MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors

by Richard Hooker

  Dinner finally over, they returned to the bar. As they sipped their brandies, the conversation, which had been lag­ging, came to a halt.

  “Let’s finish these up and haul for where we spend the night,” Hawkeye said finally. “I’m tired.”

  “Well,” said Ugly, “when am I ever going to see you guys again?”

  “Ugly,” answered Hawk, “that’s a painful subject. I hope it’s soon, but I don’t know. If you come to Maine, you’ll see me. If we attend the same medical meetings we’ll meet. From here it sounds great to say we’ll all get together soon, but all I know is this: You can call me or the Duke fifty days or fifty years from now and we’ll be glad to see you.” “Right,” the Duke said. “Yeah,” Ugly said. “I know what you mean.” Ugly drove them to the Transient Officers’ Quarters at the 325th Evacuation Hospital, from opposite ends of which, more than fifteen months before, the two had emerged to meet for the first time. They watched the jeep disappear into the darkness and head north and back to the Double Natural.

  They opened the door of the Transient Officers’ Quarters, walked in, stomped the snow off their feet and dumped their barracks bags on the floor. Looking around they saw a dismal but familiar military scene. A large room was almost filled with triple-decker bunks. The floor was littered with old copies of The Stars and Stripes and empty beer cans. There were two weak electric lights hanging from the ceiling, two bare wooden tables and a few flimsy chairs. In a comer, five young officers were seated around one of the tables talking earnestly, seriously, worriedly. Their clean fatigues and their general appearance indicated that they were coming, not going.

  Duke selected one of the three-decker bunks. He examined it carefully, prodding it and poking it.

  “Hawkeye,” he said, “I think y’all better pour us some prophylactic snake bite medicine. This place is plumb full of snakes.”

  “I never argue about snakes with a man from Georgia,” said Hawkeye, extricating a bottle and paper cups from his bag. “I will pour the necessary doses.”

  They sat at the wooden table, sipped the Scotch, smoked, and said little but looked happy. They had long hair, could have used shaves, and their clothes were dirty. Between them they owned one-half pair of Captain’s bars, which Hawkeye wore on the back of his fatigue cap.

  From the corner, the eager new officers watched them with interest. Finally one of them rose and approached.

  “May I ask you gentlemen a question?” he inquired.

  “Sure, General,” said Hawkeye, who had turned his fatigue cap around so that the Captain’s bars showed.

  “I’m not a general, Captain. I’m a lieutenant. May I ask why you wear your cap that way?”

  “What way?”

  “Backwards.”

  Hawkeye took his cap off and inspected it.

  “It looks OK to me,” he said. “Course, I ain’t no West Pointer, and frankly I don’t give a big rat’s ass whether it’s on backwards or forwards. What’s more, when I wear it this way, a lotta people think I’m Yogi Berra.”

  “Yogi Berra?” the lieutenant said.

  “Hey, Duke,” Hawkeye ordered. “Gimme my mask.”

  The lieutenant scuffed his feet and asked, “How long have you gentlemen been in Korea?”

  “Eighteen months,” Duke informed him. “Seems like just yesterday we came.”

  The lieutenant left and rejoined his group. “They’re nuts,” he told them.

  “Jesus,” said one of them, “I hope we don’t look like that after eighteen months.”

  “Hawkeye,” Duke said, “y’all hear what that boy said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do y’all attach any significance to it?”

  “Not much. We’ve done our jobs. I’m not ashamed of anything. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

  “Me neither,” Duke said, “but y’all don’t suppose we’ve really flipped, do you? Sometimes I’m not sure.”

  “Duke, wait’ll you see your wife and those two girls. You’ll be tame, docile and normal as hell. I wouldn’t know you two months from now. Relax.”

  “Yeah,” Duke said, pouring another drink, and then raising his voice, “but do y’all know something? This is the first day in eighteen months I ain’t killed nobody.”

  “Like hell! You didn’t get one on Christmas.”

  “That’s right. I forgot, but y’all know it kind of gets in your blood. Guess I’ll clean my .45 just in case any Chinks infiltrate this here barracks.”

  The Duke took out his .45, started to clean it and to look significantly at the new officers in the other corner. He poured another drink. “Hawkeye,” he announced loudly, “those guys are Chinks in disguise, or at least I think they are. Guess I’ll shoot ’em, just to be safe.”

  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:

  Which I wish to remark,

  And my language is plain,

  That for ways that are dark

  And for tricks that are vain,

  The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

  Which the same I would rise to explain.

  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.

  “I’ll do my best,” he assured the committee, “but even I dasn’t rile that man none. If I can get him home without him killin’ anybody, or earnin’ the Purple Heart for myself, I’ll be lucky. He’s got so he can’t hardly tell a Chink from anyone else.”

  As Hawkeye finished his explanation, Duke joined the group and at the same moment a passing truck backfired. Hawkeye and the Duke hit the floor, simultaneously drawing their .45’s and looking around for the enemy. Then, realizing their mistake, they arose, feigning embarrassment.

  That night Hawkeye slept without interruption. When he awoke it was to the babble of another delegation of their neighbors, standing in the doorway and viewing with obvious distaste the Duke, still sleeping on his mattress on the floor.

  “What’s the matter?” Hawkeye, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, asked him. “He didn’t do it on the floor again, did he?”

  “No, he did it on the stove.”

  “Why didn’t you stop him?”

  “We were afraid he’d do it on us.”

  That afternoon they embarked aboard a ferry for Sasebo. As the ferry left the dock, they leaned over the side, smoking and observing a crowd of Koreans and a Korean band cheering and serenading their departure. Hawkeye threw his cigarette into the swirling, dirty waters below.

  “And now,” he said, “as we leave the Beautiful Land of Korea, the grateful natives line the shores and chant: ’Moth­er—; Mother—.’ ”

  “Y’all just about said it all,” agreed the Duke.

  As the ferry approached the Japanese shore, Sasebo materi­alized from the mist as a pretty town. There were mountains, evergreens and a rocky shoreline that, not that he needed any prodding, reminded Hawkeye of the coast of Maine. There were shops and Officers’ Clubs and several thousand troops awaiting transportation home. The Swampmen abandoned fatigue uniforms, donned Ike jackets, adorned them with proper insignia and became recognizable as medical officers.

  This was a mistake. Before any group of returnees was allowed to board a troopship, short-arm inspection was man­datory, and properly so. Returning medical officers were drafted for this duty, and when the Swampmen heard about this, they were shaken.

  “Not me,” said Hawkeye. “Let the pill rollers who been doing it all along do it. After eighteen months of being one of their knife artists, I ain’t going to be demoted.”

  “Me neither,” declared Duke.

  A sergeant with a pad descended upon them. “You men medical officers?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “May I have your names, please?”

  “What for?”

  “I’m making up the roster for short-arm inspection tomor­row.”

  “Oh, certainly, Sergeant,” Hawkeye said. “My name is Captain George Limburger, and this is Captain Walter Camembert.”

  The sergeant started to write, and Hawkeye politely assisted him with the spelling.

  “What time tomorrow?” Duke asked.

  “You’ll be notified.”

  Time passed slowly in the big, bare barracks. No one seemed to know when they’d ship out. After being placed on the short-arm roster, the Swampmen decided to go shopping. Popular items in the local shops were flimsy, transparent negligee
s known as skin suits. No red-blooded American boy wanted to return to his homeland without several skin suits for his loved one, or ones, and the local shopkeepers were hard put to meet the demand.

  “I gotta get me some skin suits,” said Hawkeye.

  “Me too.”

  At the nearest shop they looked over the selection. The Duke insisted on having one with fur, preferably mink, around the bottom. After much haggling and consultation between employees and owners, the shop agreed to supply such a garment if given twenty-four hours. Their command of English didn’t match their curiosity, and they couldn’t com­pletely grasp the Duke’s simple explanation that he did not wish his wife’s neck to get cold.

  The next morning the sergeant who came in search of Captains Limburger and Camembert was a different sergeant. He went through the barracks shouting: “Limburger! Camembert?” Several officers inquired about the price. Some asked for crackers. The sergeant became annoyed. Finally he arrived in the area occupied by Duke and Hawkeye, who had just returned from shaving and had yet to don shirts or insignia.

  “What do you want with those two guys?” Hawkeye asked him.

  “They’re supposed to hold short-arm inspection.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Why not?”’

  “Don’t y’all know,” said Duke, “that those guys are the two biggest fairies in the Far East Command? That’ll be the longest short-arm inspection y’all ever saw.”

  The sergeant perceived the logic of their argument. He consulted his list. “You know anybody named Forrest or Pierce?” he inquired

  “Yeah,” Duke told him. “They shipped out yesterday.”

  “Well, thanks a lot,” said the sergeant

  Two days later the word came. They were to board a Marine transport for Seattle. They packed. They had a bottle of V.O. left, and booze was not allowed on troopships.

  “What difference does it make?” asked Hawkeye. “How we going to get enough booze on board to last us to Seattle, anyway?”

  “I got an idea,” the Duke said. “Let’s drink this jug and have our next drink in Seattle. If we can go that long without it, we’ll know we’re not dangerous alcoholics.”