M*A*S*H

by Richard Hooker

  "I'll be with you in a minute," said Captain Waldowski, leaving the tent after downing the beer in three gulps.

  Upon his return, Painless, obviously proud and holding a blue ribbon in his hand, informed them, "I don't know where I've been, but wherever it was I sure as hell won first prize. How about a game of poker?"

  6

  The other doctors in the 4077th spent a great deal of time in discussion of the men of The Swamp. When Duke's name was mentioned, it was generally agreed that he was the most amiable, and therefore likeable, of the three. Trapper John's consummate skill as a surgeon earned him the most respect, but when it came to Hawkeye Pierce there was a great divergence of opinion.

  The man who hated Hawkeye the most was Captain Frank Burns. He had good reason. He was persecuted by Hawkeye Pierce. Captain Burns was the boss of one surgical shift, and Hawkeye of the other. Working times frequently overlapped, so some contact was inevitable. The more contact they had, the more they hated each other.

  Frank Burns was the son of a general practitioner and surgeon in a medium-sized Indiana town. After one year of internship, and as heir apparent, he had joined his father in practice for three years before being drafted. He owned a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house and two automobiles.

  Hawkeye Pierce had spent the same three years in a surgical residency, without salary, and had been supported by his wife and hospital poker games. In Hawkeye's opinion, Frank Burns, despite a definite technical competency, seldom thought and was a fake. In Frank Burns's opinion, Hawkeye Pierce was an uncouth yokel who failed to understand that learning surgery from a father who didn't know any was better than formal training in a teaching hospital.

  Captain Burns, born to affluence, accustomed to authority, was very definitely the boss of his shift. He found the enlisted men exasperating. At least once a week, it was necessary for him to report someone to Colonel Blake for dereliction of duty. It then became necessary for Captain Pierce to intercede in behalf of the enlisted man, which he always did successfully. This annoyed Captain Burns, and one day he approached Captain Pierce and attempted to discuss the subject.

  "Frank," Hawkeye said, "you stink. I haven't decided what to do about you, but sooner or later I'll come to some sort of decision. Now I suggest that you go to bed and lull yourself to sleep counting your annuities or something, before you precipitate my decision, to the sorrow of us both."

  Frank ran to Colonel Blake and complained. Colonel Blake came to The Swamp.

  "Pierce," he asked, "what ails you?"

  "Well,", said Hawkeye, "the guy from the Sox who looked me over once said that, in addition to having a very weak throwing arm, I'd never hit big-league pitching."

  "Jesus," said Henry, "you are crazy. Anyhow, you leave Burns alone. I know what you mean about him, but surgeons of any kind are hard to find. Leave him alone, or it's gonna be your ass."

  "Yes, my leader," agreed Hawkeye meekly, as Henry stormed out.

  That night when Hawkeye went to work he encountered Frank.

  "Hey, Frank," he said, "one of my kid brothers just got out of jail. I wrote him and told him to go out to Indiana and burn down your thirty-five-thousand-dollar house."

  Again, Frank ran to Colonel Blake who visited Hawkeye in the morning.

  "Pierce, have you flipped?" he demanded.

  "Whadda ya mean?" asked Hawkeye, who had forgotten all about it.

  "I heard what you said to Frank last night about your brother burning his house down."

  "Which brother? I got six."

  "The one who just got out of jail."

  "Well, for Chrissake, Henry, I can't keep track of things from here. It could be any of them. They all sort of rotate in and out. Forget it. None of them could find Indiana on the best day he ever had."

  When Hawkeye, for the moment and to placate Colonel Blake, let up on Captain Burns, it was Duke Forrest who took over, again in behalf of the enlisted men. This time it was in behalf of Private Lorenzo Boone, the dunce of the Double Natural.

  In his nineteen years, Private Boone had been exposed to very little, so his real abilities were difficult to assess. He couldn't seem to do anything right, which may have been why the Army assigned him to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, where he was given the job of third assistant bedpan jockey in the postop ward. Inept though he was, he did try hard, and he improved with time.

  For a while Private Boone was assigned the simple job of computing the liquid intake and output of the more severely ill patients. This was really quite easy. Most of the patients received only intravenous fluids for intake, and they all had catheters in their bladders, so there was no problem in measuring the urinary output. In accordance with medical custom, Private Boone was supposed to measure these quantities in cubic centimeters (cc's), of which there are one thousand to a quart.

  After a few days, the intake figures recorded by Private Boone became open to the question. Several patients were alleged to have taken only one cc, two cc's, or in extreme cases four or five cc's in a given twenty-four-hour period, and no output at all was recorded. The ensuing revelation that Private Boone thought cc's stood for cups of coffee solved part of the problem but did little to increase his efficiency.

  It was shortly after this that Captain Burns was taken ill. In fact, he was so indisposed that he spent three days in his tent and, although the nature of his illness was never widely known, its origins were as follows:

  Captain Burns was addicted to a common failing in the surgical dodge: if a patient died, he claimed it was (1) God's will or (2) someone else's fault. One day he spent six long, hard hours operating on a severely wounded soldier, who'd been in deep shock throughout most of the procedure. Half an hour after surgery, the patient died in the postoperative ward. His final gesture was to vomit and aspirate some of the vomitus.

  Private Boone, on his own initiative, quickly brought in a suction machine. It was not functioning, but neither was the patient as Captain Burns appeared and observed Private Boone's futile efforts.

  "Boone," he said, "you killed my patient!"

  Private Boone turned white. He walked away and went to a dark corner and cried. The Captain said he'd killed a man, and the Captain was a doctor and he ought to know.

  Duke Forrest caught it. To Captain Burns he said, "Frank, may I speak to y'all outside for a moment?"

  Korean nights can be dark. Often you can't see your hand in front of your face. Captain Burns never saw the hand that broke his nose, split his lip, or the knee that made him terribly uncomfortable for three days to come.

  Trapper John was next in line to take on Captain Burns, and it had to do with cardiac massage. Cardiac massage is manual compression of a heart that has stopped. It is done through a hole hastily made in the chest in the hope, usually forlorn, that the heartbeat will resume and the patient will recover. The administrator of cardiac massage compresses and releases the heart between the fingers of one hand with a rhythm designed to approximate the normal heartbeat, and Captain Frank Burns was, without doubt, the leading cardiac masseur in the Far East Command.

  At breakfast one morning Trapper John Mclntyre, leaving the mess hall, encountered Captain Frank Burns entering the mess hall. Trapper John traveled a fast right to Frank's jaw, and Frank dropped on the sand floor like a poleaxed steer.

  This was the second time within a month that Frank had been assaulted by a Swampman. The first time had been clandestine, but this was public, and again an irate Henry entered The Swamp.

  Standing over Trapper John, who was sipping a beer in his sleeping bag, Colonel Blake yelled his usual question. "What's wrong with you, anyhow?"

  "I'm wondering the same thing, Henry," replied Trapper. "I hear the son-of-a-bitch got up. I guess I've lost my punch."

  Trapper rolled over and ignored Henry.

  "You wanta know what it's all about, Henry?" volunteered Hawkeye.

  "Yeah, I sure do!"

  "Well, you remember, yesterday morning was pretty busy.

  T
he most minor injury was a kid with a shell-fragment wound in his right thigh. It didn't look like much. Frank decided to get him out of the way so they could get on with the others. As usual, he didn't think. He took the kid in with a pressure of eighty over fifty, had them give him anesthesia, and started to debride the wound. It turned out the kid's femoral artery was lacerated and he bled a lot. Then he had a cardiac arrest, and Frank rubbed his heart. It came back, he stopped the bleeding and got some blood into him, and by midafternoon he looked OK. By the time we came on duty last night the kid was in shock again. Trapper took over, figured he was bleeding from the chest wound Frank made, got his pressure up, and opened his chest again to stop the bleeding.

  "Now the kid's OK," Hawkeye said, "but because that bastard Burns didn't observe a few basic principles, the boy almost died. Instead of cussing himself out for almost losing a patient, Frank thinks he's a big hero because he did a successful cardiac massage. Therefore Trapper John administered a knuckle sandwich."

  It took a femme fatale, however, to restore peace, more or less, to the 4077th MASH. She was Major Margaret Houlihan, new Chief Nurse, and one June morning she emerged, not out of a scallop shell like Botticelli's Venus, but out of a helicopter. She was tallish, willowish, blondish, fortyish. She had a nice figure. In fact, she was a nice-looking, forty-year-old female.

  Within the prescribed twenty-four hours following her arrival, Major Houlihan made a point of seeking out the boss of each shift and attempting to discuss nursing problems with him. Captain Burns was in starched fatigues and his most gracious mood, but he mentioned several nurses whose performance was inadequate and made a variety of suggestions for improvement. The Major was quite impressed with Captain Burns.

  She was less impressed with Captain Pierce. She found him in the mess tent in soiled fatigues having a late breakfast. She introduced herself, and Hawkeye invited her to join him over a cup of coffee.

  "Captain Pierce," Major Houlihan said, "I observed the night shift and I was not at all impressed with some of our nurses. How do you feel, Captain, about the nursing situation here?"

  "Major," Hawkeye said, "this is a team effort. I'm responsible for my team. It consists of doctors, nurses and enlisted men. We've been working as a unit for six months with little change in personnel. I'm satisfied with them."

  "Well," she said, "Captain Burns isn't at all satisfied."

  "Mother," said Hawkeye Pierce, "Captain Burns is a jerk, and if you don't know it by now you …"

  Major Houlihan arose. "I wonder," she asked, "how anyone like you reaches such a position of responsibility in the Army Medical Corps."

  "Honey," answered Hawkeye, "if I knew the answer to that I sure as hell wouldn't be here."

  "Very well, Captain," Major Houlihan said. "It appears that we are not going to get along. Nevertheless, I want you to know that I will attempt to cooperate with you in every possible way."

  "Major," Hawkeye said, smiling, "I appreciate that, so would you consider another cup of coffee?"

  Reluctantly she sat down again and resumed the talk. She was still terribly upset, so Hawkeye tried to explain a few things.

  "Major," he said, "you're watching both shifts. Watch them with an eye to which shift does the most work with the least fuss. Watch them with an eye to how many people work happily or unhappily."

  "I observed last night that both nurses and enlisted men addressed you as Hawkeye'."

  "That's my name."

  "Such familiarity is highly improper," declaimed Major Houlihan, "and inconsistent with maximum efficiency in an organization such as this."

  "Well, Major," said Hawkeye as he got up and left, "I'm gonna have a couple shots of Scotch and go to bed. Obviously you're a female version of the routine Regular Army Clown. Stay away from me and my gang, and we'll get along fine. See you around the campus."

  Having been summarily dismissed by Captain Pierce, Major Houlihan took her problems to the commanding officer. The interview was quite unsatisfactory. Colonel Blake told her, after she'd bothered him enough, that he'd rather get rid of Captain Burns than Captain Pierce, but couldn't afford to lose either one.

  Major Houlihan was quite upset, but withheld final judgment for a week. By the end of that period she was completely convinced that the Swampmen, Pierce in particular, exerted an evil influence upon the Colonel and upon the whole outfit. Captain Burns, she learned from frequent observation, was a brilliant technical surgeon. His behavior was military, his dress and bearing were military. He was, she felt, an officer, a gentleman and a surgeon.

  The obvious continued to escape her. For months Captain Burns's group had been getting into difficulties. Some of its members, when in doubt, bypassed Frank Burns and asked the Swampmen for help. As a result, Colonel Blake finally decided to create a Chief Surgeon, whose duty, in addition to doing his fair share of the work, would be to assist each shift in the management of the most difficult cases. Everyone in the organization except Captain Burns and Major Houlihan recognized that this job could logically be given only to Trapper John, and so it was.

  Upon learning of the Colonel's decision, and certain that the commanding officer was bereft of his senses, Major Houlihan invited Captain Burns to her tent for a council of war. She gave Frank a drink. He explained to her the tragedy of turning the organization over to the riff-raff and, since she agreed with him, extolled her perspicacity. Then, over her signature, they composed to General Hammond in Seoul a letter that he would never receive because Hawkeye had the mail clerk censoring the Major's outgoing correspondence. After that the Major gave Frank another drink, and Frank embraced and kissed her. Then they departed, reluctantly, for the mess tent. It was supper time.

  In The Swamp, meanwhile, a party in honor of the newly appointed Chief Surgeon was in progress. Attendance was high, and at five-thirty it was suggested by someone and agreed upon by all that a Chief Surgeon should be treated with more than usual respect. Trapper John went along with this and requested that he be properly crowned and transported to the mess hall by native bearers. This presented complications, as crowns are hard to come by in the Korean hinterlands, and the Korean houseboys, when asked to serve as native bearers, protested that they had not hired out as such. Instead, a bedpan was fastened to Trapper John's head with adhesive tape, and Hawkeye, Duke, Ugly John and the Painless Pole picked up the sack upon which the newly crowned Chief Surgeon rested and, with the others following, bore it and him to the mess hall.

  "Now y'all hear this!" the Duke announced to the assembled diners. "This here is your new Chief Surgeon. He has just been crowned, so y'all do him honor."

  Then the members of the Chief Surgeon's court broke into song:

  "Hail to the Chief,

  And King of all the surgeons.

  He needs a Queen,

  To satisfy his urgins."

  "That's right," Trapper John, still reclining on his sack, said. "And who's that over there?"

  He pointed toward the back of the mess hall. There, sitting apart from the others and evidencing complete disgust, were Major Houlihan and Captain Burns.

  "Oh them, Your Highness?" Hawkeye said. "That's just the goose girl and the swine herd."

  "I don't like the swine herd," Trapper John said, "but I might get to like the goose girl."

  Major Houlihan and Captain Burns retreated to console each other and plot their revenge. They retreated to the Major's tent, where they consoled and plotted until 1:30 a.m. At least that was the report which Corporal Radar O'Reilly submitted in the morning.

  The Swampmen were at breakfast when Major Houlihan and Captain Burns entered. As the two started to pass the table, eyes front, Duke spoke up.

  "Mornin', Frank," he said.

  "Hiya, Hot Lips," said the Chief Surgeon to the Chief Nurse. "Now that I'm a chief, too, we really oughta get together."

  Frank stopped, turned and made one menacing step toward the Swampmen.

  "Join us if you wish, Frank," invited Hawkeye. "Looks like a grea
t day to set a hen."

  Captain Burns thought better of it. He escorted Major Houlihan to a distant table, but his moment came that night when he and Hawkeye found themselves together in the utility room, next to the OR, where coffee was available. Hawkeye had just poured himself a cup and was seated at the table, sipping and smoking, when Captain Burns entered and approached the coffee pot.

  "Hey, Frank," said the Hawk, "is that stuff you're tappin' really any good?"

  "One more word out of you," Frank erupted, screaming it, "and I'll kill you!"

  "So kill me," Hawkeye said.

  At that moment Colonel Henry Blake entered, and what he saw was enough to do it. He saw Captain Pierce sitting peacefully with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. He saw Captain Burns, on the other side of the room, pick up the coffee pot and hurl it at Captain Pierce, who ducked. Then he saw Captain Burns follow the coffee pot and start flailing away at Hawkeye with his fists. Hawkeye, having spotted the Colonel, did nothing but cover his head with his arms and scream.

  "Henry!" he screamed. "Help me, Henry! He's gone mad!"

  The next day Captain Burns was reassigned to a stateside hospital. Although the Swampmen were happy, Colonel Blake wasn't, and entered The Swamp to define his unhappiness.

  "OK," he said. "You guys win another round. You ditched Frank. I could have put up with him screwing Hot Lips, if he was, which I doubt, but you guys had to have your way. I just want you to know that I know what you did. He was a jerk, I admit, but he was needed, and now we don't have him and it's your fault."

  "Henry," said Hawkeye, "for Crissake, sit down and relax. Nobody needs guys like him. You're all concerned with numbers of people. The clown created more work than he accomplished. We're better off without him."

  "Maybe so," Henry sighed. "I don't know."

  "Henry," Duke asked, "if I get into Hot Lips and jump Hawkeye Pierce can I go home, too?"

  7