Catch-22 (47 page)

   ‘They’ve stolen him away!’ Dunbar shouted back. ‘He’s hollow
inside, like a chocolate soldier. They just took him away and left those
bandages there.’

   ‘Why should they do that?’

   ‘Why do they do anything?’

   ‘They’ve stolen him away!’ screamed someone else, and people
all over the ward began screaming, ‘They’ve stolen him away. They’ve stolen him
away!’

   ‘Go back to your beds,’ Nurse Duckett pleaded with Dunbar and
Yossarian, pushing feebly against Yossarian’s chest. ‘Please go back to your
beds.’

   ‘You’re crazy!’ Yossarian shouted angrily at Dunbar. ‘What
the hell makes you say that?’

   ‘Did anyone see him?’ Dunbar demanded with sneering fervor.

   ‘You saw him, didn’t you?’ Yossarian said to Nurse Duckett.
‘Tell Dunbar there’s someone inside.’

   ‘Lieutenant Schmulker is inside,’ Nurse Duckett said. ‘He’s
burned all over.’

   ‘Did she see him?’

   ‘You saw him, didn’t you?’

   ‘The doctor who bandaged him saw him.’

   ‘Go get him, will you? Which doctor was it?’ Nurse Duckett
reacted to the question with a startled gasp. ‘The doctor isn’t even here!’ she
exclaimed. ‘The patient was brought to us that way from a field hospital.’

   ‘You see?’ cried Nurse Cramer. ‘There’s no one inside!’

   ‘There’s no one inside!’ yelled Hungry Joe, and began
stamping on the floor.

   Dunbar broke through and leaped up furiously on the soldier
in white’s bed to see for himself, pressing his gleaming eye down hungrily
against the tattered black hole in the shell of white bandages. He was still
bent over staring with one eye into the lightless, unstirring void of the
soldier in white’s mouth when the doctors and the M.P.s came running to help Yossarian
pull him away. The doctors wore guns at the waist. The guards carried carbines
and rifles with which they shoved and jolted the crowd of muttering patients
back. A stretcher on wheels was there, and the solder in white was lifted out
of bed skillfully and rolled out of sight in a matter of seconds. The doctors
and M.P.s moved through the ward assuring everyone that everything was all
right.

   Nurse Duckett plucked Yossarian’s arm and whispered to him
furtively to meet her in the broom closet outside in the corridor. Yossarian
rejoiced when he heard her. He thought Nurse Duckett finally wanted to get laid
and pulled her skirt up the second they were alone in the broom closet, but she
pushed him away. She had urgent news about Dunbar.

   ‘They’re going to disappear him,’ she said.

   Yossarian squinted at her uncomprehendingly. ‘They’re what?’
he asked in surprise, and laughed uneasily. ‘What does that mean?’

   ‘I don’t know. I heard them talking behind a door.’

   ‘Who?’

   ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see them. I just heard them say
they were going to disappear Dunbar.’

   ‘Why are they going to disappear him?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t even good grammar. What the
hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?’

   ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘Jesus, you’re a great help!’

   ‘Why are you picking on me?’ Nurse Duckett protested with
hurt feelings, and began sniffing back tears. ‘I’m only trying to help. It
isn’t my fault they’re going to disappear him, is it? I shouldn’t even be
telling you.’ Yossarian took her in his arms and hugged her with gentle,
contrite affection. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized, kissing her cheek respectfully,
and hurried away to warn Dunbar, who was nowhere to be found.

   For the first time in his life, Yossarian
prayed. He got down on his knees and prayed to Nately not to volunteer to fly
more than seventy missions after Chief White Halfoat did die of pneumonia in
the hospital and Nately had applied for his job. But Nately just wouldn’t
listen.

   ‘I’ve got to fly more missions,’ Nately insisted lamely with
a crooked smile. ‘Otherwise they’ll send me home.’

   ‘So?’

   ‘I don’t want to go home until I can take her back with me.’

   ‘She means that much to you?’ Nately nodded dejectedly. ‘I
might never see her again.’

   ‘Then get yourself grounded,’ Yossarian urged. ‘You’ve
finished your missions and you don’t need the flight pay. Why don’t you ask for
Chief White Halfoat’s job, if you can stand working for Captain Black?’ Nately
shook his head, his cheeks darkening with shy and regretful mortification.
‘They won’t give it to me. I spoke to Colonel Korn, and he told me I’d have to
fly more missions or be sent home.’ Yossarian cursed savagely. ‘That’s just
plain meanness.’

   ‘I don’t mind, I guess. I’ve flown seventy missions without
getting hurt. I guess I can fly a few more.’

   ‘Don’t do anything at all about it until I talk to someone,’
Yossarian decided, and went looking for help from Milo, who went immediately
afterward to Colonel Cathcart for help in having himself assigned to more
combat missions.

   Milo had been earning many distinctions for himself. He had
flown fearlessly into danger and criticism by selling petroleum and ball
bearings to Germany at good prices in order to make a good profit and help
maintain a balance of power between the contending forces. His nerve under fire
was graceful and infinite. With a devotion to purpose above and beyond the line
of duty, he had then raised the price of food in his mess halls so high that
all officers and enlisted men had to turn over all their pay to him in order to
eat. Their alternative—there was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested
coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice—was to starve. When he
encountered a wave of enemy resistance to this attack, he stuck to his position
without regard for his safety or reputation and gallantly invoked the law of
supply and demand. And when someone somewhere said no, Milo gave ground
grudgingly, valiantly defending, even in retreat, the historic right of free
men to pay as much as they had to for the things they needed in order to
survive.

   Milo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his
countrymen, and, as a result, his stock had never been higher. He proved good
as his word when a rawboned major from Minnesota curled his lip in rebellious
disavowal and demanded his share of the syndicate Milo kept saying everybody
owned. Milo met the challenge by writing the words ‘A Share’ on the nearest
scrap of paper and handing it away with a virtuous disdain that won the envy
and admiration of almost everyone who knew him. His glory was at a peak, and
Colonel Cathcart, who knew and admired his war record, was astonished by the
deferential humility with which Milo presented himself at Group Headquarters
and made his fantastic appeal for more hazardous assignments.

   ‘You want to fly more combat missions?’ Colonel Cathcart
gasped. ‘What in the world for?’ Milo answered in a demure voice with his face
lowered meekly. ‘I want to do my duty, sir. The country is at war, and I want
to fight to defend it like the rest of the fellows.’

   ‘But, Milo, you are doing your duty,’ Colonel Cathcart
exclaimed with a laugh that thundered jovially. ‘I can’t think of a single
person who’s done more for the men than you have. Who gave them
chocolate-covered cotton?’ Milo shook his head slowly and sadly. ‘But being a
good mess officer in wartime just isn’t enough, Colonel Cathcart.’

   ‘Certainly it is, Milo. I don’t know what’s come over you.’

   ‘Certainly it isn’t, Colonel,’ Milo disagreed in a somewhat
firm tone, raising his subservient eyes significantly just far enough to arrest
Colonel Cathcart’s. ‘Some of the men are beginning to talk.’

   ‘Oh, is that it? Give me their names, Milo. Give me their
names and I’ll see to it that they go on every dangerous mission the group
flies.’

   ‘No, Colonel, I’m afraid they’re right,’ Milo said, with his
head drooping again. ‘I was sent overseas as a pilot, and I should be flying
more combat missions and spending less time on my duties as a mess officer.’
Colonel Cathcart was surprised but co-operative. ‘Well, Milo, if you really
feel that way, I’m sure we can make whatever arrangements you want. How long
have you been overseas now?’

   ‘Eleven months, sir.’

   ‘And how many missions have you flown?’

   ‘Five.’

   ‘Five?’ asked Colonel Cathcart.

   ‘Five, sir.’

   ‘Five, eh?’ Colonel Cathcart rubbed his cheek pensively.
‘That isn’t very good, is it?’

   ‘Isn’t it?’ asked Milo in a sharply edged voice, glancing up
again.

   Colonel Cathcart quailed. ‘On the contrary, that’s very good,
Milo,’ he corrected himself hastily. ‘It isn’t bad at all.’

   ‘No, Colonel,’ Milo said, with a long, languishing, wistful
sigh, ‘it isn’t very good. Although it’s very generous of you to say so.’

   ‘But it’s really not bad, Milo. Not bad at all, when you
consider all your other valuable contributions. Five missions, you say? Just
five?’

   ‘Just five, sir.’

   ‘Just five.’ Colonel Cathcart grew awfully depressed for a
moment as he wondered what Milo was really thinking, and whether he had already
got a black eye with him. ‘Five is very good, Milo,’ he observed with
enthusiasm, spying a ray of hope. ‘That averages out to almost one combat
mission every two months. And I’ll bet your total doesn’t include the time you
bombed us.’

   ‘Yes, sir. It does.’

   ‘It does?’ inquired Colonel Cathcart with mild wonder. ‘You
didn’t actually fly along on that mission, did you? If I remember correctly,
you were in the control tower with me, weren’t you?’

   ‘But it was my mission,’ Milo contended. ‘I organized it, and
we used my planes and supplies. I planned and supervised the whole thing.’

   ‘Oh, certainly, Milo, certainly. I’m not disputing you. I’m
only checking the figures to make sure you’re claiming all you’re entitled to.
Did you also include the time we contracted with you to bomb the bridge at
Orvieto?’

   ‘Oh, no, sir. I didn’t think I should, since I was in Orvieto
at the time directing the antiaircraft fire.’

   ‘I don’t see what difference that makes, Milo. It was still
your mission. And a damned good one, too, I must say. We didn’t get the bridge,
but we did have a beautiful bomb pattern. I remember General Peckem commenting
on it. No, Milo, I insist you count Orvieto as a mission, too.’

   ‘If you insist, sir.’

   ‘I do insist, Milo. Now, let’s see—you now have a grand total
of six missions, which is damned good, Milo, damned good, really. Six missions
is an increase of twenty per cent in just a couple of minutes, which is not bad
at all, Milo, not bad at all.’

   ‘Many of the other men have seventy missions,’ Milo pointed
out.

   ‘But they never produced any chocolate-covered cotton, did
they? Milo, you’re doing more than your share.’

   ‘But they’re getting all the fame and opportunity,’ Milo
persisted with a petulance that bordered on sniveling. ‘Sir, I want to get in
there and fight like the rest of the fellows. That’s what I’m here for. I want
to win medals, too.’

   ‘Yes, Milo, of course. We all want to spend more time in
combat. But people like you and me serve in different ways. Look at my own
record,’ Colonel Cathcart uttered a deprecatory laugh. ‘I’ll bet it’s not
generally known, Milo, that I myself have flown only four missions, is it?’

   ‘No, sir,’ Milo replied. ‘It’s generally known that you’ve
flown only two missions. And that one of those occurred when Aarfy accidentally
flew you over enemy territory while navigating you to Naples for a black-market
water cooler.’ Colonel Cathcart, flushing with embarrassment, abandoned all further
argument. ‘All right, Milo. I can’t praise you enough for what you want to do.
If it really means so much to you, I’ll have Major Major assign you to the next
sixty-four missions so that you can have seventy, too.’

   ‘Thank you, Colonel, thank you, sir. You don’t know what this
means.’

   ‘Don’t mention it, Milo. I know exactly what it means.’

   ‘No, Colonel, I don’t think you do know what it means,’ Milo
disagreed pointedly. ‘Someone will have to begin running the syndicate for me
right away. It’s very complicated, and I might get shot down at any time.’
Colonel Cathcart brightened instantly at the thought and began rubbing his
hands with avaricious zest. ‘You know, Milo, I think Colonel Korn and I might
be willing to take the syndicate off your hands,’ he suggested in an offhand
manner, almost licking his lips in savory anticipation. ‘Our experience in
black-market plum tomatoes should come in very useful. Where do we begin?’ Milo
watched Colonel Cathcart steadily with a bland and guileless expression. ‘Thank
you, sir, that’s very good of you. Begin with a salt-free diet for General
Peckem and a fat-free diet for General Dreedle.’

   ‘Let me get a pencil. What’s next?’

   ‘The cedars.’

   ‘Cedars?’

   ‘From Lebanon.’

   ‘ Lebanon?’

   ‘We’ve got cedars from Lebanon due at the sawmill in Oslo to
be turned into shingles for the builder in Cape Cod. C.O.D. And then there’s
the peas.’

   ‘Peas?’

   ‘That are on the high seas. We’ve got boatloads of peas that
are on the high seas from Atlanta to Holland to pay for the tulips that were
shipped to Geneva to pay for the cheeses that must go to Vienna M.I.F.’

   ‘M.I.F.?’

   ‘Money in Front. The Hapsburgs are shaky.’

   ‘ Milo.’

   ‘And don’t forget the galvanized zinc in the warehouse at
Flint. Four carloads of galvanized zinc from Flint must be flown to the
smelters in Damascus by noon of the eighteenth, terms F.O.B. Calcutta two per
cent ten days E.O.M. One Messerschmitt full of hemp is due in Belgrade for a
C-47 and a half full of those semi-pitted dates we stuck them with from
Khartoum. Use the money from the Portuguese anchovies we’re selling back to
Lisbon to pay for the Egyptian cotton we’ve got coming back to us from
Mamaroneck and to pick up as many oranges as you can in Spain. Always pay cash
for naranjas.’

   ‘Naranjas?’

   ‘That’s what they call oranges in Spain, and these are
Spanish oranges. And—oh, yes. Don’t forget Piltdown Man.’

   ‘Piltdown Man?’

   ‘Yes, Piltdown Man. The Smithsonian Institution is not in a
position at this time to meet our price for a second Piltdown Man, but they are
looking forward to the death of a wealthy and beloved donor and—’

   ‘ Milo.’

   ‘ France wants all the parsley we can send them, and I think
we might as well, because we’ll need the francs for the lire for the pfennigs
for the dates when they get back. I’ve also ordered a tremendous shipment of
Peruvian balsa wood for distribution to each of the mess halls in the syndicate
on a pro rata basis.’

   ‘Balsa wood? What are the mess halls going to do with balsa
wood?’

   ‘Good balsa wood isn’t so easy to come by these days,
Colonel. I just didn’t think it was a good idea to pass up the chance to buy
it.’

   ‘No, I suppose not,’ Colonel Cathcart surmised vaguely with
the look of somebody seasick. ‘And I assume the price was right.’

   ‘The price,’ said Milo, ‘was outrageous—positively
exorbitant! But since we bought it from one of our own subsidiaries, we were
happy to pay it. Look after the hides.’

   ‘The hives?’

   ‘The hides.’

   ‘The hides?’

   ‘The hides. In Buenos Aires. They have to be tanned.’

   ‘Tanned?’

   ‘In Newfoundland. And shipped to Helsinki N.M.I.F. before the
spring thaw begins. Everything to Finland goes N.M.I.F. before the spring thaw
begins.’

   ‘No Money in Front?’ guessed Colonel Cathcart.

   ‘Good, Colonel. You have a gift, sir. And then there’s the
cork.’

   ‘The cork?’

   ‘That must go to New York, the shoes for Toulouse, the ham
for Siam, the nails from Wales, and the tangerines for New Orleans.’

   ‘ Milo.’

   ‘We have coals in Newcastle, sir.’ Colonel Cathcart threw up
his hands. ‘ Milo, stop!’ he cried, almost in tears. ‘It’s no use. You’re just
like I am—indispensable!’ He pushed his pencil aside and rose to his feet in
frantic exasperation. ‘ Milo, you can’t fly sixty-four more missions. You can’t
even fly one more mission. The whole system would fall apart if anything
happened to you.’ Milo nodded serenely with complacent gratification. ‘Sir, are
you forbidding me to fly any more combat missions?’

   ‘ Milo, I forbid you to fly any more combat missions,’
Colonel Cathcart declared in a tone of stern and inflexible authority.

   ‘But that’s not fair, sir,’ said Milo. ‘What about my record?
The other men are getting all the fame and medals and publicity. Why should I
be penalized just because I’m doing such a good job as mess officer?’

   ‘No, Milo, it isn’t fair. But I don’t see anything we can do
about it.’

   ‘Maybe we can get someone else to fly my missions for me.’

   ‘But maybe we can get someone else to fly your missions for
you,’ Colonel Cathcart suggested. ‘How about the striking coal miners in
Pennsylvania and West Virginia?’ Milo shook his head. ‘It would take too long
to train them. But why not the men in the squadron, sir? After all, I’m doing
this for them. They ought to be willing to do something for me in return.’

   ‘But why not the men in the squadron, Milo?’ Colonel Cathcart
exclaimed. ‘After all, you’re doing all this for them. They ought to be willing
to do something for you in return.’