Colonel Cathcart was not thinking anything at all about the chaplain, but was tangled up in a brand-new,menacing problem of his own: Yossarian!
Yossarian! The mere sound of that execrable, ugly name made his blood run cold and his breath come in laboredgasps. The chaplain’s first mention of the name Yossarian! had tolled deep in his memory like a portentous gong.
As soon as the latch of the door had clicked shut, the whole humiliating recollection of the naked man information came cascading down upon him in a mortifying, choking flood of stinging details. He began toperspire and tremble. There was a sinister and unlikely coincidence exposed that was too diabolical inimplication to be anything less than the most hideous of omens. The name of the man who had stood naked inranks that day to receive his Distinguished Flying Cross from General Dreedle had also been—Yossarian! Andnow it was a man named Yossarian who was threatening to make trouble over the sixty missions he had justordered the men in his group to fly. Colonel Cathcart wondered gloomily if it was the same Yossarian.
He climbed to his feet with an air of intolerable woe and began moving about his office. He felt himself in thepresence of the mysterious. The naked man in formation, he conceded cheerlessly, had been a real black eye forhim. So had the tampering with the bomb line before the mission to Bologna and the seven-day delay indestroying the bridge at Ferrara, even though destroying the bridge at Ferrara finally, he remembered with glee,had been a real feather in his cap, although losing a plane there the second time around, he recalled in dejection,had been another black eye, even though he had won another real feather in his cap by getting a medal approvedfor the bombardier who had gotten him the real black eye in the first place by going around over the target twice.
That bombardier’s name, he remembered suddenly with another stupefying shock, had also been Yossarian!
Now there were three! His viscous eyes bulged with astonishment and he whipped himself around in alarm to seewhat was taking place behind him. A moment ago there had been no Yossarians in his life; now they weremultiplying like hobgoblins. He tried to make himself grow calm. Yossarian was not a common name; perhapsthere were not really three Yossarians but only two Yossarians, or maybe even only one Yossarian—but thatreally made no difference! The colonel was still in grave peril. Intuition warned him that he was drawing close tosome immense and inscrutable cosmic climax, and his broad, meaty, towering frame tingled from head to toe atthe thought that Yossarian, whoever he would eventually turn out to be, was destined to serve as his nemesis.
Colonel Cathcart was not superstitious, but he did believe in omens, and he sat right back down behind his deskand made a cryptic notation on his memorandum pad to look into the whole suspicious business of theYossarians right away. He wrote his reminder to himself in a heavy and decisive hand, amplifying it sharply witha series of coded punctuation marks and underlining the whole message twice, so that it read:
Yossarian! ! ! (?)!
The colonel sat back when he had finished and was extremely pleased with himself for the prompt action he hadjust taken to meet this sinister crisis. Yossarian—the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were somany esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious andinsidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, thatjust did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names as Cathcart,Peckem and Dreedle.
Colonel Cathcart rose slowly and began drifting about his office again. Almost unconsciously, he picked up aplum tomato from the top of one of the bushels and took a voracious bite. He made a wry face at once and threwthe rest of the plum tomato into his waste-basket. The colonel did not like plum tomatoes, not even when theywere his own, and these were not even his own. These had been purchased in different market places all overPianosa by Colonel Korn under various identities, moved up to the colonel’s farmhouse in the hills in the dead ofnight, and transported down to Group Headquarters the next morning for sale to Milo, who paid Colonel Cathcartand Colonel Korn premium prices for them. Colonel Cathcart often wondered if what they were doing with theplum tomatoes was legal, but Colonel Korn said it was, and he tried not to brood about it too often. He had noway of knowing whether or not the house in the hills was legal, either, since Colonel Korn had made all thearrangements. Colonel Cathcart did not know if he owned the house or rented it, from whom he had acquired itor how much, if anything, it was costing. Colonel Korn was the lawyer, and if Colonel Korn assured him thatfraud, extortion, currency manipulation, embezzlement, income tax evasion and black-market speculations werelegal, Colonel Cathcart was in no position to disagree with him.
All Colonel Cathcart knew about his house in the hills was that he had such a house and hated it. He was neverso bored as when spending there the two or three days every other week necessary to sustain the illusion that hisdamp and drafty stone farmhouse in the hills was a golden palace of carnal delights. Officers’ clubs everywherepulsated with blurred but knowing accounts of lavish, hushed-up drinking and sex orgies there and of secret,intimate nights of ecstasy with the most beautiful, the most tantalizing, the most readily aroused and most easilysatisfied Italian courtesans, film actresses, models and countesses. No such private nights of ecstasy or hushed-up drinking and sex orgies ever occurred. They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or GeneralPeckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel wascertainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something init for him.
The colonel dreaded his dank lonely nights at his farmhouse and the dull, uneventful days. He had much morefun back at Group, browbeating everyone he wasn’t afraid of. However, as Colonel Korn kept reminding him,there was not much glamour in having a farmhouse in the hills if he never used it. He drove off to his farmhouse each time in a mood of self-pity. He carried a shotgun in his jeep and spent the monotonous hours there shootingit at birds and at the plum tomatoes that did grow there in untended rows and were too much trouble to harvest.
Among those officers of inferior rank toward whom Colonel Cathcart still deemed it prudent to show respect, heincluded Major ---de Coverley, even though he did not want to and was not sure he even had to. Major ---deCoverley was as great a mystery to him as he was to Major Major and to everyone else who ever took notice ofhim. Colonel Cathcart had no idea whether to look up or look down in his attitude toward Major --- de Coverley.
Major ---de Coverley was only a major, even though he was ages older than Colonel Cathcart; at the same time,so many other people treated Major ---de Coverley with such profound and fearful veneration that ColonelCathcart had a hunch they might know something. Major ---de Coverley was an ominous, incomprehensiblepresence who kept him constantly on edge and of whom even Colonel Korn tended to be wary. Everyone wasafraid of him, and no one knew why. No one even knew Major ---de Coverley’s first name, because no one hadever had the temerity to ask him. Colonel Cathcart knew that Major ---de Coverley was away and he rejoiced inhis absence until it occurred to him that Major --- de Coverley might be away somewhere conspiring against him,and then he wished that Major ---de Coverley were back in his squadron where he belonged so that he could bewatched.
In a little while Colonel Cathcart’s arches began to ache from pacing back and forth so much. He sat downbehind his desk again and resolved to embark upon a mature and systematic evaluation of the entire militarysituation. With the businesslike air of a man who knows how to get things done, he found a large white pad,drew a straight line down the middle and crossed it near the top, dividing the page into two blank columns ofequal width. He rested a moment in critical rumination. Then he huddled over his desk, and at the head of the leftcolumn, in a cramped and finicky hand, he wrote, “Black Eyes!!!” At the top of the right column he wrote,“Feathers in My Cap!!! !!” He leaned back once more to inspect his chart admiringly from an objectiveperspective. After a few seconds of solemn deliberation, he licked the tip of his pencil carefully and wrote under“Black Eyes!!!,” after intent intervals:
FerraraBologna (bomb line moved on map during)Skeet rangeNaked man information (after Avignon)Then he added:
Food poisoning (during Bologna)andMoaning (epidemic of during Avignon briefing)Then he added:
Chaplain (hanging around officers’ club every night)He decided to be charitable about the chaplain, even though he did not like him, and under “Feathers in MyCap!!! !!” he wrote:
Chaplain (hanging around officers’ club every night)The two chaplain entries, therefore, neutralized each other. Alongside “Ferrara” and “Naked man in formation(after Avignon)” he then wrote:
Yossarian!
Alongside “Bologna (bomb line moved on map during)” “Food poisoning (during Bologna)” and “Moaning(epidemic of during Avignon briefing)” he wrote in a bold, decisive hand:
Those entries labeled “?” were the ones he wanted to investigate immediately to determine if Yossarian hadplayed any part in them.
Suddenly his arm began to shake, and he was unable to write any more. He rose to his feet in terror, feelingsticky and fat, and rushed to the open window to gulp in fresh air. His gaze fell on the skeet-range, and he reeledaway with a sharp cry of distress, his wild and feverish eyes scanning the walls of his office frantically as thoughthey were swarming with Yossarians.
Nobody loved him. General Dreedle hated him, although General Peckem liked him, although he couldn’t besure, since Colonel Cargill, General Peckem’s aide, undoubtedly had ambitions of his own and was probablysabotaging him with General Peckem at every opportunity. The only good colonel, he decided, was a deadcolonel, except for himself. The only colonel he trusted was Colonel Moodus, and even he had an in with hisfather-in-law. Milo, of course, had been the big feather in his cap, although having his group bombed by Milo’splanes had probably been a terrible black eye for him, even though Milo had ultimately stilled all protest bydisclosing the huge net profit the syndicate had realized on the deal with the enemy and convincing everyone thatbombing his own men and planes had therefore really been a commendable and very lucrative blow on the sideof private enterprise. The colonel was insecure about Milo because other colonels were trying to lure him away,and Colonel Cathcart still had that lousy Big Chief White Halfoat in his group who that lousy, lazy CaptainBlack claimed was the one really responsible for the bomb line’s being moved during the Big Siege of Bologna.
Colonel Cathcart liked Big Chief White Halfoat because Big Chief White Halfoat kept punching that lousyColonel Moodus in the nose every time he got drunk and Colonel Moodus was around. He wished that Big ChiefWhite Halfoat would begin punching Colonel Korn in his fat face, too. Colonel Korn was a lousy smart aleck.
Someone at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters had it in for him and sent back every report he wrote with ablistering rebuke, and Colonel Korn had bribed a clever mail clerk there named Wintergreen to try to find outwho it was. Losing the plane over Ferrara the second time around had not done him any good, he had to admit,and neither had having that other plane disappear inside that cloud—that was one he hadn’t even written down!
He tried to recall, longingly, if Yossarian had been lost in that plane in the cloud and realized that Yossariancould not possibly have been lost in that plane in the cloud if he was still around now raising such a big stinkabout having to fly a lousy five missions more.
Maybe sixty missions were too many for the men to fly, Colonel Cathcart reasoned, if Yossarian objected toflying them, but he then remembered that forcing his men to fly more missions than everyone else was the mosttangible achievement he had going for him. As Colonel Korn often remarked, the war was crawling with groupcommanders who were merely doing their duty, and it required just some sort of dramatic gesture like makinghis group fly more combat missions than any other bomber group to spotlight his unique qualities of leadership.
Certainly none of the generals seemed to object to what he was doing, although as far as he could detect theyweren’t particularly impressed either, which made him suspect that perhaps sixty combat missions were notnearly enough and that he ought to increase the number at once to seventy, eighty, a hundred, or even twohundred, three hundred, or six thousand!
Certainly he would be much better off under somebody suave like General Peckem than he was under somebodyboorish and insensitive like General Dreedle, because General Peckem had the discernment, the intelligence andthe Ivy League background to appreciate and enjoy him at his full value, although General Peckem had nevergiven the slightest indication that he appreciated or enjoyed him at all. Colonel Cathcart felt perceptive enough torealize that visible signals of recognition were never necessary between sophisticated, self-assured people likehimself and General Peckem who could warm to each other from a distance with innate mutual understanding. Itwas enough that they were of like kind, and he knew it was only a matter of waiting discreetly for prefermentuntil the right time, although it rotted Colonel Cathcart’s self-esteem to observe that General Peckem neverdeliberately sought him out and that he labored no harder to impress Colonel Cathcart with his epigrams anderudition than he did to impress anyone else in earshot, even enlisted men. Either Colonel Cathcart wasn’tgetting through to General Peckem or General Peckem was not the scintillating, discriminating, intellectual,forward-looking personality he pretended to be and it was really General Dreedle who was sensitive, charming,brilliant and sophisticated and under whom he would certainly be much better off, and suddenly ColonelCathcart had absolutely no conception of how strongly he stood with anyone and began banging on his buzzerwith his fist for Colonel Korn to come running into his office and assure him that everybody loved him, thatYossarian was a figment of his imagination, and that he was making wonderful progress in the splendid andvaliant campaign he was waging to become a general.
Actually, Colonel Cathcart did not have a chance in hell of becoming a general. For one thing, there was ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, who also wanted to be a general and who always distorted, destroyed, rejected ormisdirected any correspondence by, for or about Colonel Cathcart that might do him credit. For another, therealready was a general, General Dreedle who knew that General Peckem was after his job but did not know howto stop him.
General Dreedle, the wing commander, was a blunt, chunky, barrel-chested man in his early fifties. His nose wassquat and red, and he had lumpy white, bunched-up eyelids circling his small gray eyes like haloes of bacon fat.
He had a nurse and a son-in law, and he was prone to long, ponderous silences when he had not been drinkingtoo much. General Dreedle had wasted too much of his time in the Army doing his job well, and now it was toolate. New power alignments had coalesced without him and he was at a loss to cope with them. At unguarded moments his hard and sullen face slipped into a somber, preoccupied look of defeat and frustration. GeneralDreedle drank a great deal. His moods were arbitrary and unpredictable. “War is hell,” he declared frequently,drunk or sober, and he really meant it, although that did not prevent him from making a good living out of it orfrom taking his son-in-law into the business with him, even though the two bickered constantly.
“That bastard,” General Dreedle would complain about his son-in-law with a contemptuous grunt to anyone whohappened to be standing beside him at the curve of the bar of the officers’ club. “Everything he’s got he owes tome. I made him, that lousy son of a bitch! He hasn’t got brains enough to get ahead on his own.”
“He thinks he knows everything,” Colonel Moodus would retort in a sulking tone to his own audience at theother end of the bar. “He can’t take criticism and he won’t listen to advice.”
“All he can do is give advice,” General Dreedle would observe with a rasping snort. “If it wasn’t for me, he’dstill be a corporal.”
General Dreedle was always accompanied by both Colonel Moodus and his nurse, who was as delectable a pieceof ass as anyone who saw her had ever laid eyes on. General Dreedle’s nurse was chubby, short and blonde. Shehad plump dimpled cheeks, happy blue eyes, and neat curly turned-up hair. She smiled at everyone and neverspoke at all unless she was spoken to. Her bosom was lush and her complexion clear. She was irresistible, andmen edged away from her carefully. She was succulent, sweet, docile and dumb, and she drove everyone crazybut General Dreedle.
“You should see her naked,” General Dreedle chortled with croupy relish, while his nurse stood smiling proudlyright at his shoulder. “Back at Wing she’s got a uniform in my room made of purple silk that’s so tight hernipples stand out like bing cherries. Milo got me the fabric. There isn’t even room enough for panties or abrassière underneath. I make her wear it some nights when Moodus is around just to drive him crazy.” GeneralDreedle laughed hoarsely. “You should see what goes on inside that blouse of hers every time she shifts herweight. She drives him out of his mind. The first time I catch him putting a hand on her or any other woman I’llbust the horny bastard right down to private and put him on K.P. for a year.”
“He keeps her around just to drive me crazy,” Colonel Moodus accused aggrievedly at the other end of the bar.
“Back at Wing she’s got a uniform made out of purple silk that’s so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries.
There isn’t even room for panties or a brassière underneath. You should hear that rustle every time she shifts herweight. The first time I make a pass at her or any other girl he’ll bust me right down to private and put me onK.P. for a year. She drives me out of my mind.”
“He hasn’t gotten laid since we shipped overseas,” confided General Dreedle, and his square grizzled headbobbed with sadistic laughter at the fiendish idea. “That’s one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight, justso he can’t get to a woman. Can you imagine what that poor son of a bitch is going through?”
“I haven’t been to bed with a woman since we shipped overseas,” Colonel Moodus whimpered tearfully. “Canyou imagine what I’m going through?”
General Dreedle could be as intransigent with anyone else when displeased as he was with Colonel Moodus. Hehad no taste for sham, tact or pretension, and his credo as a professional soldier was unified and concise: hebelieved that the young men who took orders from him should be willing to give up their lives for the ideals,aspirations and idiosyncrasies of the old men he took orders from. The officers and enlisted men in his commandhad identity for him only as military quantities. All he asked was that they do their work; beyond that, they werefree to do whatever they pleased. They were free, as Colonel Cathcart was free, to force their men to fly sixtymissions if they chose, and they were free, as Yossarian had been free, to stand in formation naked if theywanted to, although General Dreedle’s granite jaw swung open at the sight and he went striding dictatoriallyright down the line to make certain that there really was a man wearing nothing but moccasins waiting atattention in ranks to receive a medal from him. General Dreedle was speechless. Colonel Cathcart began to faintwhen he spied Yossarian, and Colonel Korn stepped up behind him and squeezed his arm in a strong grip. Thesilence was grotesque. A steady warm wind flowed in from the beach, and an old cart filled with dirty strawrumbled into view on the main road, drawn by a black donkey and driven by a farmer in a flopping hat and fadedbrown work clothes who paid no attention to the formal military ceremony taking place in the small field on hisright.
At last General Dreedle spoke. “Get back in the car,” he snapped over his shoulder to his nurse, who hadfollowed him down the line. The nurse toddled away with a smile toward his brown staff car, parked abouttwenty yards away at the edge of the rectangular clearing. General Dreedle waited in austere silence until the cardoor slammed and then demanded, “Which one is this?”
Colonel Moodus checked his roster. “This one is Yossarian, Dad. He gets a Distinguished Flying Cross.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” mumbled General Dreedle, and his ruddy monolithic face softened with amusement.
“Why aren’t you wearing clothes, Yossarian?”
“I don’t want to.”
“What do you mean you don’t want to? Why the hell don’t you want to?”
“I just don’t want to, sir.”
“Why isn’t he wearing clothes?” General Dreedle demanded over his shoulder of Colonel Cathcart.
“He’s talking to you,” Colonel Korn whispered over Colonel Cathcart’s shoulder from behind, jabbing his elbowsharply into Colonel Cathcart’s back.
“Why isn’t he wearing clothes?” Colonel Cathcart demanded of Colonel Korn with a look of acute pain, tenderlynursing the spot where Colonel Korn had just jabbed him.
“Why isn’t he wearing clothes?” Colonel Korn demanded of Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren.
“A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,” Captain Wren replied. “He swears he’s never going to wear a uniform again.”
“A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,” Colonel Korn reported directly toGeneral Dreedle. “His uniform hasn’t come back from the laundry yet.”
“Where are his other uniforms?”
“They’re in the laundry, too.”
“What about his underwear?” General Dreedle demanded.
“All his underwear’s in the laundry, too,” answered Colonel Korn.
“That sounds like a lot of crap to me,” General Dreedle declared.
“It is a lot of crap, sir,” Yossarian said.
“Don’t you worry, sir,” Colonel Cathcart promised General Dreedle with a threatening look at Yossarian. “Youhave my personal word for it that this man will be severely punished.”
“What the hell do I care if he’s punished or not?” General Dreedle replied with surprise and irritation. “He’s justwon a medal. If he wants to receive it without any clothes on, what the hell business is it of yours?”
“Those are my sentiments exactly, sir!” Colonel Cathcart echoed with resounding enthusiasm and mopped hisbrow with a damp white handkerchief. “But would you say that, sir, even in the light of General Peckem’s recentmemorandum on the subject of appropriate military attire in combat areas?”
“Peckem?” General Dreedle’s face clouded.
“Yes, sir, sir,” said Colonel Cathcart obsequiously. “General Peckem even recommends that we send our meninto combat in full-dress uniform so they’ll make a good impression on the enemy when they’re shot down.”
“Peckem?” repeated General Dreedle, still squinting with bewilderment. “Just what the hell does Peckem have todo with it?”
Colonel Korn jabbed Colonel Cathcart sharply again in the back with his elbow.
“Absolutely nothing, sir!” Colonel Cathcart responded sprucely, wincing in extreme pain and gingerly rubbingthe spot where Colonel Korn had just jabbed him again. “And that’s exactly why I decided to take absolutely noaction at all until I first had an opportunity to discuss it with you. Shall we ignore it completely, sir?”
General Dreedle ignored him completely, turning away from him in baleful scorn to hand Yossarian his medal inits case.
“Get my girl back from the car,” he commanded Colonel Moodus crabbily, and waited in one spot with hisscowling face down until his nurse had rejoined him.
“Get word to the office right away to kill that directive I just issued ordering the men to wear neckties on thecombat 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 justbefore the mission to Avignon, where she stood with her asinine smile at the side of the platform and bloomedlike a fertile oasis at General Dreedle’s shoulder in her pink-and-green uniform. Yossarian looked at her and fellin love, desperately. His spirits sank, leaving him empty inside and numb. He sat gazing in clammy want at herfull red lips and dimpled cheeks as he listened to Major Danby describe in a monotonous, didactic male dronethe heavy concentrations of flak awaiting them at Avignon, and he moaned in deep despair suddenly at thethought that he might never see again this lovely woman to whom he had never spoken a word and whom henow loved so pathetically. He throbbed and ached with sorrow, fear and desire as he stared at her; she was sobeautiful. He worshiped the ground she stood on. He licked his parched, thirsting lips with a sticky tongue andmoaned in misery again, loudly enough this time to attract the startled, searching glances of the men sittingaround him on the rows of crude wooden benches in their chocolate-colored coveralls and stitched whiteparachute 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 onlya little chubby, and his senses were stuffed to congestion with the yellow radiance of her hair and the unfeltpressure of her soft short fingers, with the rounded, untasted wealth of her nubile breasts in her Army-pink shirtthat was opened wide at the throat and with the rolling, ripened, triangular confluences of her belly and thighs inher tight, slick forest-green gabardine officer’s pants. He drank her in insatiably from head to painted toenail. Henever wanted to lose her. “Oooooooooooooh,” he moaned again, and this time the whole room rippled at hisquavering, drawn-out cry. A wave of startled uneasiness broke over the officers on the dais, and even MajorDanby, who had begun synchronizing the watches, was distracted momentarily as he counted out the secondsand almost had to begin again. Nately followed Yossarian’s transfixed gaze down the long frame auditoriumuntil he came to General Dreedle’s nurse. He blanched with trepidation when he guessed what was troublingYossarian.
“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’shair stood on end.
Yossarian and Dunbar both replied while Nately cringed and hunted about futilely for some hole in which to hideand take Yossarian with him. A sprinkling of people were smothering laughter. An elfin impulse possessedNately and he moaned intentionally the next time there was a lull. Another new voice answered. The flavor ofdisobedience was titillating, and Nately moaned deliberately again, the next time he could squeeze one inedgewise. Still another new voice echoed him. The room was boiling irrepressibly into bedlam. An eerie hubbubof 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, andthere was no telling how far the unorganized insurrection of moaning might have gone if General Dreedlehimself had not come forward to quell it, stepping out determinedly in the center of the platform directly in frontof Major Danby, who, with his earnest, persevering head down, was still concentrating on his wrist watch andsaying, “...twenty-five seconds... twenty... fifteen...” General Dreedle’s great, red domineering face was gnarledwith 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’sall there was. “I run a fighting outfit,” he told them sternly, when the room had grown absolutely quiet and themen on the benches were all cowering sheepishly, “and there’ll be no more moaning in this group as long as I’min command. Is that clear?”
It was clear to everybody but Major Danby, who was still concentrating on his wrist watch and counting downthe seconds aloud. “...four... three... two... one... time!” called out Major Danby, and raised his eyes triumphantlyto discover that no one had been listening to him and that he would have to begin all over again. “Ooooh,” hemoaned in frustration.
“What was that?” roared General Dreedle incredulously, and whirled around in a murderous rage upon MajorDanby, 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 chauffeurand 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, eachwaiting for the other to initiate the procedure of taking Major Danby outside and shooting him. Neither had evertaken Major Danby outside and shot him before. They inched their way dubiously toward Major Danby fromopposite sides. Major Danby was white with fear. His legs collapsed suddenly and he began to fall, and the twoyoung lieutenants sprang forward and seized him under both arms to save him from slumping to the floor. Nowthat they had Major Danby, the rest seemed easy, but there were no guns. Major Danby began to cry. ColonelCathcart wanted to rush to his side and comfort him, but did not want to look like a sissy in front of GeneralDreedle. He remembered that Appleby and Havermeyer always brought their .45 automatics on the missions, andhe 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 avoice loud enough to rattle the whole building. Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with embarrassment, bentclose to whisper into his ear. “Why the hell can’t I?” General Dreedle bellowed. Colonel Moodus whisperedsome more. “You mean I can’t shoot anyone I want to?” General Dreedle demanded with uncompromisingindignation. He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. “Is that a fact?” heinquired, 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 Moodussuddenly.
Colonel Moodus turned crimson again. “No, Dad, it isn’t—““All right, let the insubordinate son of a bitch go,” General Dreedle snarled, turning bitterly away from his sonin-law and barking peevishly at Colonel Cathcart’s chauffeur and Colonel Cathcart’s meteorologist. “But get himout of this building and keep him out. And let’s continue this goddam briefing before the war ends. I’ve neverseen so much incompetence.”
Colonel Cathcart nodded lamely at General Dreedle and signaled his men hurriedly to push Major Danby outsidethe building. As soon as Major Danby had been pushed outside, though, there was no one to continue thebriefing. Everyone gawked at everyone else in oafish surprise. General Dreedle turned purple with rage asnothing happened. Colonel Cathcart had no idea what to do. He was about to begin moaning aloud when ColonelKorn came to the rescue by stepping forward and taking control. Colonel Cathcart sighed with enormous, tearfulrelief, almost overwhelmed with gratitude.
“Now, men, we’re going to synchronize our watches,” Colonel Korn began promptly in a sharp, commandingmanner, rolling his eyes flirtatiously in General Dreedle’s direction. “We’re going to synchronize our watchesone time and one time only, and if it doesn’t come off in that one time, General Dreedle and I are going to wantto know why. Is that clear?” He fluttered his eyes toward General Dreedle again to make sure his plug hadregistered. “Now set your watches for nine-eighteen.”
Colonel Korn synchronized their watches without a single hitch and moved ahead with confidence. He gave themen 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 excellentimpression he saw he was making. Preening and pruning himself effulgendy and strutting vaingloriously aboutthe platform as he picked up momentum, he gave the men the colors of the day again and shifted nimbly into arousing pep talk on the importance of the bridge at Avignon to the war effort and the obligation of each man onthe mission to place love of country above love of life. When his inspiring dissertation was finished, he gave themen the colors of the day still one more time, stressed the angle of approach and reviewed the weather conditionsagain. 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 longerand longer as he enviously watched Colonel Korn’s treachery continue, and he was almost afraid to listen whenGeneral 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 andwhispered something that made Colonel Cathcart’s face glow with immense joy. Colonel Korn saw and quiveredwith uncontainable rapture. Had he just been promoted in the field by General Dreedle to full colonel? He couldnot endure the suspense. With a masterful flourish, he brought the briefing to a close and turned expectantly toreceive ardent congratulations from General Dreedle—who was already striding out of the building without aglance backward, trailing his nurse and Colonel Moodus behind him. Colonel Korn was stunned by thisdisappointing 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 didGeneral 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.”