Catch-22 (Catch-22 1)

'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.