Catch-22

by Joseph Heller

  'Get word to the office right away to kill that directive I just issued ordering the men to wear neckties on the combat missions,' Colonel Cathcart whispered to Colonel Korn urgently out of the corner of his mouth.

  'I told you not to do it,' Colonel Korn snickered. 'But you just wouldn't listen to me.'

  'Shhhh!' Colonel Cathcart cautioned. 'Goddammit, Korn, what did you do to my back?' Colonel Korn snickered again.

  General Dreedle's nurse always followed General Dreedle everywhere he went, even into the briefing room just before the mission to Avignon, where she stood with her asinine smile at the side of the platform and bloomed like a fertile oasis at General Dreedle's shoulder in her pink-and-green uniform. Yossarian looked at her and fell in love, desperately. His spirits sank, leaving him empty inside and numb. He sat gazing in clammy want at her full red lips and dimpled cheeks as he listened to Major Danby describe in a monotonous, didactic male drone the heavy concentrations of flak awaiting them at Avignon, and he moaned in deep despair suddenly at the thought that he might never see again this lovely woman to whom he had never spoken a word and whom he now loved so pathetically. He throbbed and ached with sorrow, fear and desire as he stared at her; she was so beautiful. He worshiped the ground she stood on. He licked his parched, thirsting lips with a sticky tongue and moaned in misery again, loudly enough this time to attract the startled, searching glances of the men sitting around him on the rows of crude wooden benches in their chocolate-colored coveralls and stitched white parachute harnesses.

  Nately turned to him quickly with alarm. 'What is it?' he whispered. 'What's the matter?' Yossarian did not hear him. He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret. General Dreedle's nurse was only a little chubby, and his senses were stuffed to congestion with the yellow radiance of her hair and the unfelt pressure of her soft short fingers, with the rounded, untasted wealth of her nubile breasts in her Army-pink shirt that was opened wide at the throat and with the rolling, ripened, triangular confluences of her belly and thighs in her tight, slick forest-green gabardine officer's pants. He drank her in insatiably from head to painted toenail. He never wanted to lose her. 'Oooooooooooooh,' he moaned again, and this time the whole room rippled at his quavering, drawn-out cry. A wave of startled uneasiness broke over the officers on the dais, and even Major Danby, who had begun synchronizing the watches, was distracted momentarily as he counted out the seconds and almost had to begin again. Nately followed Yossarian's transfixed gaze down the long frame auditorium until he came to General Dreedle's nurse. He blanched with trepidation when he guessed what was troubling Yossarian.

  'Cut it out, will you?' Nately warned in a fierce whisper.

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' Yossarian moaned a fourth time, this time loudly enough for everyone to hear him distinctly.

  'Are you crazy?' Nately hissed vehemently. 'You'll get into trouble.'

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' Dunbar answered Yossarian from the opposite end of the room.

  Nately recognized Dunbar's voice. The situation was now out of control, and he turned away with a small moan. 'Ooh.'

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' Dunbar moaned back at him.

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' Nately moaned out loud in exasperation when he realized that he had just moaned.

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' Dunbar moaned back at him again.

  'Ooooooooooooooooooooh,' someone entirely new chimed in from another section of the room, and Nately's hair stood on end.

  Yossarian and Dunbar both replied while Nately cringed and hunted about futilely for some hole in which to hide and take Yossarian with him. A sprinkling of people were smothering laughter. An elfin impulse possessed Nately and he moaned intentionally the next time there was a lull. Another new voice answered. The flavor of disobedience was titillating, and Nately moaned deliberately again, the next time he could squeeze one in edgewise. Still another new voice echoed him. The room was boiling irrepressibly into bedlam. An eerie hubbub of voices was rising. Feet were scuffled, and things began to drop from people's fingers--pencils, computers, map cases, clattering steel flak helmets. A number of men who were not moaning were now giggling openly, and there was no telling how far the unorganized insurrection of moaning might have gone if General Dreedle himself had not come forward to quell it, stepping out determinedly in the center of the platform directly in front of Major Danby, who, with his earnest, persevering head down, was still concentrating on his wrist watch and saying, '...twenty-five seconds... twenty... fifteen...' General Dreedle's great, red domineering face was gnarled with perplexity and oaken with awesome resolution.

  'That will be all, men,' he ordered tersely, his eyes glaring with disapproval and his square jaw firm, and that's all there was. 'I run a fighting outfit,' he told them sternly, when the room had grown absolutely quiet and the men on the benches were all cowering sheepishly, 'and there'll be no more moaning in this group as long as I'm in command. Is that clear?' It was clear to everybody but Major Danby, who was still concentrating on his wrist watch and counting down the seconds aloud. '...four... three... two... one... time!' called out Major Danby, and raised his eyes triumphantly to discover that no one had been listening to him and that he would have to begin all over again. 'Ooooh,' he moaned in frustration.

  'What was that?' roared General Dreedle incredulously, and whirled around in a murderous rage upon Major Danby, who staggered back in terrified confusion and began to quail and perspire. 'Who is this man?'

  'M-major Danby, sir,' Colonel Cathcart stammered. 'My group operations officer.'

  'Take him out and shoot him,' ordered General Dreedle.

  'S-sir?'

  'I said take him out and shoot him. Can't you hear?'

  'Yes, sir!' Colonel Cathcart responded smartly, swallowing hard, and turned in a brisk manner to his chauffeur and his meteorologist. 'Take Major Danby out and shoot him.'

  'S-sir?' his chauffeur and his meteorologist stammered.

  'I said take Major Danby out and shoot him,' Colonel Cathcart snapped. 'Can't you hear?' The two young lieutenants nodded lumpishly and gaped at each other in stunned and flaccid reluctance, each waiting for the other to initiate the procedure of taking Major Danby outside and shooting him. Neither had ever taken Major Danby outside and shot him before. They inched their way dubiously toward Major Danby from opposite sides. Major Danby was white with fear. His legs collapsed suddenly and he began to fall, and the two young lieutenants sprang forward and seized him under both arms to save him from slumping to the floor. Now that they had Major Danby, the rest seemed easy, but there were no guns. Major Danby began to cry. Colonel Cathcart wanted to rush to his side and comfort him, but did not want to look like a sissy in front of General Dreedle. He remembered that Appleby and Havermeyer always brought their.45 automatics on the missions, and he began to scan the rows of men in search of them.

  As soon as Major Danby began to cry, Colonel Moodus, who had been vacillating wretchedly on the sidelines, could restrain himself no longer and stepped out diffidently toward General Dreedle with a sickly air of self-sacrifice. 'I think you'd better wait a minute, Dad,' he suggested hesitantly. 'I don't think you can shoot him.' General Dreedle was infuriated by his intervention. 'Who the hell says I can't?' he thundered pugnaciously in a voice loud enough to rattle the whole building. Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with embarrassment, bent close to whisper into his ear. 'Why the hell can't I?' General Dreedle bellowed. Colonel Moodus whispered some more. 'You mean I can't shoot anyone I want to?' General Dreedle demanded with uncompromising indignation. He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. 'Is that a fact?' he inquired, his rage tamed by curiosity.

  'Yes, Dad. I'm afraid it is.'

  'I guess you think you're pretty goddam smart, don't you?' General Dreedle lashed out at Colonel Moodus suddenly.

  Colonel Moodus turned crimson again. 'No, Dad, it isn't--'

  'All right, let the insubordinate son of a bitch go,' General Dreedle snarled, turning bitter
ly away from his son-in-law and barking peevishly at Colonel Cathcart's chauffeur and Colonel Cathcart's meteorologist. 'But get him out of this building and keep him out. And let's continue this goddam briefing before the war ends. I've never seen so much incompetence.' Colonel Cathcart nodded lamely at General Dreedle and signaled his men hurriedly to push Major Danby outside the building. As soon as Major Danby had been pushed outside, though, there was no one to continue the briefing. Everyone gawked at everyone else in oafish surprise. General Dreedle turned purple with rage as nothing happened. Colonel Cathcart had no idea what to do. He was about to begin moaning aloud when Colonel Korn came to the rescue by stepping forward and taking control. Colonel Cathcart sighed with enormous, tearful relief, almost overwhelmed with gratitude.

  'Now, men, we're going to synchronize our watches,' Colonel Korn began promptly in a sharp, commanding manner, rolling his eyes flirtatiously in General Dreedle's direction. 'We're going to synchronize our watches one time and one time only, and if it doesn't come off in that one time, General Dreedle and I are going to want to know why. Is that clear?' He fluttered his eyes toward General Dreedle again to make sure his plug had registered. 'Now set your watches for nine-eighteen.' Colonel Korn synchronized their watches without a single hitch and moved ahead with confidence. He gave the men the colors of the day and reviewed the weather conditions with an agile, flashy versatility, casting sidelong, simpering looks at General Dreedle every few seconds to draw increased encouragement from the excellent impression he saw he was making. Preening and pruning himself effulgendy and strutting vaingloriously about the platform as he picked up momentum, he gave the men the colors of the day again and shifted nimbly into a rousing pep talk on the importance of the bridge at Avignon to the war effort and the obligation of each man on the mission to place love of country above love of life. When his inspiring dissertation was finished, he gave the men the colors of the day still one more time, stressed the angle of approach and reviewed the weather conditions again. Colonel Korn felt himself at the full height of his powers. He belonged in the spotlight.

  Comprehension dawned slowly on Colonel Cathcart; when it came, he was struck dumb. His face grew longer and longer as he enviously watched Colonel Korn's treachery continue, and he was almost afraid to listen when General Dreedle moved up beside him and, in a whisper blustery enough to be heard throughout the room, demanded, 'Who is that man?' Colonel Cathcart answered with wan foreboding, and General Dreedle then cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered something that made Colonel Cathcart's face glow with immense joy. Colonel Korn saw and quivered with uncontainable rapture. Had he just been promoted in the field by General Dreedle to full colonel? He could not endure the suspense. With a masterful flourish, he brought the briefing to a close and turned expectantly to receive ardent congratulations from General Dreedle--who was already striding out of the building without a glance backward, trailing his nurse and Colonel Moodus behind him. Colonel Korn was stunned by this disappointing sight, but only for an instant. His eyes found Colonel Cathcart, who was still standing erect in a grinning trance, and he rushed over jubilantly and began pulling on his arm.

  'What'd he say about me?' he demanded excitedly in a fervor of proud and blissful anticipation. 'What did General Dreedle say?'

  'He wanted to know who you were.'

  'I know that. I know that. But what'd he say about me? What'd he say?'

  'You make him sick.'

  Catch-22

  Milo the Mayor

  That was the mission on which Yossarian lost his nerve. Yossarian lost his nerve on the mission to Avignon because Snowden lost his guts, and Snowden lost his guts because their pilot that day was Huple, who was only fifteen years old, and their co-pilot was Dobbs, who was even worse and who wanted Yossarian to join with him in a plot to murder Colonel Cathcart. Huple was a good pilot, Yossarian knew, but he was only a kid, and Dobbs had no confidence in him, either, and wrested the controls away without warning after they had dropped their bombs, going berserk in mid-air and tipping the plane over into that heart-stopping, ear-splitting, indescribably petrifying fatal dive that tore Yossarian's earphones free from their connection and hung him helplessly to the roof of the nose by the top of his head.

  Oh, God! Yossarian had shrieked soundlessly as he felt them all falling. Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! he had shrieked beseechingly through lips that could not open as the plane fell and he dangled without weight by the top of his head until Huple managed to seize the controls back and leveled the plane out down inside the crazy, craggy, patchwork canyon of crashing antiaircraft fire from which they had climbed away and from which they would now have to escape again. Almost at once there was a thud and a hole the size of a big fist in the plexiglass. Yossarian's cheeks were stinging with shimmering splinters. There was no blood.

  'What happened? What happened?' he cried, and trembled violently when he could not hear his own voice in his ears. He was cowed by the empty silence on the intercom and almost too horrified to move as he crouched like a trapped mouse on his hands and knees and waited without daring to breathe until he finally spied the gleaming cylindrical jack plug of his headset swinging back and forth in front of his eyes and jammed it back into its receptacle with fingers that rattled. Oh, God! he kept shrieking with no abatement of terror as the flak thumped and mushroomed all about him. Oh, God!

  Dobbs was weeping when Yossarian jammed his jack plug back into the intercom system and was able to hear again.

  'Help him, help him,' Dobbs was sobbing. 'Help him, help him.'

  'Help who? Help who?' Yossarian called back. 'Help who?'

  'The bombardier, the bombardier,' Dobbs cried. 'He doesn't answer. Help the bombardier, help the bombardier.'

  'I'm the bombardier,' Yossarian cried back at him. 'I'm the bombardier. I'm all right. I'm all right.'

  'Then help him, help him,' Dobbs wept. 'Help him, help him.'

  'Help who? Help who?'

  'The radio-gunner,' Dobbs begged. 'Help the radio-gunner.'

  'I'm cold,' Snowden whimpered feebly over the intercom system then in a bleat of plaintive agony. 'Please help me. I'm cold.' And Yossarian crept out through the crawlway and climbed up over the bomb bay and down into the rear section of the plane where Snowden lay on the floor wounded and freezing to death in a yellow splash of sunlight near the new tail-gunner lying stretched out on the floor beside him in a dead faint.

  Dobbs was the worst pilot in the world and knew it, a shattered wreck of a virile young man who was continually striving to convince his superiors that he was no longer fit to pilot a plane. None of his superiors would listen, and it was the day the number of missions was raised to sixty that Dobbs stole into Yossarian's tent while Orr was out looking for gaskets and disclosed the plot he had formulated to murder Colonel Cathcart. He needed Yossarian's assistance.

  'You want us to kill him in cold blood?' Yossarian objected.

  'That's right,' Dobbs agreed with an optimistic smile, encouraged by Yossarian's ready grasp of the situation. 'We'll shoot him to death with the Luger I brought back from Sicily that nobody knows I've got.'

  'I don't think I could do it,' Yossarian concluded, after weighing the idea in silence awhile.

  Dobbs was astonished. 'Why not?'

  'Look. Nothing would please me more than to have the son of a bitch break his neck or get killed in a crash or to find out that someone else had shot him to death. But I don't think I could kill him.'

  'He'd do it to you,' Dobbs argued. 'In fact, you're the one who told me he is doing it to us by keeping us in combat so long.'

  'But I don't think I could do it to him. He's got a right to live, too, I guess.'

  'Not as long as he's trying to rob you and me of our right to live. What's the matter with you?' Dobbs was flabbergasted. 'I used to listen to you arguing that same thing with Clevinger. And look what happened to him. Right inside that cloud.'

  'Stop shouting, will you?' Yossarian shushed him.

&nbs
p; 'I'm not shouting!' Dobbs shouted louder, his face red with revolutionary fervor. His eyes and nostrils were running, and his palpitating crimson lower lip was splattered with a foamy dew. 'There must have been close to a hundred men in the group who had finished their fifty-five missions when he raised the number to sixty. There must have been at least another hundred like you with just a couple more to fly. He's going to kill us all if we let him go on forever. We've got to kill him first.' Yossarian nodded expressionlessly, without committing himself. 'Do you think we could get away with it?'

  'I've got it all worked out. I--'

  'Stop shouting, for Christ's sake!'

  'I'm not shouting. I've got it--'

  'Will you stop shouting!'

  'I've got it all worked out,' Dobbs whispered, gripping the side of Orr's cot with white-knuckled hands to constrain them from waving. 'Thursday morning when he's due back from that goddam farmhouse of his in the hills, I'll sneak up through the woods to that hairpin turn in the road and hide in the bushes. He has to slow down there, and I can watch the road in both directions to make sure there's no one else around. When I see him coming, I'll shove a big log out into the road to make him stop his jeep. Then I'll step out of the bushes with my Luger and shoot him in the head until he's dead. I'll bury the gun, come back down through the woods to the squadron and go about my business just like everybody else. What could possibly go wrong?' Yossarian had followed each step attentively. 'Where do I come in?' he asked in puzzlement.

  'I couldn't do it without you,' Dobbs explained. 'I need you to tell me to go ahead.' Yossarian found it hard to believe him. 'Is that all you want me to do? Just tell you to go ahead?'

  'That's all I need from you,' Dobbs answered. 'Just tell me to go ahead and I'll blow his brains out all by myself the day after tomorrow.' His voice was accelerating with emotion and rising again. 'I'd like to shoot Colonel Korn in the head, too, while we're at it, although I'd like to spare Major Danby, if that's all right with you. Then I'd murder Appleby and Havermeyer also, and after we finish murdering Appleby and Havermeyer I'd like to murder McWatt.'