“That’s hard to accept at first,” he said, “but tell me something, doctor. Do you play golf?”
“I do,” Captain Pinkham said, “but I haven’t been getting much in lately.”
“Then let me put it this way,” Hawkeye said. “Our general attitude around here is that we want to play par surgery on this course. Par is a live patient. We’re not sweet swingers, and if we’ve gotta kick it in with our knees to get a par that’s how we do it.”
“I can’t argue against that,” Captain Pinkham said.
“Good,” Hawkeye said. “Come on up to The Swamp for a drink.”
Colonel Blake, of course, was enormously pleased. He had not only hit upon a project that was at least partially intriguing Captains Forrest and Pierce during their final months, but also Captains Pinkham and Russell were obviously benefitting. He had established a kind of teaching hospital. Then Captain Pinkham came to see Colonel Blake and Colonel Blake came to see Captain Pierce.
“Have a drink, Henry,” Hawkeye said.
“Yeah,” the Duke said. “Join us.”
“No, thanks,” Henry said. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” the Duke said. “Can we go home now?”
“No,” Henry said. “What I want to know is how Pinkham’s been doing lately.”
“Good,” Hawkeye said, “although the last couple of days I’ve had the feeling that I’m starting to bore him.”
“He’s got a problem,” Henry said.
“We all have,” Hawkeye said.
“Not like his,” Henry said.
“What’s wrong with him?” the Duke said.
“His wife,” Henry said.
“Too bad,” Hawkeye said, “but he married the broad. You didn’t, so why is he bothering you?”
“Yeah,” the Duke said.
“Ever since he landed here,” Henry said, “he’s been getting letters from his wife saying she can’t live with his parents and their kid is sick, she thinks, but the doctor doesn’t, and why doesn’t he come home and take her off the hook? The damn fool woman seems to think the guy can break it off over here any time he wants to.”
The two Swampmen were silent. Henry looked from one to the other.
“Come on, you guys,” he said. “You always got ideas. What the hell am I going to do? I didn’t think I was sent over here to run a kindergarten.”
“If I was y’all,” said Duke, “I wouldn’t do a goddamn thing.”
“Sure,” Henry said. “That’s the obvious answer, but I have a hospital to run and you know how hard replacements are to get, and I have to make the ones we get as useful as I can. This guy was just starting to shape up, but this week he got four letters, all saying the same thing but each one worse than the one before. She’ll drive him nuts.”
“I don’t know,” Hawkeye said.
“Me neither,” Duke said.
“Thanks a lot,” Henry said, as he departed.
The next day Captain Pinkham received another and more desperate letter from his wife. This time he didn’t tell anyone about it, but at 2:00 a.m. it was obvious to Hawkeye, who was watching him closely, that Captain Pinkham was trying to concentrate but that he was failing. Between cases he gave the Duke the word and they took Captain Pinkham to The Swamp, gave him a beer and asked: “What’s the trouble? Anything we can do?”
Captain Pinkham showed them the letter. After reading it, they took him to his tent, gave him a sleeping pill and said: “Sleep and don’t worry about the work.”
The next day Captain Pinkham awakened still impaled on the horns of the kind of trouble only hardnoses can survive, and Captain Pinkham was no hardnose. Two days later, fortunately for all, salvation came. It came to Colonel Blake, via the Red Cross and the Army, in the form of orders to send Captain Pinkham home on emergency leave. His wife had folded and been placed in a private fool farm.
The two Swampmen found that they missed Captain Pinkham, who had proved himself willing to try, so they were particularly nice to Captain Russell, who missed his buddy even more. Between themselves the two made noises about how they would handle that kind of grief if it ever came their way, but they both had the same doubts. They thanked their good fortune for wives who didn’t bug them from 9,000 miles away, and they sat down and wrote identical letters:
Darling,
I love you. I need you, I hope you love me and need
me. If so, you can have me in two weeks by following
these simple instructions:
(1) Go crazy.
(2) Notify the Red Cross.
15
The days passed, among them Christmas and New Year’s. On Christmas, Dago Red said four Masses at nearby troop concentrations, another at the Double Natural where he also conducted a non-denominational service. Then he pulled all the strings behind the scenes at the party in the mess hall where a red-suited and white-bearded Vollmer, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska, a pillow strapped to the stomach where the ball had once been cradled, handed out clothing, cigarettes and fruit to a gaggle of Korean house boys while their benefactors among the personnel of the 4077th applauded.
For dinner on both holidays, Mother Divine put down excellent repasts. Mother, still president of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Marked-Down Monument and Landmark Company, and still doing business with Caucasians from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, was in a beneficent mood. For a while during the autumn, business had slackened off, but the onset of the holiday season had brought on a gift-buying stampede, and Mother had even managed to unload two items in which little interest had previously been shown.
The first of these was the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at 89th Street and Riverside Drive. It was purchased by a Private First Class from Hodge, Alabama, who mailed the postcard picturing it to his fiancee, with the following message printed on the reverse side:
Huney:
I just bot this for you. They will delivur it in a cuple weeks. Have them put it in yur side yard and wen we get marreed I’ll get Puley to help me muve it to our own place.
Merry Xmas. Your frend and husbend to be.
His buddy, and near-hometown-neighbor from Dutton, bought Fifth Avenue (Looking North From Forty-Second Street) as a surprise for his father. On the back of the card, circa 1934, he wrote:
Pa:
Merry Christmus. I bout this strete for you. You can see that all of the cars that use it are olden, so I figger you can move the garege up there and will get all the busines you can handel. I’ll help wen I get home. Merry Christmus agan.
The holidays over, time dragged for Hawkeye and Duke. The 4077th was reasonably busy, so they had enough to do. When Henry was afraid they didn’t, and still on his teaching hospital kick, he had them shepherding associates with less experience over the rocky pastures of meatball surgery, until one night, early in February, he entered The Swamp, kicked the snow off his boots, helped himself to a large shot of Scotch, made himself comfortable on one of the sacks and announced to Captains Forrest and Pierce: “I’ve got orders for you two eightballs to ship out of here a week from today.”
Duke and Hawkeye jumped, laughed, hugged Henry, hugged each other. Spearchucker, with two months left to go, congratulated them warmly. In the far corner of the tent, Trapper John Mclntyre with almost six months of servitude still ahead of him, lay on his sack and looked at the roof.
The last week was interminable. Preparation for leaving involved very little so, considering the importance of the event, The Swamp was pretty quiet. Finally, Duke and Hawk-eye shaped up for their last night shift, and the demands it made upon them brought them back to earth.
Arterial injuries were not unusual, but this night they caught two. Trying to save the right leg of a G.I. from Topeka, Kansas, and the left leg of a Tommy from Birmingham, England, Duke and Hawkeye did two vein grafts to bridge the arterial gaps blown out by gook artillery. When the shift was over, they started for The Swamp, tired, excited, and troubled. They had just done two operations on two legs belonging to young men, to each of whom a leg was important, and they were walking away knowing that, in all probability, they would never learn the fate of the legs.