(Radar’s eyes cross behind his glasses, and he slumps forward onto the examination table like a sack of Iowa potatoes.)
Nurse Cutler: (gasps, dropping a roll of gauze) “Captain! You just hit Corporal O’Reilly with a wooden mallet!”
Trapper: (casually inspecting the mallet) “Relax, Cutler. It’s a sterile mallet. We boiled it this morning with the breakfast sausages.”
Hawkeye: “Besides, it’s the only reliable way to get his attention without blowing a bugle. Now, let’s proceed before the anesthesia wears off. I estimate we have exactly three minutes before he wakes up and tries to sell us a mail-order raccoon. Tweezers.”
(Cutler, still looking completely horrified, slaps a pair of surgical tweezers into Hawkeye’s outstretched hand.)
Hawkeye: “Thank you. Trapper, mop my brow.”
Trapper: “I’m a thoracic surgeon, Hawk. I don’t mop.”
Hawkeye: “Fine. Then hold his hand and tell him he’s a brave little soldier.”
(Hawkeye leans in close to Radar’s left index finger, squinting with the intense focus of a man defusing an unexploded bomb. He makes a swift, precise motion with the tweezers and holds them up to the light triumphantly.)
Hawkeye: “Ah-ha! Got it.”
Nurse Cutler: (leaning in, entirely unimpressed) “Captain… is that a wood splinter?”
Hawkeye: “Not just any splinter, Nurse. A highly tactical splinter from the Colonel’s desk. It was embedded nearly two millimeters deep. The boy was practically a goner.”
Trapper: (nodding solemnly) “Brilliant work, Doctor. You saved his life. Do you think he’ll ever play the violin again?”
Hawkeye: “Trapper, he never played the violin.”
Trapper: “Then it’s a medical miracle. We should write this up for the New England Journal.”
(Suddenly, the tent flaps part and Major Frank Burns marches in, his posture rigid and his face twisted into its usual judgmental scowl.)
Frank: “What is the meaning of this? You’re tying up a valuable examination table! There’s a war on, in case you two degenerates haven’t noticed!”
(Radar groans loudly, rubbing the top of his head as he slowly regains consciousness.)
Radar: “Oooh… my head. Did I hear a bugle?”
Hawkeye: “No, Radar, that was just the sound of Major Burns entering the room. It has a similar traumatic effect on the nervous system.”
Frank: (eyes widening) “Pierce, did you strike an enlisted man?! That is a court-martial offense!”
Trapper: “Absolutely not, Frank. We simply administered a localized, blunt-force cranial suppression. Standard Swamp procedure.”
Frank: “I’m reporting this to Colonel Blake! It’s… it’s un-American! It’s un-medical!”
(Frank spins on his heel and storms out of the tent, nearly tripping over a plasma stand on his way out.)
Hawkeye: (patting Radar on the shoulder) “Congratulations, son. You survived the operation. Now go put a bandage on that finger before you bleed to death.”
Radar: (looking at his finger, then rubbing the growing bump on his head) “Wow. Thanks, Doc. You guys really are the best.”
(Radar stumbles out of the tent, looking slightly dizzy but deeply grateful.)
Hawkeye: (turning to Trapper, peeling off his surgical gloves) “You know, Trap… I think our bedside manner is improving.”
Trapper: “Definitely. Next time, though, we’ll try the rubber chicken. Less bruising.”
