“All right, you bastards!” he announced to the others. “Out! We leave in two minutes.”
The others pushed their way through the door, and the bottle was reclaimed from the washstand. The Duke poured four drinks, which were downed in silence. The Duke shook hands with Spearchucker and Trapper and left without a word. Hawkeye Pierce shook hands with Spearchucker, and then stuck out his hand for Trapper John.
“Hang in there,” he said.
“Get the hell out of here,” Trapper John said.
Outside, Ugly John waited at the wheel of the jeep, the others gathered around it. Hawkeye and Duke climbed into the back seat and, as Ugly John gave it the gun and they affected Nazi salutes, they made their turbulent departure from the cheering multitude.
“Don’t look back,” Hawkeye said.
“I ain’t,” the Duke said.
For five minutes the two did not look at each other, nor did they speak. Their first act to break the silence was to blow their noses.
“Well,” said the Hawk finally, “when you live in this sort of situation long enough, you either get to love a few people or to hate them, and we’ve been pretty lucky. I don’t know. I do know that nothing like this will ever happen to us again. Never again, except in our families, will we ever be as close with anyone as we were in that goddamned tent for the past year, and with Ugly here and Dago and a few others. I’m glad it happened, and I’m some jeezely glad it’s over.”
“Yeah,” agreed the Duke, “and y’all know what I’m thinkin’? We came in a jeep, half in the bag, and now we’re leavin’ in a jeep, half in the bag.”
In Seoul, the jeep carrying Captains Duke Forrest and Hawkeye Pierce and driven by Captain Ugly John Black found its way to an Air Force Officers’ Club.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe we’re actually goin’ home,” Duke kept saying, as they stood at the bar.
“You lucky bastards,” groaned Ugly. “I don’t know if I can hold out one more month.”
“You’ll make it, Ug,” Hawkeye said.
“Yeah,” the Duke said. “It’s good y’all came this far with us to see how it’s done.”
They had a supper of shrimp cocktail and filet mignon. Hawkeye, in fact, had two shrimp cocktails, two filet mignons, and pondered ordering a third round.
“You got worms?” Ugly wanted to know. “You hit those steaks like they’re going to bite back if you don’t swallow them fast.”
“You mean these appetizers? Jesus, boy, you oughta see the meal my old man and the valedictorian will have for me when I get home!”
Dinner finally over, they returned to the bar. As they sipped their brandies, the conversation, which had been lagging, came to a halt.
“Let’s finish these up and haul for where we spend the night,” Hawkeye said finally. “I’m tired.”
“Well,” said Ugly, “when am I ever going to see you guys again?”
“Ugly,” answered Hawk, “that’s a painful subject. I hope it’s soon, but I don’t know. If you come to Maine, you’ll see me. If we attend the same medical meetings we’ll meet. From here it sounds great to say we’ll all get together soon, but all I know is this: You can call me or the Duke fifty days or fifty years from now and we’ll be glad to see you.” “Right,” the Duke said. “Yeah,” Ugly said. “I know what you mean.” Ugly drove them to the Transient Officers’ Quarters at the 325th Evacuation Hospital, from opposite ends of which, more than fifteen months before, the two had emerged to meet for the first time. They watched the jeep disappear into the darkness and head north and back to the Double Natural.
They opened the door of the Transient Officers’ Quarters, walked in, stomped the snow off their feet and dumped their barracks bags on the floor. Looking around they saw a dismal but familiar military scene. A large room was almost filled with triple-decker bunks. The floor was littered with old copies of The Stars and Stripes and empty beer cans. There were two weak electric lights hanging from the ceiling, two bare wooden tables and a few flimsy chairs. In a comer, five young officers were seated around one of the tables talking earnestly, seriously, worriedly. Their clean fatigues and their general appearance indicated that they were coming, not going.
Duke selected one of the three-decker bunks. He examined it carefully, prodding it and poking it.
“Hawkeye,” he said, “I think y’all better pour us some prophylactic snake bite medicine. This place is plumb full of snakes.”
“I never argue about snakes with a man from Georgia,” said Hawkeye, extricating a bottle and paper cups from his bag. “I will pour the necessary doses.”
They sat at the wooden table, sipped the Scotch, smoked, and said little but looked happy. They had long hair, could have used shaves, and their clothes were dirty. Between them they owned one-half pair of Captain’s bars, which Hawkeye wore on the back of his fatigue cap.
From the corner, the eager new officers watched them with interest. Finally one of them rose and approached.
“May I ask you gentlemen a question?” he inquired.
“Sure, General,” said Hawkeye, who had turned his fatigue cap around so that the Captain’s bars showed.
“I’m not a general, Captain. I’m a lieutenant. May I ask why you wear your cap that way?”
“What way?”
“Backwards.”
Hawkeye took his cap off and inspected it.
“It looks OK to me,” he said. “Course, I ain’t no West Pointer, and frankly I don’t give a big rat’s ass whether it’s on backwards or forwards. What’s more, when I wear it this way, a lotta people think I’m Yogi Berra.”
“Yogi Berra?” the lieutenant said.
“Hey, Duke,” Hawkeye ordered. “Gimme my mask.”
The lieutenant scuffed his feet and asked, “How long have you gentlemen been in Korea?”
“Eighteen months,” Duke informed him. “Seems like just yesterday we came.”
The lieutenant left and rejoined his group. “They’re nuts,” he told them.
“Jesus,” said one of them, “I hope we don’t look like that after eighteen months.”
“Hawkeye,” Duke said, “y’all hear what that boy said?”
“Yeah.”
“Do y’all attach any significance to it?”
“Not much. We’ve done our jobs. I’m not ashamed of anything. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
“Me neither,” Duke said, “but y’all don’t suppose we’ve really flipped, do you? Sometimes I’m not sure.”
“Duke, wait’ll you see your wife and those two girls. You’ll be tame, docile and normal as hell. I wouldn’t know you two months from now. Relax.”
“Yeah,” Duke said, pouring another drink, and then raising his voice, “but do y’all know something? This is the first day in eighteen months I ain’t killed nobody.”
“Like hell! You didn’t get one on Christmas.”
“That’s right. I forgot, but y’all know it kind of gets in your blood. Guess I’ll clean my .45 just in case any Chinks infiltrate this here barracks.”
The Duke took out his .45, started to clean it and to look significantly at the new officers in the other corner. He poured another drink. “Hawkeye,” he announced loudly, “those guys are Chinks in disguise, or at least I think they are. Guess I’ll shoot ’em, just to be safe.”
Hawkeye got up, his hat on backwards, and approached the new officers.
“Maybe you guys better cut out for a while,” he suggested. “I only think I’m Yogi Berra, but my buddy has a more serious problem. After four drinks he knows he’s the United States Marines.”
Duke started to sing as he loaded his .45:
From the Halls of Montezuma To the Shores of Okefenokee.
The new officers went through the door rapidly and into the snow. They found the 325th Evacuation Hospital’s Officers’ Club. If they hadn’t been green, they’d have found it sooner. Excitedly, to an enthralled audience that included Brig. General Hamilton Hartington Hammond, the five described their experiences in the barracks.
“Leave those two alone!” General Hammond thundered, when someone suggested that the Military Police be summoned. “For Chrissake, just leave them alone! Just hope that train leaves in the morning with them on it. Assign these men other quarters!”