Catch-22

by Joseph Heller

  He had never been quite sure about Major--de Coverley, either, who, when he was not away renting apartments or kidnaping foreign laborers, had nothing more pressing to do than pitch horseshoes. Major Major often paid strict attention to the horseshoes falling softly against the earth or riding down around the small steel pegs in the ground. He peeked out at Major--de Coverley for hours and marveled that someone so august had nothing more important to do. He was often tempted to join Major--de Coverley, but pitching horseshoes all day long seemed almost as dull as signing 'Major Major Major' to official documents, and Major-de Coverley's countenance was so forbidding that Major Major was in awe of approaching him.

  Major Major wondered about his relationship to Major--de Coverley and about Major--de Coverley's relationship to him. He knew that Major--de Coverley was his executive officer, but he did not know what that meant, and he could not decide whether in Major--de Coverley he was blessed with a lenient superior or cursed with a delinquent subordinate. He did not want to ask Sergeant Towser, of whom he was secretly afraid, and there was no one else he could ask, least of all Major--de Coverley. Few people ever dared approach Major--de Coverley about anything and the only officer foolish enough to pitch one of his horseshoes was stricken the very next day with the worst case of Pianosan crud that Gus or Wes or even Doc Daneeka had ever seen or even heard about. Everyone was positive the disease had been inflicted upon the poor officer in retribution by Major--de Coverley, although no one was sure how.

  Most of the official documents that came to Major Major's desk did not concern him at all. The vast majority consisted of allusions to prior communications which Major Major had never seen or heard of. There was never any need to look them up, for the instructions were invariably to disregard. In the space of a single productive minute, therefore, he might endorse twenty separate documents each advising him to pay absolutely no attention to any of the others. From General Peckem's office on the mainland came prolix bulletins each day headed by such cheery homilies as 'Procrastination is the Thief of Time' and 'Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.' General Peckem's communications about cleanliness and procrastination made Major Major feel like a filthy procrastinator, and he always got those out of the way as quickly as he could. The only official documents that interested him were those occasional ones pertaining to the unfortunate second lieutenant who had been killed on the mission over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived on Pianosa and whose partly unpacked belongings were still in Yossarian's tent. Since the unfortunate lieutenant had reported to the operations tent instead of to the orderly room, Sergeant Towser had decided that it would be safest to report him as never having reported to the squadron at all, and the occasional documents relating to him dealt with the fact that he seemed to have vanished into thin air, which, in one way, was exactly what did happen to him. In the long run, Major Major was grateful for the official documents that came to his desk, for sitting in his office signing them all day long was a lot better than sitting in his office all day long not signing them. They gave him something to do.

  Inevitably, every document he signed came back with a fresh page added for a new signature by him after intervals of from two to ten days. They were always much thicker than formerly, for in between the sheet bearing his last endorsement and the sheet added for his new endorsement were the sheets bearing the most recent endorsements of all the other officers in scattered locations who were also occupied in signing their names to that same official document. Major Major grew despondent as he watched simple communications swell prodigiously into huge manuscripts. No matter how many times he signed one, it always came back for still another signature, and he began to despair of ever being free of any of them. One day--it was the day after the C.I.D. man's first visit--Major Major signed Washington Irving's name to one of the documents instead of his own, just to see how it would feel. He liked it. He liked it so much that for the rest of that afternoon he did the same with all the official documents. It was an act of impulsive frivolity and rebellion for which he knew afterward he would be punished severely. The next morning he entered his office in trepidation and waited to see what would happen. Nothing happened.

  He had sinned, and it was good, for none of the documents to which he had signed Washington Irving's name ever came back! Here, at last, was progress, and Major Major threw himself into his new career with uninhibited gusto. Signing Washington Irving's name to official documents was not much of a career, perhaps, but it was less monotonous than signing 'Major Major Major.' When Washington Irving did grow monotonous, he could reverse the order and sign Irving Washington until that grew monotonous. And he was getting something done, for none of the documents signed with either of these names ever came back to the squadron.

  What did come back, eventually, was a second C.I.D. man, masquerading as a pilot. The men knew he was a C.I.D. man because he confided to them he was and urged each of them not to reveal his true identity to any of the other men to whom he had already confided that he was a C.I.D. man.

  'You're the only one in the squadron who knows I'm a C.I.D. man,' he confided to Major Major, 'and it's absolutely essential that it remain a secret so that my efficiency won't be impaired. Do you understand?'

  'Sergeant Towser knows.'

  'Yes, I know. I had to tell him in order to get in to see you. But I know he won't tell a soul under any circumstances.'

  'He told me,' said Major Major. 'He told me there was a C.I.D. man outside to see me.'

  'That bastard. I'll have to throw a security check on him. I wouldn't leave any top-secret documents lying around here if I were you. At least not until I make my report.'

  'I don't get any top-secret documents,' said Major Major.

  'That's the kind I mean. Lock them in your cabinet where Sergeant Towser can't get his hands on them.'

  'Sergeant Towser has the only key to the cabinet.'

  'I'm afraid we're wasting time,' said the second C.I.D. man rather stiffly. He was a brisk, pudgy, high-strung person whose movements were swift and certain. He took a number of photostats out of a large red expansion envelope he had been hiding conspicuously beneath a leather flight jacket painted garishly with pictures of airplanes flying through orange bursts of flak and with orderly rows of little bombs signifying fifty-five combat missions flown. 'Have you ever seen any of these?' Major Major looked with a blank expression at copies of personal correspondence from the hospital on which the censoring officer had written 'Washington Irving' or 'Irving Washington.'

  'No.'

  'How about these?' Major Major gazed next at copies of official documents addressed to him to which he had been signing the same signatures.

  'No.'

  'Is the man who signed these names in your squadron?'

  'Which one? There are two names here.'

  'Either one. We figure that Washington Irving and Irving Washington are one man and that he's using two names just to throw us off the track. That's done very often you know.'

  'I don't think there's a man with either of those names in my squadron.' A look of disappointment crossed the second C.I.D. man's face. 'He's a lot cleverer than we thought,' he observed. 'He's using a third name and posing as someone else. And I think... yes, I think I know what that third name is.' With excitement and inspiration, he held another photostat out for Major Major to study. 'How about this?' Major Major bent forward slightly and saw a copy of the piece of V mail from which Yossarian had blacked out everything but the name Mary and on which he had written, 'I yearn for you tragically. R. O. Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.' Major Major shook his head.

  'I've never seen it before.'

  'Do you know who R. O. Shipman is?'

  'He's the group chaplain.'

  'That locks it up,' said the second C.I.D. man. 'Washington Irving is the group chaplain.' Major Major felt a twinge of alarm. 'R. O. Shipman is the group chaplain,' he corrected.

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why should the group
chaplain write this on a letter?'

  'Perhaps somebody else wrote it and forged his name.'

  'Why should somebody want to forge the group chaplain's name?'

  'To escape detection.'

  'You may be right,' the second C.I.D. man decided after an instant's hesitation, and smacked his lips crisply. 'Maybe we're confronted with a gang, with two men working together who just happen to have opposite names. Yes, I'm sure that's it. One of them here in the squadron, one of them up at the hospital and one of them with the chaplain. That makes three men, doesn't it? Are you absolutely sure you never saw any of these official documents before?'

  'I would have signed them if I had.'

  'With whose name?' asked the second C.I.D. man cunningly. 'Yours or Washington Irving's?'

  'With my own name,' Major Major told him. 'I don't even know Washington Irving's name.' The second C.I.D. man broke into a smile.

  'Major, I'm glad you're in the clear. It means we'll be able to work together, and I'm going to need every man I can get. Somewhere in the European theater of operations is a man who's getting his hands on communications addressed to you. Have you any idea who it can be?'

  'No.'

  'Well, I have a pretty good idea,' said the second C.I.D. man, and leaned forward to whisper confidentially. 'That bastard Towser. Why else would he go around shooting his mouth off about me? Now, you keep your eyes open and let me know the minute you hear anyone even talking about Washington Irving. I'll throw a security check on the chaplain and everyone else around here.' The moment he was gone, the first C.I.D. man jumped into Major Major's office through the window and wanted to know who the second C.I.D. man was. Major Major barely recognized him.

  'He was a C.I.D. man,' Major Major told him.

  'Like hell he was,' said the first C.I.D. man. 'I'm the C.I.D. man around here.' Major Major barely recognized him because he was wearing a faded maroon corduroy bathrobe with open seams under both arms, linty flannel pajamas, and worn house slippers with one flapping sole. This was regulation hospital dress, Major Major recalled. The man had added about twenty pounds and seemed bursting with good health.

  'I'm really a very sick man,' he whined. 'I caught cold in the hospital from a fighter pilot and came down with a very serious case of pneumonia.'

  'I'm very sorry,' Major Major said.

  'A lot of good that does me,' the C.I.D. man sniveled. 'I don't want your sympathy. I just want you to know what I'm going through. I came down to warn you that Washington Irving seems to have shifted his base of operations from the hospital to your squadron. You haven't heard anyone around here talking about Washington Irving, have you?'

  'As a matter of fact, I have,' Major Major answered. 'That man who was just in here. He was talking about Washington Irving.'

  'Was he really?' the first C.I.D. man cried with delight. 'This might be just what we needed to crack the case wide open! You keep him under surveillance twenty-four hours a day while I rush back to the hospital and write my superiors for further instructions.' The C.I.D. man jumped out of Major Major's office through the window and was gone.

  A minute later, the flap separating Major Major's office from the orderly room flew open and the second C.I.D. man was back, puffing frantically in haste. Gasping for breath, he shouted, 'I just saw a man in red pajamas jumping out of your window and go running up the road! Didn't you see him?'

  'He was here talking to me,' Major Major answered.

  'I thought that looked mighty suspicious, a man jumping out the window in red pajamas.' The man paced about the small office in vigorous circles. 'At first I thought it was you, hightailing it for Mexico. But now I see it wasn't you. He didn't say anything about Washington Irving, did he?'

  'As a matter of fact,' said Major Major, 'he did.'

  'He did?' cried the second C.I.D. man. 'That's fine! This might be just the break we needed to crack the case wide open. Do you know where we can find him?'

  'At the hospital. He's really a very sick man.'

  'That's great!' exclaimed the second C.I.D. man. 'I'll go right up there after him. It would be best if I went incognito. I'll go explain the situation at the medical tent and have them send me there as a patient.'

  'They won't send me to the hospital as a patient unless I'm sick,' he reported back to Major Major. 'Actually, I am pretty sick. I've been meaning to turn myself in for a checkup, and this will be a good opportunity. I'll go back to the medical tent and tell them I'm sick, and I'll get sent to the hospital that way.'

  'Look what they did to me,' he reported back to Major Major with purple gums. His distress was inconsolable. He carried his shoes and socks in his hands, and his toes had been painted with gentian-violet solution, too. 'Who ever heard of a C.I.D. man with purple gums?' he moaned.

  He walked away from the orderly room with his head down and tumbled into a slit trench and broke his nose. His temperature was still normal, but Gus and Wes made an exception of him and sent him to the hospital in an ambulance.

  Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie. Had he told the truth to the second C.I.D. man, he would have found himself in trouble. Instead he had lied and he was free to continue his work.

  He became more circumspect in his work as a result of the visit from the second C.I.D. man. He did all his signing with his left hand and only while wearing the dark glasses and false mustache he had used unsuccessfully to help him begin playing basketball again. As an additional precaution, he made a happy switch from Washington Irving to John Milton. John Milton was supple and concise. Like Washington Irving, he could be reversed with good effect whenever he grew monotonous. Furthermore, he enabled Major Major to double his output, for John Milton was so much shorter than either his own name or Washington Irving's and took so much less time to write. John Milton proved fruitful in still one more respect. He was versatile, and Major Major soon found himself incorporating the signature in fragments of imaginary dialogues. Thus, typical endorsements on the official documents might read, 'John Milton is a sadist' or 'Have you seen Milton, John?' One signature of which he was especially proud read, 'Is anybody in the John, Milton?' John Milton threw open whole new vistas filled with charming, inexhaustible possibilities that promised to ward off monotony forever. Major Major went back to Washington Irving when John Milton grew monotonous.

  Major Major had bought the dark glasses and false mustache in Rome in a final, futile attempt to save himself from the swampy degradation into which he was steadily sinking. First there had been the awful humiliation of the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, when not one of the thirty or forty people circulating competitive loyalty oaths would even allow him to sign. Then, just when that was blowing over, there was the matter of Clevinger's plane disappearing so mysteriously in thin air with every member of the crew, and blame for the strange mishap centering balefully on him because he had never signed any of the loyalty oaths.

  The dark glasses had large magenta rims. The false black mustache was a flamboyant organ-grinder's, and he wore them both to the basketball game one day when he felt he could endure his loneliness no longer. He affected an air of jaunty familiarity as he sauntered to the court and prayed silently that he would not be recognized. The others pretended not to recognize him, and he began to have fun. Just as he finished congratulating himself on his innocent ruse he was bumped hard by one of his opponents and knocked to his knees. Soon he was bumped hard again, and it dawned on him that they did recognize him and that they were using his disguise as a license to elbow, trip and maul him. They did not want him at all. And just as he did realize this, the players on his team fused instinctively with the players on the other team into a single, howling, bloodthirsty mob that descended upon him from all sides with foul curses and swinging fists. They knocked him to the ground, kicked him while he was on the ground, attacked him again
after he had struggled blindly to his feet. He covered his face with his hands and could not see. They swarmed all over each other in their frenzied compulsion to bludgeon him, kick him, gouge him, trample him. He was pummeled spinning to the edge of the ditch and sent slithering down on his head and shoulders. At the bottom he found his footing, clambered up the other wall and staggered away beneath the hail of hoots and stones with which they pelted him until he lurched into shelter around a corner of the orderly room tent. His paramount concern throughout the entire assault was to keep his dark glasses and false mustache in place so that he might continue pretending he was somebody else and be spared the dreaded necessity of having to confront them with his authority.

  Back in his office, he wept; and when he finished weeping he washed the blood from his mouth and nose, scrubbed the dirt from the abrasions on his cheek and forehead, and summoned Sergeant Towser.

  'From now on,' he said, 'I don't want anyone to come in to see me while I'm here. Is that clear?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Sergeant Towser. 'Does that include me?'

  'Yes.'

  'I see. Will that be all?'

  'Yes.'

  'What shall I say to the people who do come to see you while you're here?'

  'Tell them I'm in and ask them to wait.'

  'Yes, sir. For how long?'

  'Until I've left.'

  'And then what shall I do with them?'

  'I don't care.'

  'May I send them in to see you after you've left?'