Catch-22 (48 page)

   ‘What’s fair is fair.’

   ‘What’s fair is fair.’

   ‘They could take turns, sir.’

   ‘They might even take turns flying your missions for you,
Milo.’

   ‘Who gets the credit?’

   ‘You get the credit, Milo. And if a man wins a medal flying
one of your missions, you get the medal.’

   ‘Who dies if he gets killed?’

   ‘Why, he dies, of course. After all, Milo, what’s fair is
fair. There’s just one thing.’

   ‘You’ll have to raise the number of missions.’

   ‘I might have to raise the number of missions again, and I’m
not sure the men will fly them. They’re still pretty sore because I jumped them
to seventy. If I can get just one of the regular officers to fly more, the rest
will probably follow.’

   ‘Nately will fly more missions, sir,’ Milo said. ‘I was told
in strictest confidence just a little while ago that he’ll do anything he has
to in order to remain overseas with a girl he’s fallen in love with.’

   ‘But Nately will fly more!’ Colonel Cathcart declared, and he
brought his hands together in a resounding clap of victory. ‘Yes, Nately will
fly more. And this time I’m really going to jump the missions, right up to
eighty, and really knock General Dreedle’s eye out. And this is a good way to
get that lousy rat Yossarian back into combat where he might get killed.’

   ‘Yossarian?’ A tremor of deep concern passed over Milo’s
simple, homespun features, and he scratched the corner of his reddish-brown
mustache thoughtfully.

   ‘Yeah, Yossarian. I hear he’s going around saying that he’s
finished his missions and the war’s over for him. Well, maybe he has finished
his missions. But he hasn’t finished your missions, has he? Ha! Ha! Has he got
a surprise coming to him!’

   ‘Sir, Yossarian is a friend of mine,’ Milo objected. ‘I’d
hate to be responsible for doing anything that would put him back in combat. I
owe a lot to Yossarian. Isn’t there any way we could make an exception of him?’

   ‘Oh, no, Milo.’ Colonel Cathcart clucked sententiously,
shocked by the suggestion. ‘We must never play favorites. We must always treat
every man alike.’

   ‘I’d give everything I own to Yossarian,’ Milo persevered
gamely on Yossarian’s behalf. ‘But since I don’t own anything, I can’t give
everything to him, can I? So he’ll just have to take his chances with the rest
of the men, won’t he?’

   ‘What’s fair is fair, Milo.’

   ‘Yes, sir, what’s fair is fair,’ Milo agreed. ‘Yossarian is
no better than the other men, and he has no right to expect any special
privileges, has he?’

   ‘No, Milo. What’s fair is fair.’ And there was no time for
Yossarian to save himself from combat once Colonel Cathcart issued his
announcement raising the missions to eighty late that same afternoon, no time
to dissuade Nately from flying them or even to conspire again with Dobbs to
murder Colonel Cathcart, for the alert sounded suddenly at dawn the next day
and the men were rushed into the trucks before a decent breakfast could be
prepared, and they were driven at top speed to the briefing room and then out
to the airfield, where the clitterclattering fuel trucks were still pumping
gasoline into the tanks of the planes and the scampering crews of armorers were
toiling as swiftly as they could at hoisting the thousand-pound demolition
bombs into the bomb bays. Everybody was running, and engines were turned on and
warmed up as soon as the fuel trucks had finished.

   Intelligence had reported that a disabled Italian cruiser in
drydock at La Spezia would be towed by the Germans that same morning to a
channel at the entrance of the harbor and scuttled there to deprive the Allied
armies of deep-water port facilities when they captured the city. For once, a
military intelligence report proved accurate. The long vessel was halfway
across the harbor when they flew in from the west, and broke it apart with
direct hits from every flight that filled them all with waves of enormously
satisfying group pride until they found themselves engulfed in great barrages
of flak that rose from guns in every bend of the huge horseshoe of mountainous
land below. Even Havermeyer resorted to the wildest evasive action he could
command when he saw what a vast distance he had still to travel to escape, and
Dobbs, at the pilot’s controls in his formation, zigged when he should have
zagged, skidding his plane into the plane alongside, and chewed off its tail.
His wing broke off at the base, and his plane dropped like a rock and was
almost out of sight in an instant. There was no fire, no smoke, not the
slightest untoward noise. The remaining wing revolved as ponderously as a
grinding cement mixer as the plane plummeted nose downward in a straight line
at accelerating speed until it struck the water, which foamed open at the
impact like a white water lily on the dark-blue sea, and washed back in a
geyser of apple-green bubbles when the plane sank. It was over in a matter of
seconds. There were no parachutes. And Nately, in the other plane, was killed
too.

   Nately’s death almost killed the chaplain.
Chaplain Shipman was seated in his tent, laboring over his paperwork in his
reading spectacles, when his phone rang and news of the mid-air collision was
given to him from the field. His insides turned at once to dry clay. His hand
was trembling as he put the phone down. His other hand began trembling. The
disaster was too immense to contemplate. Twelve men killed—how ghastly, how
very, very awful! His feeling of terror grew. He prayed instinctively that
Yossarian, Nately, Hungry Joe and his other friends would not be listed among
the victims, then berated himself repentantly, for to pray for their safety was
to pray for the death of other young men he did not even know. It was too late
to pray; yet that was all he knew how to do. His heart was pounding with a
noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere outside, and he knew he would
never sit in a dentist’s chair again, never glance at a surgical tool, never
witness an automobile accident or hear a voice shout at night, without
experiencing the same violent thumping in his chest and dreading that he was
going to die. He would never watch another fist fight without fearing he was
going to faint and crack his skull open on the pavement or suffer a fatal heart
attack or cerebral hemorrhage. He wondered if he would ever see his wife again
or his three small children. He wondered if he ever should see his wife again,
now that Captain Black had planted in his mind such strong doubts about the
fidelity and character of all women. There were so many other men, he felt, who
could prove more satisfying to her sexually. When he thought of death now, he
always thought of his wife, and when he thought of his wife he always thought
of losing her.

   In another minute the chaplain felt strong enough to rise and
walk with glum reluctance to the tent next door for Sergeant Whitcomb. They
drove in Sergeant Whitcomb’s jeep. The chaplain made fists of his hands to keep
them from shaking as they lay in his lap. He ground his teeth together and
tried not to hear as Sergeant Whitcomb chirruped exultantly over the tragic
event. Twelve men killed meant twelve more form letters of condolence that
could be mailed in one bunch to the next of kin over Colonel Cathcart’s
signature, giving Sergeant Whitcomb hope of getting an article on Colonel
Cathcart into The Saturday Evening Post in time for Easter.

   At the field a heavy silence prevailed, overpowering motion
like a ruthless, insensate spell holding in thrall the only beings who might
break it. The chaplain was in awe. He had never beheld such a great, appalling
stillness before. Almost two hundred tired, gaunt, downcast men stood holding
their parachute packs in a somber and unstirring crowd outside the briefing
room, their faces staring blankly in different angles of stunned dejection.
They seemed unwilling to go, unable to move. The chaplain was acutely conscious
of the faint noise his footsteps made as he approached. His eyes searched
hurriedly, frantically, through the immobile maze of limp figures. He spied
Yossarian finally with a feeling of immense joy, and then his mouth gaped open
slowly in unbearable horror as he noted Yossarian’s vivid, beaten, grimy look
of deep, drugged despair. He understood at once, recoiling in pain from the
realization and shaking his head with a protesting and imploring grimace, that
Nately was dead. The knowledge struck him with a numbing shock. A sob broke
from him. The blood drained from his legs, and he thought he was going to drop.
Nately was dead. All hope that he was mistaken was washed away by the sound of
Nately’s name emerging with recurring clarity now from the almost inaudible
babble of murmuring voices that he was suddenly aware of for the first time.
Nately was dead: the boy had been killed. A whimpering sound rose in the
chaplain’s throat, and his jaw began to quiver. His eyes filled with tears, and
he was crying. He started toward Yossarian on tiptoe to mourn beside him and share
his wordless grief. At that moment a hand grabbed him roughly around the arm
and a brusque voice demanded, ‘Chaplain Shipman?’ He turned with surprise to
face a stout, pugnacious colonel with a large head and mustache and a smooth,
florid skin. He had never seen the man before. ‘Yes. What is it?’ The fingers
grasping the chaplain’s arm were hurting him, and he tried in vain to squirm
loose.

   ‘Come along.’ The chaplain pulled back in frightened
confusion. ‘Where? Why? Who are you, anyway?’

   ‘You’d better come along with us, Father,’ a lean, hawk-faced
major on the chaplain’s other side intoned with reverential sorrow. ‘We’re from
the government. We want to ask you some questions.’

   ‘What kind of questions? What’s the matter?’

   ‘Aren’t you Chaplain Shipman?’ demanded the obese colonel.

   ‘He’s the one,’ Sergeant Whitcomb answered.

   ‘Go on along with them,’ Captain Black called out to the
chaplain with a hostile and contemptuous sneer. ‘Go on into the car if you know
what’s good for you.’ Hands were drawing the chaplain away irresistibly. He
wanted to shout for help to Yossarian, who seemed too far away to hear. Some of
the men nearby were beginning to look at him with awakening curiosity. The
chaplain bent his face away with burning shame and allowed himself to be led
into the rear of a staff car and seated between the fat colonel with the large,
pink face and the skinny, unctuous, despondent major. He automatically held a
wrist out to each, wondering for a moment if they wanted to handcuff him. Another
officer was already in the front seat. A tall M.P. with a whistle and a white
helmet got in behind the wheel. The chaplain did not dare raise his eyes until
the closed car had lurched from the area and the speeding wheels were whining
on the bumpy blacktop road.

   ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked in a voice soft with
timidity and guilt, his gaze still averted. The notion came to him that they
were holding him to blame for the mid-air crash and the death of Nately. ‘What
have I done?’

   ‘Why don’t you keep your trap shut and let us ask the
questions?’ said the colonel.

   ‘Don’t talk to him that way,’ said the major. ‘It isn’t
necessary to be so disrespectful.’

   ‘Then tell him to keep his trap shut and let us ask the
questions.’

   ‘Father, please keep your trap shut and let us ask the
questions,’ urged the major sympathetically. ‘It will be better for you.’

   ‘It isn’t necessary to call me Father,’ said the chaplain.
‘I’m not a Catholic.’

   ‘Neither am I, Father,’ said the major. ‘It’s just that I’m a
very devout person, and I like to call all men of God Father.’

   ‘He doesn’t even believe there are atheists in foxholes,’ the
colonel mocked, and nudged the chaplain in the ribs familiarly. ‘Go on,
Chaplain, tell him. Are there atheists in foxholes?’

   ‘I don’t know, sir,’ the chaplain replied. ‘I’ve never been
in a foxhole.’ The officer in front swung his head around swiftly with a
quarrelsome expression. ‘You’ve never been in heaven either, have you? But you
know there’s a heaven, don’t you?’

   ‘Or do you?’ said the colonel.

   ‘That’s a very serious crime you’ve committed, Father,’ said
the major.

   ‘What crime?’

   ‘We don’t know yet,’ said the colonel. ‘But we’re going to
find out. And we sure know it’s very serious.’ The car swung off the road at
Group Headquarters with a squeal of tires, slackening speed only slightly, and
continued around past the parking lot to the back of the building. The three
officers and the chaplain got out. In single file, they ushered him down a
wobbly flight of wooden stairs leading to the basement and led him into a damp,
gloomy room with a low cement ceiling and unfinished stone walls. There were
cobwebs in all the corners. A huge centipede blew across the floor to the
shelter of a water pipe. They sat the chaplain in a hard, straight-backed chair
that stood behind a small, bare table.

   ‘Please make yourself comfortable, Chaplain,’ invited the
colonel cordially, switching on a blinding spotlight and shooting it squarely
into the chaplain’s face. He placed a set of brass knuckles and box of wooden
matches on the table. ‘We want you to relax.’ The chaplain’s eyes bulged out
incredulously. His teeth chattered and his limbs felt utterly without strength.
He was powerless. They might do whatever they wished to him, he realized; these
brutal men might beat him to death right there in the basement, and no one
would intervene to save him, no one, perhaps, but the devout and sympathetic
major with the sharp face, who set a water tap dripping loudly into a sink and
returned to the table to lay a length of heavy rubber hose down beside the
brass knuckles.

   ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Chaplain,’ the major
said encouragingly. ‘You’ve got nothing to be afraid of if you’re not guilty.
What are you so afraid of? You’re not guilty, are you?’

   ‘Sure he’s guilty,’ said the colonel. ‘Guilty as hell.’

   ‘Guilty of what?’ implored the chaplain, feeling more and
more bewildered and not knowing which of the men to appeal to for mercy. The
third officer wore no insignia and lurked in silence off to the side. ‘What did
I do?’

   ‘That’s just what we’re going to find out,’ answered the
colonel, and he shoved a pad and pencil across the table to the chaplain.
‘Write your name for us, will you? In your own handwriting.’

   ‘My own handwriting?’

   ‘That’s right. Anywhere on the page.’ When the chaplain had
finished, the colonel took the pad back and held it up alongside a sheet of
paper he removed from a folder. ‘See?’ he said to the major, who had come to
his side and was peering solemnly over his shoulder.

   ‘They’re not the same, are they?’ the major admitted.

   ‘I told you he did it.’

   ‘Did what?’ asked the chaplain.

   ‘Chaplain, this comes as a great shock to me,’ the major
accused in a tone of heavy lamentation.

   ‘What does?’

   ‘I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in you.’

   ‘For what?’ persisted the chaplain more fiantically. ‘What
have I done?’

   ‘For this,’ replied the major, and, with an air of
disillusioned disgust, tossed down on the table the pad on which the chaplain
had signed his name. ‘This isn’t your handwriting.’ The chaplain blinked
rapidly with amazement. ‘But of course it’s my handwriting.’

   ‘No it isn’t, Chaplain. You’re lying again.’

   ‘But I just wrote it!’ the chaplain cried in exasperation.
‘You saw me write it.’

   ‘That’s just it,’ the major answered bitterly. ‘I saw you
write it. You can’t deny that you did write it. A person who’ll lie about his
own handwriting will lie about anything.’

   ‘But who lied about my own handwriting?’ demanded the
chaplain, forgetting his fear in the wave of anger and indignation that welled
up inside him suddenly. ‘Are you crazy or something? What are you both talking
about?’

   ‘We asked you to write your name in your own handwriting. And
you didn’t do it.’

   ‘But of course I did. In whose handwriting did I write it if
not my own?’

   ‘In somebody else’s.’

   ‘Whose?’

   ‘That’s just what we’re going to find out,’ threatened the
colonel.

   ‘Talk, Chaplain.’ The chaplain looked from one to the other
of the two men with rising doubt and hysteria. ‘That handwriting is mine,’ he
maintained passionately. ‘Where else is my handwriting, if that isn’t it?’

   ‘Right here,’ answered the colonel. And looking very
superior, he tossed down on the table a photostatic copy of a piece of V mail
in which everything but the salutation ‘Dear Mary’ had been blocked out and on
which the censoring officer had written, ‘I long for you tragically. R. O.
Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.’ The colonel smiled scornfully as he watched the
chaplain’s face turn crimson. ‘Well, Chaplain? Do you know who wrote that?’ The
chaplain took a long moment to reply; he had recognized Yossarian’s
handwriting. ‘No.’

   ‘You can read, though, can’t you?’ the colonel persevered
sarcastically. ‘The author signed his name.’

   ‘That’s my name there.’

   ‘Then you wrote it. Q.E.D.’

   ‘But I didn’t write it. That isn’t my handwriting, either.’

   ‘Then you signed your name in somebody else’s handwriting
again,’ the colonel retorted with a shrug. ‘That’s all that means.’

   ‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ the chaplain shouted, suddenly
losing all patience. He jumped to his feet in a blazing fury, both fists
clenched. ‘I’m not going to stand for this any longer! Do you hear? Twelve men
were just killed, and I have no time for these silly questions. You’ve no right
to keep me here, and I’m just not going to stand for it.’ Without saying a
word, the colonel pushed the chaplain’s chest hard and knocked him back down
into the chair, and the chaplain was suddenly weak and very much afraid again.
The major picked up the length of rubber hose and began tapping it menacingly
against his open palm. The colonel lifted the box of matches, took one out and
held it poised against the striking surface, watching with glowering eyes for
the chaplain’s next sign of defiance. The chaplain was pale and almost too
petrified to move. The bright glare of the spotlight made him turn away
finally; the dripping water was louder and almost unbearably irritating. He
wished they would tell him what they wanted so that he would know what to
confess. He waited tensely as the third officer, at a signal from the colonel,
ambled over from the wall and seated himself on the table just a few inches
away from the chaplain. His face was expressionless, his eyes penetrating and
cold.

   ‘Turn off the light,’ he said over his shoulder in a low,
calm voice. ‘It’s very annoying.’ The chaplain gave him a small smile of
gratitude. ‘Thank you, sir. And the drip too, please.’

   ‘Leave the drip,’ said the officer. ‘That doesn’t bother me.’
He tugged up the legs of his trousers a bit, as though to preserve their natty
crease. ‘Chaplain,’ he asked casually, ‘of what religious persuasion are you?’