Hawkeye and Trapper spend their first day at the four-oh-double-natural enjoying a pleasant, alcohol-induced coma in the backseat of their jeep. The diminutive Corporal, whose name proves to be Walter Eugene O'Reilly, tactfully refrains from informing the commanding officer of their arrival until seventeen hundred hours, by which time the twosome have recovered sufficiently to sit upright on the bonnet of the jeep imbibing vast quantities of black coffee, conjured up by the young Corporal in a tin billy over an open fire. The Corporal himself keeps up a constant stream of slightly nervous chatter to which Trapper responds in mono-syllables and Hawkeye tries not to listen.
By what the Corporal insists on referring to as seventeen hundred hours, though Trapper's watch says five o'clock, he and Hawkeye are feeling relatively chipper again, and Corporal Walter Eugene O'Reilly trots off with his clipboard and a worried frown around the corner of a half-erected tin shed which neither Trapper nor Hawkeye had noticed previously. At this point, the Hawk attempts a discreet inquiry.
"Where d'you reckon he's gone?" he asks, then pauses briefly to admire his own fairly remarkable level of coherrance.
"Probably to call the police," Trapper answers, pouring the sadly lacking remains of a brandy bottle into his coffee.
A short while later, the Corporal reappears, followed by a middle-aged man sweating beneath an olive green uniform and Colonel's insignia, and wearing a somewhat incongruous hat decorated with what appear to be fishing flies.
"Ah," comments the Hawk, wisely. And then, noticing the hammer in the man's hand: "This must be the boss."
"Who in the hell are you two jokers?" the guy asks, looking positively terrified.
From this, Hawkeye and Trapper deduce that he is not by nature a military man.
"Two new chest cutters, sir," says Walter Eugene O'Reilly, peeking out from behind his commander's jacket with an expression of almost identical terror.
"Hawkeye Pierce," says the Hawk, magnanimously, executing an masterful bow. "And this here's my caddy, the trusty Trapper John."
"Where'd you get a name like Hawkeye?" asks the Colonel, at the same time that his sidekick asks "Why Trapper John?"
Hawkeye waves an elegant hand. "We'll tell you when you're older, kid."
"Um." says the man with the fishing hat. And then: "I'm Colonel Blake."
"So where's this here camp where we're s'posed to be assigned to then?" asks Trapper John.
"You're standing in it."
The army, it emerges, overlooking the fact that some thirty-odd draftees need places to sleep, has not yet managed to supply the unit with tents. Corporal O'Reilly gives the two captains the grand tour, which takes all of about twelve minutes. There is a generator in a tin shed, a muddy creek, from whence a pump carries cold water to a stone sink, and a series of olive-green lorries filled with tinned spam, surgical equipment and toilet paper. Hawkeye and Trapper are introduced to the cesspool, two corpsmen named Goldman and Zale, a major with polished boots and no chin, and the first national latrine. The tour culminates in the compound in front of the half-erected cattle shed, which Corporal O'Reilly proudly informs them is destined to become an office, admitting ward and post-op. Colonel Blake climbs down from his ladder long enough to have a mid-evening drink with his two new chest cutters, inform them that his name is Henry and he's left behind a wife, a private practise and three children in Bloomington, Illinois, and to confirm their previous opinion of him as a pretty good Joe. He then advises them to hit the sack, and climbs back up his ladder armed with a saw, a hammer, and a bucket of nails.
As the only building actually completed is the operating room, it is currently serving double-duty as a bunkhouse for the tentless personnel. Hawkeye and Trapper grab a gurney each, take a medicinal shot of bourbon as a preventative measure, and proceed to follow Henry's advice. Two days later, an American pilot hits a Korean schoolhouse, and the doctors of the 4077th have their first patients.