MASH 13 MASH goes to Montreal

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  “Good thinking, Jambon,” Don Rhotten said. “I’ll follow them. You round up the buffalo and bring Frenchie and the camera crew along.”

  “Where will you be?” Taylor P. Jambon said.

  “I won’t know that until I get there, now, will I?” Don Rhotten replied, and started for the stairs.

  Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, R.N. it will be recalled, had gone on to the hospital approximately an hour before. She was expected. A very large gentleman, with a British brush mustache, his light green jacket identifying him as a senior member of the medical staff, was standing just inside the plate-glass doors.

  “Nurse Wilson,” he said, in a deep voice. “We have been waiting for you. I’m placing the facilities of the hospital at your disposal.”

  This was not the sort of response Nurse Wilson was used to (except perhaps at New Orleans’ Gates of Heaven Hospital, where it was generally known that she and the Reverend Mother Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A.C.S. and chief of staff, were buddies) and she was surprised.

  “Why, that’s very kind of you, Doctor,” she said.

  The doctor leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I wouldn’t want it broadcast all over,” he said, “but I’m one of yours, Reverend Mother Emeritus!”

  “God bless you,” Nurse Wilson boomed.

  “Brother Bobbie called me from the Temple,” the doctor said.

  “Has the patient arrived?” Hot Lips asked.

  “No, not yet,” the doctor replied. “And ... I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’re having a little problem with the other nurse. The redheaded one.”

  “What sort of a problem?”

  “The truth of the matter is, she’s been drinking,” the doctor said.

  “Drinking? Esther Flanagan, R.N.? Is that who you’re talking about?”

  “I’m afraid so,” the doctor said.

  “I refuse to believe that Esther Flanagan, R.N. would booze it up on duty!”

  “She was already pretty plastered when Brother Bobbie called and told me you were coming,” the doctor said. “And for the past half hour, she’s been on a crying jag.”

  “Take me to her!” Hot Lips ordered.

  “I managed to get her to go to my private office,” the doctor said. “Right this way.”

  Esther Flanagan, when the doctor opened his office door and ushered Hot Lips in, was seated at the doctor’s desk. She had somehow acquired a set of nursing whites. The crisp nurse’s cap which was designed to be worn atop the head, was on one side, apparently defying the laws of gravity. Tears ran down Esther’s face. Her right hand grasped a glass, her left, a bottle of whiskey.

  “Esther!” Hot Lips said.

  “Men are no damned good!” Esther said.

  “Why, I know that, dear,” Hot Lips said. “But what has that got to do with you being in, how shall I phrase it, your present disgusting condition?”

  “And French-Canadian men are the worst of all!” Esther went on.

  “Tell me all about it, dear,” Hot Lips said.

  “By god, there’s another one!” Esther said, finally focusing her eyes on the doctor standing behind Hot Lips. She picked up the whiskey bottle, and took aim with it.

  “He’s all right, Esther,” Hot Lips said, quickly. “He’s one of mine.”

  “That’s what he says! You can’t believe a word they say, believe you me!”

  “Perhaps it would be best if I left you alone,” the doctor said. “I’ll wait in the corridor.”

  Hot Lips picked up the telephone. “Get some coffee in here,” she ordered. “Lots of it, and as black as possible. What do you mean, who am I? I’m the Reverend Mother Emeritus, that’s who the hell I am!”

  “He lied to me, Hot Lips,” Esther said.

  “They all do that, dear,” Hot Lips replied. “I could have told you that.”

  “I trusted him.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Hot Lips said. “And tell me all about it.”

  “Just as soon as I got the call about Framingham’s nose,” Esther said, rather thickly, “I came right over here.”

  “I see. And had you had a little something to settle your stomach before you came?”

  “I was as sober as a judge,” Esther said, righteously.

  “Go on.”

  “So I told them who I was, and what I wanted. I told them I didn’t know what was wrong with Framingham’s nose, but if Hawkeye and Trapper John were coming all this way, it must be pretty serious.”

  “I see. I don’t know what’s wrong with his nose yet, either,” Hot Lips said.

  “So I told them I wanted an operating room all set up, and that we’d probably need a gas-passer. You know, the whole routine.”

  "And?”

  “They told me that they couldn’t do that without additional information,” Esther said. “So then I remembered what Henri had told me about his being connected with the provincial government in a communications capacity—having influence, I mean.”

  “So?”

  “So I used his name,” Esther said. “And they checked the list of important bureaucrats, and he wasn’t on that. And then they checked the list of minor bureaucrats, and he wasn’t on that, either.”

  “That’s odd,” Hot Lips said.

  “And then some doctor came. You can’t tell it by looking at him, but he’s one of yours, Hot Lips.”

  “That must be the fellow who met me at the door,” Hot Lips said.

  “And he said that any friend of yours was a friend of his, and he would personally look into the matter for me.”

  “And did he straighten it out?”

  “Henri has three wives and six children,” Esther said. “And, that connection with the provincial government in a communications capacity he told me about? He sells money orders in the post office, that’s what he does?”

  “Oh, Esther,” Hot Lips said.

  “So I had a little drink to settle my nerves,” Esther said. “And then another. Perhaps three in all.”

  The door opened and a nurse’s helper brought in a tray holding a pot of coffee and some cups.

  “Doctor,” Hot Lips called. “Are you still out there?”

  “At your service, Reverend Mother Emeritus!”

  “Far be it from me to suggest a course of treatment to you, Doctor,” Hot Lips said. “I'm sure you’ve already considered cold-water therapy in this case yourself.”

  “I have,” he said. “But she sent three nurses fleeing.”

  “She’ll be a good girl now, won’t you, Esther?” Hot Lips said. There was no reply. When Hot Lips turned, Esther had laid her head on the desk. Her eyes were closed. A snore, and then another, came from her.

  “I’ll get a wagon,” the doctor said. “And let me say, Reverend Mother Emeritus, that I knew you would succeed where we all had failed.”

  “Just tie her to the cart,” Hot Lips said, professionally. “And roll her under the shower.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  On the outskirts of Montreal, in the opinion of the attending physicians, Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre, the condition of Matthew Q. Framingham VI’s nose had improved to the point where hospitalization was no longer medically indicated.

  “Well,” Hawkeye, who was driving the ambulance, said over the C.B. to Trapper John, who was driving the Rolls-Royce. “Good buddy, there doesn’t seem to be much else we can do but find a motel, does there? Come back.”

  “There’s a sign reading Vieux Montreal Howard Johnson’s Motel, good buddy,” Trapper John said.

  “Isn’t that an interesting coincidence?” Hawkeye said. “This is the ol’ Pecker Checker going Ten-ten.”

  The little convoy rolled up at the Vieux Montreal just moments after the ambulance carrying His Royal Highness had sped off. The sound of the siren, so to speak, still hung in the air.

  “You keep your eye on Bubba and Scarlett, Trapper,” Hawkeye said. “Get them to help Stanley unload the Polish wedding feast. I would prescribe a cold shower
, but they’d probably get in it together. I will run down Esther and see what I can do about cooling her off until she comes to her senses.”

  As Hawkeye walked into the motel, he glanced casually into the patio. As he approached the desk to inquire as to Miss Flanagan’s room number, he realized that he had really been under a mental strain lately. It was absolutely inconceivable, of course—his brain was playing tricks on him—but there was just no way that he could have seen Taylor P. Jambon, America’s Most Famous TV Gourmet and a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman trying to dissuade a buffalo from eating the Vieux Montreal’s shrubbery.

  “Miss Flanagan’s room, please,” Dr. Pierce said, shaking his head.

  “She’s in the Jean Claude Killy Suite, sir,” the desk clerk said. “But she’s not there. About two hours ago, she rushed to the Montreal General Hospital.”

  “Oh?”

  “We’ve been busy-busy here today,” the desk clerk confided. “Medical emergency-wise. Why, just two minutes ago, we rushed His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug, the personal guest of His Excellency, our prime minister, away by ambulance.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Far be it from me, sir, to discuss the drinking habits of our guests,” the desk clerk said, “but if you’ll just sniff, sir, the fumes that surrounded His Royal Highness are still very much in the atmosphere.”

  Hawkeye sniffed. “Old White Stagg,” he said. “Tell me, was there a guy in an orange flight jacket with him?”

  “No, sir,” the desk clerk said. “Not that I can recall. There was an English gentleman hanging onto one leg, as I remember, and an Indian gentleman on the other. Two of our Royal Canadian Mounted Police each had an arm. But no one in an orange flight jacket.”

  Hawkeye turned away from the desk. Trapper John was holding the door for Bubba, Scarlett, Matthew Q. Framingham, Col. Merritt T. Charles and Stanley K. Warczinski.

  “Stanley,” Hawkeye said. “Something has come up. You’re going to have to keep those two apart by yourself.”

  Stanley K. Warczinski looked at Hawkeye with total incomprehension in his eyes. He opened his mouth. A belch resounded around the room. Stanley K. Warczinski had obviously been tasting the vodka to make sure that it wasn’t going bad.

  “Oh, hell, Stanley,” Hawkeye said. “Matthew, you and the colonel unload that stuff. Bubba, you and Scarlett come with us.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Over to the hospital,” Hawkeye said. “Esther’s there.”

  In the swimming pool patio, meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt had raised his head from Howard Johnson’s evergreens to sniff the air. It was as if he had detected a familiar and pleasing smell.

  Hawkeye, Trapper John, Bubba and Scarlett rushed back out of the motel. Teddy Roosevelt saw Scarlett. His tail began to wag. He started out after her, dragging Taylor P. Jambon and the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman after him.

  As Hawkeye pulled open the door to the Rolls-Royce, Trapper John asked a passer-by directions to Montreal General.

  “You can walk there quicker than driving,” the passer-by replied, indicating the hospital with his hand.

  The four started out across the wide lawn for the hospital as Teddy Roosevelt, dragging Taylor P. Jambon and the Mountie after him, emerged from the motel. And as Teddy Roosevelt, picking up a little speed now, started after Scarlett, a truck bearing the familiar ABS logotype on its side pulled into the driveway.

  “Do you suppose that’s the buffalo we’re after, Lucien?” the cameraman asked.

  “How many buffalos can one expect to find in a Howard Johnson’s, Alphonse?” Lucien, the sound man, replied. “After them!”

  At the hospital, meanwhile, forty-five minutes under a cold shower and about a gallon and a half of coffee had done wonders for what Hot Lips chose to call “Esther’s delicate condition.” It had not done much good for her feeling of humiliation, however.

  “Go ahead, Hot Lips,” she said. “Push me under the shower again. I deserve to be drowned, or to catch pneumonia.”

  “Nonsense, dear,” Hot Lips said. “We are all sinners, as I said myself just the other day. I’m not pushing you under the shower for punishment, but to make sure that you’re ... on the road to recovery.”

  The telephone rang. The doctor answered it.

  “We just got a message to expect an unconscious patient reeking of alcohol,” he said.

  “That’s obviously Hawkeye with Matthew Q. Framingham,” Hot Lips said. She turned to Esther. “Duty calls, Esther,” she said, sternly. “Are you up to meeting it, or should I roll you under the cold shower again?”

  “I can do my duty,” Esther said. “After which I will shoot myself. I have disgraced myself beyond redemption.”

  “Get dressed and join us,” Hot Lips said. “And we’ll have no more of that kind of talk.”

  “I might as well,” Esther said, “shoot myself, I mean. I not only have gotten drunk when duty called, but lost my last chance for l’amour.”

  “Have I got news for you!” Hot Lips said.

  “You don’t have that dirty old cowboy with you, do you?” Esther said. “That settles it. Where can I find a gun?”

  Meanwhile, back at the Vieux Montreal, Sydney Prescott recognized, with an enormous sense of relief, a familiar face. The last place she expected to find Col. Merrit T. Charles was in the act of carrying a roast goose into a Montreal motel, but there was no question that it was him.

  “Hi, there, Baldy,” she said. “Remember me? Sydney Prescott?”

  “Unfortunately,” the colonel replied.

  “You haven’t seen ol’ Bubba lately, have you?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because you know I’m working for Mrs. Burton Babcock III in this matter,” she said. That would, under ordinary circumstances, have been enough to seal the colonel’s lips forever. But he saw Lance Fairbanks and Brucie behind Sydney Prescott.

  “Are those two with you?” he asked.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “You can find Bubba over at the hospital,” the colonel said, with a warm smile. The mental image of Lance and Brucie violating the six-foot rule brought a smile to the colonel’s face, and he whistled cheerfully as he carried the roast goose into the motel.

  Hot Lips was waiting in the emergency room for the unconscious patient reeking of alcohol when he was carried in. It was not, of course, Matthew Q. Framingham, but Abdullah. As she rolled back his eyelid to look into his eyes, the patient woke up.

  “What have you been up to Abdullah, you naughty boy?” Hot Lips asked, in Abzugian.

  “I have changed my mind, Hot Lips,” His Royal Highness said. “I don’t wish to buy her after all. She has a nasty temper. I already have eight wives with nasty tempers and that’s more than enough.”

  “What did he say? What did he say?” Josephine Babcock asked.

  “He said you have a nasty temper and he doesn’t want to buy you, after all,” Hot Lips said.

  “Well, I’ve never been so insulted in my life!” Josephine said.

  “Stick around,” Hot Lips said. “I haven’t had a chance to warm up on you.”

  The door to the emergency room burst open. Hawkeye and Trapper John came in.

  “Hi ya, Hot Lips, what’s up?”

  “She broke a bottle over Abdullah’s head,” Hot Lips said. “No harm done.”

  Bubba and Scarlett came in.

  “Mother,” Bubba said. “Whatever are you doing here, and in an Arabian robe?”

  “She hit the Arab with a bottle, Bubba,” Hot Lips said. “God alone knows why.”

  “At your age!” Scarlett said. “Mother Babcock, you should be ashamed of yourself!”

  “Mother, I must tell you, I’m shocked,” Bubba said. “The least you could have done is conceal your lover’s quarrels from public view! Wait until it gets around the ladies’ lounge of the Burton Babcock III Memorial Yacht, Tennis & Golf Club that you chased your Arabian boyfriend to Canada and then bro
ke a bottle over his head in a lover’s quarrel!”

  “I didn’t come to Canada with that Arab!”

  “Wearing nothing but a hospital nightgown, too,” Scarlett said. “Mother Babcock!”

  “I came to keep you from marrying this gold digger!” Josephine said.

  “I thought it was something like that,” Scarlett said. “But they won’t believe that story in the ladies’ lounge, Mother Babcock.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll tell you why, Josephine,” Hot Lips said. “Because when Abdullah told Hiram here he’d like to do something nice for the young folks, like give them a couple of oil wells, Hiram told him he didn’t have to. Scarlett’s got a couple of her own oil wells.”

  “Three hundred and eleven, actually,” Scarlett said. “Not counting Alaska.”

  “My dear,” Josephine said. “Can you ever forgive me? I was only doing my mother’s duty as I saw that duty!”

  “Probably not,” Scarlett said. “But if you work hard at it, over the years, you can probably work your way back into my good graces.”

  “How could I do that?”

  “You can start by getting back to the motel and helping Stanley with the Polish wedding feast,” Bubba said. “Just as soon as we get back there, Scarlett and I are going to be joined together in holy wedlock.”

  “You’re sure you can get a clergyman on such short notice?”

  “What do I look like, Josephine?” Hot Lips snapped. “The neighborhood witch doctor?”

  “Forgive me!” Josephine said. “I’ll get right back to the motel.”

  Josephine ran out of the room. Scarlett suddenly felt bad.

  “Uncle Hiram,” she said. “Go after her, and tell her I was only kidding.”

  “Go after her yourself,” Uncle Hiram replied. “I’m looking for my little prairie flower.”

  His little prairie flower, at that moment, dressed in a fresh, stiffly starched uniform, appeared in the corridor as Josephine ran down it. Wherever the lady was bound, Esther decided, was obviously the site of the emergency. She ran after her.