Catch-22

by Joseph Heller

  '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.'

  'What's fair is fair.'

  'What's fair is fair.'

  'They could take turns, sir.'

  'They might even take turns flying your missions for you, Milo.'

  'Who gets the credit?'

  'You get the credit, Milo. And if a man wins a medal flying one of your missions, you get the medal.'

  'Who dies if he gets killed?'

  'Why, he dies, of course. After all, Milo, what's fair is fair. There's just one thing.'

  'You'll have to raise the number of missions.'

  'I might have to raise the number of missions again, and I'm not sure the men will fly them. They're still pretty sore because I jumped them to seventy. If I can get just one of the regular officers to fly more, the rest will probably follow.'

  'Nately
will fly more missions, sir,' Milo said. 'I was told in strictest confidence just a little while ago that he'll do anything he has to in order to remain overseas with a girl he's fallen in love with.'

  'But Nately will fly more!' Colonel Cathcart declared, and he brought his hands together in a resounding clap of victory. 'Yes, Nately will fly more. And this time I'm really going to jump the missions, right up to eighty, and really knock General Dreedle's eye out. And this is a good way to get that lousy rat Yossarian back into combat where he might get killed.'

  'Yossarian?' A tremor of deep concern passed over Milo's simple, homespun features, and he scratched the corner of his reddish-brown mustache thoughtfully.

  'Yeah, Yossarian. I hear he's going around saying that he's finished his missions and the war's over for him. Well, maybe he has finished his missions. But he hasn't finished your missions, has he? Ha! Ha! Has he got a surprise coming to him!'

  'Sir, Yossarian is a friend of mine,' Milo objected. 'I'd hate to be responsible for doing anything that would put him back in combat. I owe a lot to Yossarian. Isn't there any way we could make an exception of him?'

  'Oh, no, Milo.' Colonel Cathcart clucked sententiously, shocked by the suggestion. 'We must never play favorites. We must always treat every man alike.'

  'I'd give everything I own to Yossarian,' Milo persevered gamely on Yossarian's behalf. 'But since I don't own anything, I can't give everything to him, can I? So he'll just have to take his chances with the rest of the men, won't he?'

  'What's fair is fair, Milo.'

  'Yes, sir, what's fair is fair,' Milo agreed. 'Yossarian is no better than the other men, and he has no right to expect any special privileges, has he?'

  'No, Milo. What's fair is fair.' And there was no time for Yossarian to save himself from combat once Colonel Cathcart issued his announcement raising the missions to eighty late that same afternoon, no time to dissuade Nately from flying them or even to conspire again with Dobbs to murder Colonel Cathcart, for the alert sounded suddenly at dawn the next day and the men were rushed into the trucks before a decent breakfast could be prepared, and they were driven at top speed to the briefing room and then out to the airfield, where the clitterclattering fuel trucks were still pumping gasoline into the tanks of the planes and the scampering crews of armorers were toiling as swiftly as they could at hoisting the thousand-pound demolition bombs into the bomb bays. Everybody was running, and engines were turned on and warmed up as soon as the fuel trucks had finished.

  Intelligence had reported that a disabled Italian cruiser in drydock at La Spezia would be towed by the Germans that same morning to a channel at the entrance of the harbor and scuttled there to deprive the Allied armies of deep-water port facilities when they captured the city. For once, a military intelligence report proved accurate. The long vessel was halfway across the harbor when they flew in from the west, and broke it apart with direct hits from every flight that filled them all with waves of enormously satisfying group pride until they found themselves engulfed in great barrages of flak that rose from guns in every bend of the huge horseshoe of mountainous land below. Even Havermeyer resorted to the wildest evasive action he could command when he saw what a vast distance he had still to travel to escape, and Dobbs, at the pilot's controls in his formation, zigged when he should have zagged, skidding his plane into the plane alongside, and chewed off its tail. His wing broke off at the base, and his plane dropped like a rock and was almost out of sight in an instant. There was no fire, no smoke, not the slightest untoward noise. The remaining wing revolved as ponderously as a grinding cement mixer as the plane plummeted nose downward in a straight line at accelerating speed until it struck the water, which foamed open at the impact like a white water lily on the dark-blue sea, and washed back in a geyser of apple-green bubbles when the plane sank. It was over in a matter of seconds. There were no parachutes. And Nately, in the other plane, was killed too.

  Catch-22

  The Cellar

  Nately's death almost killed the chaplain. Chaplain Shipman was seated in his tent, laboring over his paperwork in his reading spectacles, when his phone rang and news of the mid-air collision was given to him from the field. His insides turned at once to dry clay. His hand was trembling as he put the phone down. His other hand began trembling. The disaster was too immense to contemplate. Twelve men killed--how ghastly, how very, very awful! His feeling of terror grew. He prayed instinctively that Yossarian, Nately, Hungry Joe and his other friends would not be listed among the victims, then berated himself repentantly, for to pray for their safety was to pray for the death of other young men he did not even know. It was too late to pray; yet that was all he knew how to do. His heart was pounding with a noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere outside, and he knew he would never sit in a dentist's chair again, never glance at a surgical tool, never witness an automobile accident or hear a voice shout at night, without experiencing the same violent thumping in his chest and dreading that he was going to die. He would never watch another fist fight without fearing he was going to faint and crack his skull open on the pavement or suffer a fatal heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage. He wondered if he would ever see his wife again or his three small children. He wondered if he ever should see his wife again, now that Captain Black had planted in his mind such strong doubts about the fidelity and character of all women. There were so many other men, he felt, who could prove more satisfying to her sexually. When he thought of death now, he always thought of his wife, and when he thought of his wife he always thought of losing her.

  In another minute the chaplain felt strong enough to rise and walk with glum reluctance to the tent next door for Sergeant Whitcomb. They drove in Sergeant Whitcomb's jeep. The chaplain made fists of his hands to keep them from shaking as they lay in his lap. He ground his teeth together and tried not to hear as Sergeant Whitcomb chirruped exultantly over the tragic event. Twelve men killed meant twelve more form letters of condolence that could be mailed in one bunch to the next of kin over Colonel Cathcart's signature, giving Sergeant Whitcomb hope of getting an article on Colonel Cathcart into The Saturday Evening Post in time for Easter.

  At the field a heavy silence prevailed, overpowering motion like a ruthless, insensate spell holding in thrall the only beings who might break it. The chaplain was in awe. He had never beheld such a great, appalling stillness before. Almost two hundred tired, gaunt, downcast men stood holding their parachute packs in a somber and unstirring crowd outside the briefing room, their faces staring blankly in different angles of stunned dejection. They seemed unwilling to go, unable to move. The chaplain was acutely conscious of the faint noise his footsteps made as he approached. His eyes searched hurriedly, frantically, through the immobile maze of limp figures. He spied Yossarian finally with a feeling of immense joy, and then his mouth gaped open slowly in unbearable horror as he noted Yossarian's vivid, beaten, grimy look of deep, drugged despair. He understood at once, recoiling in pain from the realization and shaking his head with a protesting and imploring grimace, that Nately was dead. The knowledge struck him with a numbing shock. A sob broke from him. The blood drained from his legs, and he thought he was going to drop. Nately was dead. All hope that he was mistaken was washed away by the sound of Nately's name emerging with recurring clarity now from the almost inaudible babble of murmuring voices that he was suddenly aware of for the first time. Nately was dead: the boy had been killed. A whimpering sound rose in the chaplain's throat, and his jaw began to quiver. His eyes filled with tears, and he was crying. He started toward Yossarian on tiptoe to mourn beside him and share his wordless grief. At that moment a hand grabbed him roughly around the arm and a brusque voice demanded, 'Chaplain Shipman?' He turned with surprise to face a stout, pugnacious colonel with a large head and mustache and a smooth, florid skin. He had never seen the man before. 'Yes. What is it?' The fingers grasping the chaplain's arm were hurting him, and he tried in vain to squirm loose.

  'Come along.' The chaplain pulled back i
n frightened confusion. 'Where? Why? Who are you, anyway?'

  'You'd better come along with us, Father,' a lean, hawk-faced major on the chaplain's other side intoned with reverential sorrow. 'We're from the government. We want to ask you some questions.'

  'What kind of questions? What's the matter?'

  'Aren't you Chaplain Shipman?' demanded the obese colonel.

  'He's the one,' Sergeant Whitcomb answered.

  'Go on along with them,' Captain Black called out to the chaplain with a hostile and contemptuous sneer. 'Go on into the car if you know what's good for you.' Hands were drawing the chaplain away irresistibly. He wanted to shout for help to Yossarian, who seemed too far away to hear. Some of the men nearby were beginning to look at him with awakening curiosity. The chaplain bent his face away with burning shame and allowed himself to be led into the rear of a staff car and seated between the fat colonel with the large, pink face and the skinny, unctuous, despondent major. He automatically held a wrist out to each, wondering for a moment if they wanted to handcuff him. Another officer was already in the front seat. A tall M.P. with a whistle and a white helmet got in behind the wheel. The chaplain did not dare raise his eyes until the closed car had lurched from the area and the speeding wheels were whining on the bumpy blacktop road.

  'Where are you taking me?' he asked in a voice soft with timidity and guilt, his gaze still averted. The notion came to him that they were holding him to blame for the mid-air crash and the death of Nately. 'What have I done?'

  'Why don't you keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions?' said the colonel.

  'Don't talk to him that way,' said the major. 'It isn't necessary to be so disrespectful.'

  'Then tell him to keep his trap shut and let us ask the questions.'

  'Father, please keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions,' urged the major sympathetically. 'It will be better for you.'

  'It isn't necessary to call me Father,' said the chaplain. 'I'm not a Catholic.'

  'Neither am I, Father,' said the major. 'It's just that I'm a very devout person, and I like to call all men of God Father.'