Mash (28 page)

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 an 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 daren’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 negligees 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.”

“The first sign of a stewbum,” said Hawkeye, “but it’s OK with me.”

They boarded ship carrying pretty full loads. Having been informed that short-arm inspection was also carried out at regular intervals on shipboard, they checked in under their own names, but then assumed new identities. The Caduceus of the Medical Corps was removed from the Eisenhower jackets. The simple cross of the Chaplain’s Corps replaced it.

They shared a cabin with four other returning officers who were not particularly pleased to find two chaplains among them. The conversation was slightly stilted until, that evening, Duke and Hawkeye broke the ice.

“Do you gentlemen happen to have any Aureomycin?” asked Hawkeye. “The Reverend here seems to be developing a slight cold. In fact, gentlemen, the Reverend, I fear, has fallen from grace with a large splash.”

“What do you mean?” asked one of their cabin-mates.

“The Reverend, God forbid, has come down with the clap.”

Incipient laughter was cut short by a stern look from Hawkeye. “Be charitable, gentlemen. Help us. My colleague is a good man. It is just that he has been unusually bedevilled, and I must do something to remedy the tragic results of his excessive libido before he returns to Kokomo, where he is betrothed to the Bishop’s daughter. Bishops, as a group, are opposed to gonorrhea, and this one has particularly firm views on the subject.”

Meanwhile Duke, looking very pleased, began to leaf through a girlie magazine, a corner of which he had noticed protruding from a barracks bag.

“Stop looking at those pictures, Reverend,” commanded Hawkeye.

One of the group, a big, tough, rough-looking first lieutenant, with the crossed rifles of the infantry on his collar and the look of the front line about him, was observing them quizzically. After a little more of the act, he began to grin.

“They ain’t no chaplains,” he exclaimed in a broad southern accent. “They’re Duke and Hawkeye from the 4077th MASH. They saved my brother’s life two months ago. What the hell’s wrong with you guys?”

“We are traveling incognito,” Duke told him. “We will do anything to avoid officiating at short-arm inspection, and we figure if we are chaplains there will be no one demanding that we view three thousand weapons.”

“Yeah,” quibbled one of them, “but they must have your names. It’s a big boat, but in two or three weeks they’re bound to track you down.”

“Any of you guys want to be Forrest and Pierce of the U.S. Army Medical Corps between here and Seattle?” asked Hawkeye. “Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll pay you.”

“How much?”

“Cent for each one you inspect.”

“Pretty low wages,” one of them, a red-haired artillery captain from Oregon, said.

“But it’s an important contribution to public health,” Hawkeye told him.

“I’ll do it for two cents a weapon,” the infantry man who had recognized them said, “not a penny less.”

“You are hired,” Hawkeye informed them, handing them their medical insignia. “You are now members of the Army Medical Corps.”

“How do we go about it?” inquired the new physicians.

“It is very simple,” Hawkeye explained. “You get a chair. You sit on it backwards with your arms clasped behind its back and your chin resting on the top. You gotta have a big cigar in your mouth. You sit there and look. Most of the guys will know what to do. If they don’t you growl, ‘Skin it and wring it, soldier.’ Sound mean when you say it. If you think there is a suspicion of venereal disease, you make a gesture with your thumb like Bill Klem calling a guy out at the plate. Then somebody hauls the guy off somewhere. I never found out what happens to them. Every now and then, just so they know you’re alert, you grunt, ‘Don’t wave it so close to my cigar, Mac!’ If you follow these simple rules, you can’t go wrong.”