Catch-22 (16 page)

   ‘The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is
anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that
includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you
remember it, the longer you might live.’ But Clevinger did forget it, and now
he was dead. At the time, Clevinger was so upset by the incident that Yossarian
did not dare tell him he had also been responsible for the epidemic of diarrhea
that had caused the other unnecessary postponement. Milo was even more upset by
the possibility that someone had poisoned his squadron again, and he came
bustling fretfully to Yossarian for assistance.

   ‘Please find out from Corporal Snark if he put laundry soap
in the sweet potatoes again,’ he requested furtively. ‘Corporal Snark trusts
you and will tell you the truth if you give him your word you won’t tell anyone
else. As soon as he tells you, come and tell me.’

   ‘Of course I put laundry soap in the sweet potatoes,’
Corporal Snark admitted to Yossarian. ‘That’s what you asked me to do, isn’t
it? Laundry soap is the best way.’

   ‘He swears to God he didn’t have a thing to do with it,’
Yossarian reported back to Milo.

   Milo pouted dubiously. ‘ Dunbar says there is no God.’ There
was no hope left. By the middle of the second week, everyone in the squadron
began to look like Hungry Joe, who was not scheduled to fly and screamed
horribly in his sleep. He was the only one who could sleep. All night long, men
moved through the darkness outside their tents like tongueless wraiths with
cigarettes. In the daytime they stared at the bomb line in futile, drooping
clusters or at the still figure of Doc Daneeka sitting in front of the closed
door of the medical tent beneath the morbid hand-lettered sign. They began to
invent humorless, glum jokes of their own and disastrous rumors about the
destruction awaiting them at Bologna.

   Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the
officers’ club one night to kid with him about the new Lepage gun that the
Germans had moved in.

   ‘What Lepage gun?’ Colonel Korn inquired with curiosity.

   ‘The new three-hundred-and-forty-four-millimeter Lepage glue
gun,’ Yossarian answered. ‘It glues a whole formation of planes together in
mid-air.’ Colonel Korn jerked his elbow free from Yossarian’s clutching fingers
in startled affront. ‘Let go of me, you idiot!’ he cried out furiously, glaring
with vindictive approval as Nately leaped upon Yossarian’s back and pulled him
away. ‘Who is that lunatic, anyway?’ Colonel Cathcart chortled merrily. ‘That’s
the man you made me give a medal to after Ferrara. You had me promote him to
captain, too, remember? It serves you right.’ Nately was lighter than Yossarian
and had great difficulty maneuvering Yossarian’s lurching bulk across the room
to an unoccupied table. ‘Are you crazy?’ Nately kept hissing with trepidation.
‘That was Colonel Korn. Are you crazy?’ Yossarian wanted another drink and
promised to leave quietly if Nately brought him one. Then he made Nately bring
him two more. When Nately finally coaxed him to the door, Captain Black came
stomping in from outside, banging his sloshing shoes down hard on the wood
floor and spilling water from his eaves like a high roof.

   ‘Boy, are you bastards in for it!’ he announced exuberantly,
splashing away from the puddle forming at his feet. ‘I just got a call from
Colonel Korn. Do you know what they’ve got waiting for you at Bologna? Ha! Ha!
They’ve got the new Lepage glue gun. It glues a whole formation of planes
together in mid-air.’

   ‘My God, it’s true!’ Yossarian shrieked, and collapsed
against Nately in terror.

   ‘There is no God,’ answered Dunbar calmly, coming up with a
slight stagger.

   ‘Hey, give me a hand with him, will you? I’ve got to get him
back in his tent.’

   ‘Says who?’

   ‘Says me. Gee, look at the rain.’

   ‘We’ve got to get a car.’

   ‘Steal Captain Black’s car,’ said Yossarian. ‘That’s what I
always do.’

   ‘We can’t steal anybody’s car. Since you began stealing the
nearest car every time you wanted one, nobody leaves the ignition on.’

   ‘Hop in,’ said Chief White Halfoat, driving up drunk in a
covered jeep. He waited until they had crowded inside and then spurted ahead
with a suddenness that rolled them all over backward. He roared with laughter
at their curses. He drove straight ahead when he left the parking lot and
rammed the car into the embankment on the other side of the road. The others
piled forward in a helpless heap and began cursing him again. ‘I forgot to
turn,’ he explained.

   ‘Be careful, will you?’ Nately cautioned. ‘You’d better put
your headlights on.’ Chief White Halfoat pulled back in reverse, made his turn
and shot away up the road at top speed. The wheels were sibilant on the
whizzing blacktop surface.

   ‘Not so fast,’ urged Nately.

   ‘You’d better take me to your squadron first so I can help
you put him to bed. Then you can drive me back to my squadron.’

   ‘Who the hell are you?’

   ‘ Dunbar.’

   ‘Hey, put your headlights on,’ Nately shouted. ‘And watch the
road!’

   ‘They are on. Isn’t Yossarian in this car? That’s the only
reason I let the rest of you bastards in.’ Chief White Halfoat turned
completely around to stare into the back seat.

   ‘Watch the road!’

   ‘Yossarian? Is Yossarian in here?’

   ‘I’m here, Chief. Let’s go home. What makes you so sure? You
never answered my question.’

   ‘You see? I told you he was here.’

   ‘What question?’

   ‘Whatever it was we were talking about.’

   ‘Was it important?’

   ‘I don’t remember if it was important or not. I wish to God I
knew what it was.’

   ‘There is no God.’

   ‘That’s what we were talking about,’ Yossarian cried. ‘What
makes you so sure?’

   ‘Hey, are you sure your headlights are on?’ Nately called
out.

   ‘They’re on, they’re on. What does he want from me? It’s all
this rain on the windshield that makes it look dark from back there.’

   ‘Beautiful, beautiful rain.’

   ‘I hope it never stops raining. Rain, rain, go a—’

   ‘—way. Come a—’

   ‘—again some oth—’

   ‘—er day. Little Yo-Yo wants—’

   ‘—to play. In—’

   ‘—the meadow, in—’ Chief White Halfoat missed the next turn
in the road and ran the jeep all the way up to the crest of a steep embankment.
Rolling back down, the jeep turned over on its side and settled softly in the
mud. There was a frightened silence.

   ‘Is everyone all right?’ Chief White Halfoat inquired in a
hushed voice. No one was injured, and he heaved a long sigh of relief. ‘You
know, that’s my trouble,’ he groaned. ‘I never listen to anybody. Somebody kept
telling me to put my headlights on, but I just wouldn’t listen.’

   ‘I kept telling you to put your headlights on.’

   ‘I know, I know. And I just wouldn’t listen, would I? I wish
I had a drink. I do have a drink. Look. It’s not broken.’

   ‘It’s raining in,’ Nately noticed. ‘I’m getting wet.’ Chief White
Halfoat got the bottle of rye open, drank and handed it off. Lying tangled up
on top of each other, they all drank but Nately, who kept groping ineffectually
for the door handle. The bottle fell against his head with a clunk, and whiskey
poured down his neck. He began writhing convulsively.

   ‘Hey, we’ve got to get out of here!’ he cried. ‘We’ll all
drown.’

   ‘Is anybody in there?’ asked Clevinger with concern, shining
a flashlight down from the top.

   ‘It’s Clevinger!’ they shouted, and tried to pull him in
through the window as he reached down to aid them.

   ‘Look at them!’ Clevinger exclaimed indignantly to McWatt,
who sat grinning at the wheel of the staff car. ‘Lying there like a bunch of
drunken animals. You too, Nately? You ought to be ashamed! Come on—help me get
them out of here before they all die of pneumonia.’

   ‘You know, that don’t sound like such a bad idea,’ Chief
White Halfoat reflected. ‘I think I will die of pneumonia.’

   ‘Why?’

   ‘Why not?’ answered Chief White Halfoat, and lay back in the
mud contentedly with the bottle of rye cuddled in his arms.

   ‘Oh, now look what he’s doing!’ Clevinger exclaimed with
irritation. ‘Will you get up and get into the car so we can all go back to the
squadron?’

   ‘We can’t all go back. Someone has to stay here to help the
Chief with this car he signed out of the motor pool.’ Chief White Halfoat
settled back in the staff car with an ebullient, prideful chuckle. ‘That’s
Captain Black’s car,’ he informed them jubilantly. ‘I stole it from him at the
officers’ club just now with an extra set of keys he thought he lost this
morning.’

   ‘Well, I’ll be damned! That calls for a drink.’

   ‘Haven’t you had enough to drink?’ Clevinger began scolding
as soon as McWatt started the car. ‘Look at you. You don’t care if you drink
yourselves to death or drown yourselves to death, do you?’

   ‘Just as long as we don’t fly ourselves to death.’

   ‘Hey, open it up, open it up,’ Chief White Halfoat urged
McWatt. ‘And turn off the headlights. That’s the only way to do it.’

   ‘Doc Daneeka is right,’ Clevinger went on. ‘People don’t know
enough to take care of themselves. I really am disgusted with all of you.’

   ‘Okay, fatmouth, out of the car,’ Chief White Halfoat
ordered. ‘Everybody get out of the car but Yossarian. Where’s Yossarian?’

   ‘Get the hell off me.’ Yossarian laughed, pushing him away.
‘You’re all covered with mud.’ Clevinger focused on Nately. ‘You’re the one who
really surprises me. Do you know what you smell like? Instead of trying to keep
him out of trouble, you get just as drunk as he is. Suppose he got in another
fight with Appleby?’ Clevinger’s eyes opened wide with alarm when he heard
Yossarian chuckle. ‘He didn’t get in another fight with Appleby, did he?’

   ‘Not this time,’ said Dunbar.

   ‘No, not this time. This time I did even better.’

   ‘This time he got in a fight with Colonel Korn.’

   ‘He didn’t!’ gasped Clevinger.

   ‘He did?’ exclaimed Chief White Halfoat with delight. ‘That
calls for a drink.’

   ‘But that’s terrible!’ Clevinger declared with deep
apprehension. ‘Why in the world did you have to pick on Colonel Korn? Say, what
happened to the lights? Why is everything so dark?’

   ‘I turned them off,’ answered McWatt. ‘You know, Chief White
Halfoat is right. It’s much better with the headlights off.’

   ‘Are you crazy?’ Clevinger screamed, and lunged forward to
snap the headlights on. He whirled around upon Yossarian in near hysteria. ‘You
see what you’re doing? You’ve got them all acting like you! Suppose it stops
raining and we have to fly to Bologna tomorrow. You’ll be in fine physical
condition.’

   ‘It won’t ever gonna stop raining. No, sir, a rain like this
really might go on forever.’

   ‘It has stopped raining!’ someone said, and the whole car
fell silent.

   ‘You poor bastards,’ Chief White Halfoat murmured
compassionately after a few moments had passed.

   ‘Did it really stop raining?’ Yossarian asked meekly.

   McWatt switched off the windshield wipers to make certain.
The rain had stopped. The sky was starting to clear. The moon was sharp behind
a gauzy brown mist.

   ‘Oh, well,’ sang McWatt soberly. ‘What the hell.’

   ‘Don’t worry, fellas,’ Chief White Halfoat said. ‘The landing
strip is too soft to use tomorrow. Maybe it’ll start raining again before the
field dries out.’

   ‘You goddam stinking lousy son of a bitch,’ Hungry Joe
screamed from his tent as they sped into the squadron.

   ‘Jesus, is he back here tonight? I thought he was still in
Rome with the courier ship.’

   ‘Oh! Ooooh! Oooooooh!’ Hungry Joe screamed.

   Chief White Halfoat shuddered. ‘That guy gives me the
willies,’ he confessed in a grouchy whisper. ‘Hey, whatever happened to Captain
Flume?’

   ‘There’s a guy that gives me the willies. I saw him in the
woods last week eating wild berries. He never sleeps in his trailer any more.
He looked like hell.’

   ‘Hungry Joe’s afraid he’ll have to replace somebody who goes
on sick call, even though there is no sick call. Did you see him the other
night when he tried to kill Havermeyer and fell into Yossarian’s slit trench?’

   ‘Ooooh!’ screamed Hungry Joe. ‘Oh! Ooooh! Ooooooh!’

   ‘It sure is a pleasure not having Flume around in the mess
hall any more. No more of that “Pass the salt, Walt.” ‘

   ‘Or “Pass the bread, Fred.” ‘

   ‘Or “Shoot me a beet, Pete.” ‘

   ‘Keep away, keep away,’ Hungry Joe screamed. ‘I said keep
away, keep away, you goddam stinking lousy son of a bitch.’

   ‘At least we found out what he dreams about,’ Dunbar observed
wryly. ‘He dreams about goddam stinking lousy sons of bitches.’ Late that night
Hungry Joe dreamed that Huple’s cat was sleeping on his face, suffocating him,
and when he woke up, Huple’s cat was sleeping on his face. His agony was
terrifying, the piercing, unearthly howl with which he split the moonlit dark
vibrating in its own impact for seconds afterward like a devastating shock. A
numbing silence followed, and then a riotous din rose from inside his tent.

   Yossarian was among the first ones there. When he burst
through the entrance, Hungry Joe had his gun out and was struggling to wrench
his arm free from Huple to shoot the cat, who kept spitting and feinting at him
ferociously to distract him from shooting Huple. Both humans were in their GI
underwear. The unfrosted light bulb overhead was swinging crazily on its loose
wire, and the jumbled black shadows kept swirling and bobbing chaotically, so
that the entire tent seemed to be reeling. Yossarian reached out instinctively
for balance and then launched himself forward in a prodigious dive that crushed
the three combatants to the ground beneath him. He emerged from the melee with
the scruff of a neck in each hand—Hungry Joe’s neck and the cat’s. Hungry Joe
and the cat glared at each other savagely. The cat spat viciously at Hungry
Joe, and Hungry Joe tried to hit it with a haymaker.