

Rosie had often considered this question. The answer was grim.

"In a heartbeat. To his mind, my mother was from a different species. Nazi liasion his teacher, way back when. Tell him certain people aren't people. My mother not human, then, his son has no sister. No sister, no incest. No wrong. As I say, my father was slippery type. Only his rules matter. Not anyone else's.Not even God's."

Scully felt disgusted. She had encountered worse things, even worse forms of incest. But this wasn't some sobbing girl she had to comfort long enough to testify. This was Rosie, one of the funny people from the stories she would hear as a little girl, from her Uncle Jack. She knew it was becoming more and more difficult to stay on track. That meant it was more important to do so than ever.

Rosie added: "Then as now, Brother is family. Just like Maxine is family. Just like you and your partner are family, Scully. Not merely to each other. But to the family of 4077th." Scully nervously changed the subject back, remembering recent reductions in the Scully and Mulder clans.

"Rosie, let's just clear somethings up. Those gaseous rocks-meteors?"

"Yes".

"Your true age 79-not 89, like our records say?"

"I lie about age to get business license. Older person shown more respect, once."

Scully was forming ideas about the meteors, but first decided to listen to Rosie's story of the first 2 months of the MASH 4077th.

July 24, 1950-KTO-Site of Construction-MASH 4077th

"On this, 19 July , 2450, we dedicate this Corner Store....."

Henry Blake stopped, and stared at the sheet he had been given to read. He looked over at one of the assembled soldiers. He knew which one. The one that was sweating grenades.

"Private O'Reilly! Front and Center!"

The nervous young man did as he was bid.

"O' Reilly! Did I or did I not tell you to have my dedication speech at the ready when we were ready to make this camp ready!?"

O'Reilly squirmed. "I-I wasn't ready, sir!"

Lieutanant Colonel Blake rubbed his head. Besides O'Reilly's complete incompetence, the army hat he was wearing was itchy and uncomfortable. He wished he was back home, with his trademark fishing cap. But this was the military. Things had to be different. They were piecing back together the men who were holding back the fall of civilization. Order and discipline were needed. In another life, the man now called Henry Braymore Blake served a man named Arthur as his First Knight. In a top-down structure, the efforts of the merest squire counted as much as those of a king. That was something O'Reilly, the worst company clerk on Earth, didn't seem to appreciate.

"You lose all the mail. You make using the phone seem like -I don't know- Hand-to-hand combat! Three of out the seven surgeons we need to run this place are somewhere in Europe, because you filled out 'E' instead of 'As" for continent of destination on the request order!"

Walter Eugene O'Reilly, PFC for no good reason Henry Blake could discern, then almost fumbled and dropped a clipboard. He couldn't even get dropping things right.

"According to this schedule, Sir, Doctors Burns, McIntyre, and Pierce will be here in six hours. I try to clean up my mistakes, Colonel!"

"One-Private, lose that tone of voice! This place is gonna have to be tight as a drum to survive this police action! Two - The wounded will be here in 8 hours, O'Reilly! That's cutting it awful close, wouldn't you say? Three - Of course you learn from your mistakes, soldier! And you are among the most learned I have ever met-not to my pleasure, mind you."

Trying hard not to cry, O'Reilly ran back to resume duties that were certain to make him cry.

"Y'all were a little hard on him, weren't you Colonel? O'Reilly's just like any horse, gotta be broken in a little."

Henry was not in the mood for backtalk from sympwimp draftee doctors like Duke Forrest.

"Captain, when I want your opinion on running this camp, I'll have you arrested for insubordination, and interrogate you for it."

Three goofball surgeons. They were another headache the Commander of the near-frontline experimental unit, Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, Number 4077, did not need.

There was Duke Forrest, who whined continually about missing his family. Henry missed his, too, but he didn't let it interfere with his duties. The Australian, as called himself Ugly John, with an almost incomprehensibly thick accent. Damn the UN and its rules, Henry thought. "We shouldn't even be in there". Finally, possibly the only Negro Surgeon in Korea, Doctor Gerald Jones. Henry considered himself quite the tolerator, but this man insisted on being called "SpearChucker". It was a name he had been smeared with at Med School, and which he now wore as a kind of angry badge of honor. A childish way, Henry thought, of saying, 'I'll call myself a name before you can'.

Of the new three, Burns had experience in the Indiana National Guard. Pierce and McIntyre had graduated near the top of their classes. From these three he expected respect for his authority, discipline, and order. They would keep the other three in line, surely. He had enough trouble keeping the men in line. The women-the nurses-were wilder than fratboys. This was evidenced by the nurse dancing nude on top of his jeep for quarters. He would need a female ramrod to keep them in line. Then, the nurses would try to end-run her to him-but to no avail-he would back her up one hundred percent, 100% of the time.

When this woman, Major Margaret Houlihan, first showed up along with the new chaplain, she seemed as befuddled as O'Reilly, though. Assured she would have Colonel Blake's full backing, the dancing nurse was clothed, and the mixed showers closed. He wondered if she had Blake's inherent discipline, to keep on top of those women-so to speak.

The chaplain was a round-collar, an Irishman named Francis Mulcahy. He had a less than auspicious beginning, as the Nude Dancing Nurse, ordered by Houlihan to get off the jeep, jumped off and fell into the lap of the Catholic Priest who was stil sitting in the Jeep. Trying to stop herself from falling further, she had wrapped her fumbling arms around his neck, then excused herself to get dressed. 30 minutes later, when he emerged from his state of shock, Father Mulcahy's first words at the 4077th were : "She is--A Most---Jocular- young lady, isn't she?"

As the first 3 surgeons, fitted with special protective work gloves, helped the corpsmen clear away the meteorites that the area was lousy with, a Korean woman of indeterminate age asked Henry a question for the seventh time, and she got her seventh answer.

"No, lady! You are not setting up your speakeasy anywhere near this camp. I'm gonna try to keep it dry here for long as possible- maybe forever!"

Rosie, thinking the man was crazy, resolved to ask him again when the wounded came. Until then, she would watch and wait.

"These rocks could stand to lay off the bacon n' beans, for a spell. Whoa! Never smelled anything like that. And that was only a small crack."

"A shaman lives in New South Wales asked me to puff somethin from is' pipe, once. It didn't have half the kick that this junk did."

"Some of the folks from the Klan once tried to shove my pretty face into something that still smelled better than what those rocks have going on. And I liked them better than I do this Blake character! I mean, didn't he and Frau Eva shoot each other back in Berlin?"

Henry had other concerns than the complaints of his surgeons. Supplies neccesary to the survival of soldiers wounded in General MacArthur's push to the Chinese border had not yet arrived. He thought he knew who to blame there, as well.

"O'Reilly, it's bad enough you seem to want to do my military career in. But, when you screw up supplies that are VITAL to the survival of your fellow servicemen, I have to wonder if you weren't sent by the other side for sabotage."

Private O'Reilly wasn't much on bucking authority, especially when most of his ground was so shaky. But here he felt solid, and acted like it. Blake had crossed the line once too often.

"Now, just you listen up, sir! I may be a boob, but I don't stare at boobs like the other guys! Instead of watchin' that lady's keister, I've been workin' mine off! Forgive my tone, an' my language, but those supply requisitions were done 100 percent co-rrect! I ain't done much else right, but I done those. I know how important they are! I didn't get any sleep til I checked em' all over FIVE times! We sent em', and ICOR got em'. The only thing we ain't got is the supplies. But for once, Colonel, it ain't me."

If it weren't for Henry's pride, the boy's impassioned defense would have gotten something other than "We'll See" as a response.

As Blake discovered, O'Reilly was correct, and he had done his job. Fact was, for the previous hour, since standing up for himself, Private O'Reilly had nailed down the missing surgeons, who were now arrived and prepping for the deluge. So Blake had those odd rocks moved, he had a company clerk growing in confidence and competence, and he had a full staff. But where, he wondered, were those supplies? He listened as O'Reilly spoke to another clerk.

"Leodegrance? Your folks ACTUALLY saddled ya with somethin' like that?" He held the phone away. "And I thought Walter Eugene was bad!" He picked it up again. "Well, lemme try and help ya out, pal....howzabout, from now on, you're....Sparky! Oh, you, like that, huh? The other name'll be between just you an' me, all right, Sparky....Sparky?"

In the compound, new and *old* surgeons got to know one another. Thinking they could see clearly, they didn't notice the fog gathering. This place would be nothing like any of them expected.