'You've already met Dago Red, and this is Trapper John McIntyre, and I'm Hawkeye Pierce.'

'My friends call me Sammy,' the Eighth Army surgeon said.

At that point, Colonel Blake, who had been advised by his clerk, Corporal J. Robespierre 'Radar' O'Reilly, that the Eighth Army surgeon was in the hospital area, came into the tent. Because of the merrily bubbling still, which blocked his view, he could not see the occupant of the barber chair.

'I'm going to lay an order on you guys,' the colonel said. 'And for once, you'd damned well better obey it.'

Doctors Pierce and McIntyre immediately dropped to their knees and bowed three times in the manner of Moslems at prayer.

'We hear and obey, O Worshipful Master!' they cried in unison.

 

'I'm serious,' Colonel Blake said. 'I'm Hawkeye,' said Hawkeye.

 

'Look, I blew my cool this morning and told the Eighth Army surgeon to stick the MASH up ... you know where.'

'Give the man a martini,' Trapper John said. 'How brave of you, Colonel!'

'And he's here!' Colonel Blake went on. 'I'm in enough trouble without him seeing you. So you guys stay in the tent until further orders. You read me ?'

'What were you being beastly to the Eighth Army surgeon about, Henry?' Hawkeye asked.

'Frank Burns,' the colonel said. 'Somebody told him I had named you chief surgeon over him.'

'Your problems, O Maximum Leader,' Trapper John said, 'are over!'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'The Eighth Army surgeon has finally done something right,' Hawkeye said. 'He sent us a cutter who is actually a cutter, not a refugee from a chiropractor's clinic. This guy is actually a better cutter than me, as hard as you may find that to believe.'

'Not only that,' Trapper John joined in, 'but he's higher in rank than Frank Burns. So you just name him chief surgeon, and the flap is unflapped. It's as simple as that.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Colonel Blake demanded.

'Sammy, stand up and salute and meet the boss. He's big on G.I. crap like saluting and standing up straight.'

Colonel Blake peered around the merrily bubbling still just in time to see the Eighth Army surgeon rising from the barber chair.

'Nice little place you've got here, Henry,' the Eighth Army surgeon said. 'A little odd, perhaps, but you've got one hell of a fine chief of surgery.'

'I, uh, didn't expect to see you here, Sam,' Colonel Blake said.

'Well, you said that if I wanted to help I should come up here, scrub, and grab a scalpel,' the Eighth Army surgeon said. 'So I did.'

'I gather you know each other?' Hawkeye said. 'That's even better.'

'I've got bad news for you, Slim,' the Eighth Army surgeon said.

 

'You can call me Hawkeye, Chubby,' Hawkeye replied.

 

'And you can call me General, Hawkeye,' the general said. 'And as I was saying, I've got bad news for you. You're stuck as chief of surgery here. You can consider it a permanent assignment.' He started for the door.

'You're not leaving?' Colonel Blake asked.

'I have to have a word with Major Houlihan,' the general said. 'And then I'll be going back to Seoul.'

The word he had with Major Houlihan he had in private, of course, and, truth to tell, both Hawkeye and Trapper John had naughty thoughts about what was really going on behind the closed door of Major Houlihan's tent. . .

Speaking as soldier to soldier, the Eighth Army surgeon told the chief nurse of the 4077th MASH that the only reason he wasn't shipping her home in disgrace was because she was a good operating-room nurse and was needed at the 4077th.

'Think what you like about those two clowns with the private still and the barber's chair, Margaret,' he said, 'they're first-class surgeons, and that's the bottom line. I had a moment or two to observe that simpering jackass, Frank Burns, at work on the table, and my first reaction was to have him sent home on the next plane. The only reason I'm not doing that is because he'd love it, and, more important, if I keep him here, he can empty bedpans, sweep the floor, give social-disease shots, and free the enlisted men for more important things.'

'I'm sorry, Sammy,' Margaret said. 'I really am.'

'Soldier to soldier, Major,' the general said, 'you're blinded by love for that jackass.'

‘You really think so ?' she asked, on the verge of tears.

'You can take it from me, Major,' the general said. 'I'm a doctor, and we know all about things like that.'

'What should I do?'

'I thought you'd never ask,' the general said.