Mirror M*A*S*H, part 5
Part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4


“Or both,” Hawkeye said cheerfully. He took the second glass from Trapper and sat down on his bunk. “But if the Colonel finds out we were lying, we may need to dislocate his shoulder.”

“I can do that in my sleep,” Trapper said confidently, sitting down. “In fact, I think I’ve done it in my sleep.”

The man swallowed. “Poker.”

“What?” Trapper looked up at the man.

“Do you play poker?”

“Yeah, we do,” Hawkeye said. “What are you offering to stake?”

“Blowjobs?” Trapper was grinning.

“You could lend me a ten-spot, Hawkeye,” the man said.

Trapper hooted with mirth. Hawkeye leant back and laughed out loud. “I like it.”

He was digging his pocket for his wallet when he saw Trapper staring at him with a frown of confusion. “You’re not going to do it?”

“What have I got to lose?”

“Ten bucks,” Trapper pointed out. “And you already borrowed three days drinking money from me.”

“Maybe my guy here can win it back for me.”

“If he’s winning from you, that’s not going to help. And if he wins it from me, that’s not going to help either.”

“Oh, come on, Trap – what else have we got to do?”

“We could fuck him!”

“We can do that later.”

“Why wait?”

“I just had breakfast.”

“Point.” Trapper sat up, reaching for their pack of cards. “But I’m not lending him any money.”


The man was good. As the morning wore on, the pile of notes and coins in front of him grew larger, Trapper got more amused and Hawkeye got less.

“He’s bluffing,” Trapper said.

“Right,” Hawkeye said. There was six bucks and forty cents in the pot, representing the last of Hawkeye’s cash. But he also had four of a kind, and he was fairly sure that Francis had nothing. Trapper had folded.

“I call,” Hawkeye declared. “Four eights.”

The man gave Hawkeye another, almost invisible smile, and laid down a royal flush. “Read ‘em and weep,” he said, and reached out to sweep the pot into his pile.

“That’s it,” Hawkeye said, incredulously. “You cleaned me out!”

Trapper laughed. “What’re you going to stake now, Hawkeye? Blowjobs?”

“No.” Hawkeye sighed. He reached out for the pile in front of the man. “Okay, what did you start with and what did I start with?”

“What?” The man blinked at Hawkeye.

“Trap?” Hawkeye said, with growing impatience.

“What, you’re not going to let him keep it?” Trapper was grinning.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hawkeye said crossly. “It was a stupid idea. What’s his is mine: you really want to hand over what’s left of your drinking money to me, via him?”

“When you put it that way,” Trapper said. He looked up. “Hey. Colonel alert.”

Hawkeye turned, leaving the pile of cash on the table. The door yanked open. Colonel Hunnicut stood on the threshold a moment, and walked in. “You know, every time I come in here, I think this place couldn’t smell worse.” He looked around. “And every time, I’m wrong.”

“Something we can do for you, Colonel?”

“What was the problem with the man’s arm? I’ve just had Major Houlihan screaming at me that I was not to permit anyone to rough up her onsite laundry service. I didn’t know we had onsite laundry service. Do we?”

“Well, we figured Francis might as well make himself useful.”

“I see.” The Colonel folded his arms across his chest and smiled. “Unusually helpful of you, Pierce. A shame that this man’s injuries prevent him from being as helpful as you’d like. What was the problem with the man’s arm?”

“Nothing that stops him from playing poker,” Trapper said.

“Who won?” The Colonel was standing over the table, looking down at the pile of money.

“He did,” Trapper said, nodding to the man.

Hawkeye picked up the pack of cards and started to fidget with them. “I’m just about to split everything up so we get back what we started with.”

“Why?” The Colonel sounded honestly curious.

Hawkeye shrugged widely. There was a certain absurdity to it. “I leant my property ten bucks to play a poker game with me and my best friend and bunkie. He cleans me out and all but cleans out Trapper. I don’t think Trapper and I are going to stay best friends if we’re playing for keepsies.”

The Colonel tilted his head, and smiled again. “Explain that to me, Pierce.”

“What’s his is mine! All I’m doing is diverting Trapper’s money to my pocket via a roundabout route.”

“I think you’re forgetting one important point,” the Colonel said.

“What’s that?”

“What’s his is mine.” The Colonel reached down and picked up the pile. He sat down on the end of the spare cot. “I did notice that you stuck me with the money you borrowed from McIntyre and Winchester, Pierce. That’s how you get to be a Colonel, you know – read the fine print.”

“Damn!” Hawkeye flung down the cards. “I’m broke!”

“You’ll have to stick to cheap amusements for the rest of the month, Pierce.” He was sorting through the cash almost as quickly as a teller in a bank. “You’ve already bought yourself a damned expensive one.” He looked up. “Especially if you let him play poker with you. How much did Pierce borrow from you, McIntyre?"

Trapper stammered. Even Hawkeye didn’t understand what he said.

“You don’t remember?” The Colonel’s smile could be terrifying.

“Oh, take it,” Hawkeye said impatiently. “I’m going to need someone to borrow from this month.”

Trapper told him. The Colonel nodded. He handed a sheaf of notes to Trapper, and dropped most of the coins in front of the man. “That’s yours, Francis. We should do this again.”

The man began to stack the quarters and dimes into piles, his eyes cast down.

“What was the problem with this man’s arm?” the Colonel asked.

“Burns roughed him up a bit last night,” Hawkeye said. “Nothing serious.”

“And yet he can’t use that arm today.”

“Just to make sure,” Hawkeye said.

“To make sure of what?”

“You know – just to make sure it’s okay.”

The Colonel nodded. “Francis.”

The man started. He looked up. “Yes?”

“What’s the problem with your arm?”

The man swallowed. “It hurts.”

“Who hurt you?”

The man swallowed again. “I don’t think – ”

“Who hurt you?”

“A – a customer – at the house – ” the man’s voice was diffident and uncertain. “I – I hoped it would get better, but it just got worse – ”

“So you’ve had this problem for three days?” the Colonel asked.

“Is that how long it’s been?” the man said. He sounded genuinely bewildered.

“Did Major Burns rough you up last night?”

The man looked worried and glanced at Hawkeye.

The Colonel looked from him, to Hawkeye, thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. I’ll let it pass this time. Remember this, Pierce: if he’s injured, I want you to report it to me. Or I might suspect you did it yourself to get someone you don’t happen to like very much into trouble. And remember that if that’s something you can do, it’s something I can do.”

“Hawkeye.” The man had finished sorting his coins: five piles of shaky silver, and a mess of other coins. He pushed the five piles over the table. “I still owe you five,” he said. “Sorry.”

Hawkeye stared at the piled coins. He looked up at the Colonel. There was a really astonishing amount of irritation building up inside him. “Look, Colonel sir,” he said, “I don’t go around taking out my self-disgust and inability to deal with my own incompetence – ” the gin was getting to him, incompetence had come out wetter than it should “ – on a harmless little guy with crazy ideas in his head. All I do is spend money I haven’t got on someone I don’t want and then lend him ten bucks, of which I get back half in small change.”

“What crazy ideas has he got in his head?” the Colonel asked sharply.

“Ah,” Hawkeye said with weary annoyance, “nothing much. Just a long spiel about how he got here.”

“How did he get here?”

“You ask him. He’s crazy, Colonel, but it’s nothing to worry about. God knows this place is enough to make anyone insane.” Hawkeye stood up.

“Going somewhere, Pierce?” the Colonel asked.

“Out for a walk,” Hawkeye said. “Cheap enough for you?” He turned around and would have gone, but someone grabbed at his wrist from behind.

A moment’s thought would have told him it was either the Colonel or the man, but he was used to reacting without thought: he spun, his hand coming up, and relaxed his fist only just time to stop himself from punching the man in the throat.

The Colonel and Trapper were both on their feet. Hawkeye lowered his hand. The man was looking at him with surprise and shock written all over his face. Hawkeye patted his shoulder. “Okay. Like I said. I’m going out for a walk. Just stay here. Talk to the Colonel. Tell him what you told me about how you got here. I’ll be back.” The worst that could happen would be that the Colonel would conclude, as Hawkeye had, that the man was quietly, mildly, harmlessly crazy.

“It hurts him to use his arm, does it?” the Colonel said.

The man had grabbed at him with both hands.

“You idiot,” Hawkeye said, and then “Colonel, I can explain – ”

“Good. Begin.”

“Look…” Hawkeye trailed off. “Okay. I woke up this morning and this guy was hiding under my bed because Major Burns was looking for him and he didn’t want to be found. And maybe Burns didn’t actually mess up his arm for him – I mean, it was just a bruise – but I didn’t want to – I mean, he didn’t want to – ”

“Did I or didn’t I say that his services were to be available to all commissioned officers?”

“Yeah. But come on. There’s limits.”

“Do you think it’s for you to decide that?”

“Maybe it’s for him to decide that,” Hawkeye said. “I can’t swallow Frank Burns – why should he have to?”

“Burns isn’t as good a cutter as you, but we couldn’t do without him.” The Colonel took hold of the man by the shoulders, and turned him. Moving with his usual neat precision, appearing to be quite unhurried, he hooked his foot behind the man’s feet and pushed: the man went down on his knees with a sudden grunt of surprise. “You’re good, Pierce. Too good. You keep thinking you can get away with anything. I let you get away with a good deal.” He took hold of the man’s left arm, free of the sling, and tugged it up.

Hawkeye swallowed. “Colonel, I’m sorry – ”

“I’ve heard that before.” The Colonel’s face didn’t change. His hands moved. The man howled.

It was a noise Hawkeye was used to: but not here. The man’s first cry of pain had died: he was huddled on the floor, his left arm trailing, dislocated, his shoulder a swollen shape that belonged to the white lights and clean tiling of fear. His breath was coming in sobs.

“No,” the Colonel said. He was looking at his watch: his voice stopped Hawkeye in his tracks. “Five minutes.”

“What?”

“Five minutes,” the Colonel said, “or I’ll shoot him. Just stand there and listen to him and think about it, Pierce. Five minutes.”


To part 6