Mash (17 page)

“But which do you recommend?” asked Jeeter.

“Well, I don’t really know,” said Hawkeye. “This is mostly theory with me. What do you think, Trapper?”

“Well,” Trapper said, “maybe he should announce his availability. Most of them will be in the mess hall swilling coffee, so let’s go eat.”

Jeeter, by now finding even ambulation a difficult exercise, was assisted to the door of the mess hall. Most of the nurses were indeed present, and Jeeter, silhouetted in the doorway but with the Swampmen out of sight on either side of him, made his announcement.

“Ah’m gonna screw every goddam nurse in the place!” he proclaimed loudly.

“Starting with Hot-Lips Houlihan,” Trapper John whispered to him.

“Startin’ with Hot-Lips Houlihan!” Jeeter shouted.

The Swampmen did not follow him in. They went back to The Swamp, had a short one and ate later. The next morning Jeeter knew only that he felt terrible and, after Colonel Blake had chewed him out, that he was in disgrace. It remained for Roger the Dodger Danforth, in a matter of hours, to take him off the hook.

Roger the Dodger Danforth was a surgeon at the 6073rd MASH, twenty-five miles to the East. Roger and Ugly John Black had trained together in the States, so Roger and the Swampmen were all well acquainted. In fact, they shared a mutual disrespect for most things held dear by others and a mutual respect for each other, and although Roger the Dodger was not considered, by observers of both phenomena, to be a greater menace than the three members of The Swamp, he was held to be at least their equal.

“Thank God,” Colonel Blake would say, after Roger the Dodger’s visits, “that that sonofabitch isn’t assigned here, too.”

On the day following Jeeter’s pronunciamento in the portal of the mess hall, Roger the Dodger arrived about noon. Hawkeye had just finished amputating the leg of the only customer of the morning – a Korean who had thought himself immune to minefields – and he had gone to the mess tent for a light lunch.

“Where are the boys?” he asked Dago Red.

“Roger the Dodger is here,” Dago Red said. “He and Ugly and your boys are over in The Swamp, and may the Lord have mercy on us all.”

“Second the motion,” Hawkeye said, “and I better have a large lunch.”

After the large lunch, Hawkeye headed for The Swamp with an equal mixture of anticipation and reluctance. Halfway across the ball field that separated The Swamp from the mess tent he was greeted by Roger the Dodger, who stood in the doorway of The Swamp with a glass in his hand and yelled: “Hi, Hawkeye, you old shitkicker! Screw the Regular Army! How they goin’?”

“Finest kind,” Hawkeye said.

“Have a drink,” Roger the Dodger invited. “Brung two bottles of my own.”

“What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Hawkeye wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Roger the Dodger said. “All I know is, last night I had a call from some goddam Colonel O’Reilly who said to come …”

“Who?” Hawkeye said.

“I don’t know,” Roger the Dodger said. “The only O’Reilly you got in this outfit is some corporal looks like a goddamn weathervane. What difference does it make? Have a drink.”

“I just might,” Hawkeye said.

They all had several, and a glow of amiable incandescence began to suffuse The Swamp. All might have gone well, except that Roger the Dodger, apparently the recipient of a call to take this light out into the world, insisted on stepping to the door every fifteen minutes to yell: “Screw the Regular Army!”

Daily at 3:00 p.m., and for an hour, the showers at the 4077th MASH were reserved for the nurses. The nurses, some past the first bloom of youth, some not on diets, had to pass The Swamp en route to and from their ablutions, and it was a portion of this processional that crossed the field of vision of Roger the Dodger on one of his trips outdoors to exhort the populace to violation.

“All the nurses,” Roger the Dodger yelled now, “are elephants!”

Then he switched the call to: “All the elephants have clap!”

“And Hot-Lips Houlihan,” Trapper John suggested, “is the head mahout, and must be held responsible.”

“And Hot-Lips Houlihan,” Roger the Dodger yelled, “is the head mahout, and must be held responsible!”

That had the expected result. For the past two hours Colonel Henry Blake had been sitting in his tent listening to the exhortations and hoping against hope. He had called in Father John Patrick Mulcahy and, over beers, they had discussed possibilities.

“Frankly,” Colonel Blake had said, “I’m scared. Any commanding officer with half a brain wouldn’t let this go on.”

“I disagree with you, Colonel,” Father Mulcahy had said. “Something had to break, and I was afraid it was going to be our friends over there.”

“I know,” the Colonel said. “The other day that Duke called me ‘sir.’ At any moment I’ve been expecting Hawkeye Pierce to salute me. They’re not well, I tell you. They’ve been pressed too hard, and that’s why I let that Roger the Dodger in there again. Something’s got to happen.”

“And it’s about to,” Father Mulcahy said as the two, aghast, heard Roger the Dodger invoke the name of the Chief Nurse. “I think I’ll go over to my place, or would you rather I stay?”

“No,” Colonel Blake said. “It’s all my fault, so I’ll handle this Amazon alone.”

Father Mulcahy had no sooner departed than Major Margaret Houlihan arrived. She arrived right from the showers, the ends of her hair still wet and the strap of her shower cap trailing from one end of her rolled towel. She was irate, and try as he might, Henry could not tune her out.

“This isn’t a hospital,” he heard his Chief Nurse screaming at him. “It’s an insane asylum, and you’re to blame …”

“Now, just a minute, Major,” Henry started to say. “You …”

“Don’t you minute-major me,” his Chief Nurse went on. “If you don’t stop those beasts, those THINGS, that one they call Trapper John from addressing me as Hot-Lips and stirring up those others, I’m going to resign my commission and …”

“Oh, goddammit, Hot-Lips,” Henry heard himself saying, “resign your goddamn commission, and get the hell out of here!”

Five minutes later, Radar O’Reilly was awakened from a sound sleep. He was awakened by a telephone conversation between Major Houlihan and General Hammond, in which Major Houlihan was pouring out a lively story of a military hospital with everything out of control. This was followed by a conversation between General Hammond and Colonel Blake, in which Radar heard General Hammond say: “Henry, for Christ’s sake, what the hell’s going on up there? You get down here tomorrow morning at 0930, and your story better be a goddamn good one.”

Radar hastened to The Swamp. By now Roger the Dodger, having added another chapter to his legend, had departed for his hospital, leaving the Swampmen and Ugly John to clean up the carnage. Radar filled them in on what he had heard.

“You know, Henry might really be in trouble,” Hawkeye said, after Radar had finished his report and left. “That damn fool nurse has finally become a real menace.”

“That’s right,” the Duke said.

“Trapper,” Hawkeye said, “why do you always have to call her ‘Hot-Lips’?”

“I don’t always have to call her ‘Hot-Lips.’ This morning I was nice to her. I called her ‘Major Hot-Lips’.”

“What’ll we do?” asked the Duke.

“Well,” Trapper said, “I guess that if I hadn’t called that bomber ‘Hot-Lips’ and then treed her with Jeeter and Roger the Dodger, the General wouldn’t be on Henry’s ass. Therefore, I’ll go down and square it with the General.”

“We’ll go with you!” chorused Forrest and Pierce.

They made an appointment with the General for nine o’clock the next morning but appeared in his outer office at eight-thirty. They were wearing fatigues that had that lived-in look, without insignia, and they sat down on the bench that ran along one wall. Three quite attractive members of the Women’s Army Corps – a lieutenant and two sergeants – occupied the working space of this outer part of the General’s sanctum.

“Well,” Trapper John said, after a few minutes, “shall we?”

“Why not?” Hawkeye Pierce said.

Each of the Swampmen produced from the recesses of his clothing a bottle labeled Johnny Walker Black Label. Earlier, back at the Double Natural, these bottles had been filled with tea by Sergeant Mother Divine, and now Duke Forrest rose from the bench and approached the WAC lieutenant.

“Y’all got any paper cups, honey?” he asked politely.

Confused, the lieutenant produced paper cups. The cups were filled, and cigarettes were lighted.

“Think the broads might like some tea?” wondered Trapper John in a stage whisper.

“They ain’t broads,” answered Hawkeye. “They’re two sergeants and a lieutenant.”

“Which are higher, sergeants or captains?” inquired the Duke. “Do we outrank them?”

“I dunno,” said Trapper.

“Even if they outrank us, they might like some tea,” said Hawkeye.

Duke rose again, the complete southern gentleman.

“Pardon, ladies, but would y’all care for some tea?”

“No, thank you,” the lieutenant answered frostily.

The Swampmen sipped their tea in silence. Suddenly, the silence was shattered by Trapper John: “I bet generals get plenty.”

The lieutenant shot from behind her desk.

“Who are you people?” she demanded in great indignation.

“Don’t get overheated, honey,” Hawkeye said. “We’re just a bunch of screwups from up the line. We gotta see the General at nine o’clock, civilian time, to chew him out.”

“The General is supposed to see three medical officers at nine o’clock,” she snapped, regaining a trace of composure.

“That’s us, ma’am,” spoke up Duke Forrest. “If you ladies don’t happen to feel well, we’d admire to give y’all an examination.”

Despite the rigid training required to reach officer and upper enlisted rank in the WAC, the lieutenant and her troops were totally unprepared for this sort of situation. They deserted in the face of the enemy.

“Must be a coffee break,” observed Hawkeye.

After a few minutes of idle chatter, the Swampmen found time hanging heavy. Hawkeye produced a pair of dice and a crap game started.

At eight fifty-nine General Hammond arrived. As he walked through the outer sanctum toward his inner sanctum he was annoyed to find his secretarial force gone, and the spectacle of three disheveled crapshooters and three bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label annoying him even more.

“Hiya, General, how they goin’?” Hawkeye inquired.

The General stood transfixed.

“The Duke’s trying to make a four,” Trapper John informed the General.

“Little Joe,” Duke begged the dice.

“Duke can’t make fours,” Hawkeye assured the General. “He’ll crap out in a minute and we’ll be with you.”

Duke sevened and stood up. “Nice to see y’all, General,” he said. “Y’all sure got it knocked – three nice lookin’ WAC’s workin’ for y’all, and comin’ to work in the middle of the mornin’.”

“We got here early,” Trapper John explained, “because we spent the night in a whorehouse, and we had to get out before the day shift took over. Have a shot of tea?”

He offered his bottle to the General. The General remained transfixed.

“Come in,” he finally commanded. Followed by the Swampmen, the General stalked into his office. Safely behind his desk, the General scowled at them.

“I’ve heard about you people,” he said, “but I didn’t really believe it. Now I do.”

“You got some nice looking stuff working in your office, General,” Hawkeye said.

“Shut up!” roared the General.

“General,” Trapper said, “I’d like to change the tenor of this interview and be very serious. We’ve been in every hospital you have. The 4077th is the best you’ve ever had, and the biggest reason is Colonel Henry Braymore Blake. It was me that got that dizzy nurse mad when Henry had already had more than any of us needed. Do anything you want with us, but you’d be a damn fool to get rid of your best MASH commander because Hot-Lips Houlihan doesn’t like her name.”

The General grunted, took a nervous sip of water and lit a cigarette.