Mash

by Richard Hooker

  “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.”

  “Y’all know something?” the Duke said. “I think we can beat these Yankees now.”

  “Time!” the referee was screaming, between blasts on his whistle. “Do you people want to play football or talk all day?”

  “If we have a choice,” Hawkeye said, as they started to line up, “we prefer to talk.”

  “But you ain’t got a choice,” one of the tackles from the Browns said, “and you’ll get yours now.”

  “What do y’all mean?” the Duke said. “It was clean.”

  “Yeah,” Hawkeye said, “and you’ll have to catch us first.”

  On that drive the enemy was stopped on the seven, and had to settle for the field goal that made it 10–0. For their part, the Red Raiders devoted most of their offensive efforts to pulling the corks of the two tackles, running them from one side of the field to the other. Midway in the second quarter they managed a score after Ugly John had fallen on a fumble on the enemy nineteen. Two plays later Hawkeye caught a wobbling pass lofted by a still fleeing Trapper John and fell into the end zone. Just before the end of the half the home forces rammed the ball over once more, so the score was 17–7 when both sides retired for rest and resuscitation.

  “Very good, gentlemen,” Spearchucker, who had been pacing the sideline helmeted and wrapped in a khaki blanket, told them as they filed in. “Very good, indeed.”

  “Yeah,” Trapper John said, slumping to the floor, “but I gotta have a…”

  “…beer, sir?” said Radar O’Reilly, who had been serving during the time-outs as water boy.

  “Right,” Trapper said, taking the brew. “Thank you.”

  “Tell you what,” Hawkeye said. “They got us now by ten, so we ought to be able to get two to one. Coach?”

  “Yes, sir?” Henry said. “I mean, yes?”

  “You better get over there quick,” Hawkeye said, “and grab that Hammond and try to get the rest of that bundle down at two to one.”

  “Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I mean, yes. What’s the matter with me, anyway?”

  “Nothin’, Coach,” Duke said. “Y’all are doing a real fine job.”

  Henry was back in less than five minutes. He reported that he had failed to get as far as the other team’s dressing room. Halfway across the field he had been met by General Hammond who, having just checked on the health of his offensive star, had found him still under sedation. As Henry described him, the General was extremely irate.

  “He was so mad,” Henry said, “that he wanted to know if we’d like to get any more money down.”

  “Did you all tell him yes?” Duke wanted to know.

  “He was so mad,’ Henry said, “that he said he’d give us three to one.”

  “And you took it?” Trapper said.

  “I got four to one,” a gleeful Henry said.

  “Great, Coach!” they were shouting now. “How to go, Coach!”

  “But,” Henry said, the elation suddenly draining from his face, as he thought of something, “we still have to win.”

  “Relax, coach,” Spearchucker assured him. “If these poor white trash will just give me the ball and then direct their attentions to the two gentlemen from Cleveland, Ohio, I promise you that I shall bring our crusade to a victorious conclusion.”

  Henry gave them then a re-take of his opening address. He paced the floor in front of them, waving his arms, exhorting, praising, pleading until, once more, his face and neck were of the same hue as their jerseys and once more, and for the last time, he sent them out to do or die.

  As the Red Raiders of the Imjin distributed themselves to receive the kick-off, Captain Oliver Wendell Jones took a position on the goal line. The ball was not kicked to him, but the recipient, Captain Augustus Bedford Forrest, made certain that he got it. Without significant interference, Captain Jones proceeded to the opposite end zone. Captain Forrest then kicked the extra point, bringing the score up to 17–14, and while the teams dragged themselves back upfield, the two tackles from the Browns were seen loping over to their sideline. There they were observed in earnest conversation
with General Hamilton Hartington Hammond who, as the two lumbered back onto the field, was seen shaking his fist in the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Braymore Blake.

  “Those two tackles, sir,” Radar O’Reilly informed his colonel, “told General Hammond that they recognize Captain Jones, sir.”

  “Roll it up!” Henry, ignoring both his corporal and his general, was screaming. “Roll it up!”

  “Keep it down,” advised Hawkeye. “We may want to do this again.”

  “We may not have to worry about that,” Spearchucker, still breathing heavily, informed them. “I guess I’m not in the shape I thought I was. This may still be a battle.”

  It was. It was primarily a battle between the two tackles and Spearchucker, with certain innocent parties, such as Ugly John and the Painless Pole and Vollmer, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska, in the middle. When the Red Raiders got the ball again they went ahead for the moment, as Spearchucker scored once more on a forty yard burst, but then the enemy surged back to grind out another and, with three minutes to play the score was Hammond 24, Blake 21, first-and-ten for the home forces on the visitors’ thirty-five-yard line.

  “We gotta stop ’em here,” Spearchucker said.

  “We need a time-out,” Trapper John said, “and some information.”

  “Time-out!” Hawkeye called to the referee.

  “Radar,” Trapper John said, when Radar O’Reilly came in with the water bucket and the towels, “do you think you can monitor that kaffee-clatch over there?”

  He nodded toward the other team, gathered around their quarterback.

  “I think I can, sir,” Radar said. “I can try, sir.”

  “Well, goddammit, try.”

  “Yes, sir,” Radar said, fixing his attention on the other huddle.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Well, sir,” Radar said, “the quarterback is saying that they will run the old Statue of Liberty, sir. He’s saying that their left end will come across and take the ball off his hand and try to get around their right end.”

  “Good,” Spearchucker said. “What else are they saying?”

  “Well, sir,” Radar said, “now the quarterback is saying that, if that doesn’t work, they’ll go into the double wing.”

  “Good,” the Duke said.

  “Ssh!” Hawkeye said. “What are they gonna do out of the double wing?”

  “Well, sir,” Radar said, “they’re having an argument now. Everybody is talking so it’s confusing.”

  “Keep listening.”

  “Yes, sir. Now one of the tackles is telling them all to shut up. Now the quarterback is saying that, out of the double wing, the left halfback will come across and take the hand-off and start to the right. Then he’ll hand off to the right halfback coming to the left.”

  “Radar,” Hawkeye said, “you’re absolutely the greatest since Marconi.”

  “Greater,” Trapper John said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Radar said. “That’s very kind of you, sir.”

  “Time!” the referee was calling. “Time!”

  It was as Radar O’Reilly had heard it. On the first play the enemy quarterback went back, as if to pass. As he did, the left end started to his right, and the Red Raiders, all eleven of them, started to their left. The left end took the ball off the quarterback’s hand, brought it down, made his cut and met a welcoming committee of ten men in red, only Ugly John, temporarily buried under 265 pounds of tackle, failing to make it on time.

  “Double wing!” Spearchucker informed his associates as the enemy lined up for the next play. “Double wing!”

  “Hut! Hut!” the enemy quarterback was calling. “Hut!”

  This time the left halfback took the hand-off and started to his right. The eleven Red Raiders started to their right and, as the right halfback took the ball from the left halfback, ran to his left and tried to turn in he, too, was confronted by ten men wearing the wrong colors. This time it was the Painless Pole who, tripping over his own feet, kept the Red Raiders from attaining perfect attendance.

  The first man to hit the halfback was Spearchucker Jones. He hit him so hard that he doubled him over and drove him back five yards, and as the wind came out of the halfback so did the ball. It took some time to find the ball, because it was at the bottom of a pile of six men, all wearing red jerseys.

  “Time!” Spearchucker called, and he walked over and talked with the referee.

  “What’s the matter?” Trapper John asked him, when he came back. “Let’s take it to them.”

  “Too far to go, and we’re all bushed,” Spearchucker said. “I just told the referee that we’re gonna try something different. We’re gonna make the center eligible by…”

  “Who?” Vollmer, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska said. “Me?”

  “That’s right,” Spearchucker said. “Now everybody listen, and listen good. We line up unbalanced, with everybody to the right of center, except Hawkeye at left end. Just before the signal for the snap of the ball, Duke, you move up into the line to the right of the center and Hawkeye, you drop back a yard. That keeps the required seven men in the line, and makes the center eligible to receive a pass.”

  “Me?” Vollmer said. “I can’t catch a pass.”

  “You don’t have to,” Spearchucker said. “Trapper takes the snap and hands the ball right back to you between your legs. You hide it in your belly, and stay there like you’re blockin’. Trapper, you start back like you got the ball, make a fake to me and keep going. One or both of those tackles will hit you…”

  “Oh, dear,” Trapper said.

  “Meanwhile,” Spearchucker said to Vollmer, “when your man goes by you, you straighten up, hidin’ the ball with your arms, and you walk—don’t run—toward that other goal line.”

  “I don’t know,” Vollmer said.

  “You got to,” Hawkeye said. “Just think of all that dough.”

  “I suppose,” Vollmer said.

  “Everybody else keep busy,” Spearchucker said. “Keep the other people occupied, but don’t hold, and Vollmer, you remember you walk, don’t run.”

  “I’ll try,” Vollmer said.

  “Oh, dear,” Trapper John said.

  “Time!” the referee was calling again. “Time!”

  When they lined up, all of the linemen to the right of the center except Hawkeye, they had some trouble finding their positions and the enemy had some trouble adjusting. As Trapper John walked up and took his position behind the center and then Duke jumped up into the line and Hawkeye dropped back, the enemy was even more confused.

  “Hut!” Trapper John called. “Hut!”

  He took the ball from the center, handed it right back to him, turned and started back. He faked to Spearchucker, heading into the line, and then, his back to the fray, he who had once so successfully posed as The Saviour now posed as The Quarterback With the Ball. So successfully did he pose, in fact, that both tackles from the Browns and two other linemen in orange and black fell for the ruse, and on top of Trapper John.

  Up at the line, meanwhile, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska had started his lonely journey. Bent over, his arms crossed to further hide the ball, and looking like he had caught a helmet or a shoulder pad in the pit of the stomach and was now living with the discomfort, he had walked right between the two enemy halfbacks whose attention was focused on the trapping of Trapper John. Once past this checkpoint, about ten yards from where he had started and now out in the open, the sergeant, however, began to feel as conspicuous as a man who had forgotten his pants, so he decided to embellish the act. He veered toward his own sideline, as if he were leaving the game.

  “What’s going on?” Henry was screaming as his center approached him. “What’s going on out there? What are you doing?”

  “I got the ball,” the center informed him, opening his arms enough for Henry to see the pigskin cradled there.

  “Then run!” Henry screamed. “Run!”
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  So the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska began to run. Back upfield, the two tackles from the Browns had picked up Trapper John. That is, each had picked up a leg, and now they were shaking him out like a scatter rug, still trying to find the ball, while their colleagues stood around waiting for it to appear, so they could pounce on it. Downfield, meanwhile, the safety man stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scratching an armpit, peering upfield and waiting for something to evolve. He had noticed the center start toward the sidelines, apparently in pain, but he had ignored that. Now, however, as he saw the center break into a run, the light bulb lit, and he took off after him. They met, but they met on the two-yard line, and the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska carried the safety man, as well as the ball, into the end zone with him.

  “What happened?” General Hammond, coach, was hollering on one sideline. “Illegal! Illegal!”

  “It was legal,” the referee informed him. “They made that center eligible.”

  “Crook!” General Hammond was hollering at Lieutenant Colonel Blake on the other sideline, shaking his fist at him. “Crook!”

  “Run it up!” Henry was hollering. “Run it up!”

  “Now we just gotta stop ’em,” Spearchucker said, after Duke had kicked the point that made it MASH 28, Evac 24.

  “Not me,” Trapper John said, weaving for the sideline.

  And stop them they did. The key defensive play was made, in fact, by Dr. R. C. (Jeeter) Carroll. Dr. Carroll, all five feet nine inches and 150 pounds of him, had spent the afternoon on the offense just running passroutes, waving his arms over his head and screaming at the top of his lungs. He had run button-hooks, turn-ins, turn-outs, zig-ins, zig-outs, posts and fly patterns. Trapper John had ignored him and, after the first few minutes, so had the enemy. Now, with less than a minute to play, with the enemy on the Red Raiders’ forty, fourth and ten, Spearchucker had called for a prevent defense and sent for the agile Dr. Carroll to replace Trapper John.

  “Let’s pick on that idiot,” Radar O’Reilly heard one of the enemy ends tell the enemy quarterback as Jeeter ran onto the field. “He’s opposite me, so let’s run that crossing pattern and I’ll lose him.”