M*A*S*H Read online

  "Southern boy," Hawkeye was saying as they approached their tent, "I'm going to have myself a butt and a large shot of tax-free GI booze and hit the sack."

  "I'm with y'all," Duke was saying, as Hawkeye opened the door affixed to the front of the tent. "Look!" Hawkeye said.

  Duke looked where Hawkeye was pointing. In one corner, kneeling on the dirt floor with his elbows on his cot, a Bible in front of him, his lips moving slowly, and oblivious to all about him, was Major Jonathan Hobson. "Jesus," Hawkeye said.

  "It don't look like Him," Duke said.

  "Do you think he's gone ape?"

  "Naw," Duke said. "I think he's a Roller. We got lots of them back home."

  "We've got some back at the Cove, too," Hawkeye said. "You've gotta watch "em."

  "Y'all watch him," Duke said. "It would bore me." While Major Hobson maintained his position, they had a large drink and then one more. Then, in loud, unmelodious voices, they sang as much as they could remember of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and crawled exhausted into their sleeping bags.

  When they awoke, darkness had come again, and so had another load of casualties. The casualties continued to pour in without letup for a whole week, and the new surgeons did more than their share of the work. This naturally aroused a growing respect among their colleagues, but it was respect mixed with doubt and wonder, for they fitted no recognizable pattern.

  2

  Nine days after the arrival of Captains Pierce and Forrest at the Double Natural, as the 4077th was called by the resident crapshooters, two things happened. There came a lull in business, and the shifts changed so that the two were working days. Both men much preferred this combination of circumstances except that now, each morning as they arose for breakfast, they were forced to witness and walk around their tentmate, Major Jonathan Hobson, kneeling in prayer beside his cot.

  "Major," said Hawkeye one morning, as the lengthy ritual came to an end, "you seem to be somewhat preoccupied with religion. Are you on this kick for good, or is this just a passing fancy?"

  "Make fun of me all you want," replied the Major, "but I'll continue to pray, particularly for you and Captain Forrest."

  "Why, y'all…" the Duke started to say.

  Hawkeye broke him off. It was obvious that the Duke did not wish to accept salvation from a Yankee evangelist, so Hawkeye motioned him to follow and they left the tent.

  "Let's get rid of him," the Duke said, when they were outside. "I don't like that man, and he's stuntin' our social growth, too."

  "I know," Hawkeye agreed. "He's such a simple clunk that I kind of hate to roust him, but I can't put up with him, either."

  "What are we gonna do?" Duke said.

  "We are going to ditch the 'Major," Hawkeye said, "But let's be quiet about it. No use kicking up too much of a fuss."

  Hawkeye and Duke knocked on the door of Colonel Blake's tent and were told to enter. After they had made themselves comfortable, Hawkeye opened the conversation.

  "How are you today, Colonel?" he said.

  "That's not what you two came to ask," the Colonel said, eyeing them.

  "Well, Henry," Hawkeye said, "we don't wish to cause any trouble, but we strongly suspect that something that might embarrass this excellent organization could occur if you don't get that sky pilot out of our tent."

  "Your tent?" Henry started to say, and then he thought better of it. He sat there in silence for almost a minute, while the surge and counter-surge of his emotions played across the red of his face in iridescent waves.

  "I have been in this Army a long time," he said finally, measuring his words. "I know just what you guys are up to. You figure you have me over a barrel, and to a certain extent you do. You do your jobs very well. We're going to lose our other experienced men and get a bunch of greenhorn replacements. You two are essential, but you can hold me up for just so much. If I go along with you now, where is it going to end?"

  "Colonel," Hawkeye said, "we appreciate your position."

  "Right," Duke said.

  "I will define ours," Hawkeye said. "It reads about like this: As long as we are here we are going to do the best job we can. When the work comes our way we will do all in our power to promote the surgical efficiency of the outfit because that's what we hired out for."

  "Right," Duke said.

  "We'll also show reasonable respect for you and your job, but you may have to put up with a few things from us that haven't been routine around here. We don't think it will be anything you can't stand, but if it is you'll just have to get rid of us in any way you can."

  "Boys," said the Colonel, after a moment's reflection, "I'm not sure what I'm getting into, but Hobson will be out of your tent today."

  He reached under his cot and came up with three cans of beer.

  "Have a beer," he said.

  "Why, thank y'all," Duke said.

  "Then there's one other small thing," Hawkeye said.

  "What's that?" the Duke said to Hawkeye.

  "The chest-cutter," Hawkeye said to the Duke.

  "Yeah," Duke said to the Colonel.

  "What?" the Colonel said.

  During the quiet period that had settled upon the western Korean front, few shots had been fired in anger, and the only casualties had resulted from jeep accidents and from soldiers invading mine fields in search of pheasant and deer. Hawkeye and Duke had handled the lower extremity and abdominal damage of the hunters with their customary ease. When it came, however, to the depressed fractures of the sternum and multiple broken ribs with attendant complications sustained by the jeep jockeys, they both wished that they had had more formal training in chest surgery.

  "That's right," Duke said to the Colonel. "Y'all better get us a chest-cutter."

  "Stop dreaming," Henry said, "and drink your beer."

  "We've been thinking," Hawkeye said, "that maybe you could trade two or three of these Medical Service clowns around here for somebody who can find his way around the pulmonary anatomy when the bases are loaded … n

  "… and it's the ninth inning," Duke said.

  "Listen," Henry said. "I'll give it to you just the way the General would give it to me. Do you guys think this is Walter Reed? You're doing fine."

  "We are like hell," Hawkeye said. "We're swinging with our eyes closed, and …"

  "… and up to now we've just been lucky," Duke said.

  "Forget it," Henry said. "How's the beer?"

  "Forget it, hell," Hawkeye said. "You're evading the issue. We have more chest trauma right here than any hospital at home and we need somebody who really knows how to take care of it. We're learning, but not enough. You know that, just as well as we do."

  "That's right," Duke said.

  "Forget it," Henry said, "and by the way, with Hobson out of your tent as of now, please put in a little time for him in the preop ward."

  It had long been customary at the 4077th for the surgeons on duty to spend their time, when not called upon to operate, in the preoperative ward. On quiet days this was unnecessary. The arrival of casualties was always known in advance, no one could get more than three hundred yards away, and thus each doctor was available in minutes.

  The logic of this had never gotten through to Major Hobson, however, and as titular head of the day shift he had attempted to impose the useless vigil upon Captains Pierce and Forrest as soon as they had joined his section. Hawkeye and the Duke had failed to comply, letting it be known that they would usually be available at the poker game that ran perpetually in the Painless Polish Poker and Dental Clinic, where Captain Waldowski, of Hamtramck, Michigan, and the Army Dental Corps, supplied cards, beer and painless extraction for all comers, twenty-four hours a day.

  "I don't know, Henry," Hawkeye said now. "That's asking a lot, but if you get us that chest-cutter …"

  "Get out of here!" Henry said. "Just finish your beers and get out of here!"

  When not in the poker game, Hawkeye and Duke were likely to be in their tent. That very afternoon, shortly after l
unch while all was quiet, Hawkeye was in the game, but Duke was in what was now their private quarters, propped up on his cot, a writing tablet on his knees. Every day he faithfully wrote his wife, a very time-consuming procedure, and he was thus engaged when Major Hobson came charging into the tent and demanded that Captain Forrest come to the preoperative ward immediately.

  "Are there any patients?" Duke asked.

  "That's neither here nor there," the Major replied austerely.

  "If there ain't no patients there I stay here."

  "Come to the preoperative ward immediately!" yelled the Major. "That's a direct order!"

  "Y'all get out of here," was Duke's quiet answer.

  The Major advanced like an avenging angel. The Duke came off his sack like the Georgia fullback he had once been, and Major Jonathan Hobson found himself prostrate in the snow and slush six feet from the tent door.

  "That, you ridiculous rebel," said Hawkeye when he heard about it and got back to the tent, "was about as bright as Pickett's Charge. This will be trouble."

  The expected arrival of Colonel Blake was forthcoming within minutes. The door opened, Colonel Blake entered, and the door slammed shut behind him.

  "You guys have had it!" he shouted, purple-faced and suffused with military indignation. "I'm having you court-martialed!"

  "Henry," said Hawkeye, "I had nothing to do with it. It was all this dumb southern boy. However, I'll gladly participate in the consequences. Where do we get court-martialed? Tokyo, or maybe San Francisco?"

  "San Francisco, hell. You get court-martialed here and now. You're both confined to the post for one month. This is a summary court-martial, and I've just held it."

  "But y'all can't…" the Duke started to say.

  "Look, Henry," Hawkeye said, "be reasonable. I wouldn't know how to get off this post if I wanted to, but I'd like to keep the way open in case they make me Surgeon General of the United States."

  "Me too," Duke said.

  With a grunt, the commanding officer departed, and it is possible that the penalty would have stood, except that the very next day Major Hobson, his ego restored and perhaps even enlarged by the Colonel's legal action, extended his activities. He began praying in the mess hall for fifteen minutes before each meal.

  "That'll do it," Hawkeye predicted to the Duke.

  It did. Colonel Henry Blake was endowed with more human understanding than is required of a Regular Army Medical Officer, but after three days of this he left his lunch uneaten, went to his tent, called 8th Army Headquarters, arranged orders for Major Hobson, drove him to Seoul and put him on a plane for Tokyo and home where, a few weeks later, the Major's enlistment would expire. Honorably discharged, he would return to his general practice, his occasional excursions into minor surgery and his church.

  Returning from Seoul on the night of his Great Delivery, Colonel Blake was very tired and slightly mulled, but he mixed himself a drink and then collapsed on his cot. Before he could find sleep, however, Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest entered. Apparently contrite, they silently helped themselves to a drink. Then they knelt in front of their commanding officer and started to pray.

  "Lordy, Lordy, Colonel, Sir," they wailed, "send our asses home."

  "Get your asses out of here!" yelled Colonel Blake, rising in wrath.

  "Yes, sir!" they said, salaaming as they went.

  3

  Several weeks after the departure of Major Hobson, it was again first reported by Radar O'Reilly and then announced by Colonel Blake that a new surgeon had been assigned to the 4077th MASH. The only available information was that he was a chest surgeon and he was from Boston.

  "Great!" exulted Hawkeye.

  "Goddam Yankee," said Duke.

  "Undoubtedly a good boy," said Hawkeye.

  He arrived on a cold and snowy morning about nine o'clock. Henry brought him to the mess hall for coffee and introduced him to the other surgeons, most of whom, because the gooks had been quiet for three days, were there.

  The new boy was six feet tall and weighed about a hundred and thirty pounds. His name was John Mclntyre. The fatigue suit and parka he wore prevented anyone from getting much of a look at him. He acknowledged introductions with noncommittal grunts, he sat down at a table, pulled a can of beer out of a pocket and opened it. Then his head disappeared into the parka like a turtle's into its shell, and the beer followed it.

  "Seems like a nice fella," Duke said, "for a Yankee."

  "Where you from, Dr. Mclntyre?" someone asked.

  "Winchester."

  "Where did you go to school?

  "Winchester High," from somewhere inside the parka.

  "I mean medical school."

  "I forget, I guess."

  "That," said Hawkeye to the Duke, "ought to stop the conversation for a while. I got a feeling I've seen this thing before. Wish he'd come out of the cocoon."

  Captain Ugly John Black, the chief anesthesiologist, apparently decided to smoke him out. During his long working hours, when operating-room technique required that the anesthesiologist attending the patient be separated from the rest of the operating team, Ugly John was often lonesome for conversation. The new man's laconic responses were at least more talk than Ugly John could get back from his anesthetized patients.

  "Have a good trip over?" he asked.

  "Nope."

  "Fly?"

  "Nope."

  Ugly scratched his head and figured he'd play the guy's own game.

  "So what did you do, walk?"

  "Yep."

  "Great idea," Ugly said. "I wonder why I didn't think of it."

  The head came out of the parka and looked Ugly over with great care.

  "I don't know," it said.

  By now it seemed fairly obvious to the group that they had some kind of a nut on their hands, and all, including Duke and Hawkeye, departed with haste. During the day, while the new boy was being oriented and supplied with this and that, most of the outfit went to Henry and asked him not to put Captain Mclntyre in any of their tents—all except Duke and Hawkeye.

  "Let's see what happens," Hawkeye said.

  "Yeah," Duke said.

  Late that afternoon it happened. The door of the tent swung open, and in came the new boy, bag and baggage. The baggage was dumped on one of the empty cots, and the new boy lay down. A hand went into the depths of the parka, came out with a can of beer, went back in and came out with an opener. The new boy opened the beer, and for the first time he looked at his new tentmates.

  "It's a small place," he said, "but I think I'm going to love it."

  "My name's Pierce, and this is Duke Forrest," Hawkeye said, getting up and offering his hand.

  The newcomer didn't budge.

  "Seen you before, haven't I?" asked Hawkeye.

  "I don't know. Have you?" answered Mclntyre.

  "For Chrissake, Mclntyre, are you all this friendly all the time?" demanded the Duke.

  "Only when I'm happy," answered Mclntyre.

  Hawkeye went out, filled a bucket with snow and mixed martinis. He poured two, thought a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and asked the new boy if he would like one.

  "Yep. Got any olives?"

  "No."

  The hand disappeared into the parka and came out with a bottle of olives. An olive was removed and placed in the martini.

  "You guys want an olive?"

  "Yeah."

  An olive was doled out to each. The Duke gave a contented sigh.

  "Mclntyre," he said, "you're a regular perambulatin' PX."

  Hawkeye laughed loudly. The martini and the head came out of the parka, looked at him, then disappeared again.

  Duke and Hawkeye were on night duty, and the new boy was assigned to their shift. A Canadian unit had spent the day getting shot up a few miles to the west, so the night was a busy one, and there were several chest wounds. About all Duke or Hawkeye or anyone else at the Double Natural knew about the chest was what they had learned by bitter and difficult experience in recen
t weeks. The new boy didn't say much, but he did come out of the parka and show them what to do.

  In the third chest that he opened he went right to and repaired a lacerated pulmonary artery, and he did it like Joe D. going back for a routine fly. When morning came the night shift went to the mess hall, their curiosity aroused more than ever by the new chest surgeon from Boston. At breakfast, another can of beer materialized from the recesses of the parka and, once opened, disappeared back into it.

  At the Double Natural a rag-tag squad of Korean kids waited on tables, and one of them placed a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee in front of Dr. Mclntyre. The head shot out of the parka, and two glaring eyes focused on the boy.

  "What's that?"

  "Oatmeals, sir."

  "I don't want oatmeals. Bring me bean."

  "Bean hava no."

  "OK. The hell with it."

  Breakfast was quiet after that, and, as soon as the three had made it back to Tent Number Six, they went to bed, the new boy still in his parka.

  At 4:00 p.m., Duke and Hawkeye got up, dressed and washed. From deep down in the parka, which had shown no previous signs of life, came the words:

  "How about a martini?"

  Hawkeye mixed, and again the olives were produced. After the first martini the new boy got up, took off the parka for the first time, washed his face, combed his hair, and got back into the parka. This look at him confirmed the impression Duke had formed the night before in the OR that Dr. Mclntyre was about as thin as a man could get, and for the second time he addressed his new associate.

  "Hey, boy, y'all got the clap?"

  An immediate answer was not forthcoming. The head did come out of the parka, however, and look vaguely interested.

  "What in hell makes you think he's got the clap?" Hawkeye asked. "Even a clap doctor can't diagnose it through a parka."

  "What y'all don't know," replied Duke, "is that I'm a graduate of the Army Medical Field Service School at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where I won high honors. I learned that the only thing that can go wrong with a soldier is for him to get shot or get the clap. He ain't bleeding so he's gotta have the clap."