Richard Hooker - MASH - A Novel About Three Army Doctors

“God help me,” Trapper said.

“And me, too,” Duke said.

“In other words,” Spearchucker said, “the idea is to run the legs off ’em that first half. I think that will be all the edge I will require, gentlemen.”

“Right,” Henry said. “Imagine that Hammond, trying to pull something like that.”

On the day of Thanksgiving the kick-off was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., so shortly after the crack of dawn the 4077th MASH football team, the Red Raiders of the Imjin, all fifteen of them, plus their coach, their water boy and assorted rooters, took off in jeeps and truck. The Swampmen rode together in the same jeep and in silence. No bottle was passed and no cigarettes were smoked, and when they arrived in Yong-Dong-Po and headed for the Quonset assigned to the team as dressing quarters Trapper John excused himself and disappeared.

“Where the hell have you been?” Hawkeye asked him, when their quarterback finally returned just in time to suit up and loosen his arm.

“Yeah,” the Duke said. “We thought y’all went over the hill.”

“Had to see a man about a hot dog,” Trapper said. “Good old Austin from Boston.”

“Who?” Duke asked.

“About what?” Hawkeye said.

“Tell you about it if it works,” Trapper said. “You two clods just take care of the halfback.”

“All right, men,” Henry was saying. “I want you to listen to me. Let’s have some quiet in here. This game …”

He went into a Pat O’Brien-plays-Knute Rockne, stalking up and down and invoking their pride in themselves, their organization, the colors they wore and their bank accounts. When he finished, out of words and out of breath, his face was as red as their jerseys, and he turned them loose to meet the orange and black horde of Hammond.

“Look at the size of those two beasts,” Trapper John said, spotting the two tackles from the Browns.

“We know,” Duke said. “We were out here before. This is gonna take courage.”

“I ain’t got any,” Trapper said.

“Me neither,” Jeeter Carroll said.

“God help us,” Trapper said.

Hawkeye, because it had been his idea to play the game in the first place, was sent out now, as captain, to face the two tackles for the coin toss. When he came back he reported that he had lost the toss and that they would have to kick off.

“Now keep it away from the speed-burner,” Spearchucker instructed the Duke. “Kick it to anybody else but him.”

“That’s right,” said Henry, regaining his breath. “Kick it to anybody else but him.”

“I know,” the Duke assured them. “Y’all think I’m crazy?”

“Let’s go get ’em men!” Henry said.

The Duke kicked it away from the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams. He kicked it as far away from him as he could, but the enemy was of a different mind. The individual who caught the ball, by the simple maneuver of just running laterally and handing off, saw to it that the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams got the ball. The next thing they knew, the Red Raiders of the Imjin saw an orange and black blur and they were lining up to try to prevent the point after touchdown, an effort which also failed.

“Stop him!” Henry was screaming on the sidelines. “Stop that man!”

“Yeah,” the Duke was saying as they distributed themselves to receive the kick-off. “Y’all give me a rifle and I might stop him, if they blindfold him and tie him to a stake.”

When the kick came, it came to the Duke on the ten and he ran it straight ahead to the thirty before they brought him down. On the first play from scrimmage Trapper sent Hawkeye, playing at left half until Spearchucker could get into the game, around right end. Hawkeye made two yards, and Pete Rizzo, at right half, picked up two more around the other flank.

“Third and six,” Hawkeye said, as they came back to huddle. “I’ll run a down and out.”

“I’ll run a down and in,” Jeeter Carroll said, “but throw it to Hawkeye.”

“My arm is sore,” Trapper said.

“Y’all gotta throw,” Duke said.

“God help us,” Trapper said.

By the time he had taken the snap and hustled back, Trapper John knew that his blocking pocket had collapsed. He knew it because the two tackles from the Browns were descending upon him, and he ran. He ran to the right and turned and ran to the left.

“Good!” Spearchucker was calling from the sidelines. “Run the legs off those two big hogs!”

“Throw it!” Henry was shouting. “Throw it!”

Trapper threw it. Hawkeye caught it. When he caught it he lugged it to the enemy forty-nine. That was about as far as that drive went, and with fourth and five on the forty-four, Duke went back to punt.

“Don’t try for distance,” Hawkeye told him. “Kick it up there so we can get down and surround that sonofabitch.”

“Yeah,” Duke said, “if I can.”

He kicked it high and, as it came down, the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams, waiting for it on his twenty, saw red jerseys closing in. He called for a fair catch.

“A hot dog,” Spearchucker said, on the sidelines. “A real hot dog.”

“A hot dog,” Hawkeye said to Duke as they lined up. “Spearchucker had him right.”

“Yeah,” Duke said. “Let’s try to take him, like the Chucker said.”

When the play evolved, it was also as Spearchucker had called it. The halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams went in motion from his left half position, took a pitch out, turned up through the line off tackle and tried to go wide. When he saw Hawkeye, untouched by blockers, closing in from the outside, he made his cut. He made that beautiful cross-over, the right leg thrust across in front of the left, and just at the instant when he looked like he was posing for the picture for the cover of the game program, poised as he was on the ball of his left foot, the other leg in the air and one arm out, he was hit. From one side he was hit at the knees by 200 pounds of hurtling former Androscoggin Col­lege end, and from the other he was hit high by 195 pounds of former Georgia fullback.

“Time!” one of the former Brown tackles was calling. “Time!”

It took quite some time. In about five minutes they got the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams on his feet, and they assisted him to the sidelines and sat him down on the bench.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” General Hammond, on his knees in front of his offensive star and extending the digits of one hand, was asking. “Fifteen,” his star replied.

“Take him in,” the General said, sadly. “Try to get him ready for the second half.”

So they took him across the field and into the 325th Evac. As the Swampmen watched him go, Trapper John was the first to speak.

“That,” Trapper John said, “takes care of that. Scratch one hot dog.”

“Y’all think he’s hurt that bad?” the Duke asked.

“Hell, no,” Trapper said, “but we won’t see him again.”

“I suspect something,” Hawkeye said.

“Explain.”

“An old Dartmouth roomie of mine,” Trapper explained, “is attached to this cruddy outfit. I called him the other night, after Spearchucker outlined the plot, and told him to put in for Officer of the Day today.”

“I’m beginning to get it,” Hawkeye said.

“This morning,” Trapper went on, “I paid him a visit and cut him in for a piece of our bet. Right now Austin from Boston is going to place that hot dog under what is politely called heavy sedation, where he will dwell for the rest of the game and probably the rest of the day.”

“Trapper,” Hawkeye said, “you are a genius.”