MASH 13 MASH goes to Montreal Read online

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  It’s ladies' day in Montreal... and they always get their man!

  ESTHER FLANAGAN: As Chief of Nursing at the Spruce Harbor Medical Center, she is affectionately known as ‘‘the best gas-passer around." Now they need her services in Montreall

  MRS. BURTON BABCOCK III (JOSEPHINE): Her son Bubba is the only fruit of her marriage, and he’s the apple of Josephine's eye. With the passion only a mother could feel, she dashes across the border to save her “Precious Babykins” from the clutches of “that big-boobed blonde hussy.”

  MISS SCARLETT JONES: The hussy in question. She and her beloved Bubba are determined to tie the knot in Montreal. Hawkeye's wise advice to the couple concerning their burning desire to rush into marriage is, “It’s better to marry than to burn!”

  SYDNEY PRESCOTT: Just arrived—the purple-haired advertising genius whose imaginative campaign for “Old Billy Goat Snuff” has sent its sales soaring. She simply photographed a bony high-fashion model sniffing some of the snuff, and there's just one line of advertising copy: “Up yours, Sweetie!”

  M*A*S*H Goes to Montreal

  Further misadventures of M*A*S*H

  Richard Hooker

  And

  William E. Butterworth

  Pocket Book edition published June 1977

  M*A*S*H GOES TO MONTREAL

  POCKET BOOK edition published June, 1977

  This original POCKET BOOK edition is printed from brand-new

  plates made from newly set, clear, easy-to-read type.

  POCKET BOOK editions are published by

  POCKET BOOKS,

  & division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.,

  A gulf+western company

  630 Fifth Avenue,

  New York, N.Y. 10020.

  Trademarks registered in the United States

  and other countries.

  Standard Book Numbers 671-80910-5.

  Copyright, ©, 1977, by Richard Hornberger and William E. Butterworth, All rights reserved. Published by POCKET BOOKS, New York, and on the same day in Canada by Simon & Schuster of Canada, Ltd., Markham, Ontario.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Books in the MASH Series

  MASH

  MASH Goes to Maine

  MASH Goes to New Orleans, January, 1975

  MASH Goes to Paris, January, 1975

  MASH Goes to London, June, 1975

  MASH Goes to Las Vegas, January, 1976

  MASH Goes to Morocco, January, 1976

  MASH Goes to Hollywood, April 1976

  MASH Goes to Vienna, June, 1976

  MASH Goes to Miami, September, 1976

  MASH Goes to San Francisco, November, 1976

  MASH Goes to Texas, February 1977

  MASH Goes to Montreal, June, 1977

  MASH Goes to Moscow, September, 1977

  MASH Mania, February, 1979

  In fond memory of Malcolm Reiss, gentleman literary agent

  June 3, 1905-December 17, 1975

  —Richard Hooker and W. E. Butterworth

  Chapter One

  Hazel Heidenheimer (nee Schultz), the chief telephone operator of the Spruce Harbor, Maine, Medical Center, was seldom in the least excited by incoming calls to her switchboard. She had, after all, given what she thought of as “the best years” of her life to Ma Bell before joining the Medical Center staff. Furthermore, her marriage* to Arnold “Ace” Heidenheimer, who was not only sergeant-at-arms of Louis T. Abromowitz Post 5660, VFW, but, professionally, international relations coordinator of the Spruce Harbor Telephone Company (dealing with the French-Canadian telephone people across the border in Canada), had conditioned her to receive all manner of calls, often at odd hours, which could be only described as “unusual.”

  (* It was her marriage to Ace, of course, that had brought her career with Ma Bell to a premature closing. So long as she had been, as her supervisor put it, “just fooling around with Ace,” Ma Bell was willing to look the other way, as indeed, it had been doing for fifteen years. But now that she had finally gotten Ace to the altar, things were changed. Whatever else Ma Bell could be accused of, and God knows how long that list is, nepotism was an absolute no-no. Hazel, still hardly more than a blushing bride, was, after a formal banquet at which she was presented with a certificate of appreciation, the best wishes of her coworkers, and the cushioned seat on which she had sat for eighteen years, given the old heave-ho by way of early retirement.)

  But this call was something special. No sooner had Hazel announced: “Spruce Harbor Medical Center!” in her well-practiced smiling voice and the caller had in reply announced: “Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, F.F.F.,* please. The Matthew Q. Framingham Foundation is calling,” than her heartbeat began to quicken.

  (*Framingham Foundation Fellow.)

  While Dr. Pierce, who was Spruce Harbor Medical Center’s chief of surgery, did, in fact, regularly receive odd telephone calls from all sorts of strange people, both personally and in his professional capacity, he rarely received a call from an organization of such prestigious reputation as the Framingham Foundation.

  High on the list, a long list, of things that puzzled Hazel Heidenheimer about the Spruce Harbor Medical Center and its staff was how Dr. Pierce and his assistant and crony, John Francis Xavier McIntyre, M.D., F.A.C.S., had even been selected for membership in the Framingham Foundation.

  While she liked “Hawkeye,” as Dr. Pierce was known by one and all, and “Trapper John,” as Dr. McIntyre was similarly addressed, they were not, in Mrs. Hazel Heidenheimer’s private opinion, the sort of healers who were sought out by staid and dignified organizations of any kind.

  It was only, Ace had confided to her in the privacy of their nuptial chamber, that both physicians were willing to treat, at no charge, and in absolute secrecy, their fellow comrades of Post 5660, VFW, who happened to be afflicted with certain social diseases that they had not been convicted of by a VFW court-martial for conduct unbecoming members of the VFW at the last state convention.

  “What were they court-martialed for?” Hazel had naturally inquired.

  “I’m not so sure I can tell you,” Ace had said.

  “We’re married now, Dummy,” Hazel had replied, fondly. “You can tell me everything.” She paused, and then added: “And you’d better.”

  “They gave Stanley* and Moosenose** something that made them go blue.”

  (*Ace Heidenheimer referred here to Stanley K. Warczinski, proprietor of Spruce Harbor’s well-known nitery, the Bide-a-While Pool Hall, Ladies Served, Fresh Clams & Lobsters Daily Restaurant & Saloon, Inc. and a past senior vice commander of Post 5660.)

  (**Bascomb J. “Moosenose" Bartlett, the mayor of Spruce Harbor and chairman of the House Committee, Post 5660.)

  “You mean they were sad?”

  “They were sad, all right. Moosenose was crying, but that’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean, darling?” she pursued.

  “When I said it made them go blue, Hazel, I mean it made them go blue."

  “You mean they actually turned blue?”

  “Not exactly, darling,” Ace had replied, his face contorted with embarrassment.

  His bride could read his face like a road map. Realization, as they say, dawned. Hazel Heidenheimer giggled.

  “It’s not funny, Hazel,” Ace said loyally. “If you had seen Moosenose’s face when he came out of the men’s room, you wouldn’t be laughing like that
.”

  She laughed louder.

  “If I had known about this sadistic streak of yours, Hazel, you’d still be giving out information,” Ace snapped. It had no effect. Hazel was convulsed and it was a good two minutes before it subsided and she could pursue the matter further.

  “And they court-martialed them for that?” she asked.

  “You bet they did! The VFW is a brotherhood of men who have shared the rigors of warfare on foreign soil. They’re supposed to stick together, not scare hell out of each other. It’s not like they had slipped that stuff into a legionnaire’s drink. That would have been good clean fun. These were brother comrades of the VFW they done it to. Of course they were court-martialed!”

  “But not convicted?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, they were acquitted.”

  “How come?”

  “The VFW, Hazel, runs its court-martials fair and square. And, besides, with the exception of Father O’Malley, everybody on the court had had, at one time or another . . . Hazel, married or not, that’s all I’m going to say about this. We boys are entitled to our little secrets, too.”

  He told her all, of course, before the little boudoir chat was over. And the whole incident was just one more reason why Hazel Schultz Heidenheimer was surprised that both Dr. Hawkeye Pierce and Dr. Trapper John McIntyre were fellows of the Framingham Foundation. Despite her frankly unkind suspicions of what went on in any organization composed solely of male animals, she could not imagine any Framingham Fellow slipping something into the glass of another Framingham Fellow that would make him go blue.

  But truth, as they say, being stranger than fiction, it was beyond question that both doctors were Framingham Fellows, and it was also true that when the call came from the Framingham Foundation for Dr. Pierce that Dr. Pierce was “in conference,” which posed certain other problems.

  The conferences over which Dr. Pierce presided were held in his office immediately following the last surgical procedure of the day. Dr. McIntyre and Esther Flanagan, R.N., who was both chief operating-room nurse and chief of nursing services, were sort of ex officio conference members, and faithfully attended each conference. From time to time, depending on the circumstances, others were in attendance. Anaesthesiologists, for example, and student nurses whom Esther Flanagan was trying to steer, career-wise, away from aspirin dispensing and into the operating room.

  When a conference was in session, an illuminated sign above Dr. Pierce’s office door cleverly reading CONFERENCE IN SESSION was illuminated and, by depressing a button on his telephone, he could make a red light light up on Hazel’s switchboard signifying the same thing.

  Dr. Pierce did not wish to be disturbed while in conference for anything short of a medical catastrophe, and grew quite disturbed if he was. One of the jolly legends of the Spruce Harbor Medical Center was about the time Mr. T. Alfred Crumley, the Medical Center administrator, had violated a conference’s privacy so that he could bring to Dr. Pierce’s attention his belief that the Medical Center was going to have a hard time collecting from one of Dr. Pierce’s patients. Dr. Pierce and Dr. McIntyre had assaulted Mr. Crumley by knocking him down, firmly tieing him up with adhesive tape, loading him upon a laundry cart and sending him merrily rolling through the Medical Center parking lot.

  A call from the Framingham Foundation was not, on its face, a medical catastrophe but, on the other hand, it could not be ignored either.

  “Dr. Pierce is in conference,” Hazel said. “But . . .”

  “In that event,” the clipped, precise tones of her counterpart at the Framingham Foundation’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, headquarters said, “the Framingham Foundation will speak to Dr. John Francis Xavier McIntyre, F.F.F.”

  “I’m afraid that Dr. McIntyre is also in conference,” Hazel said. “But I will tell him that you’re calling.”

  “One would certainly hope so,” the lady from the Framingham Foundation switchboard sniffed.

  Steeling herself for the very real possibility of an explosion, Hazel pushed the button that caused the telephone on Dr. Pierce’s desk to ring.

  “Answer that, Esther, will you?” Dr. Pierce said. “I’ve got two darts to go.”

  In fact, his foot was stationed the required four inches behind the marking line and his right hand poised to send another feather-tailed missile toward the target.

  The target was a photograph of an officer of the Army Medical Corps in what is known as a Class A uniform —that is, tunic, shirt, tie and brimmed cap. It was mounted on a corkboard, held in place by a series of concentric wire circles in the lines of a bull’s-eye. The center of the target, the bull’s-eye itself, was directly over the officer’s nose.

  The photograph was of Maj. Frank Burns, Medical Corps, U.S. Army Reserve, with whom both Dr. Pierce and Dr. McIntyre had served in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (or, acronymically, MASH) during the Korean War. Dr. Pierce had obtained it from the army for just the purpose to which it was now being put.

  (The army does not, as a general rule, offer photographs of officers to former servicemen for use as dart targets. The demand would be enormous, of course, and the army has other things to do. But, in this case, Dr. Pierce was able to enlist the support of a very senior officer, Maj. General Henry Blake, Medical Corps,* who, upon learning what Dr. Pierce intended to do with the photograph, personally called the chief signal officer of the army and, as a personal favor, asked him to ship a hundred copies of the photograph air mail special delivery.)

  (* General Blake, as Colonel Blake, had been commanding officer of the 4077th MASH and knew Major Burns far better than he would have preferred. This is, of course, the same Col. Henry Blake whom certain sloppy chroniclers of the Korean War have erroneously reported killed in action. Harsh judgment of these people should be tempered with the awareness that writing is difficult indeed for the functionally illiterate.)

  “Right in the left eye!” Dr. Trapper John McIntyre called. “Good show, Hawkeye!”

  Dr. Hawkeye Pierce smiled and bowed modestly. “Practice makes perfect,” he said. Then he turned to look at Esther Flanagan, who was in the process of setting her martini glass down so that she could pick up the telephone.

  “Office of the chief of surgery,” Nurse Flanagan said. “Chief of nursing services speaking.”

  “Esther, Hazel,” Hazel said. ‘The Framingham Foundation wants to speak to Hawkeye or, if not him, Trapper John. Can they be disturbed?”

  “I’ll ask,” Esther said. “Hawkeye, do you want to talk to the Framingham Foundation?”

  “Tell them I gave at the office,” Hawkeye said.

  “What about you, Trapper John?” Esther asked.

  “Shame on you, fellow!” Trapper John said to Hawkeye. “When the Framingham Foundation calls a fellow, the least a Framingham Foundation Fellow can do is say, ‘Howdy.’ ” He took the telephone from Esther Flanagan, and pushed the button that placed the call on the loudspeaker.

  “Howdy!” Dr. McIntyre said.

  “The Framingham Foundation is calling for either Benjamin Franklin Pierce, M.D., F.F.F., or John Francis Xavier McIntyre, M.D., F.F.F. With whom am I speaking?”

  “Three-F’s McIntyre at your service, sweetie,” Trapper John said.

  “One moment, please, Fellow McIntyre, for Mr. Matthew Q. Framingham VI.”*

  (* Mr. Matthew Q. Framingham VI, great-grandson of the founder of the Framingham Foundation, serves as its executive secretary. A rather lengthy, but interesting, account of the foundation my be found in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas (Pocket Books, New York).)

  That luminary’s voice came over the loudspeaker a moment later. He sounded like what he was, a six-foot- three, two-hundred-twenty-pound sixth-generation Harvard graduate and Boston Brahmin. In other words, he sounded like Elliot Richardson would if Mr. Richardson talked twice as loud and two octaves lower.

  “Matthew Q. Framingham VI here,” he said.

  “Your dime, Matt,” Trapper John said.

  “Trapp
er, dear chap,” Matthew Q. Framingham VI said, “I had hoped to speak to Hawkeye …”

  “He said he gave at the office, Matthew,” Trapper said. “And so did I, if that’s on your mind.”

  “I daresay, old bean,” Matthew Q. Framingham said, “that someone of your outstanding mental capacity, someone indeed who daily is required to call forth the most obscure minutae from the dark recesses of his memory . . .”

  “Put your hand on your wallet, Trapper,” Hawkeye called. “I think I recognize the pitch ...”

  “Hawkeye, dear boy,” Matthew Q. Framingham responded. “I was led to believe that you were unavailable.”

  “If you’ve got money on your mind, Fatso, you better believe it,” Hawkeye replied.

  “Put the vulgar subject of finance from your mind,” Matthew said. “The Framingham Foundation is, I announce with more than small pleasure, at the moment both solvent and debt free.”

  “How did that happen?” Hawkeye called, visibly surprised.

  “One might say that much of the credit should go to the one under whose stewardship the foundation has been these past few years,” Matthew said. “But to modestly turn aside any such response, I add that the last will and testament of the late Elwood T. Fosberry, F.F.F., has finally been adjudicated to be valid, and that we have received a small bequest, a very nice little bequest, to tell the truth, from the estate of the man known as the Canned Tomato Czar of the San Joachim Valley.”