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minute. They had this boy who was supposed to be a great passer so he threw one, snow and all, and – ”
    Just then the door opened, and in came McIntyre covered with snow.
    “Where’s the martinis?” he asked.
    Hawkeye looked at him, and suddenly the intervening years and the nine thousand miles dissolved and memory functioned. Perhaps it was the snow or the thought of Dartmouth or both. He jumped up.
    “Jesus to Jesus and eight hands around, Duke!” he yelled. “You know who we been living with for the past week? We been living with the only man in history who ever took a piece in the ladies’ can of a Boston & Maine train. When the conductor caught him in there with his Winter Carnival date she screamed, ‘He trapped me!’ and that’s how he got his name. This is the famous Trapper John. God, Trapper, I speak for the Duke as well as myself when I say it’s an honor to have you with us. Have a martini, Trapper.”
    “Thanks, Hawkeye. I wondered when you’d recognize me. The minute I saw you I knew you were the guy that intercepted that pass. Lucky you didn’t have your mouth open or it would have gone down your throat.”
    “Trapper, Trapper, Trapper,” Hawkeye kept saying, and shaking his head. “Say, what you been doing since then?”
    “Not much. Just living on my reputation.”
    The Duke got up and shook hands with Trapper.
    “Right proud to know y’all, Trapper,” he said. “Are you sure y’all don’t have the clap? Y’all look right peaked.”
    “I got over the clap. I’m so skinny because I don’t eat.”
    “Why not?”
    “Got out of the habit.”
    “Don’t let it worry you,” Hawkeye said.
    “It could happen to anybody,” Duke said.
    And so the Trapper was one of them. An hour later the three tentmates weaved into the mess hall, arm in arm.
    “Gentlemen,” yelled Hawkeye, “this here is Trapper John, the pride of Winchester, Dartmouth College, and Tent Number Six, and if any of you uneducated bastards don’t like it you’ll have to answer to Duke Forrest and Hawkeye Pierce.”

4
     
     
    For several weeks following the identification of Captain John McIntyre as Trapper John things settled down into an orderly routine. The work during the twelve-hour shifts was often intense, sometimes lacking, and usually somewhere in between.
    Although many of the casualties were brought in from the Battalion Aid Stations by ambulance and might arrive at any hour, the most seriously wounded were flown in by helicopter. This meant that daylight was the frequent arrival time because the choppers did not fly at night. When the night shift had worked steadily from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. and finally had everything cleaned up, some of its members could usually be seen as the first light of day seeped into the wide valley, peering north beyond the mine field and the river with its railroad bridge, hoping against hope that no choppers would materialize out of the mist.
    When casualties were heavy, the regular schedule was ignored and every man worked as long as he could stay on his feet, think and still function. Finally, overcome by fatigue, he would grab a few hours of sleep and then go back to it again. When things were under control, however, there was leisure time and, particularly in winter and early spring, very little to do with it.
    Tent Number Six, the home of Forrest, Pierce and McIntyre, became a center of social activity. It also became known as The Swamp, partly because it looked like the kind of haunt one might come across in a bog and partly because Hawkeye Pierce, while in college and unable to afford a dormitory room, had lived just off the campus in a shanty that his classmates had called The Swamp. The words, in big capital letters – THE SWAMP – were painted in red on the door of Number Six.
    Cocktail hour at The Swamp began at 4:00 p.m., the hour at which the night shift normally awakened and had a few before supper, and the hour at which the day shift, if unemployed, could