MASH 12 MASH goes to Texas Read online

  His Most Islamic Majesty and Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov became friends in Paris, France, where Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov taught His Majesty his first words of English at a four-day féte d’été (or summer festival) of the Parisian Business Girls’ Marching & Chowder Society held at the apartment occupied by certain members of the U.S. Marine Guard of the Paris Embassy. As a token of his admiration for both his singing ability and his performance with the membership of the Parisian Business Girls’ Marching & Chowder Society, it pleased His Most Islamic Majesty not only to grant Abzugian citizenry to Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov, but to raise him to the Abzugian nobility as El Noil Snoil the Magnificent, Privy Councillor to the Throne. In his role as Privy Councillor, Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov recommended to His Most Islamic Majesty that the Chevaux Petroleum Corporation be granted the Royal Seal as oil and gas producers to H.R.H. Sheikh Abdullah. His Majesty accepted the recommendation, and he and Colonel de la Chevaux became close personal friends.)

  “Read ’em and weep,” the Sheikh of Sheikhs, Protector of the True Faith, etc., etc., said, laying down a spade flush, queen high.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov said, a hint of annoyance in his booming voice. “I knew I was making a mistake when I taught you how to play this game!”

  “Up yours!” the Sheikh of Sheikhs, etc., etc., said with a broad smile, sweeping in the pile of money. He smiled at each of his fellow players in turn and repeated the phrase “Up yours!” with each gracious nodding smile of the royal head. The others were not annoyed. They were aware that His Royal Highness spoke little English and that he had learned what little he knew from Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov.

  The door to the cabin opened, and a tall, distinguished-looking Arabian gentleman entered, dressed in flowing robes of the finest silk. He dropped to all fours and then approached the Sheikh of Sheikhs on his knees. He made a gesture of subservience. The Sheikh of Sheikhs made an impatient gesture, and the distinguished Arabian gentleman rose high enough on his knees to whisper in the Sheikh of Sheikhs’ ear.

  A look of sad inevitability crossed the face of the Lion of Abzug. He dismissed the messenger with a regal wave of his hand, and the messenger backed out of the royal presence on all fours.

  “The bread plane has been fueled,” the Sheikh of Sheikhs announced.

  “Just in time,” Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov said. “If this game had gone on any longer, I would have had to sing twice this month, and I don’t like to wear myself out.”

  Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov rose, took Miss Hoffenburg’s arm and spoke his farewells. “Thanks for nothing, Abdullah,” he said to His Royal Highness, Sheikh of Sheikhs, etc., etc. “Take care, Horsey. Give my love to Hot Lips,” he said to Colonel de la Chevaux.

  “Isn’t there time for one more little hand?” Sheikh Abdullah asked rather plaintively.

  “Sorry,” Boris said, “I’m singing tomorrow, and I need my exercise. You know that. Come on, Hassan, let’s go!”

  There was a bone-chilling roar as Le Discorde raced down the runway and soared aloft, looking, as Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov* often said, like a “goosed vulture.”

  (*Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov who stood six-foot-six in his bare feet, did not like to fly on Le Discorde aircraft, whose cabins were six-feetot four-inches high. On several sad occasions, he had forgotten himself and stood erect for one reason or another.)

  The door of the aircraft opened. Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov stepped out on the platform atop the stairs. The Band of the 2nd Squadron, Royal Abzugian Cavalry Corps, struck up “The Star Spangled Banner,” paying “honors” to Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov, and Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov* stood there solemnly at attention, with his hand over his heart, until the music was finished.

  (* The honors rendered to Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov were for his alter ego function as El Noil Snoil the Magnificent, Privy Councillor to the Throne. “The Star Spangled Banner” was played because the Abzugian national anthem hurt Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov’s ears.)

  His Royal Highness Prince Hassan ad Kayam next stepped onto the platform at the top of the stairs. The band struck up the Hussidic national anthem. They had played but six bars when Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov suddenly made a cutting motion with his fingers against his throat.

  “Knock it off!” he shouted. The band died, as they say, not with a bang, but a whimper. “That’s the trouble with you, Hassan. You really go for stuff like that. A little modesty is what you need. Pattern yourself after me.”

  He started down the stairs, Prince Hassan, and then Miss Hoffenburg followed him, and they were then transported by Jeep to the DC-9. Horsey de la Chevaux and Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug, etc., etc., stood at the top of the stairs and waited until the Air Hussid aircraft had taken off.

  Then Horsey turned to Abdullah and put out his hand.

  “Take care of yourself, ol’ buddy,” he said. “I gotta get going, too.”

  “I have a little farewell present for you, my beloved and highly respected friend,” the Sheikh said.

  “I don’t want a present!” Horsey said quickly and in alarm. But it was too late. Sheikh Abdullah had already snapped his fingers. The present was ushered, with much girlish giggling, from where it had been waiting in the shade under the wing.

  “A baker’s dozen,” His Royal Highness said with a grand gesture, using another of his few English phrases. “Hot to trot!”

  Colonel de la Chevaux responded in Abzugian, one of the rarer tongues, consisting essentially of grunts and wheezes, with a belch-like sound for emphasis.

  “I’ve told you and told you, my wife won’t let me keep virgins,” he said. “Our house isn’t big enough.”

  The Sheikh looked crestfallen. “How about just one?” he asked. “I had these sent all the way from Algeria.”

  “Not even one,” Horsey said. “I’ve told you that before. It is a taboo in our country. When we have virgins, we try to marry them off—when they’re still in that condition. We don’t pass them out like chocolate candy to our friends.”

  His Royal Highness just looked at Horsey. Tears welled up in his eyes. One ran down his suntanned cheek to lose itself in his thick, pure white beard.

  “Stop that, Abdullah,” Horsey said. “Tears will get you nowhere.”

  “I was only trying in some small way to show you the depth of my respect, admiration and affection,” His Royal Highness said. Tears now ran down both cheeks.

  “What do you really want?” Horsey said, suddenly understanding the whole thing.

  “In return, you mean? Why, nothing at all, absolutely nothing at all,” His Royal Highness said. “I understand completely your total ignorance of good manners, your cold and callous infidel heart, and that you find absolutely nothing at all wrong with leaving someone who loves you like a brother alone here, with all of his friends flying away to the far corners of the world.”

  “In other words, you’re trying to sucker me into taking you along to the Saints-Cowboys game, is that it?”

  “I accept,” His Royal Highness said, suddenly grabbing Horsey de la Chevaux by both arms picking him twelve inches off the floor and kissing him wetly on both cheeks. He turned to the keeper of the royal virgins, speaking in the excitement of the moment in English. “Ditch the broads!” he ordered. He set Horsey back down, marched into the 747, and spoke again, again in English: “Hubba-hubba, let’s get this show in the road!”

  Horsey shrugged in the Gallic manner, and he followed His Royal Highness inside the airplane. As the door closed, the outside port engine came to life.

  Before the 747 could taxi to the end of the runway, a message flashed out from the Royal Abzugian Telephone & Telegraph radio-telephone facility atop Mount Abzug:

  FROM ROYAL ABZUGIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY

  TO ROYAL ABZUGIAN EMBASSY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  FOLLOWING TO BE DELIVERED IMMEDIATELY BY AMBASSADOR TO U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE:

  BE ADVISED THAT HIS MOST ISLAMIC MAJESTY, SHEIKH ABDULLAH BEN ABZUG, SHEIKH OF SHEIKHS, PROTECTOR OF THE TRUE FAITH, THE LION OF ABZUG, MAY HIS TRIBE INCREASE, MAY HIS ENEMI
ES DEVELOP BOILS ON THEIR REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS, HAS MOST GRACIOUSLY, AS A TOKEN OF THE ESTEEM IN WHICH HE HOLDS YOURSELF, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND YOUR LOYAL SUBJECTS, CONDESCENDED TO AFFORD THE UNITED STATES THE FAVOR OF HIS PRESENCE. HE HAS THIS DATE DEPARTED FOR THE UNITED STATES, WHERE IT IS HIS MOST ISLAMIC MAJESTY’S GRACIOUS INTENTION TO FAVOR THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS-DALLAS COWBOYS FOOTBALL GAME WITH HIS AUGUST PRESENCE.

  THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS MOST ISLAMIC MAJESTY’S DEPARTURE WERE SUCH THAT HE IS NOT ACCOMPANIED BY EITHER HIS HAREM OR HIS PERSONAL BODYGUARD. THE BODYGUARD WILL DEPART FOR THE UNITED STATES JUST AS SOON AS THE AFTERNOON SNAIL-AND-PRESSED-DUCK FLIGHT FROM PARIS ARRIVES AND IS UNLOADED. THE HAREM’S TRAVEL PLANS HAVE NOT BEEN FINALIZED AT THIS TIME.

  IN THE INTERIM, IT IS PRESUMED THAT YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE ADEQUATE SECURITY MEASURES TO PROTECT HIS MOST ISLAMIC MAJESTY FROM HARM. THE AIRCRAFT THAT HIS MOST ISLAMIC MAJESTY HAS FAVORED WITH HIS PERSON WILL STOP AT SPRUCE HARBOR, MAINE, AND NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, BEFORE PROCEEDING TO DALLAS.

  IN THE NAME OF SHEIKH ABDULLAH BEN ABZUG, SHEIKH OF SHEIKHS, ETC., ETC. END MESSAGE. ADVISE DELIVERY.

  MOULAY BEN HASSAN

  FOREIGN MINISTER

  Just as soon as the 747 reached an altitude that permitted Colonel de la Chevaux to use the single-side-band radio-telephone transceiver to call the United States, he placed a call. The miracle of radio-telephone communication connected him to the Spruce Harbor Medical Center, where he spoke with Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, the chief of surgery.

  “Hi-ya, Hawkeye,” he said.

  “What’s on your mind, Horsey?” Hawkeye replied.

  “Just called to tell you we’ll be there about midnight.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we,’ you crazy Cajun?”

  “I got Abdullah with me,” Horsey replied.

  “In words of short syllables, Horsey, go away!”

  “Hawkeye, I didn’t have the heart to tell him no,” Horsey said. “He was standing there with tears running down his cheeks into his beard.”

  “Look, I’m in enough trouble around you without that crazy Arab ... and his harem ... and his bodyguard ...”

  “No bodyguard, Hawkeye. No harem.”

  “How’d you work that?” Hawkeye asked suspiciously.

  “Believe me, Hawkeye, there’s nobody on the plane but Abdullah and me.”

  “I got it,” Hawkeye said after a moment’s thought. “Boris and Hassan and the harem and the bodyguard are on another plane, right?”

  “Boris and Hassan are in Paris,” Horsey said. “They’re not even going to the game. And the harem and the bodyguard are in Abzug. Honest.”

  “Cross your heart and hope to die? K. of C. word of honor?”

  “Absolutely,” Horsey replied.

  “In that case, okay,” Hawkeye said. “We’ll meet you at the airport at midnight.”

  “See you then,” Horsey said and hung up.

  He looked around the forward cabin. Abdullah was nowhere in sight. But Horsey knew immediately where to find him. He went into the main cabin, and there he was, a broad smile on his face, his hands folded on his back, his robes and burnous flapping in the breeze he stirred up as he roller-skated around the main cargo cabin, empty save for a couple of Caterpillar D-8 tractors, to the strains of “The Emperor’s Waltz” on the public address system.*

  (* The aircraft, after having delivered oil-well equipment and technicians to the Chevaux operation in Nigeria had been en route home, virtually empty, when diverted to Abzug to pick up Colonel de la Chevaux, who had gone to Abzug from Paris with Prince Hassan ad Kayam and Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov.)

  “Horsey, put on some skates,” His Royal Highness said. “We can play a little two-man hockey.”

  “Not right now, Abdullah,” Horsey said. “Roll over here. I’ve got a great idea for you.”

  Abdullah did as he was told, skating over with rather graceful movements and sliding to a halt.

  “You ever wonder what it would be like to be an American?” Horsey asked.

  “My compassion for the poor and downtrodden is bottomless, Horsey,” His Royal Highness said. “Of course I have.”

  “How would you like to be an American for a couple of days?”

  “No way,” His Royal Highness said. “I said I was compassionate, not masochistic.”

  “You said you wanted to give me a present,” Horsey said.

  “Name it,” His Royal Highness said. “It’s yours!”

  “I want you to get rid of the bathrobe and that towel on your head for a couple of days, Abdullah,” Horsey said, “and wear regular clothes. Forget that you’re a sheikh.”

  “Why?” His Royal Highness asked rather pointedly. “What kind of a present is that?”

  “Let’s say I owe a favor to a friend,” Horsey said. “And I can pay it back that way.”

  “What friend?”

  “Dr. Hawkeye Pierce,” Horsey said.

  “The one Cher Boris calls the Sainted Chancre Mechanic?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I like him,” His Royal Highness said. “I will do it. Or I will try to do it. But it will be of no use whatever for me to disguise myself as an infidel. We Sheikhs of Sheikhs, you know, are not like ordinary people.”

  “By the time I get through with you, Abdullah, even your wives won’t recognize you,” Horsey said. He picked up the telephone connecting to the cockpit.

  “Hey, Jack,” he said to the pilot, “get on the horn and find the nearest place we can rendezvous with a smaller plane—one of the Sabreliners, for example. And then ask Ernie to come down here a minute. I need a favor.”

  It took Ernie, who was the flight engineer, several minutes to climb all the way down from the cockpit to the main cargo compartment and then walk all the way back to the locker room and showers. But it was immediately apparent why Horsey had sent for him. Ernie was nearly as large as His Royal Highness.

  “Ernie, I need to borrow some clothes for my friend,” Horsey said, “and you’re the only guy anywhere near his size.”

  “Gee, Horsey,” Ernie said, “I’d like to help you out, but I was on vacation doing some surfing when they picked me up in Hawaii. I don’t have much with me.”

  “Whatever it is, it’ll be better than Abdullah’s bathrobe and towel,” Horsey replied. “Go get it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

  Ida-Sue Jones could see through the Plexiglass window as her helicopter approached Uncle Hiram’s ranch that at least one thing was going well. She saw the long black limousine in which she had dispatched Eagle Eye MacNamara to the university to get Scarlett. It was now, at her orders, meeting her at the ranch.

  And when, apparently when they heard the fluckata- fluckata-fluckata sound of the helicopter rotors, MacNamara came outside the log cabin, followed by two other men, she deduced, correctly as it turned out, that her other orders had been complied with. MacNamara had brought with him an attorney at law and a duly licensed medical doctor specializing in the practice of psychiatry.

  Eagle Eye MacNamara rushed to the helicopter as soon as it touched down, ducking his head to avoid having it sliced off by the still-turning blades.

  “Well, you finally did something right, I see, Eagle Eye,” Ida-Sue greeted him.

  “I think it would be a good idea if I had a few words with you, Mrs. Jones,” Eagle Eye said.

  “Are those two clowns the shrink and the shyster, or not?” she snapped.

  “They are,” Eagle Eye said. “But there’s something ...”

  “Shut up, Eagle Eye,” Ida-Sue said. “Time’s a wasting.” Revealing what seemed, even in these times, to be an extraordinary amount of black-lace-trimmed thigh, Ida-Sue climbed down from the helicopter and advanced on the medical and legal gentlemen Eagle Eye had brought with him. (The amount of thigh and unmentionables she had placed on display was intentional. If she had learned nothing else while serving as a University of Texas Marching Band Pom-Pom Girl, it was that
nothing will catch and hold a man’s attention more effectively than a woman’s legs and underpants.)

  The two gentlemen were wide-eyed.

  “Mornin’, ma’am,” they said, raising their Stetsons and speaking almost in unison.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” Ida-Sue said, flashing each of them in turn a dazzling smile, and allowing each to touch, very briefly, her hand before she snapped it back. “Aren’t you nice,” she went on, “to come way out here heah on the prairie to see little me!”

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” the taller, fatter, and more red-faced of the two replied, bowing with great grace, considering his waistline. “Andrew Jackson Stewing, M.D., F.A.S.P.P., at your service, ma’am.”

  “FA.S.P.P.?” Ida-Sue asked, curiosity having gotten the better of her.

  “Fellow,” Dr. Stewing said with quiet pride, “American Society of Practicing Psychiatrists, ma’am.”

  “How darlin’!” Ida-Sue said. “A pleasure and an honor, Doctor.”

  “My friends, little lady, call me ‘Fat Jack,’ ” the psychiatrist confided.

  “I’ll bet they do!” Ida-Sue replied, then turned to the other gentleman, who was considerably thinner, but of about the same height.

  “And you, sir,” Ida Sue declared, “must be Mr. Croshett.”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said. “We pronounce that in the French manner, ‘Croshay.’ And if you don’t mind, ma’am, it’s Dr. Richard Crochet, L.L.D., Attorney and Counselor at Law, at your service, ma’am.”