Colonel Henry Blake was busier than he had been since The Deluge, and happier than he had been since his arrival in Korea. The first thing he did on the morning after his new neurosurgeon reported was call General Hammond in Seoul and, still chuckling to himself, wonder if, by any chance, the football team of the 325th Evacuation Hospital would care to meet an eleven representing the 4077th MASH.
General Hammond was delighted. The previous year his team had administered such thorough hosings to the only two pickup elevens in Korea foolish enough to challenge his powerhouse that both of those aggregations had abandoned the game. This had left him with a whining streak of two straight, visions of some day joining the company of Pop Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Knute Rockne—and no one to play. The date was set for Thanksgiving Day, five weeks away, on the home field of the champions at Yong-Dong-Po.
The next thing Colonel Blake did was write Special Services in Tokyo and arrange for the use of two dozen football uniforms, helmets, shoes and pads, all to be airlifted as soon as possible. Then he dictated a notice, calling for candidates to report at two o’clock the next afternoon, and copies were posted in the messhall, the latrines, the showers and in the Painless Polish Poker and Dental Clinic. After that he showed up at The Swamp.
“Now,” he said, after he had finished his report, “when do we start getting our dough down?”
“Why don’t we wait a while, Coach,” Trapper John suggested, “until we see what we’ve got for talent?”
“It doesn’t matter what we’ve got,” Henry responded. “That Hammond doesn’t know anything about football.”
“But if we seem too eager, Coach,” Hawkeye said, “we may tip our hand.”
“I guess you’re right,” Henry agreed.
The following afternoon, at the appointed hour, fifteen candidates appeared on the ball field. The equipment would not arrive for several days, so Henry, a whistle suspended from a cord around his neck, and as previously advised by his neurosurgeon, ran the rag-tag agglomeration twice around the perimeter of the field and then put them through some calisthenics. After that he just let them fool around, kicking and passing the three available footballs, while he and the Swampmen sized them up.
“Well,” Henry said, at cocktail hour that afternoon in The Swamp, “what do you think?”
“Can we still get out of the game?” the Duke said.
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “Whose idea was this anyway?”
“Yours, dammit,” Trapper said.
“God, they looked awful,” Hawkeye said.
“They’ll look fine,” Henry said, “once the uniforms get here.”
“Never,” the Duke said.
“Listen,” Spearchucker said. “The coach is right. I don’t mean particularly about the uniforms, but no team ever looks good the first few days. I noticed a few boys out there who have played the game.”
“Besides,” Henry said, “what does that Hammond know about football? It’s like having another man on our side.”
“The first thing we’ve got to do,” Spearchucker said, “is decide on an offense.”
“That’s right,” Henry said. “That’s the first thing we’ve got to do. What’ll it be? The Notre Dame Box?”
Trapper had been a T quarterback at Dartmouth, and Duke had run out of the T as a fullback at Georgia. Androscoggin, where Hawkeye had played end, had still used the single wing, but Spearchucker had played in the T in college and, of course, with the pros. Hawkeye was outvoted, 3 to 1, with Henry abstaining but agreeing.
“Now we’ve got to think up some plays,” Henry said. “Why don’t you fellas handle that while I look after some of the other details?”
Spearchucker diagrammed six basic running plays and four stock pass plays, and that evening presented them to Henry, with explanations. Henry studied these, established a training table at one end of the mess hall and ordered his athletes to cut down on the consumption of liquor and cigarettes. The Swampmen settled for two drinks before dinner and none after, and reduced their inhalation of nicotine and tobacco tars by one half.
For the next days, Henry, with surreptitious suggestions from Spearchucker, had the squad first walk through and then run through the plays. When the uniforms arrived they turned out, to the dismay of the Duke, who had worn the red for Georgia, to consist of cardinal jerseys, white helmets and white pants. As the personnel sorted through the equipment and found sizes that approximated their own, Henry fretted. He could hardly wait to see them suited up.
“Great! Great!” Henry exulted, as they lined up in front of him on the field. “You men look great!”
“We look like a lotta goddamn cherry parfaits,” Trapper said.
“Great!” Henry went on. “Wait’ll that Hammond sees you. He’s in for the surprise of his life.”
“It’ll be the last surprise he’ll ever have,” the Duke said. “He’ll die laughin’.”
Things were not as desperate, however, as the Swampmen seemed to believe. To the practiced eye of their newest member, in fact, it was apparent that his colleagues possessed at least some of the skills needed to play the game. Trapper John, after he took the snap from center, hustled back and stood poised to throw, looked like a scarecrow, but he had a whip for an arm and began to regain his control. Hawkeye, when he went down for passes, exhibited good moves and good hands. The Duke had the short, powerful stride a fullback needs, ran hard, blocked well and, during the few semi-scrimmages, showed himself to be imbued with an abundance of competitive fire. Sergeant Pete Rizzo, the ex-Three I League infielder, was a natural athlete and a halfback. Of the others, the sergeant from Supply named Vollmer, who had played center for Nebraska, was the best. Ugly John made a guard of sorts and Captain Walter Koskiusko Waldowski, the Painless Pole, a survivor of high school and sandlot football in Hamtramck, was big enough, strong enough and angry enough to be a tackle. The rest of the line was filled out by enlisted men, with the exception of one of the end spots to which, over the objections of Trapper John, Dr. R. C. (Jeeter) Carroll was assigned.
The Spearchucker, of course, was kept under cover, except to jog around and catch a few passes. When anyone was watching he dropped them. No one guessed his identity, so scouts from the Evac Hospital could report to General Hammond only that the big colored boy was a clown, that whatever the Swampmen might have been once and were trying to be again, they had partaken of far too much whiskey and tobacco to go more than a quarter. Moreover, there were only four substitutes.
Hawkeye scouted the 325th. He went down one afternoon and tried to look like he was bound on various errands between the Quonsets that surrounded the athletic field, while he eyed the opposition.
“They got nothing,” he reported on his return. “Three boys in the backfield looked like they played some college ball, but they probably aren’t any better than Trapper, the Duke and me. They got a lousy passer, but their line is heavier than ours, and they got us in depth. I think that without the Spearchucker we could play them about even. With the Spearchucker they can’t touch us.”
“Good,” Trapper said. “Then I suggest we do this: We hide the Spearchucker until the second half, and we hold back half our bets. We go into the half maybe ten points or two touchdowns behind, and then we bet the rest of our bundle at real odds.”
“Great!” Henry said. “Everybody get his dough up!”
By the time everyone had kicked in—doctors, nurses, lab technicians, corpsmen, Supply and mess hall personnel— Henry had $6,000. The next morning—five days before the game—he called General Hammond, and when he came off the phone and reported to The Swamp it was apparent that he was disturbed.
“What happened?” Trapper asked. “Couldn’t you get the dough down?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “I got $3,000 down.”
“No odds?” Duke asked.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “He gave me 2 to 1. He snapped it up.”
“Oh-oh,” Trapper John said. “I think I smell something.” “Me, too,” Henry said. “That Hammond is tighter than a bull’s ass in fly time. Whatever he’s trying to pull, I don’t like it.”
“Tell you what we’d better do,” Hawkeye said. “When I scouted those clowns they didn’t look any better than we do but with them just as anxious to get their money down as we are, maybe I missed something. Spearchucker better go down tomorrow and nose around. He’ll know a ringer if he sees one.”
“Maybe I’d better go at that,” Spearchucker said.
The next night Captain Jones returned from his scouting trip to Yong-Dong-Po. He didn’t look any happier than Henry had the day before.
“What’s the word?” asked Trapper John.
“They got two tackles from the Browns, and a halfback played with the Rams.”
“That’s not fair!” Henry said, jumping up. “Why, this game is supposed to be …”
“Wait a minute,” Hawkeye said. “Are these guys any good?”
“Anybody ever ask you to play pro football, boy?” Spearchucker said.
“I get your point,” Hawkeye said.
“My arm is sore,” declared Trapper. “I don’t think I can play.”
“What do we do?” asked Henry.
“Y’all are the coach,” Duke said. “How about it, Coach?”
“I guess we have to play,” Henry said, his dreams of gold and glory gone.
“The bastards outconned us,” Hawkeye said.
“Maybe not,” Spearchucker said. “We’ll think of something.”
“Like what?” Duke said.
“Like getting that halfback out of there as soon as we can,” Spearchucker said.
“You know him?” Duke said.
“No,” Spearchucker said, “but I’ve seen him. He played only one year second-string with the Rams before the Army got him. He’s a colored boy who weighs only about 180, but he’s a speed burner and one of those hot dogs.”
“What does that mean?” Henry said.
“I mean,” Spearchucker said, “that when he sees a little running room he likes to make a show—you know, stutter steps and cross-overs and all that jazz. He runs straight up and never learned to button up when he gets hit, so I think that, if you can get a good shot at him, you can get him out of there.”
“Then let’s kick off to them,” the Duke said, “and get him right away.”
“Good idea,” Henry said.
“No,” Spearchucker said. “He’ll kill you in an open field. You’ve got to get him in a confined situation, where he hesitates and hangs up.”
“Good idea,” Henry said.
“Sure,” Hawkeye said, “but how do we do that?”
“They’ll run him off tackle a lot from strong right,” Spearchucker said, “or send him wide. Hawkeye has to play him wide and turn him in, and when he makes his cut to the left he’s gonna do that cross-over and Duke has to hit him high and Hawkeye low.”
“Great idea!” Henry said. “That’ll show that Hammond.”
“Yeah,” Duke said, “but can we do it?”
“It’s the only way to do it,” Spearchucker said. “If you don’t get him the first time, he’ll give you plenty of other chances.”
“But when we unload him, if we can,” Hawkeye said, “we’ll have to break his leg to keep him from coming back in.”
“Not necessarily,” Trapper John said. “I got an idea.”
“What is it?” Henry said.
“Tell you later,” Trapper said, “if it works.”
Trapper John excused himself, left The Swamp, walked over to Henry’s tent and made a phone call. He talked for five minutes, and when he came back his teammates and their coach were dwelling on the problem presented by the two tackles from the Browns.
“We run nothing inside until I get into the game in the second half,” Spearchucker was explaining. “These two big boys must be twenty or thirty pounds overweight. We run everything wide, except for maybe an occasional draw for Duke up the middle to take advantage of their rush on Trapper when he passes.”
“God help me,” Trapper said.
“And me, too,” Duke said.
“In other words,” Spearchucker said, “the idea is to run the legs off ’em that first half. I think that will be all the edge I will require, gentlemen.”
“Right,” Henry said. “Imagine that Hammond, trying to pull something like that.”
On the day of Thanksgiving the kick-off was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., so shortly after the crack of dawn the 4077th MASH football team, the Red Raiders of the Imjin, all fifteen of them, plus their coach, their water boy and assorted rooters, took off in jeeps and truck. The Swampmen rode together in the same jeep and in silence. No bottle was passed and no cigarettes were smoked, and when they arrived in Yong-Dong-Po and headed for the Quonset assigned to the team as dressing quarters Trapper John excused himself and disappeared.
“Where the hell have you been?” Hawkeye asked him, when their quarterback finally returned just in time to suit up and loosen his arm.
“Yeah,” the Duke said. “We thought y’all went over the hill.”
“Had to see a man about a hot dog,” Trapper said. “Good old Austin from Boston.”
“Who?” Duke asked.
“About what?” Hawkeye said.
“Tell you about it if it works,” Trapper said. “You two clods just take care of the halfback.”
“All right, men,” Henry was saying. “I want you to listen to me. Let’s have some quiet in here. This game …”
He went into a Pat O’Brien-plays-Knute Rockne, stalking up and down and invoking their pride in themselves, their organization, the colors they wore and their bank accounts. When he finished, out of words and out of breath, his face was as red as their jerseys, and he turned them loose to meet the orange and black horde of Hammond.
“Look at the size of those two beasts,” Trapper John said, spotting the two tackles from the Browns.
“We know,” Duke said. “We were out here before. This is gonna take courage.”
“I ain’t got any,” Trapper said.
“Me neither,” Jeeter Carroll said.
“God help us,” Trapper said.
Hawkeye, because it had been his idea to play the game in the first place, was sent out now, as captain, to face the two tackles for the coin toss. When he came back he reported that he had lost the toss and that they would have to kick off.
“Now keep it away from the speed-burner,” Spearchucker instructed the Duke. “Kick it to anybody else but him.”
“That’s right,” said Henry, regaining his breath. “Kick it to anybody else but him.”
“I know,” the Duke assured them. “Y’all think I’m crazy?”
“Let’s go get ’em men!” Henry said.
The Duke kicked it away from the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams. He kicked it as far away from him as he could, but the enemy was of a different mind. The individual who caught the ball, by the simple maneuver of just running laterally and handing off, saw to it that the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams got the ball. The next thing they knew, the Red Raiders of the Imjin saw an orange and black blur and they were lining up to try to prevent the point after touchdown, an effort which also failed.
“Stop him!” Henry was screaming on the sidelines. “Stop that man!”
“Yeah,” the Duke was saying as they distributed themselves to receive the kick-off. “Y’all give me a rifle and I might stop him, if they blindfold him and tie him to a stake.”
When the kick came, it came to the Duke on the ten and he ran it straight ahead to the thirty before they brought him down. On the first play from scrimmage Trapper sent Hawkeye, playing at left half until Spearchucker could get into the game, around right end. Hawkeye made two yards, and Pete Rizzo, at right half, picked up two more around the other flank.
“Third and six,” Hawkeye said, as they came back to huddle. “I’ll run a down and out.”
“I’ll run a down and in,” Jeeter Carroll said, “but throw it to Hawkeye.”
“My arm is sore,” Trapper said.
“Y’all gotta throw,” Duke said.
“God help us,” Trapper said.
By the time he had taken the snap and hustled back, Trapper John knew that his blocking pocket had collapsed. He knew it because the two tackles from the Browns were descending upon him, and he ran. He ran to the right and turned and ran to the left.
“Good!” Spearchucker was calling from the sidelines. “Run the legs off those two big hogs!”
“Throw it!” Henry was shouting. “Throw it!”
Trapper threw it. Hawkeye caught it. When he caught it he lugged it to the enemy forty-nine. That was about as far as that drive went, and with fourth and five on the forty-four, Duke went back to punt.
“Don’t try for distance,” Hawkeye told him. “Kick it up there so we can get down and surround that sonofabitch.”
“Yeah,” Duke said, “if I can.”
He kicked it high and, as it came down, the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams, waiting for it on his twenty, saw red jerseys closing in. He called for a fair catch.
“A hot dog,” Spearchucker said, on the sidelines. “A real hot dog.”
“A hot dog,” Hawkeye said to Duke as they lined up. “Spearchucker had him right.”
“Yeah,” Duke said. “Let’s try to take him, like the Chucker said.”
When the play evolved, it was also as Spearchucker had called it. The halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams went in motion from his left half position, took a pitch out, turned up through the line off tackle and tried to go wide. When he saw Hawkeye, untouched by blockers, closing in from the outside, he made his cut. He made that beautiful cross-over, the right leg thrust across in front of the left, and just at the instant when he looked like he was posing for the picture for the cover of the game program, poised as he was on the ball of his left foot, the other leg in the air and one arm out, he was hit. From one side he was hit at the knees by 200 pounds of hurtling former Androscoggin College end, and from the other he was hit high by 195 pounds of former Georgia fullback.
“Time!” one of the former Brown tackles was calling. “Time!”
It took quite some time. In about five minutes they got the halfback who had played a year of second-string with the Rams on his feet, and they assisted him to the sidelines and sat him down on the bench.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” General Hammond, on his knees in front of his offensive star and extending the digits of one hand, was asking. “Fifteen,” his star replied.
“Take him in,” the General said, sadly. “Try to get him ready for the second half.”
So they took him across the field and into the 325th Evac. As the Swampmen watched him go, Trapper John was the first to speak.
“That,” Trapper John said, “takes care of that. Scratch one hot dog.”
“Y’all think he’s hurt that bad?” the Duke asked.
“Hell, no,” Trapper said, “but we won’t see him again.”
“I suspect something,” Hawkeye said.
“Explain.”
“An old Dartmouth roomie of mine,” Trapper explained, “is attached to this cruddy outfit. I called him the other night, after Spearchucker outlined the plot, and told him to put in for Officer of the Day today.”
“I’m beginning to get it,” Hawkeye said.
“This morning,” Trapper went on, “I paid him a visit and cut him in for a piece of our bet. Right now Austin from Boston is going to place that hot dog under what is politely called heavy sedation, where he will dwell for the rest of the game and probably the rest of the day.”
“Trapper,” Hawkeye said, “you are a genius.”
“Y’all know something?” the Duke said. “I think we can beat these Yankees now.”
“Time!” the referee was screaming, between blasts on his whistle. “Do you people want to play football or talk all day?”
“If we have a choice,” Hawkeye said, as they started to line up, “we prefer to talk.”
“But you ain’t got a choice,” one of the tackles from the Browns said, “and you’ll get yours now.”
“What do y’all mean?” the Duke said. “It was clean.”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said, “and you’ll have to catch us first.” On that drive the enemy was stopped on the seven, and had to settle for the field goal that made it 10-0. For their part, the Red Raiders devoted most of their offensive efforts to pulling the corks of the two tackles, running them from one side of the field to the other. Midway in the second quarter they managed a score after Ugly John had fallen on a fumble on the enemy nineteen. Two plays later Hawkeye caught a wobbling pass lofted by a still fleeing Trapper John and fell into the end zone. Just before the end of the half the home forces rammed the ball over once more, so the score was 17-7 when both sides retired for rest and resuscitation.
“Very good, gentlemen,” Spearchucker, who had been pacing the sideline helmeted and wrapped in a khaki blanket, told them as they filed in. “Very good, indeed.”
“Yeah,” Trapper John said, slumping to the floor, “but I gotta have a …”
“… beer, sir?” said Radar O’Reilly, who had been serving during the time-outs as water boy.
“Right,” Trapper said, taking the brew. “Thank you.”
“Tell you what,” Hawkeye said. “They got us now by ten, so we ought to be able to get two to one. Coach?”
“Yes, sir?” Henry said. “I mean, yes?”
“You better get over there quick,” Hawkeye said, “and grab that Hammond and try to get the rest of that bundle down at two to one.”
“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I mean, yes. What’s the matter with me, anyway?”
“Nothin’, Coach,” Duke said. “Y’all are doing a real fine job.”
Henry was back in less than five minutes. He reported that he had failed to get as far as the other team’s dressing room. Halfway across the field he had been met by General Hammond who, having just checked on the health of his offensive star, had found him still under sedation. As Henry described him, the General was extremely irate.
“He was so mad,” Henry said, “that he wanted to know if we’d like to get any more money down.”
“Did you all tell him yes?” Duke wanted to know. “He was so mad,” Henry said, “that he said he’d give us three to one.”
“And you took it?” Trapper said. “I got four to one,” a gleeful Henry said. “Great, Coach!” they were shouting now. “How to go, Coach!”
“But,” Henry said, the elation suddenly draining from his face, as he thought of something, “we still have to win.”
“Relax, coach,” Spearchucker assured him. “If these poor white trash will just give me the ball and then direct ’their attentions to the two gentlemen from Cleveland, Ohio, I promise you that I shall bring our crusade to a victorious conclusion.”
Henry gave them then a re-take of his opening address. He paced the floor in front of them, waving his arms, exhorting, praising, pleading until, once more, his face and neck were of the same hue as their jerseys and once more, and for the last time, he sent them out to do or die.
As the Red Raiders of the Imjin distributed themselves to receive the kick-off, Captain Oliver Wendell Jones took a position on the goal line. The ball was not kicked to him, but the recipient, Captain Augustus Bedford Forrest, made certain that he got it. Without significant Interference, Captain Jones proceeded to the opposite end zone. Captain Forrest then kicked the extra point, bringing the score to 17-14, and while the teams dragged themselves back upfield, the two tackles from the Browns were seen loping over to their sideline. There they were observed in earnest conversation with General Hamilton Hartington Hammond who, as the two lumbered back onto the field, was seen shaking his fist in the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Braymore Blake.
“Those two tackles, sir,” Radar O’Reilly informed his colonel, “told General Hammond that they recognize Captain Jones, sir.”
“Roll it up!” Henry, ignoring both his corporal and his general, was screaming. “Roll it up!”
“Keep it down,” advised Hawkeye. “We may want to do this again.”
“We may not have to worry about that,” Spearchucker, still breathing heavily, informed them. “I guess I’m not in the shape I thought I was. This may still be a battle.”
It was. It was primarily a battle between the two tackles and Spearchucker, with certain innocent parties, such as Ugly John and the Painless Pole and Vollmer, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska, in the middle. When the Red Raiders got the ball again they went ahead for the moment, as Spearchucker scored once more on a forty-yard burst, but then the enemy surged back to grind out another and, with three minutes to play the score was Hammond 24, Blake 21, first-and-ten for the home forces on the visitors’ thirty-five-yard line.
“We gotta stop ’em here,” Spearchucker said.
“We need a time-out,” Trapper John said, “and some information.”
“Time-out!” Hawkeye called to the referee.
“Radar,” Trapper John said, when Radar O’Reilly came in with the water bucket and the towels, “do you think you can monitor that kaffee-clatch over there?”
He nodded toward the other team, gathered around their quarterback.
“I think I can, sir,” Radar said. “I can try, sir.”
“Well, goddammit, try.”
“Yes, sir,” Radar said, fixing his attention on the other huddle.
“What are they saying?”
“Well, sir,” Radar said, “the quarterback is saying that they will run the old Statue of Liberty, sir. He’s saying that their left end will come across and take the ball off his hand and try to get around their right end.”
“Good,” Spearchucker said. “What else are they saying?”
“Well, sir,” Radar said, “now the quarterback is saying that, if that doesn’t work, they’ll go into the double wing.”
“Good,” the Duke said.
“Ssh!” Hawkeye said. “What are they gonna do out of the double wing?”
“Well, sir,” Radar said, “they’re having an argument now. Everybody is talking so it’s confusing.”
“Keep listening.”
“Yes, sir. Now one of the tackles is telling them all to shut up. Now the quarterback is saying that, out of the double wing, the left halfback will come across and take the hand-off and start to the right. Then he’ll hand off to the right halfback coming to the left.”
“Radar,” Hawkeye said, “you’re absolutely the greatest since Marconi.”
“Greater,” Trapper John said.
“Thank you, sir,” Radar said. “That’s very kind of you, sir.”
“Time!” the referee was calling. “Time!”
It was as Radar O’Reilly had heard it. On the first play the enemy quarterback went back, as if to pass. As he did, the left end started to his right, and the Red Raiders, all eleven of them, started to their left. The left end took the ball off the quarterback’s hand, brought it down, made his cut and met a welcoming committee of ten men in red, only Ugly John, temporarily buried under 265 pounds of tackle, failing to make it on time.
“Double wing!” Spearchucker informed his associates as the enemy lined up for the next play. “Double wing!”
“Hut! Hut!” the enemy quarterback was calling. “Hut!”
This time the left halfback took the hand-off and started to his right. The eleven Red Raiders started to their right and, as the right halfback took the ball from the left halfback, ran to his left and tried to turn in, he, too, was confronted by ten men wearing the wrong colors. This time it was the Painless Pole who, tripping over his own feet, kept the Red Raiders from attaining perfect attendance.
The first man to hit the halfback was Spearchucker Jones. He hit him so hard that he doubled him over and drove him back five yards, and as the wind came out of the halfback so did the ball. It took some time to find the ball, because it was at the bottom of a pile of six men, all wearing red jerseys.
“Time!” Spearchucker called, and he walked over and talked with the referee.
“What’s the matter?” Trapper John asked him, when he came back. “Let’s take it to them.”
“Too far to go, and we’re all bushed,” Spearchucker said. “I just told the referee that we’re gonna try something different. We’re gonna make the center eligible …”
“Who?” Vollmer, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska said. “Me?”
“That’s right,” Spearchucker said. “Now everybody listen, and listen good. We line up unbalanced, with everybody to the right of center, except Hawkeye at left end. Just before the signal for the snap of the ball, Duke, you move up into the line to the right of the center and Hawkeye, you drop back a yard. That keeps the required seven men in the line, and makes the center eligible to receive a pass.”
“Me?” Vollmer said. “I can’t catch a pass.”
“You don’t have to,” Spearchucker said. “Trapper takes the snap and hands the ball right back to you between your legs. You hide it in your belly, and stay there like you’re blockin’. Trapper, you start back like you got the ball, make a fake to me and keep going. One or both of those tackles will hit you …”
“Oh, dear,” Trapper said.
“Meanwhile,” Spearchucker said to Vollmer, “when your man goes by you, you straighten up, hidin’ the ball with your arms, and you walk—don’t run—toward that other goal line.”
“I don’t know,” Vollmer said.
“You got to,” Hawkeye said. “Just think of all that dough.”
“I suppose,” Vollmer said.
“Everybody else keep busy,” Spearchucker said. “Keep the other people occupied, but don’t hold, and Vollmer, you remember you walk, don’t run.”
“I’ll try,” Vollmer said.
“Oh, dear,” Trapper John said.
“Time!” the referee was calling again. “Time!”
When they lined up, all of the linemen to the right of the center except Hawkeye, they had some trouble finding their positions and the enemy had some trouble adjusting. As Trapper John walked up and took his position behind the center and then Duke jumped up into the line and Hawkeye dropped back, the enemy was even more confused.
“Hut!” Trapper John called. “Hut!”
He took the ball from the center, handed it right back to him, turned and started back. He faked to Spearchucker, heading into the line, and then, his back to the fray, he who had once so successfully posed as The Saviour now posed as The Quarterback With the Ball. So successfully did he pose, in fact, that both tackles from the Browns and two other linemen in orange and black fell for the ruse, and on top of Trapper John.
Up at the line, meanwhile, the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska had started his lonely journey. Bent over, his arms crossed to further hide the ball, and looking like he had caught a helmet or a shoulder pad in the pit of the stomach and was now living with the discomfort, he had walked right between the two enemy halfbacks whose attention was focused on the trappings of Trapper John. Once past this checkpoint, about ten yards from where he had started and now out in the open, the sergeant, however, began to feel as conspicuous as a man who had forgotten his pants, so he decided to embellish the act. He veered toward his own sideline, as if he were leaving the game.
“What’s going on?” Henry was screaming as his center approached him. “What’s going on out there? What are you doing?”
“I got the ball,” the center informed him, opening his arms enough for Henry to see the pigskin cradled there.
“Then run!” Henry screamed. “Run!”
So the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska began to run. Back upfield, the two tackles from the Browns had picked up Trapper John. That is, each had picked up a leg, and now they were shaking him out like a scatter rug, still trying to find the ball, while their colleagues stood around waiting for it to appear, so they could pounce on it. Downfield, meanwhile, the safety man stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scratching an armpit, peering upfield and waiting for something to evolve. He had noticed the center start toward the sidelines, apparently in pain, but he had ignored that. Now, however, as he saw the center break into a run, the light bulb lit, and he took off after him. They met, but they met on the two-yard line, and the sergeant from Supply and center from Nebraska carried the safety man, as well as the ball, into the end zone with him.
“What happened?” General Hammond, coach, was hollering on one sideline. “Illegal! Illegal!”
“It was legal,” the referee informed him. “They made that center eligible.”
“Crook!” General Hammond was hollering at Lieutenant Colonel Blake on the other sideline, shaking his fist at him. “Crook!”
“Run it up!” Henry was hollering. “Run it up!”
“Now we just gotta stop ’em,” Spearchucker said, after Duke had kicked the point that made it MASH 28, Evac 24.
“Not me,” Trapper John said, weaving for the sideline.
And stop them they did. The key defensive play was made, in fact, by Dr. R. C. (Jeeter) Carroll. Dr. Carroll, all five feet nine inches and 150 pounds of him, had spent the afternoon on the offense just running passroutes, waving his arms over his head and screaming at the top of his lungs. He had run button-hooks, turn-ins, turn-outs, zig-ins, zig-outs, posts and fly patterns. Trapper John had ignored him and, after the first few minutes, so had the enemy. Now, with less than a minute to play, with the enemy on the Red Raiders’ forty, fourth and ten, Spearchucker had called for a prevent defense and sent for the agile Dr. Carroll to replace Trapper John.
“Let’s pick on that idiot,” Radar O’Reilly heard one of the enemy ends tell the enemy quarterback as Jeeter ran onto the field. “He’s opposite me, so let’s run that crossing pattern and I’ll lose him.”
They tried. They crossed their ends about fifteen yards deep but the end couldn’t lose Jeeter. Jeeter stuck right with him but, with his back to play, he couldn’t see the ball coming. It came with all the velocity the quarterback could still put on it, and it struck Jeeter on the back of the helmet. When it struck Jeeter it drove him to his knees, but it also rebounded into the arms of the Painless Pole who fell to the ground still clutching it.
“Great!” Henry was shouting from the sideline. “Great defensive play.”
“That’s using the old head, Jeeter,” Hawkeye told Dr. Carroll, as he helped him to his feet.
“What?” Jeeter said.
“That’s using the old noggin,” Hawkeye said.
“What?” Jeeter said.
Then Spearchucker loafed the ball into the line twice, the referee fired off his Army .45 and they trooped off the field, into the waiting arms of Henry, who escorted them into their dressing quarters where they called for the beer and slumped to the floor.
“Great!” Henry, ecstatic, was saying, going around and shaking each man’s hand. “It was a great team effort. You’re heroes all!”
“Then give us our goddamn Purple Hearts,” said Ugly John, who had spent most of the afternoon under one or the other of the two tackles from the Browns.
When General Hammond appeared, he was all grace. In the best R.A. stiff-upper-lip tradition he congratulated them, and then he took Henry aside.
“Men,” Henry said, after the general had left, “he wants a rematch. Whadda you say?”
“I thought he was bein’ awful nice,” Spearchucker said.
“We might be able to do it to them again,” Henry said, still glowing.
“Never again,” Hawkeye said. “They’re on to us now.”
“Gentlemen,” the Duke, slumped next to Hawkeye, said, “I got an announcement to make. Y’all have just seen me play my last game.”
“You can retire my number, too,” Trapper John said.
“Mine, too,” Hawkeye said.
“Anyway, men,” Henry said, “I told you so.”
“What?” Hawkeye said.
“That Hammond,” Henry said. “He doesn’t know anything about football.”