Catch-22 (44 page)

   Evenings when Yossarian felt horny he brought Nurse Duckett
to the beach with two blankets and enjoyed making love to her with most of
their clothes on more than he sometimes enjoyed making love to all the vigorous
bare amoral girls in Rome. Frequently they went to the beach at night and did
not make love, but just lay shivering between the blankets against each other
to ward off the brisk, damp chill. The ink-black nights were turning cold, the
stars frosty and fewer. The raft swayed in the ghostly trail of moonlight and
seemed to be sailing away. A marked hint of cold weather penetrated the air.
Other men were just starting to build stoves and came to Yossarian’s tent
during the day to marvel at Orr’s workmanship. It thrilled Nurse Duckett
rapturously that Yossarian could not keep his hands off her when they were
together, although she would not let him slip them inside her bathing shorts
during the day when anyone was near enough to see, not even when the only
witness was Nurse Cramer, who sat on the other side of her sand dune with her
reproving nose in the air and pretended not to see anything.

   Nurse Cramer had stopped speaking to Nurse Duckett, her best
friend, because of her liaison with Yossarian, but still went everywhere with
Nurse Duckett since Nurse Duckett was her best friend. She did not approve of
Yossarian or his friends. When they stood up and went swimming with Nurse
Duckett, Nurse Cramer stood up and went swimming, too, maintaining the same
ten-yard distance between them, and maintaining her silence, snubbing them even
in the water. When they laughed and splashed, she laughed and splashed; when
they dived, she dived; when they swam to the sand bar and rested, Nurse Cramer
swam to the sand bar and rested. When they came out, she came out, dried her
shoulders with her own towel and seated herself aloofly in her own spot, her
back rigid and a ring of reflected sunlight burnishing her light-blond hair
like a halo. Nurse Cramer was prepared to begin talking to Nurse Duckett again
if she repented and apologized. Nurse Duckett preferred things the way they
were. For a long time she had wanted to give Nurse Cramer a rap to make her
shut up.

   Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already
trying to change him. She loved to watch him taking short naps with his face
down and his arm thrown across her, or staring bleakly at the endless tame,
quiet waves breaking like pet puppy dogs against the shore, scampering lightly
up the sand a foot or two and then trotting away. She was calm in his silences.
She knew she did not bore him, and she buffed or painted her fingernails
studiously while he dozed or brooded and the desultory warm afternoon breeze
vibrated delicately on the surface of the beach. She loved to look at his wide,
long, sinewy back with its bronzed, unblemished skin. She loved to bring him to
flame instantly by taking his whole ear in her mouth suddenly and running her
hand down his front all the way. She loved to make him burn and suffer till
dark, then satisfy him. Then kiss him adoringly because she had brought him
such bliss.

   Yossarian was never lonely with Nurse Duckett, who really did
know how to keep her mouth shut and was just capricious enough. He was haunted
and tormented by the vast, boundless ocean. He wondered mournfully, as Nurse
Duckett buffed her nails, about all the people who had died under water. There
were surely more than a million already. Where were they? What insects had
eaten their flesh? He imagined the awful impotence of breathing in helplessly
quarts and quarts of water. Yossarian followed the small fishing boats and
military launches plying back and forth far out and found them unreal; it did
not seem true that there were full-sized men aboard, going somewhere every
time. He looked toward stony Elba, and his eyes automatically searched overhead
for the fluffy, white, turnip-shaped cloud in which Clevinger had vanished. He
peered at the vaporous Italian skyline and thought of Orr. Clevinger and Orr.
Where had they gone? Yossarian had once stood on a jetty at dawn and watched a
tufted round log that was drifting toward him on the tide turn unexpectedly
into the bloated face of a drowned man; it was the first dead person he had
ever seen. He thirsted for life and reached out ravenously to grasp and hold
Nurse Duckett’s flesh. He studied every floating object fearfully for some
gruesome sign of Clevinger and Orr, prepared for any morbid shock but the shock
McWatt gave him one day with the plane that came blasting suddenly into sight
out of the distant stillness and hurtled mercilessly along the shore line with
a great growling, clattering roar over the bobbing raft on which blond, pale
Kid Sampson, his naked sides scrawny even from so far away, leaped clownishly
up to touch it at the exact moment some arbitrary gust of wind or minor
miscalculation of McWatt’s senses dropped the speeding plane down just low
enough for a propeller to slice him half away.

   Even people who were not there remembered vividly exactly
what happened next. There was the briefest, softest tsst! filtering audibly
through the shattering, overwhelming howl of the plane’s engines, and then
there were just Kid Sampson’s two pale, skinny legs, still joined by strings
somehow at the bloody truncated hips, standing stock-still on the raft for what
seemed a full minute or two before they toppled over backward into the water
finally with a faint, echoing splash and turned completely upside down so that
only the grotesque toes and the plaster-white soles of Kid Sampson’s feet
remained in view.

   On the beach, all hell broke loose. Nurse Cramer materialized
out of thin air suddenly and was weeping hysterically against Yossarian’s chest
while Yossarian hugged her shoulders and soothed her. His other arm bolstered
Nurse Duckett, who was trembling and sobbing against him, too, her long, angular
face dead white. Everyone at the beach was screaming and running, and the men
sounded like women. They scampered for their things in panic, stooping
hurriedly and looking askance at each gentle, knee-high wave bubbling in as
though some ugly, red, grisly organ like a liver or a lung might come washing
right up against them. Those in the water were struggling to get out,
forgetting in their haste to swim, wailing, walking, held back in their flight
by the viscous, clinging sea as though by a biting wind.

   Kid Sampson had rained all over. Those who spied drops of him
on their limbs or torsos drew back with terror and revulsion, as though trying
to shrink away from their own odious skins. Everybody ran in a sluggish
stampede, shooting tortured, horrified glances back, filling the deep, shadowy,
rustling woods with their frail gasps and cries. Yossarian drove both
stumbling, faltering women before him frantically, shoving them and prodding
them to make them hurry, and raced back with a curse to help when Hungry Joe
tripped on the blanket or the camera case he was carrying and fell forward on
his face in the mud of the stream.

   Back at the squadron everyone already knew. Men in uniform
were screaming and running there too, or standing motionless in one spot,
rooted in awe, like Sergeant Knight and Doc Daneeka as they gravely craned
their heads upward and watched the guilty, banking, forlorn airplane with
McWatt circle and circle slowly and climb.

   ‘Who is it?’ Yossarian shouted anxiously at Doc Daneeka as he
ran up, breathless and limp, his somber eyes burning with a misty, hectic
anguish. ‘Who’s in the plane?’

   ‘McWatt,’ said Sergeant Knight. ‘He’s got the two new pilots
with him on a training flight. Doc Daneeka’s up there, too.’

   ‘I’m right here,’ contended Doc Daneeka, in a strange and
troubled voice, darting an anxious look at Sergeant Knight.

   ‘Why doesn’t he come down?’ Yossarian exclaimed in despair.
‘Why does he keep going up?’

   ‘He’s probably afraid to come down,’ Sergeant Knight answered,
without moving his solemn gaze from McWatt’s solitary climbing airplane. ‘He
knows what kind of trouble he’s in.’ And McWatt kept climbing higher and
higher, nosing his droning airplane upward evenly in a slow, oval spiral that
carried him far out over the water as he headed south and far in over the
russet foothills when he had circled the landing field again and was flying
north. He was soon up over five thousand feet. His engines were soft as
whispers. A white parachute popped open suddenly in a surprising puff. A second
parachute popped open a few minutes later and coasted down, like the first,
directly in toward the clearing of the landing strip. There was no motion on
the ground. The plane continued south for thirty seconds more, following the
same pattern, familiar and predictable now, and McWatt lifted a wing and banked
gracefully around into his turn.

   ‘Two more to go,’ said Sergeant Knight. ‘McWatt and Doc
Daneeka.’

   ‘I’m right here, Sergeant Knight,’ Doc Daneeka told him
plaintively. ‘I’m not in the plane.’

   ‘Why don’t they jump?’ Sergeant Knight asked, pleading aloud
to himself. ‘Why don’t they jump?’

   ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ grieved Doc Daneeka, biting his lip.
‘It just doesn’t make sense.’ But Yossarian understood suddenly why McWatt wouldn’t
jump, and went running uncontrollably down the whole length of the squadron
after McWatt’s plane, waving his arms and shouting up at him imploringly to
come down, McWatt, come down; but no one seemed to hear, certainly not McWatt,
and a great, choking moan tore from Yossarian’s throat as McWatt turned again,
dipped his wings once in salute, decided oh, well, what the hell, and flew into
a mountain.

   Colonel Cathcart was so upset by the deaths of Kid Sampson
and McWatt that he raised the missions to sixty-five.

   When Colonel Cathcart learned that Doc
Daneeka too had been killed in McWatt’s plane, he increased the number of
missions to seventy.

   The first person in the squadron to find out that Doc Daneeka
was dead was Sergeant Towser, who had been informed earlier by the man in the
control tower that Doc Daneeka’s name was down as a passenger on the pilot’s
manifest McWatt had filed before taking off. Sergeant Towser brushed away a
tear and struck Doc Daneeka’s name from the roster of squadron personnel. With
lips still quivering, he rose and trudged outside reluctantly to break the bad
news to Gus and Wes, discreetly avoiding any conversation with Doc Daneeka
himself as he moved by the flight surgeon’s slight sepulchral figure roosting
despondently on his stool in the late-afternoon sunlight between the orderly
room and the medical tent. Sergeant Towser’s heart was heavy; now he had two
dead men on his hands—Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian’s tent who wasn’t even
there, and Doc Daneeka, the new dead man in the squadron, who most certainly
was there and gave every indication of proving a still thornier administrative
problem for him.

   Gus and Wes listened to Sergeant Towser with looks of stoic
surprise and said not a word about their bereavement to anyone else until Doc
Daneeka himself came in about an hour afterward to have his temperature taken
for the third time that day and his blood pressure checked. The thermometer
registered a half degree lower than his usual subnormal temperature of 96.8.
Doc Daneeka was alarmed. The fixed, vacant, wooden stares of his two enlisted
men were even more irritating than always.

   ‘Goddammit,’ he expostulated politely in an uncommon excess
of exasperation, ‘what’s the matter with you two men anyway? It just isn’t
right for a person to have a low temperature all the time and walk around with
a stuffed nose.’ Doc Daneeka emitted a glum, self-pitying sniff and strolled
disconsolately across the tent to help himself to some aspirin and sulphur
pills and paint his own throat with Argyrol. His downcast face was fragile and
forlorn as a swallow’s, and he rubbed the back of his arms rhythmically. ‘Just
look how cold I am right now. You’re sure you’re not holding anything back?’

   ‘You’re dead, sir,’ one of his two enlisted men explained.

   Doc Daneeka jerked his head up quickly with resentful
distrust. ‘What’s that?’

   ‘You’re dead, sir,’ repeated the other. ‘That’s probably the
reason you always feel so cold.’

   ‘That’s right, sir. You’ve probably been dead all this time
and we just didn’t detect it.’

   ‘What the hell are you both talking about?’ Doc Daneeka cried
shrilly with a surging, petrifying sensation of some onrushing unavoidable
disaster.

   ‘It’s true, sir,’ said one of the enlisted men. ‘The records
show that you went up in McWatt’s plane to collect some flight time. You didn’t
come down in a parachute, so you must have been killed in the crash.’

   ‘That’s right, sir,’ said the other. ‘You ought to be glad
you’ve got any temperature at all.’ Doc Daneeka’s mind was reeling in
confusion. ‘Have you both gone crazy?’ he demanded. ‘I’m going to report this
whole insubordinate incident to Sergeant Towser.’

   ‘Sergeant Towser’s the one who told us about it,’ said either
Gus or Wes. ‘The War Department’s even going to notify your wife.’ Doc Daneeka
yelped and ran out of the medical tent to remonstrate with Sergeant Towser, who
edged away from him with repugnance and advised Doc Daneeka to remain out of
sight as much as possible until some decision could be reached relating to the
disposition of his remains.

   ‘Gee, I guess he really is dead,’ grieved one of his enlisted
men in a low, respectful voice. ‘I’m going to miss him. He was a pretty
wonderful guy, wasn’t he?’

   ‘Yeah, he sure was,’ mourned the other. ‘But I’m glad the
little fuck is gone. I was getting sick and tired of taking his blood pressure
all the time.’ Mrs. Daneeka, Doc Daneeka’s wife, was not glad that Doc Daneeka
was gone and split the peaceful Staten Island night with woeful shrieks of
lamentation when she learned by War Department telegram that her husband had
been killed in action. Women came to comfort her, and their husbands paid
condolence calls and hoped inwardly that she would soon move to another
neighborhood and spare them the obligation of continuous sympathy. The poor
woman was totally distraught for almost a full week. Slowly, heroically, she
found the strength to contemplate a future filled with dire problems for
herself and her children. Just as she was growing resigned to her loss, the
postman rang with a bolt from the blue—a letter from overseas that was signed
with her husband’s signature and urged her frantically to disregard any bad
news concerning him. Mrs. Daneeka was dumbfounded. The date on the letter was
illegible. The handwriting throughout was shaky and hurried, but the style
resembled her husband’s and the melancholy, self-pitying tone was familiar,
although more dreary than usual. Mrs. Daneeka was overjoyed and wept
irrepressibly with relief and kissed the crinkled, grubby tissue of V-mail
stationery a thousand times. She dashed a grateful note off to her husband
pressing him for details and sent a wire informing the War Department of its
error. The War Department replied touchily that there had been no error and
that she was undoubtedly the victim of some sadistic and psychotic forger in
her husband’s squadron. The letter to her husband was returned unopened,
stamped KILLED IN ACTION.

   Mrs. Daneeka had been widowed cruelly again, but this time
her grief was mitigated somewhat by a notification from Washington that she was
sole beneficiary of her husband’s $10,000 GI insurance policy, which amount was
obtainable by her on demand. The realization that she and the children were not
faced immediately with starvation brought a brave smile to her face and marked
the turning point in her distress. The Veterans Administration informed her by
mail the very next day that she would be entitled to pension benefits for the
rest of her natural life because of her husband’s demise, and to a burial
allowance for him of $250. A government check for $250 was enclosed. Gradually,
inexorably, her prospects brightened. A letter arrived that same week from the
Social Security Administration stating that, under the provisions of the Old
Age and Survivors Insurance Act Of 1935, she would receive monthly support for
herself and her dependent children until they reached the age of eighteen, and
a burial allowance of $250. With these government letters as proof of death,
she applied for payment on three life insurance policies Doc Daneeka had
carried, with a value of $50,000 each; her claim was honored and processed
swiftly. Each day brought new unexpected treasures. A key to a safe-deposit box
led to a fourth life insurance policy with a face value of $50,000, and to
$18,000 in cash on which income tax had never been paid and need never be paid.
A fraternal lodge to which he had belonged gave her a cemetery plot. A second
fraternal organization of which he had been a member sent her a burial
allowance of $250. His county medical association gave her a burial allowance
of $250.

   The husbands of her closest friends began to flirt with her.
Mrs. Daneeka was simply delighted with the way things were turning out and had
her hair dyed. Her fantastic wealth just kept piling up, and she had to remind
herself daily that all the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was acquiring
were not worth a single penny without her husband to share this good fortune
with her. It astonished her that so many separate organizations were willing to
do so much to bury Doc Daneeka, who, back in Pianosa, was having a terrible
time trying to keep his head above the ground and wondered with dismal
apprehension why his wife did not answer the letter he had written.

   He found himself ostracized in the squadron by men who cursed
his memory foully for having supplied Colonel Cathcart with provocation to
raise the number of combat missions. Records attesting to his death were
pullulating like insect eggs and verifying each other beyond all contention. He
drew no pay or PX rations and depended for life on the charity of Sergeant
Towser and Milo, who both knew he was dead. Colonel Cathcart refused to see
him, and Colonel Korn sent word through Major Danby that he would have Doc Daneeka
cremated on the spot if he ever showed up at Group Headquarters. Major Danby
confided that Group was incensed with all flight surgeons because of Dr.
Stubbs, the bushy-haired, baggy-chinned, slovenly flight surgeon in Dunbar’s
squadron who was deliberately and defiantly brewing insidious dissension there
by grounding all men with sixty missions on proper forms that were rejected by
Group indignantly with orders restoring the confused pilots, navigators,
bombardiers and gunners to combat duty. Morale there was ebbing rapidly, and
Dunbar was under surveillance. Group was glad Doc Daneeka had been killed and
did not intend to ask for a replacement.

   Not even the chaplain could bring Doc Daneeka back to life
under the circumstances. Alarm changed to resignation, and more and more Doc
Daneeka acquired the look of an ailing rodent. The sacks under his eyes turned
hollow and black, and he padded through the shadows fruitlessly like a
ubiquitous spook. Even Captain Flume recoiled when Doc Daneeka sought him out
in the woods for help. Heartlessly, Gus and Wes turned him away from their
medical tent without even a thermometer for comfort, and then, only then, did
he realize that, to all intents and purposes, he really was dead, and that he
had better do something damned fast if he ever hoped to save himself.

   There was nowhere else to turn but to his wife, and he
scribbled an impassioned letter begging her to bring his plight to the
attention of the War Department and urging her to communicate at once with his
group commander, Colonel Cathcart, for assurances that—no matter what else she
might have heard—it was indeed he, her husband, Doc Daneeka, who was pleading
with her, and not a corpse or some impostor. Mrs. Daneeka was stunned by the
depth of emotion in the almost illegible appeal. She was torn with compunction
and tempted to comply, but the very next letter she opened that day was from
that same Colonel Cathcart, her husband’s group commander, and began: Dear
Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep
personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was
killed, wounded or reported missing in action.

   Mrs. Daneeka moved with her children to Lansing, Michigan,
and left no forwarding address.