Catch-22 (51 page)

   ‘Are you sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing?’ Hungry Joe
inquired hesitantly after a while.

   ‘Imagine it? You were right there with me, weren’t you? You
just flew her back to Rome.’

   ‘Maybe I imagined the whole thing, too. Why does she want to
kill you for?’

   ‘She never did like me. Maybe it’s because I broke his nose,
or maybe it’s because I was the only one in sight she could hate when she got
the news. Do you think she’ll come back?’ Yossarian went to the officers’ club
that night and stayed very late. He kept a leery eye out for Nately’s whore as
he approached his tent. He stopped when he saw her hiding in the bushes around the
side, gripping a huge carving knife and all dressed up to look like a Pianosan
farmer. Yossarian tiptoed around the back noiselessly and seized her from
behind.

   ‘Caramba!’ she exclaimed in a rage, and resisted like a
wildcat as he dragged her inside the tent and hurled her down on the floor.

   ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ queried one of his roommates
drowsily.

   ‘Hold her till I get back,’ Yossarian ordered, yanking him
out of bed on top of her and running out. ‘Hold her!’

   ‘Let me kill him and I’ll ficky-fick you all,’ she offered.

   The other roommates leaped out of their cots when they saw it
was a girl and tried to make her ficky-fick them all first as Yossarian ran to
get Hungry Joe, who was sleeping like a baby. Yossarian lifted Huple’s cat off
Hungry Joe’s face and shook him awake. Hungry Joe dressed rapidly. This time
they flew the plane north and turned in over Italy far behind the enemy lines.
When they were over level land, they strapped a parachute on Nately’s whore and
shoved her out the escape hatch. Yossarian was positive that he was at last rid
of her and was relieved. As he approached his tent back in Pianosa, a figure
reared up in the darkness right beside the path, and he fainted. He came to
sitting on the ground and waited for the knife to strike him, almost welcoming
the mortal blow for the peace it would bring. A friendly hand helped him up
instead. It belonged to a pilot in Dunbar’s squadron.

   ‘How are you doing?’ asked the pilot, whispering.

   ‘Pretty good,’ Yossarian answered.

   ‘I saw you fall down just now. I thought something happened
to you.’

   ‘I think I fainted.’

   ‘There’s a rumor in my squadron that you told them you
weren’t going to fly any more combat missions.’

   ‘That’s the truth.’

   ‘Then they came around from Group and told us that the rumor
wasn’t true, that you were just kidding around.’

   ‘That was a lie.’

   ‘Do you think they’ll let you get away with it?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘What will they do to you?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘Do you think they’ll court-martial you for desertion in the
face of the enemy?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘I hope you get away with it,’ said the pilot in Dunbar’s
squadron, stealing out of sight into the shadows. ‘Let me know how you’re
doing.’ Yossarian stared after him a few seconds and continued toward his tent.

   ‘Pssst!’ said a voice a few paces onward. It was Appleby,
hiding in back of a tree. ‘How are you doing?’

   ‘Pretty good,’ said Yossarian.

   ‘I heard them say they were going to threaten to
court-martial you for deserting in the face of the enemy. But that they
wouldn’t try to go through with it because they’re not even sure they’ve got a
case against you on that. And because it might make them look bad with the new
commanders. Besides, you’re still a pretty big hero for going around twice over
the bridge at Ferrara. I guess you’re just about the biggest hero we’ve got now
in the group. I just thought you’d like to know that they’ll only be bluffing.’

   ‘Thanks, Appleby.’

   ‘That’s the only reason I started talking to you, to warn
you.’

   ‘I appreciate it.’ Appleby scuffed the toes of his shoes into
the ground sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry we had that fist fight in the officers’ club,
Yossarian.’

   ‘That’s all right.’

   ‘But I didn’t start it. I guess that was Orr’s fault for hitting
me in the face with his ping-pong paddle. What’d he want to do that for?’

   ‘You were beating him.’

   ‘Wasn’t I supposed to beat him? Isn’t that the point? Now
that he’s dead, I guess it doesn’t matter any more whether I’m a better
ping-pong player or not, does it?’

   ‘I guess not.’

   ‘And I’m sorry about making such a fuss about those Atabrine
tablets on the way over. If you want to catch malaria, I guess it’s your
business, isn’t it?’

   ‘That’s all right, Appleby.’

   ‘But I was only trying to do my duty. I was obeying orders. I
was always taught that I had to obey orders.’

   ‘That’s all right.’

   ‘You know, I said to Colonel Korn and Colonel Cathcart that I
didn’t think they ought to make you fly any more missions if you didn’t want
to, and they said they were very disappointed in me.’ Yossarian smiled with
rueful amusement. ‘I’ll bet they are.’

   ‘Well, I don’t care. Hell, you’ve flown seventy-one. That
ought to be enough. Do you think they’ll let you get away with it?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Say, if they do let you get away with it, they’ll have to
let the rest of us get away with it, won’t they?’

   ‘That’s why they can’t let me get away with it.’

   ‘What do you think they’ll do?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘Do you think they will try to court-martial you?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘Are you afraid?’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘Are you going to fly more missions?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘I hope you do get away with it,’ Appleby whispered with
conviction. ‘I really do.’

   ‘Thanks, Appleby.’

   ‘I don’t feel too happy about flying so many missions either
now that it looks as though we’ve got the war won. I’ll let you know if I hear
anything else.’

   ‘Thanks, Appleby.’

   ‘Hey!’ called a muted, peremptory voice from the leafless
shrubs growing beside his tent in a waist-high clump after Appleby had gone.
Havermeyer was hiding there in a squat. He was eating peanut brittle, and his
pimples and large, oily pores looked like dark scales. ‘How you doing?’ he
asked when Yossarian had walked to him.

   ‘Pretty good.’

   ‘Are you going to fly more missions?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Suppose they try to make you?’

   ‘I won’t let them.’

   ‘Are you yellow?’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘Will they court-martial you?’

   ‘They’ll probably try.’

   ‘What did Major Major say?’

   ‘Major Major’s gone.’

   ‘Did they disappear him?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘What will you do if they decide to disappear you?’

   ‘I’ll try to stop them.’

   ‘Didn’t they offer you any deals or anything if you did fly?’

   ‘Piltchard and Wren said they’d arrange things so I’d only go
on milk runs.’ Havermeyer perked up. ‘Say, that sounds like a pretty good deal.
I wouldn’t mind a deal like that myself. I bet you snapped it up.’

   ‘I turned it down.’

   ‘That was dumb.’ Havermeyer’s stolid, dull face furrowed with
consternation. ‘Say, a deal like that wasn’t so fair to the rest of us, was it?
If you only flew on milk runs, then some of us would have to fly your share of
the dangerous missions, wouldn’t we?’

   ‘That’s right.’

   ‘Say, I don’t like that,’ Havermeyer exclaimed, rising
resentfully with his hands clenched on his hips. ‘I don’t like that a bit.
That’s a real royal screwing they’re getting ready to give me just because
you’re too goddam yellow to fly any more missions, isn’t it?’

   ‘Take it up with them,’ said Yossarian and moved his hand to
his gun vigilantly.

   ‘No, I’m not blaming you,’ said Havermeyer, ‘even though I
don’t like you. You know, I’m not too happy about flying so many missions any
more either. Isn’t there some way I can get out of it, too?’ Yossarian
snickered ironically and joked, ‘Put a gun on and start marching with me.’
Havermeyer shook his head thoughtfully. ‘Nah, I couldn’t do that. I might bring
some disgrace on my wife and kid if I acted like a coward. Nobody likes a
coward. Besides, I want to stay in the reserves when the war is over. You get
five hundred dollars a year if you stay in the reserves.’

   ‘Then fly more missions.’

   ‘Yeah, I guess I have to. Say, do you think there’s any
chance they might take you off combat duty and send you home?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘But if they do and let you take one person with you, will
you pick me? Don’t pick anyone like Appleby. Pick me.’

   ‘Why in the world should they do something like that?’

   ‘I don’t know. But if they do, just remember that I asked you
first, will you? And let me know how you’re doing. I’ll wait for you here in
these bushes every night. Maybe if they don’t do anything bad to you, I won’t
fly any more missions either. Okay?’ All the next evening, people kept popping
up at him out of the darkness to ask him how he was doing, appealing to him for
confidential information with weary, troubled faces on the basis of some morbid
and clandestine kinship he had not guessed existed. People in the squadron he
barely knew popped into sight out of nowhere as he passed and asked him how he
was doing. Even men from other squadrons came one by one to conceal themselves
in the darkness and pop out. Everywhere he stepped after sundown someone was
lying in wait to pop out and ask him how he was doing. People popped out at him
from trees and bushes, from ditches and tall weeds, from around the corners of
tents and from behind the fenders of parked cars. Even one of his roommates
popped out to ask him how he was doing and pleaded with him not to tell any of
his other roommates he had popped out. Yossarian drew near each beckoning,
overly cautious silhouette with his hand on his gun, never knowing which
hissing shadow would finally turn dishonestly into Nately’s whore or, worse,
into some duly constituted governmental authority sent to club him ruthlessly
into insensibility. It began to look as if they would have to do something like
that. They did not want to court-martial him for desertion in the face of the
enemy because a hundred and thirty-five miles away from the enemy could hardly
be called the face of the enemy, and because Yossarian was the one who had
finally knocked down the bridge at Ferrara by going around twice over the
target and killing Kraft—he was always almost forgetting Kraft when he counted
the dead men he knew. But they had to do something to him, and everyone waited
grimly to see what horrible thing it would be.

   During the day, they avoided him, even Aarfy, and Yossarian
understood that they were different people together in daylight than they were
alone in the dark. He did not care about them at all as he walked about
backward with his hand on his gun and awaited the latest blandishments, threats
and inducements from Group each time Captains Piltchard and Wren drove back
from another urgent conference with Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. Hungry
Joe was hardly around, and the only other person who ever spoke to him was
Captain Black, who called him ‘Old Blood and Guts’ in a merry, taunting voice
each time he hailed him and who came back from Rome toward the end of the week
to tell him Nately’s whore was gone. Yossarian turned sorry with a stab of
yearning and remorse. He missed her.

   ‘Gone?’ he echoed in a hollow tone.

   ‘Yeah, gone.’ Captain Black laughed, his bleary eyes narrow
with fatigue and his peaked, sharp face sprouting as usual with a sparse
reddish-blond stubble. He rubbed the bags under his eyes with both fists. ‘I
thought I might as well give the stupid broad another boff just for old times’
sake as long as I was in Rome anyway. You know, just to keep that kid Nately’s
body spinning in his grave, ha, ha! Remember the way I used to needle him? But
the place was empty.’

   ‘Was there any word from her?’ prodded Yossarian, who had
been brooding incessantly about the girl, wondering how much she was suffering,
and feeling almost lonely and deserted without her ferocious and unappeasable
attacks.

   ‘There’s no one there,’ Captain Black exclaimed cheerfully,
trying to make Yossarian understand. ‘Don’t you understand? They’re all gone.
The whole place is busted.’

   ‘Gone?’

   ‘Yeah, gone. Flushed right out into the street.’ Captain
Black chuckled heartily again, and his pointed Adam’s apple jumped up and down
with glee inside his scraggly neck. ‘The joint’s empty. The M.P.s busted the
whole apartment up and drove the whores right out. Ain’t that a laugh?’
Yossarian was scared and began to tremble. ‘Why’d they do that?’

   ‘What difference does it make? responded Captain Black with
an exuberant gesture. ‘They flushed them right out into the street. How do you
like that? The whole batch.’

   ‘What about the kid sister?’

   ‘Flushed away,’ laughed Captain Black. ‘Flushed away with the
rest of the broads. Right out into the street.’

   ‘But she’s only a kid!’ Yossarian objected passionately. ‘She
doesn’t know anybody else in the whole city. What’s going to happen to her?’

   ‘What the hell do I care?’ responded Captain Black with an
indifferent shrug, and then gawked suddenly at Yossarian with surprise and with
a crafty gleam of prying elation. ‘Say, what’s the matter? If I knew this was
going to make you so unhappy, I would have come right over and told you, just
to make you eat your liver. Hey, where are you going? Come on back! Come on
back here and eat your liver!’

   Yossarian was going absent without
official leave with Milo, who, as the plane cruised toward Rome, shook his head
reproachfully and, with pious lips pulsed, informed Yossarian in ecclesiastical
tones that he was ashamed of him. Yossarian nodded. Yossarian was making an
uncouth spectacle of himself by walking around backward with his gun on his hip
and refusing to fly more combat missions, Milo said. Yossarian nodded. It was
disloyal to his squadron and embarrassing to his superiors. He was placing Milo
in a very uncomfortable position, too. Yossarian nodded again. The men were
starting to grumble. It was not fair for Yossarian to think only of his own
safety while men like Milo, Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and ex-P.F.C.
Wintergreen were willing to do everything they could to win the war. The men
with seventy missions were starring to grumble because they had to fly eighty,
and there was a danger some of them might put on guns and begin walking around
backward, too. Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian’s fault. The
country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and
independence by daring to exercise them.

   Yossarian kept nodding in the co-pilot’s seat and tried not
to listen as Milo prattled on. Nately’s whore was on his mind, as were Kraft
and Orr and Nately and Dunbar, and Kid Sampson and McWatt, and all the poor and
stupid and diseased people he had seen in Italy, Egypt and North Africa and
knew about in other areas of the world, and Snowden and Nately’s whore’s kid
sister were on his conscience, too. Yossarian thought he knew why Nately’s
whore held him responsible for Nately’s death and wanted to kill him. Why the
hell shouldn’t she? It was a man’s world, and she and everyone younger had
every right to blame him and everyone older for every unnatural tragedy that
befell them; just as she, even in her grief, was to blame for every man-made
misery that landed on her kid sister and on all other children behind her.
Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit
a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain
of inherited habit that was imperiling them all. In parts of Africa little boys
were still stolen away by adult slave traders and sold for money to men who
disemboweled them and ate them. Yossarian marveled that children could suffer
such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He
took it for granted that they did submit so stoically. If not, he reasoned, the
custom would certainly have died, for no craving for wealth or immortality
could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children.

   He was rocking the boat, Milo said, and Yossarian nodded once
more. He was not a good member of the team, Milo said. Yossarian nodded and
listened to Milo tell him that the decent thing to do if he did not like the
way Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were running the group was go to Russia,
instead of stirring up trouble. Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn had both been
very good to Yossarian, Milo said; hadn’t they given him a medal after the last
mission to Ferrara and promoted him to captain? Yossarian nodded. Didn’t they
feed him and give him his pay every month? Yossarian nodded again. Milo was
sure they would be charitable if he went to them to apologize and recant and
promise to fly eighty missions. Yossarian said he would think it over, and held
his breath and prayed for a safe landing as Milo dropped his wheels and glided
in toward the runway. It was funny how he had really come to detest flying.

   Rome was in ruins, he saw, when the plane was down. The
airdrome had been bombed eight months before, and knobby slabs of white stone
rubble had been bulldozed into flat-topped heaps on both sides of the entrance
through the wire fence surrounding the field. The Colosseum was a dilapidated
shell, and the Arch of Constantine had fallen. Nately’s whore’s apartment was a
shambles. The girls were gone, and the only one there was the old woman. The
windows in the apartment had been smashed. She was bundled up in sweaters and
skirts and wore a dark shawl about her head. She sat on a wooden chair near an
electric hot plate, her arms folded, boiling water in a battered aluminum pot.
She was talking aloud to herself when Yossarian entered and began moaning as soon
as she saw him.

   ‘Gone,’ she moaned before he could even inquire. Holding her
elbows, she rocked back and forth mournfully on her creaking chair. ‘Gone.’

   ‘Who?’

   ‘All. All the poor young girls.’

   ‘Where?’

   ‘Away. Chased away into the street. All of them gone. All the
poor young girls.’

   ‘Chased away by who? Who did it?’

   ‘The mean tall soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs.
And by our carabinieri. They came with their clubs and chased them away. They
would not even let them take their coats. The poor things. They just chased
them away into the cold.’

   ‘Did they arrest them?’

   ‘They chased them away. They just chased them away.’

   ‘Then why did they do it if they didn’t arrest them?’

   ‘I don’t know,’ sobbed the old woman. ‘I don’t know. Who will
take care of me? Who will take care of me now that all the poor young girls are
gone? Who will take care of me?’

   ‘There must have been a reason,’ Yossarian persisted,
pounding his fist into his hand. ‘They couldn’t just barge in here and chase
everyone out.’

   ‘No reason,’ wailed the old woman. ‘No reason.’

   ‘What right did they have?’

   ‘Catch-22.’

   ‘What?’ Yossarian froze in his tracks with fear and alarm and
felt his whole body begin to tingle. ‘What did you say?’

   ‘Catch-22’ the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and
down. ‘Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop
them from doing.’

   ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Yossarian shouted at
her in bewildered, furious protest. ‘How did you know it was Catch-22? Who the
hell told you it was Catch-22?’

   ‘The soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs. The girls
were crying. “Did we do anything wrong?” they said. The men said no
and pushed them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. “Then why
are you chasing us out?” the girls said. “Catch-22,” the men
said. “What right do you have?” the girls said. “Catch-22,”
the men said. All they kept saying was “Catch-22, Catch-22.” What does
it mean, Catch-22? What is Catch-22?’

   ‘Didn’t they show it to you?’ Yossarian demanded, stamping
about in anger and distress. ‘Didn’t you even make them read it?’

   ‘They don’t have to show us Catch-22,’ the old woman
answered. ‘The law says they don’t have to.’

   ‘What law says they don’t have to?’

   ‘Catch-22.’

   ‘Oh, God damn!’ Yossarian exclaimed bitterly. ‘I bet it
wasn’t even really there.’ He stopped walking and glanced about the room
disconsolately. ‘Where’s the old man?’

   ‘Gone,’ mourned the old woman.

   ‘Gone?’

   ‘Dead,’ the old woman told him, nodding in emphatic lament,
pointing to her head with the flat of her hand. ‘Something broke in here. One
minute he was living, one minute he was dead.’

   ‘But he can’t be dead!’ Yossarian cried, ready to argue
insistently. But of course he knew it was true, knew it was logical and true;
once again the old man had marched along with the majority.

   Yossarian turned away and trudged through the apartment with
a gloomy scowl, peering with pessimistic curiosity into all the rooms.
Everything made of glass had been smashed by the men with the clubs. Torn
drapes and bedding lay dumped on the floor. Chairs, tables and dressers had
been overturned. Everything breakable had been broken. The destruction was
total. No wild vandals could have been more thorough. Every window was smashed,
and darkness poured like inky clouds into each room through the shattered
panes. Yossarian could imagine the heavy, crashing footfalls of the tall M.P.s
in the hard white hats. He could picture the fiery and malicious exhilaration
with which they had made their wreckage, and their sanctimonious, ruthless
sense of right and dedication. All the poor young girls were gone. Everyone was
gone but the weeping old woman in the bulky brown and gray sweaters and black
head shawl, and soon she too would be gone.

   ‘Gone,’ she grieved, when he walked back in, before he could
even speak. ‘Who will take care of me now?’ Yossarian ignored the question.
‘Nately’s girl friend—did anyone hear from her?’ he asked.

   ‘Gone.’

   ‘I know she’s gone. But did anyone hear from her? Does anyone
know where she is?’

   ‘Gone.’

   ‘The little sister. What happened to her?’

   ‘Gone.’ The old woman’s tone had not changed.

   ‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’ Yossarian asked
sharply, staring into her eyes to see if she were not speaking to him from a
coma. He raised his voice. ‘What happened to the kid sister, to the little
girl?’

   ‘Gone, gone,’ the old woman replied with a crabby shrug,
irritated by his persistence, her low wail growing louder. ‘Chased away with
the rest, chased away into the street. They would not even let her take her
coat.’

   ‘Where did she go?’

   ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

   ‘Who will take care of her?’

   ‘Who will take care of me?’

   ‘She doesn’t know anybody else, does she?’

   ‘Who will take care of me?’ Yossarian left money in the old
woman’s lap—it was odd how many wrongs leaving money seemed to right—and strode
out of the apartment, cursing Catch-22 vehemently as he descended the stairs,
even though he knew there was no such thing. Catch-22 did not exist, he was
positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone
thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to
ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at,
rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.

   It was cold outside, and dark, and a leaky, insipid mist lay
swollen in the air and trickled down the large, unpolished stone blocks of the
houses and the pedestals of monuments. Yossarian hurried back to Milo and
recanted. He said he was sorry and, knowing he was lying, promised to fly as
many more missions as Colonel Cathcart wanted if Milo would only use all his
influence in Rome to help him locate Nately’s whore’s kid sister.

   ‘She’s just a twelve-year-old virgin, Milo,’ he explained
anxiously, ‘and I want to find her before it’s too late.’ Milo responded to his
request with a benign smile. ‘I’ve got just the twelve-year-old virgin you’re
looking for,’ he announced jubilantly. ‘This twelve-year-old virgin is really
only thirty-four, but she was brought up on a low-protein diet by very strict
parents and didn’t start sleeping with men until—’

   ‘ Milo, I’m talking about a little girl!’ Yossarian
interrupted him with desperate impatience. ‘Don’t you understand? I don’t want
to sleep with her. I want to help her. You’ve got daughters. She’s just a
little kid, and she’s all alone in this city with no one to take care of her. I
want to protect her from harm. Don’t you know what I’m talking about?’ Milo did
understand and was deeply touched. ‘Yossarian, I’m proud of you,’ he exclaimed
with profound emotion. ‘I really am. You don’t know how glad I am to see that
everything isn’t always just sex with you. You’ve got principles. Certainly I’ve
got daughters, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. We’ll find that
girl if we have to turn this whole city upside down. Come along.’ Yossarian
went along in Milo Minderbinder’s speeding M & M staff car to police
headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black
mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts
and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm
surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some
elegant marquis.

   ‘Ah, Marchese Milo,’ he declared with effusive pleasure,
pushing the fat, disgruntled woman out the door without even looking toward
her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have a big party for you.
Come in, come in, Marchese. You almost never visit us any more.’ Milo knew that
there was not one moment to waste. ‘Hello, Luigi,’ he said, nodding so briskly
that he almost seemed rude. ‘Luigi, I need your help. My friend here wants to
find a girl.’

   ‘A girl, Marchese?’ said Luigi, scratching his face
pensively. ‘There are lots of girls in Rome. For an American officer, a girl
should not be too difficult.’

   ‘No, Luigi, you don’t understand. This is a twelve-year-old
virgin that he has to find right away.’

   ‘Ah, yes, now I understand,’ Luigi said sagaciously. ‘A
virgin might take a little time. But if he waits at the bus terminal where the
young farm girls looking for work arrive, I—’

   ‘Luigi, you still don’t understand,’ Milo snapped with such
brusque impatience that the police commissioner’s face flushed and he jumped to
attention and began buttoning his uniform in confusion. ‘This girl is a friend,
an old friend of the family, and we want to help her. She’s only a child. She’s
all alone in this city somewhere, and we have to find her before somebody harms
her. Now do you understand? Luigi, this is very important to me. I have a
daughter the same age as that little girl, and nothing in the world means more
to me right now than saving that poor child before it’s too late. Will you
help?’

   ‘Si, Marchese, now I understand,’ said Luigi. ‘And I will do
everything in my power to find her. But tonight I have almost no men. Tonight
all my men are busy trying to break up the traffic in illegal tobacco.’

   ‘Illegal tobacco?’ asked Milo.

   ‘ Milo,’ Yossarian bleated faintly with a sinking heart,
sensing at once that all was lost.