Mash by Richard Hooker Page A

and looked at his hands. “Goddam nail holes,” he complained.
    The rest of the way around, Trapper played even par on the not too difficult and not too long course to finish with a seventy-three. Hawkeye couldn’t figure the greens and found himself needing a ten-footer on the eighteenth for a seventy-eight Trapper blessed the ball and the cup before Hawkeye essayed the putt, which went in like it had eyes. The caddies, bowing their way out, departed to spread the word.
    “Now,” Trapper said, “let’s prepare to lighten Corny’s load a little. If that hacker breaks eighty I’ll take it to the World Court.”
    The Swampmen, with Trapper back in full uniform, found the bar. They were on their second Scotch when they noticed the Japanese faces peeking through the window and then Colonel Cornwall and his three colleagues pushing their way through the crowd at the door.
    “I say now,” the colonel was saying, brushing himself off. “Does anyone know what this is all about?”
    “Ah, yes,” Hawkeye said, motioning toward Trapper, who was bowing toward the faces at the window and door. “Mighty High Religious Personage is greeting followers.”
    “Of course, of course,” the colonel was saying now, starting to rock with laughter. “I say! That’s rather droll, isn’t it?”
    “What’s that, sir?” one of his colleagues asked.
    “Chap here,” he said, nodding toward Trapper. “Why, the chap here’s portraying John the Baptist!”
    “Colonel,” Hawkeye said, handing him one of the autographed pictures, “you can’t tell the players without a score-card.”
    “Oh, I say!” the colonel was roaring now. “That is good, isn’t it? I do get it now. Say, you chaps, do have a drink on me. Oh, I say!”
    The Swampmen had several drinks on him and, when they got around to comparing cards, the colonel, who had shot an eighty-two, paid up willingly.
    “Corny,” Hawkeye heard himself saying, “how about you and these other gentlemen joining us for dinner at Dr. Yamamoto’s Finest Kind Pediatric Hospital and Whorehouse?”
    “Oh, I say!” the colonel said. “That sounds like sport!”
    Shortly after 7:00 p.m., Me Lay Marston, idly sipping a martini in the bar of the FKPH&W, heard a commotion outside. Going to the door, he found Hawkeye, the British contingent and then Trapper John bringing up the rear. Trapper was trying to disentangle himself from the converts and the just curious.
    “Me Lay,” Trapper said, when he got inside, “I’ve had enough of this. Get me a pair of scissors and a razor.”
    In time Trapper John was shaved, shorn and showered, and dinner was solicitously served by the young ladies. While the visitors sipped after-dinner cordials, Me Lay excused himself to make his rounds at the adjoining hospital. In a few minutes he returned with a worried look.
    “What had you guys planned for tonight?” he asked.
    “Well,” answered Trapper, “we thought we’d get some …”
    “How about looking at a kid for me?”
    “Look, Me Lay,” Hawkeye said, “you’re supposed to be the intern in this …”
    “Shut up, and come look at this kid.”
    “What’s the story?” asked Trapper.
    “Well, one of our girls got careless, and two days ago she gave birth to an eight pound Japanese-American male.”
    “What’s wrong with him?”
    “Every time we feed him, it either comes right back up or he coughs and turns blue and has a helluva time.”
    “We don’t have to see him,” Trapper said. “Call that half-assed Army Hospital and tell them to be ready to put some lipiodal in this kid’s esophagus and take X-rays.”
    “But it’s ten-thirty at night. We can’t get everybody out for a civilian. They won’t do it.”
    “How much you wanna bet, Me Lay?” inquired Hawkeye Pierce. “Get on the horn and tell them the pros from Dover are on their way with a patient. Better tell the OR to crank itself up, because I got a feeling that you’re going to pass some gas while I help