Catch-22 (11 page)

   ‘Yes, sir.’

   ‘I don’t think you have to call me “sir,” sir,’
Lieutenant Scheisskopf pointed out. ‘You outrank me.’

   ‘Yes, sir. I may outrank you, sir, but you’re still my commanding
officer.’

   ‘Yes, sir, that’s right,’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf agreed. ‘You
may outrank me, sir, but I’m still your commanding officer. So you better do
what I tell you, sir, or you’ll get into trouble. Go to the hospital and tell
them you’re sick, sir. Stay there until your uniform allowance catches up with
you and you have some money to buy some uniforms.’

   ‘Yes, sir.’

   ‘And some shoes, sir. Buy some shoes the first chance you
get, sir.’

   ‘Yes, sir. I will, sir.’

   ‘Thank you, sir.’ Life in cadet school for Major Major was no
different than life had been for him all along. Whoever he was with always
wanted him to be with someone else. His instructors gave him preferred
treatment at every stage in order to push him along quickly and be rid of him.
In almost no time he had his pilot’s wings and found himself overseas, where
things began suddenly to improve. All his life, Major Major had longed for but
one thing, to be absorbed, and in Pianosa, for a while, he finally was. Rank
meant little to the men on combat duty, and relations between officers and
enlisted men were relaxed and informal. Men whose names he didn’t even know
said ‘Hi’ and invited him to go swimming or play basketball. His ripest hours
were spent in the day-long basketball games no one gave a damn about winning.
Score was never kept, and the number of players might vary from one to
thirty-five. Major Major had never played basketball or any other game before,
but his great, bobbing height and rapturous enthusiasm helped make up for his
innate clumsiness and lack of experience. Major Major found true happiness
there on the lopsided basketball court with the officers and enlisted men who
were almost his friends. If there were no winners, there were no losers, and
Major Major enjoyed every gamboling moment right up till the day Colonel
Cathcart roared up in his jeep after Major Duluth was killed and made it
impossible for him ever to enjoy playing basketball there again.

   ‘You’re the new squadron commander,’ Colonel Cathcart had
shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. ‘But don’t think it means
anything, because it doesn’t. All it means is that you’re the new squadron
commander.’ Colonel Cathcart had nursed an implacable grudge against Major
Major for a long time. A superfluous major on his rolls meant an untidy table
of organization and gave ammunition to the men at Twenty-seventh Air Force
Headquarters who Colonel Cathcart was positive were his enemies and rivals.
Colonel Cathcart had been praying for just some stroke of good luck like Major
Duluth’s death. He had been plagued by one extra major; he now had an opening
for one major. He appointed Major Major squadron commander and roared away in
his jeep as abruptly as he had come.

   For Major Major, it meant the end of the game. His face
flushed with discomfort, and he was rooted to the spot in disbelief as the rain
clouds gathered above him again. When he turned to his teammates, he
encountered a reef of curious, reflective faces all gazing at him woodenly with
morose and inscrutable animosity. He shivered with shame. When the game
resumed, it was not good any longer. When he dribbled, no one tried to stop
him; when he called for a pass, whoever had the ball passed it; and when he
missed a basket, no one raced him for the rebound. The only voice was his own.
The next day was the same, and the day after that he did not come back.

   Almost on cue, everyone in the squadron stopped talking to
him and started staring at him. He walked through life self-consciously with
downcast eyes and burning cheeks, the object of contempt, envy, suspicion,
resentment and malicious innuendo everywhere he went. People who had hardly
noticed his resemblance to Henry Fonda before now never ceased discussing it,
and there were even those who hinted sinisterly that Major Major had been
elevated to squadron commander because he resembled Henry Fonda. Captain Black,
who had aspired to the position himself, maintained that Major Major really was
Henry Fonda but was too chickenshit to admit it.

   Major Major floundered bewilderedly from one embarrassing
catastrophe to another. Without consulting him, Sergeant Towser had his
belongings moved into the roomy trailer Major Duluth had occupied alone, and
when Major Major came rushing breathlessly into the orderly room to report the
theft of his things, the young corporal there scared him half out of his wits
by leaping to his feet and shouting ‘Attention!’ the moment he appeared. Major
Major snapped to attention with all the rest in the orderly room, wondering what
important personage had entered behind him. Minutes passed in rigid silence,
and the whole lot of them might have stood there at attention till doomsday if
Major Danby had not dropped by from Group to congratulate Major Major twenty
minutes later and put them all at ease.

   Major Major fared even more lamentably at the mess hall,
where Milo, his face fluttery with smiles, was waiting to usher him proudly to
a small table he had set up in front and decorated with an embroidered
tablecloth and a nosegay of posies in a pink cut-glass vase. Major Major hung
back with horror, but he was not bold enough to resist with all the others
watching. Even Havermeyer had lifted his head from his plate to gape at him
with his heavy, pendulous jaw. Major Major submitted meekly to Milo ’s tugging
and cowered in disgrace at his private table throughout the whole meal. The
food was ashes in his mouth, but he swallowed every mouthful rather than risk
offending any of the men connected with its preparation. Alone with Milo later,
Major Major felt protest stir for the first time and said he would prefer to
continue eating with the other officers. Milo told him it wouldn’t work.

   ‘I don’t see what there is to work,’ Major Major argued.
‘Nothing ever happened before.’

   ‘You were never the squadron commander before.’

   ‘Major Duluth was the squadron commander and he always ate at
the same table with the rest of the men.’

   ‘It was different with Major Duluth, Sir.’

   ‘In what way was it different with Major Duluth?’

   ‘I wish you wouldn’t ask me that, sir,’ said Milo.

   ‘Is it because I look like Henry Fonda?’ Major Major mustered
the courage to demand.

   ‘Some people say you are Henry Fonda,’ Milo answered.

   ‘Well, I’m not Henry Fonda,’ Major Major exclaimed, in a
voice quavering with exasperation. ‘And I don’t look the least bit like him.
And even if I do look like Henry Fonda, what difference does that make?’

   ‘It doesn’t make any difference. That’s what I’m trying to
tell you, sir. It’s just not the same with you as it was with Major Duluth.’
And it just wasn’t the same, for when Major Major, at the next meal, stepped
from the food counter to sit with the others at the regular tables, he was
frozen in his tracks by the impenetrable wall of antagonism thrown up by their faces
and stood petrified with his tray quivering in his hands until Milo glided
forward wordlessly to rescue him, by leading him tamely to his private table.
Major Major gave up after that and always ate at his table alone with his back
to the others. He was certain they resented him because he seemed too good to
eat with them now that he was squadron commander. There was never any
conversation in the mess tent when Major Major was present. He was conscious
that other officers tried to avoid eating at the same time, and everyone was
greatly relieved when he stopped coming there altogether and began taking his
meals in his trailer.

   Major Major began forging Washington Irving’s name to
official documents the day after the first C.I.D. man showed up to interrogate
him about somebody at the hospital who had been doing it and gave him the idea.
He had been bored and dissatisfied in his new position. He had been made
squadron commander but had no idea what he was supposed to do as squadron
commander, unless all he was supposed to do was forge Washington Irving’s name
to official documents and listen to the isolated clinks and thumps of Major—de
Coverley’s horseshoes falling to the ground outside the window of his small
office in the rear of the orderly-room tent. He was hounded incessantly by an
impression of vital duties left unfulfilled and waited in vain for his
responsibilities to overtake him. He seldom went out unless it was absolutely
necessary, for he could not get used to being stared at. Occasionally, the
monotony was broken by some officer or enlisted man Sergeant Towser referred to
him on some matter that Major Major was unable to cope with and referred right
back to Sergeant Towser for sensible disposition. Whatever he was supposed to
get done as squadron commander apparently was getting done without any
assistance from him. He grew moody and depressed. At times he thought seriously
of going with all his sorrows to see the chaplain, but the chaplain seemed so
overburdened with miseries of his own that Major Major shrank from adding to
his troubles. Besides, he was not quite sure if chaplains were for squadron
commanders.

   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.