'Sitting.'
'In the squadron, I mean. Not in the tent. Don't be such a goddam wise guy. Can you figure out what a doctor is doing here in the squadron?'
'They've got the doors to the medical tents nailed shut in the other squadrons,' Dunbar remarked.
'If anyone sick walks through my door I'm going to ground him,' Dr. Stubbs vowed. 'I don't give a damn what they say.'
'You can't ground anyone,' Dunbar reminded. 'Don't you know the orders?'
'I'll knock him flat on his ass with an injection and really ground him.' Dr. Stubbs laughed with sardonic amusement at the prospect. 'They think they can order sick call out of existence. The bastards. Ooops, there it goes again.' The rain began falling again, first in the trees, then in the mud puddles, then, faintly, like a soothing murmur, on the tent top. 'Everything's wet,' Dr. Stubbs observed with revulsion. 'Even the latrines and urinals are backing up in protest. The whole goddam world smells like a charnel house.' The silence seemed bottomless when he stopped talking. Night fell. There was a sense of vast isolation.
'Turn on the light,' Dunbar suggested.
'There is no light. I don't feel like starting my generator. I used to get a big kick out of saving people's lives. Now I wonder what the hell's the point, since they all have to die anyway.
'Oh, there's a point, all right,' Dunbar assured him.
'Is there? What is the point?'
'The point is to keep them from dying for as long as you can.'
'Yeah, but what's the point, since they all have to die anyway?'
'The trick is not to think about that.'
'Never mind the trick. What the hell's the point?' Dunbar pondered in silence for a few moments. 'Who the hell knows?' Dunbar didn't know. Bologna should have exulted Dunbar, because the minutes dawdled and the hours dragged like centuries. Instead it tortured him, because he knew he was going to be killed.
'Do you really want some more codeine?' Dr. Stubbs asked.
'It's for my friend Yossarian. He's sure he's going to be killed.'
'Yossarian? Who the hell is Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian, anyway? Isn't he the one who got drunk and started that fight with Colonel Korn at the officers' club the other night?'
'That's right. He's Assyrian.'
'That crazy bastard.'
'He's not so crazy,' Dunbar said. 'He swears he's not going to fly to Bologna.'
'That's just what I mean,' Dr. Stubbs answered. 'That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left.'
Catch-22
Captain Black
Corporal Kolodny learned about it first in a phone call from Group and was so shaken by the news that he crossed the intelligence tent on tiptoe to Captain Black, who was resting drowsily with his bladed shins up on the desk, and relayed the information to him in a shocked whisper.
Captain Black brightened immediately. ' Bologna?' he exclaimed with delight. 'Well, I'll be damned.' He broke into loud laughter. ' Bologna, huh?' He laughed again and shook his head in pleasant amazement. 'Oh, boy! I can't wait to see those bastards' faces when they find out they're going to Bologna. Ha, ha, ha!' It was the first really good laugh Captain Black had enjoyed since the day Major Major outsmarted him and was appointed squadron commander, and he rose with torpid enthusiasm and stationed himself behind the front counter in order to wring the most enjoyment from the occasion when the bombardiers arrived for their map kits.
'That's right, you bastards, Bologna,' he kept repeating to all the bombardiers who inquired incredulously if they were really going to Bologna. 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Eat your livers, you bastards. This time you're really in for it.' Captain Black followed the last of them outside to observe with relish the effect of the knowledge upon all of the other officers and enlisted men who were assembling with their helmets, parachutes and flak suits around the four trucks idling in the center of the squadron area. He was a tall, narrow, disconsolate man who moved with a crabby listlessness. He shaved his pinched, pale face every third or fourth day, and most of the time he appeared to be growing a reddish-gold mustache over his skinny upper lip. He was not disappointed in the scene outside. There was consternation darkening every expression, and Captain Black yawned deliciously, rubbed the last lethargy from his eyes and laughed gloatingly each time he told someone else to eat his liver.
Bologna turned out to be the most rewarding event in Captain Black's life since the day Major Duluth was killed over Perugia and he was almost selected to replace him. When word of Major Duluth's death was radioed back to the field, Captain Black responded with a surge of joy. Although he had never really contemplated the possibility before, Captain Black understood at once that he was the logical man to succeed Major Duluth as squadron commander. To begin with, he was the squadron intelligence officer, which
meant he was more intelligent than everyone else in the squadron. True, he was not on combat status, as Major Duluth had been and as all squadron commanders customarily were; but this was really another powerful argument in his favor, since his life was in no danger and he would be able to fill the post for as long as his country needed him. The more Captain Black thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed. It was merely a matter of dropping the right word in the right place quickly. He hurried back to his office to determine a course of action. Settling back in his swivel chair, his feet up on the desk and his eyes closed, he began imagining how beautiful everything would be once he was squadron commander.
While Captain Black was imagining, Colonel Cathcart was acting, and Captain Black was flabbergasted by the speed with which, he concluded, Major Major had outsmarted him. His great dismay at the announcement of Major Major's appointment as squadron commander was tinged with an embittered resentment he made no effort to conceal. When fellow administrative officers expressed astonishment at Colonel Cathcart's choice of Major Major, Captain Black muttered that there was something funny going on; when they speculated on the political value of Major Major's resemblance to Henry Fonda, Captain Black asserted that Major Major really was Henry Fonda; and when they remarked that Major Major was somewhat odd, Captain Black announced that he was a Communist.
'They're taking over everything,' he declared rebelliously. 'Well, you fellows can stand around and let them if you want to, but I'm not going to. I'm going to do something about it. From now on I'm going to make every son of a bitch who comes to my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath. And I'm not going to let that bastard Major Major sign one even if he wants to.' Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers. To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again.