5

Captain Walter Koskiusko Waldowski, of Hamtramck, Michigan, and Dental Officer of the 4077th MASH, was a very good dentist. He took care of the tusks of hundreds of troops, most of whom, before they met him, would have preferred to storm a gook bunker barehanded rather than go to a dentist. He wired fractured jaws and extracted teeth with a dexterity that few of the medical personnel had ever witnessed at home. That he should be called The Painless Pole was so obvious that no one would own up to being the originator of the nickname.

The Painless Pole ran the only truly popular Dental Clinic in the Far East Command, or at least in Korea. This clinic had a real poker table. It had a small portable pool table, a record player, a large supply of beer and other potables, and also one dental chair. At times of maximum surgical-military stress there were short intervals when the perpetual poker game might cease for a few brief hours. This was rare, however, for even when work was most intense, the poker game would often be the same. The players might change every fifteen minutes, but there were always players. Some were trying to relax enough to sleep. Some were trying to wake up. At any given time, a few of the players were likely to be patients. Perhaps they were waiting for Painless to get out of the OR; perhaps they were bleeding from an extraction and passing the time until the hemorrhage was definitely controlled. Other participants were wanderers from here and there who knew they could always find a game at the Painless Polish Poker and Dental Clinic.

As a consequence, Captain Waldowski was widely known in the area and the most popular man in the outfit. Unlike most of the medical officers, he had been in private practice prior to being drafted. Unlike most of the medical officers, he had actually made a living, a state of grace almost inconceivable to his associates. He liked everyone, and was seldom without company.

His greatest hobby and interest, however, aside from man­aging the Poker and Dental Clinic, was women. As he was unmarried, it would have been perfectly natural for him to play the local nurses and patronize the flesh emporia in Seoul, but he passed these up much as a major league ballplayer would pass up a sandlot baseball game. Back home in Hamtramck, his reminiscences made clear, he had the highest lifetime batting average in the history of the league. At the present time he was engaged to, as best he could remember, three young lovelies, and while this sort of talk is so common in any military organization that it is automatically written off as malarkey, in his case it could not be written off, even by the most skeptical.

The Painless Pole, beyond any shadow of a doubt, was the best-equipped dentist in the U.S. Army Dental Corps. He was the owner and operator of the Pride of Hamtramck. Officers and enlisted men from the entire area frequently visited the 4077th MASH, supposedly to take advantage of the shower facilities, but actually they came in hope of catching a glimpse. In fact, Dr. Waldowski’s dental assistant, a Corporal Jones, significantly enhanced his lowly wages by informing certain troops in advance of the Captain’s intention of bath­ing. In the shower, popeyed officers and enlisted men viewed the Pride wistfully, and one day a corporal from Mississippi spoke for them all.

“Ah’d purely love,” he said, “to see it angry.”

Unfortunately, about once a month, the Painless Pole underwent a period of depression lasting no less than twenty-four hours and seldom more than three days. The usual activities of the Clinic continued, but except when forced to work, Walt just lay in his sack and stared at the walls. Radar O’Reilly, of course, was able to predict the advent of these episodes several days in advance, so that the clients of the Clinic were fore­warned, but it was Hawkeye Pierce who spread the first word of what turned out to be Captain Waldowski’s most serious seizure.

On this afternoon Hawkeye had been working continuously for twelve hours and, having finally finished and found it to be bathing time, he had gone to the shower tent. He undressed slowly. His stethoscope fell out of the rear pocket of his fatigue pants, and he hung it on a nail along with the pants. He stepped under the shower, luxuriated in its warmth, relaxed and dreamed dreams of Crabapple Cove. Returning to reality, he walked back to the bench where he had left his clothes. He found Captain Walter Waldowski, The Painless Pole, sitting on the bench. All the Dental Officer had on was Hawkeye’s stethoscope and a look of great alarm. He was listening to the Pride of Hamtramck.

“What’s the matter, Walt?” asked Hawkeye.

“I think it’s dead,” Walt answered and, in a trance, he walked to the nearest shower with the stethoscope still dan­gling from his ears.

That evening The Painless Pole entered The Swamp and sat down. He was given a drink, which he accepted with indiffer­ence.

“I thought you guys oughta know,” he announced.

“Know what?”

“I’m going to commit suicide.”

There was a moment of silence. Finally Trapper John leaned from his sack and grasped Walt’s hand.

“We’ll miss you, Walt,” he said. “I hope you’ll be happy in your new location.”

“Hey, Walt, how about you all leaving me your record player?” requested Duke.

“When are you making the trip?” inquired Hawkeye. “You oughta give Henry a little warning so he can get a replace­ment.”

Throughout the interrogation, The Painless Pole sat numbly and made no effort to answer.

“How do you figure to go?” continued Trapper. “You gonna do the .45 between the eyes, or are you planning something a little more refined?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask,” Walt finally said. “What would you guys recommend?”

“The .45 will do it.” Duke answered. “There’s no question about that, but it can be sloppy. How about the black capsule?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a never miss, easy, pleasant ride,” explained Hawkeye. “You have a few drinks, take the black capsule, and the next thing you know you’re listening to the heavenly chorus singing the Hamtramck High School victory song.”

“You guys got any black capsules?”

“For a buddy like y’all,” the Duke told him, “we’ll sure as hell get some, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want. I gotta go make out my will. Duke, you can have the record player. I’m closing the Clinic in the morning. Tomorrow night is it. You guys come up. We’ll have a few drinks, and I’ll take a black capsule, or maybe two.”

The Painless Pole left. Hawkeye followed him.

“Relieve me in three hours,” he instructed the Swampmen as he departed. “We’d better watch the foolish bastard until he gets over this one.”

The next morning Henry heard about it. He was all upset and making plans to evacuate Painless, and came to The Swamp to discuss it.

“What in hell’s wrong with him anyhow? Why do I have to get saddled with all the screwballs in the whole U.S. Army? Where in hell am I going to get another dentist?”

Trapper was in the Dental Clinic doing guard duty, but Duke and Hawkeye argued Henry out of his evacuation plans.

“Y’all don’t need to get rid of him, Henry,” said Duke. “He’ll get the hell over it.”

“Christ, Henry,” Hawk added, “if you get rid of him, some head-shrinker will just give him shock treatments and proba­bly send him to another outfit. We can give him some shock treatments right here!”

“I’m afraid not, boys,” Henry said. “This sort of thing is dynamite. If he pushed himself over up here, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Henry, you surely are aware,” Hawkeye continued, “of the immense prestige which the presence of the Pride bestows upon the unit. Furthermore, the Pride is the greatest drawing card any military shower tent ever had. You must realize that the personnel of our hospital and all nearby troops, in their zeal to view the Pride of Hamtramck, have become the cleanest goddam soldiers in Korea. Henry, in the name of sanitation and personal hygiene, will you just give us twenty-four hours to cure Painless Waldowski?”

“Yeah, Henry,” Duke said. “Will y’all just do that?”

“I’m crazy. I’m just as crazy as you guys. Go ahead, cure him, and let me the hell out of here!” he cried, leaving.

“So,” Hawkeye said to the Duke, “how are we going to cure him?”

“Easy,” the Duke said. “We’ll get some kind of black capsule, like we told him, stick about fifteen grains of amytal in it, get him loaded, and give him the capsule. By the time he wakes up, he oughta be O.K.”

“We better have some benzedrine or something around in case he looks like he won’t wake up.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“We should fancy up the procedure a little, too. We can work that out today. Let’s start by lining up Dago Red.”

They ambled over to the chaplain’s tent, entered and opened two of Father Mulcahy’s beers.

“How they goin’, Losing Preacher?” asked Hawkeye. “Whadda you hear from the Pope?” “What do reprobates want?”

“We came to invite y’all to the Last Supper,” explained the Duke.

“The Painless Pole,” Hawkeye explained, “plans to cross the Great Divide about eleven tonight and wishes his friends and cronies to break bread and wine with him beforehand. He has also requested that Losing Preacher Mulcahy come prepared to administer the last rites of the bead-jiggler Church. He has been somewhat slack in his devotion to the Church in recent years and wishes you to grease the skids a little.”

“Why don’t you guys leave me alone? What’s this all about anyway?” Dago asked wearily.

“We’re serious, Red,” Hawkeye said. “Painless has parted his mooring. We don’t want to have him evacuated because he’s a good guy and we like him and we figure we need him. We think we can get him straightened out, but we need a little help.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just what we said. Come up, have supper, a few drinks, put in one of your well-known fixes, and don’t get annoyed at anything you hear or see.”

“OK, boys, I’ll trust you,” Father Mulcahy agreed, “but I hope the big guy in Rome never gets wind of it.”

“He sure as hell won’t hear it from me,” Hawkeye assured him.

They went to the supply sergeant and commissioned the construction of a coffin.

“Who you planning to kill?” the sergeant asked.

“Nobody. We need the coffin for Painless. He is going to commit suicide.”

“He can’t do that!” protested the sergeant.

“Why can’t he?”

“Dentists we got lots of, but there’s only one Pride of Hamtramck.”

“So what?”

“So what? It belongs to the world! You gotta stop him.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not gonna let him do it. You seen Radar O’Reilly around?”

“Radar went to Seoul to get some blood. He’ll be back this afternoon. Whadda you want with him?”

“We may need him. Send him over to The Swamp as soon as he gets back.”

In the pharmacy a black capsule was prepared. Then the two trooped over to the mess hall and found the celebrated chef, Sergeant Mother Divine. Sergeant Mother Divine was a Negro boy from Brooklyn who, during his military career, had distin­guished himself through a variety of accomplish­ments, not all of them culinary. As president of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Marked-Down Monument and Landmark Company, and equipped with picture postcards and impres­sive papers suggesting ownership of various public edifices, statuary and parks, he had, for months, been running a thriv­ing sales business. Just two days before the visit of Hawkeye and Duke, in fact, he had sold the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for two hundred dollars to a Caucasian private from Missis­sippi.

“Man,” one of his less sophisticated kitchen colleagues had said to him, more in awe than admonition, “how could you do that?”

“Man,” Mother Divine said, “it was easy. That cat wouldn’t buy the bridge because he said he’d heard in the family for years that his grandpappy had bought it a long time ago.”

“Mother,” Hawkeye said to him now, “how would you like to win the Medaille d’Honneur des Chevaliers d’Escoffier de France?”

“Man,” Mother said, “what is it?”

“It’s a gold medal,” Hawkeye said.

“Man,” Mother said.

“It’s awarded in Paris every year,” Hawkeye said, “to the man voted the Chef of the Year.”

“And how do I get voted to that?” Mother asked.

“By preparing for this evening an especially sumptuous …”

“Oh no, man,” Mother said. “I ain’t caterin’ to no special parties. That ain’t in the regulations. In the regulations I just gotta provide three …”

“Mother,” Hawkeye said, “you like Captain Waldowski, don’t you?”

“That’s right,” Mother said. “In fact, there’s somethin’ about that man I greatly admire.”

With that as his cue, and with the Duke nodding assent, Hawkeye launched into an explanation of the emotional and mental state of the Painless Pole and then an impas­sioned plea. When he finished, Mother Divine agreed to do his part to save the Pride of Hamtramck.

In the Clinic that evening the poker game was stopped, and the poker and pool facilities, along with the dental chair, were removed. Two long tables were transported from the mess hall, candles were lighted and the Swampmen tended bar. The guests—doctors, chopper pilots, enlisted men—began to warm up, but Painless Waldowski sat unhappily in a corner, barely acknowledging the greetings of his friends and ad­mirers.

At the stroke of midnight the Last Supper was served, and no finer meal had ever been prepared at the 4077th MASH. This was due not only to the inspired efforts of Mother Divine but also to the fact that a Canadian supply truck had been hijacked a few miles to the south that very afternoon. As a result, smoked Gaspe salmon was followed by Pea Soup Habitant, roast beef sliced to the individual’s preference, three vegetables, tossed salad, baked alaska, coffee or tea, Dram­buie and Antonio y Cleopatra cigars.

Painless drank reluctantly and little, but Duke saw to it that the drinks were high in alcoholic content. Painless ate without appetite and at the conclusion of the meal, as each guest rose to make a short speech of fondness and farewell, he barely acknowledged the tributes and good wishes.

When the speeches had been completed, the coffin was carried in. It was lined with blankets and supplied with three fresh decks of cards, a box of poker chips, a fifth of Scotch, several basic dental instruments and pictures of Painless Wal­dowski’s three fiancees. For the first time Painless showed some interest.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The coffin for y’all,” the Duke informed him.

“But I’m not even dead yet.”

“Yeah, but you’re a pretty big guy,” Hawkeye said. “We don’t want to have to lug you around after you take the black capsule. We figured you could get in the box and then take it. Really, Painless, it’ll be a helluva lot more convenient.”

Painless looked doubtful.

“Hey, Painless,” someone else asked, “which way do you think you’ll go? Up or down?”

“I’ve asked the Father to arrange that,” he said, glancing at Dago Red.

“You sure you still got an inside track, Red?” asked Trapper John. “If there’s any chance of a slip-up, Painless might change his mind.”

“My mind’s made up,” asserted the Painless Pole.

Father Mulcahy administered the last rites. As he con­cluded, there was a murmur of approval. This had been one of Red’s best and most elaborate fixes.

“Well stroked,” said the Duke.

As Painless prepared to enter the coffin and take the black capsule, Trapper and Hawkeye were watching the door anx­iously. Suddenly it was thrown open and Radar O’Reilly burst in upon the gathering and, gasping for breath, yelled, “Hold everything!”

“What’s the matter?” Hawkeye said.

“I just got the message,” Radar said. “Painless needs a parachute. The fix didn’t take, and he goes down.”

A low, sudden rumble of discontent swept the room. The group turned its attention to Father Mulcahy.

“What’s wrong, Red?” demanded Trapper John. “You lose your stuff?”

“Never mind the recriminations,” said Hawkeye. “Let’s get on with it.”

He produced a parachute, and one of the chopper pilots helped him get Painless Waldowski into it. By now Painless was feeling the booze.

“I don’t want to be a parachute jumper,” he complained. “I might get killed.”

“You just might,” Hawkeye consoled him. “Get in here, Painless. It’s time for take-off.”

Complete with parachute, Painless got into the coffin. He took the black capsule and washed it down with a shot of Scotch. Within five minutes, he was in dreamland.

Trapper John came forward with a blue ribbon. Reverent­ly, but loosely, he tied it around the Pride of Hamtramck, and the poker game started. At frequent intervals, one or another of the Swampmen got up to check their dentist’s pulse, respiration and blood pressure.

On one occasion, when Painless seemed a little deeper than desirable, he was given a small dose of stimulant. By day­break, he showed signs of recovery. He was removed from the coffin and taken to a waiting helicopter of the 5th Air Rescue Squadron parked just behind the preop ward. At a height of about fifty feet over the ballfield, directly in front of The Swamp, he was given a large shot of benzedrine intravenously and lowered from the chopper by a rope. A string attached to the ripcord was pulled, and the chute opened. A rescue crew waited below holding a blanket. The pilot released the rope. Painless and his parachute, to the cheers of the gathering, plummeted eight feet into the blanket.

While the chute was being removed, Painless rubbed his eyes, looked around and said, “What the hell’s going on, boys?”

“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Hawkeye. “Come into The Swamp.”

“You look dry,” said Trapper, handing him a can of beer. “Where you’ve been, I hear you can get a thirst. Tell us about it. How’d you get back?”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” said Captain Waldowski, leaving the tent after downing the beer in three gulps.

Upon his return, Painless, obviously proud and holding a blue ribbon in his hand, informed them, “I don’t know where I’ve been, but wherever it was I sure as hell won first prize. How about a game of poker?”