Richard Hooker - MASH - A Novel About Three Army Doctors

Hawkeye got up, his hat on backwards, and approached the new officers.

“Maybe you guys better cut out for a while,” he suggested. “I only think I’m Yogi Berra, but my buddy has a more serious problem. After four drinks he knows he’s the United States Marines.”

Duke started to sing as he loaded his .45:

From the Halls of Montezuma To the Shores of Okefenokee.

The new officers went through the door rapidly and into the snow. They found the 325th Evacuation Hospital’s Officers’ Club. If they hadn’t been green, they’d have found it sooner. Excitedly, to an enthralled audience that included Brig. General Hamilton Hartington Hammond, the five de­scribed their experiences in the barracks.

“Leave those two alone!” General Hammond thundered, when someone suggested that the Military Police be sum­moned. “For Chrissake, just leave them alone! Just hope that train leaves in the morning with them on it. Assign these men other quarters!”

Ere long, Duke and Hawkeye grew lonesome.

“You scared our friends,” said Hawk. “They left.”

“Yeah,” Duke said, “but that ain’t important. I just don’t believe that y’all are Yogi Berra. I ain’t the United States Marines, either, because I’m Grover Cleveland Alexander. Let’s get that buddy of Trapper John’s who’s stationed here to find us a catcher’s mitt. Then y’all can warm me up at the Officers’ Club.”

“Grover,” Hawkeye said, “I think you got a fast ball like Harriet Beecher Stowe.”

“What’s Trapper’s friend’s name?” Duke said, ignoring him.

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye said. “I think he called him Austin From Boston.”

“Good,” the Duke said. “There can’t be two people named that.”

They finished their drinks and went out into the night. For forty-five minutes they tramped through the snow, traversing the various roadways while, at the top of their voices, they called for Trapper John’s friend.

“Austin From Boston!” they called. “Oh, Austin From Boston! Where are you, Austin From Boston, Trapper John’s friend?”

Their cries, of course, penetrated the Officers’ Club where, at the bar, the five new men clustered now around General Hammond. They were afraid to request an armed escort to accompany them to their new quarters, and they were even more afraid of going out in the snow and dying alone so far from home.

“Goddammit, you men!” General Hammond said finally, tiring of playing mother hen as they pressed closer around him with each plaintive cry. “Why don’t you go to your quarters and get some rest?”

“It must be terrible up there, Sir,” one of the new men said.

“Up where?” General Hammond said, starting to swing his elbows now.

“Up at the front, Sir.”

“Oh, Goddammit,” the General said, giving up. “Do your mothers know you’re over here?”

“Yes, Sir,” they all replied.

Unable to find Trapper John’s friend, who may well have heard their calls and wisely decided against responding, Hawkeye and Duke returned to the barracks where, as soon as they hit their bunks, they fell into sound slumber. Three hours later, Hawkeye was awakened by the Duke, who was fully dressed and fully packed. This had required very little effort, as he had neither undressed nor unpacked.

“Wake up, y’all. We’re goin’ home. That train leaves at seven.”

“What time is it now?”

“Four.”

“Jesus, are you out of your mind? I wanna sleep.”

“Y’all can’t sleep. I think we both got snakebit during the night. Have some medicine.”

He handed Hawkeye a shot of Scotch and a lighted ciga­rette. While Hawkeye immunized himself, Duke filled a flask.

“The mess hall starts servin’ at four-thirty,” he announced. “We gotta eat hearty.”

As soon as the mess hall opened, Duke and Hawkeye entered with barracks bags and proceeded to eat heartily. Over a cup of coffee, Hawkeye reached into a seldom used pocket for a fresh pack of cigarettes. With the cigarettes came a small piece of paper. On it was written, in the unmistakable hand of Trapper John Mclntyre, the unmistak­able poetry of Bret Harte:

And then: “It’s a small place, and now I love it less. If the heathen Chinee should get lucky, just remember your old Dad, and know that he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Hawkeye handed the note to Duke who read it and took out his flask. They drank reverently and headed for the nearby train.

The train ride to Pusan was a full twelve-hour journey. The two Swampmen slept for the first six hours; then Hawkeye read while Duke gazed out the window. At one point a sergeant of the Military Police, patrolling the aisle, requested politely that Hawkeye remove his captain’s bars from the back of his fatigue cap and pin them on the front and Hawkeye, to his own surprise, politely acceded.

“Well, now,” Duke said, after the sergeant had gone on.

“For a much-decorated, fierce, front-line fighting type like y’all, that was pretty peaceful. Y’all goin’ chicken?”

“No,” Hawkeye said, “but I’ve been thinking.”

“It gives you a headache?”

“I’ve been thinking that you and I really have been living a life that few of the people we’re gonna meet from here on in know anything about. Most of the combat and near front-line people like us fly out from Seoul, so we’re gonna look like freaks to the clerk-typists and rear echelon honchos who have been living about as they would in a stateside Army camp. We’d better act at least half civilized. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt if, the next chance we get, we even put on clean uniforms.”

“I’ll think about it,” agreed Duke.

In Pusan they were directed to the Transient Officers’ Quarters and assigned to one of the Quonset huts. The hut was divided into three compartments, and they were in one of the end divisions. Each area was heated by oil stove, and each cot had a mattress on it.

“Which reminds me of something else,” Hawkeye said, as they examined their quarters.

“What’s that?” Duke asked.

“I am reminded,” Hawkeye said, “that back in The Swamp you were one of the most faithful observers of the night rules. Religiously you would leave your sack, walk three steps to the door and take the seven prescribed paces before initiating micturition. This is such a conditioned habit that I thought I’d mention it. It might not be appropriate tonight.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, too. Anythin’ else, Aunty?”

Although the rest of the Quonset filled rapidly, there were, among the other guests, few other medical officers and none from MASH units. There were few people who had been up forward, so Duke and Hawkeye were satisfied to keep to themselves. After a reasonable number of drinks and at a reasonable hour, they decided to hit their sacks, but after fifteen months on hard cots a mattress atop a spring may seem uncomfortable. Duke, having tried his, dragged his mattress to the floor, where he went to sleep until approxi­mately 3:00 a.m., when Hawkeye was awakened by a loud voice complaining in the next compartment.

“Hey, buddy,” someone was protesting, “you can’t do that in here!”

“I’m doin’ it, ain’t I?” Captain Pierce heard Captain For­rest reply, and shortly Captain Forrest returned to flop down on his mattress again and begin to snore once more, as the occupants of the next compartment continued to grumble and complain.

In the morning it was clear that their fellow officers considered Duke inap­proach­able. With misgivings they sought out Hawkeye and registered their complaints. Since neither Duke nor Hawkeye wore medical insignia, Hawkeye saw no reason to correct the impression that he and Duke were fierce, battle-hardened combat veterans. He was pleasant but firm.