M*A*S*H

by Richard Hooker

  "And you're the only one over here who knows this?" Trapper said.

  "A few of the colored boys know who he is, but they won't talk because he's asked them not to."

  "Good," Trapper said. "You really think we can get him?"

  "Sure," Hawkeye said.

  "Now, wait a minute," Duke said. "I know how you Yankees think. Y'all wanta get this nigra up here to live in The Swamp. Right?"

  "Right," Hawkeye said.

  "OK," Duke said. "If y'all can live with him, so can I. I'm washed up at home anyway, after living with two Yankees."

  "So how do we get him?" Trapper said.

  "Easy," Hawkeye said. "We tell Henry we can't exist any longer without a neurosurgeon. If he doesn't go for that we tell him the truth. There's a little of the opportunist in Henry, too."

  "Okay," Trapper agreed. "Let's make our run at him right now."

  "But is this nigra in shape?" Duke wanted to know.

  "This big bastard has to be a long way out of shape before anybody around here will stop him," Hawkeye assured him. "He's also a helluva guy."

  Five minutes later Colonel Henry Blake, on his hands and knees on his tent floor, rummaging through his foot locker for some personal papers, was interrupted by the Swampmen who entered without knocking.

  "Oops!" Trapper said, as Henry looked up. "Wrong address. This must be some kind of Shinto shrine."

  "Looks like it," Hawkeye said. "Pardon us, oh Holy Man."

  "Knock it off," Henry said, getting up. "What do you bastards want now?"

  "A drink," Trapper said.

  "You've got drinks where you live," Henry said, eyeing them. "What else do you want?"

  "Here," Trapper said, handing Henry a Scotch, while Hawkeye and Duke helped themselves. "Relax."

  "Henry," Hawkeye said, "you're not the only one caught up in this religious revival. We just had a revelation, too."

  "What is this?" Henry started to say. "What … ?"

  "Henry," Trapper said, "it just came to us. We gotta get us a neurosurgeon."

  "Right," Duke said.

  "You're out of your minds," Henry said.

  "After all we've done for the Army," Trapper said, "is that too much to ask?"

  "Please," Hawkeye said, genuflecting in front of Henry. "Please, oh Holy One, get us a neurosurgeon."

  "We're serious," Trapper said.

  "Right," Duke said.

  "Okay," Henry said, still eyeing them. "What's the game?"

  "Football."

  "What?"

  "Football."

  "Football, hell," Henry said.

  "We mean it," Hawkeye said, "and it's very simple. We want a football team, and we want to challenge the 325th Evac for the championship of Korea, and to do it we need a neurosurgeon. Wouldn't you like the 4007th MASH to be the football champions of Korea? Who knows? We might be invited to the Rose Bowl!"

  "The hell with that," Trapper said. "Just think of the dough we can make, with a little judicious betting on ourselves."

  "Explain," Henry said, perking up now. "And what the hell has a neurosurgeon got to do with it?"

  "Ever hear of Spearchucker Jones?" Hawkeye said. "Yeah. Colored boy. Plays pro football."

  "So what?"

  "He's not playing pro football right now, and we can get him."

  "We can? How?"

  "Tell General Hammond you gotta have a neurosurgeon, and you want Captain Oliver Wendell Jones of the 72nd Evac."

  It took a moment for it to sink in.

  "You mean it?" Henry said. "You really mean it?"

  "You see?" Hawkeye said to the others. "I told you Henry believes in free enterprise, too."

  "You're damn tootin'," Henry said. "You really think we can get him?"

  "Sure," Hawkeye said. "Nobody else over here knows who he is, except a few of his friends who aren't talking."

  "Good," Henry said, starting to pace the floor now. "Good thinking. Now you want to know something else?"

  "What?"

  "That Hammond," Henry said, pacing. "He flashes that star around and calls himself coach of that 325th Evac. Why, he's still back in the Pudge Heffelfinger era of football. He doesn't know the first damn thing about how the game is played today."

  "Good," Trapper said.

  "All he did was pull rank," Henry said.

  "Then we can do it?" Hawkeye said.

  "Yes," Henry said. "On one condition."

  "What's that?"

  "I want to be coach," Henry said.

  "Anything you say, Coach," they assured him in unison.

  "Hammond," Henry said. "Where'd he ever get the idea he's a coach?"

  The next day Hawkeye composed a letter to Captain Oliver Wendell Jones, apprising him of the plan. He extolled the congenial working conditions at the Double Natural, described in glowing terms the friendly atmosphere of The Swamp, of which he invited Captain Jones to become the fourth member. Then he pointed out the benefits, financial as well as physical, that could accrue from playing a little football against the innocents of the 325th Evac. At the same time Colonel Henry Blake, chuckling to himself all the while, made the proper request to General Hamilton Hammond, and ten days later Captain Jones appeared, filling the doorway of The Swamp.

  "My God!" Trapper said. "Darkness at noon. Look at the size of him!"

  "And he drinks double bourbon and coke, Trapper," Hawk-eye said, jumping up and shaking Captain Jones' hand. "Welcome, Spearchucker, welcome!"

  "You sure I'm in the right place?" Captain Jones said, grinning.

  "You sure are," Hawkeye said. "Shake hands with the Trapper. Shake hands with the Duke. Now shake hands with that double bourbon."

  Captain Jones did. In fact, he shook hands with several double bourbons while the others made their usual display of affection for Trapper's martinis. Hawkeye and Captain Jones kicked around a few memories, and then Trapper John got into it.

  "Tell me something," he said to Captain Jones. "Where'd you get that Spearchucker handle?"

  "I used to throw the javelin," Jones told him. "Somebody started calling me that, and the sports writers thought it was good and it stuck."

  "How come you and the Hawk here got to be such big buddies down in Taegu?"

  "Well," said Jones, "I got assigned there and there weren't any other colored and they didn't have a room for me all by myself. Hawkeye went to the C.O. and said: 'Tell that big animal he can live with me if he wants to.'"

  "That was nice," Trapper said, "but let's not give him the Legion of Merit."

  "Nobody's handing out any medals," Spearchucker said, "but there are so goddamn many phonies around. The worst are the types who knock themselves out to show you that your color doesn't make any difference, and if it wasn't for your color they wouldn't pay any attention to you. They're part of the black man's burden, too."

  "Understood," Trapper said.

  "Anyway," Spearchucker said, "there are a lot of colored boys over here, and I know quite a few. Every now and then some of them would drop in to visit me. Now and then Hawkeye would stay around but most often he'd cut out. One day I said: 'Hawkeye, how come you don't care for some of my friends?'"

  "So this guy," Spearchucker said, nodding toward Hawk-eye, "says to me: 'Do you like all the white boys around here?' I said: 'No, Hawkeye, and thank you.' That's what I mean."

  "The hell with this," Hawkeye said now. "Let's talk about something else."

  "In a minute," the Duke said, and up to now he had been just monitoring the conversation. "I want to say something."

  "What?" Spearchucker said, looking right at him.

  "I'm from Georgia," Duke said.

  "I know that," Spearchucker said.

  "If you and I had a problem," Duke said, "we'd be the only ones who could understand it. These Yankees couldn't, but what I wanta say is that I don't have a problem, and if y'all do, tell me now."

  Captain Jones sipped his drink and grinned and looked at the Duke.

  "No problem with me, Little Duke
," he said.

  "Wait a minute," the Duke said, eyeing Captain Jones. "How come y'all call me Little Duke?"

  "Well," Spearchucker said, "Hawkeye wrote me about you two guys and he said you're from Forrest City, Georgia. Right?"

  "Right," Duke said, "but…"

  "Your daddy a doctor?"

  "Yeah."

  "He used to own a little farm north of town?"

  "Oh, no," Trapper John said. "Please."

  "Wait a minute," Duke said. "He's right. Let the man talk."

  "Who tenant-farmed that place?" asked Captain Jones.

  "John Marshall Jones," Duke said.

  "I should have been a lawyer," said Oliver Wendell Jones. "What happened to John Marshall Jones?"

  "He got knifed by another nigra," Duke said.

  "What happened to his family?"

  "They went north."

  "That's right," Captain Jones said. "They went north. You know where they got the money for the trip?"

  "No."

  "The doctor sold the farm, paid the family's debt and gave my mother a thousand dollars. They called him The Big Duke. Now how do you like that, Little Duke?"

  Captain Forrest said nothing. He just sat there, looking at Captain Jones and shaking his head.

  "You see why I got no problem?" Spearchucker said.

  "Duke," Hawkeye said, "as Grant said to Lee at Appomattox: 'You give up?'"

  "Yeah," the Duke said.

  13

  Colonel Henry Blake was busier than he had been since The Deluge, and happier than he had been since his arrival in Korea. The first thing he did on the morning after his new neurosurgeon reported was call General Hammond in Seoul and, still chuckling to himself, wonder if, by any chance, the football team of the 325th Evacuation Hospital would care to meet an eleven representing the 4077th MASH.

  General Hammond was delighted. The previous year his team had administered such thorough hosings to the only two pickup elevens in Korea foolish enough to challenge his powerhouse that both of those aggregations had abandoned the game. This had left him with a whining streak of two straight, visions of some day joining the company of Pop Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Knute Rockne—and no one to play. The date was set for Thanksgiving Day, five weeks away, on the home field of the champions at Yong-Dong-Po.

  The next thing Colonel Blake did was write Special Services in Tokyo and arrange for the use of two dozen football uniforms, helmets, shoes and pads, all to be airlifted as soon as possible. Then he dictated a notice, calling for candidates to report at two o'clock the next afternoon, and copies were posted in the messhall, the latrines, the showers and in the Painless Polish Poker and Dental Clinic. After that he showed up at The Swamp.

  "Now," he said, after he had finished his report, "when do we start getting our dough down?"

  "Why don't we wait a while, Coach," Trapper John suggested, "until we see what we've got for talent?"

  "It doesn't matter what we've got," Henry responded. "That Hammond doesn't know anything about football."

  "But if we seem too eager, Coach," Hawkeye said, "we may tip our hand."

  "I guess you're right," Henry agreed.

  The following afternoon, at the appointed hour, fifteen candidates appeared on the ball field. The equipment would not arrive for several days, so Henry, a whistle suspended from a cord around his neck, and as previously advised by his neurosurgeon, ran the rag-tag agglomeration twice around the perimeter of the field and then put them through some calisthenics. After that he just let them fool around, kicking and passing the three available footballs, while he and the Swampmen sized them up.

  "Well," Henry said, at cocktail hour that afternoon in The Swamp, "what do you think?"

  "Can we still get out of the game?" the Duke said.

  "Yeah," Hawkeye said. "Whose idea was this anyway?"

  "Yours, dammit," Trapper said.

  "God, they looked awful," Hawkeye said.

  "They'll look fine," Henry said, "once the uniforms get here."

  "Never," the Duke said.

  "Listen," Spearchucker said. "The coach is right. I don't mean particularly about the uniforms, but no team ever looks good the first few days. I noticed a few boys out there who have played the game."

  "Besides," Henry said, "what does that Hammond know about football? It's like having another man on our side."

  "The first thing we've got to do," Spearchucker said, "is decide on an offense."

  "That's right," Henry said. "That's the first thing we've got to do. What'll it be? The Notre Dame Box?"

  Trapper had been a T quarterback at Dartmouth, and Duke had run out of the T as a fullback at Georgia. Androscoggin, where Hawkeye had played end, had still used the single wing, but Spearchucker had played in the T in college and, of course, with the pros. Hawkeye was outvoted, 3 to 1, with Henry abstaining but agreeing.

  "Now we've got to think up some plays," Henry said. "Why don't you fellas handle that while I look after some of the other details?"

  Spearchucker diagrammed six basic running plays and four stock pass plays, and that evening presented them to Henry, with explanations. Henry studied these, established a training table at one end of the mess hall and ordered his athletes to cut down on the consumption of liquor and cigarettes. The Swampmen settled for two drinks before dinner and none after, and reduced their inhalation of nicotine and tobacco tars by one half.

  For the next days, Henry, with surreptitious suggestions from Spearchucker, had the squad first walk through and then run through the plays. When the uniforms arrived they turned out, to the dismay of the Duke, who had worn the red for Georgia, to consist of cardinal jerseys, white helmets and white pants. As the personnel sorted through the equipment and found sizes that approximated their own, Henry fretted. He could hardly wait to see them suited up.

  "Great! Great!" Henry exulted, as they lined up in front of him on the field. "You men look great!"

  "We look like a lotta goddamn cherry parfaits," Trapper said.

  "Great!" Henry went on. "Wait'll that Hammond sees you. He's in for the surprise of his life."

  "It'll be the last surprise he'll ever have," the Duke said. "He'll die laughin'."

  Things were not as desperate, however, as the Swampmen seemed to believe. To the practiced eye of their newest member, in fact, it was apparent that his colleagues possessed at least some of the skills needed to play the game. Trapper John, after he took the snap from center, hustled back and stood poised to throw, looked like a scarecrow, but he had a whip for an arm and began to regain his control. Hawkeye, when he went down for passes, exhibited good moves and good hands. The Duke had the short, powerful stride a fullback needs, ran hard, blocked well and, during the few semi-scrimmages, showed himself to be imbued with an abundance of competitive fire. Sergeant Pete Rizzo, the ex-Three I League infielder, was a natural athlete and a halfback. Of the others, the sergeant from Supply named Vollmer, who had played center for Nebraska, was the best. Ugly John made a guard of sorts and Captain Walter Koskiusko Waldowski, the Painless Pole, a survivor of high school and sandlot football in Hamtramck, was big enough, strong enough and angry enough to be a tackle. The rest of the line was filled out by enlisted men, with the exception of one of the end spots to which, over the objections of Trapper John, Dr. R. C. (Jeeter) Carroll was assigned.

  The Spearchucker, of course, was kept under cover, except to jog around and catch a few passes. When anyone was watching he dropped them. No one guessed his identity, so scouts from the Evac Hospital could report to General Hammond only that the big colored boy was a clown, that whatever the Swampmen might have been once and were trying to be again, they had partaken of far too much whiskey and tobacco to go more than a quarter. Moreover, there were only four substitutes.

  Hawkeye scouted the 325th. He went down one afternoon and tried to look like he was bound on various errands between the Quonsets that surrounded the athletic field, while he eyed the opposition.

  "They got nothing
," he reported on his return. "Three boys in the backfield looked like they played some college ball, but they probably aren't any better than Trapper, the Duke and me. They got a lousy passer, but their line is heavier than ours, and they got us in depth. I think that without the Spearchucker we could play them about even. With the Spearchucker they can't touch us."

  "Good," Trapper said. "Then I suggest we do this: We hide the Spearchucker until the second half, and we hold back half our bets. We go into the half maybe ten points or two touchdowns behind, and then we bet the rest of our bundle at real odds."

  "Great!" Henry said. "Everybody get his dough up!"

  By the time everyone had kicked in—doctors, nurses, lab technicians, corpsmen, Supply and mess hall personnel— Henry had $6,000. The next morning—five days before the game—he called General Hammond, and when he came off the phone and reported to The Swamp it was apparent that he was disturbed.

  "What happened?" Trapper asked. "Couldn't you get the dough down?"

  "Yeah," Henry said. "I got $3,000 down."

  "No odds?" Duke asked.

  "Yeah," Henry said. "He gave me 2 to 1. He snapped it up."

  "Oh-oh," Trapper John said. "I think I smell something." "Me, too," Henry said. "That Hammond is tighter than a bull's ass in fly time. Whatever he's trying to pull, I don't like it."

  "Tell you what we'd better do," Hawkeye said. "When I scouted those clowns they didn't look any better than we do but with them just as anxious to get their money down as we are, maybe I missed something. Spearchucker better go down tomorrow and nose around. He'll know a ringer if he sees one."

  "Maybe I'd better go at that," Spearchucker said.

  The next night Captain Jones returned from his scouting trip to Yong-Dong-Po. He didn't look any happier than Henry had the day before.

  "What's the word?" asked Trapper John.

  "They got two tackles from the Browns, and a halfback played with the Rams."

  "That's not fair!" Henry said, jumping up. "Why, this game is supposed to be …"

  "Wait a minute," Hawkeye said. "Are these guys any good?"