It is August before the Post Op and Admitting Ward are finished, September before the army finally gets around to delivering their tents. Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John discover very quickly that the army is incapable of supplying anything on time other than wounded. Of these, there are inordinate amounts. Corporal Walter Eugene O'Reilly becomes quickly adept at predicting these arrivals, and his warning cry of "Choppers!" becomes a daily mantra.
"I don't hear nothin'," says Trapper John, the first time he hears the call to arms.
"Wait for it," shouts O'Reilly, and there, sure enough, are the choppers, rising cumbersomely from behind the hills.
"I don't get it, kid," says Hawkeye. "How d'you do that? You sound like you're hiding a radar underneath that cap or something."
"I just know, sir," says the kid, and Trapper raises an eyebrow in disbelief, and grins:
"Sure thing, Radar."
When the tents and hospital equipment finally arrive, Hawkeye and Trapper purloin a mangy, four-square, olive-drab tent, and erect it in the centre of what they fondly term 'the compound.' Two hard army cots are procured, along with green sleeping bags, a stove, and several crates of beer. A sign that reads 'Business women welcome' is nailed to one side of the door, and a dartboard to the other.
An hour later, Henry drops by with a third cot, and the command that Major Burns is now sharing their quarters. Hawkeye and Trapper object violently, having had two months experience of Frank's near-obsessive patriotism, but they are overruled, and Frank is installed in the cleanest corner of bedbug city. Hawkeye christens the place 'The Swamp', in remembrance of his college living arrangements, and a second sign is added to the front door.
About midway through October, a green lorry trundles over the hill, carrying two hardcase anesthesiologists: a black ball-player who names himself Oliver Wendell 'Spearchucker' Jones, and a joker with a cowboy hat and a luxuriant black moustache who Trapper takes offence to sharing a name with, and dubs 'Ugly John' as a means of differentiation. There is also a small but friendly contingent of soft personnel of the nursing persuasion, led by a brassy blonde regular-army major with boots almost as shiny as Frank's.
Spearchucker Jones quickly establishes himself as a better surgeon than Frank, though the jackass American army won't let a black operate for fear of offending someone. Hawkeye claims that all the patients he knows would rather be offended than dead, and, much to Frank's chagrin, promotes Spearchucker in a drunken ceremony during which he is run up the basketball pole in a wheelchair and knighted by Henry with a swizzle stick. The nurses are welcomed with delight, and a celebratory party thrown in the newly christened Swamp, at which the last bottle of civilian booze is drunk with much ceremony.
Awaking the next day, and needing a drink, Hawkeye gets hold of Radar, and sets about the monumental task of requisitioning the equipment needed to construct a distillery.