Catch-22 (15 page)

   ‘Give everybody eat!’ Milo echoed with joyful relief, and the
Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.

   Captain Black was deeply disillusioned by this treacherous
stab in the back from someone in high place upon whom he had relied so confidently
for support. Major – de Coverley had let him down.

   ‘Oh, it doesn’t bother me a bit,’ he responded cheerfully to
everyone who came to him with sympathy. ‘We completed our task. Our purpose was
to make everyone we don’t like afraid and to alert people to the danger of
Major Major, and we certainly succeeded at that. Since we weren’t going to let
him sign loyalty oaths anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether we have them or
not.’ Seeing everyone in the squadron he didn’t like afraid once again throughout
the appalling, interminable Great Big Siege of Bologna reminded Captain Black
nostalgically of the good old days of his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade when he
had been a man of real consequence, and when even big shots like Milo
Minderbinder, Doc Daneeka and Piltchard and Wren had trembled at his approach
and groveled at his feet. To prove to newcomers that he really had been a man
of consequence once, he still had the letter of commendation he had received
from Colonel Cathcart.

   Actually, it was not Captain Black but
Sergeant Knight who triggered the solemn panic of Bologna, slipping silently
off the truck for two extra flak suits as soon as he learned the target and
signaling the start of the grim procession back into the parachute tent that
degenerated into a frantic stampede finally before all the extra flak suits
were gone.

   ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Kid Sampson asked nervously. ‘
Bologna can’t be that rough, can it?’ Nately, sitting trancelike on the floor
of the truck, held his grave young face in both hands and did not answer him.

   It was Sergeant Knight and the cruel series of postponements,
for just as they were climbing up into their planes that first morning, along
came a jeep with the news that it was raining in Bologna and that the mission
would be delayed. It was raining in Pianosa too by the time they returned to
the squadron, and they had the rest of that day to stare woodenly at the bomb
line on the map under the awning of the intelligence tent and ruminate
hypnotically on the fact that there was no escape. The evidence was there
vividly in the narrow red ribbon tacked across the mainland: the ground forces
in Italy were pinned down forty-two insurmountable miles south of the target
and could not possibly capture the city in time. Nothing could save the men in
Pianosa from the mission to Bologna. They were trapped.

   Their only hope was that it would never stop raining, and
they had no hope because they all knew it would. When it did stop raining in
Pianosa, it rained in Bologna. When it stopped raining in Bologna, it began
again in Pianosa. If there was no rain at all, there were freakish,
inexplicable phenomena like the epidemic of diarrhea or the bomb line that
moved. Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and
then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the
control tower summoned them down. The more it rained, the worse they suffered.
The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All
through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All
through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of
Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the
intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band
of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forwardmost position of the Allied
ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland.

   The morning after Hungry Joe’s fist fight with Huple’s cat,
the rain stopped falling in both places. The landing strip began to dry. It
would take a full twenty-four hours to harden; but the sky remained cloudless.
The resentments incubating in each man hatched into hatred. First they hated
the infantrymen on the mainland because they had failed to capture Bologna.
Then they began to hate the bomb line itself. For hours they stared
relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not
move up high enough to encompass the city. When night fell, they congregated in
the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line
in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective
weight of their sullen prayers.

   ‘I really can’t believe it,’ Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian
in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. ‘It’s a complete reversion
to primitive superstition. They’re confusing cause and effect. It makes as much
sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we
wouldn’t have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to
the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you
imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left.’ In the middle of the
night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his
tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna.

   Corporal Kolodny tiptoed stealthily into Captain Black’s tent
early the next morning, reached inside the mosquito net and gently shook the
moist shoulder-blade he found there until Captain Black opened his eyes.

   ‘What are you waking me up for?’ whimpered Captain Black.

   ‘They captured Bologna, sir,’ said Corporal Kolodny. ‘I
thought you’d want to know. Is the mission canceled?’ Captain Black tugged
himself erect and began scratching his scrawny long thighs methodically. In a
little while he dressed and emerged from his tent, squinting, cross and
unshaven. The sky was clear and warm. He peered without emotion at the map.
Sure enough, they had captured Bologna. Inside the intelligence tent, Corporal
Kolodny was already removing the maps of Bologna from the navigation kits.
Captain Black seated himself with a loud yawn, lifted his feet to the top of
his desk and phoned Colonel Korn.

   ‘What are you waking me up for?’ whimpered Colonel Korn.

   ‘They captured Bologna during the night, sir. Is the mission
canceled?’

   ‘What are you talking about, Black?’ Colonel Korn growled.
‘Why should the mission be canceled?’

   ‘Because they captured Bologna, sir. Isn’t the mission
canceled?’

   ‘Of course the mission is canceled. Do you think we’re
bombing our own troops now?’

   ‘What are you waking me up for?’ Colonel Cathcart whimpered
to Colonel Korn.

   ‘They captured Bologna,’ Colonel Korn told him. ‘I thought
you’d want to know.’

   ‘Who captured Bologna?’

   ‘We did.’ Colonel Cathcart was overjoyed, for he was relieved
of the embarrassing commitment to bomb Bologna without blemish to the
reputation for valor he had earned by volunteering his men to do it. General
Dreedle was pleased with the capture of Bologna, too, although he was angry
with Colonel Moodus for waking him up to tell him about it. Headquarters was
also pleased and decided to award a medal to the officer who captured the city.
There was no officer who had captured the city, so they gave the medal to
General Peckem instead, because General Peckem was the only officer with
sufficient initiative to ask for it.

   As soon as General Peckem had received his medal, he began
asking for increased responsibility. It was General Peckem’s opinion that all
combat units in the theater should be placed under the jurisdiction of the
Special Service Corps, of which General Peckem himself was the commanding
officer. If dropping bombs on the enemy was not a special service, he reflected
aloud frequently with the martyred smile of sweet reasonableness that was his
loyal confederate in every dispute, then he could not help wondering what in
the world was. With amiable regret, he declined the offer of a combat post under
General Dreedle.

   ‘Flying combat missions for General Dreedle is not exactly
what I had in mind,’ he explained indulgently with a smooth laugh. ‘I was
thinking more in terms of replacing General Dreedle, or perhaps of something
above General Dreedle where I could exercise supervision over a great many
other generals too. You see, my most precious abilities are mainly
administrative ones. I have a happy facility for getting different people to
agree.’

   ‘He has a happy facility for getting different people to
agree what a prick he is,’ Colonel Cargill confided invidiously to ex-P.F.C.
Wintergreen in the hope that ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen would spread the unfavorable
report along through Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters. ‘If anyone deserves
that combat post, I do. It was even my idea that we ask for the medal.’

   ‘You really want to go into combat?’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen
inquired.

   ‘Combat?’ Colonel Cargill was aghast. ‘Oh, no—you
misunderstand me. Of course, I wouldn’t actually mind going into combat, but my
best abilities are mainly administrative ones. I too have a happy facility for
getting different people to agree.’

   ‘He too has a happy facility for getting different people to
agree what a prick he is,’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen confided with a laugh to
Yossarian, after he had come to Pianosa to learn if it was really true about
Milo and the Egyptian cotton. ‘If anyone deserves a promotion, I do.’ Actually,
he had risen already to ex-corporal, having shot through the ranks shortly
after his transfer to Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters as a mail clerk and
been busted right down to private for making odious audible comparisons about
the commissioned officers for whom he worked. The heady taste of success had
infused him further with morality and fired him with ambition for loftier
attainments. ‘Do you want to buy some Zippo lighters?’ he asked Yossarian.
‘They were stolen right from quartermaster.’

   ‘Does Milo know you’re selling cigarette lighters?’

   ‘What’s it his business? Milo’s not carrying cigarette
lighters too now, is he?’

   ‘He sure is,’ Yossarian told him. ‘And his aren’t stolen.’

   ‘That’s what you think,’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen answered with
a laconic snort. ‘I’m selling mine for a buck apiece. What’s he getting for
his?’

   ‘A dollar and a penny.’ Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen snickered
triumphantly. ‘I beat him every time,’ he gloated. ‘Say, what about all that
Egyptian cotton he’s stuck with? How much did he buy?’

   ‘All.’

   ‘In the whole world? Well, I’ll be danmed!’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen
crowed with malicious glee. ‘What a dope! You were in Cairo with him. Why’d you
let him do it?’

   ‘Me?’ Yossarian answered with a shrug. ‘I have no influence
on him. It was those teletype machines they have in all the good restaurants
there. Milo had never seen a stock ticker before, and the quotation for
Egyptian cotton happened to be coming in just as he asked the headwaiter to
explain it to him. “Egyptian cotton?” Milo said with that look of
his. “How much is Egyptian cotton selling for?” The next thing I knew
he had bought the whole goddam harvest. And now he can’t unload any of it.’

   ‘He has no imagination. I can unload plenty of it in the
black market if he’ll make a deal.’

   ‘ Milo knows the black market. There’s no demand for cotton.’

   ‘But there is a demand for medical supplies. I can roll the
cotton up on wooden toothpicks and peddle them as sterile swabs. Will he sell
to me at a good price?’

   ‘He won’t sell to you at any price,’ Yossarian answered.
‘He’s pretty sore at you for going into competition with him. In fact, he’s
pretty sore at everybody for getting diarrhea last weekend and giving his mess
hall a bad name. Say, you can help us.’ Yossarian suddenly seized his arm.
‘Couldn’t you forge some official orders on that mimeograph machine of yours
and get us out of flying to Bologna?’ Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen pulled away slowly
with a look of scorn. ‘Sure I could,’ he explained with pride. ‘But I would
never dream of doing anything like that.’

   ‘Why not?’

   ‘Because it’s your job. We all have our jobs to do. My job is
to unload these Zippo lighters at a profit if I can and pick up some cotton
from Milo. Your job is to bomb the ammunition dumps at Bologna.’

   ‘But I’m going to be killed at Bologna,’ Yossarian pleaded.
‘We’re all going to be killed.’

   ‘Then you’ll just have to be killed,’ replied ex-P.F.C.
Wintergreen. ‘Why can’t you be a fatalist about it the way I am? If I’m
destined to unload these lighters at a profit and pick up some Egyptian cotton
cheap from Milo, then that’s what I’m going to do. And if you’re destined to be
killed over Bologna, then you’re going to be killed, so you might just as well
go out and die like a man. I hate to say this, Yossarian, but you’re turning
into a chronic complainer.’ Clevinger agreed with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen that it
was Yossarian’s job to get killed over Bologna and was livid with condemnation
when Yossarian confessed that it was he who had moved the bomb line and caused
the mission to be canceled.

   ‘Why the hell not?’ Yossarian snarled, arguing all the more
vehemently because he suspected he was wrong. ‘Am I supposed to get my ass shot
off just because the colonel wants to be a general?’

   ‘What about the men on the mainland?’ Clevinger demanded with
just as much emotion. ‘Are they supposed to get their asses shot off just
because you don’t want to go? Those men are entitled to air support!’

   ‘But not necessarily by me. Look, they don’t care who knocks
out those ammunition dumps. The only reason we’re going is because that bastard
Cathcart volunteered us.’

   ‘Oh, I know all that,’ Clevinger assured him, his gaunt face
pale and his agitated brown eyes swimming in sincerity. ‘But the fact remains
that those ammunition dumps are still standing. You know very well that I don’t
approve of Colonel Cathcart any more than you do.’ Clevinger paused for
emphasis, his mouth quivering, and then beat his fist down softly against his
sleeping-bag. ‘But it’s not for us to determine what targets must be destroyed
or who’s to destroy them or—’

   ‘Or who gets killed doing it? And why?’

   ‘Yes, even that. We have no right to question—’

   ‘You’re insane!’

   ‘—no right to question—’

   ‘Do you really mean that it’s not my business how or why I
get killed and that it is Colonel Cathcart’s? Do you really mean that?’

   ‘Yes, I do,’ Clevinger insisted, seeming unsure. ‘There are
men entrusted with winning the war who are in a much better position than we
are to decide what targets have to be bombed.’

   ‘We are talking about two different things,’ Yossarian answered
with exaggerated weariness. ‘You are talking about the relationship of the Air
Corps to the infantry, and I am talking about the relationship of me to Colonel
Cathcart. You are talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning
the war and keeping alive.’

   ‘Exactly,’ Clevinger snapped smugly. ‘And which do you think
is more important?’

   ‘To whom?’ Yossarian shot back. ‘Open your eyes, Clevinger.
It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s
dead.’ Clevinger sat for a moment as though he’d been slapped.
‘Congratulations!’ he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line
enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing ring. ‘I can’t think of
another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the
enemy.’